Rome: Total War (PC)
Manufacturer: Activision Part number: 32599
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- Rome: Total War is the latest in the respected strategy series, which recreates great historical periods and their epic battles. Before Rome, the developers covered medieval Japan in Shogun: Total War and the European Middle Ages in Medieval: Total War. Rome: Total War moves the battlefields to the era of the Roman Republic and Empire, from the beginnings of Rome ... Read more
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Gamespot editors' review
Rome: Total War (PC) price range: $18.95
- Reviewed by: Jason Ocampo
- Reviewed on: 09/23/2004
- Updated on:05/17/2006
- Released on: 09/22/2004
Rome: Total War is the third Total War game from England's Creative Assembly, and, to make a long story short, it's the best one yet. It was naturally expected to build on its illustrious predecessors, which featured epic-scale real-time battles and impressive attention to historical realism and detail. Shogun: Total War was a promising start for the series, while Medieval: Total War built on that promise to create an even more engrossing strategy game. With Rome: Total War, Creative Assembly takes the next step, and it's as much a revolutionary step as it is an evolutionary one, thanks to a beautiful new 3D graphics engine that makes the series' tactical battles--featuring thousands of soldiers--better than ever. The results are nothing short of spectacular, helping make Rome: Total War the very definition of an epic strategy game.
Where do you want to go today? The ancient world beckons, if you're brave enough to take it on.
As in the earlier Total War games, there are essentially two distinctly different types of gameplay in Rome. There's the overarching turn-based campaign in which you conquer cities and provinces, make improvements, and move armies around the map as you expand your empire, and then there are the real-time battles in which you use tactics and maneuvers to crush your enemy in combat. After the helpful and informative tutorial campaign, you can tackle the main imperial campaign. You play as one of three powerful Roman families--the Julii, the Bruti, or the Scipii--attempting to increase the size and glory of Rome and shore up your faction's power and influence. As all three factions are Roman, there's literally no difference between them in terms of units and building types, though they do have different responsibilities. The Julii must deal with the Gauls and Germania to the north in a difficult, landlocked campaign. The Bruti are required to deal with the remnants of the Greek city-states and expand the empire to the southeast. And the Scipii are tasked with subduing Carthage, Rome's great nemesis to the southwest.
At least, that's the principle goal of each faction. But there's a fourth, unplayable Roman faction, one that can influence your course during the campaign: the Roman senate. The senate will order you on missions, from blockading a hostile port or conquering a city (and perhaps exterminating the populace, depending on the level of enmity between Rome and the faction in question) to forging a trade deal or an alliance with a foreign faction. It's up to you whether you actually obey the order, as sometimes the senate will try to stretch you thin on purpose. If you carry the orders out successfully, you stand to gain a monetary reward, a useful new military unit, or influence in the senate. Failing to carry out missions earns the displeasure of the senate and affects your standing with that body. By and large, though, the senate missions help to focus the otherwise huge scope of the campaign--instead of being faced with the monolithic task of trying to conquer Europe, you can instead look forward to accomplishing a long series of short-term goals.
It's helpful to perform senate missions because they can affect an improved feature in Rome: Total War--families. Each of the three Roman factions is essentially one huge family, and your generals and governors are related to one another by birth, marriage, or adoption. These are the leaders of your faction, and they all have traits--strengths and weaknesses--that define their abilities. A strong general may have an excellent command rating, but his disdain for bureaucracy would make him a poor governor. Meanwhile, an otherwise strong governor may have a dislike of farming, which would affect the agricultural output in the province he's in. But if your family members are selected to hold important senate posts, they'll gain influence and abilities once out of office. This introduces a limited role-playing component in the game, as you actually care about trying to further the careers of your family members so they can serve you better.
In addition to traits, family members--not to mention your spies, assassins, and diplomats--can all attract retinues. These are the hangers-on who surround important people, such as advisors, mentors, bodyguards, lackeys, sycophants, and more. Each of these can affect your characters' abilities. For example, a wrestler can improve a character's influence (by being able to literally twist arms), as well as provide added protection against an assassination attempt. You can actually collect and trade retinue members among your family, so you can transfer them to where they're needed the most.
You'll draw your faction's leaders from the family tree. Make sure not to kill off your heirs in battle.
