Rome: Total War Review

By Kieron Gillen Published 1 October, 2004

Do as the Romans do.

Version tested: PC

Order yours now from Simply Games.

'Rome: Total War' Screenshot 1

So: nine or a Ten? What a dilemma.

Tens are precious, and it takes more than merely being extremely good to get them. Perfection is no guarantee. In fact, perfection just implies you were setting your sights too low. To have your fingers brush the firmament, you have to risk an Icarus-like fall to earth on internet-forum-flaming wings. To get a ten you need scale. You need to be more than just a game.

When compared to all the standards above, Rome is a Ten. It didn't have a design doc; it had an act of hubris.

In a real way, Rome: Total War is the absolute exemplar of PC gaming. It's about what only PCs can really do: that is, everything, and everything at once. In an age of comfortable genre-games, the Total War series have always stood slightly aside from the main thrust of culture. Anything cerebral and PC-centred, they take from, with even trace elements of RPGs showing up. However, the two great atrium of Rome's bulging heart are labelled "Strategy" and "Tactics". In the former, you organise your growing domain on a Civilisation-styled map. In the latter, you lead your massed forces into action in lusciously rendered fully polygonal 3D worlds. And if I hadn't used the word "maximalist" in last week's Dawn of War review, I'd lob it in here.

It's very big.

The full campaign game will cause fear-related heart attacks on the more casual gamer. This places you as one of the three families in Republic-era Rome, setting forth to carve an empire from the yielding flesh of B.C. Europe. Even if you choose to auto-resolve most of the battles, set on the lower difficulty levels, you're looking at some serious game playing time - your correspondent currently has a bedraggled half-beard due to how its dissolved his social life - before you turn on your masters and become Emperor.

'Rome: Total War' Screenshot 2

Senate aspects are particularly welcome. In previous Total Wars, the latter part of the campaign, where you mopped up the remaining resistance, was where attention began to wander. Here, at the exact point where you're in a position to bully almost anyone into submission, your allies turn on you for fear of your growing popularity, leading to a suitably dramatic final act as you take on Rome itself. The move from slaughtering rag-taggle barbarians to locking gladius with disciplined ranks of legionnaires is particularly memorable.

Eventually, you'll be victor, turn to the game options and realise that you've only just begun. Forget about altering difficulty levels - with both tactical and strategy AI capable of being set individually - leading to a genuinely different experience on replay. You'll also find that you've unlocked the opposing races as playable factions, allowing you to play the campaign as the Greeks, Egyptians, Gauls, Carthagians and so on and so History Channel. While previous Total War games have differentiated the races both on the strategic and tactical scales, Rome pushes it even further. The challenges you face as Pharaoh of the Nile are fundamentally different to those of a woad-smeared chieftain in Briton. Play the latter and you're separated from the world, resource-poor with barbarous troops. Play the former, and you possess a surplus of riches, with expansive realms it takes aeons to march across and a population that you'll have trouble stopping growing even if you wanted to.

The unlocking aspect may grate slightly with some PC players, but they should be forgiving (especially because it's easy enough to do an .ini file fiddle to side-step the issue). Total War has been traditionally intimidating, but Creative Assembly has undergone great pains to make this as accessible as possible, without losing the depth or - hnghh! - 'dumbing down' in any way (and if you want one easy step to improve the quality of videogame discourse online, then hooking your thumbs into the eye-sockets of anyone who uses that particular phrase and pulling off their face is as good as any).

By playing through as the Romans, you're learning invaluable lessons about the game, which means by the time it comes to play as their foes, anyone will be capable of attempting the task. There's none of Shogun choosing of a simply inferior side - Total War games' strong basis in history means that they've never pretended that all sides offer an equivalent challenge. Even here, taking over Europe as a lesser side is going to be a much harder proposition than if you're at the head of the legion - and getting hammered from your lack of experience, then giving up bored and alienated. For those who just wish to dabble, there's a (excellent) shorter tutorial campaign, an abridged version of the full campaign, the tactical-scale multiplayer and the genuinely lush historical battles - which are also some of the best historical lessons I've ever seen included in a PC videogame. It's just as friendly to get into as a Total War game could ever be.

