Nemesis of the Roman Empire

by ENLIGHT

Product Features

• Real time strategy game puts you in command of the armies of Rome, Gaul, Carthage or Iberia
• Lead armies of up to 50 on land or command fleets of ships for sea battles
• Develop settlements, perform rituals to advance your cause, and obtain items to gain bonuses
• Play single player campaigns or engage in multiplayer battles online
• For 1 to 8 players over LAN or Internet

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0001MSMDE
• Item Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: April 2, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,736 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Game Informer Review

It's nice to see an RTS that's not an overt WarCraft clone. Though Nemesis lacks the incredible polish of WarCraft and Age of Mythology, its unique play style is cool, especially if you don't like to go online; the two campaigns and random map generator are much better than the barebones multiplayer.

Some interesting design decisions in Nemesis make it play rather differently than a standard RTS. Building and resource-gathering are largely out of players' hands, and the landscapes are littered with minor structures that can be captured or used for various benefits. While these do remove the player from the action to some extent, they also free up your attention for the more serious business of commanding your armies.

What makes Nemesis such a unique RTS experience is the need to keep your forces supplied while they're in the field. It's not cumbersome to do so, however, and adds an extra layer of strategy to the whole game. Each of your forts, villages, and outposts has its own store of food and gold, making it much more important to manage your economy rather than just build a big horde as fast as possible.

The only problem I have with Nemesis's design is in the battles. Individual unit AI is fine, but the conflicts happen on such a large scale that it becomes almost impossible to execute any sort of strategy other than sending all of your units in and hoping for the best. However, that just moves the strategy to the placing of armies and economic decisions rather than the down-and-dirty fighting, so it's not all bad.

Nemesis is by no means a perfect game, but it's definitely a breath of fresh air within the RTS scene. The concepts it brings are innovative and well-implemented, and merit a look by anyone who enjoys the genre.

Concept:
Command the legions of Rome, Carthage, Gaul, or Iberia in a real-time strategy slugfest

Graphics:
The animations are seriously short on frames and the environments are very static, but units are easily identified on the battlefield

Sound:
It's a good thing that with low system requirements you can run the audio app of your choice in the background

Playability:
Not having a minimap hurts for a while, but you get used to it

Entertainment:
New concepts and good execution make this worthwhile

Replay:
Moderately High

Rated: 7.75 out of 10
Editor: Adam Biessener
Issue: June 2004

2nd Opinion:
The long awaited sequel to Celtic Kings: Rage of War is here! What, you've never heard of that game? Well few have, but apparently it did well enough to earn a sequel. Somehow though, I doubt the series will continue on past this point. Nemesis of The Roman Empire is a reasonably competent RTS title, but it's also unpolished and lacks much in the way of engaging content. Taking over structures instead of building them is conceptually interesting, but when I'm playing an RTS, I want the freedom to lay out my territory as I see fit. This may be a good choice for hardcore RTS fans, but most others will opt for more mainstream titles.

Rated: 6 out of 10
Editor: Jeremy Zoss


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Product Description

Product InformationWelcome to the Nemesis of the Roman Empire website sequel to theaward-winning Celtic Kings: Rage of War Real-Time Strategy game.  Nemesisof the Roman Empire picks up where the award-winning Celtic Kings: Rage of Warleft off.  In the height of its glory Carthage was the greatest power in the ancient world.With trade routes throughout the entire Mediterranean there the was no othernation to dispute its strength. Goods gold and slaves poured in to the majesticcity--the source of its might.Countless mercenaries armies were constantly bought to ensure that all whothreatened Carthage or its interest would be dealt with. However another Empirewas also on the rise. The city of Rome too had begun to gain strength. TheRomans soon decided openly to challenge their Carthaginian rivals. The time ofthe Punic Wars had begun.The Roman CampaignSeeing the power and influence of Carthage the Senate of Rome decided thatsomething should be done. An army was prepared and sent under a false pretext toSicily. The First Punic war started during which Carthage lost its advantage andwas forced to withdraw from Sicily Corsica and Sardinia.However the Carthaginians were not prepared to lose their world dominancejust like that. Its attention became focused on the Spanish peninsula. Seeingthis Rome responded and a territory grabbing began ultimately resulting in theSecond Punic War. Yet at that time Rome had already achieved dominance in Europeand managed to claim victory once more. All Carthaginian remnants were sweptaway from the continent though that did not calm the Senate of Rome. There werestill feats that Carthage might rise and pose a threat once more.In order to prevent the Third Punic war Roman legions were sent to Africawith orders to attack the rival city itself. Only a victory there woulddetermine which of the two powers would remain.The Carthaginian CampaignFor generations the city of Carthage was se

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful game with great adventure story, May 21, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Nemesis of the Roman Empire (CD-ROM)

First of all, if you love Romans or eras with sword fighting and cavalries, don't wait any further and buy this game right now. It's very cheap for $25.

