Rome: Total War (Video Game)

"What awaits us?"

"The man who controls Rome rules the world. And one day, I will be Emperor.

— Julii Intro

Rome: Total War is the third game in the Total War franchise of strategy games, released in 2004. Starting around the time of the First Punic War, the game allows the player to take control of one of several factions vying for supremacy in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. As the title suggests, Rome is one of the big players here (initially as The Roman Republic and later The Roman Empire), and is in fact divided up between three families, the Julii, Scipii, and Brutii, as well as the Senate. If the player controls a Roman faction, their goal is not merely to forge an empire for themself, but, when the time comes, to take on the other Roman factions in a brutal civil war with the ultimate goal to be declared Emperor.

As with the other games in the Total War series, Rome is a mixture of Real-Time Strategy and Turn-Based Strategy. This entry introduces several changes compared to the previous games, however. For one, the units on the battle field are now depicted in full 3d, rather than the sprites used in Shogun: Total War and Medieval: Total War. The campaign map has been changed from Risk-style movement of troops between provinces to a more detailed turn-based game that allows precise positioning of armies. When two enemy armies meet, they fight a battle in real-time, with the landscape reflecting that of the campaign map.

Two expansion packs were released:

Barbarian Invasion depicts the situation in the late 4th century AD: The Roman Empire has split into two halves. The Western Roman Empire is in a dire state, while the Eastern Roman Empire is thriving. Countless Barbarian tribes are trying to settle the lands of the dying realm, while themselves trying to avoid being swallowed up by the rapidly expanding kingdom of the Huns. It is up to the player to take control of a Barbarian tribe and carve out a kingdom of his own, or to take control of one of the halves of the old Roman Empire and try to forge a new Pax Romana.
Alexander, the second expansion, sees the player recreate the campaigns of Alexander the Great. With the help of BRIAN BLESSED.

In 2021, the Creative Assembly announced a remastered version of the game and its DLCs, called Total War Rome: Remastered, a comprehensive re-release of the game, including hundreds of changes such as new building and unit models, 4K resolution, enhanced environment textures, modern graphical effects and lighting systems, unlocking 16 previously unplayable factions^note across the base game and expansions, new tactical systems for both the strategic map and battle map, a massive rebalance of the entire tactics side of the game, cross-platform multiplayer and the addition of the Merchant agent type from Medieval II. Also, certain modding restrictions from the original game were removed.

This game provides examples of:

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#-C

Abnormal Ammo: The Britons can recruit Head Hurlers as a missile unit. They hurl the severed heads of fallen enemies as a form of attack. The heads themselves aren't particularly damaging and have a very short range, but they cause a massive drop in the target's morale.
Absolute Xenophobe: This, and its inversion, "Xenophile", are possible personality traits for family members and generals. "Xenophobe" makes it easier for governors to root out spies and hatred of specific foreigners (ex. "Hates Carthaginians") will increase a general's command rating when fighting that type of enemy. Xenophile gives bonuses to foreign trade as governor, but puts the character at greater risk of assassination and makes a city he governs an easier target for spies.
Achievement Mockery:
- The Remastered edition grants the player an achievement for losing the Alexander campaign by having its eponymous hero die in battle. There is also one for losing the campaign by having Alexander die of the plague.
- Players also get an achievement for going bankrupt in any of the campaigns in the Remastered edition.
Action Girl:
- Scythia can recruit two loosely historical units of female cavalry - axe armed Head-Hunting Maidens and Horse Archer Noble Women. They are mid-tier light cavalry and high-tier ranged cavalry, respectively.
- Germania can recruit "Screeching Women" units. In battle, they are little better than Peasants, but their main use is to stay behind the lines to damage enemy morale with their shrieking. As far fetched as it may sound, there is historical evidence of Germanic women accompanying the men to battle, though they'd boost the morale of their own men instead.
- The Barbarian Invasion expansion pack adds a few more female units, such as the Virgin Foot Archers, Virgin Horse Archers, and Virgin Cavalry for the Sarmatian faction and another unplayable faction - the Roxolani - that also uses its unit roster. These are respectively an excellent, long-ranged archer unit, a unit of standard horse archers, and a unit of standard light cavalry.
- The Alexander expansion has India as a faction, though it is only playable in multiplayer and does not appear on the campaign map. This faction possesses a unit called Indian Female Archers, which have identical stats to its low-tier archer unit, the Indian Levy Archers.
Acrofatic: Generals can have traits implying that they are extremely fat and lazy, yet still be some of the toughest units on the battlefield and just as mobile as any other unit of the same type.
Aerith and Bob: Mostly averted within factions, where the characters typically have names from the Real Life culture that faction is based one. However, an odd example occurs in instances when a General from faction is bribed into joining one of a different culture. For example, say one of the Roman factions bribes a barbarian faction General. He'll join that Roman faction as a family member and can possibly even get married. If that marriage produces a child, the child will strangely have a very Roman name, complete with surname. This leads to situations where a General with a name like Wotecorix has a child with a name like Lucius Pontius.
Afraid of Blood: "Hemophobic" is a possible trait for generals. Having it decreases his command rating as well as troop morale. The inversion, Bloodthirsty, gives a bonus to command rating and troop morale at lower levels, but then a severe penalty to morale at higher levels.
A.I. Breaker:
- When defending a city, enemy troops will tend to congregate in the town square, which they're supposed to be defending. They will continue to stand there mindlessly under a hail of missiles from the adjacent streets, so long as none of your troops actually sets foot in the square itself.
- Alternatively, you can run a cavalry unit into the town square, cause the enemy to chase after you, then leave the square. Repeat this until the enemy can barely walk before a full frontal onslaught. This actually works in any offensive battle where you out-power your opponent.
- Before the first patch, a single group of town watch with a level 1 wall could easily beat any size of army that didn't have elephants or onagers. As soon as you get besieged (before they can build battering rams), sally out to meet them. Then, go out the gate opposite the army (you have a gate on each side of the town, N/S/E/W). The army will see that there is an open gate and run around the city, right by the towers. Then, go back inside. As soon as the gate closes and there is no units targetable, the army will stop where they are, regardless of whether or not they are being shot at by the towers. As only siege can target towers, they do not respond. Crank up time and watch their best units die one by one. After 15 minutes or so, the battle will end. Continue until their army is literally dead through stupidity.
- Even though the AI can technically climb onto stone walls from inside the city, it will never do so in practice. Attacking armies will climb walls to capture gates, and defending armies will have units placed on the walls to defend them - but once the AI decides to go down to the street, it won't climb back up. This means that any unit placed on the walls can be practically invulnerable. The simplest abuse is placing ranged units on walls along the path the the enemy army must take to the town square - not only will they get shot by towers along the way, but the ranged unit can expend its entire ammo supply, with a major bonus due to height advantage, secure from the mass of enemy infantry that could easily slaughter the archers if they bothered to climb up. Conversely, if you ever place a single unit on the enemy walls, not near a defending unit already up there, you can easily run along the walls to turn every tower in the city to your side, most of the enemy army getting slaughtered by their own defenses, which they *could* easily turn back to their side if they weren't so reluctant to climb walls.
Aloof Ally: It is difficult to actually get your allies to attack mutual enemies. Even if you get them to agree to attack a certain faction using a Diplomat, they may never actually do so.
Alpha Bitch: While female family members don't actually have traits of their own, their husbands can have traits implying certain things about their wife's personality or behaviors, such as "Cuckold." These typically decrease influence and the chances of having children while increasing unrest. Yes, a governor's wife can be such a pain that it can cause a city to revolt.
Already Done for You: This can happen when finishing off a faction. The Greeks tend to be the worst offender, since their territories are so spread out. You might have wiped them out in Sicily and Greece itself only to have their final city in Asia Minor captured by Pontus or Seleucia, which you may only find out when you get the "Faction Eliminated" message. This is especially annoying if you are attempting to eliminate them in order to unlock them as playable, since you can only unlock them if you are the one to actually deliver the killing blow.
Alternate History:
- It is a Total War game, so this is not only a possible result of playing, but highly likely. Want to overthrow Rome and establish an empire of Carthage or Greece instead? You can do it. Want to sweep in from the east and turn Parthia into the Mongols or Timurids 1000 years early? Go for it. You can even take some of the historically insignificant factions like Numidia or Pontus and turn them into world-conquering empires.
