If you aren't already familiar, the Total War series developed by The Creative Assembly and published by Activision, is a combination turn-based and real-time strategy game. Strategy game play centers on a "board" where you move your units, build your cities, and position your armies. As your armies get close to, or attack other armies and cities, the game switches into a real time combat mode where you organize your scores of troops by company, and give them strategic orders on movement and attack of the enemy. Sounds simple enough, right? But, Total War games have always been known to be deep strategy games, and Rome is no exception.

Because this version centers on the rise of the Roman Empire, you lead one of the great Roman houses (the Juli, the Bruti, or the Scipii) through their ascension to become Caesar. While technically allies, each is scrabbling for power among the citizenry, and each are working to overcome nameless hordes of barbarians that hold what could only rightfully be Roman Lands. (Except for that part of Gaul later destined to be Euro Disney - they can keep that part.) The Roman Senate plays a large role in how you play the early game - giving you missions to achieve for Rome's greater glory - and is a constant barometer about how well you are doing in the game. Your family can rise to take important seats of power in the Senate, though the effects of this aren't always apparent.

Family is extremely important for your house, as each house must have a family member leading its affairs at all times. As new members are born, and other members die by old age or battle, the chain of heredity must be maintained, or your house will crumble and you'll lose the game. This opens up stealthier strategies as well, with Assassin units that can sneak into an enemy camp or town, and "eliminate the competition" without massive battles. Destroy your enemy's bloodline, and you destroy his power.

Your family also represents the governing body for your clan. Cities with your governors in place allow you to closely control their fate, determining which buildings to build, which units to recruit, and how to set the tax rates. Because you do not research technology, per se, your cities and towns are the key to your ability to create new and better units and your abilities are tied directly to your population growth. As your population in a town passes certain milestones, new buildings become available, such as the Governor's Palace, which open up a new chain of upgrades for other buildings. These buildings can then, in turn, build new and better units, or give better goods and services to the city, perpetuating the growth. While this is a much more realistic method of building up cities and technologies over other simulation games, this is also one of my areas of complaint about Rome, which I'll get to near the end of the review.

As with all of the Total War games, the majority of the game takes place on the game board - much like a game of Risk or Axis & Allies, with particular areas of control drawn out distinctly. By moving your armies around the board, you fight to take over these territories and control the map, its resources, and its cities. Each region has a single city that represents the control of that area; take the city, you take the territory, and all the riches it holds. However, unlike this game's brethren, Rome's strategy map is far more interesting and dynamic. Instead of simply moving from one space to the next, your armies are given a move radius per turn, with the terrain taking direct effect on how far your troops can move. Rivers have to be crossed at bridges, you have to go around mountains, and opposing armies on your highway will keep you from advancing. This adds to the strategy of how to deploy your forces, what cities can remain undefended, and which ones need reinforced. This simple change in movement style dramatically increases the complexity and legitimacy of the strategy game, in some cases making it more interesting than the massive battle sequences. I heartily applaud this move, while I also feel a twinge of nostalgia for the more "board game" feel of the previous games. Plus, it makes Rome feel more like a Civilization style game, rather than a war game, and I don't think it plays at that level yet.

In Rome, the strategy map also plays a much broader role in real time combat. The positioning of your troops on the map, where they attack or are being attacked, and how you attack with reinforcements directly translate to the battle map. For example, if an enemy unit is guarding a bridge, and you can get two armies of troops attacking him from both directions, you will have that scenario set up exactly that way at the start of the combat. This means you have to be a lot more careful about how you engage the enemy, but with proper planning and patience you can set up spectacular victories before you even get to the battle.

Speaking of the battle map, let's get to the meat of Rome that sets it apart from the rest of the strategy crowd: Massive Army Real-Time Combat. This is what Activision pushes with this game, with beautifully rendered screenshots of thousands of marching Roman troops, cavalry and siege engines, rolling across a meticulously designed landscape. And, unlike many other screenshots out there, this game truly delivers. The real-time combat is just simply beautiful, and you thrill to see your lines of infantry wheel and attack; or your cavalry form a wedge and plow through a group of panicked archers.

You use the traditional "rock-paper-scissors" mentality when deploying your units, making sure to either match up units correctly to gain the best combat advantage, or by maneuvering them in such a way to get the upper hand. For example, spearmen are deadly to an onrushing cavalry, but move those cavalry around behind their lines, while engaging them from the front with infantry and the spearmen are toast. Feints are an integral part of combat as well, and one of my favorite strategies is to use a fast moving light cavalry to engage and draw my enemy's cavalry in front of a line of ranged attackers. Often, their cavalry is so hell bent on attacking mine, my archers can simply pick them off as they run past, then my cavalry can wheel and take out the survivors.

