@@CasperTheRamKnight a short message about how roman occupation is not complete due to a smal group of gauls. The opening line to every asterix comic iirc. The programmer himself made me aware of it on another video on YT.
found it.. it is on the same place as this village on the current map of France.. maps.app.goo.gl/hAXZJkX9ni7hYdNh7 . The exact message is "Gaul was divided into three parts... No, four parts. One indomitable village still held out against the Roman invaders" :)
I had this in the 90s. I remember that if you negotiate with Egypt to have them be allies, then you get the opportunity to woo Cleopatra. I remember I would write down the choices that avoided fighting on the back of the manual.
@@alfonszitterbacke318 same with Antony, when he became her live-in shag partner a few years later. I loved Augustus' line in 'I, Claudius' about Antony, "When he spat on my sister, I taught him a lesson he didn't live long enough to profit from!"
I remember bringing this game to school on a 5 inch floppy. It must have been in 91-92. I put the game in the computer during class, with a few of my mates gathered around. I get to the first battle, and the PC Speaker started blasting out the music at the beginning. This immediately attracted the attention of our teacher, who came over and made us shut it down.
For me it is really amazing this game basically fit on 2 3.5 floppy disks totalling less then 3.6 mb of disk space. Considering most games these days take more than 50 gig with almost less gameplay.
I remember discovering emulators and being mindblown I can download like two or three massive, 50-hour SNES RPG's in an internet cafe and fit them on a floppy. Such a gamechanger in my teenage gaming.
You could fit whole operating systems onto a single floppy disc. I did that and had enough space left over to put a simple game on it (angband) and a scumsave feature.
I remember playing this ... the 90s were the best days of computer games each game was so different and interesting ... ok the graphics was not there yet but the ideas were the best.
Yeah, but there are more games coming out in a day now than there used to be in a year back then. There are a lot of great, innovative games released nowadays, you just have to look around a bit more.
@@jankoodziej877 really? maybe I just grew out of playing ... but to me it seems there are a few genres and they just make a new one from the same genre again ...
You look at the top game from 1985 vs 1990 vs 1995, and how much things were changing. Then look at 2010, 2015 and 2020. The new Call of Duty, much like the old Call of Duty. Granted, that's just the top line. There is just so many more indie games now from different people, places and perspectives. Heck, even looking at my above example, I got Minecraft back in 2010, and I still play it regularly in 2024. So obviously it's better now than then, but back then, new computers meant new game possibilities that couldn't have existed before. Now each year is much the same as last year, with slightly better graphics.
@@andraslibal well, of course there are no 20 new genres every year, but there are some new genres and every innovative games created all the time. FTL, Slay The Spire, Steamworld Heist. 3 examples of games that were absolutely innovative, at least the first two created new genres with multiple follow games inspired by them.
@@ThanetianGaming Turned out I just learned recently that Caesar himself started the state games tradition, both gladiators and chariot racing, before him I think it was all private, but because it was so lucrative the State took over, Caesar needed money.
Interesting. I could not beat it at Senator and Emperor unless I savescummed. (Marauding Armies were too bad with Elephants and horses) Other than that, slow and steady. Battles were lost, but I ground them down.
I can't say for sure but I know I beat the hardest level and while I did good at the races, or for that matter the gladiator games (both were easy enough to fool the AI) I preferred the tactical battles by far. So I doubt I any more than I had to.
I remember finishing this game on the hardest difficulty and I was quite proud of it, because in the gaming magazines of the time they wrote that only a maniac could finish on the hardest level.
What??? I remember I barely managed to finish it on the second difficulty level, I loved this game but difficulty on higher difficulty levels was totally unbalanced
@@claudiocucinotta2097 The basis, if I remember correctly, was not to fight head-on, but to always attack each unit of the enemy's movement from the side...and I guess there was a pause, so a lot of pausing and changing. By the way, I still have the floppies of this game and there is also my old Amiga 500+ somewhere in the basement
A forever anonymous hero had installed it on one of the PCs in the school's IT room back in the day. I think we invented speedrunning: only 1 hour available, run after run trying to optimize the expansion of the Empire :-D
This was a tough game on legionary level as your cohorts got smaller. At senator, 350 men cohorts did very poorly. Besides that, I had written down all dialogue options that led on an alliance and even had the first 5 turns scripted: skip turn - Sicily (diplomatic alliance I believe) - back to Italy - Dalmatia (aggressive alliance) and into Macedonia. It's been ages though.
@@ThanetianGaming No... i was too young at the time and didnt even know english. Still, this game was my first step in RTS, if you wanna call it that. And i frequently used other formations than a simple line - some of them made it easier to flank the enemy or funnel them into a situation they couldnt get out of (especially their leader). I was a wee bit more aggressive than you were :)
@@ThanetianGaming Rome: Total War DID have them, you just never saw them. You could have the games and races yearly, every month or daily, and the expense was appalling, but it was possible
God this was my first strategy game I ever played. I had it on my Sega genesis. I would get up at 6am on Saturday and play for hours. Got me into Roman history. Amazing game.
This was perhaps my favourite Megadrive game of all time. A true masterpiece. Sweep Left while using Scipio's defense was normally a surefire way of winning most battles.
Fun to see. If you ever play it again, you can move your general. That allows you to use your cavalry to outflank. Even with a bad general you can do it on one side. With an average one you can just step forward and command the flanks. Probably save you half the casualties at least if you did that.
