Rome II

[TheDungen]

The way I see the way to handle prominent families is this. Each state will have a number of prominent families, say between 2-10, depending on size and various cultural and social stuff, reforms passed etc. To this also comes a number of guys who are not part of the leading families. The player then get to pick generals, governors, officials etc. from these people in the pool of leading families + non-dynastic people. And the way I see it, most states will start dominated by powerful families who holds the various positions in the state and are able to use their wealth and positions to push back against attempts to break or diminish their positions. But that as the game progress it will be possible to either retain the rule of these families, or open up for more meritocracy in which case the pool of non-dynastic personal will be drastically increased so that you, if you so wish, will not need to rely on the leading families but can staff the state with people of lower social origin but of similar or greater merits. Although the leading families will always be able to provide members of good merits due to the superior education and social networks these have access to.

And also note that leading families can die out, which will make a new family rise in its place. And depending on the spread of the empire and which reforms/ideas that has been passed so one can get families coming from conquered provinces or following minority cults. Same with the non-dynastic persons who can come from all across the population, depending on reforms/ideas, and can bring in different new things into the state's apparatus.

It's a good idea but I think that families should be able to fall from power even without dying out. If certain new characters get a score that is higher than some score based on the current and former power of the weakest old family they forma new family and replace the old one (sort of like great powers from vic2). You should also be able to play non family characters instantly forming an extra family when you do so.
Oh also only city states/empires should have prominent families, barbarians should have prominent tribes.

 

[Gurkhal]

It's a good idea but I think that families should be able to fall from power even without dying out. IF certain new characters get a score that is higher than some score based on the current and former power of the weakest old family they forma new family and replace the old one (sort of like great powers from vic2). You should also be able to play non family characters instantly forming an extra family when you do so.
Oh also only city states/empires should have prominent families, barbarians should have prominent tribes.

True that families "falling down" rather than "dying out" should perhaps be a better way to deal with it. It was a great improvement the way you put it.

The main reason I wanted to differentiate between people who come from leading families and people who do not belong to a family was to stimulate the difference between for example (the) Marius and Ceasar. Both rose high but can from very, to my limited understanding of Roman history, different backgrounds and it would also in a way mirror the classical conflict between rising starts from the lower classes and the entrenched elite who are born into a high standing in society. Thus in my opinion a character that don't come from a dynastic background should thus have to reach almost twice the score of the lowest family in order to replace it due to him being a single guy dragging his family up with him, while the other family would likely have connections and old(er) money to keep them flooting.

But I agree that anyone rising to a position of rule of a state should pretty much at once spawn a family of their own to take their place in the elite.

 

[Kliwarrior]

Oh also only city states/empires should have prominent families, barbarians should have prominent tribes.

Barbarians (at least if you mean celts) had prominent families too. Caesar clearly talks about them. For example De Bello Gallico starts with Orgetorix killed by his own people because he wished to take all the power for himself.

Probably we can think about familiar clans, but anyway they were present.

 

[TheDungen]

Barbarians (at least if you mean celts) had prominent families too. Caesar clearly talks about them. For example De Bello Gallico starts with Orgetorix killed by his own people because he wished to take all the power for himself.

Probably we can think about familiar clans, but anyway they were present.

Well obviously there is a ruling family in each tribe too. perhaps it is better as you say to use the term clan because then tribe can be the greater thing they belong to. It should perhaps be a little better at accepting people who aren't technically related into leadership roles though. Another difference would be that while the faction name for a family is the family name the faction name for a clan would't be.
Also it could be interesting with a mechanic that if a clan becomes powerful enough it may form a new tribe, for an example the huns breaking free of either the scythians or the turks (depending on what theory you want to go by), thus being a clan that becomes a tribe in their own right.

