Rome: Total War

After I finished up the latest NALB season, I was ready to install something new. I decided to go with Rome: Total War and have been playing it for the past few weeks. I knew of its lofty reputation. Like many games of some complexity, it took me a little bit of time to get into it. Now that I am fairly comfortable with the game concepts and controls, I am loving it. A lot of praise has been given to its real-time combat, which supports a large number of units on screen. That aspect of the game impressed me but I am enjoying the turn-based strategic play of the world map as much, if not more. It’s a bit like Civilization crossed with Age of Empires. Rise of Nations had a similar mix of turn-based strategy and real-time tactics. Where Rise of Nations focused more on the latter, I feel Rome: Total War does the turn-based strategy better.

I am currently in the middle of the campaign. I chose to play as the Julii family. I am several decades into this epic period, with many more years to play. We expanded northward from the Italian peninsula and have conquered a fair amount of territory. Wars against the Gauls and Dacians continue to drag on. Now, Britannia has declared war on us as well. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. Hopefully, we will defeat our enemies and unite the Roman empire under Julian rule.