@@ThanetianGaming Different generals have different stats. They got two stats, one for size of command aura and then charisma, no idea what the latter one does, if it effects morale or something. But your starting legion has a great general and then it's hard to get another good one.
Not having much cash as a kid i would get my disc's used. so upon getting a batch i would try them all to see what was already on them. This is how i found this game and man this never got copied over ^^
Fond memories. That was my first ever computer game. I bought it even without a proper comp at home and could not play it on that olivetti 512 we had at home. Only a couple month later i was able to play it at a station at my dads workplace for an hour or two. Fond memories.
This game REALLY was awesome. Also in terms of historical (sort of) accuracy. I learned abour Roman & Persian generals (at least names), their tactics (in that respect it really was the ancestor of total war series), the historical names of provinces and loads more. Really an awesome and informative game! Was a teenager back then so I could appreciate this side of it more I guess
In a time before Wikipedia where if you wanted to learn something outside of school, you had to go to a library. This, and Civilization, were great educators.
I played this way back. I was still in my pre-teens and barely started my journey with computer games. I also did not know any English at the time. I recall trying to figure out how to play this game for a long time. Had no idea about strategy, management and so on, I was just blindly clicking and moving units around without aim or purpose. However I do remember liking the chariot racing and I think I even got quite good at it at some point. Haven't seen or heard about this game since, until I stumbled upon this video. What a blast from the past.
so many times conquered the entire map, the worst were the Parthain raiding parties ;) Important thing is army morale, you need to raise armies in fierce morale regions, if you strenghten in lower morale regions, you may reduce morale of entire army and make it loose more people. Also edges are unsafe, so blanced army isn't great, strenghten right/left and reducing edges and forming one block of full sized(500) kohorts with fierce morale may kill enemies without a loss, before enemy strikes, gets heavy damage. It's good to set low taxes in newly conquered provinces, give them time to increase morale then you tax them for higher money.
@@JJ-ku8bm that's good to know thank you. It never clicked with the morale and taxes in the past, I was always too focused on getting money and drafting conscripts to send to the slaugt...join our glorious legions!
I remember playing this game but I don't remember if it was on a Sega or a computer or something else. Great video , thank you for bringing back memories 😊😊😊
@@ThanetianGaming Heh, I found a way to make R:TW play better. And that was to edit the files to delete all diplomats, spies and assassins and disable recruitment of them. Now it was all war and the AI didn't waste money on annoying you with diplomats.
I was maybe 8 years when I first played this, no manual, no real comprehension of the English language, just a fascination with cool looking armored dudes with pointy sticks/swords and war elephants. It was great, it had everything I ever wanted.
OMG!!! One of My favourite game ever. Scipio's defence was unbeatable so kinda made it easy but all the small games in it. I loved the gladiator fights.
I loved that game back then, i "scipio-ed defensed" my way to pax romana several times ! I remember that what held me the most was the fleets and how to load/unload troops on them.
What was Scipios defense? I remember playing this game back wen I was so young that I could barely understand any english and kind of had to write my own manual about what each option in the menu did.... And the general had two stats, one was his command aura size and the other was like charisma I think, did that one actually do anything? Oh yeah, and wasn't there a cavalry only army in one province? I think I remember that.
@nehcrum scipio's defence meant the back row moved to the right a bit. Command aura was probably how far away the general could issue orders and the other one was how much morale he gave his troops.
@@nehcrum Scipios Defence was amazing and let you beat armies twice your size. Basically your front centre cohorts moved off to the flank, and your reserve cohorts moved to take their place. Sounds simple, but it totally confused the AI. Their front centre units would follow yours off to the side, and thier general would gallop unsupported straight down the middle unsupported into your reserve cohorts, who turned him into mince and caused over half the enemy to flee before they even locked spears. Charisma affected the chance of your units to flee if they were within the aura range. One of the territories on the right hand side of the map was 100% horse.
I remember this game and loved it. I was watching your attempt and thinking use tactics. Best bit if you get the dialog right you get toduce cleopatra in egypt.
I always wondered if there were different stats for the troops with spears vs the legionnaires with swords etc. Or if it was just graphics based on the nationality.
I used to play this all the time on my sega genesis when I was in grade school! I wooed Cleopatra which was probably the most epic cutscene to get lol. I remember the best strat for me was to always hold position and let the enemy attack into me. The persian army of horses would take 2-3 armies to beat. This was such an amazing game!
@@lizard5236 it was. I missed the Cleopatra scene when I was young and the same with the Persians, just had to wear them down with your legionaries lives.
no idea how i got here 🤣 So just passing by to say: Sarmatia and Parthia were nightmares for me xD Edit 1: based on the first 5 mins, aka battle in Narbonensis: 1) You always want to be facing the enemy approaching you. As soon as the enemy is retreating you want your troops to be faceing the unit approaching from the side. 2) Form a continuous line of defense. If they hit a corner of your unit you will have a 2v1 in your favor. 3) Static unit will always hit first dealing a lot of damage for free. Based on personal experience from long ago: 4) If you see the change use your cav to cut down the general. 5) Use all free Cav to hit the side of a unit if the enemy cav is routed/non existant. 6) Units only fight to the front so hitting them in the flank is free. Any free units that are not in danger can advance and flank the enemy. Edit 2: Holy painfully battle of hispania 😨😨😨😨😨 Cav will always win 1v1 against Inf if both in full health. You want 2 inf or hit them first in the flank. You need to use your reserves. Don't wait untill your units in the front are destroyed. This is not Rome2 where you have the time to manouver. You want all the bodies you can fighting as soon as possible.
