Europa Universalis: Rome review (PC)

Throw him in Irons, off with his head or set him free, these are the choices in front of me. The question is how to deal with the man caught trying to take the life of one of my most prominent governors. Under questioning he confessed that he had been sent by the current ruler of Rome, an empire whose notoriety for underhanded meddling in the affairs of other nations is second only to the fear instilled by the size and vicious efficiency of their fighting units. This unfortunately means that this time I must spare his life. With ten thousand troops putting down the barbarian uprising in the west, and a further thirty thousand men and horse lined up against the forces of Egypt in the east, there is simply nothing left to pit against the threat from Rome to the North.

A world at you fingertips

Europa Universalis: Rome, the latest offering from Paradox Interactive is a strategy title with a lot to offer. There are no set goals, no missions and no steer to play a certain way. A world is laid out before you and you rule your nation however you see fit. Grand strategy games for me have always struggled to find the balance between flexibility and usability, titles with a nice straightforward interface often felt constrictive, lacking the ability to really play the game your way. On the other hand, those that really give you the ability to tweak the world you create present you with such an unbelievable array of menus, options and information screens that even getting started is a seriously daunting prospect.
This is not the case here, the map interface is pleasantly simple, yet there is a wealth of customisation options available to you. You take care of the top level decisions (on behalf of the current leader) and rely on your governors to take care of individual provinces. Your governors will set taxes and take care of the day to day happiness of your citizens, whilst you negotiate trade routes and form alliances with bordering nations. However, it’s best to keep an eye on your governors, as each has their own personality. Some are susceptible to corruption, taxing their citizens hard, yet only passing a meagre portion on to you, others too lenient and weak willed, causing the locals to question their ability to lead. The wrong man in the wrong job can lead to a revolt, which if left untended can spread to bordering provinces.

Split Personalities

Decisions you make through the game affect the personality traits of those around you, various events happen which require your interaction. The current leader may receive an offer of friendship from a high ranking citizen from a family of less than noble blood. Accepting the offer may gain you popularity with the citizens of your nation, showing you to be a man of the people, however this will often lead to suspicion from other nobles; something which can become a hindrance when you have to choose the next ruler of an important province.

Of course it is not just the internal politics of your own nation you have to worry about, the nations around you will be watching on, looking for weakness or strength, reasons to approach with offers of alliance or declarations of war.

Just War?

As you would expect in a game of this nature military control has a large part to play, but it is worth pointing out that it is not the sole focus of this game. It’s an element of ruling your nation but not the primary purpose, you can in fact go to great lengths to avoid war, and you may even find life more prosperous if you do. However when all else fails and war is the only option EU: Rome doesn’t let you down.

Army recruitment, movement and combat are extremely easy to control. Recruitment is done by unit, which is a collection of one thousand troops, and represented by a single avatar. You can merge units together to create vast armies of fighting men, yet they are still represented by that single icon (hovering over which will tell you the current strength of that fighting unit). Movement is as simple as left clicking a unit and right clicking where you want them to go. If they move into an area occupied by enemy forces, then battle commences. If you army is made up of archers and infantry then in the battle infantry will automatically move to the front and the archers to the rear, although you don’t directly see this, it is reflected in the losses taken during the battle. As with appointing governors, appointing the leaders of your military units is equally important. A weak willed or lazy general is likely to break and flee from a fight, whilst a brave yet reckless man will take unnecessary risks and throw away lives.

A little help

There is so much to this game that it’s impossible to really do it justice in so few words, yet as previously mentioned it’s packaged up and presented in a way that is far from daunting. It’s not perfect, loading times are initially long due to the amount of information to be loaded (remember this is open ended, it loads up an initial world and the AI takes care of the rest). The tutorial could really do with providing more information; you simply get a text overview of the interface, pointing out the inherently obvious features, however small things like how to control troop movement are never explained and can take a bit of experimentation to work out.

You’re going to need time, and lots of it, to fully appreciate EU: Rome. However thanks to the ability to pause, slow down and speed up game time this is a title that you can play in small bursts when you have a few minutes. Be warned, however, that sitting down for half an hour will quickly lead to you looking at the clock and only to discover its 5 am three days later.