Reviewed by: Koorah/Malcolm
Developer: The Creative Assembly
Publisher: Activison

Ave!! Alfies! Gamers! Countrymen! Lend me your eyes!

The Creative Assembly are back with their third Total War title, moving the historical theatre from that of the Royal Courts and crusading knights of Medieval times to the marble steps of the Senate and the formidable, disciplined legions of the fledgling Roman Empire. Rome: Total War, like its predecessors, is a convergence of two distinct elements - turn-based strategy and real-time battles - and the two, while very different, are as intertwined as yin and yang or a strand of DNA. The headlines have almost exclusively focused on the superb “as-seen-on-TV” 3D battle engine, but the strategic game has developed depth of its own, so much so that its now very nearly a rival to the Civilisation series in scope.

At commencement of play, Rome is but a city-state with Imperial aspirations, and it is your task to steer one of three Roman factions, the Julii, the Scipii or the Brutii to expand their holdings and thus bring glory to Rome. Other factions become playable once you have crushed them under foot in the Imperial campaign.

The strategy game all takes place on a campaign map that has evolved from a flat board game style to wonderful 3D, depicting mountains, roads (including traffic) and rivers. Your armies and agents are represented by animated figures that march across the map and attack opposing armies at your behest. In a very welcome development, terrain now has a direct effect on the strategic game, as mountains are impassable unless you use natural passes, and rivers un-crossable unless at bridges or fords. Clever use of the natural topography creates choke points that hinder your enemy or block their march across your lands completely. You can no longer simply move your army counter into adjacent provinces wily-nily as each army or agent has a movement rate and clicking on it highlights the distance it can move from their current position. As each turn represents six months of game time, the map changes to represent the season. During winter months, snow covers northern Europe as far as the Alps, and movement is slowed, especially through mountainous regions. Therefore, it’s important to think ahead. For speed of movement good roads must connect central hubs of your empire, and the quality of roads (as well as other buildings) is controlled by a population dependant tech tree.

In previous Total War games, tech tree progression was simply a matter of money. If you had the cash and had built the prerequisite buildings, you can move up the tech tree. In Rome: Total War it’s a little more complicated. Population has become an active factor in what you can build (and how many troops you can recruit), as to progress to the next level of tech tree development a settlements population must exceed certain thresholds. Population growth becomes one of the most important aspects of city management, and it is affected by a number of factors, including tax rate, squalor, population happiness, trade and so on. Striking the balance between constructing military buildings to improve and re-enforce your armies, and social buildings to enhance the settlements, increase trade and attract yokels to your towns and cities, is a major objective of the strategic game.

Settlements flourish best under the supervision of a family member acting as Governor. Family members gain character traits throughout their lives, some good, some bad, but all having a direct effect on their abilities to lead armies or to run settlements. Some family members will excel as soldiers, while others are better suited to administrative roles. Granting governorship of a major trading port to your backward inbred son-in-law who has a penchant for fiddling with young boys and raiding the city coffers, is seldom a shrewd move. Best stick him out on the frontiers where his ineptitude and reputation won’t cost you too dear. You do still need to be able to fight small battles in remote areas after all, as brigands can pop up anywhere and while they can't threaten a town they can cost you cash by interdicting trade. Your family members also acquire a personal retinue of advisors and retainers who all grant specific bonuses. Individualising a general and his retinue in this way is a good thing, as it lets you get more involved with your units. 700 men on a battlefield aren't men you know, but the name of the hero leading them you remember.

It certainly isn’t the case that every problem can or should be resolved at sword point. Diplomats can be sent around the map to make pacts with your neighbours, and there’s more to offer now than a simple alliance. By using a simple ‘pick-n-mix’ system that will be familiar to Civ veterans, your diplomats can iron out treaties with other factions. Regardless of how chummy you are with the barbarians across the river, spies and assassins become invaluable, and these agents also gain traits the longer they survive and accomplish tasks. While risky, having a worthy assassin slit the throat of an opposing armies general on the eve of a crucial battle will pay dividends on the field the next day.

The naval elements are vital, but don’t offer as much depth as the land-based game. Ships can be used to guard trade shipping lanes, blockade trade ports, transport your armies and agents around the map at great speed, and of course to duke it out on the high seas. Don’t be expecting Destroyer Command here, naval combat is auto resolved and gives you no chance to steer events, which can leave a bitter taste in the mouth after a surprise attack by a rival sinks the one ship on the oceans carrying your god damned invasion army plus a valued General bound for Southern Spain. Grrrrr.

The strategic game is clever, intricate and utterly absorbing, but clearly not going to be to everyone’s taste. If the sound of all this admin is too much, never fear. The game can auto-manage your settlements for you leaving only the disposition of your armies, agents and fleets to worry about. It would be a shame to miss out on the added depth of seeing your settlements grown to fruition under your guidance, but The Creative Assembly are not so proud to force you into game play that you may find tedious, especially after they spent so long developing one of the greatest RTS graphics engines yet seen.

