In fact, the individual personalities in the game are the most interesting part. You aren't just running an empire: you're running a family, and you can look at your family tree at any time. You get to decide who your daughters marry ("He has no influence in the senate! He's not worthy of us!"). You can also 'adopt' into the family city governors who are doing a good job or army captains who show promise as potential generals. As the game progresses your characters pick up their own 'entourage' of hangers-on who give you various plusses or minuses at home or on the battlefield. Any number of vices and virtues are also common, such as 'heavy drinker' or 'superior commander.' Over the course of a long game it's fun to watch your youngest son rise through the ranks, take a wife, earn glory on the frontier, grant cities to his sons, and later march on Rome as an old man to win the game. The character portraits even age with time!

Aside from managing the family, you'll be managing construction of roads or pushing your spies and assassins around the map. A Civilization-style diplomatic interface allows you to haggle with other factions for trade deals or alliances. Everything you do impacts the tactical game: if you've got a spy placed in a city, for example, he might be able to open the gates for you from the inside when you assault it.

Things like trade and navies are much more important in Rome than they were in previous Total War games. You can blockade ports to strangle the economies of your enemies, and giant cities pretty much require huge road networks and seaports so that they can earn enough in revenue to support themselves. Managing an empire-sized economy later in the game when resources are spread thin is frustrating, but an entertaining challenge.

Individual members of your ruling family will have their own traits gained through their experiences in the game.

Epic Clashes on the Field

Once your armies collide on the strategic map, you'll zoom in on that particular piece of terrain to play out the battle itself. Here's where the real eye-candy happens: thousands of troops, formations marching, cavalry charges, flaming arrows lighting up the night sky, chariots plowing through peasant armies. Glorious!

Historical accuracy is the mantra here -- at least, accuracy within the bounds of still being a fun game. Troops all have morale that takes into account their experience, who they're fighting, if their flanks are protected, how good the general is, etc. etc. If things start too look too grim, they'll take off running from the battle. As a result, Rome's gameplay may be slower than you find in other real-time games, but it's deeply strategic. You're constantly looking for ways to outflank your opponent or move into a better position. Demoralizing the enemy so that they break formation is often more important then crushing them with might. It's a type of gameplay you see in very few games, and it's a blast once you master it. Plus, you can use common-sense tactics because the situations are all based in the real-world.

Rome's scope is ambitious: There are over 100 different units from around a dozen different cultures, each with their own flavor and strategy. The Greeks favor heavily armored hoplites in a deadly phalanx formation that is vulnerable to lighter, faster units and archers. The barbarians flood the field with inexpensive but vicious units, which can be devastating if you're caught in an ambush. The deserts of Egypt are unforgiving to troops in heavy armor, and the Egyptians favor fast-moving chariots and light cavalry, so you'll need to tailor your strategy to match. Despite the number of various units, the game balance feels just about right -- no one strategy dominates, and most armies tend to act like their historical counterparts.

Along with the massive campaign game (it'll take at least 20 hours to beat the game as one of the Roman factions, and doing so unlocks other factions to play), there are ten historical battles that you can re-enact. Each one starts with an in-engine cinematic giving you detailed narrated historical background and setting the scene, with the game literally starting right where the cinematic left off. It's like you're playing the History Channel.

In real life, full-on city assaults were costly, and armies generally just starved the enemy out. That's pretty boring, so Rome's developers made it worth your while to actively storm cities. These battles are among the highlights of the game. You can batter down the gates, creep siege towers toward the city, even fight atop the city walls. Guys will swarm up ladders, fighting their way over the edge, with enemies plummeting from the heights to the ground below. This is real Lord of the Rings-style carnage. The cities are rendered as mazes of buildings surrounding a central plaza, which you can take and hold to conquer the city. It's not only fun, it's visually awesome: armored soldiers running between burning buildings, fighting one another in alleyways... it's good to be the Caesar.