Networking Software. Trending from CNET. Visit Site. The Praetorians demo lets you play one mission from the Roman campaign. Developer's Description By Square Enix. Praetorians is an epic 3D strategy game set at the time of Julius Caesar's campaigns to expand the frontier's of the Roman Empire. Taking on the role of a Roman General you are transported back to the deserts of Egypt, the frozen lands of the Gauls and to the heart of the Empire itself, Italy.
The lands you seek to conquer will be heavily defended by thousands of troops, all with special skills and individual strengths.
Fortresses and war machines will stand in your path as you lead your army in a quest for the glory of Rome. Full Specifications.
What's new in version. Release November 8, Date Added November 3, Separately, the developers dedicated several missions to Mark Licinius Crassus, because his name is closely associated with Guy Julius Caesar in historical reference books.
The higher the difficulty level, the more units the enemy will receive and you at the beginning of the battle. The gameplay is no different from the rest of the games in the turn-based strategy series. Management takes place in detachments of units, similar in abilities, skills and name.
Individual units have no health, because it is reflected through the state of the entire squad: the fewer living units left in the squad, the lower the health of the entire squad.
For some operations, the squad can be divided into several groups. At the beginning, the player is given the choice of controlling the Egyptians, Gauls or Romans. We wanted to do a full-scale strategy game inspired by historical reality. Housing villagers, setting up trade routes and developing new technologies is completely off the menu, but if the thought of not being able to set tax rates or send your peasants off to chop wood worries you, be assured that when it comes to the field of battle, Praetorians is way ahead of the competition.
Unlike most strategy units come ready-grouped into squads of 30 men, which can in turn be split into two groups of With well over a thousand tiny men in skirts parading across a map at any one time, it makes a lot of sense that they are. In similar fashion to Shogun and Medieval, this means that if you click on a soldier, the entire unit he belongs to comes into play.
Because of this streamlined approach to army management, much more thought has gone into tactics and formations - a feature that has been sorely lacking from Roman-themed games in the past, especially considering that this is what the legions of Rome were famous for. This was the main driving force behind the personalities we have given to the three different civilisations; Romans, Barbarians and Egyptians.
The differences between the three sides are much more than just cosmetic. The Romans, being more organised and highly trained, can be ordered into a number of varied formations to maximise their impact. Archers can be lined up into a slow-moving but effective firing formation, with the front ranks kneeling to allow those behind a clear field of fire. By comparison, the Barbarians, a general amalgamation of Gaul, Celt and Germanic tribes, are completely different, being strong, fast and prone to rushing in en masse.
Whereas Roman leaders can make use of a number of special formations, the Barbarian chief can employ skirmish tactics, or simply command his troops to shout a lot as they rush into the fray. The Egyptians are, as you would expect, somewhere between the two extremes, with perhaps a greater emphasis on ranged and cavalry combat. Apart from the different sides and the tactics that they specialise in, Praetorians also introduces a number of unique and interesting units.
The backbone of any army is its rank and file grunts, but in Praetorians they also double a to es or fotress. Instead of going through the palaver of guiding a lone cavalry unit across the map to lift the fog of war, you have scouts that are accompanied by animals that can be used to scope out the land ahead.
Clearly inspired by the cinematic classic Beastmaster, scouts can either release a trained hawk to spy from above, or a wolf that will pad into the forest and sniff out an ambush hiding within. We're willing to let historical accuracy slide on this one.
Graphically, of course, Praetorians looks splendid, perhaps not as wildly attractive as Battle Realms or as detailed as the imminent Age Of Mythology, but far more impressive in terms of landscape and the sheer numbers of soldiers that the 3D engine can handle. Lines of troops wheel around the meandering tracks like finely drilled soldiers on parade, and if you care to order a group of engineers to build a siege ladder, they'll hunch over its construction, pick it up when complete and carry it to the front line through massed ranks of infantry - who'll actually shuffle out of the way to boot.