The trick was to always flank (by pulling some units back and creating a wide check pattern) and to immediately cancel attacks so their routing units survived. The less they died, the more you had to recruit after you won.
memory lane! there was another game i played around the time. you played rome nd fought against carthage over cities that grew or shrank as they were attacked or men were recruited. i cant for the life of me remember them, but id LOVE to see it again.
@@ThanetianGaming It's the more "advanced" version of Defender of the crown. Where you can play as an english lord or a viking king and take over the british isles
@@ThanetianGaming I dont remember that it had one, but I did that with all of my games in the 90s. Not many had the option to change the difficulty. Terror from the Deep was one of the games I never made it to the End. So many good games, so many fond memories of fun and total frustration.
I remember playing that when I was 10 years old. It was not easy as I didn't speak English yet and pretty much had to learn everything by clicking on random options and see what happened.
@@ThanetianGaming Internet did you little good when you knew no english. If anything, internet has been the biggest reason for why people nowadays are so good at english.
Did some research. It scored pretty low in reviews. Imagine giving this game a 2/5 and people 34 years later are like THIS GAME IS AMAZING while most games from that period are dust in the cultural graveyard
Damn yeah this game was way ahead of it's time. Never played anything like this as a kid, though man I loved Civ 1,Master of Orion and Master of Magic which were very cool.
Used to play this as a kid, never did get the hang of moving the troops so I only used the release the legions button and the balanced army composition so on the battlefield I didn't get far however the minigames (gladiators especially) was where I spend most of my time and I LOVED IT!
I do like stand fast for some battles, but it does pay to use more complex tactics and army layouts with more difficult foes. Especially ones where your cavalry sweeps past the enemy forces and attacks them in the back.
I mean, I beat the entire game by using a strong right and using the sweep right strategy and then just telling my troops to attack as they want after they are past the enemy flanks
@@onsholo Looks like I missed a lot. I think even at 10 I was aware that the strength of the Roman Legion was standing fast. Not in this game it seems!
@@ThanetianGamingin this game is seems cavalry can do a frontal attack on Infantry and win. Your tactics were sound, the game's realism less so On the other hand, losing, recruiting a new army, going back, losing, recruiting a new army, going back and winning was actually the Roman way in the wars with Crathage and in several other wars: they could keep recruiting new armies... So well done on the realism!
My fave Genesis games as a kid were Centurion, Shadowrun, Pirates and Buck Rodgers. Not the most exciting gameplay, but absolutely unlimited replay value. ...And when you're on the kid budget, replay value was king, lol Btw bro, you need to be flanking in every fight.
@@ThanetianGaming If you routinely develop both flanks while withdrawing the center you get those sweet 1st touch flank attacks, which crumble the enemy, pretty much automatically. ....Also, if you work dialogue right in Egypt, you get an in-bed with side boob shot of Cleopatra, which was an absolute mind blower as a kid in the 90s playing on console. Pretty sure not many ppl found or the media would have gone ape in 1990
Great game, spent a lot of time playing it back in the day. I could win it on the hardest difficulty, the key was to always flank, never attack anything head-on, center of the army always retreats and the flanks attack. Also general with high command radius is crucial to micro manage all units, it you get a bad one, kill it. Chariot races can give some extra money, but on the hardest difficulty it was difficult to reliably win every time, unless you were save scumming. More reliable income is from juggling taxes from high to low.
I think there was a way to conquer most of the regions without battle, just by talking to the leaders before the battle. But certain conditions need to be met. For example, for Egypt, you had to land with full strength consular army from the sea. You'd get Egypt for free and could have a romance with Cleopatra :) Same goes for many other regions in the game, talking to leaders correct way and meeting certain conditions (your rank, your legion size, direction from which you enter the area, correct options selected in dialogue etc.) could lead to peaceful resolution Also Stand Fast was always the best tactic, as stationary units start dealing damage much earlier than moving units
@@fpsmeter ah, so Cleopatra liked boats! I imagine the fun goes from the game a little if you preoccupy on when, where and how to enter a region on the map.
I love these old dos games. Never played this one thou. There as an American civil war one my dad bought that I loved. Cant remember the name of it for the life of me.
I had this on the Sega Mega Drive. Probably played it more than any game other than NHL and FIFA. Genuinely intriguing game, and after a few playthroughs you'd just know what the opposition was bringing to the table so in some cases (particularly against shirtless mobs) you'd just "UNLEASH THE LEGION" the moment the battle started.
@@ThanetianGaming Truly. I suspect the Rome Total War developers played Centurion because there were definite "shirtless mob" vibes in that at times. Flaming pigs ftw. Advancing in the wake of bacon.
Wow. That was a blast from the past! All I remembered from the game was a vague image of fighting the elephants. Your vid brought it all back. Must have spent hundreds of hours playing Centurion. The next thing was ‘Ancient Battles’ by SSI. Is that still floating around on the net somewhere? Had to Lol at the ‘legion aye Ital’, btw.
