StrategyFront Gaming

Rome Total War Retrospective

Does the Total War series have a single shining breakout entry and if so is it Rome Total War? 

The answer dear reader, is of course, yes. 

But is Rome Total War the best game in the franchise? Well let’s find out.

What is clear is that the monumental success of this game cemented Total War’s place as one of the top strategy game franchises of all time. 

Released in 2004 by Creative Assembly, Rome Total War holds a significant place in many people’s hearts, including my own.

Rome Total War held a sense of epic scale and graphical fidelity previously unseen in the strategy game space. Feasting your eyes on the thousands of individual soldiers clashing across the entirety of the ancient world was exhilarating in 2004. Rome Total War proved how PCs had finally caught up with developers’ ambitions.

Rome Total War was well-received both critically and commercially at release, and today it’s often given prime spots on “Top PC games of All Time” lists and is talked about with nostalgia-tinged reverence among strategy game circles.

Rome Total War is so beloved that it’s still used as the standard for Total War games for years to come. The trend of comparing later games to Rome reached its climax with the disastrous release of Total War: Rome II in 2013. The utter failure to launch for Rome II just compounded the idea that the original was something truly special. 

But was it? Was this game as good as we all collectively remember or do the clunky controls and outdated graphics make this game a relic of the past, only good food being gawked at in long-winded essays on some random blog on the internet?

While today Total War is one of the preeminent strategy game franchises, where players can enjoy well-detailed battles with crisp graphics, Rome Total War may well feel like a dinosaur in the gameplay department. 

So what exactly draws people to the series today? Fans will laud the dynamic traits systems for characters, diverse factions, and incredible soundtrack. And, how do these hold up today?

Well, the first thing that becomes clear when analyzing Rome Total War is that this is the make it or break it moment for the franchise in terms of appealing to a wider audience. The Ancient World is one of the most beloved historical settings and the move to full 3D graphics meant that Creative Assembly was banking on Rome Total War’s success to catapult the franchise from a niche strategy game to something more. 

Some Background

The Total War Franchise kicked off with the release of Shogun: Total War in 2000. Shogun was conceived as a competitor with the wildly popular Command & Conquer series but throughout its development morphed into the historical real-time turn-based hybrid that we know today.

Shogun even had a historian consulting on the game, something Rome Total War definitely did not have. 

Shogun was followed up by Medieval Total War in 2002. Medieval maintained the 3D real-time battles and turn-based campaign of the original. It’s main contribution to the gameplay of the series was the introduction of siege battles, something Rome Total War would expand.

Both of these previous entries would stick to the RISK-style campaign map, where players would move their armies from province to province. This campaign system was somewhat finicky as you had to set up long frontlines at your borders, and any province undefended means the AI can slip into your territory and wreak havoc. 

Rome Total War would change all this, updating the campaign to fully 3D allowing players, all the while keeping what made its predecessors great, namely the epic battles. 

Clever Use of Terrain

Gone are the 2D hand-drawn-style maps of Shogun and Medieval. Now you are in individual forests, rivers, lakes, deserts, etc. This shift wasn’t just an aesthetic change but provided new and interesting strategic options for players. 

Do you want to push ahead and take that bridge allowing you to defend it in an easier battle or hide in an ambush in the forest? Instead of just moving between provinces you now could choose your exact positioning to take battle. This shift to a 3D campaign map is so great not because of the increase in graphics but because it provides more strategic depth, and gives you more options to consider before initiating a battle. 

Fighting near mountains provides you with a battle map that reflects that type of terrain, potentially giving you an advantage. Tying the decisions made on the campaign map into the battles in this way was a huge step forward for the series, and is a key tenet of good strategy game design.

This was only enhanced by the clarity of the visuals. In modern Total war games, it’s often unclear how terrain on the campaign map will play into the battles. Is my army directly on this river crossing or is it slightly too far away? How will the terrain look on this map, will it give the advantage to me or my enemies? These are minor problems in the modern Total War games but it’s interesting to note the Rome Total War didn’t have them.