Though relatively small, the maps are tightly packed with dangerous forests, scarred with rocks and awash was beautifully flowing water. March across a stream and your troops will leave ripples in their wake. Take them though the forest and wildlife will scatter, with deer taking flight and birds flitting into the sky.
Apart from looking superb, such actions have an important bearing on the action - if you see branches swaying and birds suddenly taking to the sky, you can bet the enemy are in there somewhere waiting for you to stroll by. Perhaps most impressive of all are the siege battles. If they make it, gangplanks are let down and the soldiers pour out to engage the enemy on the battlements. Rather than gold, iron or food, generals simply have to look after their supply of troops, which means sallying forth and securing a local village from which to recruit fresh blood.
Each village is home to around people, and by building a garrison on the outskirts of town and sending your Centurion in to take over, you can bleed the population dry by press-ganging every able-bodied man into service. Auxiliary Infantry, the mainstay of your force, are relatively quick to train, while pikemen, archers, legionnaires and praetorian guardsman can take at least three times longer to train up.
Ideas touted back when the game was first announced included horses as well as soldiers. To create cavalry units you had to find and train wild horses, or perhaps even massacre them to keep your enemy from making use of them. There was also a feature planned whereby you could take enemy prisoners and either conscript them into your front line force or use them, quite literally, as cannon fodder.
Though Praetorians perhaps lacks the scope of the Total War series, the prospect of another game on a similar scale, yet with smoothly animated 3D units, impressive ease of use and tactical opportunities that even Medieval lacked is certainly one worth savouring. But Javier Arevalo thinks Praetorians has still more up its sleeve: "The initial perception of the game is that of a classic RTS, with intuitive interface and control system," he says.
Our novel approach to resource management and the effect of terrain features in the approach to battles creates a wholly new type of game. Many strategy gamers will recognise stuff that they have always wanted to do in other RTS games but never could. Couple this with the very attractive historical setting and the powerful graphics engine that allows us to portray the terrain and units with great detail, and you have a game that I believe most strategy gamers will enjoy from beginning to end.
There are many who shy away from 3D strategy games, generally because you have to battle with the interface just as fiercely as the enemy. Few 3D RTS games have managed to get the balance right, and no matter how good the interface, none have ever matched the simplicity offered by 2D or isometric games like Red Alert.
Praetorians, despite being in full 3D, is very much a 2D game in terms of the control method, since the camera is fixed in one direction. Still, it seems clear that 3D fixed perspective is the way ahead. Of all the empires to have straddled this globe, it is perhaps the Roman that is the most widely admired. 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.
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.
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. The question is. Elevation also brings great advantages to those who have it, so make sure you hold the high ground because it could mean the difference between victory and defeat!
Your road is long and arduous. It will take you through Gaul, Egypt, and Italy. Praetorians fully immerses you in the ancient world. Travel to sandy deserts and beaches, icy mountainsides, dense forests, even the Egyptian Sphinx!
The game is full of visually stunning environments and scenes of epic battle action complete with armies, towns, and fortresses. Fans of real-time strategy games, or of all things Roman: Praetorians is a game right up your alley.
New to the RTS genre? Praetorians will give you a great introduction to this whole new world of gaming! Like Julius Caesar and his famous Roman legions, you too can live forever in the history books, only with Praetorians! Praetorians is a real-time strategy title which lets you take the reins during the glory years of the Roman Empire and Julius Caesar leads the Roman Army in Gaul. Praetorians differs slightly from other RTS titles in that the focus is all on combat and there is very little resource management or base building.
In fact, the only resource in the game is the slow growing town populations which you can utilize only after capturing the settlement and building a barracks there. Other than a defensive tower, that is about all the base building you can do so the emphasis is really on the tactical combat which is very fun and addicting. There are the basic unit counters, such as cavalry are strong against archers but weak against pikemen and the like, but there are also several options with the different special abilities of your units.
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