After all diplomacy has failed, or at least delayed events until you’re ready, it will be your mighty armies that secure your legacy. Lets face it, the battles are the heart of this game and visually they do not disappoint. The units are historically accurate and modelled very well, but each individual soldier is an exact clone of his battle-brothers and all use the same animations. While lacking the individuality of Dawn of War’s combatants, the sheer numbers of units engaged in a ruckus more than compensate and by staggering the animations the visual effect of thousands of snarling troops hell bent on inflicting carnage is most effective.

The 3D engine allows you to get closer to the action than ever before, as the screen shots will testify. With a half decent rig you will only notice slow-down in the biggest of battles but graphics options are customisable to suit most systems, and even if you turn everything down, in the thick of the press you’ll be more concerned with intercepting the cavalry threatening your left flank than how many well rendered blades of grass are being flattened by the War Elephants.

Ahhhh, the War Elephants.

One of R: TW pivotal selling points, the pugilistic pachyderms are great fun. Charge them into tight enemy formations and men go flying, literally like bowling pins. A full-pelt cavalry charge will produce a similar effect, but trumpeting nellies are most effective, causing panic amongst the foe and being especially useful against enemy cavalry. It’s the shock units which seem to make a big difference on the battlefield. Both Elephants and Chariots put big holes in your formations, but often you’ll see your men have only been knocked down and they dutifully get back up and reform units if given the chance. However a Chariot charge followed by anything else usually spells the end for your poor little men.

Factions have their own signature troops, and tactics. Barbarian factions tend to throw everything they have at you in a fearsome charge, while the older civilisations use more disciplined formations. The Romans of course are highly efficient soldiers and their units are designed to be mutually supportive. Used correctly there is little to stand in their way until eventually, the three Roman factions must fight for supremacy. When Roman fights Roman expect some brutal battles. I would have said ‘bloody brutal battles’, but unfortunately for the gore hounds amongst us, blood has been omitted from the equation. Perhaps it was too difficult to accurately calculate 5,000 simultaneous realistic blood sprays.

Battles are accompanied by suitably stirring music, gaining tempo when the action seems thickest. Arrows and javelins hiss through the air, barbarians roar defiance, Roman hastati throw their pilum and follow up with a vicious charge and battle cry. Its just so easy to get sucked in to the conflict that you sometimes have to pull yourself away and take stock of the big picture or risk a humiliating defeat.

The controls are simple and intuitive, the interface functional and precise. Nothing on screen is wasted space, and before too long, controlling vast armies becomes as easy as controlling small ones. Useful tactical advice is on hand for the beginners and the amount of advice is scaleable as your skills increase. The simplicity of controlling your armies on the field makes what could have been a terrifying prospect a thoroughly enjoyable one. My only criticism would be that AI controlled re-enforcements border on the suicidal, with as much tactical sense as a bowl of lemmings. This can be very annoying when the re-enforcements are led by a favoured general who see’s nothing dubious about charging his war horse into 6 ranks of long pikes.

If you wish you can fight a short campaign where your win conditions are reduced, but the full campaign is worth weeks of anyone's time. If this wasn't enough R: TW comes with Multiplayer modes, Custom Battles and Historical Battles. For anyone who shouted abuse at the seemingly tactically inept contestants on Time Commanders, Historical Battles is where you can put your money where your mouth is. Each battle comes with an engine-rendered cutscene, a description of the circumstances that brought the two forces to the point of fisticuffs, and outlines your objectives for the battle. Its great edutainment and adds heaps of value onto an already busting package of goodies.

I'm well over my word limit and I haven't mentioned sieges, mercenaries, building forts and watchtowers, war dogs, flaming pigs, senate missions and political advancement, the hidden Amazon tribes, the increased faction feedback in the strategic game or using the battle map engine to stroll around your settlements and provinces whenever you wish. There's a shed load more, but I just don’t have any more time, mainly because Rome is so absorbingly addictive that I spent it all playing the damn thing. It isn't perfect, there are some minor bugs that may irritate and the AI is dubious at times, especially path finding within cities and settlements, but the overall robustness of the design and the excellence of execution displayed here more than compensate. Give this more than a cursory glance and you can kiss your free time goodbye.

Presentation	8
Kick-ass state of the art battle engine renders thousands of units in lush, accurate detail In varied well-modelled terrain. Looks fab.
Gameplay	9
Absorbing strategy and edge-of-your-seat battles all wrapped up in an intuitive, accessible control system. A highly addictive game that forces an "oh one more turn then" attitude from the player.
Value	10
A massive campaign with huge replay value once the other factions are unlocked, plus MP, loads of historical battles and custom battle editor. You'll be playing it for months.
Benchmark	10
Total War games are in a league of their own, and this is by far the best of the bunch. Takes RTS to new levels of scale and graphical power. Peerless.
Score	9
It had some big boots to fill but Rome: Total War takes its dusty sandals in a size 16. You can't call yourself a true RTS fan until this game resides in your collection.

Buy 'Rome: Total War' from GAME!

Minimum Spec	Reviewed on
Pentium III, 1GHz Dx 9b compatible, 64Mb Graphics card 256Mb RAM 2.9Gb HDD Space	Pentium, 3GHz Ati Radeon 9700 Pro 1Gb DDR RAM Full Install