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One of the best

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: March 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

My wife purchased this game for my B-day. So far, I really like the game.
I like playing Warcraft, Starcraft, and C&C series. However, I was getting bored of managing resources (e.g. gold, timber, food)
I was looking for a game with more strategy rather than resource building.
I remember the first time I played Myth and I like the concept of the game. Praetorian is a mixture of Myth and Warcraft. There is less resource managment and more strategy on fighting. Praetorians' graphics, sounds and game play is top notch.

A highly polished and very fun game!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: April 22, 2003
Author: Amazon User

"Praetorians" is sort of a "Age of Empires/Total War" hybrid set during the 1st century BC when Julius Caesar and the other members of the 1st Triumverate vied to increase Roman dominance upon the peoples of Northern Europe and the Middle East. It's like the AOE series in that it's a RTS game- the clock is always running and sometimes you must react quickly to achieve victory. However, there is no real resource gathering. Slowly regenerating peasants in villages/barracks, which can be turned into combat units, are the only resource and they're just represented by a number counter. You can do some limited building by having specialist soldiers construct defense towers, bridges, and siege equipment. But like the "Total War" series, the emphasis here is on combat and one controls units of men instead of mobs of individuals.

The graphics are nicely done and convey a great deal of atmosphere such as birds frightened from the forest, raindrops visible as they hit water, snow flurries, and desert duststorms.) However, they're not groundbreaking, but that can be a blessing for people with moderately low-end systems.

The combat system is the typical rock, scissors, paper of the RTS genre with each unit having its own strengths and weaknesses. The number of combat units is limited to about 10 types for each of the three civilizations (Romans, Barbarians, Egyptians.) Combat is not as realistic as it is in the "Total War" series in that there is no morale system or bonuses for flank/rear attacks. However, terrain and formations do play a vital role in "Praetorians." Seizing the high ground is a huge advantage for archers. You can set up ambushes in forests or high grass in which your troops will be completely invisible to the enemy until it's too late for them to do anything about it. Special formations play a major role in improving the combat capabilities of certain units. Recon is also a major key to success in "Praetorians" because the enemy will have also archers on hills or troops hiding in the forest. "Praetorians" gives the player access to "Hawk" and "Wolf" scouts, who not only can see further than other units, but they also are accompanied by their namesake animals with which the scout can send out to spy out the enemy. (Yes, it's silly to think that a flying hawk can impart recon info to it's handler on the ground, but it's just a game and it works!)

"Pratorians" has both a skirmish mode and a campaign game. Skirmish allows the player to choose 1 of 20 maps, choose a civilization, and how many CPU/human opponents. Skirmish mode is the closest thing "Praetorians" has to a random map feature.

The strength of the game, though, is the campaign which features 24 missions set during Julius Caesar's heyday. Although, it's not a true "campaign" game in that forces are not carried over from scenario to scenario, the player still must win each scenario to move onto the next one. In the campaign the player plays the Romans in a variety of settings: Caesar's conquest of Gaul and his forays into Germany and Britain, Crassus' campaign in Syria, and the Civil War between Pompey and Caesar. The missions all have different victory conditions and most play quite differently from each other. Also many of them are not easy even on "normal" difficulty. (I love the Total War series, but I think they're easy even on Expert. So it's great to play a game that does challenge me.) The AI is fairly strong, but good scenario design made it even tougher. The scenarios in "Praetorians" are a joy to play and I didn't mind having to restart one difficult scenario 3 or 4 times. Also some of the scenarios are introduced with really cool little movies.

My only faults with "Praetorians" is that there is just one campaign game and that may lead to replayability issues upon its completion. Also one has to micromanage the scouts, leaders, and healers because if you do group moves they'll rush ahead of the combat units making them vulnerable. (This can be a problem because many of the campaign scenarios require the protection of certain leaders in order to win.)

At least the sound of marching sandals is cool....

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 12 / 22
Date: April 23, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Since when did Gauls throw hand axes? I thought that was the Franks...a Germanic people if I remember correctly who came along some time later and while on the subject, I'm pretty sure Roman infantry didn't wear their cloaks into battle. I guess I'm a stickler for details sometimes and when those details get kinda blury and 'wierd' I lose interest. I believe some of the designing of the game might have been influenced more by fantasy game programers than from any historical data. Troop control is disapointing as they seem to charge off happily after enemy formations against orders then are non responsive to commands at the vital moment...strange! There is no detailed unit control capablity really. Once contact with enemy troops is made the game seems to play the combat for you. Kinda takes the fun stuff right out of it! The script and dialogue delivery is sad indeed. Take a look at the 'CLOSE COMBAT' series of games for attention to details with dialogue and sound effects particularly for comparison. Praetorians lacks the same homework. Well at least you get to march your Legions around the countryside for a while and watch them!

Great Game!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 10
Date: December 12, 2003
Author: Amazon User

"Praetorians" is a great RTS game! Unlike "Age of Empires", Praetorians allows soldiers to enter thick woods, ambush out of grasslands, and recruit soldiers at captured villages instead of having to build a barracks and wait a lifetime for your soldiers to be created.

