Expeditions: Rome - the final Expeditions game from Logic Artists

[lycanwarrior]

Hate when I'm reminded this game exists, what a terrible way to go out after conquistador and vikings.

Too bad they had to go out before they could do a Darkest Africa game.

I already forgot they not only closed down but became part of some NFT scam studio.
Pretty dark turn, indeed.

I still have this game on my wishlist, but Rome-themed stuff is so uninteresting to me that I doubt I'll ever get it.

https://campfirecabal.com/frequently-asked-questions/

The majority of Expeditions developers split to form a new studio under THQ Nordic called Campfire Cabal.

 

[NIGERundayoHater]

Denmark is a country devoid of creativity. They had like ONE good game, which wasn't even that good in the first place, and then it's creators progressively shat on their own franchise till this rape of Roman era came out to end it all. Seriously, take a look at this list and tell me that Danes ain't creatively bankrupt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Video_games_developed_in_Denmark ,
and Hitman isn't even their creation, that's just a remake.

At least Finns, Norwegians and Swedes can deliver something from time to time unlike these faggots.

 

[Yosharian]

Is this a good game? Someone on YT picked it as their favourite game this year so it got me curious

 

[ferratilis]

Is this a good game? Someone on YT picked it as their favourite game this year so it got me curious

If you don't care about historical accuracy and can stomach some shitty writing, you'll enjoy the game. Love it, even. The gameplay is decent, that's what matters.

 

[Yosharian]

Is this a good game? Someone on YT picked it as their favourite game this year so it got me curious

If you don't care about historical accuracy and can stomach some shitty writing, you'll enjoy the game. Love it, even. The gameplay is decent, that's what matters.

Hmmm. Not sure about that

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The gameplay is decent

(it's not)

 

[Maverikfreak]

Combats are awesome, graphics are good, music is decent but repetitive, and do you have choices with some reactivity, thats all the good things, writing, character development and itemization are mediocre at best, legion and party management is awful, and outside combats you just need to go point A to B until the next combat start.

But since combats are the core of the gameplay the game is good overall, play on the highest combat difficulty, game is easy when you figure the basics

 

[Jermu]

According to this Rome is about the best game ever made easily better than shit games like Fallout 1-2, toee and Gothic

 

[mediocrepoet]

According to this Rome is about the best game ever made easily better than shit games like Fallout 1-2, toee and Gothic

Where's the lie?

 

[Nortar]

The gameplay is decent

And as you asked for citation:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...eath-or-glory-dlc.138337/page-58#post-8249809

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The gameplay is decent

And as you asked for citation:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...eath-or-glory-dlc.138337/page-58#post-8249809

Accurately sums up all my issues with just the gameplay. The amount of gimmick battles is stupid.

 

[ferratilis]

The gameplay is decent

And as you asked for citation:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...eath-or-glory-dlc.138337/page-58#post-8249809

I respect your opinion, but honestly, all those things you listed sound like nitpicking and would never dissuade me from playing the game. Only one companion for pacifying a region makes sense because they are basically your representative, an envoy. Do you think Caesar would send all his best men to pacify a region or one trusty companion with some praetorians? The latter seems more probable. I think of those "goal achievements" as a nice mechanic that can get you out of otherwise unwinnable battles and provides for some emergent storytelling. As I already wrote, you have to give up the historical accuracy to enjoy the game, so this doesn't seem as bad in that regard. Being a classical hero who can survive against all odds adds to the power fantasy. What matters to me is the combat system, itemization, the UI, how the game looks and sounds - and all these were done well imo. Also, full voice acting is not expected from a studio of this size, but they delivered it. It's another plus.

If there's one thing to complain about, it would be those legion battles, they are worse than even the ship combat from PoE2.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

E: Rome is shit. Coming from someone who enjoyed Conquistador and loved Viking. As people above say, the army management part is just as retarded as Kingdom management in Shitmaker games. Having to constantly switch between local RPG map, global map, army map, some other shit kills any kind of gameplay flow. And worst of all, this is not YOUR game. You are just jumping through developer hoops: this battle you can't fight with your characters, fight with 2nd team scrubs instead, and this battle, you gotta go here, and enemy will come in 3 waves, and then you have to hit the invincible commander with this mcguffin...

It's basically the opposite of everything a good RPG should be. I can't imagine how any of these people played it during development and thought it would be fun.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Battles are the worst, felt like puzzles, closest thing I can compare them is to Blackguards without the somewhat deeper combat system.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Yeah, it's like they took the worst of their previous games. In Conquistador, most battles were just battles, but toward the end, there were some real shitstorm ones, like defeat this enemy in this many turns or with this other condition/handicap or lose. In Viking, they mostly got rid of that shit, and just had a fun tactical system. You use tactics, fight your way, win and profit.

