Rating: 
Summary: Not bad at all
Review: I think Praetorians is very fun and challanging. It has what I think is good graphics. It has very cool stuff. It enables you to do stuff like build war machines like ballistas and catipults and fortifacations. I espcially enjoyed the siege missions. In those types of missions you have to defend or attack a fortress. The diferent types of soldiers have abilities that come in handy. You are taken into Gaul, Briton Egyp, and the middle east. Another important is that you don't have to collect recources
Rating: 
Summary: Seriously flawed AI and interface killed the game
Review: It is an excellent concept completely spoiled by bad design!In the heat of the battle an extra click on already selected group can select ALL of you troups and instead a single move/attack you have all your army moving to a position. In this time the CPU kills you with ease.
There is no EASY way to tell the arches to shoot a specific target. Especially if there are 10 enemy troops rushing towards you in a pack. As a result they don't shoot the critical ladders but some stupid axeman. Short while after that you have all the ladders on your walls and in a minute all the enemy army is in your camp. Even if you survive this then it is real pain to target the ladders on the walls. You can spend a minute to shoot down one and the CPU does not wait that much.
THIS IS A WASTE OF TIME!
Rating:
Summary: One of the best
Review: My wife purchased this game for my B-day. So far, I really like the game.
I like playing Warcraft, Starcraft, and C&C series. However, I was getting bored of managing resources (e.g. gold, timber, food)
I was looking for a game with more strategy rather than resource building.
I remember the first time I played Myth and I like the concept of the game. Praetorian is a mixture of Myth and Warcraft. There is less resource managment and more strategy on fighting. Praetorians' graphics, sounds and game play is top notch.
Rating: 
Summary: Pray to Reruns
Review: Once again I have been duped into buying a game based upon the advice of so-called consumer reviews only to discover that the game fails to live up to the hyperbole. Lets be brutally honest, Praetorians is a game which is marketed to appeal to the Medieval Total war fans but delivers a product more akin to Age of Empires. If you are about seven years old and/or have a basically juvenile sense of wonder then surely this game was tailor made for you. With the exception of the even more awful Platoon PC game this has to rate as my biggest gaming disappointment to date. The pundits for this mediocre yawner glory over the fact that the game has no resource management thus freeing you up to do lots of scrapping. This is basically true but on the down side the maps are so badly designed that manouvering units in anything other than a gaggle is practically impossible. Units will often blunder into one another and become entangled, this is not conducive to a happy gaming experience and the battle has not even been joined yet. But this is pretty much the essence of the game. It (bottlenecked maps)force you into waging war between individual units rather than the grand battles of the ancient kingdoms which were set piece affairs on open ground. Units are created in villages/towns which sounds fine but once again we are dealing with an abstract depiction - a few huts and structures surrounded by a simplified pallisade and peopled by a few sprites which bustle about to simulate an occupation of sorts. Oh did I mention that this village/town is just slightly larger than a unit of infantry? Must have slipped every reviewer's mind I guess.Even creating units is a puzzlement. Just create a barracks and then instruct your leaders to train this or that and voila there they are-a couple of minutes later. Although some units require that your leader sacrifice honour points to create-Oh did I forget to mention that, must have slipped my mind....Honour is won in the slaying of enemies. In short there is an artificiality pervading the game which rather than enhancing gameplay reduces it to a farce. The Ai prefers to operate with a mob mentality - so much easier than trying to reproduce the model of efficiency and co-ordination which was the Roman Legionary system. Unlike the Total War series which relies upon maps with realistic terrain, Praetorians has opted for an even more simplified version of Age of Empires (the original one at that). Even the camera view is severely limiting because you can only see in line of sight which is not very far in this abstract representation of the real world. The map is revealed - not blacked out- thank heaven for small mercies. Pulling the camera back to take in anything more than a top down view of a small area is impossible-pretty much like playing the game. This even extends to the lack of ability to angle the camera - something I haven't seen in a game like this since I don't know when. PC gamers deserve so much more than a retro update on a much worn out formula given the relative expense of a new purchase - $40 or more for most, including this one. In mere value for the dollar I would be hard pressed to say that at half the price I paid for it ($20) that it is a worthwhile purchase. I could go on but just move along folks - nothing to see here....
