Europa Universalis: Rome - Gold Edition
Mix of Europa Universalis IV and Crusader Kings II with an Ancient Era theme?
As mentioned before this game somewhat finds the middle ground between Europa Universalis IV and Crusader Kings II set in the Classical Era, while keeping it a bit more simple. There are individuals with personal properties who are part of families which you can appoint to perform certain tasks in your realm, but you are not playing as a dynasty gaining and losing lands by inheritance. For some people this type of gameplay might make CKII a bit hard to comprehend (or even annoying when you lose your realm because of some patrilineal/matrilineal screw up, or lose your alliances at the death of your ruler), in which case Europa Universalis: Rome offers a nice alternative because you are playing as a state while still having a fun mechanic with indivuals with personal traits.
– Real player with 597.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Rome Historical Games.
My most played game on Steam, and it deserves a review.
Its very indeph with loads of micromanagement, and if you happen to like the timeline, you are welcome to buy it.
You can tune it to play it with unlimited time, if that bothers you.
What sets it apart from normal EU games, is the barbarian mechanic.
There are lots of uncivilized lands where barbarians are uprising all the time, and it takes near the end of the game, to civilize them all. If you play a nation that borders to them, it makes the game very “fun” and unpredictible.
– Real player with 527.6 hrs in game
Imperator: Rome
its good now, actually. i hope that someday they look back on this title and add some more content.
– Real player with 610.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Rome Simulation Games.
I spend few hours in this game and I’m glad that I bought it (but on bargin for ~20€). There is a lot more microeconmic mechanic than other games, like EU4 or Stellaris have, so it is even harder to maintain big empires (witch is good thing becouse big empires don’t last forever). Of course Imperator has some issues, but even EU4 after 8 years still has and it’s not like this bugs makes this game unplayable. I hope Paradox will realase new updates or DLCs soon (maybe after They realase Victoria 3) becouse this game have a lot of potencial.
– Real player with 449.0 hrs in game
Alea Jacta Est
Alea Jacta Est (hence AJE) simulates Roman-era warfare at a strategic level, and it is probably the best one on Steam.
As any good strategy game, AJE is a game of informations, and its brilliance shines the most in how these informations are acquired: unlike other “arcade” games (e.g. Rome Total War 1/2) the map does not show true data, but just a patchwork of rumors, whose reliabililty depends on factors under the player’s control (e.g. own army composition, scouting), factors out of control (e.g. subordinates' skill, or lack of it), and enemy’s actions.
– Real player with 153.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Rome Simulation Games.
Sooner or later, when playing Rome Total War, you start getting this uncomfortable feeling that what you’re doing on the strategic map is just a stage prop for pixel soldiers to run around in pretty period costumes.
Alea Jacta Est, though very nice to look at, is not about eye candy.
Instead, it gives you a very detailed strategic and operational view of what the opposing sides were dealing with. When battles or skirmishes take place they are resolved abstractly, though the abstraction gives a pretty detailed depiction of the tactical characteristics that were likely to be in play.
– Real player with 85.7 hrs in game
Field of Glory: Empires
Field of Glory:Empires is a good game and a great one when paired with Field of Glory II. I’ve owned the latter for over a year and have enjoyed it but it is spectacular now that stakes are involved. The purchase of this game is worth it just for the improvements to FoG2 as it really captures the ebb and flow of tactical battles during this era better than any game I’ve ever owned (including the Total War which IMO only becomes better for gunpowder era battles).
I could gush about FoG2 but this review is about the base Empires game and my feelings there are a little mixed. My initial impression was overwhelmingly positive but I wanted to play an entire game before fixing my opinion and I’ve found issues there the further you go into the game.
– Real player with 630.8 hrs in game
I’ve edited this review to become a response to the most upvoted negative review because that review does not permit comments. That review was written by @Saber_6 and can be found here:
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198006747725/recommended/1011390/
Random Selected Objectives: They aren’t random. They seem to instead be based off of a combination of geographic proximity, historical conquests, and ethnic/government type affiliation. For example, when I played as Syracuse the objectives were first the rest of sicily, then tarentum, then epirus and massalia, and finally they extended to much of the hellenic world, with the result that you create a Hellenic Mediterranean city state league. When I played as the Picts the objectives were the rest of what is now scotland, and then expanded into the greater celtic areas in northern ireland and Brittany, and then out to the rest of britain and ireland, and then into coastal northern Europe. As Carthage I got objectives to secure southern and easter spain, sicily, sardinia, corsica, southern italy, etc…you get the point. They aren’t random at all. Random would be like if Hibernia was given an objective in India or something like that. Can you tell us what nations with what objectives you are referring to?