- Barbarian Invasion further allows you to reestablish the Roman Empire as either the east or the west, averting the course of history in either case.
- In the interests of fairness, Alexander gives you 50 years to win the game, meaning that Alexander will ultimately die at the age of 70, though the narration still acknowledges his historical death at 32.
Amazon Brigade:
- There are two kinda-sorta-historical all-female units of Scythian cavalry, Head-Hunting Maidens and Noble Archer Women.
- There are actual Amazons located in a city called Themiskyra, in the far north of the map. They are chariot archers but cannot be recruited and they are Rebels, so they are automatically hostile. Interestingly, the architecture of Themiskyra is Greek as opposed to barbaric like the surrounding settlements. Amazons Chariots can also spawn amongst random units if a city revolts.
Ambiguously Gay: A possible trait for Generals, which hurts popularity and fertility.
Anachronism Stew:
- Compared to other games in the series, Rome caused an outcry among history buffs in its fandom. Most egregious were the Egyptians, who looked like New Kingdom Egypt, i.e. over a millennium before the game was set. The developers acknowledged that the faction's appearance and unit selection were anachronistic but said it was a deliberate choice to avoid them being too similar to other factions. A number of mods have since come out to make the game much more accurate, the most notable being Europa Barbarorum.
- The Roman Arcani unit is based on a historically-attested force of Roman agents that operated in Britain in the 4th century CE, about 600 years after the starting date of the ingame Imperial Campaign.
- The highest tier government building - needed to bring cities to the Huge City level of development - for the Roman factions is known as the Imperial Palace. It is known by this name even before the civil war occurs and when Rome is still a republic, with the Senate as its most authoritative governing body.
- Numidia is considered a historically inaccurate faction as the earliest records of their existence only date back to 202 BC while the game's campaign begins in 270 BC, where they are already shown ruling several territories. Although a redeeming detail that they have is the Numidian Legionary which represents the corrupt Roman officers who were bribed by Jugurtha.
- In the Alexander campaign, Alexander is shown with a long-sleeved jacket that wouldn't be out of place in the Napoleonic era. It might be an attempt to show Linothorax linen armor, but it does not resemble historical depictions of Alexander's armor in the slightest.
Ancient Rome: The campaign begins around the time of the first Punic War, during the rule of the Roman Republic.
Annoying Arrows: Played with in different ways.
- Arrows, and projectiles in general including javelins and slings, avert it for the most part. Projectiles can really decimate opposing forces of all kinds, especially early in the campaign when few factions have access to heavily armored units. It's not uncommon for the majority of casualties in early game, light infantry heavy battles to come at the hands of projectile units.
- Downplayed late in the campaign, when heavy infantry with quality armor usually rules the day. Firing from the front, where units are better protected by their shields, results mostly in Scratch Damage. The best example comes from post-Marian Reform Roman legionaries. Using the testudo formation, they can march through hails of arrows unimpeded, though this is Truth in Television and thus justified. (Though even out of that formation, Roman legions tend to be tough to take down with missiles from the front.) Changing your angle, such as firing from behind or the side where heavy infantry's shields cannot protect them, still tends to be more effective than most examples of the trope.
- Subtly played straight when it comes to casualties recovering after battles. Soldiers felled by projectile fire have a much better chance of recovering after the battle than do those felled in melee combat or trampled by cavalry, which has elements of Truth in Television to it.
Another Side, Another Story: Only the three Roman factions are playable right from the start. Any factions you defeat (as in one of your armies personally captures that faction's last remaining city, eliminating that faction from the current game) become unlocked after the current play through is completed successfully in Defeat Means Playable fashion.
Anti-Cavalry:
- Rome: Most mid to high-tier spear infantry get bonuses against cavalry. Even those that don't get the explicit bonus still tend to hold up really well in protracted melee combat against cavalry units. Just like in real life at the time, cavalry units are expected to utilize the "cavalry cycle", charging in and out repeatedly to hammer the opponent. This is justified, as infantry were the dominant feature in the Roman world (the lack of stirrups limited cavalry effectiveness), particularly heavy infantry. The exception is the cataphract, which can give anything short of a front-facing phalanx a serious beating.
- Barbarian Invasion: The expansion pack is worth mentioning separately because cavalry are far more effective in this version, as the quality of the Roman legions decline, phalanxes become extinct, and the heavy cavalry of all factions get better. Spearmen once again become the real answer to cavalry; just throwing non-spear heavy infantry at the cavalrymen no longer guarantees a good result.
Anti-Frustration Features:
- Managing a huge empire of tens to hundreds of cities can be a tedious task, so players can choose to delegate this to the ingame AI. This means that construction, recruitment, public order, etc in each city can be auto-managed, and the player can concentrate mainly on military strategy and fighting battles. Whether the AI makes intelligent decisions is quite another matter...
- No matter how many movement points they start out with, armies can only retreat from an attack once on the campaign map. All their movement points are drained and they are forced to stand and fight if attacked again. This prevents an annoying game of cat-and-mouse when trying to bring enemy forces to battle. Naturally, it also applies to the player's own armies.
- The Remastered edition adds another feature to assist players with managing large empires: a message called the "Idle Resources Report" that will pop up to remind the player of any armies, navies, characters or settlements that have not seen any activity for 3 turns.
- The Remastered edition adds more information to help players make decisions during diplomatic negotiations. For example, the wealth and relative strength of the opposing faction is shown, and when the player is working on the specifics of a deal the game will indicate whether this deal is "Very Generous", "Generous", "Balanced", "Demanding" or "Very Demanding". Any deal up to "Balanced" is much likelier to be accepted by the AI faction, while any deal from "Demanding" onwards is likely to be outright rejected or countered with a much different offer.
- The Remastered edition also adds Merchants, which were first a feature in Medieval II. As with the management of multiple cities, the management of multiple merchants can be very tedious, so there is an option to allow the game to manage them for you.
Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Averted in the campaign, as you can create as many units as you want, provided you can maintain their upkeep. Played straight in battle however, as you are limited to twenty units per army stack (about 4800 soldiers maximum if playing with the max unit size on the original game; 6000 men if playing on the max unit size in the Remastered edition). This is significantly smaller than most Roman-era armies would be, as their units were measured in the tens of thousands counting professional soldiers, auxiliaries, and support troops.
Armor Is Useless: Averted significantly. Heavily armored heavy infantry (and heavy cavalry in a few cases) are high-tiered units who are typically the very best in a faction's unit roster. They can stand up in melee combat far longer, shrug off missile fire, and stand up to cavalry charges far better than their light infantry counterparts. Indeed, this is Truth in Television for the era, as heavy infantry (initially hoplites and later legionaries) ruled the day.
Armor-Piercing Attack: Exists for a select few missile units, who are incredibly valuable as a result. Non-AP missile attacks against heavily armored soldiers (such as post-Marian Reform Roman Legionaries) are basically shrugged off as Scratch Damage at best. (Though changing your angle, like attacking from behind, can lead to a increase in effectiveness.) Units who wield axes also typically get an advantage over armored opponents, but in a trade-off, are less effective against cavalry.
Arrows on Fire: You can order your archers to set their projectiles alight, but doing so makes them burn through their ammo supply twice as fast, and the arrows take longer to reload, are much less accurate, and don't do as much direct damage. However, they are quite effective as breaking enemy morale, setting fire to siege equipment and buildings, and can panic elephants and chariots. You can also order your catapults and ballistae to fire flaming rounds. Pairing with Fire Keeps It Dead, casualties from standard projectiles are more likely to recover after battle while those felled by flaming projectiles are more likely to stay dead.
Artificial Brilliance:
- Despite the AI's many flaws (see below), they can show flashes of brilliance when it comes to moving their armies. They'll end turns with an army on one of your watchtowers, denying you the LOS bonus. They'll fill mountain passes with armies and even build forts, forcing you to take them on or go around. They'll hide invasion forces just beyond the fog of war and then rush you on their next turn. They'll go around your main army to attack weaker reinforcements or lay siege to the lightly defended city your army just left. They also show an understanding of the importance of chokepoints to defence, and will position armies on bridges or in mountain passes to block the player's path to objectives. Although they are terrible at assaulting armies across bridges (see below), they do reasonably well when on the defender's side in bridge battles.
- Remastered greatly enhances both the campaign and battle AI of computer-controlled factions and units, making things much more challenging for veteran players used to the taking advantage of the base game's Artificial Stupidity.
