Fall of Rome Online

Fall of Rome is a wholly online, Turn-Based Strategy game, in the tradition of board games such as Risk and Diplomacy - albeit with a much greater depth. Combining aspects of a Role-Playing Game with a traditional Wargame, Fall of Rome is played via a downloadable java web-interface. The game combines political intrigue, high-level strategy and tactical combat all intertwined with the ambitions and frailties of the human mind. With updates downloaded to a player's PC, each turn has a three-day window to allow players to take their time reviewing the game and making their strategic decisions. As a result, players have the luxury of choosing a time that suits them to play the game.

Participants in a game of Fall of Rome are tasked with leading a tribe of peoples to ultimate victory over eleven other human opponents, allowing for a great deal of intrigue, combat, deal-making and back-stabbing as players claw their way to victory, or find themselves cast by the wayside in defeat.

Like Risk, the game takes place on a map split into many different regions. In the case of Fall of Rome, the map depicts Western Europe at the dawn of the Dark Ages. Regions, towns and cities are available for players to conquer, assuming they can keep their opponents at bay.

Like Diplomacy, orders are adjudicated simultaneously at the end of each turn phase. The game program does this automatically behind the scenes, with updated status reports sent when players next log in.

Signing up to Fall of Rome is simple, prospective players merely need to create an account online and put themselves into a queue for the next game. Fall of Rome is free for the first 30 days, meaning that if a game is started and it is found that the style of play is not to someone's liking, they can simply cancel their account within 30 days and pay nothing. If however they should decide to continue, their Credit Card will be charged from that point onwards. At the basic level of membership, a player will pay just $12.95. This allows a member to play one game at a time. Higher levels of membership will allow members to play more games at once - if they are brave enough!

Although it may take a couple of days for a submission to reach the front of the queue and for a game to start, this is not a major problem as it gives the new player plenty of time to read up on the various rules available for download as .pdf files. The rules are easy to follow and include a beginner's guide to help new members get fully up to speed with their first game.

When a game does start, players are presented with a list of the various tribes who will be vying for power - one of these must be led to victory. At this stage it is possible to state a preferred race that a member may wish to play as, or, as I did, a race that a member definitely does NOT want to play as. Because more than one person will often ask to play as, for example, the Huns, negative preferences will take precedence over positive ones. For example, I asked not to play as the Franks, and my request was granted, had I chosen to play as the Franks, it may not have proved possible to grant my request.

As it transpired, in my review game I was granted control of the Thuringians. From a historical context, the Thuringians were apparently a Saxon tribe who were conquered by the Franks. Oh the irony...

Here is the main logon screen. As you can see, players can select a persona by whom they will be known in the game. Of course, during my game, I chose my evil alter ego, Doctor Sinister. I figured it might help me to intimidate my opponents into surrendering to me (it didn't work!). To the right you will see that there is a countdown timer. Each turn phase in Fall of Rome lasts for three days. Players have this time in which to submit their orders, whereupon they are simultaneously adjudicated at the end, and the timer reset. If you are in danger of missing a move, you will receive an E-mail reminder.

Every time a player logs into Fall of Rome, their PC will automatically begin to download the latest game files. I must confess to a slight feeling of trepidation when I discovered that this was to be the case as I can categorically state without fear of contradiction that I have the slowest and most unreliable Internet connection on the planet Earth (!). But I need not have worried. In each instance, downloading the latest information only ever took me a maximum of twenty minutes. I suspect that Broadband users will probably not even notice a delay, but dial-up users obviously will have to wait. However, if I can play this game over my unstable connection - there's no reason why anyone reading this should be put off by this aspect of the game.

The game uses a Java script, which opens in its own window and several buttons along the top of the display allow a player to control various aspects of the game. I will deal with the most important of these in the sections that follow, however by using these buttons it is possible to see lists of all known towns and cities (including those under your control) and any improvements they have had added to them, along with complete lists of your Characters (see below) and Legions, plus a summary of your economic production. You can even talk to your fellow players - make deals with them, declare war, or, as I did, announce to all and sundry that you expect a tribute by morning.

Controlling your economy is also possible through use of these buttons. Your economy is, of course, the lynchpin of any campaign and it's broken down into two aspects - Supplies and Gold. If you find yourself running short of Gold, you will come unstuck very quickly as you won't be able to build new structures or pay for your Army. However, one can be traded for the other and by using this method, it's possible to keep things ticking over. I was, of course, totally useless at this aspect of the game as I was more concerned with betraying and back-stabbing everyone in sight whilst manoeuvring my Legions into position. As a result, I failed dismally on all fronts and by the time I found myself in a total war against an enemy who completely outclassed me in every category, it was too late to correct the situation. Although my game has yet to finish, I don't see my dreams of conquest being much more than that. In summary - you need to watch your economic output and expenditure!