In Rome, every battle is so contrived. This many waves will come, and you start in this shitty position, and then you have to do this, or not that. Wtf, I don't play tactical combat for this kind of shit, I just want to have me and the enemy have general abilities/tactics, and pit them against each other.

As an analogy, E:Rome is if you were playing chess, and one fight (game of chess), you could only use your pawns, and another fight, you would start on a crumpled chessboard, and another fight you would have to play the entire game sitting on a massive dildo.

 

[Victor1234]

I don't like Rome, I skipped Viking and I played through Conquistador all the way once. As much as I don't like Rome though (and I hate what they did to the setting and history), the battles were the least bad part of it and improved since Conquistador. Ok, you had the magic guys that would literally turn invisible, every battle was a set piece of gimmicks and dev railroading like you said (hello conveniently placed stack of torches and what's this box of oil jars for?) but there were a few diamonds in the rough in the Rome combat.

These guys used shields at least unlike AC Odyssey where your main character is a hoplite who never uses a hoplon shield. Plus the environmental stuff (make guys slip, fall, burn, etc) was fun as a concept and something I'd like to see in more games in a more natural way. People will probably get 3 Stooges vibes (banana peels for the next game!) but you can even do a move where you throw sand in the enemy's eyes! Sure, power gamers miss stuff like that because the 'your guy runs through and recharges AP while scything the map in one turn' stuff was so broken but there was some fun stuff in there.

 

[Larianshill]

I liked Rome just fine. I think a lot of complaints here are nitpicking.

 

[Victor1234]

I liked Rome just fine. I think a lot of complaints here are nitpicking.

I guess, but it's hard not to feel bad about the wasted opportunity. Instead of ooga-booga ahistorical characters and some mythical black legion, it would've been cool if the devs had dug even a little into the material.

For example, Galatian mercenaries were a big deal for Ptolemaic Egypt. Who were the Galatians? Gauls who did an expedition across Central Europe, the Balkans & Greece and ended up settling in modern day Turkey, then got hired in large enough numbers to settle and form a distinct community in Egypt. We actually know 3 named characters (like Pullo & Vorenus) from archaeology, because these mercs graffitied their armory in Egypt like crazy.

Could've made for an interesting angle to the act in Gaul, with dudes whose ancestors came from Gaul hundreds of years ago and they still sort of keep their language and culture but it's changed in Turkey & Egypt, like a real historical version of Irish Americans vs Irish dudes in Ireland today.

Ironically, Caesar did end up recruiting a legion of non-citizens in these regions in real life. From these Celtic dudes living in Turkey, the Galatians. They eventually ended up as Legio XXII Deiotariana in the regular army after the civil war.

Also in the exact time of this story, the Ptolemaic monarchy was already an unofficial Roman puppet for hundreds of years and an official one for decades and when Caesar showed up, one of his main opponents were the Gabiniani, the previous band of adventuring Romans who had stayed on as mercenaries. Wiki even has an article on them so it's not like the material is obscure. Lucius Septimius from HBO's Rome wasn't just a random merc wandering the galaxy, but one of these dudes. Wouldn't it have been cool to have you have to fight other Romans who are technically not Romans anymore in Egypt?

 

[Serus]

Myself i would love that. However other than a few nerds (who mostly play hardcore wargames not crpgs) no one is interested in (real) history. Well, there are Paradox fans - which returns us to "not interested in (real) history".

 

[Victor1234]

Myself i would love that. However other than a few nerds (who mostly play hardcore wargames not crpgs) no one is interested in (real) history. Well, there are Paradox fans - which returns us to "not interested in (real) history".

True. I just find the dev's approach strange altogether. You have a black dude as one of the main characters and the internet says it's for woke reasons and I can agree with that, but I found his portrayal to be such a patronizing and racist caricature. Axum was a real place (Africa of course referring to modern Tunisia for the Romans...), noted especially for it's urbane and sophisticated merchants who successfully stole away the lucrative Red Sea incense trade from the city states in Yemen and hooked up Rome with India in a trading network. Seems like if you really wanted a black guy on the team, it would've been a good setup for a Morgan Freeman-esque wise old dude merchant type instead of the Greek.

Instead you get a dude whose name in Latin, Italian and probably many languages literally means a cruel animal, the only dude in the gang who wears animal skins and is so stupid he asks the Greek dude to teach him how to think. He's about two steps away from saying he's going to see a witch doctor and doing a tribal dance in a grass skirt. Denmark's true face is revealed!

