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If only . . .

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 17 / 23
Date: April 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I dearly love this game. With two simple bugfixes, I would label it the greatest strategy game ever (yes, better than Civ). However, the developer has flat out stated that the most crippling bug is in fact a feature. The save command is broken, causing the AI to abandon everything it was doing and wander in confusion for a full turn every time you load the game. Since it takes several turns to starve a city into surrender and this clock resets when a siege is lifted, this "feature" prevents the AI from expanding its empire and posing any sort of long term challenge to even a poor human player. This behavior has been confirmed by dozens of fans in rigorous tests, but the developer dismisses these results and tries to explain it away as intended AI re-evaluation.
The second bug was introduced by the most recent 1.2 patch, and it applies the combat bonuses intended for the AI at harder difficulty levels to humans and AI, making combat a bit of a joke.
All of the remaining bugs (horse archers unable to fire while moving, infantry attacking using cavalry tactics, and literally a dozen others, have been fixed by the fan community in an unofficial patch, so I won't ding the game for them here.
Bottom line: This game in its current state is like Paris Hilton: Beautiful to look at, but the brains of a slug, and I don't think that's a good thing in a strategy game.

Would be great if...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 18 / 25
Date: April 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game could very well be the pinnacle of turn based/real time strategy hybrid. Unfortunately, its crippled with a debilitating bug that makes it unplayable if you can only play 1 or 2 turns at a time. Everytime a game is loaded, the AI lifts every siege on the map. An average siege is at least 2 turns, thus if you load the game once every 2 turns no cities will ever change hands by the AI. This bug not only affects your fights against the AI, but the AI v AI fights as well, meaning no enemy terrirories ever get big enough in the end game to challenge your empire. This bug also causes the AI to become a protectorate of you, if you ask on the turn after you load the game.

So far The Creative Assembly have indicated that the bug is in fact a feature and will therefore not be fixed. Anyone who doesn't want to leave the game on 24 hours a day, or can only play a turn at a time should lament this bug and CA's decision to not fix it, but avoid spending money on it because of it.

[...].

The Real Deal

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 27 / 44
Date: April 10, 2005
Author: Amazon User

There are literally hundreds of errors in this game. Many of the true fans such as me have fixed many, many of them and yet others we can't unless we break the law (Which I will do soon if it comes to it just to prove the excuse about the "cost" being too much is also a lie).

Additionally the official website support is a world class failure of the first order. [...]

The title was unfinished when it was put on the shelves in time for the Xmas rush last year - plain and simple.

[...]

A short list of community verified issues and bugs:

A. BATTLEMAP

(1) Tactical AI:
* Suicidal generals: persistent reports of generals charging entire enemy armies without support.
* Tactical AI still fails to take adequate measures in avoiding missile fire.
* AI-controlled infantry sometimes maneuver like cavalry units when engaged; repeatedly charging/disengaging and running in circular paths through loose formations. If a feature, implemented poorly with units that have poor charge attributes.
* AI-controlled units guarding the town centre sometimes fail to turn and face approaching enemy units.
* AI siege attackers: AI-controlled reinforcements continue to pursue enemy units that have retreated behind city walls; AI siege armies do not always retreat after their siege equipment is lost.
* AI-controlled units sometimes remain idle while being issued repeated movement orders; "move" or "move out" orders can be heard in an almost continuous loop. Occurs most commonly with AI formations preparing to attack over bridges.

(2) Unit movement/path-finding:
* Generally poor unit navigation in cities and around bridges: individual soldiers often break formation and become lost in streets/alleyways; soldiers still run into the water and drown during bridge maneuvers; bugged path-finding around Egyptian arches.
* Scenery interaction: units often become stuck in narrow passages, between rocks/trees, in siege towers, and amongst massed formations; rare reports of soldiers walking through walls and closed gates; soldiers in siege towers and on ladders occasionally fall through solid wood.
* "Ford" river crossings are sometimes impassable.

