Expeditions: Rome - the final Expeditions game from Logic Artists

[Raghar]

Female legionaries, utterly ridiculous.

Ridiculous? How would you feel if they kill young Caesar? Or make female a Roman emperor. Or avoid pregnancy in the whole game?

 

[Alphons]

Been enjoying the game so far but one particular main quest later really soured my opinion on it

Spoiler

I got ambushed by two gangs in a tiny ass arena, they massively outnumbered us and there's reinforcements every 4 turns, victory conditions now read "die with honor", but because I'm a strong female Roman legate, I tried to take as many enemies as possible. The result? I actually got them all thanks to shit tons of buffs, tactical items, and Bestia's OP dodging skill. Really fun fight too, I abused the chokepoints so hard they pretty much had to 1v1 my shield dudes or get stabbed in the ass.

But the game never let me end the fight, I can destroy every new wave within 2 turns but I have to skip the next 2 turns to proceed to a new wave, the game pretty much forced me to either do what it says or waste my time.

So I let my team die. What happened next is the game shifts to another character's perspective, one that your protagonist isn't fond of, to save your ass. You get it right, the game makes you lose in a possibly winnable fight for railroaded storytelling, and the fact that you losing the fight doesn't actually matter much at all is just a huge nut punch. Make him appear after 6 or 7 reinforcement waves, then give my protagonist some dialogues like "we are wounded", "ok go back to legion camp, we can continue from here" or whatever, just don't punish me because I managed to survive a challenging fight.

Even worse, the camp where the quest continues from doesn't have a hospital, so I had to waste time traveling to my camp which wasn't near at all, risking my praetorian's death chance, which would have been avoidable had I not been forced to make them lose.

Seems like the fight isn't that difficult as even game journos noticed it. Really weird that they decided to leave it the way it is currently.

Spoiler

https://explorminate.co/to-boldly-go-an-expeditions-rome-review/

This issue of difficulty also showed up in a late-game story mission that I honestly felt was poorly designed and really needed special attention beyond the difficulty settings. Essentially you are put in a situation where you are ambushed and the game designers expect you to lose. After the ambush occurs your goal switches from “defeat all enemies” to “die with honor”, but the problem was that I defeated the entirety of the enemy force. They still had reinforcements arriving every few turns, but at that point, I was powerful enough that I would have been able to easily manage them, basically forever, and I had to deliberately do nothing so that the encounter would move on and I would die. This never should have happened, either an alternative ending should have occurred in case the situation ended up being a player victory, or the enemies should have been so truly overwhelming that it was impossible to lose. The weird middle ground I ended up with would have been problematic even in a game with more poorly designed encounters but stood out especially with how well-designed Expedition: Rome’s encounters are in general.

 

[GhostCow]

This game has been on my wishlist for a while but the more I hear about it the worse it sounds.

>Stronk wahmen
>niggers
>romances

No buy. Maybe pirate.

 

[Reinhardt]

Don't really care. First game was unique, then they went for most settings in second and third.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

>niggers

I mean you do go to Africa, might as well.

 

[oasis789]

it was going to be a d1p but $36?

 

[randir14]

it was going to be a d1p but $36?

$25 on CD Keys

 

[Inhabitants of Khorinis]

Strong muscular female companions. Perfect. Good to breed. Good genetics. Many strong children.

 

[Anonymous Wife Scholar]

Strong muscular female companions. Perfect. Good to breed. Good genetics. Many strong children.

Thank you anon! You are a good anon!

 

[Twiglard]

Also Triarii would have been phased out by the time of the game, no?

That only happens during Marian reforms.

 

[Yosharian]

Female legionaries, utterly ridiculous.

Ridiculous? How would you feel if they kill young Caesar? Or make female a Roman emperor. Or avoid pregnancy in the whole game?

There is no way in hell the Romans would have allowed a female to be a legionary

 

[Spectacle]

Also Triarii would have been phased out by the time of the game, no?

That only happens during Marian reforms.

Which happened 50 years before the game takes place, and were also likely mostly a formalization of changes that had already occured. The citizen army of the early republic was long gone by the time of Expeditions: Rome, setting the stage for warlords with loyal legions like Cæsar or $PLAYER_NAME to seize power.

