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Excellent price for a great game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 94 / 100
Date: February 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Not only do you get the full game but also the expansion pack for a reasonable price. The replay value of both titles alone definately justifies the expense. I cannot recommend this game enough. Even after almost 2 years on the market I can still pick it up every couple months and march my Legions to conquest.

Below are my comments for each game.

ORIGINAL ROME: TOTAL WAR

This is the game I've always wanted to play. It has such a superb blend of strategy and real time action. Ever play a turn based strategy game and want to really watch your troops battle it out and control the formations and tactics? Now you can. Of course there will be something people don't like, but there are many mods out there to tweak it to your exact taste. The Total War community is healthy in that there is a significant population tweaking and modding the game to your particular flavor.

Let me just say also I am not a RTS fan. I do not like "whomever clicks the fastest wins" games. Each single soldier is represented on the battlefield. It's truly amazing watching your Legions march across arid deserts, snow covered mountains to engage the enemy and clash together right in front of your eyes. Each battle is like a scene out of Braveheart or, more appropriately, Gladiator.

No other game can capture the scope of an immense battle like Rome: Total War can. Especially the battles consisting of many units, it's like an epic battle from your favorite movie.

It is not purely the battles, it has a strategy element in it to where you will manage cities, build structures and conduct diplomacy.

Overall, even if you are not a fan of Strategy or RTS games you will find this to your liking. There is so many good things about this game, it would fill many pages writing about all the pluses and things the developers did right here. A definate must have for any gamer.

BARBARIAN INVASION

The Total War community has given a lot of feedback to the developers on the improvements they would like to see. I'd say pretty much all of the biggies were addressed and added in Barbarian Invasion. Rome: Total War is hands down one of my all-time favorites and a game I can still pickup and play again and again.

There is a lot of upgraded features you would expect from an expansion...little better graphics, upgraded units and increased functionality. The upgrades to the AI are the most noticeable, in my opinion.

The Total War community waited over a year for this to be released and it is readily apparent the developers spent this time to deliver an outstanding expansion. The price tag is definately worth it as well. The time period for the expansion is set in the declining years of the Roman Empire so basically you are getting a whole new game with this expansion.

The new game element rearranges the map to take into account what has happened historically in the last three hundred years. The Roman Empire is split between west and east and all the old factions from Rome:Total War have been assimilated into the Roman Empire. An interesting historical note when the game begins for the Eastern Roman Empire is the Faction Leader Valens. His defeat against the Goths was considered a milestone in the decline of the Roman Empire (for both halves). Not only was his army defeated, but the Emperor Valens was also killed. Oh and the Goths will come for you...Oh yes, they will come.

The Parthians have been surplanted by the Sassanid Empire in the east, but essentially all the old factions have become roman provinces. Basically, it's the barbarian factions battling it out for the choice pieces of real estate.

The new expansion is noticeably harder depending on which faction you play. The Western Roman Empire is by far the most difficult which took a great deal of time to beat. Why is it so difficult? Barbarian factions with a few exceptions don't die when you take their last city - they become a Horde. This is challenging in that you can't just move through and conquer cities to annihilate the Huns, Vandals, Sarmatians,etc. You need to not only conquer all their cities but kill every single family member in order to wipe the faction from the map or they will just keep spawning as new Hordes. You must fight them out in the open which pits you against their horse archers. As you play you will find different strategies on dealing with them, but needless to say it's very fun and challenging. My personal method is the very liberal use of assassins and fortifying cities while I pick apart their horde until I get their family members eliminated.

Bottomline - 5 out of 5 and highly recommended no matter what game genre you typically lean towards. You won't regret it.

The best Historical War Game ever. Or at least so far.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 27
Date: February 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I have been playing war games since before computers. Avalon Hill etc. I started with computer war games in 1995 and have bought many games since.Probably around 100 or so.

This game encompasses historical economies, war strategies and social dynamice unlike any before it. If this genre interests you....look no further.

Understand: This is a very very unstable game with NO SUPPORT

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 35 / 59
Date: February 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game, as all have said, has all the hallmarks of being a near-perfect strategy and wargame. It remains a terribly disappointing option because of its frequency of crashes - don't believe me? check their forums: you will find hundreds of lost souls trying to find out how to make the game run - most often by chasing down obscure drivers from years past. SEGA support is non-existent - they neither know nor care about fixing your problem whatever it may be.

