Praetorians
Praetorians is a game I’ve been playing a lot lately, going through the single player campaign on hard. While the story in the campaign isn’t incredibly memorable (most of the missions are different points in roman history I believe) the gameplay itself as well as the challenge is just incredibly addicting and fun. The scenarios (especially the later ones) are challenging but fair, requiring you to think, take good positions, scout when possible. It’s a very tactical squad based rts with no worrying about gathering resources nor worrying about building up bases. It’s a game where hills and forests can either be your best friends, or worst enemies (as units that are on or in these things can’t be seen by enemy units that are not on or in these things).
– Real player with 26.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Classic Historical Games.
I played this game growing up as a boy who loved to emerse myself in the idea of Romans, mainly due to the two nostalgic titles of The settlers IV and Rome total war. So when my Dad brought this game home I found it hard not to fall in love as the game portrays what Romans are remembered for in many little and major aspects of the game.
This game will seem overwelming at first and the fact that it is old and pretty harsh graphics to look at won’t help, especially if your new to the RTS genre. The personel management of troops is the main feature of this game as well as supplying new troops from villages that have either a barbarian or eastern theme. This works well but could be seriously expanded on. For example the only way to select troops is a drag box method. This is also fine but gets annoying when troops move indepedantly due to any stimuli. For example the troops will move out the way for a catapult and when I return to them they are somewhere else and have alerted the enemy. So some polish and rethink of coding and game aspects is needed.
– Real player with 4.5 hrs in game
Caesar™ 3
The “Don’t Escape Trilogy” is a collection of three short first-person point-and-click adventures with static screens (no camera movement, no scrolling). The games share a creepy atmosphere and a few gameplay mechanics, but are otherwise unrelated. In the first game, you play a werewolf trying to lock himself away before a full-moon night, so that he won’t kill anyone when he turns. In the second game, you’re trying to barricade a house and protect yourself from a zombie horde. In the third game, you’re the only surviving crew member on a spaceship and need to stop “something” from getting out.
– Real player with 5.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Classic Historical Games.
Even though the entire trilogy is available for free on Armor Games, I chose to purchase this game series on Steam because that’s how amazing ScriptWelder really is. The Deep Sleep and Don’t Escape series were some of the first PC games I ever played, and I have ScriptWelder to thank for making my early experiences so magical. I have followed each and every game you have published on AG, hunted down every achievement, set of choices, and walkthrough I could find… simply, because every single second I spent in any of your games was one of either awe, wonder, fear, or curiosity.
– Real player with 5.1 hrs in game
Rome: Total War™ - Collection
RTW has an epic feel.
As of today, this game is nearly eleven years old. So, the battle graphics are not as crisp as newer titles, the historicity of some units is sketchy (or just made up), and it seems that multiplayer is not smooth in Steam. Fortunately, none of these mean a thing to me. The heart of the game is in the grand strategy and the personal narrative.
With over a hundred regions in which to play, the strategic game is where RTW shines. You need to plan where you will expand and where you will defend… and then be ready to adapt when the AI does not do what you expect. You may be the pawn of the Senate and serve at their beck and call. You might try to expand against the weak. You can follow the trade routes to gain riches through conquest. You will find yourself occupying regions merely to stymie your enemies (and your allies). Or you might work your way towards all seven Wonders to reap their benefits.
– Real player with 1982.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Classic Historical Games.
