Hegemony Rome: The Rise of Caesar

A nice relaxing strategy game. When all else is tiresome I come back to this game. Would love to see a more updated version of this game, but it does what it needs to do.

Certainly does not deserve its mixed review status. Longbow are a small company, and Rise of Phillip was their first major game, compare it to Caesar and it is certainly a technical step up. RoC is less clunky and much prettier than RoP or Hegemony Gold, and playing the conquest of Gaul is very engaging, the terrain very different from the narrow passes of Greece, now we confront the Alps mountains, the river valleys of southern france, the marshes of belgium and the Rhine river itself to keep at bay the barbarian Germans. Rome's forces are tactically more engaging than the hoplite tetris of Hegemony Gold however unlike Hegemony Gold, where you confront Persians, Greeks, Thracians and each enemy civ feels like a different enemy on the battlefield, in Rise of Caesar, you fight ENDLESS shirtless hordes of Gauls and Germans- they all look the same, and fight you the same way. They charge you and you slaughter them with your legionnaires. Their cities are pitifully defenceless before your siege engines. While this is accurate- check out Dan Carlings podcast on this topic (The Gallic *olocaust) - it makes for a very repetitive grind once you hit the mid-late game and unlike in Hegemony Gold, there is no Persian Empire big bad end boss for you to deal with, instead there is Britain, where you fight....endless shirtless hordes of barbarians.....I've played 76 hours and its all been on one sandbox campaign bar an hour in tutorial or so.

This game is solid, and a lot of fun, I've absolutely got my money's worth out of this game, and I've yet to finish the campaign itself, however mentally i'm a bit checked out of Rise of Caesar. it took me 131 hours to finish The Rise of Phillip Campaign (check out my review of that game) and i was engaged the entire step of the way. The constant quashing of rebellions in my rear, the management of food supplies, naval battles for control of the Aegean Sea against Athens and Persia. These are all things sorely missing from Rise of Caesar- with the hostage mechanic rebellion are a non-issue, I've never lost a town to rebellion in this game so far. Hostages break the game and need a big nerf. Food is easy to find except in the Alps which, while a very challenging campaign, once i broke the tribes there and turned the tables on them and starved them out, food has never been a big issue in this game for me once we hit a certain level of power, whereas in RoP the inverse was true, fielding the massive armies needed to engage the great powers of Athens, Thebes, Persia etc and timing this with the seasons, AND not causing famine which would induce YET ANOTHER rebellion in my rear which would necessitate the army turning away from the main enemies would often be a major challenge in itself, whereas i've not really had these issues in this game and it kinda felt this game was a little dumbed down for a wider audience after the massive success of hegemony first two titles- RoP and the re-boot Hegemony Gold.

Overall a solid game and for £11 is ridiculously cheap. Compared to the unfinished GARBAGE PDX and Sega are pumping out with their Grand Strategy games at the moment, Longbow have quietly been pumping out quality finished polished games. Every game in this series is innovative and scratches a much needed itch in the genre. 7.5/10

It's a detailed Hegemony strategy game, centered around Gaius Julius Caesar, what more could you ask for. Hegemony built these games to play like Caesar describes in his Commentaries, so building one around the man himself made total sense. Do yourself a great favor and pick this one up. It's freaking Julius Caesar for pete sake!

While the game is an interesting concept the player training and food systems leave me annoyed. If you only follow the games instructions on the first level your left with a starving army unable to win, mix with that the fact that its near impossible to keep things supplied it just ends up being frustrating. I had a net positive of food and all my farms and cities connected yet units kept constantly starving, not to mention the fact that they can move about ten feet before needing to constantly resupply. I wanted to like the game but honestly either it makes sense and doesn't train the player enough or it doesn't make sense.

Game looks amazing at first blush for someone like me. I love historical combat, I love the Roman era. Slam dunk right?

Not so much, once you start peeling back the actual mechanics of the game you get pretty depressed at a wasted oppurtunity by the devs. Theres so many things that needed to obviously be addressed. Here are my top annoyances off the cuff.

-This is a game where the entire beginning level terrain is mostly constrictive mountain passes. to this end, unit pathfinding is atrocious. You tell them to move through a pass wide enough for one unit and they will always attempt to deploy into some kind of battle line as if they were in an open field, which they rarely are.