@@latro8192 yes, I'm surprised the elephants didn't crush the cohorts in the game. I think fire was used to repulse them back in the Punic Wars. I'm sure Ancient Battles is out there somewhere. I'll take a look.
@@ThanetianGaming I seem to recasll there was an instance where they set pigs on fire and let them loose. The screams terrifying the elephants. The main tactic though was to open up the ranks, creating pathways the elephants would charge through, rather than run into a wall of shields with pointy bits sticking out. Light infantry, behind the main line would then pelt them with javelins from all sides.
If you occupy Gaul. You can click a small pixel where the Asterix village is for a joke message to appear.
whats the joke?
@@CasperTheRamKnight a short message about how roman occupation is not complete due to a smal group of gauls. The opening line to every asterix comic iirc. The programmer himself made me aware of it on another video on YT.
@@thecappeningchannel515 all of Gaul?
lel.
found it.. it is on the same place as this village on the current map of France.. maps.app.goo.gl/hAXZJkX9ni7hYdNh7 . The exact message is "Gaul was divided into three parts... No, four parts. One indomitable village still held out against the Roman invaders" :)
I had this in the 90s. I remember that if you negotiate with Egypt to have them be allies, then you get the opportunity to woo Cleopatra. I remember I would write down the choices that avoided fighting on the back of the manual.
Few people know that Julius Cäsar actually had a wife at home in Rome, when he had a child with Cleopatra. 😅
@@alfonszitterbacke318 it was in the Rome series, so many might know by now
@@alfonszitterbacke318 same with Antony, when he became her live-in shag partner a few years later. I loved Augustus' line in 'I, Claudius' about Antony, "When he spat on my sister, I taught him a lesson he didn't live long enough to profit from!"
I remember bringing this game to school on a 5 inch floppy. It must have been in 91-92. I put the game in the computer during class, with a few of my mates gathered around. I get to the first battle, and the PC Speaker started blasting out the music at the beginning. This immediately attracted the attention of our teacher, who came over and made us shut it down.
@@rowger8927 haha. They obviously didn't appreciate the historical lesson you were giving.
For me it is really amazing this game basically fit on 2 3.5 floppy disks totalling less then 3.6 mb of disk space. Considering most games these days take more than 50 gig with almost less gameplay.
@@hanli5416 that's it. It could easily fit on a watch these days
I still own a full copy of MS Excel 1.0 (1986) for the Macintosh… on a 400 k floppy disk 😀😀😀😀😀
I remember discovering emulators and being mindblown I can download like two or three massive, 50-hour SNES RPG's in an internet cafe and fit them on a floppy. Such a gamechanger in my teenage gaming.
Don't worry! We have an offer on cloud storage this month ;)
You could fit whole operating systems onto a single floppy disc.
I did that and had enough space left over to put a simple game on it (angband) and a scumsave feature.
Used to love this game on my Sega Genesis back in the day! Scipio's Defense was my favorite!!! 😃
Scipios defence was my go to also 😂
@@philmanticore4893 ofc only usefull formation
@@philmanticore4893 Same for me 😁
It was the only one that worked...I'd get slaughtered otherwise
Same!!
I remember playing this ...
the 90s were the best days of computer games each game was so different and interesting ...
ok the graphics was not there yet but the ideas were the best.
@@andraslibal and new. Complete originality.
Yeah, but there are more games coming out in a day now than there used to be in a year back then. There are a lot of great, innovative games released nowadays, you just have to look around a bit more.
@@jankoodziej877 really? maybe I just grew out of playing ... but to me it seems there are a few genres and they just make a new one from the same genre again ...
You look at the top game from 1985 vs 1990 vs 1995, and how much things were changing. Then look at 2010, 2015 and 2020. The new Call of Duty, much like the old Call of Duty.
Granted, that's just the top line. There is just so many more indie games now from different people, places and perspectives. Heck, even looking at my above example, I got Minecraft back in 2010, and I still play it regularly in 2024. So obviously it's better now than then, but back then, new computers meant new game possibilities that couldn't have existed before. Now each year is much the same as last year, with slightly better graphics.
@@andraslibal well, of course there are no 20 new genres every year, but there are some new genres and every innovative games created all the time. FTL, Slay The Spire, Steamworld Heist. 3 examples of games that were absolutely innovative, at least the first two created new genres with multiple follow games inspired by them.
Beautiful memories! Thank you for reminding me of this early gem 💎!
Thanks for watching :)
I played the hell out of that game, on the hardest level the only way was to win all your money at chariot races.
@@freestylebagua Ben-Hur simulator!
@@ThanetianGaming Turned out I just learned recently that Caesar himself started the state games tradition, both gladiators and chariot racing, before him I think it was all private, but because it was so lucrative the State took over, Caesar needed money.
@@freestylebagua Interesting to know. I imagine it also helped with his popularity...not with the senate though.
Interesting. I could not beat it at Senator and Emperor unless I savescummed. (Marauding Armies were too bad with Elephants and horses) Other than that, slow and steady. Battles were lost, but I ground them down.
I can't say for sure but I know I beat the hardest level and while I did good at the races, or for that matter the gladiator games (both were easy enough to fool the AI) I preferred the tactical battles by far. So I doubt I any more than I had to.
Battle system was mind blowing during that time,this game was way ahead of their time, pure gold then.