Classic game, it uses a realistic battle engine which simulates battles down to minute details, in a way no longer found in newer engines which depend apon flashy graphics to generate interest. The sheer effort put into this game really tells you its creators cared about it they were not just throwing something flashy out there to get as much money as possible. The game makes up for its old and ancient graphics with interesting game mechanics that you just DONT get in the newer RTS games with intricate tactical aspects in addition to intriacate strategic ones. since so much attention has been given to FPS games in recent years. The game is well made and it shows. In modern total wars and other RTS games, troops getting into 1v1 cinimatic fights where thy slide around on the map rather than recreating actual formation dynamics and combat in a believeable way as Rome 1 does. In Rome 1 TW you don’t just have static groups of people fighting in one spot like other games, your troop formations collide and dudes go flying, people get knocked down. The larger force slowly pushes the smaller one back while its formation fluxuates, troops arrange sheilds to defend against attackers leaving weakspots open to well positioned archers. Every part of the strategic map is mapped out into battle maps that mirror that place on the stratiegic map. I am not talking you get a different set of cookie cutter template battle maps depending on your region NO!!! I mean the battle map is an EXACT copy of the terrain on the stategic map. You see a hill on the over all map and move your army to it so the enemy will attack you on ground you choose that hill is on the battle map valleys mountain you name it the battle is in that spot not a faximally of that spot THAT SPOT. The same goes for citys, each is unique and grows in unique ways and this shows on the siege map. Build something in a city and its on the battle map, if a saboteur destroys something it is destroyed on the battle map, Your family members/ generals grow as a result of the situations you put them in becoming complex individuals, put them in a big city with librarys and academys and they may become a soft person but a good organizer, or maybe if the city is a religious center he may become pious or slowly go insane, or become blood thirsty if you constantly send him into battle and he gets kills in said battles (yes even what he does in the battles matters). Another really cool mechanic is that when you recruit units the men are taken from the local populus and when disbanded the men generally resettle in that region! and city level is determined by population so recruit to many from a populas and the city will grow slowly while inversely you can move your populus around to level up citys. Another difference from newer games is the factions, they are few in number compared to the scores of factions in newer games but each faction in very unique, with some factions sharing cultures and others with similar but different cultures. Each culture has a unique city style ect.
– Real player with 1183.0 hrs in game
CaesarIA
Not a bad concept for a city builder.
I’m enjoying it so far.
I will say tho.
The buildings need an area of effect highlight when positioning them.
Buildings can have a positive or negative effect on housing development.
Some have a blanket effect, others the effect is over multiple rings, or in the case like the Markets they need to be within range of functioning storeage buildings to be active themselves.
This isnt a bad thing but as the Market description implies, it both boosts and reduces housing while needing to be within range of buildings that reduce housing development. Neither effect is displayed so theres no ideal way of knowing if the storage is within range of the markets while being out of range of the housing.
– Real player with 11.5 hrs in game
I downloaded this because it’s getting harder and harder to find a good City Builder now a days. they are all becoming apps with pay to win, and they either focus all on economy, or all on combat and pvp. sometimes you just want to play alone, and not have to fork out money to make the play smooth. Warcraft, Starcraft, Age of empires, Ceasar, and a few others were great for this, it’s a dying breed of game it feels like for me.
anywho, I saw this ans was super excited. I played it immediatly. about 6 hours into my play time I ran into a few road blocks. some things weren’t working properly, and they littlerally haulted game progression. (example, being able to appease Ceaser’s requests was broken) among a few other things like crashes, and games not saving.
– Real player with 8.3 hrs in game
Rome: Total War™ - Alexander
Oliver Stone’s Alexander Revisited being one of my favorite sword and sandal epics, I was looking forward to playing this standalone expansion after having finished Rome: Total War.
Big mistake; should have played Alexander before Rome’s Grand Gampaign, as this feels like another tutotial campaign with many limitations compared to the Grand Campaign.
Not only is the world map smaller (in the sense that there is only Asia to conquer but this is something we all expected), no, even the Asia part is SMALLER than its size in the regular Grand Campaign of Rome Total War!
– Real player with 37.1 hrs in game
I finally got around to playing this 2006 expansion (11 years old) to a 2004 game (13 years ago) that at the time was a true gamechanger and a “game of the year” level historical RTS game. The age is important to note because from my experience, the lack of recent patches has made the game buggy on, say, Windows 10. There was a particular bug which sometimes (maybe 33%?) led to game crashes in the transition from the battlefield back to the world map. What that meant (and because the battlefield can take a while) is that I had to do frequently crazy saves (some 2-3 minutes apart). And that’s because there’s nothing quite as annoying as pulling off a brilliant battlefield win (that you easily could have lost)… and then have to do it all over again !
– Real player with 37.0 hrs in game