'Rome: Total War' Screenshot 3

Take, for example, how trade is introduced to the player. It's stressed that it's important in the tutorials. By ordering a market or a port constructed you start to see ships heading between various destinations. It's possible for a player to just see this and get on with it. However, if they investigate further, they'll find that on the settlement they can summon up the hard Civ-style data of exactly what's being traded with where and utilise that to gain greater efficiency. Anyone can play Rome... but it allows the very best people to play it really well. And that's the secret of accessibility.

Speaking generally, the strategy map is a revelation. Previous Total War games have worked on a more Risk-based model with whole regions counting as the same place. Rome works more like Civ, with units being positioned in specific areas on the map, interacting with the near vicinity and moving according to the speed of the slowest element in the army. This means that large territories, like those in North Africa, can take forever to slog across, changing how you approach them. Compare and contrast with Northern Italy, where the paths through the Alps make obvious points to hold and defend. This stresses Terrain in a way which has never been done before.

Better, this also influences the tactical combat. The lay of the land where an army is standing is actually what the army will fight upon, making it more important than ever to choose your battlegrounds carefully. After all, the last thing any army wants to do is fight a literal up-hill battle. This is because Rome, like its forebears, pays more attention to the actual practicalities of real battles than any of its peers. Positioning is of paramount importance and morale more often than not the clinching factor in any confrontation. Provoke a general panic with a charge in the rear, and you've got a chance to turn around even the most badly stacked odds.

The most noticeable changes here from the previous games is an increase in pace, with troops making their way around and slaughtering at greater speeds. This has the advantage of making playing out a battle rather than auto-resolving a more attractive prospect in the full campaign, as before even the most inconsequential skirmish took getting on for a good twenty minutes to play through. Of course, the actual infrastructure of how fights are won means that all the tactical depth of the original is still present. If it's too quick, a pause-order system for the more stately player is fully supported.

'Rome: Total War' Screenshot 4

Oh yes - the graphics are as spectacular as a large-numbers strategy game has ever been. Look at the screenshots. But what they don't show is how the polygonal models actually improve how the battle plays out. Information which was obscured in the previous game's muddy sprites is transparent in the animated figures. For example, you can tell when a phalanx is prepared to meet a charge and when it'll be vulnerable at a sudden attack. City Sieges especially have been paid proper attention, with battering rams, wall climbing and firestorms sweeping across a city providing ironic set pieces.

And... Oh you can go and on. Rome doesn't need reviews to discuss it properly - it needs entire books.

Holistically, it could be argued that there are better turn-based strategy games than Rome - but not by much. It could be argued that there are better RTS games than Rome - though not nearly as convincingly if you limit it to pure tactical combat games. And it's not even that Rome manages both, which would be an impressive game design feat but of no actual intrinsic worth... it's that Rome manages to integrate both, and by doing so elevate both. In any strategy-scale game, you construct armies, but thanks to its real-time side in Rome you know the units in a far more intimate fashion that makes the acquisition of elite troops suitably powerful, since you know exactly why they're feared. In any real-time strategy game you'll fight desperate battles against hopeless odds, but here, thanks to the strategy side, you know the precise cost of loss will be. It's a magical, beautiful synergy and there's nothing quite like it in the entire gaming lexicon.

So - Ten then! Best Strategy Game Ever! Rome claims its laurels and marches up the throne...

No, it's a nine. As much as it pains to stick daggers into this noble Caesar of a game, I must. Luckily, they're mostly small daggers.