Artificial Stupidity: Something of a recurring bugbear for the series.
- Examples for the campaign map AI:
  - AI factions often behave with Suicidal Overconfidence. Factions with only one or two small villages will attack their much larger and more powerful neighbors for no adequately explained reason. It is also rather poor when it comes to selecting what units to recruit and what structures to build. It gets a little repetitive when every army your enemy churns out contains nothing but the lowest level infantry unit (above Peasants...usually...) and maybe some low-end missile units. It is also prone to Chronic Backstabbing Disorder, sometimes allying with you in one turn and attacking in the very next, again for no apparent logical reason.
  - Aside from its issues with settling on a good army composition, the AI also seems to have problems understanding when units need to be retrained. Resultantly, it is not uncommon to see entire armies that are a mishmash of multiple greatly-depleted mercenary units and faction troops.
  - The campaign map AI is weak at pathfinding, and will often trample all over the player's territory even if it is not hostile to the player. For example, it may decide to send a huge army through a player-controlled province to attack another faction even if there is a shorter and more direct route by sea. If the player does the same thing, it very quickly becomes extremely angry with the player to the extent that this can be a casus belli. AI pathing has been improved in the Remastered edition, so this occurs much less frequently.
- Examples for the battle map AI:
  - Bridges (and other chokepoints) badly confound the AI. They tend to just try to cram their forces across with little rhyme or reason given to organization. A single quality unit defending the bridge can rout entire AI armies, with many of them falling off the bridge and drowning as a result. Even when the battle map spawns with an additional crossing in the form of a river ford, the AI will never utilize it to attempt to flank the player's defending forces and will just cram the bridge with all its units in an effort to break through.
  - AI armies do not seem to take arrows very seriously. Marching your army up to your enemy's so your archers are just in range will allow you to decimate their ranks. The enemy army will simply stand and take it (unless your archers are exposed, in which case they might attempt to charge.) In later versions of the game and in the Remastered edition, this has been addressed and AI armies are more likely to simply withdraw from the battle if they come under prolonged ranged bombardment.
  - The "not taking arrows seriously" is even worse when an AI army is attempting to assault a city. If you destroy a piece of their siege equipment, the unit that was operating it will stand around it (or, at best, regroup behind it) allowing your archers and towers to pick them off. If they're defending against a siege, you can line the adjacent streets with archers and shoot their units defending the town square to pieces. They'll never try to drive the archers away as long as none of your units step into the town square itself.
  - In sieges, AI armies have been known to drop their other battering rams the moment one of them breaches the wall, leading to the computer attempting to send their entire army through that one small gap, even if the player has a wall of spearmen waiting on the other side. Further, if they do get their army through the wall, they tend to blindly rush toward the town square to try and capture it without bothering to reorganize their army. A single unit of halfway decent infantry blocking off one street in between the breach and the town square has been known to rout the entire opposing army. Due to the lack of reorganization, the first enemy units who come into contact with the defending unit may be weak missile troops or light infantry who are quickly routed. Heavier infantry units and cavalry, who may otherwise be able to beat the defending unit, will take a hit to their morale seeing their comrades flee, and will be more prone to routing themselves. Suddenly, an army of thousands may be in a full rout because a single defending unit held one street. The AI army won't attempt to go around on a different street or anything more creative than "throw everything we have directly at that one unit," simply because that unit is blocking the shortest path.
  - It's kind of funny that the in-game tutorials will heavily stress the fact that charging a cavalry unit into an enemy spear unit head-on is a BAD idea. Because it is. Yet at some point, probably sooner rather than later, you're almost guaranteed to witness an AI opponent completely ignoring sensible advice like this, by charging cavalry units into your spearmen. Bonus points if they brainlessly charge cavalry - including their general's unit - into a pike phalanx. It's almost insulting how ignorant the game itself is towards its own Rock-Paper-Scissors elements. Mounted units versus a wall of spearmen? Forget it, chaaarge! The AI in the Remastered edition is considerably improved as compared to the original release, but it still has a tendency to do this.
  - The plethora of artificial stupidity in this game (and in the series in general) not only applies to an AI-controlled army, but to your own units' AI, when they have to maneuver around some unconventional terrain. The worst side of this usually occurs during sieges. Properly getting units to climb a wall sometimes ends up being a nightmare, even worse is trying to get them back down. The main problem is usually that a unit isn't going to get into a formation properly until ALL members of the unit have caught up. If you move a unit towards the city center but a few guys in the unit are somehow way behind and still running to catch up with the rest, it can take forever. Exaggerated when it's a phalanx unit; "sir, we can't move into phalanx mode, one of our guys isn't nearby!" Facepalming ensues.
Artistic License – History:
- The Roman Republic was not made up of three major families and a Senate faction, all of which had their own generals and armies. Nor did the Roman Senate allocate executive posts according to the influence held by each family on this legislative body. The actual Roman Republican political system is much too complicated to be explained in detail here, but essentially the unelected Senate governed alongside magistrates elected by Assemblies of Roman citizens. The chief magistrate was known as the Consul and two were elected per year; other magisterial offices like praetors and quaestors were also elected. The Senate and magistrates were meant to check each others' power, and the system began to fall apart when capable and ambitious men like Sulla, Crassus, Caesar, Antony and Octavian began to leverage upon their victories over Rome's enemies and the loyalty of their soldiers to increase their personal power. They also did this (or at least, claimed to do this) to protect themselves in the complex system of rivalries amongst the Roman upper class. Either way, the political system of the Roman Republic is much simplified in the game to make it more accessible for a wide audience and introduce an easy to code, and easy to grasp, way to force a civil war as a final confrontation.
- Speaking of the Senate, you're free to ignore the missions given by them when playing as one of the playable Roman factions, though you do that too often they will become annoyed with you and eventually even outlaw you. This takes quite a while, and you can even do it if your family member is appointed as Consul, which is the highest office in the in-game Republic. Historically, Consuls had to obey Senate decrees or at least find good excuses for not doing so. Disobedience was grounds for being immediately outlawed and effectively sentenced to death.
- In the earlier years of the Republic, Rome did not have a standing army. This only came to be after the Republic expanded to hold overseas territories, that is, only after the First and Second Punic Wars (the second one ending in 201 BC). Before then, Roman armies were only levied from the citizenry in times of war. This levy is not simulated in game - instead, it takes 1-2 turns to recruit troops and you keep a professional military force around at all times. As a whole, large standing armies were uncommon during this time period, with only vast and wealthy empires like the Seleucid and Ptolemaic Kingdoms being able to maintain significant bodies of professional soldiers during peacetime. Even then, many of their troops in times of war were levies as well.
- After the Marian Reforms, Roman legionaries in the game use the lorica segmentata banded body armour, which is the iconic depiction of how they were armoured in popular culture. However, there is significant historical debate on how widespread the use of this armour really was, with mail (lorica hamata) and scale (lorica squamata) armour likely being much more common instead. Banded armour might have only been restricted to specific battle situations or for parades. In fairness, the game does depict mail-clad legionaries, though it terms them Early Legionary Cohorts, implying an ahistorical trend of Roman soldiers transitioning from mail to banded armour. The imitation legionaries of factions like Numidia and Armenia - meant to represent the historical raising or training of units of soldiers in these territories that fought in the Roman style, often by Roman deserters or prisoners-of-war - also wear the lorica segmentata even though these polities would not have had the capability to forge such armour in reality.
- Speaking of the Marian Reforms, the way they are depicted in game reflects outdated scholarship. The game shows this as a single event with a clear trigger, representing a comprehensive package of reforms by Gaius Marius (who at least was a historical figure) that quickly changed how the Roman army was raised and equipped, and how it fought on the battlefield. This was the prevailing view in academia up to the second half of the 20th century, when it began to be challenged. Today, historians attribute the changes to the Roman army as a much more gradual process moulded by events like the Social War (91 - 87 BCE) and the various civil wars of the 1st century BCE. Naturally, this evolution is much more difficult to depict in a video game, so the developers may well have been aware of the academic debate and chose to represent it inaccurately anyway. Mods with a greater focus on historical accuracy - such as the aforementioned Europa Barbarorum - depict the evolution of the Roman military through a series of reforms that may even be conditional on named characters gaining certain traits, which is truer to history.
