Annals of Rome Reviews

Great classic game!

if you like text games whats to lose?

An old school game with 80's era graphics, based on the old Fall of Rome boardgame. There is no final victory, you just play to see how big you can build the Roman Empire and how long you can stave of the fall. The challenge is that you have a limited number of commanders to run your provinces, and they are of varying loyalty. The more provinces you have, the more you will have to accept using commanders of dubious loyalty, increasing the chances of them deciding they would make a better emperor than you are and taking whatever legions you've given them and marching on Rome.

As with others here, I played this intensively when it originally came out. Back then the interface was nothing particularly unusual, and even today it isn't difficult, just clumsy - it takes about 5 minutes to get used to it. There are certainly a few issues with it, primarily related to the display of information at appropriate times - it's hard to play without making any separate notes (you pretty much have to keep track of the loyalty values of your available commanders, as that is only visible on the screen before you make decisions about who to assign where). But that isn't anywhere near enough to outweigh the cleverness of the design and the fun value of trying to shepherd your Republic through dictatorship and the inevitable empire, trying to keep it alive through the ups and downs of barbarian migrations and rival nations waxing and waning. An amazing game considering the technical limitations it was created under.

This is an old DOS game. Controls are very basic, and you view things from a very high perspective. The game will take some skill, learning, and luck. Worth it on discount, but if you aren't willing to deal with very old-school gaming methods, probably not for you.

"Annals of Rome" is a game about ancient history which, with an original release date of 1986, has become ancient _computer_ history by itself now. In the game, you command ancient Rome from the beginnings of the Republic in 273 BC to its fall more than 1400 years later - though it's also possible to maintain an eternal Roman Empire if you're good at it. You conquer new provinces, maintain your army, defend against rebellions and invasions, and assign officers to provinces. Officers differ in their military prowess and loyalty to the current ruler, which makes for interesting decisions - e.g. you may want to put your strongest officer into a province that's about to be invaded, but if he's also disloyal, then he may just start a civil war and march his troops against Italy. The game spawns invaders at the times and places where they occurred in history. Once on the map, though, they will decide on invasion routes based on the strength of neighbouring areas. This means that the game creates a framework in which history often unfolds similarly to ours, but may also diverge radically - especially when your own decisions differ from those that Roman leaders took historically. For example, the Carthaginians get enough troops to wage war against Rome, but depending on the circumstances, they _may_ also find it more worthwhile to go after Egypt and all the way to Mesopotamia. You are completely free in deciding which provinces to conquer, and you can remain a republic forever if you mange to prevent a strong leader from rebelling and crowning himself emperor. If Italy falls to the barbarians, you can relocate your capital to any province under your control - and while the historically "correct" choice of Asia (to form the Byzantine Empire) is usually a good option, you may find better ones depending on how your game has developed. The basic gameplay loop holds up well even today - it's not very complex, but continuously creates interesting decisions, is close enough to real history to feel plausible, but is also _different_ enough to provide replayability. What absolutely hasn't stood the test of time, are the controls. This game was developed before the mouse became widespread on PCs; you enter commands by typing codes and letters. To invade a province, you have to wait for the game to cycle through your provinces to the one you want to start from, then type the 2-letter-code of the target province (which you cannot see on the map, you have to memorize which code refers to which province), then one letter for each officer you want to send along, then type and confirm the numbers for two troop types, and then type the letter of the officer in command. From today's perspective, it feels incredibly clunky and archaic. The game also does not explain itself at all. You _have to_ read the manual, which is linked from the store page, but unfortunately it's only a plain text version. The game has also been wrapped into DOSBox in a rather careless way - it runs much too fast, you cannot follow the battles on the map. I strongly suggest to lower the emulation speed (press Ctrl-F11 a few times) until you can actually see what's going on. Press Alt-Enter to see the current emulation speed in the window header, and do so again to go back to fullscreen. Also note that in order to use the number pad, you have to press NumLock twice after starting the game - otherwise the game will not process your input correctly, and you will be unable to move troops. The game is currently on sale for just $1, and I recommend it at that price to fans of strategy games who either don't mind the archaic interface, or who are curious how us old fogles played strategy games before Windows, mice, graphics adapters with more than 4 colors, or CPUs faster than 0.033 Ghz became standard. I doubt that others can still enjoy it, but I simply don't have it in my heart to give a "thumbs-down" to a game that brought me so much joy in the past.