In game Rome: Total War you'll play as 3 Roman families which are
supposed to expand its borders and make it a glorious empire. As you'll
play you'll receive mission from the senate in Rome to take over
cities, blockade a port, or reason with another faction to do
something. You will have allies with you in the game which are SPQR
(the senate), and the other families which are the Brutii, the Scipii,
and the Juilii families. But later in the game they will turn against
you in a civil war to dominate Rome. LAter in the game as you crush
enemies you can unlock some of them and play with them in the Imperial
campaign. The game also has other modes like custom battles (factions
are already unlocked in custom battle), a quick battle, a historical
battle, and a tutorial campaign if you have never played the Total War
games before. There are also things that other strategy games don't
have like troops morale and stamina and terrain actually effects troops.
In the game there are at least 15-20 different factions with their own
unique units to play as with different or same abilities like Roman
legions, Greek spear men, Egyptian chariots, or even powerful
Carthaginian elephants! There are also some noncombatants you can
recruit like spies, diplomats, or even assassins. Generals in the game
which are family members can govern cities or fight battles. But be
careful if that general dies before he produces offspring then a family
branch might die off and never have sons to fight or daughters to marry.
For the economy or resources all you have to do is charge a tax rate
not collect resources. In construction buildings provide bonuses,
protection, or getting new units. If you charge a high tax rate the
civilians might get rebellious, riot, or even conquer your own city.
There can even be plagues or natural disasters.
In order for a battle to happen you must move one of your characters to
attack another one or they come to you. The battle deployment scroll
pops up and tells you the ratio strength of each army and which can
win. You can choose to auto-resolve which lets the computer calculate
the winner or fighting the battle on the map. You can besiege
settlements as well with huge siege towers, ladders, and rams try to
break into the city. In order to win you must hold the central plaza or
kill or rout all enemy units. In battle you must give your soldiers
orders to attack who, fire at will, guard position, or withdraw from
battle to fight again another day. What makes it realistic is that each
unit has morale and stamina. If your troops run a lot they might get
tired or if troops are overwhelmed they might break off and flee for
their lives. But you can use your general to rally them and bring them
back in the fight if it works.
The graphics and sounds are just great, you see beautiful sceneries
with grass, trees, water and buildings. There are hundreds of soldiers
fighting for their lives with the sound of clashing swords, shields,
arrows, spears, and orders from men yelling march as boots thunder the
ground. The music changes every time from a marching theme to fighting
theme.
There are some flaws to the game. When navies attack each other you
can't even fight them, they only can be auto-resolved and some of the
results of the battle won't make any sense at all. The units are all
clones with not really any distinct differences to their faces. It also
might look strange when you tell a whole group of people to chase one
unit down.
Rome: Total War is the best RTS game of its year I really recommend you get this game.