'Rome: Total War' Screenshot 5

AI - while genuinely sterling - has moments of ineptitude. This especially noticeable in battles where you have two armies in play at once. You control one, and the other is under computer control and not responding to your orders. The ability to issue a general order ("Hold back!" "Attack now!) to your colleague would have alleviated this hugely. Equally, enemy generals can be a little over enthusiastic in battle, leading to a relative ease of slaughtering them. While the naval side of Rome advances over Medieval, it's still only possible to auto-resolve battles, which can't help but make it feel vestigial and under-rendered compared with the detail in the rest of the game. There's a fair few tiny control issues, for example when two armies are standing in front of each other, actually trying to get the man behind is far more awkward than it should.

Heh. "Selecting one person behind another is tricky". See what I mean by "Small daggers". But they're still daggers enough. It's a nine.

But you know what? When you tell it that, it freezes you weak-kneed in its severe, contemptuous Roman gaze, then turns and walks away...

Well, it walks like a ten.

Order yours now from Simply Games.

9 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of Kieron.

About Kieron Gillen

Kieron is one of the founders of the lovely Rock, Paper, Shotgun and nowadays writes comics for Marvel starring characters that even his mum has heard of.

Read more articles from Kieron by visiting the Kieron Gillen archive page.

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Comments (72) Latest comment 10 months ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • lost_soul #1 7 years ago

    I only had time for a couple of battles last night, but it did look like a lot of fun.

    I really like attacking a town now, they've improved it a lot from Medieval.

  • ralphwolfenstein #2 7 years ago

    Nice. I like the way you set out your scoring criteria in the review. It actually makes the score redundant, because your argument for the score given is effectively the qualitative content of the review itself. If you get my meaning.

    anyway, clearly better than Halo

  • Salaman #3 7 years ago

    Top review.
    I mostly play FPS games. Did play WarCraft 2 ages ago but I'm generally uninterested in strategy games but I might pick this one up once they drop the price on it.
    Sounds like fun and the screenies look enticing.

  • Talha #4 7 years ago

    I must say that screenshots alone make the score worthwhile. So, is THIS a genuine advance in PC gaming or was Doom III? I hope we all see the light now.

  • UncleLou #5 7 years ago

    Haha, great review. :-)

    And I agree with everything. A patch to fix some of the AI niggles, and it's a 10.

    The only thing I don't like as much as in the predecessors is the music. And Latin voice acting would have been really, really cool. A missed opportunity.

    Anyway, brilliant game.

  • krudster #6 7 years ago

    I thought the tutorial was possibly the best I'd ever seen. A real lesson to every developer out there.

  • UncleLou #7 7 years ago

    Yes, the tutorial is fantastic, as is the context-sensitive ingame advisor which can be configured in a number of ways.

  • lost_soul #8 7 years ago

    Is there any way of keeping track of spies?

    I sent one into a town and then completely forgot about him for a few turns.

  • UncleLou #9 7 years ago

    Is there any way of keeping track of spies?

    I sent one into a town and then completely forgot about him for a few turns

    lost_soul, right-click on the "agent" tab on the bottom of the screen, you'll get a list with all your agents. The same works for armys and citys..

  • lost_soul #10 7 years ago

    "ost_soul, right-click on the "agent" tab on the bottom of the screen, you'll get a list with all your agents. The same works for armys and citys.."

    Ah right, thanks. I guess I really should read through the manual for this game.

  • BradlayLaw #11 7 years ago

    You just made me visit play.com

    Damnit!

  • Tricky #12 7 years ago

    Damn, damn, damn - was attempting to hold off on this but now that HL2 isn't coming out until the end of November, I'll need something to keep me entertained throughout October (once I've finished Beyond Good and Evil of course, which I just picked up for £15 in HMV the other day). I guess I'll start printing off the "Games Widow" sign for my gf right now then...

  • lost_soul #13 7 years ago

    I just remembered, there is a serial key on the back of the manual, but the game hasn't asked me to enter it. What's going on there?

  • Amajiro #14 7 years ago

    Why are the city set pieces ironic?

    Anyway - best game of the year so far. If some of the AI niggles are addressed via a patch, it's a 10 no question.

