Rome Total War

[Keith Heitmann]

I just started playing this after getting my copy as a Christmas gift from my wife the other day.

I have already managed to complete my first campaign successfully early this morning. I managed to destroy the Gauls and conquer the rebelling Greek cities threatening the Republic.

Starting out with a basic army, I was first given the mission to conquer the rebel city of Tarquenii just north of Rome. After taking the city and establisting my Julii faction capital city I was next give the mission to put down the rebellion in Bovenium on the eastern shore of Italy southeast of Rome.

Next came Tarentum another city run by the Greeks. This one proved a little more difficult and I was driven out several times by uprisings within the city and finally after taking the city one more time I had to put the populace to the sword which wipes out 3/4 of the population.

Then came Croton near the arch of the Italian boot and not far from Tarentum. Once again I managed to take the city only to have to retake it again and massacre the rebellious population to bring it under control.

It was touch and go for a while. The Greek armies were wandering freely over Italy and their navy kept trying to break the blockade of their cities' ports by my small navy.

Money was slow in coming and I tried various balances allowed by the game to get each city up on its feet and producing fund and troops. I lost a number of battles with the Gauls which proved difficult for a long time but finally after taking Ravennia in far northwestern Italy from the Greeks things began to improve markedly.

Money problems soon disappeared, and my city construction projects, miltary recruitment, repairs and retraining all progressed quickly.

I finally managed to knock out the cursed Gaul capital city and take the last two Greek cities of Messinia and Apollinia bringing the campaign to a successful close even as I was massing troops to decend on Rome itself and take control there, with the House of Scipii my next target on the horizon.

The 3D battles are the real treat in this game. The pre-battle speeches by the commanders are a nice touch.

For those that don't like wargames, you can play this entirely on the strategic level map and let the computer resolve all battles for you.

I've only just started playing, but I think I'll be playing this one for quite some time to come.

[Keith Heitmann]

I didn't have a lot of time to play today, so I spent some time just playing historical battles. I played the Teutoborg Forest battle, the one where the Romans lost an entire legion to Germans in a bloodbath.

I lost the first two tries, but won on the third replay.

You have a large force of Romans marching along a road. You have to reach a Roman fort up ahead before time runs out, and with at least 100 men left to win. Battles are timed for about 10 mins. Along this road are waiting hordes of Germans waiting in ambush in the trees. It's not a bad scenario and was kind of fun to play. I manged to preserve most of my force on the winning attempt. I managed to inflict heavy damage on the Germans and kill their generals which tends to put them into a rout.

Then I gave the Siege of Sparta a shot. In this on you are King Phyrris (SP?) of the Phyrric Victory fame, on his attack on the walless city of Sparta. You have a good sized force with war elephants and a two sets of onagers ( giant catapults ) The Spartans forces are very tough to beat and they tend to sucker you into the narrow streets on your way to the city square which you must reach and hold in order to win. You have to do that or wipe out the enemy to win.

I played that scenario about 4 times and lost every one, but came oh-so close on one, but then the Spartan reinforcements arrives and it was all over but the shouting.

[Keith Heitmann]

Cheat Codes:



When you are in the campaign map, press the tilde (~) key to bring down the console, and input one of the following:

bestbuy - units are 10% cheaper

jericho - walls crumble

add_money X - adds money, where X is the amount.

add_population Y X - Adds population, where Y is the settlement name and X the amount

move_character Z X,Y - Moves character to location, where Z is character name and X Y are coordinates

auto_win attacker/defender - Attacker or defender atutowins the next autoresolved battle

create_unit settlement/charactername unit_ID amount exp/armour/weapon - Creates a unit in the selected settlement or characters army with the stats you input

toggle_fow - Toggles Fog of War

give_trait characternname traitname level - Gives the character the trait at the chosen level

process_cq settlement - Finished the building queue in the settlement

list_traits - Lists all traits

give_trait_points charactername traitname points - Gives the character poins for the trait

force_diplomacy accept/decline/off - Forces opponnent to accept diplomatic proposal

invulnerable_general charactername - Makes the general invulnerable in combat

date year - Changes date

kill_character charactername - Take a wild guess

season summer/winter - changes season

capture_settlement settlementname - This one is HARD to figure out, eh?