- For the Roman factions, the highest level of government building is known as the Imperial Palace. You can build these even before the Roman Civil War begins, when the Senate is the highest governing body and when you and your fellow Romans are all hence still living under a Republican system of government. In fact, Rome - owned ingame by the Senate faction until the civil war starts and you have to wipe them out - is usually the first city where this is built, so the Senate of the Roman Republic can go about its business in a quite incongrously-named office for a while.
- In Barbarian Invasion, the Western and Eastern Roman Empires operate as two distinct factions. Although they do start off as allies, they are governed by completely different families, each with its own line of succession, and even have unit rosters that differ significantly. This is not a totally inaccurate representation of history, but it is an over-simplification. In reality, although the two halves often operated as de facto separate empires, the Roman Empire was still regarded as one entity by people of the time, with the division between West and East being seen as an administrative necessity. Western and Eastern emperors could and did still cooperate on vital matters, including on succession issues in each half, and war was generally waged not between the western and eastern half of the empire per se, but against various usurpers or rebels to the respective thrones. Emperors of this period were also often weak and controlled by military strongmen, further muddying the situation. For the purpose of simplifying gameplay, the game presents the simplest representation of the historical situation, which is both empires being de facto separate entities with entirely separate imperial courts, bureaucracies, unit rosters, foreign policy etc.
- The game simplifies the nature of political control in antiquity. Barbarian factions like "Gaul", "Britannia" and "Germania" did not exist historically, with these areas instead being comprised of many different tribes. Only on occasion did these tribes come together in confederations, but these were relatively loose unlike the coherent kingdoms they are in game. Meanwhile, large empires like the Ptolemaic and Seleucid Empires also did not exercise tight control over all their territories due to the difficulty of overseeing every detail of administration across vast areas in a time before advanced technology allowed quick and easy communication over long distances. Local leaders had significant leeway in making decisions, including when under enemy attack: often, rather than fight a costly siege and risk a devastating sack, they chose to open their gates to victorious invaders instead, particularly if these invaders inspired awe with their victories or showed themselves to be graceful in victory. This explains why Alexander the Great, for instance, only fought a handful of pitched battles (the three largest and most prominent being the Battles of the Granicus, Issus, and Gaugamela) and several more sieges during his historical conquest of the enormous Persian Empire. ^note That certainly cannot be replicated in the Alexander campaign! There are good reasons why this fact of loose political control is not modelled in the game: not only would it be challenging to implement, it would also likely be underwhelming for the player to only have to fight a few battles to win an empire; furthermore, if the player is on the defensive, they might not get much of a chance to save themselves if multiple cities give up after one enemy victory. This explains why factions have much tighter control over their territory in the game and the conquest of vast territories almost always involves many engagements and sieges.
Ascended Extra:
- A Captain (the default leader of an army when no General is present) who wins an epic battle can be adopted into the ruling family, allowing him to become a General, governor, and possibly even the eventual Faction Leader.
- The Alexander expansion promoted a different version of Macedon to playable, and the Remastered version made all the previously nonplayable factions on the campaign (even emergent ones) playable.
Ascended Meme: When Total War: Rome II was announced, many fans weren't thrilled to find out that Pontus was a playable faction while fan-favorites like the Seleucids were not. The mockery of the backlash, however, gave rise to this image◊ (which Creative Assembly printed out and framed in their office) and the phrase "BU-BUT I DON'T WANT TO PLAY AS PONTUS!" became a meme among the total war community. Come Rome: Total War Remastered, "Bu-But I Do Want To Play As Pontus!" has been added as an achievement earned by winning a short campaign as Pontus.
Assassination Attempt: Assassins can be recruited to eliminate enemy assets.
Assassin Outclassin': Characters who survive assassination attempts may gain traits like Paranoid and Careful which increase their chances of avoiding assassination in the future. The campaign AI seems to struggle with this concept, as they'll frequently send low-level assassin after low-level assassin at your best Generals, essentially making the General harder and harder to kill with every failed attempt.
Atop a Mountain of Corpses: Corpses persist for the duration of battles, which can lead to this, especially in a spot where two lines of evenly matched infantry come together. Units fight over the tops of the corpses with no ill effect, however.
Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!: Units with low morale have a tendency to rout the very moment a stronger enemy unit engages them. This is particularly common with Peasant units and low-end militia units.
Awesome, but Impractical:
- War Elephants. They are an absolute juggernaut of a unit, easily busting up large units of infantry while being extremely difficult to kill, and their presence drains enemy morale quickly. However, they are extremely expensive to train and upkeep, and will devastate your own forces in the event that they run amok. Their greatest weakness is fire, and any enemy army worth their salt will have at least a few units of archers, even the most basic of which can utilize flaming arrows.
- Chariots can chew up infantry like nothing else, weaken the morale of enemies, and are amazing at chasing down routing enemy units. However, they are expensive to train and upkeep, come in woefully small units, and are easily countered by phalanx and missile units. The deadliest variant, scythed chariots, can also be driven amok like elephants and run rampant amongst your own armies. Further, the reason why Chariots perform poorly for their price is, ironically, an inherent flaw of their design: Their melee weapon hitbox is on the spokes of their wheels which means that they have to side-swipe enemy infantry to kill them. But because the forward part of their hurtbox, the horses, is coming into contact with the infantry first, this can cause them to die without even doing any sort of damage.
- Berserkers. They have a massive stamina pool, can take down a row of opponents with a single swing similar to an elephant unit's attack, and are the fastest infantry units in the game while berserking. They wreak havoc on enemy formations and a few units of them can almost single-handedly win a siege. However, they also come with numerous crippling flaws. To build them, your settlement requires a specific temple to be built which is an inferior version to one of your other temples. They count as light infantry, lack armor, and though they have a high "defensive skill" stat, that stat is ignored by missile fire so even low-end archers can turn them into Swiss cheese. Further, they're a high-tier unit in the tech tree, so you likely won't be able to get them until late in the campaign. Meanwhile, most of your opponents will be getting high-end heavy infantry with plenty of armor and high discipline (like legionaries or Spartan hoplites) as equivalent units in the tech tree. Finally, when they go berserk, you can no longer control them.
- Triarii are the highest-tier infantry that the Romans have access to in the Pre-Marian years, and the best non-mercenary option for dealing with cavalry. But they're locked behind a tall infrastructure prerequisite that will take you a long time to complete in the Campaign. And by the time you're able to get access to them, the Marian reforms are probably just around the corner, rendering them obsolete overnight and replacing them with much better legionnaries, capable of both resisting cavalry and actually dealing with enemy infantry.
- Arcani are Roman ninjas who have 2 hitpoints, are fearsome in melee combat, can hide anywhere, and reduce the morale of enemy units through their very presence on the battlefield. However, they have a tiny unit size (64 men on the highest setting in the original game, as compared to 161 for a regular legionary cohort), are expensive, take two turns to train, and can only be trained in cities with specific temples. Legionary cohorts with their already formidable stats are a far more cost-effective option.
- The highest tier units in the game - of any faction - are often this.
  - After the Marian Reforms the Romans gain access to nightmarishly powerful Praetorian and Urban Cohorts, which can demolish almost every other unit in the game one-on-one. The catch is that the Praetorians can only be trained from an Imperial Palace, which is expensive and requires the highest level of city development, Huge City. Since you have to build one to get the Marian Reforms in the first place, you at least have one city in which you can train them. Urban Cohorts, on the other hand, come from the Urban Barracks, which is the highest level of barracks in the game and also requires a Huge City. This is, as you might expect, also a very expensive building. Cost aside, the relative rarity of these buildings also makes it very difficult to retrain your elite troops, especially on campaign far from home. Both these elite units are also much more expensive to train and upkeep than standard Legionary Cohorts, which have the added advantage of coming from the Army Barracks one level lower. Against barbarian factions, Early Legionary Cohorts - coming from the City Barracks one level lower than that - are usually sufficient anyway. Hence the Praetorian and Urban Cohorts are seldom worth making, with it being a lot more sensible to put those resources to use in creating more Early Legionary and Legionary Cohorts - already amongst the best units in the game - instead. In any case, if you have multiple Huge Cities from which to pump out these units, you're probably already very close to winning the game anyway. To add insult to injury, Praetorian and Urban Cohorts take 2 turns each to make.