Once in the game, the main map is presented to you. There are several different ways to display the map. This is the primary Strategic View. Note the buttons at the top of the screen and the turn details to the top right.

This is the alternate Strategic view which strips out some of the detail and shows just the towns and villages. This can be useful once the area is swarming with troops and characters all doing the bidding of their masters. As whole regions come under the control of various players, they change colour to show their political affiliation.

Here is the main map, which is scrollable up and down and from side to side. >From here players can select their towns and cities for closer view. At the beginning of a game, each player has two of each, and within these settlements can be found the main Characters, Agents and Legions.

Characters are powerful figures that will perform many important tasks during the game. Beginning with the King, Characters include Princes, Priestesses, Dukes, Governors and Ambassadors, all of whom have unique capabilities. The Priestess, for example, can be used to bless or heal friendly units, or she can use divination to locate unusual objects in a given area. Other Characters can be sent on special missions to convert people to your will, usurp the control of others, obtain information about other civilisations and generally act as your local representative.

The King himself is displayed on his own screen. Here's my King in all his glory.

Here's one of my Dukes and a menu showing some of the missions he can undertake. Essentially, he can be used to usurp control of neutral or opposing settlements to convert them to your side, to incite rebellions or to maintain control on behalf of the King. Depending on the activities of opposing nations, these missions will not always be successful.

Agents are a type of Character, but their missions are more, ahem, sinister. Agents can be sent to spy on enemies, assassinate other Characters or even steal gold from enemy storehouses. As with the Characters, their missions are not guaranteed to succeed. In fact, the chances of success depend to a large degree on how experienced the Agent is. Consider it this way - Agents can die on missions, but if they succeed, they become more experienced and more deadly. Top level spies can become your ultimate weapons.

And here is the town that was my Capital - seen as it was at the very start of the game. As you can see, there are a number of buildings, a defensive wall and some Characters inside the wall. Outside are my Legions of troops.

Right-clicking on each of these elements brings up a menu. Clicking on a building allows you to construct city improvements including such structures as Temples, Storehouses, Mills, Watch Towers and Fortresses. Each type of building costs a certain amount of Gold to build. Clicking on a character allows you to send them on missions and a similar thing applies to your Legions.

Here's one of my faithful Legions with another menu. As with Characters and Agents, Legions can be sent on various missions, ranging from scouting missions to outright assaults on enemy settlements. Alternately, they can hold fast and be directed to defend against enemy Legions known to be in the area. When a battle is called for, contextual menus allow you to select the strategy adopted by your troops - e.g., a direct assault, probe or a flank attack.

And here are the results of my first move. I elected to send an Ambassador to the nearest neutral town to convert the population to my will, a Duke to another and to dispatch two of my finest Legions to conquer something nice and shiny. Oh if only it were that easy...

A number of screens allow you to see summaries of the present position, reports of the last move, and details of how to win the game.

Firstly, here are the victory conditions that I had to meet in order to win.

Here is "The Plan" - a summary of orders I had given in one move. Players begin with only 13 orders available per turn. This increases to a maximum of 25 as certain landmarks are passed (eg: once I gained control of my immediate region, the number of available orders increased to 15).

If and when battles occur, detailed reports are available for each one. These are fun to read and also provide an indication of whether your Legions are advancing in skills and power or becoming less powerful.

The Graphics are of course entirely static in appearance, and 2D. But they are always pleasing to the eye and nice and colourful to boot. Flicking around the various screens is simplicity itself and there's never any danger of not knowing what's going on.

There is no sound at all in this game. Not a bit of it. Which is fine, because it means you can sit back and listen to your favourite piece of world-domination music whilst you plot and scheme your way to victory. I like Wagner.

Although relatively basic in appearance, this is a solid and thought-provoking game that functions well. The colourful graphics are eye-catching and the intrigue of playing against other humans means that there is no dodgy (or easy!) AI to contend with, plus of course it adds a lot of excitement to the game. I was fortunate enough to hook up with a friendly player in my game who occasionally offered me guidance on how best to play - however don't expect to jump into your first game and expect to win. Already there are seasoned players out there who take matters very seriously. The one problem I found was that it's not always clear who is who or where they are. Intelligence can be acquired through the use of characters to discover a King's standing, but more than once I was talking peaceably to a neighbour only to find that I had just dispatched a Legion to burn one of his cities down. On the other hand, I set out with the intention to betray everyone anyway, so I guess there's nothing lost....