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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.

Looks Pretty Good

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 30
Date: August 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I loved the Total War Games, but as they grew older they stopped working on my PC, which is sad since i loved these games!!!

Oh Well, but this one looks great since you get to control all of Rome, just like in Shogun and Medievil.

I hope its as good as the first.

First Thoughts

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 160 / 222
Date: August 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Im a Total War Junkie. Rome Total War is the 3rd game in the Total War series. Total war was the first game (with the exception of "Lord of the Realms") to sucessfully merge turn based strategy gaming with real time strategy battles. All total war games consist of two parts: A campaign game and a battle engine. The campagne game resembls a very complicated version of risk where you manage your empire, taxing provinces, building structures and training units and dealing with economics and diplomacy. This gives you the big picture and a satisfying way to handle the strategic theater. When two armies meet on the campagne map or clash over control of a province the game switches to battle mode and the real time battle portion of the game. Here you actually fight the battle with all the units you had on the campagne game.

The total war series is best known for it's real time battles which ussually allow for upto 10,000 individual soldiers to be on the screen at once. These arent RTS battles, they are very deep tactically and realistic. Combat is affected by such factors as ammo, morale, terrain, fighting experience of units, weather, command abillity of generals, weapons and ammor quality, and more.

I've been playing the game for about a day now and I am just going to post my initial thoughts:

Pros:
The graphics are astounding, and I was blown away by the audio as well. When armies march you hear it through the house and when elephants charge your room will rumble! The physics engine is great and allows for momentum and impact of charges to be seen, felt, and heard. You see men go flying in a cavalry charge, and when elephants die they can crush men underneath them! The new fully dynamic campaine map is amazing. It's details and very intuitive. The strategic possabillities are infinite now. You can outmanuever enemies strategically and attack with two armies from two different sides! Wow! Blockades, and transporting troops by sea now feels so much more real. Economically and diplomatically this game is leaps and bounds ahead of the previous total war games. There's a lot to digest here - but only if you want to get into the nitty gritty. Automatic handing of these details is improved and just about any aspect of the game that doesnt appeal to you can be handed over to competent ai to take over. You can play the game however the heck you want. The new sieges are crazy and very deep. Fighting in the streets is lots of fun and now if you destroy something on the battle map it is also destroyed in the campange map - the link bettween the two is 100% solid. You can even see any given city in 3d at anytime you wish just to admire it's progress.

dissapointments:
it's inevitable, but I have a few things that made me pout. For one thing you HAVE to play as one of the roman factions beforew you "unlock" the other 8 or so playable factions. That really sucks because I wanted to play as carthage so badly and now I have to play a whole game as rome first before I can do that :( I also dont know why but it wont let me enable antialiasing - the demo would but the full game wont, I have a geforce 4 and updated my drivers and everything so im stumped. There's also no saving battle replays in the campagne game - only for the custom battles! WHAT??! I have NO idea why that is but it's dumb.

Overall... Im blown away just like I thought I would be. This is a jaw-dropping revolutionary game and as I fiddle with it more i will give a more detailed review of the game.

TRY THE DEMO-PRE-ORDER THE GAME

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 21
Date: September 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Go to Gamespot and download the free demo of this game and you will certainly be convinced to pre-order it with Free Super Saver Shipping on Amazon. If you are not convinced watch Decisive Battles on the History Channel on friday nights at 9 p.m. Eastern, which uses the actual game engine to depict historical battles. It is realistic and breathtaking. The show also creates a respect for this genre of gaming which I previously believed to be stale and never really gave a chance. However, when you see the courage of 300 Spartans who hold off an army of 11,000 Persians in a narrow pass and the strategies (and sheer courage) a smaller but well trained force can use to defend and overcome its enemy it is truly inspiring.

