Final sitrep, 75 hours, enjoyed it a lot.
In the grand scheme of things dindu centurions are a small niggle. Actually my only major complaint are the legion battles. They do make you feel like a legatus all right but they're just too simple and unfun. And I'm not even sure making them more complex and involved would solve anything. I for one am not interested in Total War type strategy elements in my epic party-based, turn-based RPG. In the end I just accepted it as a necessary evil.
The reason I kept playing for all those 75 hours is the pros vastly outweighed all possible cons in my book. I grew to love the combat. Dare I say it? It's even better than the Larian offering in D:OS and BG3. You can't teleport around and hurl fireballs at the mobs but it more than makes up for it with a vast array of tight tactical and positioning options at your disposal. You can form formations like two heavies with shield camping a chokepoint, one or two long-reach pikemen behind them and an archer or two taking reaction shots. And that's the most basic arrangement. Once you unlock all the perks and abilities it's so much fun. Your heavies can hunker down and deflect (but become immobile), your pikemen get bonuses for adjacent heavies, your archers become veritable machine gunners with multiple reaction shots per turn, with bleeding/fire/poison arrows, with knock-down and armor-stripping effects and many, many more. You can even specialize them into Legolas-type light-melee skirmishers. And then there's the whole morale and crowd-control layer, with a whole bunch of related chardev options. I didn't use them too much since I only played on Normal and mostly it was easier to just kill mobs instead of cc-ing them with fear or various other abilities but I imagine on Insane they'd be essential.
Oh and there is the thief-type class plus gladiators bundled with the DLC. And every single class have three subclasses you can specialize in (or split your points between those if you wish), with only one or two in total feeling slightly underpowered. All in all it's one of the best and most fun chardev/combat systems I've ever played.
The second major strength of this game is the C&C. Reading the guides and walkthroughs after I finished I was surprised with all the possible paths my run could've gone. Not gonna spoil here, let's just say your choices do matter a lot. You can win or lose your party members, you can have or not have an extra legion to command in the 3rd act, you can decide the fates of many significant NPCs and in the end your own fate as well.
As for the third major strength I appreciated the itemization in Rome. Not the best system ever perhaps, but distinctly above average. For some time now I've been banging the drum about modern devs being especially inept at creating acceptable, let alone great, itemization so it was pleasing to see Logic Artists didn't drop the ball completely here.
And finally the writing. I felt writing in Conquistador and Viking was stronger but in Rome it's again above average. I liked my follower personalities and the way famous NPCs like Cicero, Cato or Lucullus were written. It's decidedly an alternative history of Rome, considering the fates of some of those characters in this game, but still solidly handled.
Ex:Rome was a genuine surprise for me. I usually prefer blobbers from isometric party-based RPGs but I really warmed to this game. If it wasn't for the fundamental flaw with the legion battles it'd secure a spot in my Hall of Fame.
