Rome:Total War is amazing

B

Biff Hardbody

Member
Talk about a game you can lose yourself in. I swung out real quick today while the turkey was cooking so I could find a place that was open and selling Rome: Total War. I knew it was on sale at EB tomorrow for Black Friday at 29.99, but I wanted the game today so I could play it all day and night. I managed to find a store that had one copy left, and man...this game is perfect for a lazy cold thanksgiving day with a relatives over and you can just chill.

I don't know how long I've played it for, maybe 6 hours. If it wasn't for HL2, I'd say it was pc GOTY...as it stands I don't think I played HL2 this much the first day. There's so much stuff you can do. The battles are only half of it, allot of the fun is strengthening your cities and dealing with the political side.

The battles are so much fun...to plan and to strategize. I can't say enough about it. It allows me to live all my Braveheart/Gladiator fantasies.

Oh yes...the intro is one of the best intro's ever! The War Elephants...oh man. People who weren't even interested in video games had to stop and look when they saw the epic intro and those monsters.

I know this thread will most likely die a cold, hard death. But, for the few out there who are interested in this game...go get it. You won't regret it. There's so much to do, and so much to play. I feel like I've barely scratched the surface. I guess I have, because the biggest battles I have had aren't even a 1000 men total...and from the looks of it you can have battles in the tens of thousands. Amazing...I''m going back.
 
Hot shit. I've always been eyeing the total war games but this is the setting that has interested me most. I think I'm gonna go snatch it from EB tommorrow (Hopefully they got some in stock!) and dig in.

How are the battles mixed out? Do you have one big map that you pick and choose your battles or is it all handled in a mission structure in real time?
 
Mrbob said:
Hot shit. I've always been eyeing the total war games but this is the setting that has interested me most. I think I'm gonna go snatch it from EB tommorrow (Hopefully they got some in stock!) and dig in.

How are the battles mixed out? Do you have one big map that you pick and choose your battles or is it all handled in a mission structure in real time?
Click to expand...

Its a world strategy map where you control your armies on. Then when you attack or get attacked it goes into a real-time battle that takes EVERYTHING into account. The season, the side from which they attacked, the plot of land that this attack occurs on. Try the demo if you haven't already! TRY IT NOW! Then go buy it! :)
 
Firest0rm said:
Its a world strategy map where you control your armies on. Then when you attack or get attacked it goes into a real-time battle that takes EVERYTHING into account. The season, the side from which they attacked, the plot of land that this attack occurs on. Try the demo if you haven't already! TRY IT NOW! Then go buy it! :)
Click to expand...


Cool. I think I got the demo downloaded on my PC somewhere but haven't extracted it yet..!
 
Mrbob said:
Hot shit. I've always been eyeing the total war games but this is the setting that has interested me most. I think I'm gonna go snatch it from EB tommorrow (Hopefully they got some in stock!) and dig in.

How are the battles mixed out? Do you have one big map that you pick and choose your battles or is it all handled in a mission structure in real time?
Click to expand...

Bob, I think I wrote my impressions at like 11:30 or so. Its now 2 AM, and I don't know where the time went. Even after playing for 6 or 7 hours, I just lost myself for a good 2 hours. That's how much I am enjoying Rome.

As interesting as the demo was, I still had my doubts about how much I would enjoy the game. It seemed pretty cool...but it didn't prepare me for the massive amount of stuff you can do. I'll just tell you whats going on, since my brain is fried after playing so long.

I started off as one of the famlies of rome, the Juli. I had one general. After nearly ten hours of play time, the general is dead and one of his sons is now an old man known as Decius the wrathful because he exterminates everyone in a conquered province. I lost my first son in a poorly planned battle, another to the plague, but Decius dealt with the plague and became a bonified badass, slaughtering Greeks left and right.

Now Decius just had two monster battles, and I'm pretty sure he will die soon. He's old :( The rest of the cities are govereed by men without the real bloodline, mostly soldiers who proved themselves and were adopted. I'm waiting for decius's son to grow up so I can really start some shit with him.

The battles are insane. Infucking sane. The scary thing is I haven't played any of the monster battles. My biggest being 550 men on each side. I built catapults complete with flaming balls o death, packs of Roman wardogs who are so badass....they charge into anything, absolutely fearless. I use peasents as cannon fodder, and have my experienced infantry come in after them.