-the supply system is fucking byzantine. After reading tons of forums (the in game manual is useless) I sort of kinda figured out how it works. But you cannot see what the supply flow is, or how it is working. The game tells you "make a supply line!" with no explanation of how or why supply flows, stops, reverses ect. These sorts of things are critical to know, even in the first tutorial mission or you will find your armies melting away with no undertstanding why. It is a very large part of the micro in the game to manage stockpile rates, supply lines, ect. These are NOT things that can be hand waved in the first mission.

-The alerts are piss poor. Once again you have long supply lines and you will be periodically raided in your rear. The only alert you get is a little drum beat that mixes into the drum beat filled soundtrack. So suddenly your armies are melting, you dont know why. You zoom out and realise your supply lines 200 km back are being raided for quite some time. Seriously?

Again. Very cool and interesting concept. But a lot of basic interface Dos and Donts that gam designers figured out 10 years ago are missing. In a lot of ways its like playing games from an earlier era where you were just dropped in and told 'good luck'. Every once in awhile I come back, load up the game determined to give it another try bc I like the idea so much. I always walk away after 45 minutes or so, never making it past the first tutorial bc of how frustrating the actual mechanics are. I would stay away from this title. Other Hegemonies have better reviews, start there first.

This game is a decent enough strategy game, with very solid and well implemented mechanics. However, its gameplay very rapidly becomes repetitive, especially in the grand campaign, and somehow it manages to make an absolutely massive map encompassing the entirety of France and some parts of Italy, England, and the Lowlands feel small and congested. The campaign also disappointingly doesn't go onto Caesar's civil war after he's done with Gaul, which would've made for far more worthwhile DLCs than a couple of unit packs.
The combat itself deserves a very specific mention as one of the few mechanical areas of this game that's actually bad. Legionaries break far too easily, and you can get crippling flank penalties from like two or three enemy troops bumping into the side of your formation.

Ultimately, I don't recommend this game unless it's on sale. It's certainly worth buying and playing, but not at full price.

Saw this game and liked the idea, thought I would support the developers and buy this, even though I knew it was unfinished, spent 20 euros to get it, played it a bit and then didnt play for a while in hopes that it would get improved. That wasnt the case, developement was stopped and I sat there with an incomplete game and 20 euros less. Dont make the mistake I did.

This game had great potential, however it was brought down by a lack of enthusiasm by the developers to make it into a polished product.

The Good--
- Some attention to historical detail. The towns and cities throughout Gaul come with a small snippet of history about them.
- Complex supply and recruitment system. As you conquer more territories and resources, you must work them into your supply network in an efficient manner.
- Sometimes challenging AI.

The Bad --
- Optimization is poor to non-existent. Even if you have a higher end machine that can run far more demanding games, odds are you will suffer from extreme lag.
- Very buggy and prone to crash.
- Small selection of recruitable units.
- Awkward and clunky unit command system.
- No further fixes in sight. The developers have stated that they have moved on to other projects, so if you are waiting for patches and fixes, you may have to move on as well.

I suspect that there is a good, perhaps even great game, hidden in there, behind the constant crashing.

After 15-20 minutes the game crashes, every damn time, making it impossible to play. This is an issue that was reported, by many players, at least a year and a half ago, and it still isn't sorted out by the developers.

Can't play a game I can't play.

I picked this up in early access due to my enjoyment of the Hegemony Gold game. It wasn't optimized then so I let it sit for a while. It is now decently polished, and optimized.

The Hegemony series is in antithesis of the dominant form of RTS (Starcraft Style). It is a slow playing ballet that builds over hours where a handful of units can have a large impact and a single raid can cause problems for an unwary empire. The way supply and manpower are handled in this series is brilliant, creating a very thoughtful style of gameplay that I would love to see more often.

The bigger your empire, the more difficult it is to protect it, and manage getting the needed food and manpower to the right place.

The four story campaigns follow the career of Caesar in Gaul in exacting detail. You will invade Britain, you will cross the Rhine, and you will see your province torn apart by rebellion. By the end of it you will feel like you have conquered the place yourself, and maybe feel a little shell shocked at having to deal with pesky raiders constantly picking at your flanks.

