Expeditions: Rome - the final Expeditions game from Logic Artists

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Oh shit, I never played this series cause it looked kind of jank but I'll take any chance for a decent Rome RPG I can get

Have you tried A Legionary's Life?

 

[Darth Roxor]

Good. Gooooooooooooooooooooooood.

The announcement trailer is absolutely freaking retarded though

 

[Tacgnol]

Oh shit, I never played this series cause it looked kind of jank but I'll take any chance for a decent Rome RPG I can get

Have you tried A Legionary's Life?

Great recommendation. Fun choices and great combat.

 

[Brancaleone]

Black people!!!!!!!

Oh no...

https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1496/roman-expeditions-in-sub-saharan-africa/

Roman Expeditions in Sub-Saharan Africa

Besides "Nubian" is pretty common trope in fiction about Rome of that era.

They also traded extensively with India and China. If that's all it takes, there should be, say, Kushan and Han gentlemen (and laaaaadies!) as well.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Black people!!!!!!!

Oh no...

https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1496/roman-expeditions-in-sub-saharan-africa/

Roman Expeditions in Sub-Saharan Africa

Besides "Nubian" is pretty common trope in fiction about Rome of that era.

They also traded extensively with India and China. If that's all it takes, there should be, say, Kushan and Han gentlemen (and laaaaadies!) as well.

Spoiler

That halberd there is just plain wrong

 

[razvedchiki]

wonder if it will have large scale tb battles since you will be commanding a legion.

 

[jackofshadows]

Awesome news. Question: why it isn't on the main fucking page?

 

[Shrimp]

Some good shit, apparently planned for a 2021 release as well. It's been a while since Logic made it publicly known they were working on another Expeditions title, but I don't think they'd said which setting it'd be in before now.
I wonder how it'll be compared to the previous instalments.

 

[Ivan]

"I'm about to even the scooooooooooooooooooooooooore"

I'm in it for the game though. Very much liked the previous 2 installments, but plz tone down the number of breakable barrels lol

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Those trailers were beyond cringe, but I trust the Logic Artists guys.

 

[Infinitron]

There are previews: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/expeditions-rome-preview

Expeditions: Rome is a CRPG where you hang out with Cicero and lead an army as a side hustle
Wherever I may Rome.



For a long time, I’ve had a low-key yearning for more CRPGs with a historical setting - to me, it feels like a gold mine that’s barely been scratched at. As such, imagine my delight in discovering not only that a hefty one is on the way later this year, but that it’s about the good old Romans besides.

Expeditions: Rome is the third in a trilogy by developers Logic Artists, and follows on from 2017’s Expeditions: Viking (but not literally, since it starts hundreds of years beforehand and all). It’s an RPG in the Baldur’s Gate/Divinity mould: you create a character who slots into an established backstory, just as their life takes a dramatic turn towards exploring beautiful pre-rendered maps with a party of colourful personalities. Sometimes they have chats, and sometimes they have turn-based fights on a grid of hexagons. But crucially, sometimes they have to manage a roman legion.

Having spent some time watching Expeditions: Rome being played by its devs, I’m more excited than I expected to be. While Viking, and Conquistador before it, were broadly regarded as good games, they were very much seen as a tier down in scale and budget from the blockbusters which I automatically went to as standard-setters in the paragraph above.

E:R, very plainly, is a much more ambitious game than its predecessors. And while I clearly don’t know what it’ll play like on release, I know the difference between developers who are genuinely excited to show off their work, and those who have a professional responsibility to act like they are. This demo fell very much into the first column, and that’s always a good sign.

The game puts you in the sandals of a Legatus (basically the boss of a Roman legion) whose dad has been binned by assassins, during the feeding frenzy of political intrigue preceding Rome’s transition from republic to empire. Suspecting that you’re next in line for a stabbing, you decide you need to get out of town fast - and as luck would have it, you happen to command a huge army of armoured murdermen, which you can lead away to commit various acts of bloodthirsty imperialism, as far away from Rome as possible.


The North Africa maps, which I've seen most of, look absolutely gorgeous - the colours, in particular, made me very happy to look at.

Spoiler

The story of this nightmarish lads’ adventure holiday takes you to North Africa, Greece and Gaul, before you make your way back to Rome for what I suspect will be an endgame reckoning. In the 40-plus hours it’ll take to play it through, your Legatus will be trying to get to the bottom of the skullduggery behind the game’s inciting incident. But crucially, they will also be responsible for the small, trifling task of leading a full Roman Legion on campaign.


This is your home from home: the legion's encampment.

Obviously, this isn’t going to be a Total War game. You’ll want, well, Total War for that. But it seems that Logic Artists have really leaned in to the army management side of the game: your hub in each act of the game is a military camp which you’ll actively manage and upgrade, while also making decisions about where to send soldiers.

Some decisions will buff your party directly, while others will have wider consequences. For example, the strength, deployment, and actions of your troops in a region will change the interactions your character has with NPCs, in ways that aren’t hard to imagine.