(3) Unit functionality:
* Horse-archers: reports from some players that bow-armed cavalry fail to fire on the run when skirmish mode is engaged. Possibly related to bugged animation cycles; units go through the motions of firing arrows but arrows are not (or rarely) released. Cantabrian circle still functions fully. Javelin-armed cavalry are unaffected.
* Various problems associated with the use of multiple selected (ungrouped) units: aberrant maneuvers provoked on move command to several selected units; ignoring attack orders; incorrect processing of attack orders given to multiple unit selections comprising a mix of ammo-depleted and range-capable missile units (all engage in melee, despite the cursor highlight suggesting that ranged attack is available for some units).
* Various problems associated with the use of grouped units: unselected units comply with commands issued to other units in the same group; grouped cavalry does not run at the speed of the slowest unit, but at that of the quickest (eg. grouped cataphractoi and horse-archers will run at horse-archer speed).
* Phalanx mode: soldiers sometimes do not hold formation adequately in phalanx formation, when ordered to attack, soldiers shuffle around and break formation; phalanxes have trouble attacking uphill, even on gentle inclines.
* Canine unit (wardog/warhound) "formations" cannot be selected or attacked, even when their handlers are defeated or routed off the battlefield.
* Javelin infantry may become stuck and refuse further orders when ordered to launch missiles or change formation.
* Hiding in long grass is possible on snowy maps and in places where no long grass is visible.
* Bridge routs: occasional recurrences besides documented changes in v1.2.
* AI-controlled reinforcements are sometimes inappropriately flagged "not yet arrived on battlefield" and cannot be selected/attacked.
* Disappearing ladders: on rare occasions, siege ladders do not appear on the battle map if constructed in preparation for a siege assault.
* Fighting on city walls: soldiers deployed on walls sometimes shuffle around and fall to their death on pressing "start battle"; units deployed on walls "fight to the death" even if their adversary is on the ground below; units "fighting to the death" sometimes do not fight back when engaged in melee.

(4) Interface/graphics:
* Minimal UI: cut-scenes reset map and card visibility settings if they were originally toggled off; upper edge of screen blocked from cursor interaction when buttons are toggled off; message tiles often obscure the left-most unit card when toggling cards off and on with active messages; sluggish/unreliable response to time control hotkeys when MUI is active.
* Coastal tiles: frequent reports of large grey angular coastline tiles in the distance when fighting in coastal regions, relating to the presence of coastal structures such as ports/cities.
* Victory screen: rare reports of victory screen failing to appear after all enemy units are defeated/routed.

B. CAMPAIGN MAP

(1) Strategic AI:
* Unit construction: occasional reports of AI favoring mass construction of low quality troops early on in campaign games.
* Naval units: rare reports of the AI conducting single-turn blockades frequently and indiscriminately.
* AI incongruity on reload: reports that reloading a saved game "resets" AI priorities/flags provoking inconsistencies in diplomatic behavior and strategic planning.

(2) Diplomacy:
* Illogical AI behavior: requesting ceasefire with considerable concessions, only to attack next turn; refusing "unfair" diplomatic offers only to accept less advantageous agreements immediately afterwards.
* Labile diplomacy: occasional reports of AI factions frequently signing and breaking treaties.
* Protectorates: multiple problems related to protectorate system and status of ex-protectorates.

(3) Characters:
* Generals get checked twice for trait awards in manual battles.
* "Scarred" trait: over rapid trait progression with repeated battles (GeneralHPLostRatioinBattle works in one way for manual battles, and differently for autocalc; manual battles without engagement always trigger battle1/battle1r).
* Senate offices: ex-office trait is not registered following reappointment to a previously held office ((office)again triggers giving twice as needed).
* Coward trait: is not given if the general avoids combat in battle (GeneralFoughtinCombat always returns true, causing trigger battle4 to never go off; trigger needs revision as if it worked properly the coward trait could by gained simply if the enemy retreats).
* Rare reports of spies acquiring traits specific to generals.
* Isolated reports of family members who die in battle described to have "died peacefully" if they weren't generals during the final battle.
* Transferred retainers are sometimes not immediately deleted from the retinue of the donating character (corrected by closing and reopening the character description).
* Character portraits: continue to age after death; portrait images can sometimes be replaced by inappropriate/non-portrait pictures.
* Disappearing characters: issuing a move/attack command to selected units within a stack, then stopping them prior to reaching their intended destination (by pressing backspace) makes the general in the original stack disappear; losing the commanding general out of two (or more?) family members in a battle may lead to disappearance of the surviving character(s). In either situation the description for the disappeared character states "died peacefully".