The game is by no means perfect. If you are not a patient gamer, or a thoughtful exploiter of gaming systems you may not enjoy it. The scope of the game might have been a little too ambitious for such a small studio, and it occasionally falls apart. It is slow to start, but that humble beginning only lets you appreciate the epic scope once you get there.

Pros
-Supply lines and manpower mechanics define how the game is played. Raids can be devastating, and concentrating an entire army in one place will often cause you to lose as you run out of food or your empire is picked apart by raiders.
-New Experience System lets you specialize Legions, and even promote officers from veteran legions to lead others.
-Flanking and positioning make an enormous difference.
-You can built forts and bridges, and customize cities.

Take it or Leave it
-Siege warfare is brutal. Better plan it out.
-Naval Warfare can be finicky
-Not a lot of different varities of unit, however the differences become very meaningful as you learn how to use them,

Cons
-Slow to start
-The supply mechanic is not for every gamer
-Not as flashy as a AAA title

I will let it sit for a while longer then I'll try the sandbox campaign and some mods I think, then update my review. Good on you Longbow, I always hoped for another after Hegemony Gold and I am glad to see it.

V,V,V

This game hits the spot if you are interested in historical, detailed strategy.

It is much less of an empire building game as, say, Total War's Campaign or Civilization, while also not quite as "epic battle-centered" as the Total War battles.
Instead, it focuses more on the waging war in the ancient period as a whole, rather than just the battle.
You're managing every aspect of campaigning. Keeping your units and cities provisioned through an extensive network of supply lines is crucial, and using natural borders of forests, mountains and rivers is important to maintain the safety of that very same network.
Construct camps and bridges as resupply points or defenses. Take hostages to ensure the obedience of your subdued enemies. Keep your army in good morale. Promote officers and assign generals. Definitely don't get stuck in the Alps during winter, unless you want your troops to get snowed in and starve (I speak from experience :( ).

Rather than focusing on just the battle itself, Hegemony Rome puts you in charge of ALL the decisions that a commander (such as Caesar) would have had to make whilst campaigning. All this on a truly gigantic map of Gaul (and some bits of Northern Italy, Southern Britain, Belgium and Switzerland) representing every major historic tribe and geographic feature.

The game remains intuitive and attractive, however. Despite its scale, it remains overviewable through some rather unique design (zooming out from individual soldiers on terrain to miniatures on a parchment map).
It also is absolutely unparalelled in its attention to historical detail, every city, faction and unit has a small in-game article of historical information that can be read. You could quite feasibly substitute this game for reading information on the Gallic Wars online.

Hegemony Rome is quite different from any other strategy game out there. it is incredibly educative and detailed, while the basic game mechanics remain quite simple (though very different from other strategy games).

If you are interested in history, and a detailed, accurate portrayal of what campaigning is like, this is the game for you.

I originally thought it would be a total war type game, just in real time. It isn't, but it's an enjoyable game on its own. The learning curve was not bad if you've played things like this before-

I read a review complaining about the complexity pre-purchase, and may I say, that player was wrong. There's a manual in steam for the game (I have not read it, didn't need to). Link cities to share supplies, like food and wood, keep your troops in supply zones until needed, build forts to create supply zones in necessary locations. You can check your spending budget and make cuts, but I have not found an overall happiness meter. Each city has its own morale you can boost with troops and such, if it bottoms out you could lose it to rebels.

Now that I'm done debunking that negitive review... the game is good. Not great, not worth full price, but pick it up on an xmas sale or black friday.

TL/DR: Mix of RTS and Total war that actually works. Also the frequent crashes many reviews mention(I had to set autosave to 5 minutes to avoid going insane) have been fixed in late October 2014, so consider this in your purchase evaluation.(!)

Hegemony Rome: the Rise of Caesar is the Successor of Hegemony Gold: Wars of Ancient Greece which itself is sort of an Upgrade of Hegemony: Phillip of Macedon. All three Titles basically work the same so If you want to test the Game(or one of it's predecessors) any one of them(or a demo) will give you quite a good impression of what's going on.

