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Last Updated: Mar 15th, 2006 - 17:20:44

Review: Rome Total War

By Freonsmurf

Sep 28, 2004, 09:19

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Total War: Rome

The Total War series is back! During the summer gamers have been forced to watch game footage on the History channel while they eagerly awaited this title but after releasing a kick arse demo a few weeks the game is here. The game allows you to play as one of 12 factions but you are forced to start as one of the three Roman factions until you conquer your foes. After a little FMV backstory explaining why your factions feels they deserve to conquer the world, the game begins around 270 BC. This game is unique because it combines the elements from many different games. Managing cities and fleets requires strategy, maintaining a powerful family adds an RPG twist and the real time battles requires tactical skill.

5 out of 5 Daggers. Gold Tipped Rapier
Gameplay.

The main focus of the game is to take your faction from a collection of a few simple states to become Emperor of Rome. You start off with a small family and army and must expand them using brute force & diplomacy.

First, lets take a look at the RPG elements of the game. When you start, your family automatically has a patriarch. He is a lowly noble without much power and no influence or position in the Senate. As you play the game his ratings in city management, battle command and overall influence will change depending on how you play him. If you garrison him in a city he can become lazy and corrupt or he might be well suited for politics be successful. As his power grows he becomes a more effective general on the battlefield and in politics. A group of characters will join his retinue increase his powers. Depending on his style you could attract a court jester or a mercenary captain. And that is just your faction leader. The same system is in place for your family members, diplomats & spies. My assassin was doing well and attracted quite a few bards that sang his deadly exploits, while a lazy son managing a weak state was losing money due to corruption and become a drunkard. I could go on & on, but later on in the game managing your family becomes critical.

Next, there is side of the game that requires strategy. You can use strong-arm tactics or finesse to increase your empire. First, you must pick a Governor from your family to manage your state. Now you can run a state without a governor, but they tend to do poorly unless they are really happy citizens. If your Governor has poor management skills, the city will loose money and be vulnerable to corruption and riots. Of course you can quell this with a few town-watch garrisoned in the city or just replace the Governor with a better one. The city buildings are standard fare, upgrade when your population increases, upgrade your other buildings when that happens...etc. There are no technology trees to worry about, the upgrades are far and few between. The game makes managing cities a chore but doesn't bog down in

There are a few ways to take an enemy state. You can maintain a siege until they starve to death or decide to attack you. If you have a weak army in the area, your Diplomat can broken peace or even flat out buy the leaders loyalty or send in your spy. You must strike a balance between empire building while balancing the factions to your advantage. You can actually simulate all the battles and play the game like Risk.

If all of the above fails, you will have to send in an army. This is the meat & potatoes of the game. Before you can deploy your troops on the field, your general will give them a big pep talk before the battle. As with the past Total War games, you pick the most strategic position for your troops before battle before fight begins. All your careful schemes, plans &, war mongering to build a massive army could fall apart because of a tactical error on the battlefield. If you are sacking or defending a town you must even pay closer attention to the battle as siege equipment will win or lose the day. Troop emotions play a critical role on the battlefield, if you leave a new group of swordsman to face a Calvary charge with no backup, odds are they will flee instead of facing down the deadly charge. On the other hand, using a group of veteran troops will give you a clear advantage against less experienced armies. Battles against rebels and low ranking family members will be easy at first, but when you attack higher ranked members and attempt to sack tougher cities the game becomes much harder. RTS that is not a zerg fest, gotta love it!

5 out of 5 daggers. Carbon Blade
Graphics.

They used this game in a T.V. show. The graphics are killer. In the battles, the Total War camera allows you to work the battlefield from the eagle eye view or sitting on the shoulder of one of your Calvary. Kind of weird, 1280x960 is the largest resolution the game will support and only limited anti-aliasing is supported. The level of detail for each model is up to the top standards of the Total War series. Each unit is unique and very well done. I highly suggest downloading the demo of this game to truly appreciate the battlefield. I can’t say enough about how the game looks.

Outside of battles you deal with a town map sort of screen. It is very easy to manage your towns and armies without getting the micro-management blues. The map shows in detail the status of cities and armies all in on quick glance. If you do need any crucial information it is only buried one menu deep. Very smooth interface. With everything turned on the game runs smooth as silk on a 9800 Pro.

3 out of 5 daggers.Swiss Army Knife
Sound.
Seriously though, if the game sound doesn’t annoy me and make me load up winamp, then its good in my book.

5 out of 5 daggers. Gilded Edge
Replay value.
When you start only the Roman factions are available, but as you play the game and conquer more factions you can then play as them. Up to 14 factions including the Greeks, Egyptians, Gaul’s and so on.
The singleplayer campaign is MASSIVE. It is a real campaign that will require alteast a week or two to complete. This game is frickin hard!
Or I suck…but damn. Even though I was familiar with the series I had no idea what was going on in the beginning. Playing as other factions completely changes the way you play the game. The addition of campaigns in mutliplayer is nice, but I am not sure how they will implement it.

Overall-5 out of 5 daggers. Silver Spear

Great game, worth every penny of $50. Gameplay is varied enough to keep you on your toes but not complicated to bore the player. If one aspect of them game bothers you, you can easily put it on autoplay so you can focus on the other parts you enjoy. Very bug free game, smooth play and installed smoothly without forcing me to remove other software. A rts, war sim and mini rpg all rolled into one great game. A game within a game within a game! I am loving it!

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