(4) Economics:
* Paved roads sometimes do not provide the correct land trade bonuses.
* Colossus wonder does not provide the correct naval trade bonus that its description states
* Financial reports continue to calculate diplomatic tribute from ex-protectorates or when active protectorates are bankrupt and cannot provide the required diplomatic tribute (in either case no actual tribute is received for the turn).

(5) Land/naval warfare:
* Multiple-army sieges: only the attacking stack is represented in battlemap/autocalc during attacks on a settlement besieged by several stacks.
* Naval warfare: battle outcome summaries do not correctly register the number of ships sunk in a naval engagement.
* Elephants killed in battle by their riders are resurrected on returning to the campaign map.
* A distorted coast-line battle map is loaded when fighting on the road east of the port of Sidon (the depressed terrain one grid south of the small hill).
* Naval/land units sometimes become stuck at certain points in the map and cannot be selected (eg. fleets at the port of Corinth).
* Lost siege supplies: if an attempt is made to relieve a besieged AI army prior to its supply time limit, it is sometimes incorrectly flagged to be at the extent of its supply and will "fight to the death" as reinforcements in the subsequent battle. This also means that the siege succeeds automatically if the relieving army is defeated before the reinforcements arrive.
* Diplomats/spies/assassins are capable of blockading retreating armies.
* Gates of Syracuse: isolated reports of permanent damage refractory to repairs/upgrades if opened by a spy during a siege.
* If a rival faction enters a protectorate agreement under the player, any player-led sieges of that faction's settlements will be deactivated but the besieging armies will be unable to leave.
* Rare reports of entire stacks teleporting to distant parts of the map when disembarking from a fleet.

(6) Unit statistics/properties:
* Praetorian Cohorts are available prior to Marius reforms.
* Pharaoh's Guard flagged as carrying shields contrary to unit models.
* Egyptian Desert Axemen have high armour attributes contrary to unit models.
* Lon

So close to great, and yet so far

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 15 / 20
Date: April 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have been playing the total war games since Shogun, and I loved all of them. Rome shows immense promise, and could easily become the best of the series, but in its current state it simply fails to make the grade. Even after two patches is suffers from a host of serious bugs, one of which makes it a total failure as a strategy game.

When you load from a saved game the AI gets thrown for a loop. Unless you can play for more than 5 turns at stretch (which can take a long time) the AI simply won't put up any resistance, making the strategic side of the game completely uninteresting. Even if you can play for longer stretches, the cummulative effects of this bug will seriously mess up your campaign.

CA has made it clear that they have no intention of fixing this bug, or any of the others. If they change their mind and deal with these problems in the upcoming expansion then maybe the game will be worth playing. Until then, save your money.

A great game that is SIMPLY BROKEN(unplayable)

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 15 / 20
Date: April 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have played all the TW titles to date and was so looking forward to RTW, however when it was released i found it to be a half finnished product, yes some aspects of it where still fun, but does that warrant releasing a half finnished product. There was still some hope in the form of 2 patches that CA where to release but in an act of total suacide, the second patch included a game breaking bug THATS sops you playing the game atall, (everytime you start a loaded game the AI memory gets wiped and there is zero challenge whatsoever) it also broke the difficulty level for custom battles.
However the worst part is that CA ridicule there customers and rejoce in the fact that they have ripped them off and with great smarmyness they rub it ib our face that they will NEVER be realising aa new patch for RTW to fix this half finnished andnow BROKEN game.
Oh well lets hope another develpment company out there can sweep CA aside and show them how to make a game a game of this genra a succsess

Buggy and unsupported

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 16 / 22
Date: April 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

At first glance, the game seems to be excellent and enjoyable. However, after the rush provided by your first campaign, the bugs become extremely evident. Your horse archers dont shoot while moving like they are supposed to, pathfinding is terrible, I could go on forever. However, the worst bug is the loadgame AI bug. It means the AI breaks away any sieges on whenver you hit end turn after laoding a game. That's right. It lifts ALL of its seiges, meaning if you play one turn every session, none of the AI factions will ever take a province. Period. CA has simply denied the bug, claiming it a "reassesment feature." This "reassesment feature" makes all the AI factions even easier to steamroll than they already were, even on Very hard difficulty.