  • space_ace #15 7 years ago

    I only had time for a couple of battles last night, but it did look like a lot of fun.

    dismayed to misread 'battles' as 'bottles'... o_O

  • Nemesis #16 7 years ago

    There's a workaround if you want to chuck the res right up; see forum thread for details!

    Also, there's some rather nice EAX HD support in-game. Gonna sling my A2 card back into the Shuttle to hear the enhancements.

    w00t

    Nice review BTW. Get it get it get it!

  • BremXJones #17 7 years ago

    Heh - "Ironic" should have been "Iconic". Typo.

    Sorry.

    Alternative excuse: I was being ironic?

    That's not convincing anyone.

    KG

  • TheDifficult3rdAlbum #18 7 years ago

    And whilst we're on the subject, is the plural of atrium not atria? (or even atriums)?

    /pedant

  • BremXJones #19 7 years ago

    Shuddup!

  • UncleLou #20 7 years ago

    *here once was to be found the proof that UncleLou is an idiot who doesn't know the difference between plural and genitive*
    Edited by 1 at 01/10/04 @ 14:15

  • Dynamize #21 7 years ago

    I was disappointed to open the box and not find a man from the BBC to make smarmy comments about my GLARING TACTICAL ERRORS.

  • TheDifficult3rdAlbum #22 7 years ago

    No. It's atrii

    You're mistaken, my friend. It's Atria.

    /gives intimidating look
    Edited by 1 at 01/10/04 @ 13:55

  • BremXJones #23 7 years ago

    Enough! Continue discussion of the greatest strategy game of the year rather than quibbling over the grand chambers of the heart .

    KG
    Edited by 1 at 01/10/04 @ 14:00

  • silver-jon #24 7 years ago

    Great review for what looks like a great game. Really pleased that Creative Assembly aren't resting on their laurels (see what I did !!) and instead of an EA-esque tweak they've made wholesale changes to what was an already excellent format. Brave move.

  • Psi #25 7 years ago

    just got it at lunch there whole contrys sold outta sw battlefront..

  • Shrimp #26 7 years ago

    Nice review... definitely looking forward to the improved endgame. Oh, and isn't the plural of gladius "gladioli"?

    Now if you'll excuse me I have to get back to holding my outstreched hands beneath the letterbox and pleading silently.

  • lost_soul #27 7 years ago

    "I can't read - I communicate through the medium of masturbation"

    Errol, is that you?

  • commander dixon #28 7 years ago

    nice review Mr Gillen, but as for a 9, i would have spoken about the useless diplomacy stuff ...

  • Merefield #29 7 years ago

    Not 10/10?

    Et tu, Brute?

  • kincaide #30 7 years ago

    Kieron - two reviews I have read so far, and both have been well written: informative, entertaining and a great read - long may it continue


    (Can we see a Kieron review of DefJam please ;-) )

  • Groggen #31 7 years ago

    This looks awesome.. :) How many little fellas can there be on screen at one time?? The battles looks massive!

  • Errol #32 7 years ago

    Mr. Dude is not me, btw.

  • Errol #33 7 years ago

    Sounds like my type of person though.

  • jimdigritz #34 7 years ago

    great game

    but for some odd reason the options for resolution only go up to a maximum of 1280*960, not 1280*1024 - which is the default resolution for my LCD.....

    what gives?

    - obviously my PC runs XP and almost every other game at 1280*1024 perfectly...

    anyone else got this?

  • Dynamize #35 7 years ago

    What's with the Australian voice actors? Took me by surprise that did. The godawful American/s who do the units and the end of battle stuff, bleurgh. Plus the music's a step down from the usual quality of the Total War stuffs.
    Other than that, ace.

  • noob #36 7 years ago

    I have been playing this and I still hate the campaign map game... The battle engine is superb, the historical battles, etc.

    I preferred, but still didn't like, the campaign game on M:TW, but that had too many sons/daughters all the time. They have improved that aspect, added some nice effects, but it's still feels like a game of two halves, quality-wise...

    Sorry to have a differing opinon from the masses.