  - For Egypt, the highest tier infantry unit they get is the Pharaoh's Guard, which comes from their Army Barracks (they lack access to any equivalent to the aforementioned Urban Barracks). Pharaoh Guard have high morale, a powerful attack, and excellent armour. Unfortunately, they suffer the same weaknesses as the Praetorian and Urban Cohorts for the Romans, having a long training time, being expensive to acquire and create, and difficult to retrain on campaign. The lower tier Nile Spearmen, while they have mediocre stats, are a much more cost-effective option. Ditto for the Pharaoh's Bowmen, which are powerful long-ranged archers but require a Catapult Range - the second-highest level - to be trained.
  - For the Seleucids, they first have to survive a very challenging early game to even have a chance of accessing their higher-tier units. These then suffer similar weaknesses to those already mentioned: accessibility, cost and training time. Silver Shield Pikemen are excellent for holding the line but need an Army Barracks, which needs a Large City; Silver Shield Legionaries are one of the few non-Roman infantry units that can go toe-to-toe with the mighty legions but need a Royal Barracks, which needs a Huge City. Both are costly and take 2 turns each to train. One is much better off relying on the Boring, but Practical Militia Hoplites and Phalanx Pikemen, and investing into their cavalry options to screen the vulnerable flanks of the phalanx line.
  - The Greek Cities faction gets Spartan Hoplites, and the depiction of these troops is akin to their reputation in popular history. They are hardy, well-disciplined and have nigh-unbreakable morale. Most notably, alone amongst all the phalanx units in the game, they have two hitpoints, making each soldier in the unit literally twice as tough. Unique amongst phalanx units as well, their secondary sword attack is extremely powerful, so they can fight just as well out of phalanx formation. However, they suffer from all the weaknesses of elite units mentioned elsewhere in this entry. In fact, they are even more exclusive than these other units, since they can only be trained out of Army Barracks in two cities on the entire map: Sparta, obviously, and Syracuse. This makes taking them on campaign even less tenable and all but ensures - along with their high cost - that you will never amass a substantial number of them. Armoured Hoplites are a far better option, since they only require a City Barracks to be trained or re-trained, and the difference in stats does not make up for the difference in accessibility. Unlike the other units that have already been mentioned, you at least start with one unit of these super soldiers, so you can use them early in the campaign.
- Heavy Onagers are huge catapults that can fire devastating salvoes of projectiles over long distances. They can decimate enemy units from range or even cause them to rout before they take too many losses, if one uses flaming ammo. They can also efficiently tear down city walls, allowing cities to be stormed on the same turn they are besieged and hence saving the minimum of one turn that is usually needed to construct siege equipment for an assault. However, they require a Siege Engineer, which is an expensive building that requires a Huge City. They are also costly, take two turns to create, and have very limited movement range on the campaign map. Hence, by the time a player can create them in significant numbers, the campaign is usually all but won. They are also quite inaccurate unless they gain several levels of experience, and need to be well-protected by other units as the crews are lightly armed and hideously vulnerable to enemy cavalry. In comparison, its smaller and cheaper counterpart - the Onager - requires only a Catapult Range from a Large City, has the same firing range, can be created in a single turn, and can still do great damage to enemy fortifications and units despite having a lower attack. That makes it a less awesome yet significantly more practical choice.
Ax-Crazy:
- There are many combinations of traits for Generals which qualify. For instance, you can have a General who is a legendary commander, completely untouched by fear, and covered in scars from battle but is also "howling at the moon" insane and prone to such fits of intense rage that he'll beat slaves to death for the most minor of reasons.
- Berserkers. Select them, direct them to attack, and watch as they fly into the enemy army in a foaming rage. Once they start attacking, they fall out of player control and will not stop until either they or the enemy are all dead. In this berserk state, they gain the ability to literally toss other people around, even foes who are much more heavily armoured than they are.
Back from the Brink:
- Playing as one of the Hellenic successor factions (Greece, Macedon, Seleucia, Egypt) starts with a small fraction of the territories once conquered by Alexander the Great. You can lead them back to that glory, and then some if you capture Rome as well. Note that the Seleucid Empire and Ptolemaic Egypt in particular were in actuality still huge and powerful empires in 270 BC, the starting year for the campaign in the vanilla game. They are only relatively small entities ingame as the campaign map is restricted in size, and for reasons of balance. In reality the Seleucid Empire still stretched from Asia Minor to northern India in 270 BC, while the Ptolemaic Empire had territories in Asia Minor, controlled parts of present-day Sudan and Ethiopia, and actively intervened in Greece. There are quite a few mods in both the original Rome Total War and the Remastered edition that are dedicated to historical accuracy and thus fully reflect the vast historical sizes of both empires. Such mods make it very clear that neither empire was actually on the brink in 270 BC!
- In Barbarian Invasion, it is possible to recapture the glory of the Roman Empire as either the East or the West. Doing as as the latter is considered one of the toughest challenges in the entirely of the Total War series, given all of the hurdles they face.
Badass Boast: Pre-battle speeches will often contain references to the general's past victories over this enemy or to his certainty that his men will make a mess. Many trait and ancillary descriptions include them as well, such as for the trait 'Cruelly Scarred' being "Many scars prove this man is very hard to kill".
Badass Bookworm: Generals can have the smart trait, the educated trait, the mentor retinue, the tutor etinue, etc. And he will refer to this if he makes a speech before a battle.
Badass Bureaucrat: Generals can have nice bonuses to civil keeping while being able to crush their enemies.
Badass Family: As your faction is controlled by one clan, and your Generals are all born from or marry into it, this can easily result.
Badass Pacifist: This is a possible playing style and is very possible. You can have a horrifically scarred general (+4 to hitpoints) who is a very good peacekeeper who rules through love.
Badass Teacher: A few of the retinue units can count like the seasoned veteran who provides the general with knowledge and command ability.
Badass Unintentional: The captains that are caught off guard and pull so awesome a victory that they are offered entrance into the royal family.
Bag of Spilling: Any ancillaries a character has will be lost upon that character's death. However, the ancillaries can be moved to another character if they are both in the same city. (If diligent, you can pass the same ancillary on through 10 generations of your family.)
Balkanize Me: Rome kicks off in the aftermath of the Macedonian Succession Wars, with the domain of the former Macedonian Empire (covered in the prequel expansion, Alexander) being split between several factions. The Romans themselves will be subject to this down the line, consisting of an NPC Senate faction in control of Rome, and three playable Houses each carving out their own domain in different directions. Eventually, the Roman Civil War kicks in, with the three Houses fighting amongst themselves to assert dominance, with the aim of the game being to capture Rome.
- Barbarian Invasion, is set following the split between the Western and Eastern Roman Empires, with both sides facing near-relentless rebellion, though the Western half has it worse since the game covers its historical fall. Both Empires have their own distinct faction of rebels which aims to usurp them, with the Romano-British also waiting in the wings to emerge once the Western Romans are forced out of Britain. On top of that, the Roman Empires face the threat of numerous barbarian horde factions. One of which, the Goths, will find themselves challenged by the Ostrogoths.
Barbarian Tribe:
- Gaul, Britannia, Spain, Germania, Dacia, Thrace, and Scythia are all factions with "barbarian" as the culture. Their units tend to have higher morale, lower discipline, and their Generals are prone to developing Blood Knight-like traits. They also cannot upgrade a settlement past the "minor city" level, cannot build paved roads, and tend to struggle with farming/taxation, suggesting their culturally primitive nature.
- As the title suggests, they play an especially major part in the Barbarian Invasion expansion pack. A host of new barbarian factions enter the picture, ready to pick apart of the remnants of Rome.
Battle in the Rain: Can occur and does (mostly negatively) affect the units. For instance, projectile units suffer reduced range and accuracy while archers cannot use flaming arrows.
Beauty Is Bad: It is possible to have a general with such a high "Handsome" trait that Adonis himself would be jealous of the man's looks, yet at the same time have other traits that make him a psychopathic madman who must win at all costs with unquenchable Bloodlust who slaughters the populous of every city he captures and beats slaves for fun.
Being Evil Sucks:
- You can choose to play the campaign as an aggressive warmonger, attacking everyone in sight and only making deals with the intent to later betray the trust invested in you by others. However, this will make all your neighbours - and, eventually, all their neighbours as well - hate you. You will never be trusted by any other faction again and they will ally with each other to fight you. If you corner any one faction, expect them to fight you to the bitter end rather than make any sort of peace. None of this matters, of course, if you're capable enough to beat them all, but it does make the gameplay experience a lot more challenging.