An Actually Good Tutorial

Before jumping into the main Imperial campaign I want to talk about the prologue or tutorial campaign for Rome Total War. It does something extraordinary for a strategy game and makes the tutorial section not terrible. 

You’ll command a small force of Romans coming in to assist a larger Roman army in battles against the Gauls. The battle is relatively easy as it mostly serves to teach you the camera controls and your allies will take the brunt of the assault. 

The game then unleashes you on a smaller version of the campaign map. Here, you’ll only be tackling the Italian peninsula instead of the entire ancient world.

It is a serviceable enough introduction to the gameplay throwing things at you one at a time to ensure new players aren’t overwhelmed, gradually adding more mechanics until you are ready for the full game.

I only mention all of this because so many strategy games have abysmal tutorials. Here it mostly lets you just play the game and gives you more direction than you receive in the main campaign. It’s simple, allows you to learn by doing, and provides context to the Imperial Campaign. In short, it’s everything a tutorial should be. 

Imperial Campaign

The Main Campaign is the highlight here. Spread across the ancient Mediterranean World you take control of a faction, expand your territory, and conquer your neighbors, fairly standard Total War stuff. The Campaign itself starts in 270 BC and ends in 14 AD. Each year consists of two turns. Your main resource will be the same as in previous Total Wars: gold, which you can earn through taxes, buildings, and sacking cities.

The first thing you’ll need to do is choose between the three Roman factions. Wait? only three factions? Well, Rome Total War has 20 factions in total, with 13 being playable, although all 20 can be unlocked by messing with the game files. But you’ll only be able to play the three Roman factions at the beginning. Creative Assembly got rid of this for every other Total War game, for clear reasons.

Though it does make some sense why they’d limit the amount of starting factions. The first is to teach news players the game using the strongest faction. This will reduce player frustration since it’s unlikely they will be defeated as any of the Roman families, and then give up on the game. Second, is that the Romans have several unique mechanics that spice up the game, namely the Senate offices and senate mission. Third, is that playing as anyone but the Romans and you’ll eventually come into contact with their overpowered legionnaires which if you’re fighting with a bunch of naked Gauls can lead to a bad time for new players.

You can then choose your difficulty and whether you want “arcade battles” or not. Arcade battles, what’s that? Well just know, no one, and I truly mean no one, plays with Arcade Battles on. What it means is that fatigue and morale aren’t taken into account during battles, making them more like traditional RTS games where units fight to the death. This not only destroys the historical feel of the battles, eliminating most need for tactics and strategy but it also completely breaks the unit balancing. In short, don’t use it. 

“We Brutii are the only true Romans. We saved Rome, we drove out the kings, we made the Republic. The family deserve respect; respect, and obedience. We know what is best for Rome: new lands, living space, territories, slaves! I know what must be done. The Greeks look down their perfumed noses at all Romans, and they hate us. I’m going to give them a reason for hate…when I’ve crushed them! Roman steel, that’s the answer; Roman steel in the Brutii fist. And the other great Roman families…the Scipii; trash! They have no respect for proper Roman ways, for us! The Julii prostitute themselves. As if the people matter! Bah! We Brutii must lead Rome.”

Brutii Intro for Rome Total War

Anyway, back to the Romans. The three Roman factions are the: Julii, the Brutii, or the Scipii. Once you choose one you’ll be treated to an intro cinematic with some truly great voice acting. This sets the stage for the campaign and highlights the differences between each family. 

Oddly these aren’t historically the most prominent Roman Families, instead, they’re the most recognizable. Each also is a nod to their historical areas of influence. The Julii being situated near the Po River and Gaul, the area where Julius Caesar conquered. The Scipii being situated in Sicily primed for a fight with Carthage in Africa, the historical stomping ground of Scipio Africanus. While Brutii for Lucius Junius Brutus, who created the republic, and Marcus Junius Brutus who was Caesar’s “Et tu, Brute?”

