Europa Universalis: Rome

by Paradox

Product Features

• Fully 3D map with integrated graphics and detailed topography, start at any date between 280 B.C. and 27 B.C.
• Choose between 10 different cultures, including the Roman, Celtic, Greek and Egyptian civilzations

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B001392HJY
• Item Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: April 15, 2008
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #18,887 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Experience one of the most defining periods in world history in an experience crafted by the masters of Grand Strategy. The greatest cultural and military civilizations are brought to life through this epic title rife with great strategic and tactical depth.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well Done, June 24, 2008

By 

Customer "Customer" (United States) - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Europa Universalis: Rome (CD-ROM)

Being a fan of Europa Universalis III, I naturally found this game appealing. Here are my thoughts:

The good
1. Large amount of depth from managing family tree and characters in your empire - from throwing celebratory triumphs for characters whose loyalty is wavering to assassinating enemies of your king, from carefully deciding which characters to honor with a governorship to deciding how to deal with a general/governor who will no longer obey your commands (although not yet in open revolt) - this is a wonderful addition!
2. Troop loyalty: troops get more loyal to generals they fight under; the more battles they have the faster they become loyal to their general. This is yet another reason to carefully watch, punish, and reward characters within your empire.
3. Barbarians spawning from unoccupied areas based on the size of the barbarian presence in that area. While this may get irritating after a while, I like that you can always send a large army through and clean out the barbarian populations (although they slowly regrow, which makes sense) to prevent most barbarian raids from happening.
4. Colonization is much slower than in EU3 but much more sensible.
5. Added level of resource depth- you now need certain resources to build certain troops (elephants and heavy infantry, for example). That being said, all resources offer some level of benefits to the territories that possess them or trade for them.
6. Technology tree improvements: making technological 'discoveries' is now based on chance and your particular tech level, which increases with more competent characters being assigned to research, rather than a guaranteed "get 558 research points and you will receive technologies a, b, & c"

The bad
1. Slower gameplay overall as there are fewer major wars and conflicts.


The addition of a family tree and managing friends/enemies of important characters in your empire is very enjoyable. Having to deal with all the issues surrounding character competence and, ahem, loyalty, adds some spice to the gameplay. Moreover, sending characters from your empire on diplomatic missions (rather than being limited by generic 'diplomats')gives a little more depth to the gameplay... On the whole, although the game speed is slower than in EU3 (ie. fewer wars, less action) I have found there to be significantly more depth and I would recommend purchasing this game.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best strategy game... if you get Vae Victis, April 11, 2009

By 

M. Fanny "Habibus Magnus" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Europa Universalis: Rome (CD-ROM)

This game is great... if you get Vae Victis, the expansion pack. The $[...] you will pay for it are indubitably worth it. There was a time when I would have given this game a 3/5, but Vae Victis makes this an almost perfect game.
A perfect game, that is, if you come to it with the right type of expectations. I was a newcomer to the EU series, having purchased EU 3 but never really taking time to play past the tutorial before lending it to a friend who proceeded to lose it. O, misfortune!
Anyhow, back to this game, there are things that are a bit different from other strategy games:

* You are the commander in chief, not every general in the land:
This is very important. You assign general to armies and give them marching orders. You get to decide where they will attack and even to manage the composition of your armies, but you do not have the luxury of invading the mind of your generals, taking over, and dictating battle tactics. In the same way, you are not the governor of every province. You appoint people with different attributes to your various regions and the result of the governance will depend on their attributes. Will you appoint the superb administrator who has questionable loyalty or a very loyal but corrupt and inept family member?

* It's not a clickfest type of RTS game!!! I stopped playing RTS games a while ago, because I hate trying to play "Any way You Can Click I Can Click Faster." I thought I had permanently switched to turned-based strategy, but I must admit that I like this system very much. You can alter the speed. I think there are five speed levels and depending on what you're doing you can slow down or speed up. If you're at peace and nothing is happening, speed up. If you're at war, you'd better slow and and pause before giving your orders or you'll, well, you'll see why you should have slowed down.