- This is also reflected in the game's trait system. For example, generals with the Bloodthirsty trait scare not just the enemy but also their own men, which is reflected in a malus to the character's command rating and to the morale rating of the men he's commanding on the field of battle.
Being Good Sucks:
- While it is certainly possible to play the campaign in a "good" way, expect to have a much tougher time if you do. Watch as former allies gleefully stab you in the back and cities where you spared the populace upon conquest launch revolts at the earliest opportunity. There is a reason why Evil Pays Better, Violence Is the Only Option, and succeeding requires you to sometimes be Necessarily Evil.
- You win battles by routing all enemy units on the field, and after you manage this you're given two options: end the battle immediately, view its results and return to the campaign screen, or continue the battle for the purpose of hunting down all the helpless fleeing enemy soldiers. If you choose the former clearly more merciful option, enough enemy soldiers are likely to escape to form a remnant force that will continue resisting you on the campaign map; this is as armies are only completely eliminated from the campaign map if they lose a high-enough percentage of their soldiers (85% or more).
The Berserker: The Germans can recruit berserkers as a high-tier unit. They're light infantry with a powerful sweeping attack and charge strength closer to that of cavalry. They can also "go berserk", making them uncontrollable as they slaughter any enemy the come across.
Bestiality Is Depraved:
- If you have a General who is consistently out on campaign without spending time in cities, he may pick up a "Pet Sheep" ancillary with this implied in the description. Naturally, it severely decreases his Influence.
"Being away from home and loved ones... can be a lonely life."
- Family members can also acquire a trait called "Not Safe With Man or Beast", which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. This grants the character the appropriate epithet "the Foul".
Big Damn Heroes: A possibility when you bring in reinforcements.
Big, Screwed-Up Family:
- Since the personality traits of your family members can be passed on to their children, this can easily happen with negative traits. God help you if "Insane," "Ugly," "Greedy," and the like keep getting passed on.
- Because of this, Captains adopted into the family and those who marry in often become some of your most valuable family members deep into the campaign. Unlike your family's male heirs, they do not usually come with negative traits while possessing at least a few positive traits (particularly command rating for former Captains), and if they do have problematic traits, you can dismiss the proposed adoptee or fiancé. This makes them a good blank slate that you can build up into a great military leader or governor without having to worry about pesky negative traits.
Blessed with Suck: There are numerous traits which improve a General's command rating while decreasing his management/influence ratings and adding to unrest, and vise versa. This can be unfortunate in situations where, for instance, you may need your "Bloodthirsty" General to govern a city in a pinch, but find that the added unrest from the trait pushes that city over the edge into rioting.
Blood Knight: Possible trait combinations (Bloodthirsty, Conqueror, Hates [X Faction], Berserker, etc.) can make a General qualify. Barbarian faction Generals are justifiably especially prone to developing these traits.
Bloodlust: Several personality traits for Generals describe this. At a low degree, this trait will add to their ability to command and weaken the morale of enemy troops but at higher degrees, it can severely weaken the morale of your own troops.
Bodyguarding a Badass: Even the most battle-hardened Generals can have ancillaries that fit this description. (Bodyguard, Shield Bearer, Guard Dog, etc.) This also fits the General's personal unit of guards in battle.
Book Dumb: A trait to be avoided at all costs with any of your Generals or Agents. It is completely negative and detracts from every rating.
Boring, but Practical:
- The Roman faction. Most factions have a unit or two who are better than than their Roman equivalent, but the Romans make up for it by having far fewer weaknesses than those factions. Once the Marian reforms hit and the Romans have access to powerful legionaries, there is very little in the ancient world that stop them.
- Phalanx units. In formation, they are slow moving and lack the flash of the various other units in the game, but are virtually indestructible from the front and are one of the best options in the game for defending cities. In open-field combat, phalanx units are very useful in pinning enemies in place so that one can flank them with faster units. Phalanx units generally have low morale and are vulnerable from the flanks and rear, but just as in real life, this can be compensated for by using proper formations and support troops. Low-tier phalanx units like militia hoplites and levy pikemen, in particular, are cheap, readily available and useful for both offense and defence throughout the game.
- On a macro level, you can produce a LOT of mid-tier units much more easily than a handful of elites - they don't require waiting as long for your cities to grow, building as expensive a tier of barracks, and don't cost as much to recruit or maintain. Most campaigns are won with humble tier 2-3 units, with nary a tier 5 in sight before the credits screen.
- Spearmen in general. Even low-tier spear-armed units can do significant damage to cavalry units that are much more expensive and have much better stats on paper. With a good general in command, these units can also be surprisingly capable in just holding the line against other stronger units.
- There are two ways for armies to take cities in the game: by assault or by siege. The latter method involves surrounding the city on the campaign map until a specified number of turns is up - this depends on such factors as the size of the city and its level of defences. A siege is naturally much lengthier and much less exciting than an assault on the city, but avoids a high level of casualties and prevents damage to the settlement, thus allowing one to leverage upon its economic output or use it for troop production right after taking it. Garrisons also shrink in size as sieges go on, simulating the effects of hunger and desertion, so even besieging a settlement for a few turns before assaulting it can reduce casualties for the attacking army. Garrisons, however, can sally out at any time during a siege and will lift the siege if they defeat the enemy during this battle. This is all historically accurate as during the time period represented by the game, generals much preferred to lay siege to settlements and starve these into surrender rather than launch risky direct assaults for the reasons outlined above. Alternatively, they resorted to bribery to weaken enemy defences or outright secure the surrender of these settlements, which is also represented in game by how diplomats can bribe cities into joining you.
- The humble peasant unit available to all factions is practically useless on the battlefield, but serves a variety of important functions in administering one's empire. Their low cost, large unit size, and easy availability means that they're excellent as garrisons in cities far behind the frontline, as public order depends on only the quantity of soldiers in the city rather than the quality of the military units. ^note As an added bonus, queuing several units to be trained at a time will significantly reduce the population of any city barring those of exceptional size, which also helps with public order. They can also be trained as a means to transfer population from one city to another, such as to move people from an overcrowded heartland city to be disbanded in one closer to the frontlines that needs a higher population size to access better-quality troops. In a pinch, peasant units can also be used to deal with small bands of rebels that spawn randomly in the heartland of one's empire. They're also good for simply padding the numbers of an army, allowing them to, for example, build more siege equipment per turn.
- Certain retinue members are relatively easy to get, and can help one out with no issues. For instance, hire some mercenaries, and odds are you can get a Mercenary Captain, who gives a general a +1 to Command, and a 10% discount on troop training costs. Fight a bunch of armies of a particular civilization type (Barbarians, Carthaginians, Easterners, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Rebels), you'll get a Turncoat of that civilization, who helps you be better at fighting those armies. Spend time in a settlement with a high enough temple, get a priest/priestess of that temple. Lot of useful followers. Just watch out for the unhelpful ones.
Born in the Saddle:
- Parthia and Scythia in the main game. Their military revolves around their cavalry, especially horse archers.
- The Huns and Vandals in Barbarian Invasion for much the same reason. Due to the decline of quality heavy infantry who can stand up to elite cavalry throughout the region, they become some of the toughest factions to face.
Bothering by the Book: Generals can acquire traits along this line. At lower levels, they actually increase his management rating and make the cities he governs more productive in terms of trade and taxes. At higher levels, they can actually become detrimental, such as causing unrest in the city because he is such a stickler for the rules.
Bottomless Magazines: Averted, unless one selects the option for Arcade Battles. All missile units from slingers to onagers have a finite supply of ammo and will no longer be able to used their ranged attacks when they run out. With Arcade Battles selected, all units have infinite ammunition.
Bread and Circuses: Gladiatorial Arenas and Chariot Racing Tracks can be constructed by the Roman factions. Public order can be increased by increasing the frequency of these events within a city, though it is very expensive to do so.
Bribing Your Way to Victory: It is possible to bribe opposing cities and armies. This was actually highly viable in the original version of the game, but a patch made it prohibitively expensive. Any army or city cheap enough to still bribe after the patch is typically too small to be any real threat anyway, so you may as well just kill them. Also, if the opposing army is of the same culture as yours, with most of the units being recruitable by yours, then you just got yourself a new army, although this trick is averted for Barbarian factions. However, they can still bring enemy Generals over to their side. As it is, bribing an enemy General to your side can open up new locations to attack, especially in mercenary-rich territories, like Anatolia. A diplomat with a ready bribe can also be a cheap and easy method of dealing with a small rebel force that randomly appears in your territory rather than maintaining (costlier) garrisons far from the front.