Now, this game doesn't require super-fast computers. I have a rusty Celeron 766 MHz with 128 RAM and 16 MB vid. card. It runs perfectly smooth on my comp...except for the cinematics. For some reason, they are choppy. But that's not our main concern here.

Tutorial starts off great with basic RTS elements which eventually leads to showing probably the biggest aspect of this game, the RPG feature. And eventually, you get a chance to defeat a Roman legion at the end of tutorial. I felt that tutorial was too easy to start a player off with but then again, like The Simpsons say, "99% of the games start off with easy tutorial level". But it pretty much lets you get a good grip on the game's interface, environment, etc.

If you have ever played Stronghold, you will notice that the way you can train troops and research technologies in this game is very similar to that of Stronghold. Just like Stronghold, you have a certain population you must manage while keeping them and your army fed throughout the whole scenario. Speaking of food, there is an interesting feature in this game which changes thing tactically. You must keep your army fed throughout the whole process. If they don't eat, they don't fight and morale goes down, and you lose. Therefore, you can make a pack mule from the tavern which will follow your army around. Make sure this pack mule doesn't die otherwise you can be screwed.

There is another interesting concept in this game which is heroes and their item carrying capability. Heroes are strong, generals who have certain experience level and some special abilites such as greater health or greater strength. These heroes or leaders can also lead a group of many different units under their command. You can minimize the tedious clicking and selecting the whole group or cycling through group numbers assigned to each group while remembering which group has which units, by assigning a group to follow a leader. Just by selecting leader, you select the whole group under the leader's command and it gets really easy for you to manage your troops. Groups also get certain bonuses when they follow a hero.

The only thing missing in this RTS is base building. In fact, this actually makes it more easier for the player to concentrate more on the troops and tactical aspect of the game while not worrying too much about micromanaging the economy or the population. If you've ever played Prateorains, you know what I'm talking about.

Animations are iffy sometimes but for the most part they are very beautifully depicted. The amazing swings of a macemen while the burning arrows fired by the archers and the brave fighting styles of a Prateorian will satisfy you to a great deal making you feel like you are watching a movie.

In the end, I must say kudos to Enlight for creating such an outstanding game, one of its own kind. Roman era buffs like me have been wanting for a game like this to be made and I can truly say that my wish has come true. Again, this game is worth $25 that you will spend. If you are having second thoughts, then don't. Just buy this great game. Kudos, Enlight, kudos.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Addictive gameplay, May 26, 2005

By 

Tricky Bastid (NYC) - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Nemesis of the Roman Empire (CD-ROM)

I really really enjoyed Nemesis of the Roman Empire, for once we have a RTS game where we don't have to care about resource management. That's something for peasants to do! Instead the objective is to violently take over nearby villages that surround yours and your enemy's capitol city. Then you order the village to deliver food to your city and you can forget about them!

You don't have to build new structures, you don't have to care about harvesting grain from farms and ore from mines, all you have to care about is the war effort, and trying to take over enemy villages & forts without getting massacred (of course). I'm a huge fan of Rome: Total War, StarCraft and Age of Empires II -- Nemesis is right there up with those awesome RTS games except you just simply don't have to click-on-everything to keep your economy going! That rules for me since I basically hate resource management.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good..., August 12, 2006

By 

Nostradamus "Nos" (16th century France) - See all my reviews

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Nemesis of the Roman Empire (CD-ROM)

Hers how it Works...The Game action is great, but with some flaws. My main problem is with the editor function.You have to figure out everything by yourself and what really pisses me off is that you can not call for tech support. If they could change some things, i think the best thing would be the same format for units, buildings, and decorations and the such, with the format of Age of Empires: The Age of Kings. Instead, one has to take apart a existing game and re-arrange it or make a city without gates.... Hmmmm...Choices, choices, choices.

The adventure is solid, and provides good challenges, as does single player. As I read some of the other reviews, on of the main problems they stated was with building up food and gold resources. It is a very simple solution. First with gold. Lets say you start a single player game with Iberia as your team. When you begin, send 5000 gold to a STONE outpost, perferably nearby. The gold will gain intrest and if you leave it alone and don't touch it, supplenmenting it with the capital's gold every now and then. At the end of a two hour game, I usuly amass at least 100,000 gold. Food is tricky. You see, depending on what setting the AI is on,will depend on the results. If you have a few towns that you could reach quickly, let them build upto their max storage (5000). send the food to a stone out post, near your capital. Don't touch it unless you really need. To conserve food, don't station your troops inside of the main building, as this will drain your food quickly. Put them out outside, just near enough to get resuplied when they need it. The key to beating the game is food mangement.