There's so much shit I'm not touching on. What I really enjoy about the game is that it isn't a twitch a thon RTS. I could never get into that. No, in this one you have your amount of guys you go into battle with. No special spells or any real cheap shit to exploit from what I saw....just good old tactics and exploiting mismatches. Knowing your troops plays a big part.

Battles take place in all different sorts of settings. You can siege cities (complete with siege equipment like battering rams, catapults, rail shots, siege towers, and I hear hot oil among others...). Part of the game is turn based ona 3-D map. Its REALLY involving, because you are picking things to upgrade, taxation, soldiers to buy, people to put in power, places to conquer/defend....theres auto governing, but I don't do that because I find all this stuff allot of fun. You can send out spies, assassains, diplomats...they all have interesting functions.

getting back to battles. You can have battles everywhere. Snow, desert, summer...weather is really important. High ground, forests...everything plays a part.

Game isn't perfect. Naval battles are non existant, AI isn't perfect (your soldiers can be dumb sometimes). But shit man...theres so much you can do. Your soliders will lose morale if your general dies, the non battle hardened ones will run away when put in overwhelming odds...its awesome.

I can honestly see myself picking this sucker as GOTY...it came out of nowhere. I'll know in a week if I'm still crazy about it, but liuke I said before....I feel like I barely scratched the surface.
 
Biff Hardbody said:
Bob, I think I wrote my impressions at like 11:30 or so. Its now 2 AM, and I don't know where the time went. Even after playing for 6 or 7 hours, I just lost myself for a good 2 hours. That's how much I am enjoying Rome.

As interesting as the demo was, I still had my doubts about how much I would enjoy the game. It seemed pretty cool...but it didn't prepare me for the massive amount of stuff you can do. I'll just tell you whats going on, since my brain is fried after playing so long.

I started off as one of the famlies of rome, the Juli. I had one general. After nearly ten hours of play time, the general is dead and one of his sons is now an old man known as Decius the wrathful because he exterminates everyone in a conquered province. I lost my first son in a poorly planned battle, another to the plague, but Decius dealt with the plague and became a bonified badass, slaughtering Greeks left and right.

Now Decius just had two monster battles, and I'm pretty sure he will die soon. He's old :( The rest of the cities are govereed by men without the real bloodline, mostly soldiers who proved themselves and were adopted. I'm waiting for decius's son to grow up so I can really start some shit with him.

The battles are insane. Infucking sane. The scary thing is I haven't played any of the monster battles. My biggest being 550 men on each side. I built catapults complete with flaming balls o death, packs of Roman wardogs who are so badass....they charge into anything, absolutely fearless. I use peasents as cannon fodder, and have my experienced infantry come in after them.

There's so much shit I'm not touching on. What I really enjoy about the game is that it isn't a twitch a thon RTS. I could never get into that. No, in this one you have your amount of guys you go into battle with. No special spells or any real cheap shit to exploit from what I saw....just good old tactics and exploiting mismatches. Knowing your troops plays a big part.

Battles take place in all different sorts of settings. You can siege cities (complete with siege equipment like battering rams, catapults, rail shots, siege towers, and I hear hot oil among others...). Part of the game is turn based ona 3-D map. Its REALLY involving, because you are picking things to upgrade, taxation, soldiers to buy, people to put in power, places to conquer/defend....theres auto governing, but I don't do that because I find all this stuff allot of fun. You can send out spies, assassains, diplomats...they all have interesting functions.

getting back to battles. You can have battles everywhere. Snow, desert, summer...weather is really important. High ground, forests...everything plays a part.

Game isn't perfect. Naval battles are non existant, AI isn't perfect (your soldiers can be dumb sometimes). But shit man...theres so much you can do. Your soliders will lose morale if your general dies, the non battle hardened ones will run away when put in overwhelming odds...its awesome.

I can honestly see myself picking this sucker as GOTY...it came out of nowhere. I'll know in a week if I'm still crazy about it, but liuke I said before....I feel like I barely scratched the surface.
Click to expand...

What size did you set your armies to when you starte playing? I put them to huge the first time and i got a battle that had 7,000 of my men against 4,000 men in a castle. Man my computer when 1 fps. I started over with small sized armies cause my comp can't stand it :(. Its not as fun but still good! :D
 
Firest0rm said:
What size did you set your armies to when you starte playing? I put them to huge the first time and i got a battle that had 7,000 of my men against 4,000 men in a castle. Man my computer when 1 fps. I started over with small sized armies cause my comp can't stand it :(. Its not as fun but still good! :D
Click to expand...

