Medieval: Total War was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I liked the carnage that was taking place on the rolling hills of the English countryside but wished I could control some of it. Or most of it. Well, all of it. The idea is to be in control of your armies, not panic, lose shape, and hope for the best.
Anyway, there were some highlights that a sequel could potentially make brighter and more natural to grasp for my feeble little brain. Enter Rome: Total War.
Set further back in time, Rome: Total War takes us through a campaign to become the Emperor of Rome, fighting out in the fields and seizing territory from our enemies across a mix of turn-based, Civilization-like strategy and real-time battles.
I wasn't too keen on that in Medieval. Will I come around to it in Rome?
Fun Times
The introductory video to Rome: Total War starts off a little slow, a little subdued. War is coming, soon, and it appears to be heading to the city...
Already, my eyes light up a little. Hills and forests are fighting mainstays, but cities you don't see, do you? I haven't, at least. And that's a lot of people, ready on the inside, sieging on the outside. I can imagine controlling either of these armies and having a good time. A turbulent time, as plans immediately fall apart and all hell breaks loose, but a good time nonetheless.
The action heats up, with siege towers crumbling and city walls getting bombarded with burning boulders, or whatever it is humans flung at each other thousands of years ago. I'm looking forward to this one.
Just look at the scale of these battles. The engine is capable of some 30,000 fighters at once if I recall correctly. In three dimensions. In real-time. Let's get this going, already.
Here we are, an up-and-comer in ancient Rome. Our overall goal is made clear, but you can't just become an Emperor in a day. We've got to work up from what we have, beginning with a show of our force against some barbarians.
Nope, beginning with a cutscene of a rousing speech to get us in the mood to fight barbarians, followed by the introduction tutorial to the world map.
This world map has us march our troops around the Mediterranean, quelling invading armies, expanding our influence over the country, and generally working towards utter domination. We're not there yet. We're at the 'follow my instructions, click this and that' stage, which luckily involves some barbarians.
We are going to be the flanking support army for the main Roman force, which is fine by me. It means the computer can deal with most of the problems, and I can faff about learning how to control just a few units, and no doubt fail in the process.
Here we are then, small in number but packing a punch. Cavalry, footmen and archers are all ready to inflict heavy casualties on the celts. They are celts, right? Gauls. Close enough. Selecting units can be done by clicking portraits or directly selecting them on the battlefield, with camera controls set to either follow them or move wherever you need it.
Sadly for me, F12 - default Steam screenshot button - also seems to swing the camera aaaaalll the way across the battlefield to some other, utterly useless viewpoint, so if there's one thing I can safely say about Rome: Total War's controls, it's that the delete key switches the camera to behind your selected unit. Learnt that one early on.
The enemy has spotted us and make a run towards our position. We manoeuvre our soldiers into place, protecting our archers, and let loose enough of them to rain down upon the target. The skirmish is brief, and we are victorious - once I send in my own cavalry to mop up.
The bridge before us forms a choke point, and again, careful positioning of our units will help offset the problems we'll face. Don't put your weak ranged units at the front, for example. Attacking and moving is all done on the right click of the mouse, so it's not too difficult to set things in motion and then wait for it to all play out.
Pushing over the bridge, we head to the primary battle to lend many hands to our fellow countrymen. Armies are easily identifiable as friend or foe, so there's no worrying about friendly fire. Not that my archers were anywhere near the fight to be useful at this point, as I just ran around with my cavalry, but whatever. Moral support.
Victory in the bag, we're whisked back to the world map to see what the effect was in the broader picture.
The Senate themselves have decided to task us with taking over a settlement, bringing it into our control, and serving, perhaps, as our own seat of power until Rome itself is within our sights. It's a turn-based section of the game, this, with turns representing 6 whole months. We have to march over to this town and wait outside for a bit.