Although this may make it sound like each family may have a specialty or role within the republic, they really don’t. Their main differences come from their starting positions and a few types of units they can recruit, such as the type of gladiator.

Roman Campaigns

“In politics, the tripod is the most unstable of all structures”

Frank Herbert, Dune

The city of Rome itself isn’t controlled by any family faction; instead, it’s held by the SPQR, a neutral faction that mostly just hangs around Rome twiddling their thumbs. 

Needless to say, this setup isn’t what we would call “historically accurate” but it works in gameplay terms. Setting up three Roman factions who are all allied but heading for an inevitable showdown presages the later civil wars of the Roman Republic. 

Throughout the Roman campaign, you’ll be given Senate missions to complete. This can be anything from blockading a port to signing a trade agreement with another faction. These will often force you to go to war with neutral factions to complete, which forces you to either prioritize your diplomatic standing with foreign nations or your popularity with the senate. 

By completing these missions you’ll generally get some immediate reward like money or units and increase your relations with the Senate. Increasing your standing in the Senate will help you hold higher offices within the Republic which grants those characters bonuses and will greatly increase that character’s influence score. 

More often than not though these missions are often entirely nonsensical and seem to go out of their way to be annoying and conflict with your interests. This has given them a bad reputation among Total War fans especially since the reward of a few thousand coins doesn’t compensate for going to war with a major world power. 

The other group you’re trying to court as a Roman faction are the dirty unwashed masses of Rome. Pleasing them is done mostly through conquest. Conquest brings in new slaves and opens new markets to the Roman people so as you conquer more, the poor be happier with you. 

These two modifiers feed into the Roman civil war mechanic where your faction will inevitably be outlawed by the Senate and forced to fight the other two families for supremacy over the Roman world. 

Roman factions will also receive the Marian Reforms event which allows you to build more advanced Roman Legionnaires, abandoning the older Polybian legions. This can be annoying since your troops were already the best, and now you can’t retrain any of your current armies, leaving those soldiers obsolete. 

The Roman campaign is brilliant. Each phase has a distinct feeling as you slowly conquer your way across the Ancient World bringing the riches of distant lands back into Italy. As your wealth and power rise, you’ll slowly draw the ire of the Senate until the situation explodes into open war.

There are a number of theories about why the Roman Republic fell. People blame Caesar, they blame the Optimates, Marius or Sulla, or even the Latifundia. But the argument Rome Total War makes is that it’s this wealth, this insatiable need to conquer which drives the Republic to its own ruin. When there is so much wealth and the armies are so large the stakes become too high, your family can’t back down, lest you lose everything. The Roman civil war is inevitable just by playing the game. There is no way to come to an agreement with the other families, and placating the senate can only go on for so long. 

That all this “fun” you’re having conquering the world is going to come back to bite you eventually.

Or to paraphrase what a wise man once said, these imperial wars, they always come home.

Empire Management

Rome Total War kept the structure of the settlement management mechanics from Medieval Total War, translating it into the new 3D map. The most striking change from previous entries is the shift from a province-level overview to a city-level. Effectively this doesn’t change much since the cities function as the province capital and house all of its buildings. 

Provinces are governed from these major cities, which will be upgraded into different tiers, starting with a small village and progressing all the way up to a massive city. These settlements will act as your production and recruitment centers, unlike modern Total War games where armies are where you build new troops. 

Also unlike in modern Total War games, there are no set building “slots” in Rome Total War. Instead, you have a number of building trees your faction can build and the only thing stopping you from building all of them is time and money. 

This building system ensures that settlements feel like actual cities, they will have aqueducts, temples, and coliseums. The drawback is that no city feels unique for very long and by the end game every city is a jack-of-all-trades center of military, economic, and population growth.