* Governments: there are a lot of government types: different types of tribes, republics, monarchies, empire, et cetera. Different types of governments give you different bonuses on research, military organization, ruler popularity, et cetera. With republics, there is generally a rotating consulate, with two censors and a senate. Most government types come with 5 ministerial/secretarial positions whose primary job is research in the following five areas: land/army organization, naval organization, construction, civic improvements, and religious advances. Again, in your appointments, you must decided whether you want to gain loyalty and play politics or appoint the best qualified person. It's rarely feasible to do both. The senate consists of members from for factions/parties: military, mercantilist, civic, populist (whom you will learn to hate with religious fervor) and religious. Having a consul from different factions gives you different bonuses, of course. The problem with not playing politics is that you run the risk of having the Populists take over your senate and block everything. They are anti everything and are basically isolationists, so that you run the risk of being in a situation where you cannot declare war on a weaker enemy because of lack of senatorial support. Sometimes, they become so strong that your only way out of this is to become a tyrant and proclaim a dictatorship. That, of course, decreases loyalty and makes civil wars more likely.

* Research: it's pretty straightforward, you appoint magistrates to different offices (again you have to decide whether you want competence or political advantages) and depending on their finesse level your research will be faster or slower. You can also speed up research with the right policies: making citizenship easier, making slave emancipation faster, adopting a republic confederacy...

Research gives you new types of buildings and new bonuses, but not new types of troops, unfortunately.

* Trade: also very straightforward. Each province has a resource that it exports and provinces that have different resources can export goods with one another. Trade generates benefits (for instance the ability to recruit certain types of troops or to generate more money from taxes, etc.) and of course, pecuniary remunaration. Trade routes that have been stable for years without disruption yield more bonuses.

* Diplomacy. You can try to take over the world or to build a network of alliances. Of course, it will be easier to trade with friendly nations and they are less likely to attack you while you're at war with another enemy. Allies will also usually come to war with you if you attack an enemy. When going to war with allies, the largest or most powerful nation will be the senior partner and negotiating peace with them means a cessation of hostilities with all members of the alliance. Negotiating with one of the minor members of the alliance puts you at peace with them and them only. Now, in order to attack another nation, you need to have a casus belli, literally, a case of/for war. It is not obligatory to have a casus belli, but it is better for your stability. A casus belli exists in case of poor relations, refusal of war-time assistance on the part of an ally, assassination of one of your emissaries, et cetera.

*Stability. Stability goes from -3 to 3, with 3 being the best, of course. You increase stability by sacrificing to the gods and by not having a superb leader. You decrease it by passing new laws and declaring war without a casus belli. You should not attack nations who pay you tribute (the idea being that they're bribing you to keep you from attacking them) or with nations with whom you gave good relations. A low stability level will make it more likely for revolts and rebellions to occur. You will need to keep armies in every corner of your territory to quell revolts when they arise, thereby limiting the number of troops you can deploy abroad.

*Barbarians: they are very annoying. Sometimes, a swarm of them come from hell or Barbaria or from wherever they come from and invade. They pillage and you can either send an army to crush them or negotiate with them and create a client state or give them land on which to settle. If you crush a barbarian army, you enslave a number of them. Slaves generate wealth and so one way of increasing your income, especially when you play as a small nation is to go barbarian hunting - make sure you don't bite more than you can chew - and capturing a lot of slaves. But watch out when the bearded men go nation hunting.

Okay, this list is in no way exhaustive, but it's probably more than too long and should give an adequate picture of what the game is like. It's very addictive and I think it's a better game than M2TW, though not necessarily better than ETW.

Try it out and enjoy.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Europa Universalis in Ancient Rome, October 6, 2008

By 

S. H. Wells (Tulsa, OK United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Europa Universalis: Rome (CD-ROM)

If you are fan of Hearts of Iron or Europa Universalis, you will find Rome highly addictive, fun, and challenging. Game play is intuitive if you are familiar with these other products. Raising and deploying legions to deal with barbarians and rival powers is the heart of the game. But over extending yourself leads to manpower shortfalls and the danger of internal revolts(really bad if all your legions are tied up abroad). There is already rumor of expansion packs that will expand the depth of Europa Universalis' Roman experience. Paradox supports their products well after release (Doomsday, In Nomine) making them better and better. Buy the game, build a republic that spans the centuries, rule the world, then get up bleary eyed and go back to work.