 

[Gurkhal]

Just want to throw in that I support the notion of also tribal socities having prominent families/clans. And I would also say that its an interesting idea that if a family becomes powerful enough they can split off into a separate tribe. Now I don't know about ethnogenesis to know for sure but it don't sound like a totally unreasonable scenario. But I can see that it could be used both as a bane of a state as well as a boon. For example a disgruntled dynasts with no particular talents will not cause problem when he's got his own client tribe to play with, as opposed to pester the cheiftain/magistrate with requests for a position in the state, and then use his vast wealth to cause problems when denied, when he's part of the tribe proper. And I'm sure that this could be developed in other directions as well and further.

 

[PugLife777]

I know absolutely nothing about EUR1, beside it was really a big disappointment. However, if we could do a Greco-Persian War all the way to the end of the Cold War or even beyond, I'll be happy with my super megacampaign. So I would definitely buy and support a EUR2, especially if they did it right (like how Wiz really improved EUR1 with Reign of the Ancients)

 

[Bayward]

The way I see it a potential Rome 2 game would have to mix the big three elements of all Paradox games.
- Historical accuracy with a view to create Alternate history through emergent gameplay.
- Mechanical complexity which serves as an immersive tool to keep players invested in the form of governance.
- A large map with a representative cross-section of different cultures to play.

I feel that the focus of the build should be on getting the institutions of Rome and other European powers right. Taking that into account i can see 4 phases of gameplay (at least where they are concerned). This is a bit of an idea dump, so apologies. I'm envisioning that Rome as an Empire should have the internal politics of something akin to CK2, but the macro politics of the game should be more akin to EU4. I'm going to refer to "families", think of the Brutii, Julii, Scipii from history.

For the 1st phase i see this as the big land-grap that went on in the Republican era which ultimately doomed it. So your "family" will be aiming to expand their power-base. Maybe there should be a set of mechanics which are on a sliding scale like republican tradition. The greater it is the higher taxation is and the more limits there are on what you can do in terms of political actions, but the lower it is the more likely that demagogues will spawn (something like a Caesar, Anthony or Augustus). So your asking players to run the gamut in terms of political action, maybe try and position their "family" as one of the aforementioned demagogues.

The 2nd phase would be the imperial period where the borders would have mostly calcified. the big threats during this timeframe would be both internal and external. Players within teh empire can attempt to manoeuvre one of their "family" into the role of Imperator (because we're going with alt-history it would be weird if we used Caesar and Augustus), maybe getting teh Pretarian guard to support your candidate. Though, it could be that players with a large host at their command could march on the eternal city. Think 3rd century crisis on that one.

For the 3rd phase of the game, there should be an evolution of the pressure from the 2nd phase of the game, building in mechanics to keep the steppe nomads forcing Germanic and Gallic tribes moving around the map. that in turn could pressure Rome's borders. Making that pressure proportional to their size and technology level would make sense. the intention would be to make the empire snap like it did in history.

The 4th and final phase would be essentially be the dark ages. barbarians have taken teh ancient holdings of teh empire and its up to the successor states to attempt to take it back. Think Belisarius and Justinian.

 

[Gurkhal]

That's an excellent vision @Bayward although as a Hellenophile I would only object to the Romanocentric model although I think that the same journey that Rome made should be possible for pretty much any other state that the players gets to play with. The prospect of playing as a family within a state is certainly an interesting angle and as someone who loves CK2 it would certainly fit right in with me. The potential problem I would see is that it would lead to a very aristocratic-centric kind of game where plebs or kakoi (I think the correct term would be...) are never really able to come into the fore and democracy would be more of a death blow to the player than just another possible avenue to go. But maybe I'm to narrow in my perception here.

My addition would be that perhaps there could be a selection of different political institutions that could be picked from the five different main ideologies (monarchy, aristocracy, tyranny, oligarchy and democracy), which I would suggest its limited to, in the game to showcase the great differentiation between different states in this era rather than force arbitrary models on everyone. Thus for example one could have a Sparta kind of state by adopting institutions from monarchy, oligarchy and democracy while still holding oligarchy as the cheif ideology. Or as Rome by a combination of aristocratic and democratic institutions. And so on.

