Total war series & Rome HBO

[Belgar]

It seems that many are fond of history so I was wondering if any of you had ever tried the Total War series for PC with Barbarian invasions and Alexander xpack? very startegic and economic with real time full scale battles.
It also let's you recreate ancient battles using roman or gaul and viking sides.
On top of that, the games always offered many historical facts and thesaurus to explain everyhting you need to know about that era.

The next installment Medieval 2 Total war is looking awesome with new features allowing you to manage religion, putting your own pope thru wars and briberies or turning your territories into pagan lands http://www.totalwar.com/

The other thing I wanted to check was if anybody had bought the Rome dvd season 1 made by HBO and the BBC and portrayed as one of the most realistic vision of ancient Rome http://www.hbo.com/rome/about/
with some of the best battles against the gauls showing the military organisation of the romans and all the violence and betrayal in Rome and in the legions. I watched some of it and was really really impressed by the level of realism and effort put into this production.

 

[Knarfi]

About the DVD, ive seen about 80% of the episodes on TV.. one of the best TV series ive ever seen

About the game, i know it, dont have it. I do have age of empires 2 and Empire eath ^^ pretty fun to play vs someone else

 

[Anglorfin]

Played Rome TotalWar. It's was pretty good. I really loved the whole concept of role-playing by empire building and the integration of the RTS format when it came time to actually do battle. However I found the battles to be pretty clumsy. I guess I might be too much of an RTS traditionalist but I couldn't get used to the control scheme and the camera was absolutely killing me. Still the game itself was fun and very immersive. For a game that I originally got into for its RTS element I sure changed my perspective quickly and got into the role-playing side much more enthusiastically.


As for the series, yeah it kicked ass. I only remember seeing a few episodes but from what I saw it was really well done. Very surprising for an HBO series. Production was way beyond what I would have expected. The realism was indeed awesome.

 

[Belgar]

Rome on HBO was made in association with BBC and some reknown archeologist as advisor. BBC has always been on top when it came to documentaries and historical series. Same BBC and HBO that teamed up to make the awesome Band of Brothers mini serie.

In RTW, I loved putting my legions in Testudo formation and watch hundreds of units march in formation. I never had much problems with the battle system until I had to siege a town that already had high walls. I also loved how you could bribe with your diplomats; have tribes give you a lot of money for trade and military routes and betray them the next turn. Sending plagued spies in Rome and watch Rome's population decline by thousands every turn always had me laugh.

 

[Tyra]

Larsson said he saw the series. I saw some of it, but I am nt an expert on Roman armour and such, so I won't say how realistic it was. It is a good show, though, and the BBC is generally very good at finding good "support staff" for researching their shows.

 

[Larsson]

Larsson said he saw the series. I saw some of it, but I am nt an expert on Roman armour and such, so I won't say how realistic it was. It is a good show, though, and the BBC is generally very good at finding good "support staff" for researching their shows.

I indeed did. As for how realistic it was I don't know either. There are many details in the story that does not match actuall historical events, but hey, it's not ment to be a history lesson. I have not heard any complaining from roman history-buffs regarding clothing, armor, buildings and stuff.

I quite liked the show. But didn't the dialogue feel to modern? or is it just me?


I have only played the Rome: Total War demo. I do own Medeival: Totla War including the expansion Viking Invasion. Can't install them anymore for some reason. I insert the cd, the launcher pops up, I click install and then... nothing. A pity, I wan't to play the game again.

 

[Anglorfin]

Heh I must not have noticed that it was BBC. They do awesome stuff. Anyway the show went way beyond my expectations. Now I know why.

 

[Söy]

i have Medieval Total War & the Viking Expansion; however it has less-than-stellar performance as it was not designed with Windows XP in mind so it crashes if you try to maximize the graphical settings. and im not going to lie; i like playing the strategy part more than the real-time tactical portions. but i think that is due to the clumsy interface more than anything.

 

[genaatloos]

i did see Rome. One of the best series i saw since Band of Brothers i think. Didnt miss one episode. Oh, en now we are talking about it: is there any news of a second series? I heard that they were planning Rome 2, in which they tell the story of emperor august.

I did play medieval total war a few times. Maybe i try the new one too.

 

[MORGAVID]

I love the Total War games was addicted to ROME Total war only a few weeks ago.......of course my favourite faction was the Celts(Ireland Scotland and Wales) and their war painted Berserkers.

Also yes did watch the ROME series on BBC though missed the last few episode's :'(

 

[Knarfi]

I quite liked the show. But didn't the dialogue feel to modern? or is it just me?

Well it was in English and you could spot some accents in the english of some of the actors. Maybe they should've done it in italian or something

 

[Ehre_Wotans]

Well, I saw the first 3 episodes on dvd so far, and I'm certainly going to get the other dvds as well. It's one of the best movies about the Roman Empire I've seen so far (and I saw some). I also played Rome: Total War, and it was quite nice seeing the Roman Empire be conquered by the Teutons ; )

 

[Zephyrus]

I loved watching Rome but they could have showed some more battles.

 

[Tyra]

I don't think ANY of those kinds of shows EVER show enough battle scenes... I love going to the wars we "do" with our Norse recreation groups. There just is nothing that can get the point across of what it would have been like, like the sound of 1400 or so people crashing into eachother in full armour. You CAN capture that on film, but you can only get the full effect if the narrator shuts up for long anough for you to hear it... In the real world, you can smell the battle and you can feel the ground shake. You can't get that on film, but that incredible sound can be captured, and the skill and techniques of the fighters, as well as some of the maneuvres used in battle, lend themselves very well to shows like these. Battlescenes cut into precious commercial time, though...

 

[Belgar]

I was kind of disappointed about Rome's lack of epic battles. When Caesar destroyed Pompey's legion, we saw a brief short close-up battle sequence ... same when he won in Alexendria or during the pursuit of Pompey's army in Greece.
In a sense it is sad, but I guess it would be almost impossible to recreate a massive battle involving 10's of thousands of actors and still give it a realistic look and at the same time keep the pace of the serie.

 

[genaatloos]

they filmed it. But as always it is forbidden to show a lot of blood and sex on the american television (although enough actionfilms come out of the states... ). In Holland they did show the american version too, but officially there was a lot more action in it.. and a lot more sex (how could it be possible..)

edit: ofcourse it wasnt the whole battle.. but at least more battleshots