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So innovative that it's used on the HISTORY CHANNEL

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 26 / 37
Date: August 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

ROME: Total War, the third game in the series Total War by Activision, is set during ancient times when the Roman Empire War Machine was struggling to gain control over all of the known world. In this game you will find eleven factions fighting to control the world, including three Roman factions (Julii, Bruth, Scipii), three barbaric tribes (Gaul, Germania, Britannia), and five Greek or West Asian factions (Egypt, Seleucids (ancient Iraqis), Carthage, Parthia (Caspian Sea nomads), and the Greek Cities themselves).

Unlike the previous Total War games, the strategic map is a fully 3D representation of the game world. When you build cites, they'll appear on map as they grow. You will move your armies around on this map and the 3D battlefields will mirror whatever terrain you're on in the strategic map. So wherever you fight on the strategic map, that's where the game engine will create its battlemap from. A first in strategy/RTS gaming!

As my review title suggests, this ROME: Total War game engine is so intuitve that the HISTORY CHANNEL is using its engine in its "Decisive Battles" series. Each week the HISTORY CHANNEL uses this game engine to show the viewer a famous battle from these ancient times. This is the first time I think a television network has used a computer game engine as the central part of one of its shows.

The game is sure to redefine 3D strategy game in this genre.

The game I've waited for all my life...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 15 / 17
Date: October 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I'm not going to give a long description, the previous reviewers have already made many good and vaild points. This is just my short version...

This is the epitome of what war game should be. The combat and empire building is challenging and rewards real tactics but the controls and methods of the game are very easy to learn. And very good graphics, which is rare in a war game.

No self respecting strategy gamer should be without it...period.

Could have been great

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 19 / 24
Date: April 08, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game had the potential to be one of the best strategy games of all time. Unfortunately the gameplay is ruined by several glaring and massive bugs that disrupt the single player game and ruin the multiplayer. Perhaps another patch would fix it but at this point it seems unlikely that the game will recieve any more help.

Bugs Bugs Bugs

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 17 / 21
Date: April 08, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game was great fun at first, but I soon had to realize how the [...] AI (this is due to a "reload bug") made it way too easy to beat a whole campain on "very hard" without loosing a single battle. If you have an iq over 60 you'll be bored as the AI wont be able to work out a plan against you, thus just moving around sensless and confused. Luckily this is not the only bug, as there are many more. CA could have done a little work fixing the bugs, but they seem to not care at all about their customers. Actually they're at the point of denying the bugs now. Poor work. Game had great potential, but couldnt live up to it. Don't buy it.

It could have been a contender...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 18 / 23
Date: April 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game has some tremendous graphics, and the potential to be the greatest game of its genre ever produced. The trouble is, all that is negated by a show stopper bug.

The bug has to do with the save and reload of the game. Whenever you save and reload the game, the AI forgets what it was doing and lifts sieges it was conducting, and often sends its armies into a kind of purgatory where they just stand around doing nothing. If you save and reload the game on every turn in fact, the AI will never expand its territories because of this bug.

Another aspect of the bug is that you can subdue every faction by making them your Protectorate after reloading the game. If you reload the game and ask any faction to be your Protectorate that turn, they will automatically agree, even if they have 30 provinces, and you had 1.

If you can play long sessions without saving and reloading, this game is playable, but if you do not have the luxury of being able to keep the game going for at least 10 turns per session, you probably won't like it very much.

It's too bad there won't be any further patches for it beyond 1.2. I can't recommend this knowing these kind of bugs are present and won't be corrected any time soon.

Don't buy if you cant play for 8 hours in a go.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 18 / 23
Date: April 08, 2005
Author: Amazon User

There is a severe bug in the game, commonly referred to as the 'Loadgame AI bug' which basically means that upon reloading a saved game, the Ai resets and breaks all offensive actions and infact will accept an offer for protectorate (thus making it redundant for all purposes and adding to the players controled region count). This BUG has been so far tested extensively by the community for months but now CA (the developers) without any evidence or reasoning, have denied this bug and infact called it a *feature* and have refused to continue to support their product. If you don't believe me, go and check the forums, see how the official forum has been purged and the .org forum is full of patrons who cannot get their money's worth.

Don't get me wrong, if this bug wasn't there, i.e., if the save/load feature in the game worked, or if you could possibly play for 8 hours in a go without loading a game, this is a decent game and wouldn't deserve the 1 star i have to give it due to its broken state.

