by John G - September 25, 2004

Yes, the new installment of Total War has arrived on store shelves. After opening it up, and waiting through a somewhat lengthy installation process, I was ready to dig into Rome: Total War. Basically it was everything I expected it to be, with some great enhancements and some good gameplay changes from previous games. Any strategy fan should enjoy Rome: Total War.

I came, I saw, I conquered.

As usual, there are two distinct areas of gameplay, campaign turn based strategy, and real time battles. The campaign mode has been upgraded tremendously from Medieval: Total War. The new campaign map is amazing. The new map gives many details about the terrain, like city names, bridge locations, rivers, mountains, valleys, diplomat�s locations, army locations and some other things. A change they did make though was getting rid of some things that were considered to have clogged the map in Medieval: Total War (example: princesses, ect.)

Learning the new aspects of the campaign mode shouldn�t be a problem, because you need to go through the tutorial section before going on to a normal campaign game. The freedom of movement experienced in Rome: Total War for your armies on the map is very nice. In Medieval: Total War, your armies could only stay in your own provinces. So if a group you wanted to attack was on the other side of an ally, you would have to attack your ally to get through (unless using boats), and that was annoying. This has been changed, and you can now move your armies a certain radius in one turn, each turn counts as six months.

Using boats to transport soldiers is similar to how it was before. If the army is close enough to the coast, and the boat is also, the men can be told to go into the fleet and off they go. Boats can only move a certain radius on the water as well, and when they get to a reasonable area of coastline, they can dump off the army that is on board, and they can do their job. A new feature is the ability to blockade ports of an enemy, or neutral faction. If you have a fleet close enough to their port, then the fleet can go over and blockade the port, which is a big impact on the faction�s income.

Speaking of factions, there are eleven playable factions within the Rome: Total War campaign mode, but at the start only the three roman ones can be used (Scipii, Julii, Brutii). To get the other non-roman factions, you must put in some effort. There is also the roman senate, but they are non-playable in the campaign mode, but they will affect you greatly. In multiplayer and custom battle sections, there are twenty useable factions. During campaign mode you will come across many of them as you conquer, including expected Gauls, Egyptians, Carthage, and more.

Like stated before, the senate effects your faction greatly. When playing the Roman campaign, as any of the three families, it will almost be a necessity to take and complete missions from the roman senate. These missions can vary from blockading an enemy port, to taking over a city in another province. Completing these missions gets you more recognition within the government, and sometimes some money. Failure to complete them usually means a little less respect. During the roman campaign, you will need to fight off enemies of Rome, while keeping an eye on your own brothers, the rival Roman families that you are competing with. Later in the campaign a civil war breaks out, that requires you to stomp out all your enemies within Rome.

The battle system is well done as well. When on the battle map, you can choose to fight out the battle, or simulate it, as in Medieval Total War. When getting to a city, you can choose to siege it, or assault it. After taking a city, you can choose to occupy them, enslave them, or slaughter them, which is a new feature seen in Rome. Occupying the city keeps it in tact, and you control it as your own. Enslaving them sends a portion of the population to your other areas to be used as labor. Killing them off is self-explanatory.

Once you get into the battle map, you will hear a brief speech, and then the ability to deploy your soldiers in the right spot will commence. Once you have set up your divisions to your liking, the battle can begin. Clicking and moving divisions is simple, choosing the division with a left click, and moving it with a right click. Different options for a division can be seen on the bottom right of the screen. This is where you will find your options to withdraw, fire at will, and whatever else. Telling a group to charge at the enemy is relatively simple. It only requires that you double click on the enemy division, and they will charge forward, with increased speed. This can be devastating, especially with elephants and horses, but works well with infantry too. Setting the divisions walking speed can also be toggled between running and walking.

For those who want to get right into the action, quick battle, custom battle, and historical battle modes are probably a good start. Quick battle mode sends you right into a battle with an army. Custom battle lets you choose the map, the AI players, and the units involved in the battle, or you can let the computer randomly select the units each player gets. Historical battles are just as it sounds; it allows you to play historic battles, based on real life ones. Multiplayer has two main options, a quick battle and a siege. Skirmishes in multiplayer are relatively quick, they are done on open land. Sieges last a bit longer, due to more strategy and movement being needed.

