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Rome: Total War

A

Archer7

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 16, 2010
1
0
I'm wondering if I should buy Rome: Total War. I watched videos of it and looks pretty fun and I am into War Strategy Games but Macs do not have a lot of strategy games and this is one of the few I know. I have a few questions about it. Is there multiplayer for Mac and if there is, is it just Mac users or is it also Windows users? What are the Mac system requirements? I'm not sure if my Mac can run the game properly. So I'll just post what I see on "About my Mac."

I'm currently using a Macbook.
Version 10.5.8
2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2 GB 1067 MHz DDR3

Is this good enough to run the game?
 
Yes

1. RTW is a great game, I've enjoyed it tremendously.

2. It's a blend of turn based strategy (build city improvements and move armies) on a strategy map and a real-time tactical battle map, which the game switches to when one of your armies fights an opponent.

3. The real time battles are a blast. I've never really enjoyed the RTS like C&C, Ages of Empires, etc. RTW battles seem much more "realistic", and it's easier to form lines and manage the battles at a higher level than optimizing 40 separate units.

4. Your setup should work great. I ran RTW on a then-new 17" iMac, one of the first Intels, several years ago.
 
Multiplayer is Mac only through the GameRanger service. I say Mac only, because Ian with Feral mentioned an incompatability with the game's math libraries to handle cross-platform multiplayer.

The FeralInteractive.com website has the system requirements for all of their ports.
 
Just to confirm Mac <-> PC is not possible due to Mac and Windows using different maths libraries. This means that the Mac and PC version cannot play against each other as the small differences will cause the games to go out of sync.

Apart from that the game runs great on any Intel Mac and the next patch for the game will add in PPC support.

Edwin
 
RTW is awesome!!

I have played many many different strategy games, and yet I will always come back to this one.

The only other game I would play again is Star Wars Rebellion, if only it was out on Mac (hint hint hint).

Do it mate, its worth it!
 
Abadon42 said:
The only other game I would play again is Star Wars Rebellion, if only it was out on Mac (hint hint hint).
Click to expand...

*Scribbles down Star Wars Rebellion on user requests whiteboard & cackles evilly*

(Although as it is quite old 1998 & polarised opinion if it is a good or bad game, i sense the force is not strong with this one)
 
Well, if you decide to port SWR, I will come in on the weekends and help out, and make the coffee!

Office poll for SWR, 1 yes, 1 no, the rest = huh?

infidels!
 
i've played it for years, very good game. for better graphics and more realism check out medieval total war 2, empire total war and napoleon total war
 
IanAtFeral said:
At the moment we have no plans to put our games on Steam, however we will be bringing them to a variety of download services in the near future. :)

– Ian
Click to expand...

Thanks Ian and I was wondering if you could answer some additional questions :).

When Steam was announced, many of us Mac gamers were looking at it as being the holy grail of gaming that was going to close the large gap between PCs and Macs when it came to gaming. I myself thought that at least many of the existing Mac games would make it to Steam which has certainly not been the case. Without going into details, is it for business reasons or technical reasons that you currently have no plans to put your games on Steam ? Also, is it likely that any of your future games will be put on Steam ?
 
Plutonius said:
Thanks Ian and I was wondering if you could answer some additional questions :).
Click to expand...

Yes but there will be a charge of $5 per word. Don't worry though, we've already taken the funds from your account. You're welcome!

Without going into details, is it for business reasons or technical reasons that you currently have no plans to put your games on Steam ?
Click to expand...

It's for business reasons… Steam's business model works for some developers/publishers, but as it is today, it isn't right for us.

Also, is it likely that any of your future games will be put on Steam ?
Click to expand...

If Steam were to change their model we'd definitely reconsider the options, but for now our games won't be appearing on Steam.

I can't go into any more detail though, as the negotiations and business terms involved have to stay private, for obvious reasons! I hope that answers your questions though. We're really looking forward to being able to do game downloads, we just need to make sure they're totally perfect!

($465)

– Ian :)
 
@Ian

As Larry Ellison once said: Don't put bits into boxes.

Any chance of Feral joining the new millennium, and start providing digital downloads of games? :)

I, for one, would probably buy more Feral games, if I could get them instantly and not a week from now. I believe most of your competitors provide digital downloads, and that's a form of instant gratification that a visit from a mailman in a fortnight cannot provide :(

Steam or no steam, a digital download option would be great.
 
racketeer71 said:
@Ian
Any chance of Feral joining the new millennium, and start providing digital downloads of games? :)
Click to expand...

i dont know how big of a buisness/company feral is but if its smaller to mid range it just wouldnt make much sense to go that route. you have to consider that also, they make games for mac, which doesnt have as big a demand compared to pc and console markets

steam charges a fee/ take a cut from sales. throw that in with time spent on development and the necessity to meet the bottom line, feral would probably not make any real money.
 
ZazenZach said:
i dont know how big of a buisness/company feral is but if its smaller to mid range it just wouldnt make much sense to go that route. you have to consider that also, they make games for mac, which doesnt have as big a demand compared to pc and console markets

steam charges a fee/ take a cut from sales. throw that in with time spent on development and the necessity to meet the bottom line, feral would probably not make any real money.
Click to expand...

Ian mentioned earlier that they are going to have digital downloads soon but not on Steam.

I agree with your analysis 100% and think that Mac on Steam will eventually be considered a failure. It's great that Valve ported Mac versions of their games to Steam but I doubt we will see more then puzzle OSX games or small independent OSX games on Steam in the future. Steam really needs to charge cost or take a small lose in order to build a portfolio of "A" rated OSX games on the Steam services. Without that portfolio, developers will most likely just continue to make PC versions for Steam.
 
racketeer71 said:
Any chance of Feral joining the new millennium, and start providing digital downloads of games? :)
Click to expand...

Yep, just to reiterate what I said earlier in the thread, we are working on game downloads and we hope to have them available soon. We're just being careful to make sure we get them right the first time around. :)

– Ian
 
IanAtFeral said:
Yep, just to reiterate what I said earlier in the thread, we are working on game downloads and we hope to have them available soon. We're just being careful to make sure we get them right the first time around. :)

– Ian
Click to expand...

Speaking as a customer with lots of Feral titles please make sure with the digital releases we still get to own our games - not rent them with limited installs or installs that only work on one Mac. I still play many titles that I purchased a couple of machines ago. One thing you have traditionally been good with is patching older titles to keep them working. This is particularly important for the Mac market as we don't have such a vast catalogue to choose from and it is important to keep all kinds of genres supported if the platform is to grow as we all hope.

Secondly I don't know how practical it would be but a solution to convert a CD/DVD version of the game to one that doesn't need the disc in the drive would be very useful. Although I prefer a simple disc check to some of the more customer unfriendly DRM schemes out there (less likely to screw up your Mac) I do find since Steam launched and with some of my other titles that run without a disc that I am more likely to just start them up and play for a while if I don't have to first find the correct disc in the huge pile of DVD cases I now have.
 
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