Rating:
Summary: An RTS game with style is still an RTS game
Review: Praetorians is a real-time strategy game in which you command companies of troops (Romans, Gauls, Egyptians) rather than individual units and it concentrates on battle with almost no resource gathering (you must "recruit" troops from captured villages.) There's plenty of cool stuff like legionaries that can form the Roman shield wall ("testudo"), birds that fly out of forests alerting you of approaching enemy troops, ambushes in grasslands, desert battlefields, elevation effects, 3D graphics (with a limited camera angle though), scouts with hawk/wolf spotters, catapults, ballista, axe-throwing Gaul infantry, Nubian archers, Balearic slingers, camel archers,etc. However, as much as I'm enjoying both the campaign and skirmish mode, I have to point out this is not a wargame. There is little time (in the skirmish mode particularly) for thoughtful maneuvering: you must attack at once! It's fun, but I never feel as though I was really a general or consul or whatever the term is. It's still RTS and if you're enjoying watching your archers shoot down a Gaul warrior company from the safety of a hill, you're probably wasting valuable clicking time. This is not Medieval: Total War in which you can maneuver companies like a general. It's a bit closer in spirit to Empire Earth or Age of Empires in combat terms - only here you fight with companies rather than mobs of men. I'm really enjoying it for lighthearted quick gameplay, but I wish it were a little less frantic, a little less like Age of Empires and a little more like Medieval: Total War. The skirmish mode is fun (unfortunately we get only about 20 different maps), multiplayer could be cool (haven't got my friend to buy it yet), and the campaign is decent (only played 5 missions so far). The AI appears to be strong and doesn't seem to cheat by unfairly building faster or by being able to see all your troop locations. It may appear that way but I've saved the games and watched the replays and it just seems to play better (than me anyway). It organized its units better, captured more villages, recruited more troops, scouted intensively (and didn't notice when I captured a village unless its scouts saw me - it's troops marched past out of sight). (I think it's a bit harsh of one reviewer to say this game is only for kids or newcomers to RTS games. If you realize that Praetorians is not trying to be a realistic wargame but rather a light-hearted RTS then you're more likely to enjoy the game on its terms.)
Rating:
Summary: At least the sound of marching sandals is cool....
Review: Since when did Gauls throw hand axes? I thought that was the Franks...a Germanic people if I remember correctly who came along some time later and while on the subject, I'm pretty sure Roman infantry didn't wear their cloaks into battle. I guess I'm a stickler for details sometimes and when those details get kinda blury and 'wierd' I lose interest. I believe some of the designing of the game might have been influenced more by fantasy game programers than from any historical data. Troop control is disapointing as they seem to charge off happily after enemy formations against orders then are non responsive to commands at the vital moment...strange! There is no detailed unit control capablity really. Once contact with enemy troops is made the game seems to play the combat for you. Kinda takes the fun stuff right out of it! The script and dialogue delivery is sad indeed. Take a look at the 'CLOSE COMBAT' series of games for attention to details with dialogue and sound effects particularly for comparison. Praetorians lacks the same homework. Well at least you get to march your Legions around the countryside for a while and watch them!
Rating:
Summary: Superbly immense
Review: Some have speculated about whether this game was of brilliant quality. Well, they were dead right. The graphics and gameplay of Praetorians are absolutely Phenomenal. If you are a fan of any sort of war game at all, then you will love this to bits. It has panache about that is like no other game I have ever played. Absolutely superb!
Rating: 
Summary: LOTS OF FIGHT NO MICRO MANAGING
Review: The game takes place during the time of Julius Caesars campaigns
in Gaul Egypt and the empire itself Italy.The part I liked about this game is no worrying about money farming or keeping everybody happy.You just rise an army fight it out and hope you win.The animation is smooth and detailed and you get a fold out
of the units characteristics.The only gripe I have is in the
campaign you only play the Romans.
Rating:
Summary: Waste of Time and Money!
Review: The Graphics are very poor. You cannot control Game speed and cannot pause the Game. Worst of all you cannot control your Units.
This is supposed to be all about Units, not managing an economy so as to produce Units. You just fight. The strategy lies in using the right Unit in the right place, but because of the poor Game interface and the horrible bottleneck Battle Maps , it is chaos once the fighting starts. Your units run all over each other and you end up with your Archers charging out in front.
Add the fact that if you are a Single Player going up against the Computer, it is useless to scout the Dense Dark Forests because your computer generated enemy will simply disappear and pop up in another place. There are even arrows flying at you which do not come from any enemy unit. They are computer generated.
There are Walkthrus online, but no viable Community Chat/Help because no one participates.
In short, save your money! I just ordered Rome: Total War which is what I should have done in the first place!
Rating:
Summary: Great Game
Review: This game has great graphics and good tactical scenarios. I don't know where other reviewers are coming from, but most other RTS games become rather easy even at their hardest level. Games such as Age of Empires and Empire Earth don't put up much of a fight after you've estalished your territory. In contrast, the AI in Praetorians is relentless: they just keep attacking and building defenses. Overall a real fun game with great graphics.
| 
