OLD GAMES REVISITED by Matthew Elliott
HANNIBAL LECTURE
Learning to kick butt in ROME II: TOTAL WAR
Thought my javelin men had forgotten the sharp bit. (They’re pointing down.)
Ipromise you I go into writing these re-reviews with noble intentions. The alpine theme of this month’s column was to be evident in my triumphant march on Rome as Hannibal, dynamic leader of Carthage. I was even planning on taking the long way round for the sake of narrative cohesion. I’m sure you can guess by now that this didn’t happen. Part of the problem is that I’ve been playing nothing but Total War: Warhammer III since 2022. It’s a game that, for the most part, elegantly deals with the slight confusion that comes with starting a different iteration of the game. New games of Total War can feel like trying to push all the colors down at once on one of those fat, pointless pens we all had at school. There’s so much happening it’s paralyzing. In the Warhammer games, however, there’s usually a small army nearby that you can smash, easing you in with a simple, achievable goal. Rome II is different. It’s like being in a rough Boston bar during a toga party—look at somebody’s scyphus the wrong way and it’s war. And that’s exactly what happens here. Rome calls me out almost immediately, as do numerous other minor states with inexplicably large armies. If it wasn’t for my apparentlyfaithful allies in Carthago Nova, I’d be dead by turn four. But this isn’t even the worst part of my alreadydoomed enterprise.