The large Imperial campaign centers on your quest to rule Rome. You begin as one of three factions, the Julii, the Bruti or the Scipii. All three are allied with each other and the non-playable SPQR faction, representing Rome itself. (For you non-Latin types, SPQR stands for Senatus Populusque Romanus, the Senate and People of Rome.) All four groups are initially allied with each other but, as the three playable factions develop, they will eventually come into conflict as they try to take command of Rome itself. Hopefully you'll have built up lots of support in terms of territories and public favor by the time this civil war breaks out.
The large campaign is clearly designed for hardcore fans and, as with the campaign in Medieval: Total War, it can be pretty daunting for more casual gamers. Thankfully, Rome: Total War includes a shorter campaign that you can finish in a day or two. You simply pick any of the game's factions and set out to conquer 15 territories and eliminate two of that faction's historic rivals. The Scipii must eliminate Carthage and Numidia, for instance, whereas the Greeks must take out the Thracians and Macedonians. The Senate will also give Roman factions key missions throughout the game. This is a great way to get a complete, focused experience without having to dive into a massive world-conquering campaign. At the end of the shorter campaign the game allows you the option to keep playing.
If you want an even shorter fix, there are a handful of historical battles from the definitive pyrrhic victory at Asculum to the pyrrhic defeat of Varro's legions at the Teutoberger Wald. A variety of custom battles can be created as well if you just need a quick tactical fix.
The campaign starts off with a specific introduction for each faction and gives you enough troops at the beginning that you can start invading your neighbors right away. The campaign map is much, much better than in previous Total War titles. Rather than looking like a board game, the campaign map in Rome: Total War looks very realistic. Geographic features are rendered in great detail and the features themselves have strategic importance.
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While moving overland your armies will have a distinct movement allowance. The series used to allow you simply to move from province to province as in Risk. Now you'll actually occupy distinct areas within the provinces. This means that multiple hostile armies can be in the same province without necessarily coming to blows. This also means that you can position your armies at key mountain passes or river crossings to deny your enemy's freedom of movement. You can also position your troops in dense forests and ambush any passing enemies. In an ambush, the surprised army must start the battle in column formation. This new approach makes maneuvering a lot more important than it was in previous Total War games.
Ownership of a province is determined by control of the single city that lies within it. Capturing and defending these cities are the main goals of your armies not least of which because they're also pretty much the only way to get new armies. Consequently, city fights make up a large percentage of the battles. Rather than merely assaulting walls around a central keep as in the previous game, this time around you'll be fighting in the streets of a fully rendered town.
If you have enough time, you can opt to starve the defenders out. Turn to turn you'll lower the morale of those inside, leaving them less capable of sallying forth and breaking the siege. If you're impatient, like me, you can build up a number of siege machines, from rams used to bash down gates to siege towers which let you place your units up on the walls, before leading an assault on the defenders.
Once you get inside you'll either want to destroy the enemy army or take control of the town center away from them. You'll need to be careful not to damage too much of the city during the fight though as you'll need to repair any walls or essential structures once you take control. Having won control of the town you can opt to leave the people where they are, ship them off to boost the population of your surrounding colonies or simply murder them all and start fresh. If you murder them, you get much more loot and much less chance of civil resistance in successive turns. The only real penalty to this approach is that new units and replacements are drawn from the population. If you don't have a very large city, you won't be able to build lots of units.
Having played the other games in the series extensively, I can safely say that, though this one is more complicated, it's also easier to approach. A fantastic tutorial walks you through the basics of the game and a handy advisor system is available to remind you of key points once you move on to the campaign. There are also numerous panels that describe what each building or unit does in the game.
While Medieval: Total War emphasized your family members as generals and brides-to-be, Rome: Total War takes things a step further. Each of your settlements requires a governor in residence and, unless that governor is a member of your family, you can't select which units and structures are built. You can select a broad priority for the non-family governors but they'll be able to build and recruit according to what they think is best within the rather general topics of military or economic development.