Strategic AI again

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 16 / 22
Date: April 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Let me start by saying that this is a good game. Why the 1 star then?

As you may have seen from some of the recent reviews here, the AI does not retain its long term plans when you load a game. It's difficult to be precise because, although anyone with the game can show that something wierd is happening, Creative Assembly refuse to acknowledge it. Suffice to say that the strategic AI is weaker than it should be because of this.

As far as I know at this time, CA do not intend to fix this for the add-on.

So, how does this affect you? If you can only afford to play a couple of turns at a time (and the turns get pretty lengthy later on), then this will be of concern to you. Even if you can play long sessions, it's possible that it will affect you.

So, there you have it. Frankly, if you were interested in RTW already and can play more than a couple of turns a session, then this bug is not hugely important to you. It is to some though, as is the way that CA have handled it.

Greatest Game Ever With A Fatal Flaw

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 16 / 22
Date: April 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I finally bought a GOOD home PC, and the first thing I did was run out to buy Rome: Total War. It had everything that I personally look for in a computer game: strategic micro- management, empire building, and a sweet tactical battlefield where you command a massive ancient army. What the Creative Assembly created here is nothing less than breathtaking. Although I found troop movement a bit counterintuitive (no basic troop commands such as "forward march," or "right face," - a much better way to move a lot of troops, as any real general could tell you), but once I learned the controls a bit better, the battles were crazy fun. The incredible 3D engine renders your tactical decisions into scenes that would make Cecil B. DiMille squirm with joy.

So why did I give it such a low rating? Very simple: there is something wrong with the way the Rome: Total War handles saves. Hard core fans are currently screaming "bug!" - while the team at Creative Assembly is screaming back "feature!" Frankly, the controversy holds little interest for me, as I'm not really a hard-core gamer. Unfortunately for me, it is the spare-time gamer, the person who has only enough time to play for a couple of turns a night, who is affected the worst. You save your game before going to bed, but the game you save is not necessarily going to be the game that you open the next time you play.

Giving C.A. the benefit of the doubt, they say that when you reload the game, that your computer opponents "re-evaluate" their moves. Ok, great, but this part-time gamer, who is relatively new to this high tech gaming thing, would like to be able to reload and play the exact same game I left the night before, and I definitely NEED to play the exact same game if I totally goof it and would like to try it again. This, more than once, has been taken from me, because, when I reload the game, my computer opponent has now "re-evaluated" his plans, and decided not to attack!! Even after kicking my butt five minutes prior!! This makes no sense to me.

Maybe I'm just fussy, but I like being able to save my game, and come back to it exactly the way I left it. I don't think that's actually asking a lot. Honestly, if this problem can be fixed, I'll be the first one here to change my vote to the 5 stars this amazing game richly deserves, but without the ability to save the game and reload it later just as I left it, it is, in my opinion, not really a game at all.

Too buggy

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 16 / 22
Date: April 08, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Almost unplayable, way too buggy, stear clear of it and wait for other upcoming games from different software houses...

Rome Total War should be called Creative Assembly Total War

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 16 / 22
Date: April 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is okay, if you ignore the host of bugs present even at the v1.2 stage. [...] I would have expected a product that is at least marginally playable.. However, it seems that marginally playable is the minimum that Creative Assembly aimed for. [...] However, for everyone else, I do not recommend this bug riddled product. There are a slew of major bugs with their latest patch.

[...] I advise you to research the game heavily if you do decide to buy, and see just how buggy it is. The low rating is because of the amount of bugs in v1.2 and the fact that they will not be fixed by the company (so they say).

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