Rome: Total War (and the future of Civ)

   The last time this message board had been rebooted, I posted an inquiry into the future of Sid Meyer's Civilization TBS game.  Judging from what I've seen since then, I'm not so sure that there will be any more "Civ", so I'm moving on...

   The current spotlight is on Rome: Total War.  From what I've seen, it's a RTS game not unlike Rise of Nations, but more specific in its focus on setting and how its units are constructed and displayed.  Having dumped Civ once again in favor of the RTS of RoN (and in despair of seeing any new version of Civ come out soon), I'm curious about R:TW.

   For those of you who already have the game, I have a few questions:

1. What are the first things that you found impressed you?
2. How similar is it to RoN in gameplay?
3. What are its differences (besides the setting)?
4. What do you think could be improved or fixed?

   For my part, I'm confident that my PC could handle it (generic minitower with 2.4 GHz Pentium 4, 512 MB RDRAM, 64 MB NVidia G4, sound card and a 55 GB hard drive).  Once I'm able to, I plan on adding R:TW to the games roster should it be as good as it sounds.

 I appreciate any responses.

Rome is unlike RoN, although it seems like an RTS,it is infact not simply that. Most of the time is spent on the campaign which is turn-based. Although it does have some similarities with Civ, it is most like Slitherine's game series with better battles. An RTS on Rome is Praetorians,but lacks good production or a tech tree.

Would like to see more of a focus on diplomacy and trade in RTW, it is focused more on war.. but i guess that is what the name only promises.
Dont like the way RoN's time frame gets out of wack. RTW atleast makes an attempt at histical accuracy and with the mods it will even add more.

Try to not listen to Temujin , he is a pescimist, i challenge him to name a better game out there.

Here is a site where RTW and Civ cross roads if interested. http://www.stratcommandcenter.com/index.php

1. Its a huge improvement over its prequels.

2. Not very, two completly diferent games
RoN is basicly your standard AoK type RTS on steroids, intresting but but ultimatly its a sort of who-can-click-their-villigers-around-the-fastest type thing, not that i'm knocking it, its enjoyable in its own right, but its different.
RTW is turn based on the stratrgic level, with the battles being fought out in real time, speaking of battles, they make RoN look about as strategic as a game of snap.

3. Hard to explain in a few words, wait, i'll try - Everything

4. Better population management, keeping the plebs happy can be troublesome in bigger cities, there would be away of either controling how many can live in them, or make public health buildings imprve public mood without increasing population growth. I know it shouldn't be too easy, but as it is, its, just not right.
In the case of am enemy attacing you when you have a reinforcement army near buy, you should be able to chose which of those armies you command.
Hmm, lots of other little things which are more game tweaks than major changes.

For my part, I'm confident that my PC could handle it (generic minitower with 2.4 GHz Pentium 4, 512 MB RDRAM, 64 MB NVidia G4, sound card and a 55 GB hard drive).  Once I'm able to, I plan on adding R:TW to the games roster should it be as good as it sounds.

Thats fine, i run it on less, though my soldier don't have feet  

Edited by Cywr

I've had time to think about R:TW and I'm intrigued by it.  Sort of like what I'd want in a new version of Civ, where TBS plays an integral part, but with battles being fought in RTS.  The only drawback is having to take the time to learn the whole system, but not having to worry about trailing too far behind an opponent in tech (since it's being kept fairly period-specific) is worth the effort of building your army up.

Since I've posted the thread, I've gone out and brought R:TW.  And I enjoy it very much.  There are a few things which could be done for it (like allowing players to fight their naval battles on a battle map like they do the land battles -- I almost wish that I could find a way to make the 40-60 ships of my Julian navy outmaneuver and sink the 160-ship Carthaginian navy that attacked me), but overall the game is very good.  I find myself playing it almost every night.