What's good about this game?
1.) ... wait, you've read(or will read) other shorter/longer reviews, you saw the Trailer, you maybe even played Hegemony Gold. So I'm just going to skip this and go right to the bad things and you go figure out why I spent 100 Hours(jeez) on this game despite the bad points below, eventho I have like 200 other games in my steam account and a job that earns me enough money to buy said games ;)

So what's bad?
1.) Unit variety. Gauls/Britons/Germans all have the same old: Skirmisher(guys with swords), Slinger, Javelineer, Spearman and Cavalry. Gauls also get Archers, Romans only get Legionaries(strongest unit). Some subfactions get some statbonuses but most factions are essencially the same. I liked the variation in Heg. Gold, where Macedon, Persia, Athens, Illyria, Sparta, Nomads, Thracians and gerneric Greeks all had different unit-sets. They are however working on this and enabeling modding, so I'm optimistic.
2.) The AI, while not particualry stupid*, has significant limits pertaining to it's inability to grasp the game, it does not train veterans, it builds buildings seemingly at random, it does not manage it's food supply properly etc. on the other hand this makes taking enemy cities less time consuming^^.
3.) The forum is dead. If you got a problem, just ask here on steam, it's more likely to attract the devs, or other players for that matter.
4.) In the Campaign you command Kaisars Gallic Legions. A common quest reward are extra Legionary Cohor... Brigades. As you play a special Campaign faction(and not the regular Sandbox Romans) you cannot train them yourself, in turn you cannot disband them, sounds ok sofar. However, to replenish these troops(and your Uber Archer and Slingerunits) you need Roman Population. Now where would you find that? In roman cities. Now guess how many roman cities there are in Belgiu... Belgia. One. An average city can sustain 2-4 Brigades. In essence, unless you only use low morale Gallic troops you are going to spend most of your time waiting for your Capital to recover it's pop. yeesh. Having "culturechange" as a rare Questreward as in Heg. Gold would have prevented this.
5.) Workers/slaves cannot carry Food. Players of Heg. Gold will know why this is a bad thing, you essencially need to plonk down expensive camps everywhere so your troops don't die of starvation during a siege. That, or you upgrade your troops carry capactiy instead of Attack/Morale/Hitpoints/LOS/men per unit, and who wants that?
6.) the Campaign ends with good old Cheese-R explaining his righteous struggle against the Senate and then whining a bit about his death. Something I find quite a remarkable thing to do for a corpse. Then again I find most non-rotting-related things quite remarkable if done by dead people. Also with the (horrible) intro movie showing him lead his legions over the Rubicon I would have at least expected a cliffhanger hinting to a sequel where he fights against the Senate, that or an optimistic but mysterious ending that incites young people to look up what happend to him on wikipedia just to discover his grim fate, that would have been neat, and cheaper.


*it's actually pretty mean :(

This is very good real-time strategy game with big focus on tactics (unit types, facing, flanking, upcoming - currently beta tree - ambush system) and logistics (need to connect assets, such as cities, mines, farms, woodcutters with land or water connections, through which food and wood is transported, and depending on length/difficulty of connection, there is tax - longer routes cost more in gold, but also have % of wood/food/gold production lost).
Another part of logistics is recruits - each city has capped amount of recruits pool, which regenerates over time. Your units need to be in supply range of fort or city with land connection to their home city to be able to draw recruits to replace casualties (further from home city, slower the reinfoircements. You can change unit's home city, but (probably) only within other cities of the same tribe.
Big part of the game is unit experience, which is what will keep you playing mostly.
You are member of particular civilization and tribe. Your native cities are loyal, but any conquered cities need either garrison buildings, garrison, and/or hostages put somewhere else to prevent it from rebelling (don't worry it's not too complex and you don't need to pay constant attention to it). Conquering another nation can mean getting their wood, gold and food sources, their recruitment pool, but depending on their bonuses you get access to units with combat bonus of their native faction or terrain capability of that faction, or even to different unit types (if you conquer roman city as barbarian, you get access to roman legionaires, which have very different stats).
There are some differences between nations/tribes, some have larger number of native cities, others have some bonuses (meelee/ranged combat bonus, terrain-specific unit capability on recruitment).
Amount of unit types is not huge - skirmishers, spearmen, slingers, cavalry, javelinmen, archers for barbarians, additional infantry and cavalry of roman factions. After earning experience in battle (or small amount on recruitment with some building upgrades build) you can (and should) spend this on purchasing officers for that unit, up to four (non-detachable) officers of four levels plus (detachable) general. These can provide significant bonuses to offensive and defensive capabilities of unit, morale, logistics, terrain-passage, siege, scouting, and probably more bonuses(typically you'll want combat bonuses first for meelee units, ranged bonus for ranged units). Generals work same as officers, but can be detached and moved to another unit or to govern some city (not sure about effects of that, maybe is still work in progress).
There is lot of content in the game already, and game is very good, although there are still things to be done (AI is good in handling some tasks but not so good with others). Good news is that developers are working actively on the game, and judging from support history from original Hegemony game (which was focused on Greece) they can be trusted to do so for years and years to come.
Compared to original Hegemony, there is less variation in units, because it takes place largely in homogenic area of Gaul.