And although you won’t be commanding sprawling field battles on screen, you will be able to take legionaries out with you with your party when you’re RPGing. They will serve as your Praetorian guard, and satisfyingly, they will essentially be redshirts. “They are fairly disposable,” explains creative director Jonas Weaver. “They do gain XP and level up, but if one of them dies, you can always recruit a new one. The starting level of your recruits depends on the upgrade level of your barracks, so as long as you keep your camp upgraded, your recruits will more or less keep up with your level.”


I've talked more about the narrative aspects of the game in this post, but here you can see some people trying to kill each other inside a series of eerie supernatural hexagons which have appeared on the ground.


Ave, citizen! Ghoastus here again! So, these fellows think they know Rome, eh? I decided I'd put that to the test, and asked this Jonas Weaver whether he'd included my favourite food, delicious fermented Garum, in the game. To which he said: "You know what? Somehow we have not managed to squeeze in anything about Garum. We do have a small selection of Roman drinks that you can brew up and imbibe to get combat buffs, however, such as the spiced vinegar drink Posca and the honeyed wine called Mulsum." Hm. I suppose you'll escape the spectral panthers this time, Weaver, but only since I do like a refreshingly ghastly glug of Posca.

It won’t just be rando brutuses joining you on your quests, of course. Characters you’ve encountered on quests, or enemies you’ve spared in combat, will sometimes show up in your barracks for recruitment too. And of course, if you make a pig’s ear of managing your military activities, your potential Praetorians (depending on their character traits) may mutiny and desert you.

I’m also endeared by how much period detail seems to have made its way into the game. It’s not rigidly accurate by anyone’s claim - there’s some reasonable compression of historical events, for example, so that it’s possible to meet as broad a suite of historical figures as possible in a shortish period of time. But at the same time, this isn’t a primary-coloured Roman fantasy setting, either.

Weaver has been researching the period obsessively, partially with a view to including as many subtle touches of authenticity as possible, but also to design a story which properly fits the Roman moral universe. “I’m fascinated by the Roman patron/client system, and to what extent the idea of family and tribe permeated that society. It was seen as virtuous to defend your family, even if your family members were clearly in the wrong, and someone could get a lot of respect for siding with criminal family members, even as they were convicted of their crimes.”

Going back to historical characters, there are some that I’m really looking forward to interacting with. Weaver mentioned an encounter with Cato, Julius Caesar’s famous rival, who abruptly asks your character to justify an action they took much earlier than the game. “Cato isn't as interested in what you did as he is in your reasons for doing it,” Weaver says. “If you can convince him that you are a moral and virtuous person, he will lend you his help later on.”


That's Gaul, folks!

Also present in the same scene is Cicero, one of my favourite lads off of history, and one of Weaver’s too. From the way Weaver described the famous orator, I suspected the characterisation drew from Robert Harris’ brilliant trilogy of novels about him, and this was later confirmed to be the case. However much of a gigantic nerd it makes me, I’m tremendously excited by that.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamesn.com/expeditions-rome/announced

Expeditions: Rome is an upcoming tactical RPG that throws you into the maelstrom of Ancient Rome

Indie tactical RPG series Expeditions returns with a new entry set during the iconic period of Julius Caesar’s Roman Republic. Expeditions: Rome is the successor to 2017’s Expeditions: Vikings, and throws you into the later years of the era during Caesar’s rise to power. Your character must flee from political intrigue in Italy by joining the military, working their way up the ranks so they can eventually return and reclaim their status and family heritage.

Expeditions: Rome story arcs are built around three key military campaigns, one each set in Asia Minor, North Africa, and Gaul, respectively, based on historical conflicts from the period. The series’ bread-and-butter involves small-scale turn-based tactical skirmishes, and these return in full force. But there are also new meta-systems involving managing an entire Roman legion and using it to conquer and pacify a large strategic map.

Your character is fully customisable from the beginning, and you’ll be able to meet and recruit several key companions throughout the course of the game. The legion can also generate more generic soldiers for you to use in tactical battles. Player on-boarding and character management have also been heavily streamlined for this RPG game, with every player character fitting into one of four classes.

One of the drawbacks of Vikings was that character progression was confusing and opaque, something that the development team at Logic Artists is keen to address.

“Our skill system opens up in a more gradual way now,” creative director Jonas Wæver tells us in an interview. “With each class offering just three skills to choose from during character creation. Additionally, you don’t select a class until after the tutorial fight, giving you a chance to play with all four classes before you are asked to commit.”

Add to this each weapon comes with its own skills, and in general the developers have done away with basic actions. Between your class skills and the weapons you choose to equip, you’ll create a bespoke ‘loadout’ for that character for when you fight tactical battles.

In between the military campaigns your character will return to Rome. There is a family villa that acts as a hub area, but this is also where the developers claim the story and role playing elements “really come to life.”



“Depending on how things play out,” Wæver explained, “you may find yourself spending more or less time in the senate trying to win over the optimates or the populares, but it’s not so much based on a resource as it is based on how highly key players in Rome think of you.”