Bring My Brown Pants: There are several traits for Generals implying that he is cowardly. All of them are negative and significantly reduce his command rating and troop morale.
Bullying a Dragon: Neutral and even Allied factions will sometimes attack their much larger, much more powerful neighbors for seemingly no logical reason.
Cain and Abel:
- You can bribe enemy Generals who will then join you as you conquer their former territory and possibly kill their brother(s).
- Can happen in Barbarian Invasion if you have a disloyal family member who rebels and he has a brother who does not.
The Caligula: Generals can have combinations of traits which fit, and they will make him all but completely useless in any role. Fitting given the game is centered around the nation of the Trope Namer.
Call That a Formation?: Thoroughly averted. Units who should be in a formation (hoplites, legionaries, etc.) are, and breaking that formation makes them much more vulnerable.
Came Back Strong: If a barbarian faction's last city is captured in the Barbarian Invasion expansion pack, it will turn into a "horde". The faction no longer has cities but is granted several stacks including really powerful units, now able to seek revenge against those who caused their downfall. The result is that any faction which does really well and dominates other factions, taking their cities, will get punished for it, while the factions which did poorly are now handed super powerful units. As the player it is therefore often a bad idea to capture all settlements of certain factions, lest you face a horde immediately afterwards.
Canis Latinicus: The background music on the campaign map contains actual Latin words as lyrics, but strung together with no regard for anything besides how they sound.
Cannon Fodder:
- This is the only use for peasants on the battlefield, as they have all-around terrible stats but are cheap, easily recruitable and come in large unit sizes.
- Basic-tier infantry units like Warband for barbarian factions and Eastern Infantry for Eastern factions are also this. They possess better stats and cost a bit more than peasants, symbolizing the fact that they have at least undergone some form of training, but are still very cheap and recruit and maintain. They are slightly more effective on the battlefield, being able to do more damage and having more staying power while possessing the same large unit size as peasants.
Challenging the Chief: This can occur in Barbarian Invasion when playing as the Romans if one of your Generals rebels and attacks your Faction Leader.
Chokepoint Geography:
- Mountainous regions offer an opportunity to invoke this. You can slow down an enemy army by positioning troops in a mountain pass, forcing them to fight you or go around. Even better, if you can spare the troops, you can build a fort in the mountain pass to create a semi-permanent defensive structure. Do note, however, that the computer can and will use this strategy against you as well.
- Bridges are another significant chokepoint that can be used strategically. Positioning a unit on one on the campaign map blocks any non-allied units from using it, while it is laughably easy to take advantage of the battle AI's Artificial Stupidity to achieve massively lopsided results in your favor.
- Several sea chokepoints make great places to station navies, like the Dardanelles and the Strait of Gibraltar. Non-allied ships won't be able to pass, preventing enemies from blockading your ports or dropping off invading land forces.
Chronic Backstabbing Disorder:
- Sometimes it feels like allying with a neighboring faction is basically an invitation for them to attack you unprovoked... Even when your faction is a continent-spanning empire that has risked life and limb time and again to help them, while they've been reduced to a single settlement surrounded on all sides by enemies...
- If you bribe an enemy General to join your side, he will pick up the "Disloyal" trait which makes him cheaper to bribe in the future. In Barbarian Invasion, the Roman factions have a new Loyalty mechanic, so any of your own generals can betray you if you don't keep an eye on their loyalty ratings.
- There is also no limit to the number of times a character can be bribed, so it's possible for the same man to serve multiple factions over the course of any campaign.
The Clan: The Roman Republic is broken down into three main factions — the Julii, Brutii, and Scipii — each one based around a single influential clan.
Clown Car: Happens when putting armies on boats. It is possible (though extremely unwise) to put a fully-stacked army of thousands of units including cavalry, chariots, and even elephants onto a single bireme.
Cluster F-Bomb: Implied with the "Feck" trait for Generals. At lower levels, it increases troop morale and popularity with the people. At higher levels, it severely decreases influence and popularity with the senate.
Color-Coded Armies: Every faction has their own color and their armies fit within the "fully color coded" version of the trope.
Combat Chariot :
- Egypt has anachronistic war chariots and chariot archers, even if the game is set centuries after they went out of use.
- The Britons have less anachronistic (at least compared to the Egyptians) Light Chariots (carrying archers) and Heavy Chariots (which are roughly the antiquity equivalent of tanks). The overall depiction of the Briton faction in the game draws heavily from the era of Boudica and her famous conflict with the eponymous Romans, though this is anachronistic in the opposite direction of the Egyptians, with that taking place around 300 years after the start of the R:TW campaign.
- The Seleucids and Pontus have Scythed Chariots, which were actually used during the time period in which the game is set.^note These differ from the Egyptian and British war chariots as they have a smaller unit size, a deadlier attack (from the long scythes on their wheels), and are able to be panicked by enemy fire. Pontus also has chariot archers, and these are anachronistic.
- Additionally, more of a general note about chariots in Rome: Total War, the "auto resolve" function of battles seems to weight them heavily. An Egyptian or Briton force comprised mostly of chariots can easily defeat an army twice the size and of similar quality in an auto battle, while likely losing handily if a player actually plays that battle. This makes the auto battle something of a Video Game Delegation Penalty when playing against factions that use a lot of chariots.
Combat Medic: Generals can pick these up as ancillaries, such as a Physician, Surgeon, Wise Woman, etc. All increase the odds of casualties healing after a battle, while they variously have other positive effects such as increasing the General's fertility and improving the sanitation of cities depending on which ones you get.
Comically Small Bribe: Played laughably straight in the unpatched game. The cost to bribe Captain-led enemy armies was usually far less than even the upkeep cost for that army for a single turn. A handful of Diplomats handing out bribes could decimate your opponent's armies more effectively than any military force you could send at them. It proved so game-breakingly effective that it was Nerfed in a patch to the point where bribes became too prohibitively expensive to be useful.
A Commander Is You: See the game's folder on the series' sub-page.
The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard:
- AI factions can promote captains to family members whenever they feel like it. The player on the other hand has to wait for a "Man of the Hour" event to pop up after a battle in order to perform this action. This is especially jarring when an invading enemy army is led by a Captain one turn, and suddenly a General on the next. Not only does his command rating increase, it also adds a powerful unit of cavalry to the army in the form of the new General's bodyguards.
- The Roman Senate also does not play by the same rules as every other faction. Like other AI, they can spontaneously raise family members to fill spots - usually when all other Roman families are warring and they need to fill Senate seats. However, unlike every other faction, Rome will not rebel even if every family member is killed off, and indeed the faction cannot be destroyed, as the Senate missions and offices are still assigned on their turn.
- In order to compensate for its inadequacies, the AI gets significant bonuses on higher difficulty levels. This includes additional income per turn, population growth and public order bonuses for the campaign map AI, and morale plus attack bonuses for the battle map AI.
Conflicting Loyalty: If you are allied with two factions who go to war with each other, you'll be given a pop-up message with the option of supporting one or the other. Whichever one you don't choose will automatically have your alliance broken and your diplomacy with them will be severely soured.
Conscription: Outright stated to be the case in the descriptions for some units, such as levies and militias. They're poorly trained with lousy equipment and have much lower morale than professional soldier units do as a result.
Conservation of Ninjutsu: Bringing large numbers of poorly-trained, poorly-equipped, and inexperienced soldiers to a battle with the intention of crushing the enemy through sheer weight of numbers is unwise if the opposing army has higher quality and more-experienced troops. If the opposing army is able to rout just a few of your units, the rest will be more prone to fleeing even if they haven't suffered nearly the same number of casualties.
Cornered Rattlesnake: Fleeing units on the battlefield who are completely surrounded by enemy forces will enter a "fighting to the death" mode. For this reason, it is unwise to completely surround routing enemy units, lest they cause a few unnecessary casualties while fighting to their deaths.
Cowardly Lion: Generals will use this in their pre-battle speeches.
"There is no shame in fear. There is only shame in letting fear rule you! Try not to look scared, and you will find bravery in your heart!"
''"...any man who faces battle without concern, is a moonstruck fool. To be brave is to go forward anyway, no matter how afeared! That is why I go forward, with so many other brave men." "
Crack Defeat: Attacking provinces with rivers can easily turn into this. All the defenders really need is a unit of spearmen + archer combo for each bridge and simply Hold the Line.
