First I need to say that if you are a big Age of Empires or Dawn of War fan this game is not going to feel the same. The mantra is not action, action, action. Its think, think, think. You need to carefully plan out your strategies to taking over the empire of Rome and this my fellow Roman, is not an wasy task. This game combines elements of your typical RTS with elements of the game Civ. You start out as the Faction Leader of a small province of Rome. You get orders from the Senate, make allies through use of diplomats, spy on allies and enemies alike, and of course enter into battle. Building armies, developing cities and technologies are all important. However, the most important and tricky aspect is managing your cities. This becomes harder and harder as you get more and more under you control. Leadership within your faction is extremely important so managing that family tree is crucial to maintaining control of your provinces, especially the ones far from your capital. So as you can see, there is a lot to do and after playing for a while it can be overwhelming. The good and the bad of the game centers around all of the features. I mean after all its not many RTS games that give you this kind of depth in managing every aspect of your faction. However, this can be a negative as your faction gets bigger and there is so much to control. The game offers up advisors to assist you in learning all of the tricks of the trade, but really you just need to play the game to get a feel for what to build and when, who to ally with and who to attack and when to ignore the Roman Senates orders. The battles are very well done and strategy tends to be the key. Even against overwhelming odds the presence of a good general and some key battle hardened troops can turn the tides in your favor. The one major problem I have with the battle system is the fact you can't replenish your troops between battles without traveling to one of your cities or marching another set of troops to your army. You can buy mercenaries, but they are awfully expensive. Another issue I have run across is that the system for seiges can be exploited very easily. When you seige a city the city can hold out for X number of days before surrendering. During that time the army in the city can come out to attack you to repel your invasion. You also have a timer during the battles that the attacker must win or lose within or else the battle is a draw. Sp, you can use your cavalry to just run around until the time limit runs out and cause a draw, however since the city is under seige they have to physically turn you away so draws are actually defeats for the city. Basically you run around with your cavalry, take a draw and do this until the seige counter goes to 0 and you take the city. Not a very Roman way to do battle I know, but its a hole in the seige system of the game. The graphics and sound in this game are beautiful. You do get a good sense of managing this huge empire in the map mode and the battles are cinematic in nature. There is a little slowdown with the mouse at times and the camera angles can be a little problematic in the heat of battle. However, presentation is not a problem for this game. Overall, this game has a lot of pluses and if you like to manage every aspect of a game this is the RTS for you. However, if you are more into Age of Empires or Warhammer Dawn of War you may want to steer clear of this game or atl east utilize the automanagement feature for all of your cities.
The folks at CA have certainy outdone themselves this time, to say the very least. They go from making great games to bloody near perfect one. Yeah, as far as I can see, Rome is perfect. You won't be noticing the AI prob... Read Full Review
Oh my..where should I start? I got all games in the ps3 and xbox (2010), and honestly..admit it or not..I just pretend to enjoy it...hmm.,finish the games..because I bought it. Then a friend of mine lend me this ga... Read Full Review