There is a lot of potential in this game, some interesting concepts, but poorly executed. I hope the developers see this. I want this game to be better. Don't pay full price, wait until its on special!!

Pro's/Interesting features/positives:

- Unified strategic-tactical zoom. I like using the mouse wheel to get a bigger picture.
- Capturing enemy troops and making them slaves, and getting them to work/produce resources.
- Storyboard and voice acting of Caeser
- History lessons, fun facts in the tool tip pop ups.
- Supply system and logistics. Its interesting to have to factor in the constant need for food. If only this was done better.
- Supply: Getting resources around the map, rather than a phantom stockpile like in AOE2.
- Supply lines, and interrupting them.
- Morale of troops and enemies, routing. Idea done very well in Rome2: Total War, but half done here.
- Taking hostages and sending them to other towns to guarantee public order.
- Building camps at strategic points is good idea, but these are poorly done.
- Seiging concepts are good - starve them out, drop their morale to zero and they surrender, or reduce the fortifications and overwhelm. I understandthe concepts but these are not clearly presented.

Cons/Negatives/Feedback to Devs:

-No multiplayer!
- Confusion with the colour scheme. Zoomed in the Romans have green unit icons, but zoomed out, they are red figurines, and vice versa for the enemy/other factions. The faction colours are too similar.
- There needs to be unique sounds to indicate an action happened. Unless you are closely watching everything in real time, the various drum beats mean nothing and blend in with the sound track.
- There is no clear delineation between who is friend or foe until they start attacking you. There should be some colour system to indicate what your current diplomatic status is.
- There is no clear indication of garrison or garrison strength. There is stacking under figurines on strategic map but these are not clear. Something better is needed, such as a flag.
- "Camp" look fortified when built but are too easy to capture. There needs to be some visual cue that the camp is unguarded.
- Supply lines are not clearly articulated. I want to hover mouse over line and see what the flow is, and what the rate of change is. I want to know the network, of where supplies are going, and how long to get there.
- Diplomacy to way too simplistic. How is it can chose what treaty to have... can't the other side have a say?
-How do I know the stats of an enemy asset? Wouldnt this be a mystery?
- Faction flags are poorly done. These should clearly different from each other. Suggest and Icon.
The use of figurines in general is poorly done. Its like trying recreate a board game, The figurines lack detail, need more colour differentiation and better indication of what their strength is.
- Zoomed in Icons are too similar/ not easy enough to distinguish between unit types. More details needed on icons.
- Resource problems... all the time... starving troops... swarming enemy... undefended settlements... no guidance from the tutorial, or manual. Its poorly presented.
- No visual cues on stockpiles of resources at a settlement.
- The icons indicating no food, poor morale, not in supply line, whatever the lightening symbol is etcare not clearly explained. Need a sound cue on whats going on. If voice acting is used some variety in expressions would be needed to avoid repitition (We're hungry!" We haven't been paid!" I cant get my goods to market!" etc)
- Needs clearer indication of when towns are requisitioned (rented!), who they are native to and that they are now under Roman control... otherwise it all looks Roman.
- Requisitioning resources from allies means all workers in it disapear. Why can't I rent the resource and hire the workers too?
The panels are too big and say too little.
The figurines are too big and lack detail. Cities look the same zoomed out, but quite different zoomed in. Why do Gallic villages look like the Greek Acropolis??
Combat system leaves a lot to be desired. Maybe I've been spoilt with RTW2... but seeing figures throwing javeline the wrong way in a seige is silly. No use of shield against missles.
- Seeing slingers shoot through mountains to troops on a road on other side.
- Castles look medieval... Gauls did not build such massive fortresses.
- The range of units indication reticle is outrageously huge. A low key indication is needed.
- Selecting units is too tricky. Suggest following conventions in other RTS.
- Not enough detail in zoomed in unit icons. An inidcator bar on the left for something and on the right for something else would really help. This infor is on the unit detail panel but could better presented.
- NSome features that could really improve gameplay: a technology system, unique resources,trade between factions, alliances where allies help, senate politics, disease/plague, civilians.

