Rome: Total War

"The sequel we've been waiting for"

Rome: Total War, just like the other games in the Total War series, is an entity unto itself. It is certainly not for everyone, but to those who enjoy the strategy genre it is without equal. To best describe what it is that makes Rome the wonderful game that it is, it is best to view it as two games that work together to create the whole experience and view them separately: the campaign mode, and battle mode.

Campaign Mode

The primary portion of the game takes place in an overworld map of Europe, northern Africa, and Asia Minor. However, it goes beyond being a mere political map, but rather reconstructs the entire area in full 3D, including rivers, mountains, and other land features. In this map, you move and station your troops, recruit new units, construct buildings, manage taxes, and to whatever other tasks are necessary for the construction of your empire. Its graphics are fantastic, with small details such as caravans on your trade routes and the storms passing at sea fully realizing just how detailed the game is.

In terms of gameplay, there are two main paths to take: you can choose to leave everything up to governors that are appointed by the computer, or you can micromanage everything yourself. The first option works well enough for those who don't want to bother much with the campaign map and get to the battle mode, allowing you to universally have taxes controlled and choose specific building and recruiting patterns for each city based upon your needs. If you choose to micromanage, it can prove to be no small task. Public Order, population growth, and income are all broken down into various variables, each of which can be manipulated through garrisons, the size of the population itself, what buildings you have, how many units are being recruited....the list goes on. Additionally, some of the problems, such as squalor, are rather difficult to get rid of, and can be VERY detrimental to public order.

One change from Medieval, in terms of city management, is the requirement that a family member be in a city in order to directly set the tax rate. Governors can only be generals, who in turn can only be members of your family. Exceptional captains can be adopted, and men can be married into your faction, but if it happens that your line tends to be sterile....well, you're out of luck.

The use of ships in Rome is much more important than it was in previous games, with blockades being useful for cutting off an economy, and with ship battles being far more numerous than they were in Medieval. Having a strong navy is a requirement to success throughout the game.

Gameplay-wise, the movement of troops is handled MUCH better than it was in the previous games, allowing for stationing of troops nigh on anywhere on the map. Additionally, special units such as diplomats and spies are far more useful than they were previously. You can learn about what structures are in a city with a spy, then allow an assassin to sabotage a building to deprive an enemy (or ally, as the case may be) of its benefits. Your diplomats can open trade treaties, demand tribute, work alliances, request aid, or do any other number of treaties.

The final major point of the campaign map, at least if you're playing a Roman faction, is the Senate. The Senate will almost constantly issue missions for your faction to carry out within a set amount of time. These almost always involve blockading a port or conquering a city. Typically they coincide with actions that you are carrying out, but occasionally the will of the Senate may demand that you go to war with an ally. The choice of whether to obey or not are still up to you, but it is also necessary to keep the Senate pleased.

As a last note, I feel it necessary to bring up the sound in this portion. The sounds of your units responding to their orders gets repetitive without ever becoming annoying, but the background music is quite short for how much time you spend on the map. The loop occurs frequently, and while the music itself is pleasant, hearing the same theme over and over can become distracting. I would say the sound is the weakest portion for this section.

The campaign mode may take some time to get used to for fans of the series, simply because it's been given a complete overhaul. Ultimately, the changes are almost universally for the better, and any new person to the series will find themselves pleasantly pleased with how much there is to do.

Breakdown:
Graphics: 10
Gameplay: 9
Sound: 7

Now for the second part of the game: the battles.

Battle Mode

While this part of the game is technically optional when playing an Imperial Campaign, you would be cheating yourself if you did not experience this portion of the series. In battle mode, you can fight any of the battles in the game on a massive 3D playing field, with thousands of units at your disposal moving in formation unleashing carnage upon your enemies. Always a staple of the Total War series, it makes the transition to having fully polygonal units in this version of the game, making the graphical representation of the battle utterly gorgeous.

Additionally, the sound in this portion is arguably its strongest asset, unlike the campaign map. The sound of the units marching and charging into battle, the commands shouted by the unit leaders, the shouts of men dying, the sound of the walls falling before a catapult....it simply makes an experience unlike any other.

The weakest portion of the battle mode from the previous Total War games were easily the siege battles where one army was attempting to take a city from another. This has actually become the most entertaining to play, simply because the cities themselves add so much to the battles. Charging down streets, sending troops down alleys to ambush an enemy, storming multiple places on the walls at once...the possibilities are endless.

However, with the good comes the bad. Occasionally, I find that units have difficulty responding to my orders inside of cities and when trying to cross bridges. If you make a mistake, it's easy to suddenly have your entire army wiped out by an equally matched foe. But the amount of time that one can pour into these sorts of battles boggles the mind, simply because the possibilities of what units you can have, what maps there are, where your units are initially positioned, and how many factions are available are a nearly infinite combination.

In addition to the battle mode as part of the campaign, historical battles are available where you can play a single map without the trouble of messing with the campaign mode. For those who want to sit down for an hour or so and not work towards any lofty goal, this selection is probably for you.

Breakdown:
Graphics: 10
Gameplay: 8
Sound: 10

Ultimately, this is quite possibly my favorite PC game of all time. However, like all games, it does have its flaws and therefore does not -quite- earn a 10. To fans of the series, it's the sequel that we've all been looking for, and to those who would be new to the series, I suggest picking up Medieval or Shogun from a bargain bin first. It takes a unique sort of person to adhere to the duality of a turn-based and real-time based strategy game, but if you find it's to your liking, make sure to pick up Rome and see what potential truly exists for this sort of game.

Final breakdown (not an average):
Graphics: 10
Gameplay: 9
Sound: 8
Value: 10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/01/04, Updated 10/01/04