 

[Bayward]

i think that the idea of institutions is a good one for sure and especially the idea that they're modular depending on government and culture type. Sparta as a psuedo military/religious-Junta is going to have a different government to Athens which is much more of a traditional Greek oligarchic Democracy. You're correct that they should be broad, representing the priorities of each culture.

I focused on Rome because its the nation from antiquity that I have the most knowledge of, I think that building a set of custom mechanics for a lot of the more-prominent nations is certainly doable. i guess, sort of like the decision trees in the HoI games. i placed a large emphasis on my Rome layout on meteoric rise versus managed and gradual decline. A big problem that can happen with some PDX games is that once you're big enough you're essentially unbeatable.I quite like the idea of trying to play with genre expectations and being an entity within a larger political machine that is vying for dominance with a set of other entities.

 

[Gurkhal]

Playing an entity within an entity could be very interesting and would certainly make internal politics more interesting than in CK2 (given how private wars don't seem to have been as regular as they were in the Middle Ages) so one would need to find other ways than the traditional feudal murder-babies-and-inherit method. And like I think that I said but will say now, I like the idea of playing as an aristocratic family within a state in a vein similar to CK2.

I also totally agree in that there's not much challenge in the end game when you've created a massive mega-empire that nothing can stand against. My solution to this would be something which I posted before but which I feel that I should post again, and that's the idea that once you reach a certain level of power, namely so that no one can hope to stand against you, kind of like Rome during the Flavians or something. That is that you get an event that you're now the hegemon and that no power can resist you. And at this point you get some new modifications.

I'll try to break this in CK2 terms since that's the Paradox game I'm most familiar with. Thing is that you suddenly don't get any bonus to relation for being at war with others and other bonuses are generally halved down even while you probably generate ALOT of prestige each mount, and the number of titles you can hold without penalty with your vassals is also reduced. The exercise is to simulate how the realm is turning inward. The idea of going outside the borders to conquer is no longer useful since everything of worth is inside the hegemon empire and as attention is turned inwards the concept of "we must stick together against [X]" is stripped away since every ambition must be realized within the empire, and if a few counties are lost, well big deal because the empire is HUGE. The idea is thus to simulate how the Romans primarily, but also others like the Seleucids and the Ptolomids, turned against each other instead of working together and how in Rome's case they came to primarily see internal soldiarity stripped away for unmasked corruption and greed. After all power corrupts and being the most powerful political entity in the world should have an effect on the political climate. I hope my relative unfamilarity with Rome don't shine through here though.

 

[Tormodius]

So when do you guys think we will get this game? I cannot wait! Oh, i can i mean, but i waited soooo looong! Somethings gotta happen please!

 

[Will Steel]

The "falling out" of family was more-or-less guaranteed if they could not produce generals or politicians of great skill and ambition in Republican Rome. Take Cornelii for example, they were practically considered heroes of Rome by plebs and had enormous political influence across the republic after Punic Wars. But after Sulla they were sidelined by Julians, Claudians, Aemilians and other families from where conquerers and military commanders appeared.

There are several families who enjoyed power in early republic, but did not produce an expansionist general in the late republic, and lost their power (and under Sulla's dictatorship, wealth). A couple of them only regained their influence during imperial era (Aurelians) or somehow got their plebeian branch into power (Flavians).

In the game I think it can and should reflect this. As Rome expands and reaches the stage similar to that of the late republic, any senatorial family that only has the Average Joe-type members, would quickly be overlooked by powerful, rising and influential characters. They would fail in elections often, they would lose governorship proposals, their motions might not even be taken seriously in the Senate if they are poor and have low-stat characters.

The only way for a poorly led family to counter this is also going to be realistic - relations and friendships. Say for example, a poor stat dude wants to gain power in Senate but can't even get married to a prestigious girl from patrician families. So he would strive to strike friendships and good relations with as many great men of the Senate as possible. There should be an "influence" rating (on a scale of 1 to 100?), that for example will rise for even poor-stat senators with good connections and bring them on-par with a lone character with godly stats. TLDR - if you have no stats, flatter, gift and serve famous people until you are their good friend.

