Expeditions: Rome - the final Expeditions game from Logic Artists

[Bastardchops]

But thems Germans.

 

[Gradenmayer]

I think people who want historical accuracy should stick to history books, cause if you expect historical accuracy from an entertainment pieces all you are going to get is a fat cock slapped across your face.

 

[Infinitron]

https://thqnordic.com/article/no-place-rome-crpg-expeditions-rome-out-today

No Place Like Rome - CRPG Expeditions: Rome Is Out Today!

Vindobona, Noricum / Hafnia, Daniae, Januarii XX, MMXXII: The hero or heroine of Expeditions: Rome is not off to a good start: father murdered, sister married to an enemy and on their way to Asia Minor, to serve in the legion, far away from Rome. Meanwhile, on board your ship, there is another vessel getting closer - of course, pirates!

In Expeditions: Rome you will play a young male or female roman soldier, making your way through history. Take command of a small group of praetorians and eventually become the Legatus a Roman legion. You'll gather a group of loyal companions, engage in tactical turn-based combat, learn new skills, loot and craft new equipment for your soldiers, and shape the fate of Rome. Expeditions: Rome offers over 50 hours of cRPG-gameplay and multiple ways to end the story.

Try before you buy? Download the Expeditions: Rome demo now on Steam, you can even continue playing from your savegame if you get the full game: https://thqn.net/rome-steam

The Launch Trailer on YouTube: https://youtu.be/WJfTCJwF6BM

Expeditions: Rome launches today, January 20th, 2022 on PC at an SRP of $ 44.99 | € 44.99 | £ 36.99
Get it on Steam: https://thqn.net/rome-steam
Get it on Gog.com: https://af.gog.com/game/expeditions_rome?as=1649904300
Get it at the Epic Game Store: https://www.epicgames.com/store/p/expeditions-rome

(Not actually out yet)

 

[fantadomat]

I think people who want historical accuracy should stick to history books, cause if you expect historical accuracy from an entertainment pieces all you are going to get is a fat cock slapped across your face.

It is not about historical accuracy but the lack of historical retardation like female legionaries lol. Nobody expects a 100percent accurate game,but at least want some believability. Nobody cared about womxn in vikings because it was realistic.

 

[Reinhardt]

I think people who want historical accuracy should stick to history books

Spoiler

 

[Infinitron]

Morality Games explained it best last year:

These are the guys that made Expeditions: Conquistador? What the fuck happened?

?

They're doing the same stuff they've always done.

Expeditions: Conquistador had a tribe of Aztec Amazon-esque rebels, the main function of which seems to have been to supply your PC with a romance option. I'm not aware of any historic basis.

50% of the potential recruits for your Spanish expedition were professional female soldiers, including dedicated gunfighters and swordsman, and also including a companion you recruited in the first act who was also a full-blooded Native American masquerading as a mestizo so she could be an officer (? maybe just a soldier) in the local Spanish garrison.

Logic Artists' version of Earth's timeline has always existed in an alternate state of the imagination where women were more active participants in masculine roles and occupations than occurred in real history, they've been consistent about this from the start of the series.

 

[cvv]

Yes but let's not single out Logical Artists, it's common across the West - in AC: Odyssey half of the Spartan/Athenian army are women, the world is full of badass female mercenaries and bounty hunters, women hold leadership positions in the society etc.

Same in Valhalla - it's a fully equal world, there's no difference between men and women in terms of societal roles, with one exception: curiously there are no female priests or bishops. I guess that's where Ubisoft decided to draw the line. For now.

I guess the idea is portraying history accurately would perpetuate all the inequities of yore. I don't see the logic here, what's next, a Civil War game where blacks are equal with whites? A film about the suffrage movement where women can already vote? But this is wokism - logic is not required, feelings is all that matters.

 

[Reinhardt]

curiously there are no female priests or bishops

Christians are evil. You burn them in their churches.

 

[Brancaleone]

Yes but let's not single out Logical Artists, it's common across the West - in AC: Odyssey half of the Spartan/Athenian army are women, the world is full of badass female mercenaries and bounty hunters, women hold leadership positions in the society etc.

Same in Valhalla - it's a fully equal world, there's no difference between men and women in terms of societal roles, with one exception: curiously there are no female priests or bishops. I guess that's where Ubisoft decided to draw the line. For now.