Your general is a key part of the real time combat, giving morale to his soldiers and able to lead very effective combat charges on his own. But be careful; not only will you lose an heir if your general dies; your troops will be disheartened and could very well turn tail and run. Nothing is worse than a battle where you have overwhelming odds in your favor, but lose your general and subsequently lose the battle as your soldiers all suddenly decide to take that moment to change careers.

Taking cities is especially rewarding now, as you have to deploy siege engines, such as battering rams or towers to be able to breach the enemy's defenses. (Unless the fool sallies forth to attack you outside their gates, in which case you can simply charge in with your fastest unit and take the gates before they close. Hint: war dogs and light cavalry are great for this.) You can breach the wall in multiple places, and quickly flood the city with your "liberators". March them fast to the town square and hold it for three minutes and you now own a whole new populace to loot and enslave. Many siege battles however seem to be decided by how many troops you can bring to bear against the enemy, and not as much strategy as open combat. Once you breach the walls, your sheer numbers can easily overwhelm the terrified defender - especially your faster and more terrifying units. (Did I mention that I love the war dogs?)

My one complaint with combat is with naval attacks. Italy being a peninsula and all, there's a lot of water to ply and control, and you must build your navy up to wage war in the Mediterranean. I was encouraged to see this, as the power of the Roman Navy was a distinct factor in their dominance of the region. However, when the chips fall, the naval aspects of the game seem largely unfinished. Combat between ships is not interactive at all, and is automatically resolved by the game. You don't get to maneuver your ships, or determine tactics amongst your fleet. It also takes forever to kill off enemy naval units, as they seem to simply run away from most battles where you have the odds in your favor. Sure, they move away, but are back again in the next turn. As a result, the sea around Italy is usually littered with ships from every major power, but little really results from it. This is also shown in the few upgrades you can make to your navy, and the lack of any really interesting units - definitely an area for the next Total War game.

While Rome is an extremely detailed and well thought-out strategy engine, it's not always easily apparent to a player how to affect the system, or what all of the numbers or abilities really mean to the game. For example, if a city begins to revolt you can go to a very detailed screen that shows why the population is unhappy. And while you can make fairly good guesses about what it takes to fix these problems, you can't really seem to pin down what effect it will have up front. Nor are the effects of your changes you make always apparent, population growth is a good example of this: while you may set your tax rate low, and give the people a new coliseum, it's difficult to determine how those really affect your city. I had cities where I would throw every innovation I could think of at my populace, but they just didn't seem to care to invite all their friends to move in.

Gameplay throughout Rome is littered with examples of this: family members all have certain traits that affect their performance. For example, some generals may have the "Social Drinking" skill where after a battle they quaff back a few amphorae with the men, which in turn make the men more loyal to their commander. Other traits may be less desirable and have negative impact on your general's ability. Your family will also gain a retinue of hangers-on, such as diplomats, bards, and philosophers that also enhance or diminish their abilities. And while I very much appreciate this level of depth in the game, the effects of these traits just don't seem to show themselves in the game, or at least, are so subtle that I rarely bother to make decisions based on them. I never moved my generals between campaigns because of their abilities and rarely assigned troops to a particular general that would gain the benefit of an inherent trait. And most of my battles could be won by either overwhelming the enemy with numbers, or by using proper strategy on how to engage the enemy.

I'm sure that the developers did this on purpose, hiding away some of the complexity of the game mechanics from the player to keep them out of the way, and I'm fine with that noble cause. Far too many games get into counting hit points or ability scores for my tastes. But on the other hand, they should have made it a lot more clear about the cause and effect of certain actions. If they are going to use numbers to describe the abilities, they should be able to show you what exact numbers they are affecting, don't do it half-way. While I'm sure I'll get a dozen emails about this review saying: "Just go read the strategy guide!" or "Go read these dozen forums on the game!" I don't feel that a player should have to hunt down that type of information. Nor do I really want to spend a lot of time setting up experiments to see if a general with a +1 to leading infantry really was better than one who was a heavy drinker. If you simplify the game mechanics, take it all the way through and simplify how the effects on the player are realized.

Rome: Total War does what it sets out to do: let you relive the birth and growth of the Roman Empire, and all the blood and bureaucracy that entails. The strategy map changes greatly enhance the game, and better tie the turn based and real-time portions better together. While I appreciate the sheer amount of detail about each city or individual, they need to work harder on making the benefits easier to see for the more casual strategist. I'd say, if you are a big fan of the Total War series, this is a must buy. If you are a big strategy game person, who loves to tinker with abstract settings and then experiment to see the results, you'll also enjoy this game. If you are a heavy RTS player, who lives and breathes Age of Empires, StarCraft, or Command and Conquer, you will probably be frustrated (or blow right through) the strategy portions of the game. It IS a good game, but I think it requires the right type of player to get the full enjoyment out of their gaming dollar.