– Real player with 533.5 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
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
Total War™: ROME II - Emperor Edition
I think I’m getting the hang of it.
– Real player with 6679.6 hrs in game
TLDR: CHECK OUT my 2021 VIDEO REVIEW of Rome II right here: https://youtu.be/qi6DNAHwIK0
FINALLY reviewing this game after almost 900 hours and over 8 years of playing. If you’re willing to pay for it, especially on sale for cheap, there is a ton of content here, likely making Rome 2 the biggest historical Total War experience out there. It definitely lacks depth in certain areas, depth its successor, Attila did a lot better. But despite its faults, Rome 2 is leagues better than it was at launch, and has honestly become a really strong Total War game in its own right.
– Real player with 875.2 hrs in game
Aggressors: Ancient Rome
This review is actually a Thank you letter to the developer for making this game.
For unbiased reviews skip this one.
I think it was 25 years ago that most of my school holiday time was used to do what I really like. Gaming. But I did not had my first PC yet, so gaming was spending one day in the city to collect all kind of painting materials and paperboards to create the ultimate game myself.
The Civilization boardgame, HeroQuest boardgame and some rare tabletop games I owned served as an example. But mine had a bigger boards, more options, more counters and features, more of everything actually.
– Real player with 562.4 hrs in game
Aggressors - Ancient Rome
This obscure historical game is turn based strategy / tactics to dominate the world starting in 280 BC by default, but adustable from 1000 BC to 500 AD. It is single player and is my personal choice for game of the year. I have played it for over 480 hours in the past 60 days. It is published by Slitherine and available through them, on Steam and GOG.
Where I am coming from
–———————————–
I am the curator of Strategic Win https://store.steampowered.com/curator/9074928/ and have reviewed 142 games there in the past 2 years. I bought this game from Matrix games.
– Real player with 521.5 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
Total War: ROME REMASTERED
~ DIFFICULTY ~
🔲 My 90 year old grandma could play it
🔲 Easy
✅ Normal
✅ Hard
✅ Dark Souls
It can be changed to hard or Dark Souls depending of your difficulty settings and your faction choice.
~ GRAPHICS ~
🔲 Graphics don’t matter in this game
🔲 MS Paint
🔲 Bad
🔲 Meh
✅ Good
🔲 Beautiful
🔲 Masterpiece
~ MUSIC ~
🔲 Soundless
🔲 Just SFX
🔲 Not special
🔲 Bad
✅ Good
🔲 Beautiful
~ STORY ~
🔲 This game has no story
✅ Like playing Temple Runners for the story
🔲 It’s there for the people who want it
– Real player with 156.2 hrs in game
Even with it’s problems it is the best way to play Rome Total War. Wish the new menus and intros were better and wish it got more updates and also that co-op campaigns would be added. Other than that it’s a great looking game and a lot of fun.
– Real player with 153.7 hrs in game
Total War: ATTILA
Attila is, in my opinion, the best Total War.
A lot of people complain about optimization issues, I’m not saying they’re lying, but I don’t have these issues so it’s not impossible to run the game properly.
What Attila does GREAT is giving you very different campaign experiences: you can pick from massive empires under pressure, small tribes with one settlement, small hordes that have to flee from the Huns and try to conquer some land and settle down, or as a massive horde that will grow, loot and pillage.
– Real player with 798.0 hrs in game
Disclaimer:
Please note that this review, as with all reviews, is heavily influenced by personal opinion. I am in no way attacking you should you love the game, I just want to let others know the good AND the bad of this game before they purchase it. And if they like some of the things that I have listed in the bad? Then it’s all good, at least they are informed.
tl;dr - Great launch, graphically pleasing, better AI response from units. Badly designed Horde mode, Limited choice of factions that all boil down to three types that generally look the same, jacked diplomacy system, all the illegitimate children of the world come from one of your general’s loins, campaign AI are all led by the Joker. They just want to watch the world burn.
– Real player with 717.4 hrs in game