I guess the idea is portraying history accurately would perpetuate all the inequities of yore. I don't see the logic here, what's next, a Civil War game where blacks are equal with whites? A film about the suffrage movement where women can already vote? But this is wokism - logic is not required, feelings is all that matters.

I propose an egalitarian Sparta/Laconia as a setting. Everybody is a Spartiates! Nobody tills the earth!

And by the way, I demand muh male Vestal Virgins.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

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).

Its been a while, but I am pretty sure that Conquistador had El Dorado as sort of a secret location where you meet an actual Aztec god who talks to you and might end up killing one of your party members. In Viking there was the quest (I think before setting off to England) where you explore an old tomb and end up fighting ghosts (I guess it could be explained away as some sort of mass halucination/hysteria, but there is an open possibility that there is magic involved - at least your character can choose to believe so). We will see soon enough if there is something similar in Rome, though my money would be on yes.

In any case the low fantasy elements imo involve also the stronk wahmin - a girl leading a party of conquistadors, Viking raiders, or a Roman legion is fairly fantastic tbqh fam. Also I wouldnt necessarily write off the stronk womyn as SJW stuff (though I guess it is that in this case) - the female characters of this sort were present in the fantasy stories since forever, not to push some feminist agenda, but to give the audience some material to fap to while reading/watching/playing. The whole "amazon princess" archetype is a widespread fetish after all, regardless of whether the reader/viewer/player wants her to ride him hard or bend her over nearest table to tame her.

 

[Brancaleone]

In any case the low fantasy elements imo involve also the stronk wahmin - a girl leading a party of conquistadors, Viking raiders, or a Roman legion is fairly fantastic tbqh fam.

And especially so within a Roman/Roman-like setting: Romans found so abhorrent the idea of a woman as a political/military leader that they tended to exaggerate the role of their female enemies (Cleopatra, Boudicca, Zenobia, etc. etc.) in order to show their fellow citizens just how sick those foreigners were (I mean, they even allowed women to lead their soldiers!). Cleopatra for example was depicted by Augustan propaganda as totally dominating Marcus Antonius, so that the average Roman in Rome wouldn't dream of waning in his support for Augustus, since the alternative was an emasculated man who allowed a woman to give orders to Roman legions.

By the way, I personally don't ask for historical accuracy, just some measure of internal consistency. From that point of view, Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader is more consistent than some other allegedly 'historically inspired' examples, since it provides a moderately satisfying reason for the historical mishmash that it consists of.

 

[Alphons]

where you explore an old tomb and end up fighting ghosts (I guess it could be explained away as some sort of mass halucination/hysteria, but there is an open possibility that there is magic involved - at least your character can choose to believe so).

Majority of the "ghosts" disappear when killed/ knocked out, but some of them stay behind and act like normal human enemies (can be dismembered/ writhe on the ground if KOd).

If you examine them with high enough Sense

Spoiler

you find out that they're another group of tomb robbers that were locked underground by the cultists from the village.

 

[The_Mask]

The anglo-Latin is annoying tho. Would it kill you fucking anglos to say "Salve" right?!? UGH!

 

[cvv]

Yeah the ghosts in the tomb are just people. Dont remember the Aztec god quest, then again I think I haven't gotten so far, Conquistadors got too repetitive mid-game so I quit.

 

[Alphons]

Conquistador has 3 supernatural events

Spoiler

In El Dorado your Greedy companion will attempt to steal a goblet and get caught by a god. You can sacrifice them, someone else or a homing spear from the arena.

If you kill bandits for the Mayan village elder or kill anyone resisting, a guide will take you on a volcano trip. In one of caves you can find doors to the Underworld. If you sacrifice a companion, you'll receive a gem that allows you to control any enemy unit for a few turns once per battle.

Near your fortress you can find Fountain of Eternal Youth. You take a few jugs and can use them in battle to instantly heal all damage.

 

[Ventidius]

I finished the demo yesterday and found it very enjoyable overall. The demo convinced me to purchase the game, though I find it bizarre that they dropped the news about Logic Artists right before release.