I started on prologue and either I skipped over the option to ste my army or it never came. I know you can do historical battles and stuff like that with really big numbers right off the bat...but I want to build myself up for it.

Its amazing that they really did this kind of stuff back then.
 
Wow. That sounds fantastic. I just got done playing the demo and it was pretty straightforward. Not bad, but not great. Looks like the demo really limits to what you can do in the campaign. I love the fact that your armies grow in rank and in size and in age. Adding a layer of depth to the game. What did impress me about the demo is exactly what you described: the tactics. This game really makes you force tactics above all else. Methinks a trip to EB tommorrow to get this game at 30 bucks is pretty much a done deal!
 
Mrbob said:
Wow. That sounds fantastic. I just got done playing the demo and it was pretty straightforward. Not bad, but not great. Looks like the demo really limits to what you can do in the campaign. I love the fact that your armies grow in rank and in size and in age. Adding a layer of depth to the game. What did impress me about the demo is exactly what you described: the tactics. This game really makes you force tactics above all else. Methinks a trip to EB tommorrow to get this game at 30 bucks is pretty much a done deal!
Click to expand...

Yeah, I felt pretty much the same way about the demo. I played it exactly once and didn't feel the need to boot it back up again. Good, not great. Even so much as that I was taking a a chance buying it today, but what the hell. Now, I don't know if you will fall in luv with this like I did...but I played this fucker all NIGHT and if I wasn't mildly retarded from the computer radiation I'd still be playing.

I haven't played any game this much in my first day getting it in a looooong time.
 
MrAngryFace said:
YOu must live in an alternate universe where maf even has 10 dollars to spend on games
Click to expand...

Well I guess you can stick to Halo 2 then. :D

Biffhardbody said:
Yeah, I felt pretty much the same way about the demo. I played it exactly once and didn't feel the need to boot it back up again. Good, not great. Even so much as that I was taking a a chance buying it today, but what the hell. Now, I don't know if you will fall in luv with this like I did...but I played this fucker all NIGHT and if I wasn't mildly retarded from the computer radiation I'd still be playing.

I haven't played any game this much in my first day getting it in a looooong time.
Today 01:30 AM
Click to expand...

Heh, well, even if I don't, it'll be a nice change of pace from the two games I just beat (Halo 2, Half Life 2). Plus for 30 bucks I figure what the hell I've always wanted to try out a Total War game.
 
I really dig the part where the elephants just whup all sorts of ass. I mean get fucking real...a war elephant. You can't get anymore badass then that.

MAF, you can snag the demo at the site Bob linked too. Keep in mind its really just a taste of what the game offers.

Bunch o trailers here (scroll down)-

http://gametrailers.com/vault-r3.html
 
I've always wondered why Rome: Total War gets so much praise, and screens and movies doesn't say much...so I guess I'll try this baby out! Nice to see that I'm balancing along the system requirements. Athlon 1.0 GHz is exactly what I have. :P
 
Just snagged a copy from EB. Got the next 3 days off so I figure I might as well get the game since I'll have time to play it. The website had it for 20 bucks earlier but now it is back up to 30.
 
Just finished playing another marathon session. Waking up late+thanksgiving leftovers and fresh cookies+Rome total war=RAWK.

Lemme see here. Most of it was just getting my stuff in order. I had played so poorly last night that eventually everything went out of control and I had to make Decius commit suicide or incur the wrath of Rome! Poor Decius, well he had 2 greta battles before he went. After that, my provinces were in shambles and I realized I had spent much to much time making it a military power instead of building things up financially. I ended up losing 2 of my cities to rebellions and just doing poorly overall, but after some time I got a good sense going.

Made a treaty with the gauls, got trades going, put in highways, built up education, health, farms. Then I used my diplomats to bribe rebel armies from starting shit with me while I built up my towns. I took one of my cities back with the odds against me, it was awesome. After that I had to take a city back that had a bigg stone wall where they could drop oil and shoot flaming arrows at my battering ram, ladders, and siege towers. It was rough, but I did it.

Now all I got to do is quell the rebellion in one town. The senate wants me to force Gaul to surrender, but they are good allies now and I'd rather build up my calvary and take Rome.

Fucking LOVE this game.
 
