conquest23's Full Review: Rome: Total War for Windows
I had always been a big fan of Historical RTS games and Medieval: Total War so when Rome: Total War (RTW for short) came out it made perfect sense to buy it. I am certainly glad I did too.
Gameplay: RTW is a very deep game that isn't always straitforward. For instance it is an RTS (Real-Time strategy) game, but also has turn-based strategy as well. There are 3 different ways to play RTW. One way is quick battle or custom battle. Simply put, you select first how much money you will have to spend on troops and upgrades. Next you select your nation and the opposing one and the troops you want to fight with and the troops you want to fight against. You can also set who is defending and who is attacking. This is important in siege battles because who ever is defending is located inside the walls of the city and the attack tries to take over the city. You can set what kind of city it is as well (for example: the style of architechure, how big the walls are, and how big the city is). Lastly you click battle and you are on your way. If you are playing a standard game then who ever kills or makes all of the opponents' troops flee wins the battle. A siege battle can be won that way as well, but the attacker can also take over the city plaza and hold it for 2 minutes to win. The defender wins if: The same as a normal battle or if they hold off the attackers in the time alotted. There are also historical battles in the game. Each are historically accurate battles that are introduced by an opening cut scene. Winning these battles are no different from what I have already covered. In fact the only real difference is that two opposing forces and their troops have already been picked. All the player does is choose a side. The last type of gameplay is the campaign. It is quite long and complex so I will cover it seperatly.
As far as the realism in gameplay goes, RTW, gets a 10 out of 10. Troops aren't equipped with any magical items to make them unbeatable. In fact, if a peasant is able to get a hit off of an armored solider than the solider will die. This is very realistic because all troops can kill each other just some better than others. Gameplay in quick battles is run at a reasonable pace. Troops can't move across the whole map in a matter of seconds, but instead it takes quite a long time to march far distances. To some that is boring so RTW has an option to switch between pause, normal, 2x, and 3x the normal speeds. To those never played M:TW may get a bit frustrated at first with the camera controls because RTW uses unique perspectives that you can't get from any other RTS game. The interface is also different in the sense that each battalion of troops you have are located on unit cards at the bottom of the screen. This is because in RTW units are moved by battallion, not by individual units. This is because they are so many troops on the screen at any given time that one can not control them efficently that way. So if you click on a troop card you can control them or if you click on one unit all of the units in the batallion become controlable. Note that you can move as many batallions as you want at one time. You can even give a single command to your entire army.
Graphics: Wow. Just wow. This is what originally drew me to the Total War series. The graphics in RTW are the best in any RTS game that I have seen. It even is on my list for best graphics in any game. The massive amount of troops give the battles a true epic feel. The scenery is done wonderfully. The weather and time of day also look great. You can fight deep in the woods, in a fog at night. Or in a desert during a wind storm. Just everything about the graphics are well done. Walls crumble as rocks from siege weapons hurl down upon them. Siege weapons in turn begin to burn when fire arrows strike them slowly destroying their structure. Even the graphics on the campaign map have been heavily worked on since M:TW. The map is full of life and color. Rivers flowing into the ocean, merchants traveling on roads, and trees waving in the wind are just some of the amazing things on this 3-D map.
Sound: The sound track is different from M:TW, but definatly achieves the same affect. The style of music is unchanged which is a very good thing. The music simply adds more epic like qualities in battle and changes according to what is happening. The victory songs which are different depending on your nation also are creative.
The Campaign: The campaign in RTW is really unlike any other I have seen in any other game. You start off with desegnatated territories depending on which nation you chose and begin to try and become the superpower in Europe. If you are Rome you can also win by becoming emperor. Otherwise you can take over others by force, money, or by forging alliances and asking others to do your dirty work for you. In each territory you have there is a city (or town, or village, depending on size). That city can either make you money or force you into debt. You can control the city's taxes, what buildings they make, and what troops they recruit. It also gives you a slew of stats on the city itself. A lot of people can't be bothered with all of the tedious governing so they can simply let the computer do it, and instead control the armies and fight. Or the computer can fight and you can focus on governing. I prefer to do both, but its a personal perfrence. Units that are controlable on the map are troops, ambassadors, and assassins. When troops move into the close range of the enemy the two forces fight and is controled like an historical battle execpt that you can be your nation only and how ever many troops are in the group on the map are the groups you fight with. Ambassadors and assassins work the same way except ambassadors try to negosiate deals while assassins attempt to kill a target.
Overall: This is a great game that I would recommend for anyone I knew because it has a little something for everyone.
My other reviews at: http://g2reviews.blogspot.com/
PS: I would really appreciate any comments. Thanks!
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