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 Strategy Rome 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
Total War: SHOGUN 2
OK I’m older than the average gamer and have a history of traditional wargaming - map based and figure based games/campaigns. I find all the Total War immersive and an excellent up to date computer based version of traditional wargaming. Shogun 2 is a particular favourite as it was the first one I really started to customise with user based extensions and later my own. Today, I’m downloading it again to play it for the first time in about 3 years and can hardy wait. Programming wise, apart from a few moody extensions the game is very reliable and lock-up and crash free. It also gets a big plus for not stealing all my memory and CPU run time allowing me to multi-task with high end productivity and graphics software.
– Real player with 5367.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Strategy RTS Games.
The best Total War CA ever made. It’s all downhill from here.
– Real player with 541.1 hrs in game
Total War: NAPOLEON – Definitive Edition
This is one of the best historical games I have ever played. It’s very detailed, has lots of varieties of modes and mods, and is just round well one of the best games I have ever played in my life.
– Real player with 326.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Strategy Grand Strategy Games.
Everything. maybe bigger longer campaigns would be nice for this era. but after beating twice i need a new total war.
– Real player with 243.0 hrs in game
Total War: EMPIRE – Definitive Edition
I’ve had this game for awhile so i guess this was a review long coming. what did i like? everything essentially. the time the game was sent in, the ships, the muskets. all down to the game’s controls. even watching the battle go on, if you have the time is like watching a movie. if there was anything i could say this game truly missed, it would be these few cons:
- There’s no way to play with a friend in the campaign. as detailed as it was it missed this feature. maybe if
this ever gets a reboot it could include a campaign like shogun total war 2 has (you can play with a friend). And include a full on multiplayer campaign so players would fight for territory instead of just the AI
– Real player with 13114.5 hrs in game
Basically, I’m addicted to this game. When I feel like some quick entertainment a little Road to Independence is in order. This is especially fun when you put it on the hardest setting and promptly cream the red coats at Bunker Hill. Watching them run away is completely gratifying.
Once in awhile it is enjoyable to sink a Spanish Galleon with an 18 gun sloop. It’s nice to have guns that shoot farther than the big boy’s guns. Layoff in the distance, knock out the masts with chain, and then have at the immobile hulk.
– Real player with 3817.6 hrs in game
Imperiums: Greek Wars
So, I have been playing this game for about near 40 hours at the time of this review.
Imperiums, focus' on the Greek Wars time era. And the developers do a very good job in portraying accurate history, in my opinion. The game keeps trying to ‘curb’ you back toward history. However; you can fight against that, and go your own way. However it requires more effort or ‘elbow grease’ to get there. Basically, to ‘go against’ history; the game feels harder! Usually. Usually when trying to go against history. I really like this aspect of the game.
– Real player with 323.7 hrs in game
As a strategy game Imperiums is one of a kind. Designed from scratched with pen and paper by a passionate developer and now released as the second entry in a hopefully long lasting series of strategy games.
Over the years the game is shaped and finetuned by the help of a small, but very dedicated playerbase who can discuss with the developer in forums on Steam and Discord.
Hundreds of players already mentioned their complains and wishes for the game and the developer keeps a list with urgent must have features and nice to have features for the future.
– Real player with 158.9 hrs in game
Total War: THREE KINGDOMS
I’ve been a fan of Total War games, but I’ve typically stayed away from ancient/classical warfare titles like Rome, Shogun and Medieval. I’ve gravitated more to the early-modern titles like Empire and Napoleon. So, by all logic, I should have avoided this one.
Why?
Well, despite this being yet another rendition of ancient warfare, it’s set in a period of history that I am not very familiar with (the eponymous Three Kingdoms Era of Chinese history, and the fall of the Han dynasty). Based on the famous historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, TW3K allows you to take on the role of one of many warlords during this period and forge a new dynasty for China. This game was really my first true exposure to this period of history and all the fascinating characters that inhabited it. I suspect the story is much the same for any other Westerner playing this game. I can say definitively that playing this game made me want to research more about the Three Kingdoms period and its prominent actors (my personal favorites are the Sun family).
– Real player with 1266.7 hrs in game
While I do agree with most people on how bad CA have schrewed up with cencoring mods, and partnering with NetEase, I will speak for the game and the game only.
It has potential.
It has Interest.
But it falls short… Quite short.
Firstly, Three Kingdoms do a lot of things right, if you can ignore the bugs. Let’s go over that before we tackle the bad.
-The foodsystem, while I would have liked it to be more advanced, is a nice toutch.
-Diplomacy has a new coat of paint and seems to be a bit more smooth and easy to understand. With personalities to each faction leader, making them unique and interesting to negotiate with.
– Real player with 822.5 hrs in game
NOBUNAGA’S AMBITION: Sphere of Influence - Ascension / 信長の野望･創造 戦国立志伝
As an individual who are obessed with Asian history, especially Japanese history, I found his game is a blast. I would call NOBUNAGA’S AMBITION: Sphere of Influence - Ascension a education sowftware rather than a game. You can actually learn a lot history knowledge if you follow the scenarios.