Kinda like how in CK2 your liege won't offer you (the otherwise meaningless aside from spymaster or events) council positions if your character is low-stat and doesn't have good relations.

 

[Rhaegar1]

In my mind having a smaller, stable republic or tribal confedarcy with a nice balance of power between families, clans or tribes that make up the senate should be easy in a the beginning when your nation is small. However, when your nation grows, armies gets larger, territorium gained from wars gets larger, the population gets larger, wealth grows etc. That's the moment when stakes get higher and stability is going to be hard. Having a succesfull politician with high influence in the late republic will give him much more power and influence then in the early days, just like a succesfull general returning gloriously from a war that just added the entiriity of Gaul to your empire has a lot more impact on that persons and his family's power then in the early days.

I hope for this game they choose not a to play a character like in CK, it's absolutely brilliant but for a change I'd like to see you play an empire with great internal dynamics added.

 

[CMDR_HERNE]

I hope for this game they choose not a to play a character like in CK, it's absolutely brilliant but for a change I'd like to see you play an empire with great internal dynamics added.

Based around factions rather than characters within a faction.

You must include Baktria this time. Also the Selucid Empire should have relevant Satrapies otherwise it's too over powered. Parthia and Baktria should start off as saptrapies of the Selucids at the earliest start date as they broke away later.

Improve the internal tribal politics of the "Barbarians factions" as playing tham was very weak compared to the more civlised factions.



Back to Europa Barbarorum 1 and 2 in the mean time...

 

[Rhaegar1]

Based around factions rather than characters within a faction.

You must include Baktria this time. Also the Selucid Empire should have relevant Satrapies otherwise it's too over powered. Parthia and Baktria should start off as saptrapies of the Selucids at the earliest start date as they broke away later.

Improve the internal tribal politics of the "Barbarians factions" as playing tham was very weak compared to the more civlised factions.



Back to Europa Barbarorum 1 and 2 in the mean time...

Totally agree, in my opion PDS should not make the same mistake as they made with CK2. They have the potential sales and financial basis to aim a bit higher and make sure they include the relevant part of the world: Europe, northern Africa, middle east and asia (including China and India).

India is absolutely relevant if they wan't to add nice gameplay for the hellenistich empires, including China might not be vital for the rest of the world but would in the same timeframe definately be able to give a nice gameplay experience by itself (warring states period, uniting the empire) as well giving choice when starting with a nomadic faction in eurasia (do I conquor China or migrate west, or even into India?)

 

[DustinJazzyJackson]

Game:
Title: The Imperium
Description: Lead a dynasty in the Roman Republic and later Roman Empire to great heights, or work to destroy the Imperium as a Parthian General.



Land Organization:

I don't think the typical Paradox formula of "provinces" works best in an antiquity context. I think this game would work best on a tile map similar to that in civilization.

Each tile is either neutral, or belongs to a city. Each city is either independent or part of a country. A country can only own so many cities that border one another before creating a "province" out of multiple neighboring cities. While you are allowed to colonize, cities are only allowed in certain prescripted areas (this is to easier support save game conversion to CK2).



Rulers, Characters, and Gameplay:

Each country has a ruler with an optional legislative body. The ruler's official style and powers as well as term and eventual inheritance is determined by government type.

Each city has a "nobility" of about 5 to 10 rival families (depending on city size). Each "noble" has an estate in that city and has to compete with other nobles in that city for trade profit and political offices (eg mayor/local governor, or in the case of sovereign city-states, perhaps Consul). City population is determined by "pops," which each signify 10k men. Each province has a number of "rural pops" representing the rural population -- the farmers and small villages scattered across the country-side.

You play as one of these "nobles" (listed by city, or the emperor) in the starting empire of your choosing. The default empire (the empire the game is centered around) would be Rome. However, you should also be allowed to play as a character in the Parthian empire. A number of Germanic, Slavic, and Asiatic tribes with different roleplay elements should also be available to play as, probably through a DLC.