[Keith Heitmann]

I've put off continuing the campaign game for a while and have been playing the historical, custom, and quick battles in the game. This is my favorite part of the game anyway, the battles.

I've been doing better than average on the quick battles, where forces are usually more or less balanced, but not always. I've had my head handed to me a few times on moderate difficulty level too.

The custom battles let you pick your opposing forces, scenery, unit experience, weapons, etc. I only tried this once, I played the romans against the Germans. I was sure I set the settlement to zero but when the game started I found myself defending a large city which was surrounded bya wooden wall and the Germans had about six battering rams which they not only used on the gates but the walls. I managed to pull a victory out of this one by defending at the breeches in the wall and gates, then pulling back to the town center to fend off the last few German units making their way there to capture the flaf essentially.

The historical battles are still the toughest. The player usually finds himself playing the smaller force or fighting off more than enemy army. Since these are all based on history it's hard to argue with the overall unfairness of it, but the shorthanded guy always feels that way.

I'm still having problems winning a majority of these historical battles. I came close in a couple of them though. Their toughness is what is keeping be coming back for another try. I hate to see what these are like on the hardest difficulty setting!

[Redbirdy]

If you and DD keep talking R:TW I'm afraid I'm going to end up buying it...and I know I don't have enough time to do it justice. I'm having a problem trying to keep a game of CotN going as it is . For some reason, I can't get "into" CotN as deeply as I did the previous city-builders. Maybe it's a case of just adjusting to the new interface and game engine I don't know...but CotN doesn't glue me to the computer for hours at a time as the old games did.

-J

[Keith Heitmann]

I think a lot of people are having to adjust to CotN. I think the biggest change beyond the 3D and the interface is the length required to complete a city successfully. You could squeeze a city in on Pharaoh in around 2 hours if the goal requirements weren't too stiff.

I like RTW. I mostly like the 3D battles. I find that more entertaining than the campaign, at least right now. I've got a historical interest in the Roman Empire so for me the game suits me just fine. Someone not interested with Rome may not have as much fun. So it depends on what your interests are.

You can create some really huge battles with the custom battle editor function. It's really amazing to zoom in and watch these battles from ground level if you can spare yourself from the duties of command long enough to do so.

I've got the game options cranked up to maximum for all graphics and it's just impressive to see.

The interface is not that difficult to master.

The trick is remembering what types of troops are most effective against a specific type of enemy unit. Peltasts and Hastati with javelins can be effective against oncoming infantry formations, but against elephants and passing cavalry. Their javelins can do a lot of damage to a elephant quickly where arrows generally don't do much more than enrage elephants.

Triarii are expert infantry spearmen that are good anti-cavalry forces. They also make good protective flank units for phalanxes or Roman cohorts in formation.

Etc., etc.

Try the RTW demo if you haven't. It's the battle at the River Trebia, one of the historical battles in the game. You are Hannibal defendnig against a larger Roman force in that one.

[Phil Walker]

Even I have to admit it is STARTING to sound interesting to me as well I do have to admit. Especially since I have the other Total War games . So, MAYBE, and I do mean MAYBE, I might just put it on my "to get" list. Being as I do have both Medieval and Shogun, I'm sure whatever the differences may be, they won't be so much I can't figure them out. But of course cash is the main thing right now as I "shot my wad" over the holidays, so we'll just have to wait and see !!!

Sincerely,
Phil

[Redbirdy]

There arent' many historical eras that DON'T interest me. I recall re-playing the Teutoberg Forest battle over and over again many years ago. I can't recall the name of the boardgame though..."Seventh Legion" comes to mind but I may have it mixed up with another. I also loved playing the "Imperium Romanum" boardgame and put many hours into it. There was also a VERY early DOS game called "Annals of Rome" that received a lot of my attention. When I had the room I also played a lot of Ancients miniatures and still have several books detailing all the ancient army orders-of-battle and their equipment.

-J

[Keith Heitmann]

PhilWalker said:

Even I have to admit it is STARTING to sound interesting to me as well I do have to admit. Especially since I have the other Total War games . So, MAYBE, and I do mean MAYBE, I might just put it on my "to get" list. Being as I do have both Medieval and Shogun, I'm sure whatever the differences may be, they won't be so much I can't figure them out. But of course cash is the main thing right now as I "shot my wad" over the holidays, so we'll just have to wait and see !!!