Families are also critical because only family members can serve as generals. You can assemble armies without a general, but they'll be poorly led and will likely fare badly in battle. But with a general, the army's fortune can change. A general with a high command ability is a powerful force in battle, as a well-led smaller force can defeat a poorly led larger force most of the time. On the other hand, the fact that generals are drawn from the ruling family can be dangerous, because you need to make sure there are future generations of leaders and generals. A disastrous battle can wipe out whole branches of the family tree, cutting down promising young sons before they can sire heirs. This can have a crippling effect later on in the campaign, when you find yourself short of qualified generals and governors with a huge empire to manage. It makes for an excellent incentive to try and preserve your generals, rather than treat them as easily replaceable fodder.
User reviews
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Best Strategty Game since StarCraft
by SPARTAN VI on August 3, 2005
Pros: Extremely massive battles, very tactical, well blended real-time/turn-based strategy, the ultimate strategy gamer's delight
Cons: Requires a patch to be played in its full potential.
Summary: Somewhat ironic that the previous "spartan" that rated this game hated it, whereas I can't get enough of it. Then again, after several patch releases, I'm sure his ...
Summary: Somewhat ironic that the previous "spartan" that rated this game hated it, whereas I can't get enough of it. Then again, after several patch releases, I'm sure his complaints are out-dated.
Rome:TW is absolutely phenomenal. Massive battles tallying troops in the hundreds, even thousands. At first, the AI was a bit dodgey, but after updating, friendly fire casualties has greatly decreased, the AI properly utilizes siege engines, AI troops stagger formation or for a line when engaging missile/onagers, AI tactically skirmish before engaging, etc. There has been a slew of fixes, but even before I updated, I had tons of fun and didn't run into any errors.
I'm very excited to see what CA comes up with next.1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Amazing game
by rgobio on November 21, 2007
Pros: Endless play, excellent variety, different every time, great graphics, very realistic, easy to learn
Cons: Cannot play all factions
Summary: This is truly and amazing game. I bought it years ago and it is still my favourite. It is still challenging and fun to play and I don't think ...
Summary: This is truly and amazing game. I bought it years ago and it is still my favourite. It is still challenging and fun to play and I don't think I have played the same game twice.
The realism is as accurate as it can get, especially considering the time it was released.
It is also very easy to learn without having to read the manual for hours and the availiability of cheat codes enables one to surpass an obstacle without frustration.
Cannot wait for Total War; ROME 2 -
A new unique strategy game that makes all other war strategy games boring.
by review_monster on December 18, 2006
Pros: Excellent Gameplay and Camera Settings. Music and Sound are amazing. Unique factions with lots of units. Fun and challenging campaign map.
Cons: Multiplayer is somewhat laggy and slow.
Summary: A new unique strategy game that makes all other war strategy games boring with its excellent gameplay and camera settings, amazing music and sound, unique factions and lots of units.
Summary: A new unique strategy game that makes all other war strategy games boring with its excellent gameplay and camera settings, amazing music and sound, unique factions and lots of units.
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Easily One Of My Favorite War Strategy Games
by bhartman33 on October 16, 2006
Pros: Beautiful Graphics, Fairly Intuitive Gameplay
Cons: A Few Bugs and Gameplay Problems
Summary: This is, as I said, one of my favorite -- if not my favorite -- war strategy games. There are lots of units, the battles are intense and the graphics ...
Summary: This is, as I said, one of my favorite -- if not my favorite -- war strategy games. There are lots of units, the battles are intense and the graphics are astounding -- especially for the modest hardware requirements.
Rome: Total War is fairly intuitive, but very complex. If you manage your own settlements, you'll have to figure out the whole economic structure (trade, roads, housing, etc.). It can get very involved, but basically, what you want is to keep your citizens happy, keep squalor down, and keep taxes as moderate as possible (so as to avoid a revolt).
The best part of the game, though, is battles: You send your troops off to battle, and you control them one squad at a time, or all together. (You can't control individual soldiers, but when you're dealing with hundreds of soldiers at a time, that's not surprising.) You attack your enemies, and you can zoom in to see individual soldiers killing their opponents (albeit bloodlessly, unless you mod it). It's really spectacular to see battles on such a grand scale, rendered so beautifully and smoothly.
Now, there are a few quirks:
1) The AI can make your troops do stupid things (i.e., walking headlong into rivers when they can't fit over a bridge, rather than reforming to cross it).
2) The Senate is ridiculous, and in my opinion, the game relies too heavily on it. Some of the missions the Senate sends you on aren't even close to reasonable, and if you refuse to do them, your standing with the Senate suffers, which impedes your progress in the game.