Some thoughts on what I've played so far with spoilers:

-Combat is the main selling point of the game, and it is very good. The system has become quite detailed and gives you plenty of options for combat roles and tactics. The Princeps class (the closest to a heavy infantry legionary played straight) is very fun to use thanks to the shield mechanics and abilities, attacks of opportunity, the consumable pila, and utility options like knockdown and knockback. Archers are also very powerful, with apparently high critical rate (or maybe this is just a particular character), status arrows (fire, harry), a point blank boost skill, and an interrupt skill (delayed attacks). This is counterbalanced somewhat by their limitations against shields and the line of sight mechanics, which I quite like, as they require you to pay close attention to positioning in order to optimize your offensive plays. Support units are also very useful thanks to their buffing and healing options, and overall just feel indispensable to smart play, as it should be.

Some units, like gladiators, also have resource mechanics like Focus that adds another layer to their tactics and helps them distinguish themselves further from other melee classes like the Princeps. I like resource mechanics in general, and I like seeing them in more games, so this is always a good thing to me, even if it is a bit gamey. In fact, the combat system feels a bit boardgamey, in general, thanks to the way the classes are designed (the fact that Principes and Triarii are classes despite the infantry types not existing in this timeframe has already been discussed in this thread and is a good example of this) and stuff like the buffs of the support classes, however, I personally didn't think it went far enough to be immersion-breaking or anything, and quite a few of the mechanics (like line of sight and the way pila incapacitate shields) are actually quite simulation-friendly. Overall, it has a good balance between fun and diverse options and immersion.

The map/misson design also deserves a mention, as it already feels quite varied and creative, at least from the samples that we have so far. It seems like the complaints about repetitive combat that were raised about previous games were taken to heart as there is quite a bit of diversification here. There is one mission where you have to rescue the Legatus from an ambush against your unit in the middle of some mountainous pass, and then you have to escort him to the exit of the map. There is another where you have to burn two enemy ships as a victory condition. In another one you have to eliminate the enemy leader (who is an individual 'boss' unit that is very powerful, but not enough to be obnoxious) in order to stop reinforcements from flooding in. Etc. There are a few straight "kill all enemies" or "reduce enemy numbers to X" missions, but overall, I like the ratio of distinct to regular missions, I hope the whole campaign keeps it up.

-I like the music quite a bit, it sets the tone for each situation in and out of battle perfectly and generally helps set up a very enveloping atmosphere along with the art direction. The latter is surprisingly good for a modern RPG, as it manages to come off as polished while not being soulless. The interface also looks nice and fittingly thematic, and is mostly smooth enough to navigate. Though I think the combat interface could benefit from a couple of usability tweaks, it's mostly functional.

Atmosphere in general is very good, and I thought the game was mostly immersive, so long as you don't think too hard about realism and historical accuracy, something anyone who has played games in historical settings (including those in this series) should be used to by now. There has certainly been nothing as silly as The Mummy Egyptians so far.

Regarding female legionaries, I presume people are talking about Julia Calida , but it doesn't bother me too much because she is a speculatora, not a recruit or officer in any legion. Speculatores were essentially spies and covert operatives. Primary sources and archeological records don't give us nearly as much about them as they do about the regular legions, but from what I have read they were by no means exclusively drawn from the legions. In fact, from what I've seen in primary and secondary sources, speculatores were at some point largely (perhaps mostly) drawn from non-Romans, which makes sense given what we know of covert operations in the modern world and other periods of history. Because of the creative freedom allowed by the relative dearth of information, and because espionage is a more believable profession for a female character than soldiery, I think this character mostly manages to avoid breaking suspension of disbelief. That said, in practice Julia is actually shown to be an effective fighter, both in 'cinematic' animations and gameplay(she is a crit machine and an MVP candidate tbh), so I guess YMMV and it all boils down to how tolerant you are of the ever so ubiquitous "warrior woman" trope.

In terms of "wokeness", this seems overall rather low-key. More like Conquistador, that crappy series Spartacus, or just 00s and early 10s nerd media in general than post-2015 Trigglypuff cringe.

-There doesn't seem to be much in terms of exploration so far. Just a few landmarks you can check for loot and some "CYOA" events along the way. Maps that have been cleared of enemies can sometimes be looted, but it's nothing special so far. I hope they improve on this a bit.

Anyway, so far it has certainly been an above-average experience, it's been quite a while since a CRPG has engaged me like this. The full game should be out shortly, let's hope it keeps up the level of quality throughout the rest of the campaign.

 

[NJClaw]

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).

In Viking you can literally find Excalibur.

 

[Infinitron]

D1Ping in memory of soon to be departed Logic Artists.

