Europa Universalis: Rome

List Price: $39.99 Discount Price: $25.99

Features:

• Fully 3D map with integrated graphics and detailed topography, start at any date between 280 B.C. and 27 B.C.
• Choose between 10 different cultures, including the Roman, Celtic, Greek and Egyptian civilzations

Customer Reviews:

Well Done [Posted on 2008-06-24]
Being a fan of Europa Universalis III, I naturally found this game appealing. Here are my thoughts:

The good
1. Large amount of depth from managing family tree and characters in your empire - from throwing celebratory triumphs for characters whose loyalty is wavering to assassinating enemies of your king, from carefully deciding which characters to honor with a governorship to deciding how to deal with a general/governor who will no longer obey your commands (although not yet in open revolt) - this is a wonderful addition!
2. Troop loyalty: troops get more loyal to generals they fight under; the more battles they have the faster they become loyal to their general. This is yet another reason to carefully watch, punish, and reward characters within your empire.
3. Barbarians spawning from unoccupied areas based on the size of the barbarian presence in that area. While this may get irritating after a while, I like that you can always send a large army through and clean out the barbarian populations (although they slowly regrow, which makes sense) to prevent most barbarian raids from happening.
4. Colonization is much slower than in EU3 but much more sensible.
5. Added level of resource depth- you now need certain resources to build certain troops (elephants and heavy infantry, for example). That being said, all resources offer some level of benefits to the territories that possess them or trade for them.
6. Technology tree improvements: making technological 'discoveries' is now based on chance and your particular tech level, which increases with more competent characters being assigned to research, rather than a guaranteed "get 558 research points and you will receive technologies a, b, & c"

The bad
1. Slower gameplay overall as there are fewer major wars and conflicts.


The addition of a family tree and managing friends/enemies of important characters in your empire is very enjoyable. Having to deal with all the issues surrounding character competence and, ahem, loyalty, adds some spice to the gameplay. Moreover, sending characters from your empire on diplomatic missions (rather than being limited by generic 'diplomats')gives a little more depth to the gameplay... On the whole, although the game speed is slower than in EU3 (ie. fewer wars, less action) I have found there to be significantly more depth and I would recommend purchasing this game.

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