  • Errol #37 7 years ago

    You work for ign then ?

  • Taximan #38 7 years ago

    So what are the pre-battle speeches like then?

    I've heard that some of them are absolutely hilarious: "I hate Gauls, my father hated Gauls. They're good for nothing hairy scum." or something to that effect depending on how Xenophobic your general is, combined with something like "Know that I shall be behind you to... errr... support you" if he's a coward?

    Any word on if the shouting German barbarian women made it into the game, along with the Celts who throw heads coated with lye?

  • WoodenSpoon #39 7 years ago

    Some of the pre-battle speeches are great. I love the way they're allowed to be blatently racist for your entertainment because the factions don't exist anymore. Heh.

    Aint seen any of the women but I've not fought any Germans yet. Not sure about the celts either, but there is some barbarian unit where all the men have a couple of heads strapped to their belts...and the Naked Fanatics...
    Edited by 1 at 04/10/04 @ 00:21

  • Scimarad #40 7 years ago

    "Plus the music's a step down from the usual quality of the Total War stuffs.
    Other than that, ace."

    Not on the demo, it wasn't. Can't speak for the full game...

  • Wobbler #41 7 years ago

    I think the voice actors are Aussie because it seems that half of Creative Assembly are based down under now -- looking at the credits it seems that way, anyhow.

    And the music is by the same bloke as the other two games (Jeff
    van Dyck, IIRC)

  • BremXJones #42 7 years ago

    "The one niggle (that is mentioned in the great review) is the inability to control reinforcements. These are AI driven and can sometimes lead units into battle with silly formations. Archers running at the first line of attack? Cheers! ;)"

    Er... I did.

    KG

  • Khanivor #43 7 years ago

    What about the multiplayer? Is it any good?

    And why the hell have CA just given up on trying to make the strat game MP? Sure, there are some serious issues but come on, it’s been promised since Shogun.

  • Dynamize #44 7 years ago

    "I think the voice actors are Aussie because it seems that half of Creative Assembly are based down under now -- looking at the credits it seems that way, anyhow."

    Ahhh! Cheers for the explanation. They did good work, just not used to hearing Australians doing voice acting on historical type stuffs.

    "And the music is by the same bloke as the other two games (Jeff
    van Dyck, IIRC)"

    The music's good, it just seems noticeably synthy compared to Shogun and Medieval, and that left me a little disappointed.

  • UncleLou #45 7 years ago

    Same here, the music is alright, but not up to the Total War series' high standard. It has changed from "reasonably authentic" to "Hollywood-schmaltzy".

  • Clive_Dunn #46 7 years ago

    Good point on the AI controlling reinforcements - its very annoying indeed.

    Especially when my best cavalry units turned up as reinforcements when I was desperately holding onto a bridge. Their glorious counter attack failed miserably as they all threw themselves into the water trying to cross the bridge.

  • WoodenSpoon #47 7 years ago

    Chaaarge!

  • UncleLou #48 7 years ago

    Chaaarge!

    Rome has conquered!

  • Errol #49 7 years ago

    Stunning game. GOTY so far.

  • wattoo #50 7 years ago

    Brilliant game, very happy with my purchase, just a few things and questions.

    i quite like the music

    does the AI ever attack you when you are besieged or do they always try and starve you out?

    same problem with the family members. spread way too thin and having to build spies and change capitals to keep ppl happy

    after reading the review i was really excited about the trading, but having read the manual and had my diplomat agree trading rights with the local areas i don't see how else i can increase trade (not including building stuff). is there a way to say exactly what you want to import/export somewhere or have i got the wrong end of the stick?

    oh yeah, i really like the building forts in mountain passes idea although coupled with the not enough family members, it becomes a bit tricky to remember where you put everyone and who's not governing. i think about 2 thirds of my settlements have governors.

    honourable mention to marcus the killer, my best assassin who killed 5 members of the spanish royal family in 5 turns. what a star

    nice one creative

  • #51 7 years ago

    It's 9.9 then.