 

[mediocrepoet]

Instead you get a dude whose name in Latin, Italian and probably many languages literally means a cruel animal, the only dude in the gang who wears animal skins and is so stupid he asks the Greek dude to teach him how to think. He's about two steps away from saying he's going to see a witch doctor and doing a tribal dance in a grass skirt. Denmark's true face is revealed!

Hey Kit.

 

[Victor1234]

Hey Kit.

Who is this Kit? I am known among my people as Buck the Wonder Slave.

That movie had an awesome story unlike this game and anyone who says otherwise wants to show it to the Laker Girls...

 

[Rieser]

I liked Rome just fine. I think a lot of complaints here are nitpicking.

It's not so much that Rome is bad but rather that it isn't a good successor. Conquistador and Viking left me with fairly high expectations and Rome failed to deliver. It's still better than the majority of the absolute shite that releases in Current Year.

 

[Stavrophore]

Just finished this game and what i can say - it's a great game. What's the saddest part - i've purchased it at january, played some hours and got disinterested, shelving it for months. Recently returned to it, and it got me captivated till the very end, heck i've even replayed the final sequence to get different ending, something that happens VERY rarely for me. The game is not without flaws mind you, but if you give it a chance it will reward you.
The things i've liked:

- A deep combat system with zones of control, deflections, armor, resistances and plethora of skills. Encounters are fair and well challenging keeping you on your toes throughout most missions. With the amount of fire and poison on some maps, the chaos of some fights was absolutely delightful. Combat scenarios are diverse, can't think of more combat scenarios that could be made with this particular game mechanics. Ambushes, sieges, protecting the fort, escaping forest fire.

- Music is absolutely excellent as is VO/VA

- Story, dialogues and choices are very well done giving the immersion of roman era most of the time. The main plot will actually devolve into a very grand story arch you most likely didn't predict at the start of the game. The choices and consequences are better than in 90% of RPG released after 2010.
Main arch enemy is very well done with believable reasons, as do every other main and supporting characters, finally a game with INTELLIGENT dialogue, that i didn't skip through the whole game, this is a high mark from me.

Things i didn't like:

- Combat can get repetitive in some instances, like trash/random encounters, similarly the conquering of regions get stale very fast and was detrimental to the game enjoyment, coupled with necessity of loading into the camp, it padded the game length for at least dozen of hours if not more. The game could be a 45-50 hours experience if the strategic part of the game would had been reworked with more respect to the player time. Simiarly some looting and traveling around the locations took very long to the exit, or you had to move through ladders several times to get to the chests, which takes so long. These are minor nuissances, but they add up. Some classes like rogue[?] are unbalanced and the biggest damage dealers overall.

- Wokeness and silliness that hit you with full force from act 2. I could understand the subterfurged female warrior, but then you keep bombarded with female characters, some of them extremely silly[raia sigh...] and of course you get female enemies, which would be fine if they were only relegated to the roles of lashing out mob, but nope, you have full female warriors among celts. Female story arch are strong independent wymyn of course. Also i had a gripe with how many egyptians from the north part of the country were portrayed as blacks, when we know that they were white.

- Pacing, as i said the beginning didn't captivate me after few missions. The game starts very strongly, and then the lack of combat options, coupled with the chore of traveling around the map and the big location that is chore to traverse[apollo temple] caused me to lose interest in the game, after all if the game doesn't value player time, it will 90% times a bad game, the desire to pad the game usually is used to hide its shallowness behind pad, BUT sometimes investors demand specific game length or developers don't know how to resolve some issues with travelling around map[what if you have fast travel from every place on map, and then you want to make an ambush at the exit without alerting player that something is going on, because he can't fast travel at this certain scenario?]. But i was proven wrong, and after the initial sluggish start, the game truly open up after you discover the name of your nemesis, and then you leave behind the aimless wandering to embark on pursuit of the villain.

- Graphic was kinda blurry for me despite using ultra settings.

- Crafting system should had been untied from camp mechanics tbh. It was annoying to wait to craft something, and have it gated behind camp upgrades. You wait for crafting to finish, load the camp, test it on gladiator training grounds and then reload or recraft, repeating the process, while you can't wait inside the camp. You gather a lot of trash that you have to dissasemble, and create your own stuff, you rarely get good purple items on enemies, you have to craft them.

Overall an easy 8+/10 from me due to great story, dialogs and characters, even with copious amount of woke and historical inaccuracy, the game conveys very well the image of late roman republic. This series seems to continue to improve with each iteration so i can't wait what will be in the next game. Imho this one is better than vikings or conquistador.

 

[thesecret1]

i can't wait what will be in the next game

There won't be one.