The Barbarian Invasion expansion pack takes care of the Senate problem, but it's not quite accurate to call that an "expansion pack", either, because it makes your original games unplayable. It would be great to play the original game with the neutered Senate. -
Wars, killing, romans etc
by bullseye bunse on April 25, 2006
Pros: Clampingly addictive, 2 great aspects of play
Cons: slightly unpolished and unpredictable
Summary: I first saw this game at a friends house and somehow managed to watch my friend play this game for nearly 3 hours without getting bored. Within two weeks i ...
Summary: I first saw this game at a friends house and somehow managed to watch my friend play this game for nearly 3 hours without getting bored. Within two weeks i owned it myself and its great. The imperial campaign is hugely addictive and very tactical, wandering whether to tell the senate to get stuffed or not is also a quandry. Battles are great fubn to begin with but can get tiresome quickly, especially as the graphics re a bit sketchy and a few other errore (tiny bolt throwers cant get though demolished gate/wall sections what???)
However overall this game is quality and fully deserves an 8/10. However this is not perfect and can be improved but well worth the £17.99 i paid for the gold edition -
Very tactical very good
by bnbader on October 6, 2005
Pros: bvggfgz\gfae
Cons: gsadesg\easg
Summary: great tactical game
Summary: great tactical game
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The Real Deal Behind the Idea that was Rome....
by .spartan on April 15, 2005
Pros: Concept, Graphics and Potential
Cons: Game Play, Functionality and Support
Summary: There are literally hundreds of errors in this game. Many of the true fans of the series, which spans about six years, have fixed a plethora of them for the ...
Summary: There are literally hundreds of errors in this game. Many of the true fans of the series, which spans about six years, have fixed a plethora of them for the company for free and yet others we can't unless we break the law.
Further nearly all the modification projects being developed by fans have had to be developed with tools created by US when this game was promised to be the most mod friendly produced!!! One could also argue that they purposely made the game harder to mod to prevent the development fan projects.
Additionally the official website support is a gargantuan world class failure of the first order. Joseph Stalin could not have asked for a better forum. You voice a concern about something and you get kick banned - what kind of support is that?? They must think we are all 10 and 11 year olds.
The title was unfinished when it was put on the shelves in time for the Xmas rush last year - plain and simple.
Then to add insult to injury the company put out a joke of a patch. Then the second patch which was well over two (2) months in the making due to its "extensive heavy testing" introduced yet new bugs!
When we, the loyal fan community tried to get things fixed and even fix many issues for them for free the official response was to have our intelligence insulted as well as be ignored, placated, and suppressed in the official support forums and lastly to be IP blocked for legitimate reasonable posts.
So I say, shame on the CA and shame on the truly uninformed people who post a 5 star rating for this game.
(Note: My apologies to the person who drafted it I forgot your name. PM and I will add it to the byline. )
A short list of community verified issues and bugs:
A. BATTLEMAP
(1) Tactical AI:
* Suicidal generals: persistent reports of generals charging entire enemy armies without support.
* Tactical AI still fails to take adequate measures in avoiding missile fire.
* AI-controlled infantry sometimes maneuver like cavalry units when engaged; repeatedly charging/disengaging and running in circular paths through loose formations. If a feature, implemented poorly with units that have poor charge attributes.
* AI-controlled units guarding the town centre sometimes fail to turn and face approaching enemy units.
* AI siege attackers: AI-controlled reinforcements continue to pursue enemy units that have retreated behind city walls; AI siege armies do not always retreat after their siege equipment is lost.
* AI-controlled units sometimes remain idle while being issued repeated movement orders; "move" or "move out" orders can be heard in an almost continuous loop. Occurs most commonly with AI formations preparing to attack over bridges.
(2) Unit movement/path-finding:
* Generally poor unit navigation in cities and around bridges: individual soldiers often break formation and become lost in streets/alleyways; soldiers still run into the water and drown during bridge maneuvers; bugged path-finding around Egyptian arches.
* Scenery interaction: units often become stuck in narrow passages, between rocks/trees, in siege towers, and amongst massed formations; rare reports of soldiers walking through walls and closed gates; soldiers in siege towers and on ladders occasionally fall through solid wood.
* "Ford" river crossings are sometimes impassable.
(3) Unit functionality:
* Horse-archers: reports from some players that bow-armed cavalry fail to fire on the run when skirmish mode is engaged. Possibly related to bugged animation cycles; units go through the motions of firing arrows but arrows are not (or rarely) released. Cantabrian circle still functions fully. Javelin-armed cavalry are unaffected.
* Various problems associated with the use of multiple selected (ungrouped) units: aberrant maneuvers provoked on move command to several selected units; ignoring attack orders; incorrect processing of attack orders given to multiple unit selections comprising a mix of ammo-depleted and range-capable missile units (all engage in melee, despite the cursor highlight suggesting that ranged attack is available for some units).