    Great review Kieron Gillen

  • Scimarad #52 7 years ago

    Hmmm, I just had a lock up on my machine. I just played the second tutorial battle for the first time which, through tactical incompetence, I drew. The game was loading up the world map again and the game just locked at about 30% on the progress bar.

    On the plus, I've only got 1.7ghz machine and the performance is fantastic...

  • Errol #53 7 years ago

    The AI does try to storm cities. It has happened to me on several occasions.

  • WoodenSpoon #54 7 years ago

    Assasins can be trained once you have a Market (I think) and Archers once you've got them second level missle training thingy.

  • Lerxster #55 7 years ago

    "Only the romans have a "true" campaign. "

    "Rome" Total war........ The Rome bit in the title may have something to do with that :-P

    must

    get

    some

    sleeep....
    Edited by 1 at 11/10/04 @ 10:23

  • UncleLou #56 7 years ago

    You played the Roman campaign, the long one, in 14 hours? I dare say I've played twice as long, and I've just captured half of the provinces I need. Either you played on easy, or didn't fight any real-time battles, or both.

    Besides, there are two other Roman factions you can play, plus the extra civs you unlock through the campaign game.

    Not to mention historical battles and custom battles.

    To say that Rome is too short is ridiculous.

  • Varsity #57 7 years ago

    "Good game, but i wish they hadnt promised stuff then not delivered on it."

    Tell me one ambitious game that hasn't.

  • sam_spade #58 7 years ago

    Tetris

  • elvenearth #59 7 years ago

    Off topic, but what do ya think of this idea?

    I think it would be a great idea for blizzard to port over Starcraft 64 to the upcoming Nintendo DS (Dual Screen) system. With 2 screens and the bottom screen being touch sensitive it would be much more intuitive then a normal console or mobile platform. For strategy games like Starcraft this would be ideal, finally it would be possible to have a good strategy game outside of the PC. Better yet, the DS has wireless lan and can go online via wi fi. Sounds pretty ideal to me, what do you guys think?

  • #60 7 years ago

    Or.. they could just develop a brand new DS Starcraft/Warcraft/Command&Conquer because the way the DS works it could be just as 'advanced' as a PC version and not the simplicity of the N64 version. Yes.

  • #61 7 years ago

    so it isn't mod'able?

  • #62 7 years ago

    If you need to go on a forum to find the bugs in a game .. that doesn't really mean anything.

  • #63 7 years ago

    Of course

  • UncleLou #64 7 years ago

    Pffft, the TotalWar forums is full of whiners who cried "foul" after they played Rome for half an hour because not evrything was like they were used to from playing Medieval for years.

    I am a "veteran" of the series since the day Shogun came out, and guess what, I am enjoying Rome more than either of its predecessors. Sure it has bugs, but nothing game-breaking, and Shogun and Medieval were far from perfect in their release versions as well.

    Posts like yours make me wonder if you've even played the game, or if you're just spreading what you read on the TW forums.

    "Overhyped rubbish". Yeah, right.

    /rolls eyes

  • code:ninja #65 7 years ago

    Well, I've nearly finished (3 more regions to get),
    and I bribed Rome and most of the map into giving me their land. A lot of regions ask for less money than you get if you execute the populace, so its quite easy.

    I'm not keen on the sea battles, and wish that I could actually have some control over it, but i guess its a trade off.

    I like a lot of the game - the biggest flaw my friends and I have found is the Artificial Intelligence. This is lacking.
    Having done it during my degree several years ago I'm quite suprised to see them go on about it in their sales speak. Ah well what changes!

    Seriously though - even if you play on the hardest settings, the computer is quite happy to leave its army stood still outside your heavily fortified castle. Several minutes pass and what was 400 men is now 20 odd.

    At this point (or way before in most cases) everyone playing gets fed up and walks over to them just so they can have a fight. Thats not strategy - thats letting the computer have a chance.

    Having played the previous games a lot and being a sick and twisted fan of Sun Tzus work, I'm amazed that a game like Shogun would have evolved into this.

