Conquest – Great Conqueror: Rome Review

One problem with Conquest mode, especially the first scenario: are you even meant to play as a faction that isn’t Rome or Carthage? I know that Rome had a lot of historical stuff happen, and it’s cool that that’s represented with in-game buff events, but come on! After a while, no other nation gets any buffs and the Romans just get buff after buff after buff, until it’s practically impossible to win against them unless they’re already significantly on the back foot because they don’t need to think about their economy at all. Getting them on the back foot is also not going to happen because they don’t have any nearby enemies to trouble it (unlike Carthage’s Masaesyli). Without me playing as Odrysia or Macedon or Illyria, they generally make dumb AI mistakes and die to Rome+Aetolia. Even then you’re generally just clinging on in the face of Roman assault and by the time you get room to breathe your allies are gone and the Roman buffer gravy train is coming in every other turn. On Auto mode, you make dumb AI mistakes as well. I’ve seen full stacks get gangwiped in one or two turns and other (unengaged) units not even bother to help. I’ve also seen remnants charge into triple-stacks on Auto-mode. Suffice to say, the AI shouldn’t be this dumb. Also, personal peeve: Macedon should be slightly bigger on the map considering that, while it wasn’t a top-rate power any longer, it was still second-tier: definitely ABOVE the Lusitani and Cessetani. One thing that desperately needs to be fixed is the inability of cities to heal certain types of units. I once got the Syracusan archer general unit down to almost nothing after wiping out the initial Roman invasion. Went back to Syracuse, couldn’t heal, waited like a chump for three turns for Romans to return and had to hide him from them, which is a great shame since the general was pretty hardcore. ffs, bowmen aren’t cataphracts of Rhodian slingers; any decent city should be able to make them! Certainly Syracuse! Without his presence, I lost my personal general. Without them, I just couldn’t produce soldiers fast enough to fill the void, but I hung on for a while. It got to the point that my allies were dying all around me to the usual dumb AI mistakes and I was left the only minor on my team, with Romans and Cyrenes swamping me and Carthage on the back foot. I knew how it would end, bared my throat to the blade, and ended my misery. For this, I recommend you make an in-game heal available for units NOT IN A CITY. It doesn’t have to be big, just enough to make my units more survivable and my army less costly to keep in good numbers.
Review by One Old Tosser on Great Conqueror: Rome.