Rome: Total War Collection does what it says on the tin. It brings together the excellent strategy trilogy into a single package that slightly reduces the cost. And believe us, if you’re going to dip into this you’re going to …
Rome: Total War Collection does what it says on the tin. It brings together the excellent strategy trilogy into a single package that slightly reduces the cost. And believe us, if you’re going to dip into this you’re going to want to go the whole hog.
The collection packages together the base game and its two meaty expansions, Alexander and Barbarian Invasion. Together they tell the entire story of the Roman Empire, from its foundations to its most prosperous period and, finally, its downfall.
And it’s a tale well worth undertaking, because there’s nothing else out there that’s quite like the Total War games. It takes place across two different modes: a turn-based, almost Civilisation-like mode in which you manage every aspect of your empire, including the economy, government, diplomacy, and the military.
Your goal is to become emperor by taking control of the fifteen different in-game provinces. You can achieve this in a variety of different means from diplomacy to bribery to simply laying siege to the city. Once you own the city though, you have to manage it properly or it will become a liability.
Each city provides tax for your empire and you get more tax and lower maintenance costs from the cities that you manage properly. That involves building and maintaining the necessary amenities like temples, aqueducts, and amphitheatres. In fact, if you don’t manage your cities properly, they can actually rebel and revert back to their previous faction.
The second part is a real-time battle mode featuring enormous armies in full 3D. You’ll manage every aspect of your army, including formations and positioning on the battlefield. You’ll have to pay attention to the terrain, as it can affect your units in a variety of negative and positive ways.
Speaking of units, you’ve got infantry, cavalry, archers, siege weapons, and more. Each has its own set of hit points, morale, and combat skills to manage, which kind of compares to the city management aspect. Keep them happy and they’ll fight hard for you. Demoralised troops will flee the battlefield.
Battles are either straight up kill everyone before they kill you or sieges, in which you have to either defend or attack a city. Capturing a city involves holding the town center for a period of time, without the opposition taking it back. It’s pretty fun stuff.
The two expansions introduce massive new campaigns, new factions, and a whole new story focusing on different periods of the Roman Empire.
Ultimately, we all know that Rome: Total War is an excellent game, and easily one of the finest strategy games of all time. Its move to mobile hasn’t changed that and, in fact, it’s found a very comfortable home on the smaller screen.
The UI has seen extensive rework for a touchscreen and we had no trouble with any aspect of it. From managing the minutiae of city life to directing our units around a packed battlefield, it all handled incredibly smoothly and lends itself to touch screen controls nicely.
We’re also pretty amazed at how beautiful it is for a game that’s about to turn 15 years old. It’s obviously had a lot of visual polish in the move to the Retina screen but it really does look great, and stands out as one of the best looking games on the platform.
Overall, we can’t recommend Rome: Total War enough. If you’re a fan of strategy games you absolutely should just splash out on this collection. You certainly won’t regret spending a tiny bit extra for a heck of a lot more game – especially when it’s this darned excellent.