Depriving the enemy of provisions and watching them starve inside their own settlement is a common tactic in games like these, and looking back on it, I have to wonder why I clicked the 'Automatically resolve battle' button, as this could have been the first chance for me to fling an army against some city walls. Maybe I was told to skip this one. I can't remember.
Victorious once more, Tarquiniiiii is ours, and now we can build in it, and raise taxes, and pick to worship.
Frustrations
At this point, my enthusiasm for Rome: Total War just fell out of me. I had successfully built some roads, somehow, and had a look at what units I could train up. Spies give the impression of being more useful on the world map, than on the battlefield.
I don't really fancy micromanaging things on the world map, even if it's turn-based, and even if those turns are 6 months long. I have a hard enough time keeping order on the battlefield, and now I need to feed my city? I need to build up its infrastructure? I need to decide on the best level of tax to pay for it all?
I need to get out of here. I'm a commander, not a councillor.
We get another mission from the Senate to take over another settlement. Despite our tutorial advisor briefly mentioning the location of this city, I struggle to find it on the world map. For some reason, I assumed it was north - surely Italy was already Roman, right? Why wouldn't it be north?
But I didn't find it to the north. I somehow got into a peace treaty with the Gauls on my travels - I must have been out here for a few in-games years looking for this bloody town - and then spotted my target, a long way away from where my forces were.
Thoroughly annoyed - I couldn't find that mission scroll to reread it, so I was blindly wandering the map, turn by turn, like an idiot - I marched towards this place as fast as I could, ready to give it the beating of its life.
Something about siege equipment was mentioned, so I clicked on some of it. It'd take a turn or two to build. Sure. Makes sense. Only I don't think anything was created when I (again, stupidly) clicked the auto-resolve battle button...
Thinking all those stars counted for a comfortable victory, I clicked that auto-resolve button thinking the job was done. But no. Those stars are not an indicator of success. Look at the numbers I had brought into battle. Look at the likelihood I had of storming city walls with no equipment. I was done for and forced to retreat. Another year down the drain. I was annoyed.
And then the bloody Gauls broke off their peace treaty and attacked our city.
Final Word
On account of my own incompetence, I didn't have a good time with Rome: Total War. I could see the early stages of how it played, and I saw that I wasn't on board with it. I could see the appeal of expanding an empire, city by city, making the population work for you so that you can battle for them. I could see a great big game in here for someone to sink their teeth into and take Rome for themselves.
And that someone would not be me.
Once again, I go into a Total War game thinking it will be one thing when it turns out to be a different beast altogether. Now, it does offer the opportunity to just set up a battle and fight if you don't want to bother about the rest of Rome, but I get the impression that mode is only for a quick bit of fun. It's not the meat of the meal. This campaign is. The campaign I don't like to play.
I've come across many similar games in this 1001 list. Games where I enjoy the setting, and the ideas, but can't find an execution that I like. I can see mechanics and understand concepts, but don't like having to work to set them up and wait for them to be fruitful. They all serve as barriers to entry and get in the way of a sandbox of throwing thousands of men at each other in a vaguely strategic manner.
And yet, I think Rome: Total War looks pretty damn good. It's probably a shining example of this kind of gameplay. Is it dated these days, in the Total War series? Most likely, yeah. I wouldn't know. I've never been attracted to these games, mostly owing to be a console gamer for my formative years, and have a hard time finding a nice in-road.
But Rome: Total War might be that in-road. It really might be. If I had paid more attention if I had cared more about what was going on, if I invested more into what the game was trying to tell me, I might have a completely different opinion of it.
There is a slim chance of a second attempt here, perhaps surprisingly. Not sure when it'll come, but there's a chance. Something good must have come from my failure here. That's positive. I should learn from that.
Fun Facts
As I mentioned in the Medieval: Total War write up, a version of Rome: Total War was used in two TV shows pitting players against historical events, Time Commanders in the UK and Decisive Battles in the US.
Rome: Total War, developed by The Creative Assembly, first released in 2004.
Version played: Rome: Total War - Collection, PC, 2004/2007.