Valid start dates would extend from the end of the Third Punnic War in 146 BC to the CK2 start date in 769 AD.

Players could become the governor of a settlement either via election or appointment. In this case they would have access to the town/settlement's militia forces and could use these small forces to try and exact tribute from frontier barbarians. They would have to garner support from the provincial governor/emperor in order to attain funding to improve their city (and either be reelected or reappointed by the governor/emperor).

You could also become governor of a province, being placed in command of all the militia forces in that province and gaining the authority to recruit auxillaries and legionnaires to augment your province's defenses. Each province would be responsible for creating and maintaining its own defensive forces (with financial aid from the emperor if they cannot afford it, though imperial financing means the troops will be loyal to the empire in the event of civil war). Governors are responsible for ensuring the safety, security, and economic prosperity of their regions.

Finally, you can be appointed general of an army, giving you direct control over that army. These commands are often temporary, with the emperor resigning you as soon as the conflict is over. However, fighting bravely and winning will make some of those armies loyal to you personally, which means they will side with you in civil war regardless.

Last but not least, you can become emperor if you gather sufficient support. This position is highly profitable but also highly dangerous. Generally, each emperor is allowed to appoint his successor, with the office following agnatic-cognatic succession if left unspecified. However, not specifying your inheritance will cause a civil war on death as the heir presumptive is set against powerful generals, governors, and other relatives. Child rulers are especially vulnerable to this.

 

[Gurkhal]

Game:
Title: The Imperium
Description: Lead a dynasty in the Roman Republic and later Roman Empire to great heights, or work to destroy the Imperium as a Parthian General.



Land Organization:

I don't think the typical Paradox formula of "provinces" works best in an antiquity context. I think this game would work best on a tile map similar to that in civilization.

Each tile is either neutral, or belongs to a city. Each city is either independent or part of a country. A country can only own so many cities that border one another before creating a "province" out of multiple neighboring cities. While you are allowed to colonize, cities are only allowed in certain prescripted areas (this is to easier support save game conversion to CK2).



Rulers, Characters, and Gameplay:

Each country has a ruler with an optional legislative body. The ruler's official style and powers as well as term and eventual inheritance is determined by government type.

Each city has a "nobility" of about 5 to 10 rival families (depending on city size). Each "noble" has an estate in that city and has to compete with other nobles in that city for trade profit and political offices (eg mayor/local governor, or in the case of sovereign city-states, perhaps Consul). City population is determined by "pops," which each signify 10k men. Each province has a number of "rural pops" representing the rural population -- the farmers and small villages scattered across the country-side.

You play as one of these "nobles" (listed by city, or the emperor) in the starting empire of your choosing. The default empire (the empire the game is centered around) would be Rome. However, you should also be allowed to play as a character in the Parthian empire. A number of Germanic, Slavic, and Asiatic tribes with different roleplay elements should also be available to play as, probably through a DLC.

Valid start dates would extend from the end of the Third Punnic War in 146 BC to the CK2 start date in 769 AD.

Players could become the governor of a settlement either via election or appointment. In this case they would have access to the town/settlement's militia forces and could use these small forces to try and exact tribute from frontier barbarians. They would have to garner support from the provincial governor/emperor in order to attain funding to improve their city (and either be reelected or reappointed by the governor/emperor).

You could also become governor of a province, being placed in command of all the militia forces in that province and gaining the authority to recruit auxillaries and legionnaires to augment your province's defenses. Each province would be responsible for creating and maintaining its own defensive forces (with financial aid from the emperor if they cannot afford it, though imperial financing means the troops will be loyal to the empire in the event of civil war). Governors are responsible for ensuring the safety, security, and economic prosperity of their regions.

Finally, you can be appointed general of an army, giving you direct control over that army. These commands are often temporary, with the emperor resigning you as soon as the conflict is over. However, fighting bravely and winning will make some of those armies loyal to you personally, which means they will side with you in civil war regardless.

