Beat the game after switching to the hardest difficulty a few hours into Act 1. I haven't had this much fun with a game's encounter design since KotC 2's initial release in 2020. While Conquistador and Viking had their share of interesting fights, Rome dwarfs them both in this regard and is an unequivocal recommendation to those looking for turn-based tactical combat goodness, and especially to fans of Blackguards' encounter design. More detailed spoiler-free thoughts on various aspects of the game I liked and disliked:
Things I Liked:
1. Encounter Design is Blackguards on Steroids: Just like with Blackguards, every combat encounter takes place on a handcrafted environment with a lot of thought behind the positioning of enemies and the level design. To expand:
- Unlike too many RPGs to name with mindless encounter design, it is very rare to find enemy archers in Rome who start combat at ground level or out of cover. Whenever combat starts, enemy archers are almost always placed on rooftops or hilltops, giving them a massive range advantage over the party's own archers. The one time an enemy archer was all by his lonesome without any nearby cover turned out to be too good to be true -- the entire area around him was full of hidden traps designed to punish an overzealous player who rushed towards an easy kill without considering how suspicious it was. I never made that mistake again and it served me well for the rest of the game.
- Just like with Blackguards, coming to terms with each combat arena's layout with all the chokepoints and verticality that it entails is paramount. Getting stuck in chokepoints is often a death sentence, since enemy support units, such as arsonists and poisoners, tend to rain down fiery and poisonous death on the hapless party members who are out of position.
- Another similarity with Blackguards is that the combat goals can vary and don't just amount to "kill all enemies". There are missions reminiscent of the infamous crypt lice mission of Blackguards where the party's group is not meant to fight, but instead get to safety while fending off enemies. My only complaint with the mission goals in the game is that too many fights in the game can be trivialized by beelining for the leader and killing him, thereby instantly ending the fight.
- Every combat arena has hand-placed usable items such as bandages, javelins and torches that both the party and enemies can use as a free action, completely turning around fights. Not paying attention to the location of these items and allowing the enemies free rein over the use of such items can be a recipe for disaster, as even untrained mooks can be devastating with a lucky throw of a torch of fire, especially when the party is in the vicinity of puddles of oil.
- On the highest difficulty, one has to pay even more attention to the level layout to predict potential points of entry for the near incessant enemy reinforcements.
- Barring 1 exception (in Act 3, a pacification mission and a random encounter share the same combat location), every single main quest, side quest, pacification mission and random world encounter takes place in a unique location with handcrafted level design and hand-placed enemies.
- The tense multipart siege fights without any chance to rest in-between fights are the highlight of the encounter design of Rome, and I can't think of any other game that offers a similar experience. Involving as many as 3 separate parties and 14 party members, a party's performance in its current fight has consequences for the fights other parties face in the future during the course of the siege. Since hp and tactical item usage persist between each part of the multistage siege fight, there is an added incentive to do well during each part of the siege, in order to help alleviate resource management pressures.
One aspect of Rome's level and encounter design that is a massive improvement over Blackguard's is that Blackguard's combat took place in separate abstract combat arenas. In contrast, Rome's combat locations are indistinguishable from non-combat areas that one can freely explore. In fact, a lot of the earlier exploration areas serve as combat locations themselves later in the game. Designing areas that are believable to explore while doubling up as interesting tactical challenges must have been no easy task.
2. Well Told Revenge Story with Personal Stakes: The game's villain is constantly around and well built up over the course of the entire game, and is the primary reason why the game's revenge tale works. Based on one's choices during Act 1, mutually exclusive events can unfold involving the protagonist's and the villain's family members, further adding to the simmering revenge plot. My biggest issue with the narrative is that certain aspects of the Act 3 military storyline seem rushed and lack proper build up, primarily those involving a sacrificial ritual and the act's main siege.
On a related note, I found the companions to generally be likable. Syneros, in particular, has become one of my favourite rpg companions, and he achieves this feat by being entirely normal and loyal. Even Bestia, who starts out as just a bloodthirsty gladiator develops in interesting ways depending on how certain companion quests resolve. Of the other 3 companions, I took the longest to warm up to Julia, who does mellow somewhat as the game progresses.