* Various problems associated with the use of grouped units: unselected units comply with commands issued to other units in the same group; grouped cavalry does not run at the speed of the slowest unit, but at that of the quickest (eg. grouped cataphractoi and horse-archers will run at horse-archer speed).
* Phalanx mode: soldiers sometimes do not hold formation adequately in phalanx formation, when ordered to attack, soldiers shuffle around and break formation; phalanxes have trouble attacking uphill, even on gentle inclines.
* Canine unit (wardog/warhound) "formations" cannot be selected or attacked, even when their handlers are defeated or routed off the battlefield.
* Javelin infantry may become stuck and refuse further orders when ordered to launch missiles or change formation.
* Hiding in long grass is possible on snowy maps and in places where no long grass is visible.
* Bridge routs: occasional recurrences besides documented changes in v1.2.
* AI-controlled reinforcements are sometimes inappropriately flagged "not yet arrived on battlefield" and cannot be selected/attacked.
* Disappearing ladders: on rare occasions, siege ladders do not appear on the battle map if constructed in preparation for a siege assault.
* Fighting on city walls: soldiers deployed on walls sometimes shuffle around and fall to their death on pressing "start battle"; units deployed on walls "fight to the death" even if their adversary is on the ground below; units "fighting to the death" sometimes do not fight back when engaged in melee.
(4) Interface/graphics:
* Minimal UI: cut-scenes reset map and card visibility settings if they were originally toggled off; upper edge of screen blocked from cursor interaction when buttons are toggled off; message tiles often obscure the left-most unit card when toggling cards off and on with active messages; sluggish/unreliable response to time control hotkeys when MUI is active.
* Coastal tiles: frequent reports of large grey angular coastline tiles in the distance when fighting in coastal regions, relating to the presence of coastal structures such as ports/cities.
* Victory screen: rare reports of victory screen failing to appear after all enemy units are defeated/routed.
B. CAMPAIGN MAP
(1) Strategic AI:
* Unit construction: occasional reports of AI favoring mass construction of low quality troops early on in campaign games.
* Naval units: rare reports of the AI conducting single-turn blockades frequently and indiscriminately.
* AI incongruity on reload: reports that reloading a saved game "resets" AI priorities/flags provoking inconsistencies in diplomatic behavior and strategic planning.
(2) Diplomacy:
* Illogical AI behavior: requesting ceasefire with considerable concessions, only to attack next turn; refusing "unfair" diplomatic offers only to accept less advantageous agreements immediately afterwards.
* Labile diplomacy: occasional reports of AI factions frequently signing and breaking treaties.
* Protectorates: multiple problems related to protectorate system and status of ex-protectorates.
(3) Characters:
* Generals get checked twice for trait awards in manual battles.
* "Scarred" trait: over rapid trait progression with repeated battles (GeneralHPLostRatioinBattle works in one way for manual battles, and differently for autocalc; manual battles without engagement always trigger battle1/battle1r).
* Senate offices: ex-office trait is not registered following reappointment to a previously held office ((office)again triggers giving twice as needed).
* Coward trait: is not given if the general avoids combat in battle (GeneralFoughtinCombat always returns true, causing trigger battle4 to never go off; trigger needs revision as if it worked properly the coward trait could by gained simply if the enemy retreats).
* Rare reports of spies acquiring traits specific to generals.
* Isolated reports of family members who die in battle described to have "died peacefully" if they weren't generals during the final battle.
* Transferred retainers are sometimes not immediately deleted from the retinue of the donating character (corrected by closing and reopening the character description).
* Character portraits: continue to age after death; portrait images can sometimes be replaced by inappropriate/non-portrait pictures.
* Disappearing characters: issuing a move/attack command to selected units within a stack, then stopping them prior to reaching their intended destination (by pressing backspace) makes the general in the original stack disappear; losing the commanding general out of two (or more?) family members in a battle may lead to disappearance of the surviving character(s). In either situation the description for the disappeared character states "died peacefully".
(4) Economics:
* Paved roads sometimes do not provide the correct land trade bonuses.
* Colossus wonder does not provide the correct naval trade bonus that its description states
* Financial reports continue to calculate diplomatic tribute from ex-protectorates or when active protectorates are bankrupt and cannot provide the required diplomatic tribute (in either case no actual tribute is received for the turn).
(5) Land/naval warfare:
* Multiple-army sieges: only the attacking stack is represented in battlemap/autocalc during attacks on a settlement besieged by several stacks.
* Naval warfare: battle outcome summaries do not correctly register the number of ships sunk in a naval engagement.