Also they gave me a free copy of Viking back in the day so I figure I owe them anyway.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/expeditions-rome-review/

EXPEDITIONS: ROME REVIEW
Rome wasn't built in a day, but did it really take this long?

It's taken me dozens of hours—and at least a dozen more than I'd have liked—but finally I've done it. I've built a digital legacy for Robertus Atellius Somethingus that's worthy of the glory (and twatty imperialistic entitlement) of Rome. I've assembled elite legions that have conquered Asia Minor, north Africa and Gaul, I've besieged cities, toppled corrupt Senators, assassinated enemies with my Wild Bunch of praetorians, and impressed a particularly horny and hubristic Cleopatra with my arrogance.

It's a solid CV for anyone applying for the role of Ancient Roman Consul.

Expeditions: Rome is a historical RPG that streamlines elements from games like Total War, with its campaign maps, and Divinity: Original Sin, with its tactical turn-based combat and CRPG-style overworld traversal, into an adventure that spans vast swathes of the Classical world.

The Divinity parallels are no coincidence. Developer Logic Artists' previous historical RPGs, Viking and Conquistador, impressed Larian Studios enough that they were taken on to co-develop Divinity: Fallen Heroes before that project was put on hold (presumably due to the development of Baldur's Gate 3). In short, this developer is no plebeian when it comes to this kind of game.

Expeditions: Rome smooths out the more fiddly RPG traits. When you level up, you only upgrade a single skill for that character rather than diddling around with attributes or secondary skills, and you don't need to spend hours fobbing off junk items to different traders, as you can break them down straight into crafting components instead. It's a fair call, because at 70+ hours this game is long enough without all that micromanagement.

You'll have several companions join you on your quest—among them a former gladiator, a philosopher-warrior with a shameful past, and a woman scout who does a particularly unconvincing 'keep a hood over your face and sound a bit gruff to pass as a young man' act before giving it up a few hours in. There's enough banter between them to build up some fondness for your crew, and the possibility of death or injury to them means that you need to recruit backup praetorians at your encampment so you can substitute them in like you're playing Football Manager 50 BC, or Procurator Pediludium 704 Ab (leave your corrections in the comments, Latin scholars).

But their associated sidequests, like most sidequests in the game, struggle to squeeze in around the main story, like jam barely clinging to the edges of an overstuffed sandwich. Nor do your companions seem particularly affected by your actions. Despite the constant feed telling you that conciliatory/arrogant/stoic/sexist characters approve or disapprove of key decisions you make, I didn't experience the repercussions or consequences of those throughout the game.

In fairness, there's little time for getting cosy with companions when you've got an entire Roman legion to manage. As a member of an esteemed Roman family under threat from a powerful Senator dead set on your extinction, you get shipped out to a Roman army trying to retake Asia Minor (the fact that you're being sent to war 'for your own safety' shows just how feisty things can get in high-level Roman politics). Before long, you prove yourself in battle and rise to the position of Legate, commanding a thousands-strong Roman legion while running around with your crack squad on clandestine missions like assassinations, disrupting enemy supply lines, and trying to expose the corruption of the rival Roman family out for your head.

Spoiler

A good part of the game is spent on an overworld map, from which you can send your party of praetorians and your army on missions around the land. The legion can attack and defend cities, and procure resources like lumberyards, mines and farms that you use to upgrade your encampment. You can recruit new praetorians and army commanders through the barracks, craft weapons and armour at the forge, and even build a bathhouse, where stationing a praetorian with the 'social' trait will steadily increase the morale of your legion (not sure whether standing around naked in a bathhouse comrading fellow soldiers was a real permanent position in the Roman legion, but it was an invaluable role in mine).

Along with the main quest you carry out with your praetorians, each act requires you to take over a certain portion of the map with your legion to progress the story. The legion battle system has some interesting quirks, like choosing commanders for battle and using stratagem cards to decide your army's actions, but once it became apparent to me that it's all just a numbers game (I didn't lose a single battle), I'd end up auto-resolving instead of watching my blue squares bump up against the enemy red squares. A sad fate for a potentially compelling layer.

