Customer Reviews

Praetorians

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Now THIS is value for money! I've had the game for six+ months, and I still have nothing to fault it on. Smooth graphics, minute system requirements, small and hassle-free installation, endless challenge, good graphics, good learning curve, nothing else out there quite like it, no bugs whatsoever. Even the manual is good. so is the strategy guide!

As you can see I am really impressed. People do however, make one mistake when they review (or buy, for that matter) this game. Praetorians IS NOT Age of..., or Empire..., or Warcraft or Total War at all. Don't compare, because there are no similarities as far as gameplay is concerned. This game is as unique as Commandos was when it was first released. And even though I didn't enjoy Commandos that much, it broke still the mold, and it was still a game of utmost quality. My advice is to see if you can get a demo to see if you like the gameplay, as no-one can decide that but yourself. I certainly love it. You can be sure that you will be getting a quality game, an original concept, excellently executed. Hats off to Pyro Studios!

To start with, i've got to say that Praetorians isn't a ground breaking RTS. But that isn't necessarily a bad thing: it is a very polished and fun game. The graphics are excelent; though not the bleeding edge of technology (e.g. C&C Generals), they are very pleasing to the eye and keep the whole experience alive. The detail and animation is very pleasant, with birds flying up as your troops make their way through lush forests and fields in Gaul, and the splendid deserts of Egypt with the huge Sphinx and pyramids.

What I thought was great were the formations, variety of units and use of terrain. Your legions can (of course...) gather into turtle formation for minimal casualties, your archers can kneel to more effectivly shoot down the enemy. The terrain will constantly affect your strategy and tactics. You can have your soldiers hide in tall grass (though you must be careful for enemy archers setting your hiding place alight) or await the unsuspecting enemy in forests. Cavalry cannot enter dense forests, while the heavily armoured legions cannot cross rivers. At the beginning of the game it is essential to gain control of the high ground because if you don't it can be hell to retake.

The game has left out resource management which might be an annoyance for some but i think it works well; after all you are a general. To recruit new troops you must capture settlements and create formations (as opposed to individual soldiers) from the villages' populations. When these formations' numbers get reduced in battle you can weld smaller units back into powerful single formations, or alternativly split up you mega units into smaller ones for tactical purposes.
Your troops suffer fatigue over the course of their activities, but it is true that the addition of morale would have been very nice to see, considering this is a game that leaves out resource management for more concentration on strategy.

One part of the game that is worth a mention are the sieges, which are very satisfying to watch, with huge lumbering siege weapons and the defender's troops able to stand on the walls of the fortress to fight the assaulters.
From what I have seen multiplayer is fun; although i've only played two or three times over LAN, I thought the settlment mechanism for reenforcments worked well, because it force you to move on to other towns.

In conclusion, i consider Praetorians to be a very fun game, definitly a winner on the RTS front, with some minor errors and lack of anything outstandingly new that kept me from giving it 5 stars.

RTS games have been produced for many a year now, and are starting to become repetetive. Praetorians however is very unlike the others in this field. games such as Total War are great, but i love being able to recrute men in a battle, from villagers around. It is also far easier to lay traps, for example, hiding many units of archers in woods, or long grass, to flay passing troops with arrows. The range of troops in the game is amazing, ranging from Roman Gladiators (my fav) to Egyptian Slaves.

The different playable races, Egyptians, Romans and Barbarians all have unique units and therefore tactics. barbarians work particularly well by having a line of pikemen and then charge the enemy who attack them with German cavalry. This may still work with Romans and Egyptians, but the guardsmen/spearmen arent as tough, so are likely to suffer greatly.

The graphics, although not brilliant, are good and emphasise the chaos of ancient battles. the vast gameplay, with tricky missions, means it is very enjoyable.

I reccomend this game to any RTS fan.

This is an excellent game! If you just want to get down and fight and not have to worry about your mines, farms, town halls, holy relics and all that other nonsense, then this is the game for you! AoE, Red Sun, Earth:2120 etc are OK if you want to BUILD an empire, but if you want to FIGHT for your empire they are far too slow and boring (in my opinion, anyway!) and, to be quite frank, just no fun! If you want to spend the first 20 minutes of a game building farms and houses and windmills and barracks I can only assume you were denied Lego or a sandpit as a child!

In Praetorians the only building you need to create is a garrison (to take over a village). You put a centurion in the village and, bingo, he produces all the troops you need!

You get archers, infantry and cavalry (of varying types) from three civilisations - Roman, Barbarian or Egyptian - each with their own pros and cons. After just a few games you start to pick up a feel for the strategies required to win (archers work best from high ground, you can hide in forests and long grass to ambush people, cavalry don't like spears, etc) and after only 3 online battles with a friend we're starting to draw games out to an hour and a quarter!

Let me be frank - if you love AoE et al you probably won't like this game. If, however, AoE bores you to tears and you just wanna get to the action, Praetorians will do you proud!