Man, those little dudes can FIGHT

If you didn�t notice by descriptions, or the screenshots, Rome: Total War has upgraded the visuals to a new level, due to an all new 3D graphics engine. It can support thousands of individually rendered 3D units on the map at once. For those who just barely have the requirements, and want the game to run as smooth as possible can set the graphic settings on low if necessary. There is an options screen for that, where you can set unit quality, shadows, and some other details. If you�re on the other end of the spectrum, then you can set all the options on high quality.

Getting thousands of men in campaign mode can be tough due to army upkeep, but it can easily be done in custom battles and multiplayer. Medieval: Total War only had castle sieges, and not much else. Rome brings some more variety of maps, including different types of towns, some with wooden walls, some with stone walls, and some with a lot less protection. The graphical effects in Rome: Total War are great. When horses or elephants charge, you get all the details, men flying the air, elephants charging through divisions, it is truly a good experience, all thanks to the new 3D engine, and a lot of hard work.

Those feisty Romans

Right off the bat, Rome: Total War�s music is beautiful. I guess it depends on each person�s opinion of music, but I thought it was extremely well done, some parts better than others, but it was wonderful overall. It added to the gameplay experience. The tempo of the game and the battles can be set with the music. The sound effects are also the best I have seen in a strategy game. Before battles, the leading general will give a small speech, and the men will get hyped up for the fighting. During battles, the sounds of men marching, swords clashing, walls crumbling, horses charging, arrows flying, and gates breaking will all be heard, and then some. The sounds add great things to the experience.

Rome wasn't built in a day

Rome: Total War goes into so much more depth than previous total war games. The whole family system is pretty much new. You get an option to view your family tree. Here you can see everyone, including the faction leader, his or her sons, wives, husbands, and relatives. It also gives their age, and each general and family member has their own strengths and weaknesses. Some can be better at battle, and worse at being a governor, or the other way around. Each has their own specialty as well. Even better, you can pick and change the heir to your faction. In Medieval, you had no control over the heir, but now you do. You will also be aware of marriages and other important family events, including deaths. Deaths can occur due to age, or falling in battle.

Spies and diplomats are useful servants to your family. Spies can be created, and then moved as if a normal army unit across the map. They can go to different cities and scout out what units are garrisoned there, and what buildings and defenses the city has. The diplomacy upgrades are nicely implemented. Instead of just being able to make allies and enemies, you can do so much more. Sending out a diplomat is relatively simple, and once they get to a city, they have many options. A new screen opens up, and you can propose many different things. You can offer an alliance, a ceasefire, trade agreements, military access, or even demand they give you tribute, or territory. Of course the opposite faction can accept or decline anything you offer.

Two other interesting options for diplomacy are the ability to gather map information, and the ability to ask one faction to attack another. Both of these features were absent in previous games. The new campaign map has a �fog of war� effect in it. You need to move around to see what is going on, but that adds to the fun of intelligence and what not. You can offer to give map information to other factions in return for money, or ask for map information from them. A diplomat can also pressure one faction to attack another, but this can be difficult to do. Asking for military access, demanding tribute, and asking them to attack another faction can all be challenging for a diplomat. Asking for trading rights and map information is less challenging.

Cities are needed to recruit units, and create buildings. Different buildings have different effects. Blacksmiths can upgrade weapons and armor, sewers can better the local population, as can different temples. Barracks, stables, and archery ranges can all allow for recruitment of new units. Each of the buildings has a more advanced version, meaning better units. Economy is also important, as you would imagine. The economy can be bettered in multiple ways. Creating roads and paved roads can improve trading, proposing a trading agreement would also help. Ports and markets/forums can bring in trading profit for you. Taxes will probably be one of the biggest sources of income, but you should also make sure your level of taxes do not upset the locals.

All of your economic decisions will lead to either profit, or debt. All of this can be viewed on another screen, which has expenses on one side, and profits on the other, and they will be calculated for your overall gain or loss. Unit and building creation will also go into this. When you make a building, the money comes out of your treasury immediately. Army upkeep will be a great expense, but a necessary one for any successful faction, who wants to expand and defend. A city can be upgraded, and can get larger and larger, depending on population. Governors are also appointed to these cities. Governors with the right skills can help a settlement, and make it more prosperous for you, or make it worse, depending on their specialty.

I thought ladders were for painting...