Compared to NOBUNAGA’S AMBITION: Sphere of Influence, Ascension is a huge improvement. Heres the every reason I prefer Ascension over SOI.
1: Enemy and Ally AI improved notably, especially on max diffuculty, For example, smaller Daimyos would actually form alligence to protect each other, so it is hard to invade them without much strategy like in SOI.
– Real player with 1616.0 hrs in game
Hello, welcome to my 600+ (25 days in game) hour long review for a game I am going to overall say, “Yes buy it.” “BIG IF” you like strategy games. As I am someone who has over 600+ hours on this game it’s pretty safe to say I have played this game and I know what I am talking about. I’m going to be honest. I am no expert at this game, Only defeating 4 scenarios so far out 18 scenarios, I have not completed every scenario and defeated every stage of this game, because quite frankly, it is too much fun challenging myself playing as weaker daimyos (lords or warlords) in the early scenarios with less powerful clans running around, and fighting against impossible odds later in the same scenario if I did not build up fast enough. So check out my review first before you go with other reviews that are less than 40 hours, because chances are they started playing this game thinking they were gonna get a Dynasty Warriors (hack and slash) game and were like, “WTF is this?” and then they quit after 10 hours of scratching their heads and not understanding a thing about strategy games or KOEI games for that matter. If you’re looking for a mindless beat them up fighting adventure game move along and stop giving bad reviews to a game company that has been around for over 3 decades now producing strategy games. Go buy Dynasty Warriors 45 or whatever hack and slash game KOEI has produced lately, so maybe KOEI will continue to produce such classics games as these for their true AMERICAN fans.
– Real player with 1445.2 hrs in game
Age of History II
Alright let me get this straight just because i have 700+ hours on this game doesnt mean that its the best. Obviously this game has some features and inequalities that i would like to tell people about. Now i wouldn’t consider myself a professional jusut yet but it has some bugs that i think are either bugs or baad game design. I like to structure all of my reviews based off of Price to gameplay so here are the 10 things that i will review to give the game a simple 1/10 score.
Well for starters this game is very simplistic which i like in a game + 1
– Real player with 1248.0 hrs in game
at least let the community fix your game pls. or do something with it again? its fun but dont buy until something happens with this.
– Real player with 726.8 hrs in game
NOBUNAGA’S AMBITION: Sphere of Influence
Writing a review for Nobunaga’s Ambition: Sphere Of Influence is going to be tough the game is truly amazing. please dont let my hour’s make you think differently of my review, I played this game quite a bit offline when I had no net where I played it at times, anyway lets get down to business!
Nobunaga’s Ambition: Sphere Of Influence is an historical strategy simulator game, where its based of of the warring states of feudal Japan the Sengoku era that was between 1467-1615 when the last of the Toyotomi oposing the Tokugawa shogunate was finally defeated.
– Real player with 154.8 hrs in game
As someone who was just a wee lad playing on his NES when the first Nobunaga’s Ambition hit the US, I was definitely turned on when they announced the 30th anniversary edition. The story of the Warring States Period is a crazy part of world history, not just Japanese history, and SOI adds infinitely more flair and backstory to this than previous editions of the game.
The game’s combat has some similar elements to Total War: Shogun, but there’s more art to it and fewer technical options available for directing your armies… The personalities in this game are more important, and your generals and their special talents can make or break you in a tough situation. The game has stronger RPG elements in developing their individual traits that can turn them into some serious powerhouses on the battlefield.
– Real player with 106.4 hrs in game
Ultimate General: Gettysburg
This is probably one of the best historic ACW realtime strategy games out there. Anyone with any interest in the American Civil War will want to have a copy of this and it is well worth the 15 dollars being charged for the game. The games does a very good job balancing historical accuracy with playability and the visual presentation is stunning.
At its core, this is an American Civil War tactics game with the brigade being the primary building block. The battle of Gettysburg is represented as a series of scenarios which represent significant engagements fought by the 2 armies. Each brigade is modeled historically in terms of size and performance based on how they did at Gettysburg historically and their reputation throughout the war. Each scenario sees the player commanding 8-10 brigades on average with accompanying artillery modeled as seperate units that take 30 minutes to an hour to complete.
– Real player with 119.6 hrs in game
First of all, I am an early backer and have been testing and playing this game since it was released on Steam Greenlight/early access.
Graphics:
the graphical style of the game is fantastic. It gives an impression of a large battlefield, while still showing enough detail. Everything is clear and crisp, with the smoke and explosions looking great, and the battlefield getting littered with dead bodies. The landscape is a beautiful rendition of the land around Gettysburg, and you will easily pick out all the historical spots, like the Cemetery, The Peach Orchard, Devil’s Den, The Round Tops, The Angle, etc.
– Real player with 84.9 hrs in game