Nothing's perfect

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 16
Date: November 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

But this game comes close to perfection. The attention to detail is largely responsible for any wargaming fan's delight with Rome Total War. It also combines the overall strategic view of antiquity's messy wars and diplomacy with a fine tactical component where individual battle often determines the outcome of a strategic campaign. The one drawback is naval which is arbitrarily determined by the AI.

The artificial intelligence component of the game is above average. However, be forewarned, leaving resolution of your battles, even minor ones, to the AI will almost always increase your own casualty count and often slay your leaders, who are hard to replace and key to maintaining order in your cities. The AI does compute a factor for veteran armies and leaders in both ground and naval combat. This is another drawback of sorts in that you must tend to every battle to prevent excessive casualty counts and leader losses.

The strategic end of the game is complex, even if you let the AI automanage your cities. Growth and tax revenue left neglected will run riot in your cities and limit expansion of ground and naval forces. There are never enough leaders to go around as you need them for battle and to govern the cities. Diplomacy is often the key to overall strategic victories, ensuring you are not fighting on multiple fronts.

So you have a great little battle engine full of wonderful detail that allows you to master the art of ancient warfare and also a highly complex strategic game that challenges your brain to balance war and peace.

I Cant Explain It!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 13
Date: September 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Is there nicotine in video games now? This is the masterpeice of video game making. The game rating from 1-5 is a 10. The realism this game is unexplainable, it steals your weekends, it will become your new best friend. Rome: Total War is the third Total War game in the series after Medieval: Total War, which was good but the graphics were corny, and the fighting was unrealistic. Rome: Total War was a huge step from Medieval: Total War, Rome TW's graphics are outstanding, the cities make you feel as if you are a citizen of them, and the battles are addicting and action packed. If i had to bring two things to a stranded island with me, id bring mty computer and my best friend named RTW.

Truly Awsome. Get it

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 20
Date: October 03, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Being an avid chess player, I was not a real 3D gamer-until I bought this game two days ago. I had made a decisive decision one day, while watching "Decisive Battles" on history channel, that whatever video game technology they were using to put on the awesome stuff that I was seeing on the TV, I had to get it. I found out later, by researching the web that it was Rome Total War.

I spent a whole day and part of a night, running around the countryside with Romans, Greeks and what not, besieging cities, fighting Hannibal and other Barbarians, and lots of other wild stuff.

After about 20 hours of play with hurried intermissions, I finally, but reluctantly, went to bed. While asleep I dream that I was in the Roman Army all decked out in full Armour marching against Barbarians. Then when I woke up and went outside to go to the store, my surroundings felt kind of strange for a few moments, it was like I half-expected to see a Roman Cavalry charging down the street at any moment.

I was fascinated that a game could do this to me. It took over my whole time-perspective. I had started getting used to living in ancient Roman times.

Watch out! The addictive rate is very high. I know I'm going to spend years on this one.

Res Gestae Divi Creative Assembly!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 16 / 20
Date: December 08, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is a must-have for strategy video gamers or devotees of the Greco-Roman period!

It is the third in the Total War series, and is in many respects similar to its predecessor, "Medieval." The two major improvements over that platform are:

1) Graphics. The graphical standards for this game are superlative. The incredibly detailed troop models make zooming in on a particular part of the battle action outstanding.

2) Operational Art. FINALLY there is a game that allows you to manuver armies on a map with terrain details accounted for. Unlike in Medival and most strategy games, your army does not bring your forces into automatic contact with the enemy upon entering enemy territory. You must come into contact with an enemy army that lacks the power to move away from you if it should choose to do so, and if you do bring the enemy to battle, all armies in contact appear on the table. This allows you to manipulate your opponents into separating, allows you to achieve operation flanking and envelopment (as additional armies appear on the battle map relative to their operational position), and all the other things that are usually missing from strategy games.

My sole complaint with "Rome" is that it has unit size set at what, for "Medieval" was the lowest level. When you do reach the stage of having large parts of Europe under control, the resources at your command can make for very clumsy armies composed of several dozen small units. In "Medieval," I quickly learned to set the unit size relatively high, because I would eventually find it easier to use as my lands became more extensive and more extensively developed, allowing me to field largely armies. In "Rome," you just have to suffer with multiple armies of small units.

However, that is a minor complaint for a game that is such a marked improvement on what was already an outstanding predecessor. It is full of small, delightful touches that will warm the heart of any Greco-Roman enthusiast, like your dynastic characters rising up the cursus honorum or the classic pre-battle harangue. Get this game!

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