Rome: Total War (2004)
Rome: Total War is a 2004 real time strategy (rts) video game made by The Creative Assembly and Sega.
Rome: Total War places you in command of one of the great families of the Roman Republic during its most expansive era. The campaign unfolds on a turn-based map spanning Europe, North Africa, and the Near East, where you manage cities, forge alliances, and maneuver armies. Battles resolve in real time on rendered terrain, with thousands of soldiers clashing in formations that reward positioning and timing. The combination of grand strategy and direct tactical control gave the Total War series a distinct identity that Rome defined at its most accessible.
Quick answers
What is Rome: Total War about?
Rome: Total War places you in command of one of the great families of the Roman Republic during its most expansive era. The campaign unfolds on a turn-based map spanning Europe, North Africa, and the Near East, where you manage cities, forge alliances, and maneuver armies. Battles resolve in real time on rendered terrain, with thousands of soldiers clashing in formations that reward positioning and timing. The combination of grand strategy and direct tactical control gave the Total War series a distinct identity that Rome defined at its most accessible.
When was Rome: Total War released?
Rome: Total War was released on 22 September 2004.
Who made Rome: Total War?
Rome: Total War was made by The Creative Assembly, Sega and Activision.
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Rome: Total War in our writing
- Companion guide: 4X and Grand Strategy Games: The Complete Guide to Ruling the World
- Companion guide: Ancient Greece
- Companion guide: Gladiators & Ancient Rome
- Companion guide: The Roman Empire
A few thoughts on Rome: Total War
A landmark of historical strategy gaming that still holds up for anyone drawn to the period or the genre.
Stories that live in the actual grit of ancient Rome and Greece
Rome: Total War puts you in command of a Republic-era family clawing for territory across the Mediterranean, and these dig into that same world from ground level. Spartacus: House of Ashur plays out gladiator politics in Roman Capua, Asterix turns Roman occupation into satire, 300 restages Thermopylae, and The Song of Achilles gives the Trojan War its own epic.
Games that turn real conquest into your own campaign
Rome: Total War's whole hook is playing history from the inside, choosing which empire rises and which falls. The Assassin's Creed games run the same trick across other eras: Renaissance Italy's Borgia power struggles, revolutionary America, and the Caribbean's pirate economy all become playgrounds where a player can push real historical conquest in a new direction.
Warfare epics from empires outside Rome
Rome: Total War is really about the mechanics of conquest more than any one culture, and these apply that same lens elsewhere. Vikings and The Last Kingdom stage the Norse-Saxon wars for Britain, Kingdom follows a soldier's rise through China's Warring States campaigns, and The Book of Five Rings lays out the strategic mind of a working swordsman.
Ambitious men clawing their way to the top of an empire
Commanding a Roman family in Rome: Total War is as much about political ambition as it is about legions, and these follow that same hunger for power off the battlefield. GoodFellas and The Wolf of Wall Street chart a criminal and a broker's rise through greed and nerve, Catch Me If You Can runs on pure audacity, and Rise of the Conqueror names the ambition outright.