Europa Universalis: Rome – 3. On the March
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Click here to read Part 2 of this review
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Getting started with the game, as a single player for now, takes you to the main start-up screen. (Veteran Paradox Interactive players bear with us. Much of this will be familiar from other titles. And that’s the last time we’ll say that in this series so have patience, you veteran Europas.)
Here, instead of the usual choice of scenarios, you’ll see a series of Bookmark buttons aligned vertically on the left. These represent significant milestones (a Roman invention, btw) in the Roman historical timeline. For even though you can play any of the highlighted available countries, the theme of the game is Rome, so for that reason this Bookmark metaphor fits nicely.
Below that on the left is a Calendar widget, you can choose any date between the earliest and latest that are covered by the game. The earliest date has been pegged as signifying the real ascendancy of Rome as a regional Mediterranean power, the era of the wars with a fading Greece. The entire span goes from, earliest to latest, 278 BC to 25 BC. In the game, though, these and all other dates are represented by the Latin equivalents, 474 AUC to 727 AUC. These years are marked from the mythical founding of Rome as known to the Romans of the time. AUC stands for Ab Urbe Condita.
The earliest start time/bookmark, is the above-mentioned Pyrrhic War (474 AUC), in which the remnants of ancient Greece under the leadership of Pyrrhus, managed a series of costly victories over Rome which sealed its doom – and giving us the term Pyrrhic victory. (”Another such victory over Rome and we are undone.” - Pyrrhus.)
Other Bookmarks include: The First Punic War (490 AUC); The Second Punic War (536 AUC); The Syrian War (562 AUC); Mare Nostrum (604); Gaius Marius ( 647); Caesar’s Gallic Wars (696 AUC); Alea lacta est (705 AUC) and First Emperor (723 AUC).
Pick a Bookmark or select any date in the Calendar, then click on any of the colored-in countries in the main window and the right side of the screen will show details of the chosen country’s leader, the leader’s rating in three areas, the type of government, the main diplomatic situation for that country (enemies and allies) and the difficulty rating of playing that country in that specific situation. If you’ve clicked a Bookmark you’ll get a paragraph describing the historic background of the scenario. Changing the date on the calendar makes that text disappear. But if you don’t wander too far in time the situation will be roughly the same. This feature alone shows the incredible amount of research that goes into the making of this and other games in the series.
Click the PLAY button and your legions are on the march.
Click here to read Part 4 of this review
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Europa Universalis Rome, games, history, strategy | bshears April 26, 2008
