Rome: Total War : Prima Official Game Guide

Rating:
Summary: Look online instead...
Review: I have to agree with the other two reviews... this guide tells me NOTHING that I couldn't have found in the manual. The sad part is that, when I looked online, I easily found two game guides (at IGN & firingsquad.com) that are VASTLY superior to this one. And they're free.

Since unit statistics are now available from in-game windows, what's the point in half-filling this "guide" with them? The only reason can be padding. As for the tips, they're laughable.

I'd heard great things about the M:TW Guide, which is why I bought this one. Don't bother. Visit IGN.com or firingsquad.com instead.

Rating:
Summary: Strategy Guide? I don't think so.
Review: Rome Total War is a great game, perhaps the best in the Total War series and, maybe even the best strategy game released since the first Age of Empires game. I love the game, but, the Prima Guide leaves MUCH to be desired. The guides is completely in black and white, the "detailed campaign map" advertised on the book cover is a small, black and white, blurry little version of the giant fold-out color map that comes with the game. 3/4 of the book is dedicated to giving stats for all the units and buildings in the game, and the rest of the book is split between a description of the game (basically a slimmed down version of the game manual) and a guide to the historical battles. Hints, tips, and strategy guides are nearly all covered in the game manual, or are simple common sense things that any gamer can figure out on their own. The unit descriptions, that take up most of the book, are also found in-game, in full color, with more detail. In the end, the Prima Guide is hardly worth the money.

Rating:
Summary: Necessary evil
Review: So you spend 50+ dollars on Rome Total War and you've been completely sucked into the game. You've read the manual and done the tutorials, and you've learned the game well enough - but you still find yourself wanting to know more - after all the manual never teaches you everything. Yup... you've been here before with many other games, and you know what to do. It's time to drop MORE of your precious Denari on a Strategy (game) guide. First things first, let's ask a very important question:

DO YOU NEED THIS GUIDE?

Rome total war, as complex and vast in scope and depth as it is, is a very accessible game. The developers took all the depth and strategy and put it in a very simple package. The tutorials do a nice job introducing you to the basic game concepts and getting you comfortable with the game. The manual, as far as manuals go, is quite good. And if that werent enough to help along the newbies, there's in game advisors that do everything short of playing the game FOR you. So with all that help do we need to spend the extra dough on this guide? Well the answer is could be an affirmative if you are either A) a complete newbie and feel like you need more help even though there is so much built right into the game, or B) you really absolutely need to know as much about the nitty gritty core of the game mechanics as possible. And of course if you really love the game then you'll probably want this as well.

The Guide Itself

Now that we know who needs this guide, we can talk about the specifics. Strategy guides, as all gamers know, are so often just rip offs. This particular guide is of poor quality for the money. It's in black and white (no color!), images arent very good (1000 words? these pictures are worth 500 at best). And the guide reiterates a lot of what's in the manual. There's lots of tips, but the guide doesnt do well in the way of being comprehensive. No province profiles, no analysis of campaing map strategic points and stuff like that. What it does have are plenty of important numbers and facts. A complete run down of all units and buildings and admittedly a wealth of information that WILL come in handy.

About 187 pages of valuable info are present but only about 40 or so (<25%) are actual tips, tricks and descriptions of the game systems. The rest are unit profiles, tech trees, and general reference info - still helpful but the medieval total war guide did a better job over all. I cant find a run down of the combat system or the moral system or anything of the sort in this book! So the numbers on those unit profiles are meaningless.

The back cover of the book says "Fully Detailed Campaign Map". Try and find it in the book! What they meant by this was they threw a 7 x 4.5 inch black and white picture of the campaign map on the last page!! The image has terrible contrast and it's black and white and really small. You cant even make out city names that's how bad it is. Considering the game comes with a 1 1/2 foot by 1 foot fold out color map what the heck good is this? More than that the total war website has a province profile in flash that is FREE.

And that pretty much demonstrates what this guide is all about - getting our money. In the end, this is a "typical" strategy guide made to get our money, not made by people who really loved the game. It's full of tips (some of which are so basic it's funny, but some of which are valuable), information, and other stuff, but little more than you'd expect to find on your basic fan site. Id recommend this to people who really love the game and anything to do with the game, and absolute newbies who really need more help and are too lazy to go looking online. Anyone straped for cash or expecting a guide that was as good as the last one might want to check one out in the store before shelling out the money.

Rating:
Summary: Leaves much to be desired
Review: This guide is rather disappointing. It is not a strategy guide as much as it is a manual. The chapters it has on battle maps and campaign maps brovide little information that isn't available in the game's manual. The strategy guide does have a nice catalog of all units and buildings, which is helpful.

I had hoped this guide would provide a lot of information on how to play the game and get through certain situations. It is nice to know what a certain unit does and what its exact statistics are, but before I am interested in that, I would like some basic information on how to fight a battle. Knowing that fire arrows make the ememy peer their pants is interesting, but it would be nice to know when to use them, when not to use them, how accurate they are compared to regular arrows and such.

There are many examples that need explaining on the campaign map too. What can I do to make sure my family tree grows? If I do not have enough family members to put a governor in every town and a general in every army, is it better to have towns without governors or armies without a leader?

None of these questions are answered here. The closest this guide comes to really guiding the reader is in the section about historical battles (although those chapters are very short). Overall, I recommend you go to www.totalwar.org and ignore this guide.

Rating:
Summary: sigh
Review: This guide is utter piece of crap. 90% of this guide is covered by manual and in-game tutorial. The guide's soldier count isn't even correct. Most of the unit count listed in the guide is half the amount in the game. For example, Hastate is listed as 40 soldiers per unit, but in-game it's 80 soldiers per unit.

This is probably the worse Prima "strategy" guide I purchased. It's so bad; it prompted me to write my first ever online review. Don't waste your money on this crap. I want my money back!


Rating:
Summary: Wow! Only $20 for an extra game manual!
Review: This is the biggest waste of paper I've encountered in a long time. There is nothing useful in here that you can't find in the manual or in the game, unless you just can't seem to figure out how to beat one of the Historic Battles.

The only reason to buy this is if you've misplaced the manual that came with the game.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Bother
Review: While this guide is not a complete waste of time, there is no compelling reason to pay for it. All of the relevant information can be found online at various fan sites. Hang on to your dough and save it for the Rome:TW expansion packs we know will be coming along!