Probably the best strategy game ever.
If you want a cool strategy game, you just found it!
Rome Total War is based in 270 BC, when the Romans started to expand their empire and take countrol of Europe. At first you can only play as the
three Roman familys, Julii, Brutii and Scipii (SPQR doesn't count) but when you beat the campagin you can then play as Greece, Carthage, Egypt,
The Sluicid Empire, Parthia, Britons, Gauls and Germans. When you finish the campagin you can choose to keep going or to quit and start a new game, and by the way its not easy to beat a campagin. You can build up your villages into towns, and then into minor citys, then bigger citys, then into a massive city! Bigger citys means bigger population... bigger populations means bigger sqaulor... its all gotta go somewhere...
So the bigger the sqaulor, the more unhappy the population, this can lead to riots and rebelions. One way the decrease the population is to recruit them into your army, (I know this is all very complicated) this costs money so you need to build farms and ports and other buildings that are good for trade.
You also have to look after the royal family, If the faction leader is killed then his son takes over, if all of the royals are killed then your faction is destroyed.
You also have to destroy the enemy faction by killing of royalty. And when you loose a royal in battle you actualy want revenge (unless its the fat playboy of an uncle who just died, in that case you wont be sad). You can adopt captains into your army who perform heroic deeds in battle and you can also let these heroes marry the your duaghters (but you only do this if they have good traits). If you let a man with good traits marry a duaghter then any babies they have get good traits when they grow up (dont worry when you proceed threw the campagin by pressing END TURN six months go past).
Now your suposed to expand yes??? Thats what the Romans did yes???
Now ill tell you about war and how to fight it with Rome Total War.
War breaks out if you get attacked. And you get attacked if you get to rich, get to weak, get to strong, get to big and so on.
If you get attacked you can retreat, Fight on the battle map, or you can automatically resolve the battle (by doing this you just press the button and a scroll instantly pops up saying who won).
Enough about the campagin for now, lets move on to the battles!!! YEA THATS WHAT YOU ALL WANT!!! First the General/Captain gives a speach to reassure his troops about the battle. Then you pick formations, place troops however you want (troops are sorted into units just in case you didnt know)
then you click "START BATTLE" dun dun dun... Then the party starts, the enemy army apears on the map and you have to kill or rout every single poor
soul. If you kill their general then routing them will be easyer but they can kill your general too. This is where the stretegy comes in. You also get two advisers to help you claim victory by giving you advise. If you win/loose the battle a scroll pops up and you can see from there how many troops you lost, how many troops you killed, and how many got away and so on.
When the battles over it takes you back to the campagin map. If you won the battle the enemy army retreats or gets destroyed. If you lost then that heppens to you instead you poor soul... You can also besiege settlements
and if you win you capture it. Then another scroll pops up (theres alot of scroll poping in this game) and you can choose to occupy the settlement, take half of the population away from their familys to make them your slaves, or and this is the sad part... You can slaughter three quarters of the population and mount them all on a cross...
The graphics in this game are alright but today their just outdated.
The most graphic thing in this game is the terrain.
How smart the A.I are??? that all depends on the dificulty, If its on easy then the A.I aint to smart, if its on medium then there harder, for example they flank you or wait for you to draw you into dificult terrain. If its on hard they act just like you and so on.
The soundtrack for this game is amazing!!! The music is good. When somone gets stabbed it makes different noises depending on how they get stabbed for example, if they get stabed but it doesnt kill them you hear a slice or a scrape on the armor or the thud of a shield blocking and they cry out in pain. If they get stabbed and it does kill them then you hear a gutt renchingly gory sound and the splatter of blood on the ground and they groun and colapse. If the fall of a wall or get knocked sky high by an elephant they scream until they it the floor,
then theres a splat and they stop screaming. When then march it sounds like theres and army of 1000 Romans marching past your house, the more troops
the more footsteps (but somtimes its out of synch with their feet hiting the floor). When the win a fight they cheer and again, the more people the louder it is.
So this game is awsome.
I think ive had is for two years and although i dont go on it as much as I did, I still think its awesome.
so i give it 10
MrTakeda