Rome: Total War

“I hate the Gauls. My grandfather hated the Gauls, even before they cut his eyes out.”

The Julii have good reason to hate the Gauls, and that reason rings through every fiber of their being. As the northernmost family charged by the Roman Senate with buffering the northern portion of Italy, it is the Julii, which are most susceptible to the attacks from the barbarian race.

And the Gauls are not only aggressive, but they are treacherous as well. An alliance means nothing to them.

Of the three families players can use in Rome: Total War, only the Brutii seem not to have enemies within walking/attacking distance. However, that shall not last long, for a passive approach is an open invitation to be attacked by someone.

Back in May, Activision and Creative Assembly hosted an editor’s day in Las Vegas to show off the multiplayer battle aspects of the PC title, Rome: Total War (http://www.gamezone.com/gzreviews/p21482.htm). Earlier this week, the call went out for editors to assemble in San Francisco to look at the single-play build of the title.

First, and foremost, the Creative Assembly engine is a marvel. It was picked up to portray historical battles on a British television station and recently the History Channel has adopted the engine for its battle recreations. That speaks of a graphics engine that is sound and delivers amazing battlefield renditions. Players can sweep along in the actual game battles, creating chokepoints, hiding units in environmental elements and then sweeping down on the flanks to take on weaker enemy units and demoralize the opposition. You can combine units, and the game engine reveals the massive battlefield, with all its textures (hills, pitted areas and such), as well as the thousands of troops assembled.

But if you are not one who likes the general position in a battle, you can allow the game to automatically decide the outcome of a battle.

This is a game that has so much depth and customization that any one – even those who are not familiar with the strategic genre – can find a style of play that fits them to a ‘T.’

The battles are real-time, while the game plays out in a turn-based way. The game also has elements of role-play attached to it. In the battles, everything plays out in real time. In the game, you make all your moves (and there is maximum unit movement per turn), move through your cities setting tax rates or building new structures to upgrade the town and make the citizenry happy or recruiting new military units and then end your turn. After your turn ends, all the other nations (like the Greeks, Corinthians, Gauls, Macedonians and such) take their turns. The word evolves even if you do nothing. Of course, everything is tied to money. You make money through taxation. The more cities/settlements you control, the more income you can gain. You can set up mines, develop other resources and set up trade to increase income.

Building a blacksmith shop increases your weapon levels. A port gives you a navy and in addition to sea battles and blockades, you also gain the ability to move troops faster.

The Julii have an uneasy truce with the Gauls of the towns to the north of Italy when the Roman Senate, in all its wisdom, decides that it wants you to take a town well to the south and across the water in Macedonia. Your ships move your troops in, and you lay siege to the town.

As with other battles, you can just attack the town, or starve out the residents. Other armies from the nation may move in to challenge you during the siege. If you fend them off successfully, and take the town, you have three choices what to do with its residents – you can occupy the town, enslave the population or exterminate it. Should you let them live, they may become productive for you, or they could riot.

There are three Roman houses you can start with: The Julii, the Brutii (which starts in southeastern Italy) and the Scipii (which starts along the west coast and holds territory on the northeast tip of Sicily). The role-playing elements come into play as you build your family, marrying your daughters or adopting worthy generals into the family tree. You can set the heir-apparent to rule the house, and children will grow up, others will die, and the family tree will evolve. Each of the members of the tree has inherent abilities as well – some may be skilled leaders while others may be skilled lay-abouts.

As the game starts, you have a couple of towns, some units and a region of Italy to work with. You will need to build up your economy and troop strength. The Senate will send you missions, and you have no choice but to accept them – whether you do them or not are another story. However, if you do not do them, you will not gain favor with the Senate, and a member of your house may not be appointed to it, even in a minor role.

But since the end-game involves marching on the Roman Senate, and taking it over and declaring yourself emperor, ignoring a few here and there does not seem to be a really big deal.

You can send diplomats to forge alliances, treaties and trade deals with other nations, or you can send in spies to evaluate their troop strength (spies can be caught and killed) or assassins to take out their leadership.

The game features four modes of play – Imperial Campaign (this is basically a free-form campaign mode), Historical Battle, Custom Battle and Quick Battle. There are four campaign difficulty levels (easy, medium, hard and very hard) and four levels for advice from the in-game advisor. The game has an auto-save feature, which saves your game after every turn. There is also the option for a short campaign and arcade-style battles.

The gameplay is seamless, and the AI is very good. Duplicity, backstabbing, and intrigue – it is all here and creates a rich tableau for gamers to immerse themselves in the action. Veterans of the genre will have no problems with the controls while rookies will find it a short learning curve. The control elements are somewhat intuitive and players will not bog down gameplay time trying to figure them out.

Graphically the game is very good, and the sound is magnificent. The musical score is superb and the voice acting is solid and fun at times. Listening to your Julii leader denounce those Carthaginian elephant-riders is amusing.

Playing this game almost nonstop for four hours yielded two things: first, this was an incredible joy to play, and second, the surface of the game was barely scratched. There are so many ways to play this game, from political manipulations to economic strangleholds to an all-out military campaign. And should you decide to play a faction, and restart for whatever reason, do not expect to receive the same Senate missions. The game may have some linear aspects, but the missions are random and widespread.

It was said once but bears repeating – Rome: Total War is a terrific game. This title should certainly be in the running for strategy title of the year, if not game of the year. Even those not familiar with the strategic genre should find this a wonderful introduction, and a statement of what is good and intriguing about the genre.