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Had it a few years ago and didnt play on it much. Sold it and the other day i grave this kind of game as i have sold my Xbox for a nice price. So i bought the game and for the last 2 days i have been addicted and dont know how i ever stopped playing it.
Oh man, that goes back. Now we have Empire Total War, Napolean Total War, Medeival 2 Total War, and Shogun 2 Total War. Talk is Rome 2 Total War is next on the agenda.
It's a great game and they have some excellent mods out for it. I still fire it up on occasion using the Darthmod.
haha, i know but i have a mac now instead of the old PC i had back in the day. Apparently only Romes gold edition is the only one which works on a Mac, not sure how true that is. I really hope they bring out Rome 2.
Everyone says Rome is the best out the lot and i love to play it, so it would be brilliant to have an updated, better graphical game of the same caliber.
I loved Rome Total War, bought it new and played it for years. It is probably still the best of the Total War series in many peoples eyes, though Shogun 2 looks like they got their act together and will take the title. I'm still playing Empire as I am a big fan of that period in history and am looking to pick up Napoleon now that it's on sale. However, the experience of buying an essentially broken game with Empire and needing to wait almost a year for them to patch it to "good" makes me hesitant to buy anything new in the series until it's been out for awhile.
I liked Rome Total war, sort of. The battles were hard according to who you were taking on. And I have always sucked running cities, actually I found the way they work totally unrealistic. How can a city only work on one project or make just one unit? And then I sucked at making money. I normally had a negative income. Of course, if any of you want to tell me how to play like a pro. Advice would be greatly appreciated.
I liked Rome Total war, sort of. The battles were hard according to who you were taking on. And I have always sucked running cities, actually I found the way they work totally unrealistic. How can a city only work on one project or make just one unit? And then I sucked at making money. I normally had a negative income. Of course, if any of you want to tell me how to play like a pro. Advice would be greatly appreciated.
Let's face it, it sacrifices historical accuracy for fun. Chariot's used by Egypt during the time of the Roman Empire? The "one project" rule is just there for game balance.
They key to making money is not spending money. For example, those troops use funds. Stay at peace during the beggining of the game and build up your economy. No wars. Minimize your troops to only the minimal needed to defend your borders. Pick and choose your developments carefully - typically your first teir developments will return the most, after that the rate of return vs expense deminishes. Some developments you are spending your hard earned money on you just don't need.
When you go to war - pick your enemies carefully, conquer the weak and exploit their territories, choose a territory that allows you to shield the rest of your territories so that you can leave some with a small garrison. As for units to recruit - one word - Elephants (if you are able to recruit).
I liked Rome Total war, sort of. The battles were hard according to who you were taking on. And I have always sucked running cities, actually I found the way they work totally unrealistic. How can a city only work on one project or make just one unit? And then I sucked at making money. I normally had a negative income. Of course, if any of you want to tell me how to play like a pro. Advice would be greatly appreciated.
You may want to check out the TWCenter forums. They have dedicated forums for each of the Total War games and an extremely active community. They also have a multitude of strategy guides written for each faction and overall game mechanics like managing your economy.
Some of the keys to the early game are:
Maximize your economy. You do this by focusing on building ports, markets, etc. You also need to keep tax rates as high as possible on your larger cities while still keeping the population happy. Good governors are very important, so don't think you are "wasting" a general by keeping them as the governor of a city.
Trade agreements are easy to get and add a good boost to your economy. Use your diplomat to explore and find another nations. Sell everyone you can your map data for extra cash and sign trade agreements with everyone.
Population is the key to everything as they provide the tax base and unlock new technology levels. Early in the game, it is essential that you enslave cities when you conquer them. This makes the conquered city easier to control and creates a "slave" resource that provides income and boosts the population of your other cities. In the late game, the best option is to exterminate a city as it is the only way to control the population following you taking it. Farms are also essential, but I would rank them in priority behind ports and markets for your economy.
