Praetorians - Hd Remaster
Mallory Chowansky
That being said, Praetorians is a faithful remaster of a classic RTS title. A challenging game at its core, it's an exciting experience to essentially step back in time to a much different approach to the RTS scene. Set during the rise of the Roman Empire, the game takes you across the empire's territories in Gaul, Egypt, and of course, Italy itself. You'll control massive groups of spearmen, centurions, archers, and more as you march your way through the game's maps.
But, that being said - one of the odder aspects of the game, coming from never playing the original, is essentially a lack of resources or base building. Instead, players are forced to "capture" local settlements they find across the map and conscript the locals into service for the empire. I found it a bit disconcerting I could march in as a Roman general and boss a bunch of random people to don armor in my stead, but what are they going to do against the men holding swords at their throats? The townspeople themselves create the "resource" pool you use for unit creation, and they regenerate within a relatively okay timeframe. In capturing settlements, you also build a tower and essentially garrison your commander in the town itself, losing him unless you choose to pull him out and continue onwards with him. Doing that, however, will rob you of the ability to generate new units.
The main story plots of the game will intertwine and take you across several locales. You'll end up going up against a myriad mix of enemy unit types, but most times, it's a very similar experience. It's challenging to get genuinely strategic, but there are abilities with your units to set up formations, making them a bit more offensive/defensive depending on the situation. Honestly, the best aspect of the game for me ended up being the settlement sieging, which doesn't surprise me since that's also my favorite in the Total War series. The two games bear some significant similarities, but one has had the benefit of continuing to grow as a series over time.
I'm having a hard time directly recommending this game. Classic fans are going to love the HD remaster, but newcomers, especially ones to the RTS genre, are going to be in for a tough time. It's got a deceptively tough learning curve, and it's not very forgiving, but it's also a challenging and engaging game. Plus, who doesn't love being the Roman Empire and rolling over your enemies? If you're looking to reclaim some classic glory, go with this Praetorians, but otherwise, this might be one to miss. I should mention that during my time with the game, I never saw any multiplayer games active.
Praetorians is a 3D real-time tactics[3] video game developed by Pyro Studios and published by Eidos Interactive in 2003, based on Julius Caesar's historical campaigns in Gaul and Britain, Crassus' battles in Parthia, and the events of Caesar's Civil War during the 1st century BC. The player controls either the Roman Republic, the Ptolemaic Kingdom (inaccurately represented as the New Kingdom of Egypt), or a generic barbarian tribe based on the Helvetii, Gauls, and Celts.
Unlike most real-time strategy titles, Praetorians focuses on military strategy and tactics rather than building or resource management. Units are trained from a garrison, which is built on a town or village which requires a garrison to be built and a commander to be sent there to oversee recruitment.
Each civilization comes with its own unique unit pool with units that have different strengths, abilities, and weaknesses. Some unit types are simply re-skinned for all the civilizations, but the variety in units offers different strategic ideas depending on which civilization the player is using. Light infantry units are generally weaker than heavy infantry units in hand-to-hand combat, and are susceptible to arrow fire, but are the only units in the game that can act as builders; the possible buildings they can construct range from wooden bridges and defensive towers to war machines and siege equipment such as towers and ladders. Heavy infantry units are strong in hand-to-hand combat and quite resistant to arrow fire, but generally much slower around the map, and cannot travel over watery terrain. Archer units are poor in hand-to-hand combat, especially against cavalry units, but can set fire to damage buildings and siege equipment. Spear units are generally competent in hand-to-hand combat, particularly in their defensive "stationary" formation when they form a spear-wall, but are susceptible to heavier infantry units and arrow fire, and cannot travel in forests. Cavalry units are quick, can easily outmanoeuvre most troops, and will fare pretty well in hand-to-hand combat with most other units, but they are quite susceptible to arrow fire and most cannot travel in forests.
There are multiple types of terrain in the game. Forests can be used to hide infantry units, and to spring ambushes against troops out in the open. Watery terrain prevents heavy infantry units from crossing, unless it is a site where a wooden bridge can be built. Grassy terrain can be lit on fire and can kill troops that cross the fire.
Members of an alliance may not attack one another, though it is still possible to attack an allied building or village belonging to an ally. In times of crisis team members can call upon each other via the message line "We need help". Allies will normally offer spare troops in assistance. Praetorians differs from other games of its genre in that resources do not play a part in it. In most real-time strategy games, items such as wood, food, gold, stone, and glory must be collected, to be spent during the creation of troops; in Praetorians, the only resource the players need in order to recruit stronger soldiers are honour points, which are earned by fighting and killing enemy troops. There are also troop control points and unit control points: the former limits the number of troops a player may have in their army, and the latter limits the number of individual soldiers and army men that can be used.
Skirmish functions can be chosen in which the player first chooses a difficulty level (easy, medium, or hard), then up to one character and up to seven AI players, controlled by artificial intelligence. These can be Roman, Egyptian or an anonymous barbarian tribe. Once this is completed, alliances may be created by joining two forces on the same team, whether set before the game has started, or during the game.
Players may participate as Julius Caesar commanding forces of varying sizes against various hostile tribes of barbarian, Egyptian and, nearer the end of the game, Roman origin. The Campaign consists of four Tutorial levels, which educate the player on how to order troops around the map, initiate combat, and best use the units at the player's disposal, and 20 Campaign missions, beginning in 59BC with Caesar fighting the Helvetii tribe, and ending in 45BC with the final battle of the Civil War. The 20 campaign missions are divided into four sections; each new section is preceded by a short film. The sections, including the tutorial missions, are divided by the time period the missions are in. The first section involves leading Caesar's new legions to Gaul to investigate the recent surge of bandit attacks in Aeduii country. The second is the initial stage of the Gallic Wars and focuses on Caesar's battles against the Helvetii and the Nervii. The third section continues directly from the second section, beginning with Caesar crossing the River Rhine and followed by Caesar's invasions of Britannia and Ambiorix's revolt. The fourth section focuses both on Crassus' defeat at Carrhae in 53 BC and the subsequent retreat - two of the most difficult campaign missions, with challenging initial starting positions whilst being significantly outnumbered by the Parthians - along with Vercingetorix's revolt. The final section focuses on the civil war against the Senate and the battles to aid Cleopatra in her succession dispute.
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