The units are interesting such as a barbarian (barbarian meaning Gual) axemen that, first, throws an axe at the enemy and charges into battle immeadietly after.Archers don't take forever to kill an enemy unit, (in Age of Empires it takes most archers atleast fiffteen shots to kill an enemy soldier)it usualy only takes them about nine shots.

The graphics are realistic!Such as trees that are the right size compared to the units and rain hitting water, making a small splash.

The AI is a little poor. Units travel in groups, and if a group gets to fighting hand to hand with the enemy, than it is impossible to get that group to retreat.

This game is great! That's why I decided to give it five stars!

A sweet game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: March 18, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game was over all very fun. The graphics are pretty good and the gameplay is awesome. It is a game that will last you a good long time. It is one of those games that you will be stuck on a level and come back and win and get sucked back into it. You can command the egyptians, the gauls or the romans. The campaign is very fun. The skirmish is very fun. You can make up to eight different computer players and choose who is an ally and who is an enemy. I reccomend it.

Waste of Time and Money!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 9 / 17
Date: October 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The Graphics are very poor. You cannot control Game speed and cannot pause the Game. Worst of all you cannot control your Units.

This is supposed to be all about Units, not managing an economy so as to produce Units. You just fight. The strategy lies in using the right Unit in the right place, but because of the poor Game interface and the horrible bottleneck Battle Maps , it is chaos once the fighting starts. Your units run all over each other and you end up with your Archers charging out in front.

Add the fact that if you are a Single Player going up against the Computer, it is useless to scout the Dense Dark Forests because your computer generated enemy will simply disappear and pop up in another place. There are even arrows flying at you which do not come from any enemy unit. They are computer generated.

There are Walkthrus online, but no viable Community Chat/Help because no one participates.

In short, save your money! I just ordered Rome: Total War which is what I should have done in the first place!

Praetorians is a pretty much must!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 10
Date: April 26, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Although this game is great, I would give it a 4.5 stars if I could. First the good: Beautiful graphics (the scenery is almost like real), the campaign has a story (unlike some RTS games that have no campaign or story), skirmish mode is fun but sometimes too quick, great gameplay, and it runs nicely. The bad: The units are sometimes kind of dumb (they stand and do nothing sometimes when they are told to go somewhere), the unit graphics could have been a little more sharp, and there aren't many units (this is not really that bad but I would have liked more units; there are 9 different combat units for the Romans). Don't let the bad things sway you from buying the game. Unless you are a real critic than the bad things would make you very mad.

A Rookie Game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 18
Date: March 22, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Everyone knows that a good strategy game involves somewhat of a steep learning curve and an advanced difficulty level. This game is simply a click and attack real time strategy that does not involve any heavy thinking. In fewer words it's the bunnie slope for youngsters that are just discovering the thrill of these games. In conclusion I feel the word strategy is innapropriate altogether! True strategy players will want to return the product, rookies will like it because they'll feel moderately challenged by it.

LOTS OF FIGHT NO MICRO MANAGING

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: March 24, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The game takes place during the time of Julius Caesars campaigns
in Gaul Egypt and the empire itself Italy.The part I liked about this game is no worrying about money farming or keeping everybody happy.You just rise an army fight it out and hope you win.The animation is smooth and detailed and you get a fold out
of the units characteristics.The only gripe I have is in the
campaign you only play the Romans.

Standard RTS - Spicey Flavor!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: March 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

As far as Real-time strategies go this game is pretty standard. You assume the role of various figures during the time of the Roman Empire: it's formation, during, aftermath, etc... and take on various missions... Standard RTS formulas here, nothing new...

Graphics & Sound:
- The graphics are outstanding in this game. They are not overly done to hog system resources but they look great. Unit animations and environmental terrains are nicely rendered and make battles fun to watch.
- The music & sound effects are well done and fit with the time period and on-screen action. No complaints; nothing earth-shattering but nicely done.

Gameplay:
- There are some good improvements and refinements to the controls in this game. All the standard RTS devices are in place: control groups, formations, etc... The methods for organizing armies and issuing controls is fluid and easy. This game succeeds in keeping the management of your forces, outposts, etc intuitive and simple.
- Battles are well-done and aside from being visually stunning the action is fairly easy to coordinate. There aren't any complex moves that are needed to play - usually just point and click. Any effects of leaders, etc during the game is easily available by tips and hints from the game or in buildings.
- if you enjoy themed games then this one will do justice to the Romanesque style. The uniforms and armies look great and the story and style of gameplay feels right.

Performance:
- the game runs very well without any glitches that I experienced. There were no unexpected graphic problems or sound anomalies that I experienced on two different machines. If your PC meets the requirements for the game you should be fine.
- as always adjust options in-game to optimize performance or quality as desired (tune down quality options for better performance if the game runs slowly); check for video & sound driver updates; and disable any background programs like virus scanners if you experience gameplay issues.

Take care

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