Sincerely,
Phil

Sometimes when someone is enthusiastic about something it fires you up too.

From what I understand RTW is a little more refined than the first two, but I couldn't swear to it myself because I have never played the first two.

Try the demo at least. It's free, except for the 167MB download. I had in on my Grouper menu for download too. Grouper will pause and resume downloads so you can grab it over several days. Let me know and I'll fire up Grouper.

If you don't pay an hourly rate for your internet service we could set it up for a late night session and you could download it all night or at least until my computer locksup on me (

Otherwise get a copy of GetRight download utility. You can use it to pause and resume downloads from the websites so you could do it over a period of a week or more until you are done.

[Keith Heitmann]

Redbirdy said:

There arent' many historical eras that DON'T interest me. I recall re-playing the Teutoberg Forest battle over and over again many years ago. I can't recall the name of the boardgame though..."Seventh Legion" comes to mind but I may have it mixed up with another. I also loved playing the "Imperium Romanum" boardgame and put many hours into it. There was also a VERY early DOS game called "Annals of Rome" that received a lot of my attention. When I had the room I also played a lot of Ancients miniatures and still have several books detailing all the ancient army orders-of-battle and their equipment.

-J

In that case you'll love this game. Seeing these battles take place ona 3D terrain is just so cool, because you can use the terrain to your advantage.

The campaign games are long and require a lot of strategy and preparation.

These like those old boardgames come to life...rather small life....but its amazing to watch it all unfold.

Watching the battles close up you see horse on a charge fly through the air when they hit the enemy force, men go flying when war elephants tear into a formation. Arrow and javelins fill the air, men shouting, cheering, screaming, acknowledging your orders. The music adds to the mood too, I'll probably turn that off some day once I've played RTW a little longer.

The historiacl battle pre-battle videos and briefing narration are very interesting to watch, because they usually show the events that lead up to the point in the battle you are about to assume command over....the ambushes or precursor battle.

I just successfully completed another two historical battles just a bit ago....the battle at Lake Trasimene and the battle of Telemon. Both battles had me stumped until now. I lost those two each time I tried them until now.

[Phil Walker]

Well, I've made up my mind now! Rome IS going on my "to get" list. It all does sound good and maybe too good to be true . In any case you "hooked" me.

As to the first 2, could be it is more refined, but to be honest I can't see how. Everything you've stated in all the prior posts are in the others as well. Can't swear to the actual graphics though until I see it for myself.

It does seem we are different in likes though. I never really got into the historical battles so much. I prefer the long, drawn out campaigns myself. In any case all 3 are fitting for either and more interests, so I DO have to get it now as I do have the others !!!

Sincerely,
Phil

[Keith Heitmann]

Rome Total War as to being more "refined" comes from comments others have made that say they have one or both of the other games.

As for the graphics in this game, if you have a topend computer and graphics card, like my Dell XPS and ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, you can have everything set to max. The only time I see it bog down is in custom battles when I opt to have the full six custom armies in a battle. I have to reset some of the detail to a lower level to smooth things out. In a battle with just two or three armies there is no problem at all on high detail for me.

This game comes on 3 CDs and is a monster to install space-wise. The install itself went without a hitch.

I have nothing against the long or short campaigns, it just that right now the thing that interests me the most about the game are the battles. I've got three ways to fight battles in this game so I'll be busy for a while between the historical, custom, and quick battle options.

I also like that the battle action can be saved in some protions of the game and replayed later on through the game like a movie. That way you can roam over the battlefield and see what is going on from all angle.s

[Phil Walker]

Well, I do have a "topend" card. I CAN go up to 1600X1200 with my monitor as well, so that isn't the problem. With my eyes, it's SEEING what's going on . That's why I stick with 1024X768 as that is detailed enough for me.

So, we shall see, but as I said, you got me "hooked", so ONCE I put the cash together, I WILL get it. I do enjoy the others, so we'll see if I agree with others' comparisons. ;D


Sincerely,
Phil

[Keith Heitmann]

If you can see what is going on in Lords III you will find RTW about the same.

[Phil Walker]

Well, shall we say MOST of the time I see what's going on. In any case, won't know until I see for myself...


Sincerely,
Phil