The bulk of your time is spent with your party of praetorians, with whom you get to explore cities, chat to NPCs and engage in solid but often overlong turn-based combat. In a nice CRPG touch, as you traverse the overworld map you'll happen upon random text-based events, which are always specific to whichever land you're in (Asia Minor in Act 1, North Africa in Act 2, Gaul in Act 3). You'll get to try suspicious foods proffered by Berber women in their rug-padded huts, decide what to do with dead bodies you stumble upon, and decide how hammered to get on wine as you make camp for the night. These events are wonderfully written, and the overlap in many of them between superstitions and reality is befitting of a time when magic was still a widely used explanation for worldly phenomena.

In the turn-based combat, you use cover in the environment, secure high ground for your archers and attempt to funnel and flank your enemies into submission. There's no initiative stat here, so you can carry out partial turns with one character, switch to another, then go back to the previous one. You can even carry out a character's turn while another is still moving across the map, which gives proceedings a nice fluidity.

There's infinite satisfaction in throwing down some caltrops that force enemies to pathfind their way into a death field overwatched by your archer, or in pelting the Pharaoh of Egypt and his elite guard with poison and fire bombs before encircling them with your troops, then pummelling them with Attacks of Opportunity as they try to escape.

But by the gods can that combat get drawn out. You're almost always outnumbered, which I guess was intended to give those end-of-chapter city sieges and ambushes by Gallic warriors a grander sense of scale and intensity. The sheer number of units, however, means you're spending too much watching enemies, friendly units, even civilians have their turns (which is especially frustrating when the friendly AI is making nonsense moves like running through fire just to finish off an incapacitated enemy).

I thankfully discovered—after about 50 hours—that I could crank up the turn speed, but even then some of the siege encounters could take half a day to complete. The turn-based combat is good, but it suffers at that kind of scale, when at the end of each turn you spend around 70 seconds watching 15, 20 units zigzagging around a hex-based battlefield. It makes you all too aware of the synthetic nature of the combat and pulls you out of the action.

This could've been offset had the game offered a bit more RPG freedom—the ability to stealth or sweet-talk your way through situations, for example. While your character can have personality traits that evade a few combat scenarios, the game really wants you to fight, but by the latter stages an irrelevant 30-minute battle triggered by a random event on the overworld map just feels like a waste of time.

And speaking of time-wasting, I kept finding myself in situations where I had to have certain characters available for a mission, but couldn't do it because one of them was in my encampment infirmary after getting injured in a random event. Given the lack of sidequests, I'd too often just let a day or two of in-game time pass as they healed, grab them from the infirmary, then get back to what I was doing. Between this and the combat, it feels like the game could've trimmed a good 12 hours off its length and been better for it.

Where Expeditions: Rome really shines is in its attention to historical detail. Most environments aren't particularly interactive, but the flexible overhead camera lets you zoom in to appreciate the patterned wall and floor tiling of a Roman villa, the vibrant rugs adorning a Berber war tent, or discern the drawings and hieroglyphs in an Egyptian tomb where a rogue Roman legion is hiding out. Weapons and armour, meanwhile, all have Latin names and what I can only presume are historically faithful designs (either way, they look lovely).

This is a game that familiarises you with the salutations, customs, weaponry, even diets, of the ancient world's denizens while delivering a sweeping story of war and politics that also feels historically grounded despite letting you shape that history.

That historical angle, and the journey it takes you on across three distinct regions of the ancient world, makes this a worthwhile expedition, especially if you're interested in the era. Like the good Roman Legate you are, however, you'll need to remain stoic in the face of some friction along the way.

THE VERDICT
73

EXPEDITIONS: ROME
An uneven epic whose historical richness guides it through some awkward pacing.

lul:

I thankfully discovered—after about 50 hours—that I could crank up the turn speed

 

[CaesarCzech]

I hope there will be some stuff on warez to get around this stupid Twitch exclusive skins, i quite like some of those and if i have to fucking pirate game just to avoid this HR PR Shit i will.

 

[The_Mask]

GOG is allowing install. And I'm pretty sure you can play it as soon as it's down too.

 

[Infinitron]

https://af.gog.com/game/expeditions_rome?as=1649904300

 

[Terra]

Downloading now, 25GB~, no preload and of course my internet connection has chosen now to shit itself. Probably won't get to play today as it's already getting late here.

 

[The_Mask]

My download is now working. Let's GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO~!

 

[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).

In Viking you can literally find Excalibur.

Excalibur Is an ancient Celtic tale by the time of the 800s, why not. Someone made a sword and called it Excalibur. Is cool.