As the population expands, it gets harder and harder to keep your cities clean (squalor) and under control (unrest/happiness). This forces you to invest more resources in maintaining them through different buildings and larger garrisons. Happiness buildings trump anti-squalor buildings in your build queus. Some people advocate demolishing farms as soon as your city reaches the top level. Farms add to population and once the city has reached a certain level, it won't revert back, but additional population will continue to add to squalor and unhappiness. There are also some cities that just grow rapidly regardless and it is best to not build farms past the first level or two in these areas.
Do NOT garrison your cities with actual troops unless you absolutely have to (imminent attack). Peasants are the best garrison units as total garrison ability is based on the size of the units, not the number of units themselves. Peasants are cheap and the largest sized unit, so they make the best garrisons.
As for your armies, use the best troops you have available and never forget that infantry are the key in most any battle. Your armies should be primarily composed of hastati/prinicpes in the early game and legionaires in the later game. Use other units to round out the army, placing a priority on cavalry, then archers, then seige weapons. It's better to have one or two strong armies under good generals than multiple smaller forces.
When it comes to building up military buildings in your cities, it is best to specialize them into certain unit types. Have one city that builds archers, one that builds cavalry and one that builds seige weapons and a couple dedicated to infantry. trying to build every building in every city is a waste. Some larger cities can handle having maybe two types and this is fine, but don't try for that as a matter of course. When in doubt, choose infantry.
The last bit is that each of the Roman factions has a unique role to play. The Julii fight the Gauls and expand into France. The Scipii fight the Cathaginians and eventually the Egyptians and perhaps the Gauls in Spain. The Brutii are setup to fight the Greeks and expand into Greek/Macedonian territory and eventually into Turkey.
Julii's have the easiest opponent in the Gauls, but Gaul cities are very poor with low population and take a long time to develop. Brutii have the hardest fight against the Greeks, but Greek cities are rich and have large populations, making it easy for them to generate money. The Scipii are a bit of a mix against the Cathaginians, as they can be hard to fight, but Carthage is a very rich city. The issue with them is that outside of Carthage, you are fighting over a very broad front and are heavily dependent on your navy.
Edit: Wanted to add a little trick for generals/governors. As you probably know, they gain a "retinue" of people that compliment their abilties. They also age and will eventually die. You can transfer retinue between governors and generals at will, but you can't have two of the same thing on one person. So, if you have an old general or governor with a lot of retinue that will die soon, transfer his folks over to a younger one so you can still keep their bonuses. The retinue characters never die off, but they are lost if the person they are attached to dies. In this way, you can also balance some of the attributes to create more ideal governors or generals based on your needs. There are also some buildings that generate retinue if you park a general/governor in the city where they are located. This can be a good way to build up an otherwise poor commander.
actually I found the way they work totally unrealistic. How can a city only work on one project or make just one unit?
thats been a gaming mechanic in this type of game since the original Civilization, if not earlier. Parallel projects in one city would make it much harder to program the AI I suppose - for the player it would both add more micromanagement, on the one hand, while making strategic choices easier, on the other. Not a good combo from the game point of view. If you're going to do that, might as well just drop the individual "buildings" and have an "upgrade city" button, but no one seems to find that fun.
BTW, I got RTW about a year and a half ago, in the Steam sale. Lots of fun - Barbarian Invasions didnt feel as unhistorical as the original game.
oh, and of course I played it on PC. Didnt even realize there was a console version.
Shogun 2 is my favorite one...it really feels like they took the general TW format and polished it a lot and fixed some things and made other things work better. Battles in Rome would almost always just involve you sending a giant cavalry army smashing into the enemy and making them all rout after about 10 seconds and winning. Medieval 2 was way too slow in battles, you'd send some giant army of supposedly good units against a smaller army and you might win but it would take like 30 minutes and you'd lose a surprisingly huge number of enemies. Shogun 2 feels just right, you can't spam cavalry because of all the spear units, but battles generally are won more quickly and sensibly than in Medieval 2. Also the economy is a lot more challenging and interesting, and diplomacy actually matters.
My main complaint is that all the clans have pretty much the same exact army and navy units though they do each have clan-specific specialties like better trade or cheaper katana samurai--it would have been nice to have a couple unique units for each clan. Also I think Realm Divide happens a bit too early, it's fun messing around with diplomacy in the early game and setting the other clans off against one another, but after RD they all gang up on you.
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