![]() ![]() These troops function on one level as basic infantry. There’ll come a time when you need some siege ladders, a catapult or two, or even a bridge being rebuilt, which is where your auxiliaries come in. It’s a novel way to approach matters in an RTS, although slightly reminiscent of Z: Steel Soldier’s 'the more you conquer the more reinforcements you generate’ approach. The problem is, if your enemy has more or bigger villages than you, then he will be reinforcing quicker, so you’ll need to engineer a decisive battle to tip the scales. ![]() While this recruitment reduces the population of the village, it slowly regenerates, in effect meaning each offers an inexhaustible amount of men. Units take differing amounts of time to assemble and some also require you to spend 'honour points’ you have acquired in battle. Once a village is captured and garrisoned, you can use it to recruit new formations. In fact, almost every mission (as well as multiplayer encounters and skirmish battles) revolves around a number of villages. The Village PeopleĪs mentioned earlier, there is no resource gathering in Praetorians, which is not to say that there are no resources. And, lest we forget, a small variety of siege engines and primitive artillery such as catapults can be called upon. Physicians and druids are also on hand to heal the wounded, and scouts are there to keep an eye out for the enemy. In every mission you will have at least one commander, useful for recruiting new soldiers in villages as well as bestowing a combat bonus on nearby troops. Supporting these larger formations are a number of specialised units. You can divide a formation into two, combine two smaller ones, or balance the numbers between two of differing strength. Your troops are organised into units of anything between 16 and 40 or so men. But on occasions, such as when you want to rotate and see where the ladders are on the other side of a wall, it can feel a little constricted. For the most part, this works fine, as it prevents the confusion that a fully 3D engine can create. You can raise or lower the angle of the camera which works as a basic, but somewhat throw-away zoom function, and the direction the camera faces is always fixed. The viewpoint in Praetorians is somewhere between isometric 2D and full 3D. There are three distinct forces represented in the game, the Romans, the Gauls and the Egyptians, and you get to command troops from each of them along the way. Next up is Germany, home of many a ferocious barbarian tribe, and then on to the Middle East and North Africa before returning for a climactic showdown in Rome itself. Starting out in Gaul where the local tribes are getting restless, it’s soon on through Belgium and into Britain for a battle or two. The 20-odd mission campaign is like a whirlwind tour of the ancient known world. There’s no need to constantly research new technologies to tip the battle in your favour, and you don’t have to worry about picking berries and mining iron, leaving you free to fret solely about military affairs. Praetorians, like Medieval before it, does away with traditional RTS resource gathering, and arrays your troops into permanently fixed formations. That or a quick look at the verdict box at the end. has Praetorians ambushed Creative Assembly's latest project, defeating it even before it could reach the field of battle? Or has the announcement of the latest Total War meant that Praetorians' reign will be a mighty short one? Only careful reading of the following four pages will tell. A game all the more timely given the unveiling of the fantastic-looking Rome: Total War from the makers of Medieval and Shogun, due out hopefully at the end of this year. Regardless, joining the list of bounties bequeathed to us by Pax Romana, although somewhat belatedly, comes Praetorians, a nice little tactical RTS from the same Spanish developers who brought us the Commandos series. Of course, the fact that those of our ancestors that weren't fed to the lions ended up hand-feeding grapes to lardy landowners as house slaves tends to get obscured in our rose-tinted recollection. Having given such advancements to this nation as running water, a straight road from London to Peterborough and all-night orgies, there’s much to thank our ancient Italian imperialist cousins for. Of all the empires to have straddled this globe, it is perhaps the Roman that is the most widely admired.
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