Last but not least, you can become emperor if you gather sufficient support. This position is highly profitable but also highly dangerous. Generally, each emperor is allowed to appoint his successor, with the office following agnatic-cognatic succession if left unspecified. However, not specifying your inheritance will cause a civil war on death as the heir presumptive is set against powerful generals, governors, and other relatives. Child rulers are especially vulnerable to this.

The main problem I see with this is that its way to centered on Rome alone. I don't think that two campaigns would be very different from each other given how its the same progress of the game and very little oppertunity to change the course of history in a new way. And therefore that once you've finished one campaign, well, you've probably seen pretty much every thing the game has to show.

 

[DustinJazzyJackson]

The main problem I see with this is that its way to centered on Rome alone. I don't think that two campaigns would be very different from each other given how its the same progress of the game and very little oppertunity to change the course of history in a new way. And therefore that once you've finished one campaign, well, you've probably seen pretty much every thing the game has to show.

It doesn't necessarily even have to be entirely roman-centric. There are actually quite a few empires and kingdoms in that time period that could be playable (after all, it is around an 800 year timeframe). Many of the core mechanics can be modified slightly for other nations and tribal groups. Some (such as the "noble" system) would need almost no tweaking outside of localisation for different cultures. For example, I would include Germania and Brittania and populate them with historical tribal nations. Tribal nations would have no "cities" to speak of (eg, all their pops would be rural pops) and there are often civil wars and inter-tribal rivalries. There could be a list of historical tribal names and other, similar-sounding ahistoric names to allow tribes to randomly generate in a region occasionally.

Frankly I find the whole "compose provinces of tiles" approach to be much more historically accurate (eg province borders can and have historically been redrawn, and empires can fight skirmishes over valuable border tiles).

Honestly, the tile approach has the potential to be much more efficient so long as Paradox doesn't go and do something stupid (like evaluate events against EVERY tile). Due to this increased efficiency, the following regions could probably be included without raising CPU requirements above 2.0 GHz or so:

Italia
Gaullia
Hispania
Illyria
Greece
Middle East + Ukraine/southern Russia
Chinese nations (possibly excluding Tibet)
India (at least northern India)
Germania

I'm not sure about Indochina, as I am not too familiar with the history of the region. Surely it wasn't a major player in the early part of this time period though, so it could probably be cut, or saved for an expansion.

In honesty, I personally would prefer a game that was Roman-centric, but apparently other people don't agree -- which is fine. These are just ideas anyway, I hope Paradox picks and chooses which ones fit and creates a unique game.

Basically, what I DON'T want:

EU4: Antiquity -- Many of the EU4 mechanics would feel weird here, and Europa Universalis has absolute s*** mechanics when it comes to internal politics. A simple provincial factions system (like in CK2, but with provinces instead of lords) would go a long way to spicing EU4 up, but I digress. Even with a provincial factions system, much of the game would be spent blobbing, and after a point this becomes woefully ahistoric in an antiquity game. For example, there is no feasible way Rome could have conquered and held Persia, or it would have. Similarly, the Han would also be hard pressed to achieve such a feat, and Persia would also fond troubles subjugating either power. As such most of the game should be based on external political power balancing and internal politics. In a Europa Universalis context this would feel pretty detached and apersonal, like we experienced in Rome 1.

CK: Antiquity -- Don't get me wrong, Crusader Kings is definitely a good game, but for most of the recommended time period it would also not feel right in context. During the Roman Empire, it was not only "nobles" who gained power. If I remember correctly, a number of relatively low-born generals came to the imperial throne throughout this time period.

What I do want:

CK2 character-based internal politics, the ability to play a relatively low-ranking military commander or politician and work your way up, and basically a unique RP experience combined with the external politics (guarantees, warnings, "vassalages," alliances and coalitions) of EU4 on the national level.

