Rome total war
 

I'm a little fed up with civ 3,it's just about been done to death after all it is about 4 years old.
I bought Rome total war for £25 on the net,this is unusual for me as I only ever play civ.
The game play borrows heavily from civ 3 (plagiarism?)but the battles are something else.I suspect that when civ 4 rears it's ugly head it will use the battles format from RTW.
All in all it is a very good game and I recommend it.There is a playable battle download out there somewhere to give one a taste.

Haven't taken the time to try it yet, but so far most reviews were very positive!

I seriously doubt any version of Civ will ever let you do battles yourself. It's not that kind of game.

Unlike battlefield: vietnam, which I'm currently playing. I saw something on RTW on television. It looked nice, but from a turn based game I want depth, complexity, not fancy graphics.

I don't think it borrows from civ, but more from Risk. The battles are awesome and THAT is the heart of the game. I only know Medieval: Total War and Shogun: Total War very well, but sadly the Turn Based part of the game was rather simple there. The battles weren't enough for me to put it next to CIVs greatness.

But...I did buy Rome: Total War and the first impression is....Wow, awesome. I don't have the time to play longer than one hour per night though...and I'm lost already. Which is a good thing :) A game shouldn't be to easy. I'm still waiting for a game with the debt of CIV and the battle scenes of Total War.

Shabba: Total War's battles aren't only fancy graphics!! You can totally control the soldiers on the field, you are actually fighting the battles yourself, using the terrain and weather conditions to your benefit.

I played a couple of battles online,yesterday.I haven't got the hang of controllng the units,as yet,but it's very entertaining.
You can play the turn based game without manually fighting the battles so that you can get an idea of the intracacies of the game.I agree that it's no civ3 but add in the battles and it is well worth while.

I played Medieval Total War..and found the game very very very long to play..infact i never completed it. In both Medieval and Rome Total war there are two modes..turn based where provincial orders and army movements are carried out. Provinical stuff included what units you want to build and what buildings you want to build...buildings improve your religous, economic, diplomatic and military potential in the game (i might have missed some not sure?) So for example with better miliraty buildings you can build better units. With a better economy you can support more units. You can build markets, temples, ship building. You can trade with other nations. You can spy and carry out activities to disrupt other nations. i.e bribes come to mind. You can join and split uints from armys, you can add or remove generals from armys.

You move your armies about the provinces and take over other provinces. At the end of the turn-based section battles could be resolved in real time. In real time you control what each unit in the army can do can do. Each unit has a certain level of valour(morale) and strength. Units my flee from battle if they are getting slaughtered, units my start to fight less well when tired. Units gains expereince and can take that into the next battle, making them less likely to retreat. Certain units have advantages over other units.

You nation also has generals which have skills that could include, economic skills, military skills or have religous favour (maybe others). So Some generals are good at running provinces and provide bonus to the province and some are better at leading your army and provide bonus to your army.

Now the main difference between Rome and Medieval Total war is that the turn-based section is supposed to be much more involved..i.e you can do more with diplomacy and trade. The graphics are much better as are the real time battles. Also new in ROME is that you may move into a certain part of a province to gain a terrain advantage in the real time battles.

I played the Demo of Rome Total War and it includes a real time battles tutorial. The battles seem much more realistic than Medieval. and the mechanics of it seem to be better. i.e in Medival iirc Spearman where good at defending against Cavalry but in Rome, a charging cavalry and run right through a spearman unit and send the units flying.

I think in both games you have the option to let the PC resolve the battles themselves, which leaves you to just play a pretty good strategy game (not on the same depth as civ i dont think). But real the main hype and pull of the game is the Real Time battle and the graphics that drive it.

From my experience from Medieval Total war is the turn based stuff was quite simple and quick to do. Real time battles could take me on average 30 mins to pan out. SO imagine if in 1 turn you have 6 battles to resolve...then 1 turn could take over 3 hours...which is exaustive stuff when you are highly focused on how your units are faring out in battle.

I want to buy Rome Total War..but dont have the money or the time at the moment...and i made a commitment to myself to finish Soldiers, Heroes of WW2 before i buy another game (Rome would be the top of my list)

That's a pretty good description of the game,Digger,and as I said I played on Gamespy yesterday,it was very well attended showing that the game is quite popular.
One thing that I don't understand is the compulsion to finish the game in reasonably short order.For myself I don't care how long it takes,the playing is the entertainment.I suspect that I'm in the minority in this view.

RTW is quite simply the best game there has ever been.

I play it on my crappy laptop on lowest specs and I can still play out the real time battles.

I think the best bit of the game is buyilding up your family tree and your new governers pick up odd traits.

2 of the best I've seen are
Hopelessly Profane - This man cannot utter a single sentence without including the worst of profanities. +20% popularity with the people, -10% popularity with the senate. +5 morale with your troops once fighting.

Minion - This man is well know as a servile curr and regularly submits to the amourous advances of other men. -1 influence.

Fantastic game. Can only start playing as one of the 3 roman families but every nation you wipe out in a game (or is wiped out whilst you are at war with them) becomes another nation you can start the game with.

Might start with Carthage next. They gots Elephants [charge]

Melifluous

RTW is excellent. I also play on my crappy desktop. The battles are cool, 1000+ men each in 3D - and seige battles are so so cool... walls, rams, towers, ladders, drool...
Campaign map is now 3d too, so you get point to point movement complete with ambushing armies etc. It's a beautiful blend of turn-based strategy and real-time tactical battles.


Meli, you can easily unlock all the factions from the start. iirc its in desc_strat.txt, anyhows its easy. You can grab a modified file from twcenter.net.

If you want to play Carthage I recomend you d/l the Total Realism mod too - it gives them access to a bunch more troops than the vanilla game. Also balances the troops a little to make cav less powerful blah blah blah - it makes the battles longer and more fun anyway.

Elephants are evil, I just had a battle where 6 cohorts of my finest veteran legionnaires were decimated by 2 troops of elephants. nasty.

Overall it probably has less strategic depth than civ3, but has atmosphere x10. And the battles are so much fun, it hurts, but in a good way. Still no campaign multiplayer though... which is just criminal. grrrr.

Started a game as Carthage after my game as the Romans as I couldn't face waiting for my next batch of family members to reach the front line so that I could take more German cities. It does seem that on medium difficulty level the battles are far too easy. After this game as Carthage I'll probably increase the battle difficulty level but not the campaign difficulty as I don't really want too many rebellions.

In my first major battle 20 elephants won the battle for me even though my general had routed and we were facing a roughly even force.