Biff are you playing with realistic gameplay or arcade mode? I love using cavalry in realistic mode. I made an army of just 1000 cavalry and rushed through a gaul army of 3000 footman and raped their asses :D. They turn straight to wusses once they see my cavalry rushing head on :).
 
Firest0rm said:
Biff are you playing with realistic gameplay or arcade mode? I love using cavalry in realistic mode. I made an army of just 1000 cavalry and rushed through a gaul army of 3000 footman and raped their asses :D. They turn straight to wusses once they see my cavalry rushing head on :).
Click to expand...

I'm playing through the imperial campaign right now (went straight from prologue to it). So, I imagine its on realistic (I couldn't find any arcade mode setting).

I hear you about the cavalry. Its great to watch them go through infantry like a knife through hot butter. Its really cool to know your matchups in general. I just went through the gaius (Sp?) period, and now have access to a bunch of stuff I didn't before like the turtle formation and Gladiators!!!

Plus I took Rome from the senate. It was badass, because my general was 82 years old and I couldn't believe he made it that long as everyone else croaked in their 50s/60s. After I barely won the battle, my general died of natural causes. Awesome end.
 
Biff Hardbody said:
I'm playing through the imperial campaign right now (went straight from prologue to it). So, I imagine its on realistic (I couldn't find any arcade mode setting).

I hear you about the cavalry. Its great to watch them go through infantry like a knife through hot butter. Its really cool to know your matchups in general. I just went through the gaius (Sp?) period, and now have access to a bunch of stuff I didn't before like the turtle formation and Gladiators!!!

Plus I took Rome from the senate. It was badass, because my general was 82 years old and I couldn't believe he made it that long as everyone else croaked in their 50s/60s. After I barely won the battle, my general died of natural causes. Awesome end.
Click to expand...


I'm playing as the Carthage and I raped the senate and the house of Scillei (I think thats what their called, there the blue guys). They were too much of an annoyance, they kept sending me threats and attempting to attack me so i had to take care of them first. :) And the settings for realistic or arcade are in imperial mode. When you first picked what family you are on the right side of the screen it tells you what style you wanna play with. But since you didn't change it, I do believe your playing realistic. Do your men get tired? If so then it's realistic cause if it's not then they don't get tired they can march on forever and never slow down.
 
Firest0rm said:
I'm playing as the Carthage and I raped the senate and the house of Scillei (I think thats what their called, there the blue guys). They were too much of an annoyance, they kept sending me threats and attempting to attack me so i had to take care of them first. :) And the settings for realistic or arcade are in imperial mode. When you first picked what family you are on the right side of the screen it tells you what style you wanna play with. But since you didn't change it, I do believe your playing realistic. Do your men get tired? If so then it's realistic cause if it's not then they don't get tired they can march on forever and never slow down.
Click to expand...

Yes, my guys get fatigued so its definitely realistic. Thanks for the heads up, I don't want to play arcadey settings. You know, I can't remember ever picking a family to play as either...I started prologue as the Juli. Hmmm.

Edit: whoa wait! I've just been playing the prologue all this time...I checked out imperial mode and I saw all the options to pick. I guess I'm starting over, because everything before was just practice...yowza.

Can you change the difficulty while you are in imperial mode?

I'd really like to play as carthage as well...Hannibal was a badass. Right now I'm still the Romans and I'm still in Italy. I haven't even made it to sicily or anywhere else right now. Killed the Greeks and the Gauls, destroyed the senate. Still have to clean up my own backyard witha rebel city or two and Scipia. After that I'd like to invade Carthage (but I noticed the map is blacked out there as well. I guess I have to beat the stuff inf ront of me now).
 
Holy shit I feel retarded. I figured that when I beat prologue it would transfer over to imperial mode, but it didn't. I've been playing the fucking practice round for nearly 2 days!!!

...

Anyhow, started an actual imperial campaign with the Julii on realistic hard difficulty. You get allot more guys to start with. WOAH.
 
Oh you yea if you continued with the practice mode then you don't get to chose the other stuff. But when your done the parctice mode you actually go into the imperial automaticly just continuing on with what you started off with in the practice. You don't need to start over.
 
Firest0rm said:
Oh you yea if you continued with the practice mode then you don't get to chose the other stuff. But when your done the parctice mode you actually go into the imperial automaticly just continuing on with what you started off with in the practice. You don't need to start over.
Click to expand...

Thanks man. I started over anyhow and woah...this is rough. Allot more fun though :D
 
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