Expeditions games have always been about exploring the environment around you, whether you’re travelling from A to B or setting out into the wilderness to try and find new missions or points of interest. This fundamental loop is still at the heart of Rome, but the added military framing seems very intriguing and the studio has come up with some exciting ideas of how it integrates into the core loop. A lot of lessons were learned from Vikings to help make the campaign layer less of a chore.

“One thing we’ve learned is that no matter how many features and options we cram into the camping system,” Wæver said. “It will always get repetitive at some point in a playthrough.”



“We’ve essentially abstracted all those choices out into other parts of the game, to change the management part of the game from a chore you have to deal with into a suite of options for you to engage with at your pleasure in order to get new items and benefits.”

This means you no longer have to camp regularly to avoid penalties, instead using it whenever you want to engage in the crafting or on the mechanics. Managing the legion as well is more proactive, and rather than being an off-map abstraction you actively guide your forces across the map, engaging in several minigames that simulate larger scale encounters. Each campaign climaxes with a battle involving linked tactical skirmishes and participation from the legion, usually in the form of a siege.

We look forward to seeing more on this game in the coming months. Expeditions: Rome is due for release later in 2021 for PC via Steam.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Definitely D1P for me. Enjoyed both Conquistador and Viking immensly. Both game also is pretty much historical fantasy in way and not really thriving to be 1:1 hostorical setting so idgaf about muh wahmen muh black in muh historical game.

This means you no longer have to camp regularly to avoid penalties, instead using it whenever you want to engage in the crafting or on the mechanics. Managing the legion as well is more proactive, and rather than being an off-map abstraction you actively guide your forces across the map, engaging in several minigames that simulate larger scale encounters. Each campaign climaxes with a battle involving linked tactical skirmishes and participation from the legion, usually in the form of a siege.

This feels kinda decline I think. While never been a massive problem that players need to tackle on, resource scarity and mapping out where you need to go vs risk of starving was adding some dimension to exploration in both previous games.

 

[Infinitron]

More previews:
https://www.pcinvasion.com/expeditions-rome-preview/
https://www.gamewatcher.com/news/expeditions-rome-release-date

 

[fantadomat]

RPG in a Roman setting = .

Not only that,an expedition RPG in roman setting. All of their games are very solid and great fun to play,vikings was a clear incline to the conquistadors one. I am really hyped for this.

 

[Aemar]

RPG in a Roman setting = .

 

[ArchAngel]

Seeing as I really enjoyed the previous games I will definitely buy this. Great to see that the developer didn't fold!

I couldn't help to chuckle at this though:

Create your own Roman Legatus! Customize your character’s look, gender, class, and skills to match your playstyle and role-playing fantasy.

A lot of comments on this topic but nobody mentioned the obvious.. you are going to choose your gender, not your sex.. so all options are open..

 

[Thac0]

This feels kinda decline I think. While never been a massive problem that players need to tackle on, resource scarity and mapping out where you need to go vs risk of starving was adding some dimension to exploration in both previous games.

In Conquistador yes. In Expeditions, which was much more generic rpg and character driven camping became exactly as non challenging and tedious as they say in the article.
I would have preferred for them to go back into the much more survival/exploration/management driven style of Conquistador, but rather than keeping the camping system of Vikings with the more rpg like structure scrapping it alltogether is massive incline.

If they now give word about removing useless loot clutter with a billion containers holding two furs and one honey everywhere this becomes for me aswell.

 

[BinaryForest]

Oh shit, I never played this series cause it looked kind of jank but I'll take any chance for a decent Rome RPG I can get

Have you tried A Legionary's Life?

Yes! I tried it a few months ago and immediately got hooked, shame it only takes a dozen hours or so to do a pretty much perfect run. Felt damn good to become this legendary veteran capable of fighting off 4 men at once to protect his brothers in arms though, even if the senate robbed me of a consulship in the end

 

[Rieser]

Oh boy!

That announcement trailer was pretty terrible, though.

 

[fantadomat]

That announcement trailer was pretty terrible, though.

Yeah it is AAA level of bad .

 

[Tigranes]

Oh wow, they're back! Definitely one to watch. I have a feeling they're never going back to Conquistador's emphasis on scarcity/management, and this one's more about battles and story, and possibly an emphasis on high-level conquest of lands rather than a small band of explorers. That would continue some of the trends in Viking, and it's disappointing for me, but they could still turn that into a great game that improves on Viking.

I guess I'll check back later to see if anyone's actually talking about RPG mechanics in this thread.

 

[mikaelis]

I am excited

 

[Alphons]

Loved backstabbing my allies and murdering women, children and surrendering enemies in both previous games, pretty excited for this one!

 

[Darth Canoli]

This is what the Romans called "Africa":

NORTH Africa.

Not sub-saharan Africa.

The "Africans" the Romans interacted with looked more like very tanned Europeans, or Arabs.


That's the Africa the Romans were colonizing.

Africa =/= black people.

Besides "Nubian" is pretty common trope in fiction about Rome of that era.

Nubians and other black Africans were enslaved by Egyptians whom had trade routes with Romans...