Comments on: Unintended Consequences

By: Troy

Troy — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 16:53:47 +0000

You mean the Roman faction fight at the end? It’s Creative Assembly’s attempt to force a Roman civil war on the player, since the last century or so of the game’s time frame had a few of those.

That’s nowhere to be found in the EB mod, of course, since Rome is a single faction instead of three competing ones.

The big problem with the civil war in vanilla Rome isn’t its arbitrariness – games are full of arbitrary things and the Senate mission system is really quite good, I think. The big problem is that rarely will the AI controlled Romans make enough headway to be the factions outlawed by the Senatorial powers. You have to overthrow the Republic, not save it.

And that just annoys my inner Cato.

By: Vic Davis

Vic Davis — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 16:34:39 +0000

I’m going to give this a go. I’ve played Vanilla Rome:TW off and on in between Civ IV games but one thing keeps nagging at me when I play. The faction showdown seems so artificial and contrived. I wish there was a better way to approach this. I don’t really know enough about the period to have a clue as where to start. Don’t know if I want to plop down the $60 Troy just did on that book. How about a review first?

By: Michael A.

Michael A. — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 08:44:29 +0000

EB is a great piece of work; I am constantly amazed by the many incredibly talented people who spend massive amounts of time making mods like this.

On the flip side, just starting up a campaign keeps reminding me of the old adage: more is not necessarily better. For me, all the fun is in scrolling the map, seeing the new units and characters included and reading the many flavor texts. Playing it holds less attraction.

By: Troy

Troy — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 00:54:19 +0000

In fact, the History Channel game is a revamp of 2005′s Legion Arena from Slitherine. Once again, the Slitherine battle engine is the main draw, but it’s tied to a very weak campaign system. The battles are more puzzle challenges than anything else.

The HC version adds some of their documentary stylings to give a veneer of education to the product. It seems to have been successful enough to spin off a Medieval version for next year.

By: jonathanstrange

jonathanstrange — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 23:49:51 +0000

The HPS Punic Wars I do have – and it is a great game! What I was thinking of was – I’ve since Googled it – The History Channel’s Great Battles of Rome which I thought covered the Punic Wars (in fact, I thought that was the title). Anyhow, upon closer examination, it looks too much like an older version of Rome Total War. Not that I won’t buy it at some point anyway…sigh…

By: Troy

Troy — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 20:11:28 +0000

You mean HPS Punic Wars? I've reviewed it here. I also had a few comments on the expansion/update. It's quite good, probably the best ancients pure wargame since the Great Battles series.