Rome: Total War Gold Edition

List Price: $19.99 Discount Price: $9.49

Features:

• Up to 10,000 men on screen at once are yours to command
• A century-spanning campaign the charges players with managing the economic, civil, religious and military arms of their empire
• Unprecedented scale and detail make Rome: Total War one of the definitive historical war game

Accessories:
Rome: Total War - Barbarian Invasion (Prima Official Game Guide)	PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

Excellent game even today [Posted on 2007-12-27]
I really enjoyed Medieval Total War and love the period of classical Roman history so this game seemed like a perfect fit. And it does deserve much of the praise it gets on this forum. For some background, I haven't even played the expansion because the original is so good (and seeing the Roman empire fall and helping barbarians rise to inaugurate the Dark Ages seems like I'm doing an historical disservice!).

What I have to remark on first is the incredible look of the cities. I am telling you the truth, you will hardly be able to tell that you are not looking at the actual ancient city (assuming you have a good quality system). Most other games will show the cities as small with a couple representative structures and that's about it. This game has huge cities with long winding roads, tall imposing structures (that realistically can block arrows and catapult shots), huge imposing walls, and vast blocks of insulae (apartment buildings) that I think would be about right for the historical number of inhabitants in these ancient cities. On a sidenote, in the strategic gameplay, the population of cities is grossly understated, but at least the city appearances are realistic.

The terrains are also very detailed and appear quite realistic. It literally feels like you're stepping on another continent when you engage hostile forces in Africa or the other locales.

The number of forces and the strategic complexity of the battles is also second to none. You position your forces for battle and see the opposing chariots or archers or whatever rushing at you and you feel like you're watching a History Channel documentary. The sheer size of armies, even on the reduced setting most people will probably use, also adds to the sense of realism.

Conquering and defending cities is also quite enjoyable, as you can use the gigantic nature of the city to run anywhere in it you choose and can make choke points about anywhere (preferably at the walls). You have to be careful when attacking, inching forward gradually so you don't expose an isolated unit to the combined forces of the enemy, and being sure to protect your flanks.

There are a few small complaints I have.

I wish the soldier actions were more realistic and varied. You can see them not actually making contact with their swords when they get close in battle. And most of the forces look like they're at a Teamster meeting, standing around in lines waiting for the soldier in front of them to die so they can start halfheartedly hacking away at the enemy. However with the number of soldiers involved I can understand why this would need to be limited.

The automated city defenses also are a little lame, especially for smaller sized cities.

The AI is pretty stupid as well so you're not likely to get much of a challenge out of playing the Roman factions. But you can unlock the others by beating a Roman faction campaign (or getting the hack from the Internet).

When elephants run amok they seem to be a little too random and a little too low in energy.

There seems to be a negligible benefit from building more advanced Roman swordsmen after the legionary cohort (in fact with the hugely increased maintenance costs it really makes more sense to build only legionary cohorts). Historically the power of the legion rested with the fluid 3 tiered hastati-principe-triarii formation, and it would have been nice to see that in this game, rather than swordsmen simply hacking away until death for all units of all technologies.

In spite of these deficiencies, I definitely would recommend this game to any strategy and/or history game afficionado.

Fast delivery. A must have for the game strategist. [Posted on 2007-12-29]
This is a turn based game were the player captures cities on a map of ancient Europe. Player must manage the economics of each city that is owned, by building structures and taxing the citizens. Military units must be created on the genre of ancient Roman times for the defense of cities and expansion of the players empire. The highlight of this game is the management of unit formations on the battlefield. Players can choose to manage units on the battlefield or let the computer automatically calculate the results. Player management is best when the odds are equal to high against success.

Excellent game with modest system requirements [Posted on 2008-01-12]
I bought Medieval II: Total War, which is a great game but won't run on my laptop. I then tried Medieval: Total War, but it was a little too outdated and somewhat simplistic. Rome: Total war has almost all of the great features of version II, but will run on older machines. It's quite fun, with a lot of historical information as well.

A brilliant, epic strategy game with a few bugs [Posted on 2008-02-17]
Rome: Total War is one of the most immersing and enjoyable strategy games I have played. There are numerous troop types, realistic tactical strategies, and generals that earn experience and traits as they win. Though the focus is on warfare, there is also an extensive diplomacy system that includes such things as trade rights, alliances, military access, and more.
However, despite these things, Rome: Total War suffers from several bugs. For example, you will not be able to play the original Rome: Total War if you install Barbarian Invasion. If you wish to play the original once the expansion was been installed, you must uninstall both and reinstall Rome. There are also numerous little bugs that have popped up during game play - though non so serious that they truly hinder the play or enjoyment of the game. Actually, some of the bugs have a comical effect, such as having a building displayed called "The Awesome Horse Temple" (needless to say Horse was not one of the ancient gods).
All in all, Rome is a game that is very enjoyable and offers realistic strategies and tactics while also educating you in the culture and advances made from around 300 B.C. to the first century.

It was okay. Watch the hype [Posted on 2008-04-06]
This review speaks to both Rome and Barbarian Invasion. There are some differences, but the gameplay is essentially the same.

I'm a long time fan of strategy war games going all the way back to the first Strategic Conquest game by Delta Tao. I love every flavor of Civilization, from Sid Meier's to Stardock, and games like Stronghold. So, I was looking forward to playing Rome because I thought it had elements of all of those classics. And it does. You have to build and maintain cities, raise armies and duke it out on the battlefield.

But it just didn't grab me. Not in the way those other games did. For one thing, I never could figure out what made one city a happy cash cow and another city a money pit full of pissed off plebes. It seemed to have more to do with population than with infrastructure or tax rates (certain buildings give moral bonuses; higher tax rates make people unhappy). It just seemed kind of random. The only way to conquer a city and not have a riot on your hands for ten terms seemed to be to enslave the population or exterminate them. Me, I don't even like to step on a Sim Ant when I can avoid it.

I played Rome: Total War through one time as the Romans and Barbarian Invasion through three times; once as the Saxons, once as the Romans and once as the Horde...actually I never finished the Horde game. I was just over it by that point.

So, as with most games, it's going depend on what the player enjoys and the sort of game they like to play as to whether or not Rome is for you. By this point, the game is old enough where you can find it fairly cheap on E-bay or Amazon, so it's worth checking out. I think part of my problem was reading all these rave reviews, I had big expectations that weren't quite satisfied. Hope you get more out of it.

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