I bought this game thinking it would be a war-game - more along the lines of "Total War" and "Close Combat" than "Command & Conquer". How disappointed I was! Undoubtedly the graphics are superb (think "Warrior Kings" but better) and the game-play straightforward and intuitive. However, in my view it is overly simplistic and is therefore lacking in any realism at all. The troops happily obey all orders and fight to the death regardless. They hold formation at all times suffering only minimal fatigue. The landscapes, whilst well drawn, do not allow you to play set-piece battles and I found frustrating as they are not actually that clear as to terrain type.
If you liked "Warrior Kings" and "Command & Conquer" then I'm sure you will enjoy this (although if the economy management element was important to you this will again disappoint due to it's simplicity) but if you believed the blurb about it being an epic strategic troop-based wargame - forget it; it's not for you.

Praetorians is a great game, if your a fan of RTS games, it has a long campaign that is genuinely intereting and suitably varied with missions taking place in Gaul, Britain, Spain, Italy and Egypt.

The three different sides are unique and very balanced leading for some great tactics and stratedgy for battles that will occur both in single player and multiplayer.

There are some fantastic siege missions but its a shame there are no siege maps for Multiplayer, only one campaign although great, i feel this is an ommision.

However I feel it is misleading to call the game epic, as in multiplayer you can only have 500 troops buit this adds more strategy to the game. In single player you occasionally have more than this.

Resource management is toend down alot making the game unique and refreshing, all you have ot worry about is villages and population within these villages, each unit you recruit takes some of the population out back it regenerates after a little while.

Praetorians is a fine game, easy to get to grips with, very well polished features some excellent graphics and fitting music, altogether making a very good game, i recommend it to anyone who has an interest in the Roman period and likes RTS games, i would give this game 3.5 stars but theres no option =/

Praetorians is meant to be played against human intelligence. There's simply no AI yet devised that replaces the cunning and sneakiness of a good human player. Though I've won and lost many a game over the past year and a half, I still look forward to sneaking around the hills, fields, and trees trying to outwit the enemy. It's more than just shoving troops onto the battlefield and hoping you have more hit points than the other guy. You must plan for attacks, know how to defend yourself using the terrain, and how to use that terrain to pursue and squash the enemy. Forests and hilltops provide cover, towers house certain troops, and scout units sniff out the bad guy. There are only three civilisations to choose from: Romans, Egyptians, and Barbarians. Each has their advantages, and it takes a bit of practice to decide which works best for the individual player. Use the right kinds of troops in the right places, use your slyest tactics, and you'll soon have the axis of evil on the run.

The AI is fairly predictable, one of the reasons I'm only giving four out of five stars. The AI constantly looks for weakness and exploits it, so it's easy to predict where it will strike next. It's still rough from time to time, especially if you've just lost some troops in a previous battle and haven't had time to regroup. Just like real life. The campaigns are pretty entertaining, but those can become predictable once you get used to how the AI "thinks."

No, there's no economy to worry about. That's fine for Praetorians since there plenty of other topnotch titles out there when you're in the mood to play that kind of game. Anyone who enjoys a spirited battle and good graphics will have fun with this game. But you'll have more fun with it playing against those sneaky humans, it's just a matter of who has the winning strategy.

When I bought this game I was hoping for a tactical battle game...wrong! The designers have gone for fancy graphics of wind blowing grass effects and such like instead of focusing on tactical play. Although the game claims to reduce resource gathering you still find yourself acting as a mini factory manager trying to 'out recruit' your opponent at the captured villages. Meanwhile your thickheaded troops go running off after enemy units or just sit there and get picked off by enemy archers. All tactical play evaporates as you get bogged down in micro battle fighting. Everything descends quickly into yet another free for all. I had hoped to play out the battle as the 'General' but instead find myself having to babysit every cohort. The viewing angle is also limitted. You cannot rotate the screen and there is no zoom out to field level control.

I've played a lot of strategy and simulation games and this is one of my favourites. It has an incredible amount of detail, not just in the people but also the landscapes. At first I thought it was going to be too difficult but I soon got used to it and really got into it. There are lots of units and seige equipment. It has realistic fortresses and the walls cannot be destroyed, like in the other games I have played. I really like it when I'm hiding on the hill and I cannot be seen by the enemy. You can also plot ambushes in the long grass and in the forest. I also like the game because you can use animals, like the hawk and the wolf, to explore the terrain.

Having bought Praetorians at the same time as Total War I had expected a similarly chanllenging game to wile away the weekend. Unfortunately I was disappointed. In comparison to Total war, Praetorians is kindegarten material. The graphics aren't that great and the game play is overly simplistic. I was, frankly, bored after the first tutorial and only continued because I thought it might get a bit more complex and interesting. But alas no.

If you're interested in a simple war game with little else then I imagine this game would be of interest. If you're looking for another Total War don't bother unless you are having difficulty sleeping.