Nemesis of the Roman Empire Preview

From 264 to 241 B.C., the Roman Empire was embroiled in a war that came to be known as the Punic Wars. It was a time of transition, when the Senate in Rome challenge Carthage – then the greatest power in the ancient world.

Eventually Rome saw its biggest hope lay in a direct attack on the city of Carthage itself. The strategy was designed to bring the Carthaginians to their knees, but a general of Carthage saw the attack as a greater opening for a direct attack on Rome.

Assembling an army of mercenaries and war elephants, Hannibal led his army through the Alps in a march that became legendary.

This is the time frame for Haemimont Game’s PC title Nemesis of the Roman Empire. This strategy title places the gameplayer in control a young military leader, and challenges players to battle against invading or occupying armies, or to invade and occupy.

GameZone.com was invited into this for a preview of the forthcoming title.

The game features four playable races: the Romans, Carthaginians, Iberians and Gauls. You are given a set of circumstances, or a mission statement, and then attach companies to your hero to set about the task. Players can attach up to 50 units to a hero. The drawback, though, is that should you individually select a group within the attached company, they will detach from the main body, and you have to control them individually unless you re-attach them to the hero.

The mapboard is embraced by the fog of war, and the camera is position above the world and fixed. You can scroll about the world using the mouse cursor against the sides of the visible map, or hit the map bar and click to settle into that area of the world. These maps look rather large on the map overview, but traveling from one place to another does not take that long.

The game has a tutorial, an adventure mode, single-player campaign, multiplayer and map editor features. While the interface has a look that is somewhat elementary, it does a solid job of relaying the information and getting players directly into the gist of the game. This beta came without a manual and yet most of this was very intuitive.

The game does employ siege units, and other structures unique to each race, and there are two resources to manage- food and gold. A hungry army is ineffective. You can also transport troops via ship and fight sea battles.

The gameplay is relatively simple. You select units and move them. You talk to NPCs (non-playing characters) by clicking on them and you attack by clicking on enemies. Once a fight is engaged, the game’s AI carries out the combat.

The graphics of this game are solid. The environments are well detailed and the animations run very smoothly.

Nemesis of the Roman Empires is a title that will draw players because of the time setting. This game really does not offer much new or different to the RTS genre, but does have some simplified control elements which will certainly appeal to players new to the genre.