Whatever RP system PDX decides on should have the option to be meritocratic. For example, I want the player to, on their characters' death, determine whether to play as the closest relative of said character, pick from a list of current characters, or create a random new character in a position of low to medium authority to start the process anew.

Also, I would like a minimum of Persia and northern India with preferably China playable (though China should be the first to go in event of major cpu-related performance problems). I also want a tile/city based approach for the game rather than the stale, out of place in context province system.

 

[Thanks4Nothing]

It is quite hard to make Rome II in paradoxian quality traditions. To make it more or less realistic and history accurate game.
I mean, just like in CK2 countries won't have one mechanic. Or it would be unrealistic. In my opinion, mechanic differencies has to be even greater.
That's why it would be good if a lot of countries would be unplayable from release, but will be after some dlc's.

Second question - what period Paradox will choose? How long would it be and how much different start points will it have? Because that means even more mechanics for different types of countries! Yay! More f... work

Third question or problem is, uh...well, ROME. I mean, how to make it interesting to play all period of game, but not unrealistic? Rome was pretty stable in fact. For centuries.
But it also had no dynastics except emperors one.

Soooo....
I would say only for plus-minus realistic Rome we need at least two somewhat different mechanics - Republican Rome and Imperial Rome. I doesn't say it can't be used for some other countries. But tribes are a lot different. Good thing that in fact different systems in original Rome was quiet good. There was senat, there was chiefs with his council and all. But I say for Big Empires in Rome II we need to get some CK2 mechanics - vassals & republics. Plus EU4 HRE mehcanics. Reshape the result to fit the period.
So you, of course, can play the ruler himself and his familia, but you can also play for some other dynasties in Empire (or Republic). Strange thing as for Paradox game, in that case you won't have any direct control over the country. You would need to get some power first. Get seats in the Senate, get interesting posts. Maybe you would even have province to manage like Julius Caesar in Gallia? So you would also have some troops, possibilities...and expectations from the Senate or Emperor. And maybe, someday, you would get enough power, popularity and friends to start a rebellion? And win! Or loose. And if you loose and would be killed, your son sold in slavery and your family fall...game not ends - it's not CK2 afterall. You would just have another ambitious, promising but powerless for now family. And if you was a ruler and lost to rebels...killed and all blah, blah, blah. If some people of your family survive, you can play as them and try to start counter-rebellion, or just submit and be just family (if there was such situations in history?) OR (big one OR) as player choose to switch to a new ruler family and continue to rule the country.

Well, in fact I would like, if there would and option to choose other country to play when you lost yours (without save-exit-load).

It's a bit hard to make that working and balancing mechanic, I suppose. And it is only for Roman and similiar types of goverments.
But that could make the game more realistic (well, i'm not a history expert, maybe in need to be changed somewhat) and, what is more important, interesting even when you play a big bad empire. On the other hand, I don't know, would there be any interest to play a small country that have a really small chance to do something with such giant. Well, that's sucks. Abd that's sucks history accurate. Yeah. But some people like to play Aztecs etc in EU4.
Also there was something that stopped Romans to expand even more. That is the thing that needs to be found and set in mechanics. Maybe even more intrigues? What stopped Romans in Britain for example.

Rome II would be set in a real interesting period. But it was A LOT different from CK2 and EU4 periods.
In fact, I doubt we would see Rome II someday in future. But if we will, it could be real genius and great game.
Or a total mess.
Or just to focus on pre-great-and-long-existed-roman-empire. It would be easier to make it interesting then.

 

[Thanks4Nothing]

Also, if Paradox will focus on more long (or early?) period, it would be interesting to have a map of like all Europe & Asia and North Africa. Sure, mostly you won't know what is happening on far map parts, but, well Alexander the Great invaded India and China also was a powerful empire already in that period. And we should not forget about other powerful empires.
Good thing - well, more possibilities, and more interesting for Asian players, for example.
Bad thing - more mechanics (not to forget about fast-going-conquers and quick empire falls after conquerors death - if there, of course, not only the Alexander's example).