3. The Final Act's Impressive C&C: Without going into specific spoilers, the final splits into 2 radically different scenarios and fights based on a choice at the start of the act. Different companions can die and leave the party during each path, and how a companion's side quest was resolved in earlier acts can open up new non-violent options. Even the faction one was aligned to during Act 2 has consequences. It's well worth keeping a save around at the start of the act to experience the 2 entirely different turns the story can take from that point onwards.
4. Unique Item Mechanics: One novel addition to itemization introduced by Rome is the ability to dismantle and extract the special ability from a unique item and add it to a completely different item. I found it a lot of fun to take a unique staff that knocks enemies down 25% of the time, dismantle it and add the knock down effect to a Veles' generic dagger that is used multiple times a round, leading to the constant sight of prone enemies. This mechanic ensures no unique item in the game is wasted, and if one is not able to use a unique item in its default state, the item's unique proc effects can still be transferred onto an item of the player's choosing.
Things I Didn't Like:
1. Loading Screens in Sets of 4: A highly specific complaint for a highly specific flaw. There are 6 ways to manage the Legion:
- Assign someone to refresh the use of Tactical Items
- Assign someone to refresh the currently available Praetorians for hire
- Assign someone to craft weapons, armour and items
- Assign up to 3 people to the camp's infirmary
- Assign someone to the Baths to improve morale
- Assign someone to work on new Stratagems for use in Legion Battles
Of these 6 activities, only healing assignments can be done from the World Map, and that too a highly limited form of it. For serious injuries and healing efficiency, one needs to be treated at the camp's infirmary. Thus, for all intents and purposes, one needs to be inside the Legion camp to manage all 6 of the Expedition's activities. And this is where the loading screen hell starts. Entering the Legion camp from the World Map takes 1 loading screen. After making assignments in the Legion camp, one has to wait to see the results of the assignments. For some mindboggling reason, one cannot pass time when inside the Legion camp, and one needs to return to the World Map (loading screen 2). After passing time on the World Map to complete assigned tasks, the party members are not automatically removed from their assignments and neither are crafted items accessible yet. Inexplicably, one needs to head back into the Legion camp (loading screen 3) to "free up" the party members who were assigned to various activities and to collect crafted items. Finally, one has to return to the World Map (loading screen 4) to continue the campaign as before.
This problem really comes to a head during Act 3 which loves to spam a random encounter involving boars where the party ends up with 3 injuries or loses a random item permanently. Getting 2 of those events back to back, and sitting through 8 loading screens in the process, ensured that I gave my quicksave and quickload keys a good workout for the rest of the random World Map encounters.
2. The Expedition Mechanics Have No Stakes: The game's Expedition mechanics feel like they were designed around the idea of a time limit, only for the time limit to be removed later during development, but with with none of the Expedition mechanics changed to reflect the removal. One can essentially "grind" battle stratagems to use in Legion Battles by just passing time and then completely roll over Legion battles. Similarly, there are repeatable Legion missions all around the World Map that can be done by the Legion for resources, and this ensures resource management is barely a concern given the infinite time available. In Conquistador and Viking, I took on fights with injured party members thanks to worrying about the passage of time, but I didn't have resort to such desperate measures even once in Rome, since I could always postpone fights until after visiting the infirmary.
All this means the Expedition mechanics have changed from core mechanics in the prior games to just some mechanics that add a bit of flavour and lots of busywork filler.
3. Pointless RNG in Crafting: While the game does not have levels filled to the brim with pointless loot containers like in Viking, the crafting RNG means the player ends up wasting time anyway due to bad crafting rolls. When modifying items through crafting to have certain kinds of stats or resistances, the crafting result should have had just a single possible result instead of a range of results that only add to the frustration due to bad luck.
Overall, if one's looking for a game with interesting encounter design where the odds are stacked against the party (certain broken skills such as the Veles' Reaper skill notwithstanding), Rome is a blind recommendation. It's a nice bonus that a game with such a strong emphasis on the combat and encounter design also features a well-told revenge story with a fine example of branching C&C during its final act. The best way to play the game is with a custom difficulty that pumps up the combat difficulty, enabling better A.I. in the process, while turning down the settings involving the legion management to avoid getting bogged down with the poorly thought out and implemented Legion Management mechanics.
