Total War: A retrospective

Rome: Total War

But the media hype around Rome: Total War would start long before the game landed in any reviewer’s inbox. Shortly after receiving Strategy Game of the Year at E3 2003, a fully reworked Total War engine would make its TV début in September as the centrepiece for a TV series called Time Commanders on the UK’s BBC Two. The premise: eight noobs of varying ages and lens prescriptions go head to head on two teams, recreating famous battles of antiquity for our entertainment and historical enlightenment.

Not one to be trampled on their own turf, the History Channel aired Decisive Battles in the months preceding Rome’s launch late in September 2004. Speaking with Wired magazine, Margaret Kim, director of programming at the History Channel, said, if a little pre-emptively, “We're pioneering something new in this series, and we'll see how it evolves. The gaming industry is one of the fastest-growing, and it's likely that we'll see more convergence between video games and programming in the future.”

 

Whatever the case, the two engines don’t bear comparison. The soldierly sprites of Shogun and Medieval – wilfully stabbing at the air in front of them – were gone, to be replaced with polygonal soldiers who would dodge, parry and thrust at their foes.

Being able to bear closer scrutiny also freed up the developers to play with camera angles: Now, players could lock onto a group of cavalry and revel in the bone crunching-impact of their charge. They could watch on as barbarians were flung into the air with perhaps a bit too much coded enthusiasm on the behalf of programmers. Doing their best Russell Crowe impersonation, generals would now add further context to battles with speeches to their legions, denouncing their foes, praising their allies and speculating on the momentous victory to follow.

You play as one of three Roman houses seeking total control of the Roman Republic. The Julii focus on the Gallic provinces to the north of Rome, the Brutii seek to expand Rome’s power to the east and the Scipii see to Rome’s ongoing wars with Carthage in North Africa.

 

Playing as one third of the world’s dominant power right from the outset meant that the campaign map needed to be approached differently. Gone was the provincial map as it stood in the game’s predecessors. Instead, armies and agents had a movement allowance defined by unit type, season, and by that quintessentially Roman development: roads.

Sea trade and transport was also updated. However, the movement limitations of boats were gimped. It could take upwards of five turns (years) to traverse the width of the Mediterranean Sea. Moreover, naval combat continued to be a ‘strictly for computers’ auto-resolve affair.

Without provinces as such, the strategic placement of armies on the campaign map became essential. Armies were needed to hold mountain passes and river crossings; forces could lie ready to ambush in forests and these new strategic factors were carried over to the newly-full 3D battlemaps.

 

Production and governance was also revamped. The Lord system of Medieval was given a new spin as your governors were now a part of your house. In addition to paying attention to their strengths and weaknesses and assigning them regions accordingly, players would also need to promote the candidacy of their family members for senatorial position and influence. Neglecting senatorial postings would result in a government controlled by your political enemies. Rome paid special attention to this simmering political hostility. Holding the purse-strings, the Senate was not to be ignored. However, succeeding on these missions would raise your popularity with the plebeians and bring you a step closer to your true ambition.

In fact, you rarely felt the full power of Rome behind you: the divergent geographical interests of the houses meant that they rarely crossed paths until later in the game when, inevitably, your house was deemed too powerful by the Senate and Rome collapsed back in on itself in civil war. Once players had entered Rome in a triumph as the newly ordained Imperator they gained total control of the Roman Empire.