 

[Ventidius]

Also Triarii would have been phased out by the time of the game, no?

That only happens during Marian reforms.

The Siege of Mytilene happened over twenty years after the generally accepted date for the Marian reforms. Then again, I sort of see why the devs went with this from a gameplay point of view, as the old manipular legion is probably easier to adapt into an RPG system.

Anyway, I've sunk over three hours on the demo and I'm liking it quite a bit so far. The game's very atmospheric and the combat system seems to have come into its own since Conquistador. If they can keep up this level of quality we might have a truly good RPG in a Roman setting in our hands, and that's something I've been wanting to get for a long time.

 

[Mauman]

Female legionaries, utterly ridiculous.

Ridiculous? How would you feel if they kill young Caesar? Or make female a Roman emperor. Or avoid pregnancy in the whole game?

There is no way in hell the Romans would have allowed a female to be a legionary

Yeah....I really wish a "historical rpg" would have the courage to actually be "historical", warts and all. I get why they did it. People like creating themselves in games. If this was fantasy, where history doesn't mean shit, I'd say "go for it". But this based on reality, and as such is a hard sell.

Conquistador and Viking at least had a semblance of an excuse (even if they were really really flimsy). There were actual Conquistadoras (but very, very few), and Viking had the myth about Shield Maidens (and it is a myth if you know anything about the actual history involved).

I can't think of anything like this for Rome.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Only a megachad like Vávra could make an actual "historical rpg" - unfortunately there is apparently only one out there and he is busy with other things.

 

[baud]

Don't really care. First game was unique, then they went for most settings in second and third.

I don't think Roman Republic or early Empire is that common as setting in video games and even less in RPGs. But yeah, anything to do with viking is

 

[Ontopoly]

Playing conquistadors right now. It's pretty good, but based off of that I'm not expecting a lot of historical accuracy. A little disappointing, but I'm going in embracing all sorts of gender and racial fuckery.

 

[Brancaleone]

During the course of the story, you visit Egypt and

Spoiler

end up raising an African Legion of local Berbers to help you fight Ptolemy. You visit their camp and see fully-armed black Principes and Triarii dressed in Roman armor and speaking with a heavy african accent.

Some people here are going to have a field day with this game

Spoiler

when romans hired local to fight, weren't they kept as auxiliary with their own style of combat like cavalry, light infantry and skirmishers? Also Triarii would have been phased out by the time of the game, no?

Seeing the illustrations with loricae segmentatae of Corbridge type (sort of) and Imperial Gallic Type G helmets (sort of), both from the second half of 1st century AD, I'd say it's completely pointless to try and find any historical consistency in this thing.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Expeditions games make much more sense if you approach them as "low fantasy based on real events." Anyone who will come looking for full historical accuracy is bound to be disappointed. If you want a historically accurate Roman themed game, try A Legionary´s Life.

 

[Brancaleone]

Expeditions games make much more sense if you approach them as "low fantasy based on real events."

More like "low fantasy with a hodgepodge historical patina", akin to Assassin's Creed: Odyssey.

 

[cvv]

There are no fantastical elements in the Expeditions games tho. They're mostly made up stories based on real history and suffused with currentyear cultural sentiments (altho less than a typical Kwan game).

 

[Atlet]

This game has been on my wishlist for a while but the more I hear about it the worse it sounds.

>Stronk wahmen
>niggers
>romances

No buy. Maybe pirate.

Day 1 pirate

 

[Raghar]

Don't really care. First game was unique, then they went for most settings in second and third.

I don't think Roman Republic or early Empire is that common as setting in video games and even less in RPGs. But yeah, anything to do with viking is

Rome. Rome II total war. Age of Decadence. Son of Rome. That games where everyone disappeared and you need to solve mystery. Fields of Glory. Civilization like games. Age Of Empires games. Assassin’s Creed: Origins. Domina. Fallout New Vegas. Dominions. And hordes of games where they are using Roman legion like stuff, and Roman architecture like stuff.

 

[Rico66]

Fallout New Vegas.

 

[Larianshill]

There are no fantastical elements in the Expeditions games tho.