Cities have dynamic population numbers which are decreased when you recruit troops out of it. This is in stark contrast to the later Total Wars where population levels are abstracted, which is a change that many fans criticize to this day. Having population numbers be dynamic also means you can theoretically destroy your enemies fighting ability by attrition or constantly sacking their settlements. Although being able to actually do this without just destroying their entire faction is unlikely.

One interesting wrinkle of this system is that since your population is constantly increasing your Public Order is constantly at risk. Public Order represents the stability of the settlement. Settlements without proper sanitation or that were recently conquered will have low Public Order. 

The problem with city management getting into the late game is that your cities will eventually become constant centers of rebellion as the exponential population growth outpaces any efforts to mollify the populace. This is more of an annoyance than a concern to your empire but it is probably one of the main reasons why Creative Assembly chose to ditch the population mechanic. 

Still, despite the system’s flaws, settlement management in Rome Total War successfully provided context for your expansion as well as giving you a range of strategic options and challenges to deal with.

Characters

Rome Total War’s character system is still lauded today for its dynamic traits and the way the player’s actions affect those traits. 

At its most basic level, characters are grouped into a family tree which neatly shows you each character’s relationships, age, and their best stat. Male characters above the age of 16 will appear on the map as generals with their own traits, retinues, etc. The children and women of the family are not represented on the map but can be married off to gain new generals for your faction. Also, If an army not led by a general wins enough battles the Captain will be appointed the “Man of the Hour” allowing you to adopt him into your family. Yay meritocracy?

Characters’ abilities are represented by three factors: Command, Influence, and Management. Command related to the character’s skill on the battlefield, the higher the command the less likely units are to break and run due to low morale. Command will increase as a character wins more battles. A character with 10 command stars has troops who are nearly unbreakable gods of war. 

Influence helps increase public order when a character is within a settlement and determines who will automatically be set as the faction heir, though you can manually change who the heir is. Influence is gained by holding offices in the Senate.

Management refers to how effective the character is as a city magistrate. More management points will increase both the Public Order and revenue of a settlement. It is gained by leaving a character in charge of a settlement. 

Beyond these, a character will have traits that will influence their stats. These traits are part flavor, fleshing out their personality, and partly have an effect on gameplay. A character can have the trait “bad ambusher” or “coward” which influence their command points either in general or in certain situations.

The last main feature of characters is their retinue. These are various advisors and hangers-on to the character. They also augment the character’s stats and provide a further level of flavor. They might be accompanied by a barbarian turncoat, leading to increased command against barbarians. Or a Military Tribune, or a Courtesan. 

While this may all seem fairly standard the reason this system is so praised, even to this day is just for its sheer dynamism. Win enough victories with a commander against a certain faction they’ll get a bonus against that faction. Retreat too many times with a general and they may become a coward. Put them in charge of a settlement and they’ll become a good builder, you get the idea. These traits influence their stats, yes but they also tell you something about how the empire is going. They’ll become more experienced over time and grow into the role you assign them to.

Too many trait systems are static or traits are gained semi-randomly(cough* Crusader Kings 2 cough*). RTW allows plays to subtly influence their characters in interesting and meaningful ways and adds to the overall atmosphere and roleplaying experience of the game. 

The whole system works well, if in the background. You can ignore most of this and just conquer whatever you want for the most part and be fine. But it is there, and it adds a level of immersions which often feels lacking in characters of modern historical Total War titles. 

Agents

Beyond your familial characters, you have agents, who can perform a number of tasks for you. There are three agents: Spy, diplomat, and assassin.

The spy can scout out enemy positions, reveal enemy buildings and if put into a settlement has a chance of opening the gates upon your army’s arrival. 

Spys also have another use though… If squalor gets too high in a settlement it can cause a plague. If this happens characters can get a plague and if they move to another settlement they’ll then spread that plague. So since spies can infiltrate enemy settlements you can purposely infect a spy with the plague then send him to your enemy’s cities. Some would call this “biological terrorism” but hey, it’s the ancient world.