Summary:

If you get this, your patience will be tried, the learning curve steep, and the lack of expected niceties/features very fustrating. So much potential but it fell short by too far.This ambitious game has features that remind me of a number of games:

- Morale like Total War,
- Food like Caeser 3,
- Zoom out like Supreme Commander,
- Empire building like Civilisation,
- Resource and supply like Knights and Merchants (and Settlers),
- Building forts in strategic locations like AOE2,
- Capturing forts/cities by attrition like 7 Kingdoms
- Seasons and day/night like Empire Earth,
- City capture like Rise of Nations,
- Fog of war and figurines like Shogun Total War...

...but all of them did each of these concepts much much better, including games from 2001 (13 years ago) Its an ambitious game but it needs the budget and technical wizardry of the big gaming developer publishers. It especially needs sounds and visual cues, and to improve icon differentiation.

Overall, 6/10. I'm glad I only bought this on a 75% off special. In its unrefined state, its not ready for full price. However if some changes were made, along with my feedback, this could be an excellent game. Don't pay full price. If you get it, prepare to be disapointed, but maybe you'll see the good side too. Its no-where near as good as the premium product of Rome 2 Total War, and is quite a different style of game, but it has some different features to keep you coming back.

I hope the developers see this. I want this game to be better!

Hegemony Rome: The Rise of Caesar is the game I've been waiting for. This game combines the grand strategy of Total War, but the base building and tacticality of classic RTS games.

Pros:
1) Decent graphics, which I actually think fit the game perfectly.
2) Easy unit control and building.
3) Massive sandbox mode has a map of all Gaul, which is amazing.
4) Genuinely challenging but fun strategy game, fit for newcomers and veterans.

Cons:
1) Some people might not like the graphics as much as I do.
2) Massive learning curve which can be fun and extremely rewarding to get through.
3) Some performance issues when zooming in quickly, but pass shortly. (might just be my PC)
4) The 'Combat Locking' feature is something I could do without.
5) As far as I know, there is no multiplayer whatsoever.

Overall, 8.5/10 Should buy if you're bored with current RTS games, and should definetly buy if this game is on sale.

Hegemony Rome: The Rise of Caesar is both a solid, fun game and a serious contender for the best 'Rome-based' RTS game in the last few years. Like the majority of others I consider the Total War: Rome franchise to be the benchmark for this genre, and despite the bugs and gameplay issues Rome II had, it got better after patching. The original Total War: Rome was fantastic regardless. It may not be fair to compare the two games considering this is technically an indie release, but I figure even newcomers to the RTS genre have heard of or played a Total War title and it's the most logical (and easiest) comparison.

That said, the devs here didn't try to mimick Total War by redesigning or borrowing its good parts. In fact this game is nothing like Total War. Rather, Longbow Game Studios changed the focus entirely by making historical accuracy and in-depth resource management the two biggest components of Hegemony, and it works very well on top of the standard RTS framework. Hegemony is also far less daunting than Rome and Rome II. Players new to strategy games can jump into the campaign mode and start playing immediately*, but there's also enough substance to keep veteran RTS gamers engaged. The graphics are passable and run smoothly on the highest settings, and the cutscenes are just that - static scenes drawn with a "comic book" style to them. It's a nice break from the bombardment of massively rendered 3D action scenes that end up cheesy and unrealistic because of bad anti-aliasing and direction. The comic book art is also very mature, and there is plenty of violence and blood, which is a nice touch as well.

That asterisk up there? It's for the biggest flaw in this game and (ironically) part of why this game is so easy to jump into: the tutorial system is lacking. You can jump right into this game as a new player and the tutorial will guide you, but you are going to have to learn a lot of the minute details by banging your head against the wall losing captured cities and dying often during the first couple hours. Even veteran RTS players will have to figure out some of the details by trial and error. The most glaring is the lack of explanation about hostages and captured city morale. After you understand it, it makes sense, but you will have to experiment a lot first. (Hint: move your hostages to far away cities. The game fails to mention that part.)