    Also, from my studious reading of Heroditus : The Histories, I wanted to play as the Sythians in my campaign which I can't. Hopefully there will be an expansion pack or something.

    Thankfully, theres multiplayer - which makes the game worth buying for that alone. Also worth noting is that out of the games I am enjoying playing right now:

    Doom3,
    Dawn of War ,
    Rome:Total War,
    Counterstrike:Source

    This is the one I am playing the most (although GTAIII and Half Life 2 are definitely gonna get some playtime).

  • WoodenSpoon #66 7 years ago

    Well I'm enjoying it. So there.

  • UncleLou #67 7 years ago

    There are the apologists, and there are the whiners. Both factions annoy me at the same degree. Neither is the game perfect, nor is it an unplayable, buggy mess, not worthy of your money, as some posts on the TW forums (and yours here) want to make others believe.

    Do I wish it wouldn't have any bugs? You bet. Do I hope they fix them? Certainly. But did I have more fun with this game in the last few weeks than with any other game I have played this year? Yes.

    And to answer your question whether I've played it for more than half an hour: Yes, I've played it nearly every day since I got the US version 1 or 2 days after it was released, often for several hours. Longer than you then, I think.

    So, maybe, unlike you, I wasn't hyped up enough to be so massively disappointed. I feel sorry for you (and I mean that honestly) that you're not able to enjoy the game. Your loss. I don't feel cheated, or lied to, or whatever, because I enjoy the game. Do you get that? I enjoy the game. I hate it when people go on personal crusades against a developer because their overblown expectations haven't been fulfilled.

    On a sidenote, I had exactly one CTD in all these weeks, and that was probably my fault as I had a couple of other programs runing in the background. I am not saying people don't have CTDs, mind, but it's fortunately nothing that concerns me.

  • #68 7 years ago

    Agree to disagree .. what you do when you don't know what to do next. Or in this case, say.

  • UncleLou #69 7 years ago

    Right, Robnot, I am a bit tired of the mutual aggression.

    /serious discussion mode on

    I'd really be interested in hearing why you think Medieval had more depth. In my opinion, the campaign map of Rome offers more options, while getting rid of some of the more annoying micro-management aspects of Medieval. Chokepoints, real movement points, watchtowers etc. all add to the game, and the campaign map is connected to the battle maps much more. It feels less like two halves than Shogun and Medieval.

    The battles are a bit faster, but the gameplay is essentially the same.

    So, is it mainly the bugs that bother you? Or do you think the gameplay has been "dumbed down" from Medieval?

  • tyTY #70 7 years ago

    Better than age of mytholgy, but no creatures to whip ass with?

  • Mr_Sleep #71 7 years ago

    "can anyone advise me on how i can get a game manual for rome total war"

    As opposed to opening the packaging and pulling out the manual?

  • WoodenSpoon #72 7 years ago

    Start by fucking off.

  • Royal Fool #73 7 years ago

    Guh... shut up, you pirates. Asking about this stuff here really isn't the best thing to do. If you're really serious about getting yourselves this game for free you'll have to put in a bit more work. Or, alternatively, go to a nearby game store and grab a copy of this game to show your appreciation for it.

  • Aga #74 7 years ago

    And this game merits a purchase. It's that good!

  • Aga #75 7 years ago

    Power corrupts. I think we have an Alexander amongst our midsts.

  • UncleLou #76 7 years ago

    Why would you want to continue playing? If you've got 50 provinces, you're the strongest faction by far anyhow. Start a new campaign.

  • obscure #77 7 years ago

    I too would like to play beyond the 50 provinces limit but that is a minor niggle. The one thing I really hate is that there is no "time commanders" mode. I want to play historical battles but I want to be able to set the troops up the way I want, rather than have the rolling intro (with troops already set up) and then be thrown in.

  • renjith249 #78 10 months ago

    HAI,
    CAN I PLAY SAVED GAME WITH A NEW PATCH(1.3,1.5)