What this does show is how much of a sandbox Rome Total War is. Did the developers mean to allow you to commit acts of biological genocide? No probably not, but since Rome Total War is a series of interconnecting systems you absolutely can do that.

Diplomats will open negotiations with other factions and can bribe characters and settlements. When bribing you will pay a certain amount of money for the subject to join your faction.

This can be incredibly finicky, as your only option is to “offer a bribe” then they can suggest an amount of money. It’s often not very useful as it usually doesn’t work and the settlement will be poorly defended opening it up to attack. 

Assassins are pretty simple, they can kill characters, agents, or sabotage settlement buildings. This can be useful for dealing with powerful enemy generals or if you want to annihilate another faction. 

Once a faction loses all its characters it will cease to exist. So if you assassinate every general of a faction they will collapse into being rebels. This is another effective if tedious way to destroy your enemies.

How is Diplomacy and Politics?

The diplomacy system in Rome Total War is absolutely broken. There’s no other way to say it. 

The AI in Total War games determines its attitude to you off of your relative strength so building more armies and placing them on your border will deter the enemy from attacking. The problem is this is completely hidden from the player’s view. 

This makes the Diplomatic AI seem insane and nonsensical. Your allies will attack you out of nowhere, they’ll send you the infamous: “Please do not attack, accept or we will attack” offers which are both meaningless and confusing… That is unless the AI is playing some weird mind games. They’ll be attacked on two fronts and still not want to make peace with you, the list goes on.

That being said the Total War diplomatic system only improved incrementally after Rome. The same core system was there based on relative strength but now it was out in the open. That is until Total War: Three Kingdoms came and fixed the whole thing. 

Historical Accuracy

“Dedicated wargamers will delight in the attention to detail; Rome doesn’t disappoint in fanatical attention to historical accuracy.”

Gamesradar, Rome Total War Review

That quote is from the GamesRadar review and is mostly just to show how insane some Games Journalists are but seriously, this game has some terrible historical accuracy.

Now the Total War series has always been about Historical authenticity, not accuracy, which is fine these are games. But man is Rome Total War the worst of the bunch.

Without teaching you a whole history course let me sum up the two biggest points: 

The first thing to note is that the Roman Republic was not divided up between three main families each controlling territory on the peninsula in some sort of feudal arrangement. The territory was controlled by the Senate or by Socii which were Italian subject allies of the Republic. 

The second is Egypt. Now I haven’t talked much about other factions besides the Romans yet, because their campaigns don’t really have any unique mechanics but Egypt is bad.

Egypt during this time period was a Hellenistic Kingdom ruled by Macedonian nobility. They would have fought similar to the Seleucids with large pike formations. In the Rome Total War, they are straight up from thousands of years before this time period. 

I could go on about flaming war pigs and Amazonians but let’s move on. 

De Bellum

Battles in Rome Total War are a vast improvement over previous games. This is mostly due to the diversity of the unit rosters and potential matchups, though controls have been greatly improved from Medieval. Each faction has its own unique feel when handling their armies. German barbarians play nothing like a mass of Seleucid pikemen. 

Units stats have become far more complex from previous games allowing for a greater variety of units, and for each unit to feel very different. This ensures it feels like there’s a greater disparity between ‘barbarian’ and ‘civilized’ factions. With barbarians focusing on an initial charge to break the enemy morale while civilized factions seek to grind away at their opponents.

Total War battles have always been focused more on cinematic spectacle than granular tactical maneuvers and Rome Total War accentuates that cinematic quality more so than previous games. Units move across the battlefield extremely quickly and clashes are often done in a few minutes. This prioritizes a player’s micro skill in a way that wasn’t emphasized before, something that would only increase in later Total War games. 

If the campaign AI struggles a bit then the battle AI in Rome is often having a seizure. The AI will often simply charge your formation, making them insanely easy to defeat even with a smaller force.