I run a dual-core 64-bit system with 1G of RAM and a 256mg video card. I can run any game made today. I purchased the new February 06 Gold Edition of this game - it includes all patches and updates and the expansion.

Crashes. every. single. time. A good test is to note right off if when playing the tutorial if youre mouse lags slightly behind normal. This is a sure sign that it will crash very soon. If going on line and postin gyour dxdiag file in a forum and praying that someone will help you sounds like your cup-of tea, then release the hounds.

I commend the game in it's visuals, game design, and the AI is wonderful, but No One should buy this game expecting it to work without a lot of work by the purchaser getting it to run.
And make no mistake: no single entity involved in creating this game is available in any way to help you.

Civilization meets real time tactical combat

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 12 / 20
Date: March 29, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The AI isn't entirely challenging, but that is really true of all games. Until programmers can come up with truely great AI I will just have to keep giving games 4/5 and 9/10. This game is more a 9/10 than a 4/5 btw.

If anyone knows about an old game called Archon, this game is to Civilization what Archon was to Chess, it takes the basic Civilization game (capturing cities, expanding empire, building armies and upgrading cities) and adds a real-time combat element.

Strategic combat at its best

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 30 / 32
Date: May 12, 2006
Author: Amazon User

While I am personally more fond of Rome's predecessor, Medieval: Total War, the latest in the Total War series is nothing short of excellent. Much has been improved on, especially the real-time combat and gameplay mechanics. The meek AI, underdeveloped naval combat, and drab visuals that marred Medieval have been done away with for the latest installation.

One of the greatest strengths of the series has always been its ability to capture the truly epic feel of worldwide warfare, regardless of whether you are looking over the whole of Europe or watching rank-and-file armies advancing upon each other. This is especially true with the new 3D combat engine, which is vastly superior to Medieval's. The units are all fully modeled and animated, and the camera is much more maneuverable, allowing you to get up close. This isn't very handy from a command standpoint, but it really makes the battles come alive. Battles in cities and forts are also much more fun, since they are more balanced and take place in full-sized replicas of the cities you see on the world map, down to the individual buildings you or your opponent have constructed.

The mechanics of the strategy portion of the game are different. Instead of treating each provence as a whole entity, with units being able to move between them once per turn, units move relative to the physical distance they must cross on the map, with cities being the points of interest you must find. While this adds more strategy and realism to the game (since it will obviously take longer for an army to cross an African desert than the Italian peninsula), this makes the game move much more slowly and, I feel, detracts from the excitement and fun. Fortunately, the game compensates for this and does not require conquering the entire map to win; under the new rules of the game it would take a very, very long time.

The expasion, while not lacking in content, is slightly on the boring side. I believe my opinion may be slightly tainted since I am not as fond of the play styles inherent in choosing tribal factions which compose virtually all the playable ones in Barbarian Invasion. Still, after playing several full games of Rome, I found that the expansion did not offer enough new material to hold my interest for very long. Besides, there is plenty of fun to be had without the expansion, due to the wider range of factions and units.

Fans of the series will not be disappointed, which seems to be a rarity these days. Newcomers should be prepared for a challenge, but the game does a good job of breaking people in and letting them enjoy the game from start to finish.

Rome total war

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 7
Date: August 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Son loves game. He had it before but since it has multiple disc's (one broke) we had to reorder entire set. It is a strategy game and teaches him alot about Roman history. If one disc breaks entire game is no good. So keep them safe- we learned the hard way.

Great Game - Campaign is a bit long

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 13
Date: August 14, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Overall, Rome Total War rocks. I'm a big Civ fan but I also like to play Warcraft. Rome Total War combines these well. The only negative is the campaign game takes a really long time (30+ hours) to play.

Too Buggy to Buy Save Your Money

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 22
Date: October 25, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Rome Total War is a fun and very challanging game but has too many software bugs in its current version 1.3 and on up to be consider a buy. It is famous for its Crash to Desktop or CTD in the middle of a game. Save you money until a bug free version comes out on a new Romam war game is produced by someone who knows what they are doing. Too bad but that the way the CD spins.

Fantastic

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 8
Date: November 06, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I've played a lot of strategy games and this is simply the best. Rome Total War is fantastic. The Barbarian Invasion expansion adds a wrinkle where an entire nation can pack up and move making every game vastly different from the last.

Can't recommend this strongly enough.

Great Game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 03, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Great battles, lots of armies to chose from, a good game over all

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