* Elephants killed in battle by their riders are resurrected on returning to the campaign map.
* A distorted coast-line battle map is loaded when fighting on the road east of the port of Sidon (the depressed terrain one grid south of the small hill).
* Naval/land units sometimes become stuck at certain points in the map and cannot be selected (eg. fleets at the port of Corinth).
* Lost siege supplies: if an attempt is made to relieve a besieged AI army prior to its supply time limit, it is sometimes incorrectly flagged to be at the extent of its supply and will "fight to the death" as reinforcements in the subsequent battle. This also means that the siege succeeds automatically if the relieving army is defeated before the reinforcements arrive.
* Diplomats/spies/assassins are capable of blockading retreating armies.
* Gates of Syracuse: isolated reports of permanent damage refractory to repairs/upgrades if opened by a spy during a siege.
* If a rival faction enters a protectorate agreement under the player, any player-led sieges of that faction's settlements will be deactivated but the besieging armies will be unable to leave.
* Rare reports of entire stacks teleporting to distant parts of the map when disembarking from a fleet.
(6) Unit statistics/properties:
* Praetorian Cohorts are available prior to Marius reforms.
* Pharaoh's Guard flagged as carrying shields contrary to unit models.
* Egyptian Desert Axemen have high armor attributes contrary to unit models.
* Long-Shield Cavalry are not listed in the unit building files for Spain and Numidia.
* Seleucid Cataphract Elephants construction requirements should also include "resource elephants".
* Typing error in "descr_mercenaries.txt" variables for "unit merc horse archers" under "pool Armenia".
* Bedouin Archers flagged as carrying shields contrary to unit models.
* Illyrian Mercenaries have no bonus against chariots and elephants.
* Thracian Armored General has the same statistics as the unarmored form.
* Thracian Phalanx Pikemen are no longer recruitable after a specific barracks level.
* Gallic Naked Fanatics can be recruited at a farming shrine.
* Silver Shield Legionaries can be trained prior to Marius event.
* Sarmatian Mercenaries do not suffer the "mount" penalty when facing elephants/camels.
* Rebel Archer Warbands have blue Chosen Swordsman as unit commander.
* Spain has blue generals.
* Royal Pikemen use spears (and should use spears) but their name indicates otherwise.
* Inconsistent mass values for certain units: Bastarnae Mercenaries, Bull Warriors, Silver Shield Legionaries and several other infantry units are assigned a mass value of "1" in contrast to comparable units (Bastarnae, Spartan warriors and various legionary units all have "1.3" in mass).
(7) Interface/graphics:
* Dysfunctional construction menu scroll-bar.
* Game transit: reloading screen disappears for a few seconds when loading/exiting a battle; when playing in 16-bit mode, campaign map occasionally resets colors incorrectly when returning from battlemap.
* Movement range highlights: some players report loss of the green terrain highlight indicators for unit movement after patching to 1.2.
* Snowy winter bug: some players report experiencing the snowy winter effect in all regions (including equatorial zones).
* Settlement details window: if the building/unit information screen (on the right side) is closed while the settlement details summary is open, the latter resets automatically to a "default" settlement.
Note: I have given it a one (1) only to counter balance the near perfect rating. All political issues aside, my personal opinion is this is really a seven (7) game and when fixed an eight (8) easy. If you toss in some real customer support and a multiplayer campaign then a nine (9). For a 10 score there would have to be a FULL set of dev tools for the modification community.
-Spartan2 out of 6 users found this user opinion helpful.
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What's Under The Bonnet...
by carousel--2008 on April 15, 2005
Pros: 30 minutes of fun, months of campaigning
Cons: too many to name in 10 words
Summary: Don't be fooled here guys. It may promise the world but what it delivers is a little bit of antartica - awesome to look at but you don't ...
Summary: Don't be fooled here guys. It may promise the world but what it delivers is a little bit of antartica - awesome to look at but you don't wanna hang around for long. I was pleased with this game for a long time then 2 things happened a) I joined the .com forum and found out that the admins and customer support are about as friendly as Mr T. on an aeroplane and b) this game is held together by chewing gum and sticky tape. Not only to get a 'somewhat' functioning game will you have to download two patches the moment you install but you'll also need to wait and see if if CA decide to patch up the bugs that the two patches create! Currently it isnt looking good, they've got their fingers in their ears and are shouting 'nananananana'. I'm not affiliated with this site in any way but head over to total war center to find out whats really going on lately.
Get your fingers out your ears CA!1 out of 5 users found this user opinion helpful.
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