Overall, this is a good game. Is it worth $30? Yeah, but probably only for Roman history fans and RTS fanboys in general. If you are brand new to RTS games you might want to wait until this goes on sale.


[Update after a long, long break: They've patched it a few times and there's even a DLC out now, which shows me they do care about this game longterm. I'm about to play through again on Hard mode and am looking forward to it. If you read the early reviews about constant crashing, those issues seem to have vanished now. Keep that in mind when deciding on purchasing this.]

A great game. Don't expect this to be a total war clone. A lot of reviewers compare this to that series, but it is not. Battles are part of the fun but it is not the main objective. Keeping your supply line, linking up your cities, and making sure you don't run out of gold is what makes the game challenging. The map is interactive and exploring in this game is fun to do. I highly recomended it for a historical and stratagy game alternative.

I hope this review fairly examines both the qualities and flaws of Hegemony: Rome in equal measure. Most other reviewers seem to be firmly entrenched as die-hard supporters, or enraged that this isn't "Rome: Total War 3."

Pros:
-Surprising historical accuracy. I alt-tabbed to check wikipedia a few times and was always pleasantly surprised. Hegemony: Rome does a great job of putting you in Caesar's sandals.

-Fantastic, seamless zoom-out world map. The world map is intuitive and looks exceptionally well. A tastefully done "seamless zoom" has been promised by strategy games for years and this one actually delivers.

Cons:
-General clumsiness in controlling units and the camera. Units also seem to alternate between odd rigidity and ending up locked in combat while seemingly doing nothing. The strange combat model ultimately makes it difficult to engage in the kind of tactical maneuvers you might expect from a game about Classical warfare.

-Supply system that's heavy on micromanagement and light on strategic decisionmaking. The dilemmas and opportunity costs which should drive major decisions just don't exist here. Basically you're always trying to feed your legions in the field, and to do so you're required to individually create "worker" units, designate mines or fields for them to use, and then manually create supply routes to-and-from cities and outbuildings. There is also little UI in this regard - a list of trade routes sortable by destination/origin or some color coding options would help.


Overall: 5/10. There appears to be no extra metagame choices offered by Hegemony: Rome's potentially interesting supply and resource systems. Instead we're left with a clumsy "Warcraft:Rome edition" that requires some mindless micromanagement on top of a stale combat system. I am looking forward to what extra patching and mods do to the game, but only the biggest strategy buffs should buy Hegemony: Rome in it's current state.

This game is still very rough in it's "pre-release" form. This is a real-time game but not like other RTS. It is a war/strategy
game that is different from most. If you are not familiar with the format, I sugest you buy "Hegemony Gold Wars of ancient Greece" . It is a great game which will give you a better feel for the times and problems of warfare in those times than any other source. I have struggled to finish the first two chapters of the story with many saves and crashes and reloads. Even the tutorial portion is unfinished so being very familiar with "Wars of Ancient Greece" helps a lot.
Waiting for the next fixes and some more chapters....

Chiyotay

If you have been disappointed by Rome II and its complete lack of challenge and how repetitive the game play is...well my dear fellow history nerd, search no more.

Even at its early development stage Hegemony Rome: the rise of Caesar already shows veeeeeeeeeeeeery promissing features. This is a game that really satisfies the tactical,strategic and operational side of any strategy player.

The graphs are better than before and there is even a variety of faces amongst soldiers.

Thre are tons of civil nad military buildings that can be built and/or destroyd according to you strategy (i.e. bridges,forts)

There is a huge variety of units and each one of them has its pros and cons

The terrain is much more detailed and plays a much more importante role, you have to build bridges to cross certain rivers and certain mountain pass only allow for one of your units to fight at a time.

The interface needs a little work but its already 10x than the previous installment, requiring less clicks while not being dumbed down.

I am also very happy to see that the developers really care about the community and it is open for suggestions, unlike the other guys(CA,SEGA). There is a MODS tab which suggests taht the game will be moddable, which needless to say, is an awesome feature.

In summary, do yourself a favor and buy this game.