I haven't played a real time strategy battle game since Myst years back, since I generally prefer First Person Shooter Multiplayer games. I have spent more time replaying the same single Demo battle on Rome Total War than Doom 3, which I spent 55 dollars on.! If that doesn't say something then how about a few details:

The game is very easy to play and the controls are intuitive. There are several difficulty settings which are noticeable. You can pause a battle any time to catch your breath, zoom around the battle field, issue new orders and then let the battle continue. You can watch the entire battlefield or with a click on a unit card zoom in on any unit to get a ground's eye view of the action. There is nothing like the thrill of watching your infantry fight a numerically superior force, on the brink of breaking when you send in your herd of armored war elephants and watch the opposing soldier's bodies go flying as they are trampled! The graphics are top notch and the game ran smoothly with total forces of close to 2000 soldiers on the battlefield at high detail on my modest AMD XP 2100, 768MB RAM PC 2100, ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 128 MB Alienware PC. I could write more but I would rather return to playing again, but I thought there should be at least one review posted by someone who has actually played the game!

IT's NOT YOUR SAME OLD TOTAL WAR

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 22 / 43
Date: September 03, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I've been a fan of the total war series since Shogun:TW, but, I want to make clear to all those previous buyers of this game and those that enjoyed the first two versions, this one is "not" the same "battle speed" as before.

If you enjoyed the battle speed and death speed of STW/MTW, you may not like the battle speed and death speed of RTW, why? Because everything is practically "doubled in speed of the battle play". Marching is the speed of charging in STW/MTW, charging is the speed of Olympic atheletes racing Hemi engined monster trucks.

If you aren't a click fest junky, and more of the turn based, slower real time strategy type player that brought you to the Total War series in the first place, and you haven't played the demo, I suggest, in fact I HIGHLY suggest you play the DEMO before purchasing this one.

As beautiful as the graphics are (and most of us grogs don't give squat about graphics as much as gameplay), the battle speed has been made for the clicky fest RTS kiddies out there in this one.

I never used "pause" in STW/MTW, but, there's no way to play this one without using it and to me that just kills the immersion of the battle, the battle speed of STW/MTW gave the "perfect" feeling of command time needed to send orders to your troups, there's no way to get that feeling in RTW, because, the battle speed is just too darn fast.

I had been waiting on this game for over a year and a half now, and I can't believe they have sold out their "core" customer base to the RTS clicky fest kiddie crowd, but, well, you know corporations and money, money comes before us all and they said this game would draw in a "new type" crowd, they just never told the core base that it would eliminate a lot of them in the process.

More than just a game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 26
Date: September 04, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game has more aspects to it than both Medieval and Shogun Total War. First of all is that it will have more diplomacy, and will be less about killing and more about politics with killing. It will also be way more realistic since your empire's borders aren't based on provinces, but instead they increase as your armies advance into enemy territory. And to let the guy who posted the review under the title of "IT's NOT YOUR SAME OLD TOTAL WAR" you don't have to play battles at such a high speed because i am sure they will include the option to have slower game play, or if not, you can always use the pause button. I have already pre-ordered this game even though i am only going to play it on a laptop, and even though i also need to purchase a new video card, so if that gives you an idea of how good this game will be than i am glad, but i also suggest playing the demo because it is a good example of how the battles play out. But if you dont like playing the battles there are so many more aspects of this game that you could play it until you are victorious without even playing a single battle since you are given the option to simulate the battle, but what's the fun in that.

This game is tactical and fun

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 13
Date: September 10, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I have been playing real time strategy games since Command and Conquer and and turn based games since civilization. The pace in the demo of RTW was not very fast as the front line usally holds for several lines as u attempt to flank your enemy. If you are worried about this game requiring twitch skill "the ability to move the mouse fast and accuratly" it is not and if someone is that bad with a mouse they should stick to turn based rpg's. Now that the demo is released i can say without a doubt that this is a superb strategy game even without dipolmacy. This game has great graphic smooth controls and alot of strategy. So if your looking a good RTS look no further.

Don't be fooled by the RTS" stamp

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 19
Date: September 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

First of all, being a strategy gamer since I was a kid, I have always appreciated turn based gems like Civilization 2 and Medieval Total War. The only change that the Total war series has brilliantly added was to allow the 'Armchair General' the ability to direct the battles. Telling someone that hasn't heard of Rome Total War' (they must live on the Moon if they haven't)
that it is a Real time strategy game is misleading to say the least. Rome Total war is as turn based as Chess! The Player has the option to allow the computer to statistically decide the outcome of the battle if he/she doesn't want to take the field themselves.
There is alot to this game/politics/invention/economics/and of course-War.