Each family member (well, the males at least) will be rated in terms of their ability to lead troops and manage settlements. They'll also be awarded an ever-expanding cadre of followers who grant additional bonuses. You can move these followers from one family member to another. If, for instance, a follower in your retinue grants a bonus in combat, you'll likely want him to be in the field rather than sitting in a city somewhere.
There are some weak points in this family dynamic. For one thing an aggressive player is going to expand more quickly than his family will. While not having enough governors for your entire empire is an excellent limiting factor for the game, transporting those you do have from one place to another is a real pain in the ass. You should just be able to make the appointment and let the game handle the details. After all, I'm not interested in playing Rome: Total Ferry Boat.
It also seems odd that all the children born into your family appear at your faction's capital. When old Felix, who's been stationed in Egypt for ten years, suddenly finds out his wife's given birth to a son in Italy, embarrassing questions are bound to come up. Admittedly, this isn't a crucial point but, well, that's only because I'm not Felix.
The only other problem with this family issue (and one that compounds the other weaknesses) is that the development of your family is entirely out of your hands. Aside from setting a faction heir (which, to be honest, has little effect on the game), everything that happens to your family comes about as a result of blind chance. At least in Medieval you could send your daughters out and request marriages. Here you can't even encourage your family members to get married or have kids by placing them in settlements.
As satisfying as all this empire management business is, the tactical battles are where the real fun starts. The scale of the battles is immense. Not only have the maps been enlarged but you can now have armies with up to 20 units in them. Since each of the factions has a unique army list and a preference for certain types of troops, there's lots and lots of variety here. Things even change over time; at a somewhat random point in the game, the Roman army is reformed by Marius and Roman players will even get access to a new set of standard bearers which improve the morale of nearby troops.
Half of the success in a tactical battle is finding the unit match ups that work in your favor. While the basic tactic of fixing your enemy with infantry while your archers rain arrows down on them and your cavalry comes around the flanks works well, you'll find that certain types of cavalry or infantry or ranged units are better used against specific enemies. Given that there are hundreds of units here, there are plenty of tactical options to explore.
The other half of your success will come in being able to maneuver your troops against the enemy. Again, the basic principle of defeating portions of your enemy's army bit by bit holds here. You'll find that the game's AI is much better at finding the right unit match ups than it is at outmaneuvering you. The AI is very good at using a unit's special abilities. Whether it's the hoplites' dense phalanx formation or the Legionnaries' impenetrable Testudo, the AI triggers these options as needed.
The formation controls are occasionally a bit buggy, particularly if you're grouping units that are far away from each other but, for the most part, this is only a minor annoyance and one that usually only takes a few extra clicks of the mouse to set right. On that topic, unit selection is handled by the left mouse button and movement orders are now given by the right mouse button. This eliminates the problem in Medieval: Total War where you would issue a move order too close to another friendly unit and wind up selecting the new unit instead.
Though your armies, when led by a member of your family, can construct temporary forts and sight-extending watchtowers, given the state of the Roman army, I'd have expected them to be able to undertake more construction projects. Even if you don't allow for armies to add their labor to the nearest town, I'd still like to see stationary armies improve the roads in whatever province they're located in. Admittedly, this would give a larger advantage to the Roman factions but, hey, history isn't fair.
Though the focus is on combat units, there are other significant land units available for your use. Spies can be used to scout out areas hidden by the fog of war or to infiltrate an enemy town and open the gates for your approaching armies. Spies also serve to frustrate similar efforts on the part of your enemies. Assassins can be hired to take out enemy generals or sabotage buildings in enemy-held towns.
Diplomats have fewer uses that either of those other two units. In fact, diplomats are only really useful for opening up negotiations with other factions. Still, this is such an important role that you'll want to have a handful of diplomats available throughout the game if only to give you the initiative when it comes to proposing peace or forging alliances. The options here mirror those of Civilization: you can make demands for cash or territorial tributes and the other party can offer a counter proposal if they find your terms hard to swallow.
Given that the map is centered on the Mediterranean the naval aspect of the game is very important. Settlements with harbors can benefit from additional trade and, as with the land routes, you'll see goods moving along the trade links between your cities. Harbors also allow you to build ships which are useful for both blockading enemy ports and transporting armies over the water.
