davidjwest's Full Review: Rome: Total War for Windows
Rome: Total War is the latest installment in the Total War series of Real Time Strategy games. The previous incarnations, Shogun TW and Medieval TW were brilliant games, does Rome deliver the same standard of quality?
As you'd expect the game covers the period of the early Roman Empire, from 273 BC to around 50 AD, during which time you must take the role of leader of a Roman family as they try to expand their sphere of influence.
The game is split into two main areas, the "world" map which covers most of Europe, North Africa and some of the Middle East and the battle maps.
On the main world map you can see your forces laid out including armies, leaders, cities, fleets etc. You start with only one city and so must try to capture more, or it's going to be a quite dull game. Cities are the key to the game as they produce units, buildings and raise taxes for you to spend. Money is the root of all evil and it's also the root of all military units and city upgrades, so you need it!
At the start you will only be able to afford a few military units, modest city upgrades but you need to expand quickly before your rival Roman families beat you to the best neutral cities.
There are dozens of military units available to be built, but there are limitations on what you can acquire, not just how much money you have (or don't). For example at the start of the game you can only build units which were historically available, so no legionairres, they only become available later in the game. If you want cavalry, then you need to make sure your city has stables, if not you need to build some etc.
Cities can have many different types of upgrades built, the basic choice is "guns" or "butter". Either build upgrades which have a military value, eg city walls, barracks, or go for improvements to keep the people happy or gain more income, such as temples or better roads, farmland etc. There are dozens of city upgrades available as well as military units and the upgrades cover many levels. For example roads are improved once to "roads" but you can make them even better into "highways" and so forth.
Improving a city to the higher levels of technology takes a long, long time! All the while you need to make sure the people are kept happy or they may revolt, meaing you lost the city. People are kept happy with certain improvements such as temples, or by low tax rates or by having armies in them. To be honest having an army in the city doesn't really make the people happy but it does kind of make them think twice about revolting against your rule Caesar!
There are three families in the game and you can choose to be anyone you want, the Julii, Brutii or Scipii. Each family starts in Italy, centred around Rome. If you want to you can attack the other families or even Rome itself but this is a very tough prospect especially early in the game, better attacking the local Barbarians who are generally easy meat, at least in the early years!
It's a good idea to send out some spies early on to see which nearby cities are lightly defended. Once you find a target and have built enough of an army up to take them on, you send your forces out by simply clicking on the army in question and then clicking on the map where you want them to move to.
The map is quite detailed, showing roads, rivers, forests and mountains etc. Take note of the terrain, if there are roads use them as you can move much further, forests might contain enemy troops ready to ambush you etc.
This is one area where the game is a little inaccurate, movement. Each turn is supposed to represent six months, but it takes more than one turn to move from Rome to Paris for example, which I doubt took six months even without roads. However this type of issue isn't a problem as you get immersed into the game and don't worry about reletive small matters, it doesn't affect the gameplay as all armies move at the same speed (apart from cavalry vs footmen of course).
As soon as two armies meet, you are taken to the battle map.
This is a much closer view of the immediate area where the armies line up. You can choose how to deploy your forces in terrain which matches the terrain you saw on the bigger map.
If you were crossing a river for example as you were marching, then you'll see that same river close up in the battle map.
You need to quickly size up the terrain, your disposition and type of forces and the enemy too.
Place your men and then start to give orders. This part of the game is in real-time, you'll see the enemy apporaching to give battle, or running away if they think you are going to beat them! Clouds of dust will be kicked up by horsemen, they attention to detail is very impressive.
You need to grasp some basics of tactics if you want to win battles. It's good to keep your general well protected as if he dies your army tends to lose morale and run away. Generals gain experience from succesfull battles so again, keep them safe. An experienced general is a huge boost for your forces and you can often beat armies far superior in numbers if your general has won a few battles before.
Make sure your army is a good combined force with spearmen, missile-men, cavalry etc. If the enemy charges at you with horsemen, use your spearmen against them as they will chew the cavalry to shreds while keeping them at arms (or spears) length.
The key is to engage the enemy and hold them in battle while sending units to their read to charge them. You gain a large bonus for attacking from the rear or flank, use this tactic to your advantage. Of course the artificial intelligence is good enough to try to do the same to you!
One good thing I like about this game is that it isn't always the case that the biggest army wins. You really do feel like you make a difference as the general in charge but at the same time to AI is good enough to put up a fight and surprise you from time to time.
To sunmmarise, this game is awesome, there is a huge amount of depth in the types of unit and city improvements available as well as the massive enjoyment from being involved in the battles.
You have to keep playing it to see what the next turn will bring in terms of new unit types, treachery from your allies or general barbarian invasions!
Anyone who likes wargames, real time strategy games or strategy in general should seriously consider this. The only drawback I can think of is that it does have similarities with previous games in the series, but it would do wouldn't it?
Overall 93% - Probably my favourite ever game of the genre
Graphics 95% - Superb detail in the maps and units, smooth.
Sound 92% - Battle sounds are spot on and good music too
The game will run on most PCs, you don't need a monster setup to play it but will need to turn down the detail a bit if you don't have a top-end system. Still very playable though, for the record I have a AMD 2600XP with 512Mb RAM and a 128Mb Gfx card.
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