RTW has been in production for 4 years, and the people behind the game have a detailed knowledge of History. They also want to make a tidy profit from their efforts. Complaining that the battles are too fast by only playing the demo is unrealistic. I would be suprised if the creators don't have an option to slow battles down to what the players are comfortable with. If fact Iv'e talked to many people who played the demo and while at first they thought the speed was too fast, once they got used to it, the quickness was no longer an issue.
From my experience with SHogun and Medieval Total war I can only say that if Creative Assembly puts out everything they have tried to for RTW, that it should be a strategy gamers dream come true. And possibly take some of bumm rushing RTS'srs out of the monotonous gather/create/build routine that they have assumed was strategy all these years.
Rome Total War is King!, erm..Ceasar.

YYYYYEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 16
Date: September 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Me and my friends have been waiting for a game like this since ShOGun, which was awesome, but it was kind of laggy and slow. This game has better graphics, a whole new way to conquer, and Ancient armies.

Great game with few flaws; but not for everyone.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 26
Date: September 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

So on Saturday night I was feeling the need to play an historical strategy game; I was looking for something from the Civil War or Revolutionary War time period but I couldn't think of any titles. So I went on Gamespot and clicked on their Strategy Game section and the obvouse choice came to mind: "Rome: Total War". Of course this game dosn't come out until September 22nd, but a demo can be found. So I searched the internet for around 45 minutes looking for the damn demo (each page sends you to a different website who sends you to another and to another until you find a dead link or you need to pay to download!) and finally I found it on Fileplanet; of course I still had to wait 30 minutes to actually download. So Saturday night at 1 AM I finally had the Demo of Rome: Total War.

Now let me tell you this game has spawned two TV shows; one on the BBC and on on the History Channel, it's graphics and historical accuracy is that damn good. If you haven't seen the screen shots or seen the History channel show "Decisive Battles"; this game lets you see as many as 30,000 characters on screen, with the ability to position the cameria where ever you'd like on the battle field (even right in a soldier's face). Although I imagine the game slows down significantly when you have that many people on the feild, I haven't noticed a problem with the several hundred in the demo.

Anyways this game is a total blast, and incrediably hard. At first I tried just ording my troops to advance, calvery to flank, and archers to attack the rear; well that failed misserably. You need to have precise ever-changing calculations to ensure your enemy's lines break and your heavy troops can mop up. To do this you need a series of vollies of aeros, calvery charges, and to exploit and prod at known weak areas. All this while protecting your own general from the ever flanking enemy.

This game is real time, but it can't be played that way; if you tried you wouldn't be able to get the first few troops in the correct formation before you'd be surronded. You must move your men to the correct offensive/deffensive position within the first few seconds of gameplay, or else you won't have time to do it later. Second you must have your archers positioned correctly to lay down the correct fire before falling back behind your troops. Third you must protect your flanks, because it is the nature of an attacking enemy to swarm around a deffensive postion. All these factors must be calculated out before you unpause the game for the first time, otherwise victory is an impossiblity.

Overall the feel of this game is pretty good though. I hate that 3d cammeria though, I could never get used to it (thought it better in this game than others). Fortunity if you just double click a unit it gives you a pretty simplistic view of that characters position in realivence to the nearest enemy. Sometimes you click a button and you're not sure if the game will react to that, or how the AI will react. Like if you order your calvery into a wedge formation the outter areas of the wedge my get engaged by the enemy and the whole group will attack instead of forming up and leaving. Moreover it's nearly impossible to disengage from an attacking enemy without losing all moral and your troops being routed; however the computer can do it at will. And for some reason if you order your troops to attack an enemy it dosn't always attack other nearby enemies once the orginal target has been removed. Hopefully these glitches will be fixed before the actual game release, so that I don't have to micromanage EVERYTHING in the game.

Anyways, 8 out of 10 (but this is just the demo). It would have gotten a 9, but the fact that you have to pause the game every 5 seconds pretty much disables the cool upclose battle sences; since you really don't have the time to enjoy it.

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