I remember finishing this game on the hardest difficulty and I was quite proud of it, because in the gaming magazines of the time they wrote that only a maniac could finish on the hardest level.
@@peterjobovic3406 I'm reading you're a maniac here!
What??? I remember I barely managed to finish it on the second difficulty level, I loved this game but difficulty on higher difficulty levels was totally unbalanced
@@claudiocucinotta2097 The basis, if I remember correctly, was not to fight head-on, but to always attack each unit of the enemy's movement from the side...and I guess there was a pause, so a lot of pausing and changing.
By the way, I still have the floppies of this game and there is also my old Amiga 500+ somewhere in the basement
Never seen this game before, RTWs predecessor for sure. Thanks for sharing!
@@UtaHagawi thanks for watching.
A forever anonymous hero had installed it on one of the PCs in the school's IT room back in the day. I think we invented speedrunning: only 1 hour available, run after run trying to optimize the expansion of the Empire :-D
@@albertobenvenuto9314 did you ever do it in an hour?
@@ThanetianGaming I don't think so, but consider that we're talking about, uh, a quarter of a century ago more or less :-)
This was a tough game on legionary level as your cohorts got smaller. At senator, 350 men cohorts did very poorly. Besides that, I had written down all dialogue options that led on an alliance and even had the first 5 turns scripted: skip turn - Sicily (diplomatic alliance I believe) - back to Italy - Dalmatia (aggressive alliance) and into Macedonia. It's been ages though.
@@molybdane7240 good opening moves
I got this game back in the day, when there was free games on CDs on PC Games magazines. One of my first addictions to gaming, lol
@@MustacheWins there were some great games to be had on magazines. They were worth reading too.
I remember playing this game when I was a young teenager. It was so fun. Those were fun memories. Thank you for sharing this.
@@mag287100 thanks for watching :)
Wow, I would have loved this game had I known about it. Its seems like a good game even by today's standard, other then the graphics.
Played it on Amiga when i was a kid. Ah, the memories...
@@LiezAllLiez ever beat it?
@@ThanetianGaming No... i was too young at the time and didnt even know english. Still, this game was my first step in RTS, if you wanna call it that. And i frequently used other formations than a simple line - some of them made it easier to flank the enemy or funnel them into a situation they couldnt get out of (especially their leader).
I was a wee bit more aggressive than you were :)
@@LiezAllLiez haha. And didn't know the language either. Brilliant. I must've been bad!
I had this on mega drive , one of my all time favourite games.
The chariot racing was brilliant.
My first pc strategy ever, so ahead of its time , proto total war with combat elements even toral war doesnt have
@@DD-qw4fz no chariot races!
@@ThanetianGaming Rome: Total War DID have them, you just never saw them. You could have the games and races yearly, every month or daily, and the expense was appalling, but it was possible
The background sound for each stage is like 2 to 5 second loop, pretty impressive to make not an absolutely annoying bg for 2 seconds.
@@novelknowledge and with limited audio tools as well. I think they made the music on an amiga music programme x something or other.
God this was my first strategy game I ever played. I had it on my Sega genesis. I would get up at 6am on Saturday and play for hours. Got me into Roman history. Amazing game.
This takes me back.
This was perhaps my favourite Megadrive game of all time. A true masterpiece. Sweep Left while using Scipio's defense was normally a surefire way of winning most battles.
Fun to see.
If you ever play it again, you can move your general. That allows you to use your cavalry to outflank. Even with a bad general you can do it on one side.
With an average one you can just step forward and command the flanks.
Probably save you half the casualties at least if you did that.
Thanks. Generals range is a bit limited to get the cavalry to turn when they've flanked enough.
@@ThanetianGaming Different generals have different stats. They got two stats, one for size of command aura and then charisma, no idea what the latter one does, if it effects morale or something.
But your starting legion has a great general and then it's hard to get another good one.
That's certainly a blast from the past! I definitely played this one a LOT.
One one the most cutting edge console games.
@@Jamesthomas12187 and in colour too!
Not having much cash as a kid i would get my disc's used. so upon getting a batch i would try them all to see what was already on them. This is how i found this game and man this never got copied over ^^
@@doctoronishispsychosislab1474 a great game even today
Fond memories. That was my first ever computer game. I bought it even without a proper comp at home and could not play it on that olivetti 512 we had at home. Only a couple month later i was able to play it at a station at my dads workplace for an hour or two. Fond memories.
@@yumanoid5753 a good introduction ro work!
Wow .. havent seen this since I had my Amiga500 in the early/mid 90s .. Loved this game!
Amiga 500 and those were happy days
Oh, the hours spent on this masterpiece. Nostalgia time!
I remember playing hours on end this game as a kid. I remember being mind blown by the special Cleopatra sequence when your allied Egypt.
@@guzmangil2128 I have still not seen that.
OMG this brings back old memories. I spend so many hours playing this when I was a kid in the late 1980's. I played it on Sega Mega Drive.
This game REALLY was awesome. Also in terms of historical (sort of) accuracy. I learned abour Roman & Persian generals (at least names), their tactics (in that respect it really was the ancestor of total war series), the historical names of provinces and loads more. Really an awesome and informative game! Was a teenager back then so I could appreciate this side of it more I guess
In a time before Wikipedia where if you wanted to learn something outside of school, you had to go to a library. This, and Civilization, were great educators.