The biremes and triremes in the game are also capable of engaging in combat. Though your fleet admirals will have their own command ratings and abilities, sea combat is instantly resolved by the game's AI. Since the meat of the game is centered on land combat, I'm not terribly disappointed that you can't get involved in the tactics of naval combat but it still might have been nice to at least have some control over the aggressiveness of your commanders. Most ship battles are fairly indecisive anyway resulting in retreats much more often than sinkings.
Though you can see the beauty of the environments in the screenshots, the most significant benefit of the graphical improvements is that you can actually get down to the level of your units and watch the fights from the perspective of the soldiers. Compared to the sprites of the previous games, the new 3D models are a revelation. Seeing the attention to detail paid to each of the unit types really makes you appreciate the amount of work that's gone into this game. The plaid pants on the German spearman, the rivets on the Legionnaire's armor, the crests on a hoplite's helmet -- the details here are well beyond the standard for the genre.
Watching the units move around makes it even better. The range of animations, both at rest and in battle, brings these models to life in a way I hadn't expected. When you see a group of infantry charge into one another and start swinging swords around, well, it's hard not to get wrapped up in this local scene and forget, if only for a second, that there's an entire battle raging all around you. Your cue will likely come when a rain of fiery arrows comes sailing into your formation from somewhere off screen.
What makes the difference is that the units here really do seem to be fighting each other. The connections might not be exactly right all the time and there are occasionally a few loafers looking the wrong way while their buddies are being killed, but the overall impression that the battle between armies is made up of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of individual combats is a big part of what makes this game so compelling.
And though I'm running out of superlatives here, I have to say a few words on the subject of sound. Sound is one aspect of game design that if done adequately merely fades into the background, and sometimes it takes the importance of overall sound design with it. When the sound in a strategy game is merely "good enough," you fail to appreciate just how much of an effect exceptional sound design can be. Rome: Total War reminds us that the assaults playing out on the monitor in front of us can really only seem real to us if there's a corresponding assault on our ears as well. Rome: Total War delivers that.
When you zoom in and hear the sound of a unit of spearmen tromping across a wooden bridge, you'll begin to get a sense of how much sound can add to the experience. When you hear 500 hoplite soldiers marching in unison, you'll swear you can actually hear the sound of a thousand boots stomping across the plains. The "thwock" of arrow fire, or the crash as an elephant is felled or the dull sound of battering rams thudding into wooden gates -- all of these elements heighten the realism and excitement of the battles.
The voice work is great too. From the simple cheers let out by your victorious units to the full on battle cry of those crazy German ladies, the sounds of your men on the battlefield add a lot of life to the conflicts. Your own general will even give a surprisingly fitting speech as a prelude to each battle. There are also small commentaries voiced now and then, like when a general is killed or starts to run away. This bit of color commentary fits right in to the style of the game.
Moving beyond the realm of actual battlefield sounds, the music is also fantastic. Now this is obviously a much more subjective kind of judgment than I had for the sound effects, but the music here has that cinematic, epic quality that serves the action well. The martial music kicks into high gear at key points in the game, giving it an even stronger connection to the action on the screen. Once the battle is joined, the music swells and if your heart doesn't start racing as a result, you might want to check to see if it's even working at all.
Though the campaign and skirmish modes offer lots and lots of fun, the real tactical challenge is found in the multiplayer battles. While there's no online version of the larger campaign game, with support for up to eight players in solo or team-based formats, Rome: Total War offers a wide range of experiences. When you consider that the number of factions you can choose from, there's a seemingly inexhaustible variety of match-ups.
There are also a variety of locales and conditions for the battles. You can assault the city of Rome itself in the freezing rain, or battle across ancient ruins in the scorching Greek sun. I've played through a few matches against some of the Activision guys already (my one glorious win more than making up for the shameful massacre I would later suffer at their hands), and the overall experience was very stable and convenient.
This is such a huge game that we can't possibly explore every aspect of it and there are many more secrets to be uncovered, from plague quarantines to wonders of the world to the Senate office elections. We'll leave those for you to discover amid all the other delights that Rome: Total War has to offer.
