Expeditions: Rome

Combat is good, voice acting is good, character progression is ok, story is ok, characters are cool. Crafting system has legs, but between the randomization and having to access it in camp then wait for it outside camp (so unnecessary loading screens), it's a frustrating experience. Also, I wish generic items changed name when receiving unique upgrades. There's also not enough unique gear. Beyond smaller annoyances (such as not being able to pass time in camp), the so called strategic layer is really the only downside of the game. It feels underdeveloped barely even qualifies. It consists of sending your legion to take over central province settlement (all of them with the same level of defens at ~1/3 of your legion's strength), then 'pacifying' it either by spending a resource or doing a mission (chosen at random), repeat until the map is cleared. The AI will occasionally send a small force (again 1/3 of your force) to attack a conquered province at random, but with enough heads-up for you to park your legion there and crush them. Resource management doesn't really exist, resource buildings are just consumables used to upgrade your camp. The entire thing is very barebones, very repetitive and more of a chore than a feature. And the legion battles are the worst thing since Deadfire's 'ship combat'.

Completed two full acts and have completed halfway through the third act when the "new" patch came through. The patch changed the Legion battles and completely broke the game for me. The legion battles are POINTLESS! No matter what you do, the battles are always staked against you and the losses are too high. I went through 2 acts, never losing a commander, then all of a sudden in act 3, I’m losing one to two every battle. Almost impossible to counter when the "random" rolls are -8 in each category across the board. The story is fantastic and i love the history elements to it. The praetorian combats are fun and interesting. Unless they fix the stupid legion battles, im done playing the game.

This game is excellent, with a great story, charismatic and well-developed characters. It's a shame that the developer abandoned the video game sector, it is one of the best RPGs I have played in my 25 years as a video gamer.

Story, graphics and sound are all good but the gameplay is tiresome. They have added several campaign management systems that are just a waste of time, card-games and the like. I'd rather see a return to vikings for next game, although the smaller (but more) maps of this game is better.

an upgrade upon previous Expeditions RPGs, done with skill and love, very-well designed, highly recommended