Countless blissful hours...what a game
I played this way back. I was still in my pre-teens and barely started my journey with computer games. I also did not know any English at the time.
I recall trying to figure out how to play this game for a long time. Had no idea about strategy, management and so on, I was just blindly clicking and moving units around without aim or purpose. However I do remember liking the chariot racing and I think I even got quite good at it at some point. Haven't seen or heard about this game since, until I stumbled upon this video. What a blast from the past.
I was much the same (except the English part)
so many times conquered the entire map, the worst were the Parthain raiding parties ;) Important thing is army morale, you need to raise armies in fierce morale regions, if you strenghten in lower morale regions, you may reduce morale of entire army and make it loose more people. Also edges are unsafe, so blanced army isn't great, strenghten right/left and reducing edges and forming one block of full sized(500) kohorts with fierce morale may kill enemies without a loss, before enemy strikes, gets heavy damage. It's good to set low taxes in newly conquered provinces, give them time to increase morale then you tax them for higher money.
@@JJ-ku8bm that's good to know thank you. It never clicked with the morale and taxes in the past, I was always too focused on getting money and drafting conscripts to send to the slaugt...join our glorious legions!
I remember playing this game but I don't remember if it was on a Sega or a computer or something else. Great video , thank you for bringing back memories 😊😊😊
@@Bearbear-the-Greatest thanks for watching 😊
Oh the memories... I remember playing this at about 14 years old on the Amiga. Was always terrified of Parthia and their cavalry.
They got even more terrifying in Rome Total War with their horse archers and cataphracts!
Yeah, I remember that cavalry only army. Was kinda disappointed that that was cut out of the video.
@@ThanetianGaming Nah, Armenia was worst with its cataphract horse archers. Beat that!
@@nehcrum a diplomat and bribe army!
@@ThanetianGaming Heh, I found a way to make R:TW play better. And that was to edit the files to delete all diplomats, spies and assassins and disable recruitment of them.
Now it was all war and the AI didn't waste money on annoying you with diplomats.
I was maybe 8 years when I first played this, no manual, no real comprehension of the English language, just a fascination with cool looking armored dudes with pointy sticks/swords and war elephants. It was great, it had everything I ever wanted.
@@jorisbongartz you can't beat dudes with pointy sticks ;)
Oh, the nostalgia and college feelz!
OMG!!! One of My favourite game ever. Scipio's defence was unbeatable so kinda made it easy but all the small games in it.
I loved the gladiator fights.
@@LDIABLO51 great for its time
I loved that game back then, i "scipio-ed defensed" my way to pax romana several times ! I remember that what held me the most was the fleets and how to load/unload troops on them.
And the cost of them
What was Scipios defense?
I remember playing this game back wen I was so young that I could barely understand any english and kind of had to write my own manual about what each option in the menu did....
And the general had two stats, one was his command aura size and the other was like charisma I think, did that one actually do anything?
Oh yeah, and wasn't there a cavalry only army in one province? I think I remember that.
@nehcrum scipio's defence meant the back row moved to the right a bit. Command aura was probably how far away the general could issue orders and the other one was how much morale he gave his troops.
@@nehcrum Scipios Defence was amazing and let you beat armies twice your size. Basically your front centre cohorts moved off to the flank, and your reserve cohorts moved to take their place. Sounds simple, but it totally confused the AI. Their front centre units would follow yours off to the side, and thier general would gallop unsupported straight down the middle unsupported into your reserve cohorts, who turned him into mince and caused over half the enemy to flee before they even locked spears.
Charisma affected the chance of your units to flee if they were within the aura range.
One of the territories on the right hand side of the map was 100% horse.
My brother and I played this over and over and oooover again. This and Red Storm Rising ...
I played this game way back when. If I recall, driving a wedge was broken, but it always worked.
This is one of my all-time favorite old-school DOS games. I still have a boxed copy, on floppy, with the manual, and LAMINATED map.
And the laminated map, brilliant.
It's not as exciting just clicking download these days without any packaging or extras.
I loved this game. Amiga500
Thanks for reminding me of this game that I played as a teenager on my Dads computer
You took me back to 34 years ago! I played this game from evening until noon during my summer holiday when I was 15! It started my insomniac life 😅
@@ELVIS1975T just one more turn!
@ 💖
HOLY SHIT I LOVED THIS GAME!!!! I would go over to my cousin Willie's house just to play it on Sega Genesis. It was AMAZING.
Absolutely amazing game - best childhood memories! Replayed it a few times since
I remember this game and loved it. I was watching your attempt and thinking use tactics.
Best bit if you get the dialog right you get toduce cleopatra in egypt.
@@mathewperring I completely missed that. Being a 10 year old boy back in the day that would have probably seemed icky!
You had me on "tickle him with your little sticks" subscribed.
@@AgrippaMaxentius thank you :)
I always wondered if there were different stats for the troops with spears vs the legionnaires with swords etc. Or if it was just graphics based on the nationality.
Wonderful memories! Thanks for uploading this piece of art
@@picculle84 thanks for watching :)
Thanks for this. This was....I think...my very first strategy game as well. Scipios (sp?) defense I remember being OP.
My dad bought this when I was a kid. I played this a ton. I wasn't great, being a young kid and all, but it was tons of fun.
@@Recluse336 great fun. I was the same, I had little clue what I was doing.