There are so many new innovations and great things to talk about in Rome: Total War, it is almost hard to fit them all in a review, so all the things not mentioned above will be discussed, and represented in the PlasmaFactor. You will be introduced to many interesting units in Rome: Total War, including war elephants, chariots, axemen, war dogs, and pigs. Yes, I said war dogs and pigs, each having their own strategic use. The replay value is quite good, especially if you do well with unlocking the other factions. Each roman faction (or other faction) starts out in a unique position, both ideologically and geographically. Each one has a variety of units as well, which you can see right away in custom battle mode.

There are a lot of things you can keep track of in campaign mode, Senatorial politics being one of them. There is a special section just for senate related things. One section you can view senate positions. If your liked enough, and have a talented family member, they will be chosen for a senate job when the current office holder expires. In another section you can see how well the senate and the people like you, and the two other roman families. This will be represented by little icons with your family logo, the more that are highlighted, the better they like you. It can be improved by doing missions and things that are good for Rome. Of course, the Senates opinion of you and the citizen�s opinion of you can be two very different things. If your uncertain how to act toward a certain faction, the senates view of that faction can be checked in the same screen, along with the current senate mission they gave you to complete, all in one convenient location.

Now for the good stuff. Sieges of course, what you all have been waiting for during this entire review, right? Well, sieges have been made much more entertaining than previous total war games. In Medieval total war, it basically involved you taking a catapult or trebuchet and blasting a hole into the wall, and then running into the breach with your soldiers to capture a castle. This time it takes more strategy and thinking. The attacker might have to test out for different weaknesses in the cities defense. One hindrance for the attacker is the defenders ability to place men along the wall. This can be useful for many different reasons. Archers can shoot at attackers who approach the wall, or you can set them up to have fire arrows, which are even more devastating, but less accurate.

Fear not, the attacker has many new toys to play with when trying to take a city. They can be put into the battle in different ways, depending on if your doing campaign or custom battle. In campaign mode these new siege instruments must be bought and constructed over one turn, or more. In a custom battle you can choose what ones you want, and they will be right in the battle when you start deployment. What are these new things you ask? Well there are a few. Siege rams are useful for bashing open enemy gates, and storming into the city. Then there are the expected catapults and other projectiles that can smash into buildings, towers, walls, and units. Just like how archers have their flaming arrows, some siege weapons can have fiery projectiles, if you set the option on. These are more devastating to the helpless defenders inside as you would suspect. Lastly are the two most entertaining siege tools of them all, the siege tower and the ladder. Soldiers push the siege towers, until they reach the wall, then the men move into the siege tower and upward. Then the ramp on the front of the tower opens up, and the men rush out onto the wall, and some good wall fighting action can ensue. Siege towers can be very vulnerable though when approaching a wall. Ladders are also carried by soldiers, and places up against the wall, and the climb the ladder and jump up onto the wall. This is less effective than the siege towers.

Art is long, life is short.

Rome: Total War can be classified as one of the greatest strategy experiences in all of gaming, and that is no exaggeration. The new graphics, the new visual effects, and the amazing music and sounds all add to one great game, the best of the total war series so far, and one of the best strategy games in recent time, period. This game has some of the best sieges seen in any game to date. The new units like war dogs, elephants, chariots, and barbarians all work well into the gameplay and battles. Armies being able to recruit mercenaries is also helpful. The map is probably the biggest achievement of Rome: Total War. The freedom of movement and detail on the map is simply amazing, and is one of the best seen in a strategy game.

The amount of depth put into Rome: Total War was well done by the creators. It adds a sense of politics and strategy to every turn you make. You can ask yourself questions like, �Who would make the best heir?� and �Should I attack this faction, the other, or both?�. Making economic decisions can also be fun. Deciding on tax levels can effect the local population. Creating markets and other buildings can add to profits. Blockading enemies can also work to your gain, and manipulating other factions can help you out. Or if you don�t like that type of stuff, you can trash it all and have the AI pick up the slack for you, while you command battles. There is plenty to dig into with Rome: Total War, and should not be a disappointment for any total war or strategy fan. It truly is a brilliant game. Mozart, Picasso, Creative Assembly, it makes perfect sense. Just like the Roman proverb at the top: Art is long, life is short. Rome: Total War is a sure hit.