Rome: Total War

Rome: Total War (often abbreviated to RTW or Rome) is a critically acclaimed strategy game where players fight historical and fictitious battles during the era of the Roman Republic and the reign of Augustus, from 270 BC (the final defeat of the last of Rome's Italian rivals) to 14 AD (the death of Augustus). The game was developed by Creative Assembly and released on September 22, 2004. A demo of the game, which features a playable version of the Battle of the Trebia, with the player taking the role of Hannibal, was released on August 23, 2004 and is freely available for downloading.

The game features a Single-Player Campaign where you play as a faction and achieve your goal of conquest of the other factions, the ability to create custom battles to fight against AI controlled opponents, Multiplayer battles online against other people, Real-time command of armies on 3-D rendered battlefield environments, and you can fight notable historical battles such as the Battle of the Trebia.

Each faction has some units and structures unique to their own faction or culture. In the Campaign, you will have to upgrade structures and advance cities to access new troops, bonuses, ships, and agents, which will help in your goal of eventual conquest of the entire map.

The gameplay is similar to that of its predecessors, Shogun: Total War and Medieval: Total War, although there are some changes to the mechanics of sieges and city fights have been added. Most notable is that players now move their units with movement points; in previous games units were moved by territory.

Armies can be built to conquer nearby provinces; to conquer a province, you besiege and then defeat the enemy army garrisoned in the settlement. Fleets at sea can also ferry troops, and blockade enemy ports, thus cutting down income from trade. While doing so, players can build certain buildings within their cities to move up through the tech tree to train more advanced units, increase a province's income, and/or keep the population happy. The ultimate goal, as in previous games, is to conquer 50 provinces and capture Rome from the Senate, thereby becoming Emperor.

The player takes control of a particular faction of the era. It is possible to unlock otherwise non-playable factions by a simple mod of the game's files; however, some may contain minor faults or bugs. Factions are described in this article what their playable status is by default.

Two Expansion Packs have been released for the game, Rome: Total War - Barbarian Invasion and Rome: Total War - Alexander