I used to play this all the time on my sega genesis when I was in grade school! I wooed Cleopatra which was probably the most epic cutscene to get lol. I remember the best strat for me was to always hold position and let the enemy attack into me. The persian army of horses would take 2-3 armies to beat. This was such an amazing game!
@@lizard5236 it was. I missed the Cleopatra scene when I was young and the same with the Persians, just had to wear them down with your legionaries lives.
no idea how i got here 🤣
So just passing by to say: Sarmatia and Parthia were nightmares for me xD
Edit 1:
based on the first 5 mins, aka battle in Narbonensis:
1) You always want to be facing the enemy approaching you. As soon as the enemy is retreating you want your troops to be faceing the unit approaching from the side.
2) Form a continuous line of defense. If they hit a corner of your unit you will have a 2v1 in your favor.
3) Static unit will always hit first dealing a lot of damage for free.
Based on personal experience from long ago:
4) If you see the change use your cav to cut down the general.
5) Use all free Cav to hit the side of a unit if the enemy cav is routed/non existant.
6) Units only fight to the front so hitting them in the flank is free. Any free units that are not in danger can advance and flank the enemy.
Edit 2:
Holy painfully battle of hispania 😨😨😨😨😨
Cav will always win 1v1 against Inf if both in full health. You want 2 inf or hit them first in the flank.
You need to use your reserves. Don't wait untill your units in the front are destroyed. This is not Rome2 where you have the time to manouver. You want all the bodies you can fighting as soon as possible.
@@_NoName_314 thanks for the tips 😊
I had this for Sega Genesis..it was fun....standing fast was the best option in war
Ancient art of war was the ancestor... Then Centurion stablished the basis that Total War has so much profited.
My very first pc game, thank you. I forgot about this classic
Indeed it was an incredible game, so many amazing concepts.
🥰
The trick was to always flank (by pulling some units back and creating a wide check pattern) and to immediately cancel attacks so their routing units survived. The less they died, the more you had to recruit after you won.
makes sense
memory lane! there was another game i played around the time. you played rome nd fought against carthage over cities that grew or shrank as they were attacked or men were recruited. i cant for the life of me remember them, but id LOVE to see it again.
@@CallsignArchangel no idea I'm affraid. Hopefully someone who watches this will know.
@ThanetianGaming warrior of rome 2! i miss that game.
@@CallsignArchangel well remembered. A Sega exclusive, unfortunately we didn't have a console so I never played :(
played this on my Amiga. Very nice!
Blast from the past. A true gem.
the font, the mouse pointer, the map and part of the UI reminds me very much of Vikings: Fields of Conquest
@@baalzhamon8491 thank you for reminding me of that. If that's the one I'm thinking of I loved that game.
@@ThanetianGaming It's the more "advanced" version of Defender of the crown. Where you can play as an english lord or a viking king and take over the british isles
I enjoyed alot of time on this game, sweet memories. :D
Had that game and I never read the instruction. After a while I got quite good at it and could beat the game every time. Was a lot of fun.
@@raphie8488 did you up the difficulty as well?
@@ThanetianGaming I dont remember that it had one, but I did that with all of my games in the 90s. Not many had the option to change the difficulty.
Terror from the Deep was one of the games I never made it to the End.
So many good games, so many fond memories of fun and total frustration.
@@raphie8488 so many classics that are great even today. I never got to terror from the deep but loved the original xcom
I remember playing that when I was 10 years old. It was not easy as I didn't speak English yet and pretty much had to learn everything by clicking on random options and see what happened.
@@Tom_Quixote life before the Internet!
@@ThanetianGaming Internet did you little good when you knew no english.
If anything, internet has been the biggest reason for why people nowadays are so good at english.
This and 'Storm Across Europe' were legendary games
I remember playing this on Amiga :)
Tried this game for 5 minutes because of the title...can confirm, amazing for its period
Did some research. It scored pretty low in reviews. Imagine giving this game a 2/5 and people 34 years later are like THIS GAME IS AMAZING while most games from that period are dust in the cultural graveyard
@@mellamanborrego8299 it was the wild west for reviews back then. Both game genres and the whole gaming magazine genre were new.
Ah, yes...Parthia was the death of many armies! Don't think I ever conquer it all. Well done!
@@thomashazlewood4658 thank you. It took 30 years to reach this point!
Damn yeah this game was way ahead of it's time. Never played anything like this as a kid, though man I loved Civ 1,Master of Orion and Master of Magic which were very cool.
@@Zyzyx442 great games
Your general has a range in what can shout commands (click on him to see the circle), in that range gives moral boost to the soldiers too
Used to play this as a kid, never did get the hang of moving the troops so I only used the release the legions button and the balanced army composition so on the battlefield I didn't get far however the minigames (gladiators especially) was where I spend most of my time and I LOVED IT!
@@jimmyselsmark7346 I was much the same.
I do like stand fast for some battles, but it does pay to use more complex tactics and army layouts with more difficult foes. Especially ones where your cavalry sweeps past the enemy forces and attacks them in the back.
@@Pellerinen It seems I missed a fair bit of the tactical range of the game.
I mean, I beat the entire game by using a strong right and using the sweep right strategy and then just telling my troops to attack as they want after they are past the enemy flanks
@@onsholo Looks like I missed a lot. I think even at 10 I was aware that the strength of the Roman Legion was standing fast. Not in this game it seems!