Despite that, using all the different units and experimenting with different formations for different factions is deeply satisfying. Executing cavalry charges and encirclements leaves you feeling like Hannibal at Cannae even if it’s not really a fair fight against the AI. While battles in Rome Total War definitely favor heavy infantry there is enough faction diversity to change up the game. 

Among heavy infantry though Roman Legionnaires are king. There are a few main types with the earlier forms being split between Hastati, Principes, and Triarii before transitioning to the official Marian Legionnaires. 

General units tend to be overpowered when used en masse. For one of my recent games I was playing a Julii campaign and had put every general unit that I had in a single death stack. We were able to roll completely across the map with ease. With the added bonus of never having to retrain troops at a settlement since your General’s retinues refill automatically. 

Generals also have the special ability to rally fleeing units. Other units can also use special abilities like the Romans forming Testudo to protect them from arrows, or the Greek Phalanx forming a wall of sarissa pikes. 

Where the units and battles shine is in multiplayer. If you can find a community to play with, it’s great. Without the lackluster AI, the gameplay focuses far on smart army composition and tactics. You may or may not be able to find games through matchmaking, so your mileage may vary here.

If you’re having trouble with the gameplay or would like more in-depth guides I’ve linked several Strategy Guides and Primers on the game below:

Quietus’ Rome: Total War Guide

frogbeastegg’s Guide to Rome: Total War and the Barbarian Invasion

Firewind’s ROME TOTAL WAR STRATEGY GUIDE

Mods

Throughout this piece, I’ve attempted to make clear my problems with the game: mostly with the AI. These aren’t new criticisms and many of them have now been fixed with mods. 

Rome Total War and Medieval II Total War have two of the best modding communities in gaming hands down. In terms of Total Conversion mods, those that overhaul large portions of the game, while maintaining the Ancient World you have three main options. 

These are Rome Total Realism, Europa Barbarorum, and Roma Surrectum. Each of these is unique in its own way and I’ll be doing a whole series outlining each one in detail. For now though check them out as they really do improve the game tremendously. 

I’d be perfectly comfortable saying that any one of these three mods would be able to go toe-to-toe with Rome II today. Yes, that’s how good they are. 

If you’re looking for something that improves the game without entirely overhauling it I’d recommend DarthMod. Which keeps the overall look and feel of Vanilla but improves gameplay and AI.

Conclusion

Rome Total War was a seminal game for strategy games. In terms of Technology, the jump too fully 3D real-time battles and the campaign was a huge step forward. PCs were finally ready to handle thousands of units on screen at once.

In terms of design, it clearly had its failings. I didn’t talk much about the other factions’ campaigns because there isn’t much to talk about, they’re all fun yes but not very mechanically interesting. The biggest problem though is simply the AI. Now of course, you may say that “this is a Total War game” why would you expect good AI” but that in itself is the problem. While the Total War AI has certainly improved since Rome Total War it doesn’t feel like 16 years of difference. 

Still looking back on this game I think there are great design decisions here that go beyond nostalgia. A lot of the ideas behind the Roman campaigns are great, and the character system is excellent. Agents can do some interesting things in this game but mostly the AI just spams them to be annoying. The Total War series still hasn’t really figured out what to do with agents and fluctuates between removing them or keeping them. 

What perhaps surprised me the most is how many of the Total War Franchises nagging problems really come to fruition in Rome Total War, and arguably haven’t been solved to this day. To be clear, I’m not blaming Rome for this, it is a hugely ambitious game and was a massive step forward catapulting the series into the strategy game stardom it has today so of course it has flaws. Instead I’m saying that it should have been the job of the successors to the Rome Total War to even attempt to fix them. 

Now, I know what you’re saying, “But you didn’t even talk about the expansions!” Don’t worry I’ll be covering each individually, Barbarian Invasion(Which is amazing) and Alexander(Which is mostly not amazing). Don’t worry they’ll get their own individual pieces coming soon.

This article is part of a series on the Total War Series you can find the other articles in the series here:

• Shogun Total War
• Medieval Total War