@@ThanetianGamingin this game is seems cavalry can do a frontal attack on Infantry and win. Your tactics were sound, the game's realism less so
On the other hand, losing, recruiting a new army, going back, losing, recruiting a new army, going back and winning was actually the Roman way in the wars with Crathage and in several other wars: they could keep recruiting new armies...
So well done on the realism!
@@sjonnieplayfull5859 yay, I'm a loser like a real Roman!
i had this game as a child never could win
so good job well done
Thank you. Only took 30 years to beat!!!
Personal favourite from the Amiga. 💯
I used to rent this from Blockbuster and play it all weekend. It was fun trying to figure it all out without a manual. Good times.
@@JookySeaCpt whatever happened to Blockbuster???
Another great game of the time was Legion Arena. I really enjoyed the battles for that game. I don’t usually like timed battles but it worked well.
This game was one of my first ever games I had on pc and played to death and learned how to conquer the world
@@TheSultan79 it made a lot of little generals!
Nostalgic … remember i liked this game
My fave Genesis games as a kid were Centurion, Shadowrun, Pirates and Buck Rodgers. Not the most exciting gameplay, but absolutely unlimited replay value. ...And when you're on the kid budget, replay value was king, lol
Btw bro, you need to be flanking in every fight.
@@unnaturalselection8330 some great games there! Flanking works? I thought that just left the centre open whilst the flanks get slaughtered.
@@ThanetianGaming If you routinely develop both flanks while withdrawing the center you get those sweet 1st touch flank attacks, which crumble the enemy, pretty much automatically.
....Also, if you work dialogue right in Egypt, you get an in-bed with side boob shot of Cleopatra, which was an absolute mind blower as a kid in the 90s playing on console.
Pretty sure not many ppl found or the media would have gone ape in 1990
I forgot about this game, but I definitely played it growing up! (94-98 perhaps?)
The game that got me hooked forever.
Great memories of playing this
this game is an ancestor of games like Europa Universalis 4
Ahh this bring back memories. Always hated the naval battles though, the rest i loved though.
@@Slurreydude yes, thankfully I wiped out most other nations before building a navy
Oh man. I forgot about this game. I used to play the crap out of it!
Great game, spent a lot of time playing it back in the day. I could win it on the hardest difficulty, the key was to always flank, never attack anything head-on, center of the army always retreats and the flanks attack. Also general with high command radius is crucial to micro manage all units, it you get a bad one, kill it. Chariot races can give some extra money, but on the hardest difficulty it was difficult to reliably win every time, unless you were save scumming. More reliable income is from juggling taxes from high to low.
I think there was a way to conquer most of the regions without battle, just by talking to the leaders before the battle. But certain conditions need to be met. For example, for Egypt, you had to land with full strength consular army from the sea. You'd get Egypt for free and could have a romance with Cleopatra :) Same goes for many other regions in the game, talking to leaders correct way and meeting certain conditions (your rank, your legion size, direction from which you enter the area, correct options selected in dialogue etc.) could lead to peaceful resolution
Also Stand Fast was always the best tactic, as stationary units start dealing damage much earlier than moving units
@@fpsmeter ah, so Cleopatra liked boats!
I imagine the fun goes from the game a little if you preoccupy on when, where and how to enter a region on the map.
One of my first games on 5"1/4" discs
I love these old dos games. Never played this one thou. There as an American civil war one my dad bought that I loved. Cant remember the name of it for the life of me.
@@lamaze2295 North And South? It's in the playlist (link in video description)
Johnny Reb 2 (1986)
North and South (1989)
Secession (1991)
Those are the ACW based games I remember from that era.
I had this on the Sega Mega Drive. Probably played it more than any game other than NHL and FIFA. Genuinely intriguing game, and after a few playthroughs you'd just know what the opposition was bringing to the table so in some cases (particularly against shirtless mobs) you'd just "UNLEASH THE LEGION" the moment the battle started.
@@koncorde a watch the carnage unfold!
@@ThanetianGaming Truly. I suspect the Rome Total War developers played Centurion because there were definite "shirtless mob" vibes in that at times. Flaming pigs ftw. Advancing in the wake of bacon.
@@koncorde a light snack for after the battle.
My favorite strategy was form a line
Wow.
That was a blast from the past!
All I remembered from the game was a vague image of fighting the elephants.
Your vid brought it all back.
Must have spent hundreds of hours playing Centurion.
The next thing was ‘Ancient Battles’ by SSI.
Is that still floating around on the net somewhere?
Had to Lol at the ‘legion aye Ital’, btw.
@@latro8192 yes, I'm surprised the elephants didn't crush the cohorts in the game. I think fire was used to repulse them back in the Punic Wars.
I'm sure Ancient Battles is out there somewhere. I'll take a look.
@@ThanetianGaming I seem to recasll there was an instance where they set pigs on fire and let them loose. The screams terrifying the elephants.
The main tactic though was to open up the ranks, creating pathways the elephants would charge through, rather than run into a wall of shields with pointy bits sticking out.
Light infantry, behind the main line would then pelt them with javelins from all sides.
@@latro8192 sucks to be an elephant!
The beauty was if they turned and ran, they'd trample the enemy as they exited the field.
Wow, I used to play this as a kid! :O
I had this on my Megadrive and loved it! If someone remade an indi version on PC I would be on it in seconds.