Crapsack World: The case at the start of Barbarian Invasion. It can be especially jarring if you've just completed the main game's campaign as one of "civilized" factions, where you essentially spread the "enlightenment" of that faction to at least half the game world. Depending on who you choose to play as, you can either drive the world further into "crapsack" status or rebuild the glories of Classical Antiquity.
Crippling Overspecialisation:
- The "skirmish" factions, including Parthia and Scythia, qualify. They have good cavalry and missile units, making them strong when using hit-and-run tactics, but are severely lacking in quality infantry, making them weak in a head-to-head fight. The lack of quality infantry also makes capturing and defending cities a much more daunting task. As heavy infantry rules the day, just as it did historically in this time period, these factions find themselves at a significant disadvantage long term in the campaign and in multiplayer battles. Further complicating matters in the campaign for these factions is that they start with some of the most financially impoverished provinces which are separated by large tracts of land.
- The Greek Cities essentially have the exact opposite problem of the skirmish factions. They have some of the best infantry in the game available to them, but have an appalling lack of quality support troops, including cavalry and missiles. Their territories, while potentially highly profitable, are spread out around the central Mediterranean and surrounded on all sides by aggressive enemies.
- Carthage has reasonably good infantry and cavalry, but the crippling weakness of having no archers. (Carthaginian Archers exist in the game files, but whether for Competitive Balance or the result of a mistake, are not accessible in-game. This was even kept in the Remastered edition.)
- Egypt's units get major bonuses in the desert but aren't of much value outside of that particular terrain due to their lack of armor. Their thematic reliance on the desert carries over to their ships, and they are unable to build dockyards or ships more powerful than triremes. Limited to shipyards, this limits the income that Egypt can produce from seagoing trade, and militarily it creates an issue if the Egypt player is trying to contend with the Romans for control over the sea (there being large stretches of land between the Eastern and Western halves of the Mediterranean without settlements).
- Britannia completely lacks archers and cavalry in the traditional sense, and their infantry are also generally mediocre barring a few exceptions. What they have are chariots and lots of them.
- Flaming Pigs are practically useless for anything except scaring War Elephants.
- In Barbarian Invasion, the Sassanids have an array of fearsome cavalry units - including war elephants - but lack good melee infantry. Their only melee infantry unit aside from Peasants (near-useless in combat) and Levy Spearmen (good at holding a battle line but useful for little else) is Sughdian Warriors, which are excellent heavy infantry but only available in specific provinces. This makes it particularly challenging for them to storm walled cities garrisoned by anything other than basic-tier units.
Critical Existence Failure: Your elderly Generals can be acting as Frontline Generals right in the thick of the fighting while tripling the income of one of your cities as a governor and be rooting out spies and assassins, and then be dead of natural causes your very next turn.
Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: All your male family members gain a very strong bodyguard of heavy cavalry once they become named characters on the map (through coming of age at 16 or through adoption/marriage), so no matter how stupid/weak-willed/incompetent/insane they are, they all have a good chance of becoming incredible badasses. Win victories with one of them in command, particularly against heavy odds, and within a few battles he can become a terrifying force of nature on the battlefield who still rants about fighting the moon men in tall hats or squeaks about how his mummy compelled him to come and lead the army.
Cruelty Is the Only Option:
- Peaceful occupation of a city that you've captured is actually an option, however, it very quickly becomes impractical. Even enslaving the population becomes impractical as you expand, as the enslaved population is transferred to your other governed cities, leading to increased unrest and squalor in those cities. This really only leaves you with the option of exterminating the populace of your newly captured cities in order to avoid these issues. It also gives you the best "looting" payout and reduces the unrest and squalor by the most out of the three options.
- Downplayed in the Remastered version, which introduces other mechanisms to actually decrease squalor beyond periodically razing your own cities to the ground. Now playing as a comparatively merciful conqueror or brutally pragmatic slaver are much more possible.
Crutch Character: The game will combine this with A Taste of Power at the start of the game by giving a faction a unit far stronger than what they'd be able to recruit themselves at that point in the game. For example, The Julii Romans will start with a unit of Triarii spearmen and the Greek Cities a unit of Spartan hoplites. Both units are at least two full tiers above what those factions would actually be able to recruit themselves for many in-game years. These units could almost single-handedly cut a swath through the low tier rabble the various "Rebel" faction neighbors have at that point, but any attrition suffered by the elite unit will hurt as the player will not be able to replenish the unit or recruit more for quite some time.
Culture Clash: One of the causes of "unrest" in cities. As time goes on following the capture of the city, the clash steadily decreases as the populace comes to accept the new culture. Choosing the "exterminate" option when capturing the city is another great way to reduce this.
Cutting the Knot:
- The Marian Reforms event for the Roman factions grant them access to significantly stronger units than they start with. The sole requirement to trigger this event is to have an Imperial Palace in one Italian city aside from Rome. This requires the city to have a population of at least 24,000; for context, the largest towns at the start of the game tend to have about 4,000 people. Hence, the conventional way to do this takes many years as one has to wait for city populations to grow over time, although the growth can be sped up by enslaving conquered peoples to be sent back to populate Italy. However, there are a couple of simple tricks to hasten the process greatly. Firstly, one can leave a governor in only a single of one's Italian cities; this ensures that all the slaves from conquest only go to that city, as slaves will not be sent to cities without governors. Secondly, one can train Peasants in their other nearby cities and send them to be disbanded in the single city of choice. This is as city populations are reduced by the number of men in each military unit when military units are trained there, and are also increased by that same number when military units are disbanded there. These couple of simple tricks can be hugely effective in boosting the population of a single city, allowing players to get the Marian Reforms as soon as 20-30 turns after the start of the game.
- The Roman Civil War is a hardcoded event for the Roman factions that is usually triggered by building up one's popularity with the masses. The main way to do this is to conquer other factions; the more one conquers, the more one's popularity rises, and when the popularity meter reaches a certain level one gets the chance to declare war on the Senate faction and other Roman factions to make a play for ultimate power. This, naturally, takes quite a bit of time as players usually have to conquer far and wide to win the favour of the plebs. However, the civil war can also be triggered by wiping out the Senate faction by other means, such as by assassinating all their family members. That will allow the player to declare war on the remaining Roman factions any time they choose. Unfortunately, though swifter and easier in theory, this method tends to be very difficult to pull off in reality, since the Senate usually spawns in new family members to replace any that die and assassinating the faction leader and faction heir is nigh-impossible even with very skilled and experienced agents. If you get fortunate enough with your assassination attempts though, you can get the civil war started quite early indeed.
The Cycle of Empires:
- Rome:
  - Stage 1 - Rome is here at the start of the campaign, with the Roman Factions each ready to take their first steps out of the Italian peninsula.
  - Stage 2 - Carthage starts out at the height of its ancient expanse, but is teetering on the edge of all out war with Rome.
  - Stage 3 - The Diadochi "Successor States" (Macedon, Seleucia, Egypt, some of the Greek Cities territories) of Alexander the Great are technically here. While each is still a formidable faction in their own right, they are nowhere near the level of power they would have been as a unified force under Alexander himself. Out of them, in a typical campaign, only Egypt usually recovers as the rest continue to decline by fighting each other and/or falling victim to Roman expansion (which is largely what happened in real life).
  - Stage 4 - Alexander's empire, 50 years after his death it is now fractured between several factions and exists only as a memory, or a goal for the successors to strive for.
- Barbarian Invasion:
  - Stage 1 - The various "barbarian" factions begin by Fighting for a Homeland, from which they'll expand as they beat back each other and the remnants of Rome.
  - Stage 2 - The Eastern Roman Empire and Sassanids are the largest and most powerful factions remaining. They are Arch-Enemies who will be in near-constant conflict for surpremacy east of the Mediterranean.
  - Stage 3 - The Western Roman Empire is in dire straights, hemorrhaging territory to both invading barbarians and rebelling generals seemingly every turn while plagued by religious unrest. They are a far cry from the the glories of their vast empire several centuries prior.
  - Stage 4 - The united Roman Empire of old is a hazy memory. The East and West are tenuous allies, surrounded by enemies on all fronts, though each fights on attempting to restore their former glory.
- In Alexander, Macedon starts the campaign at Stage 1, ready to expand beyond Greece and usurp the Persian Empire, who are at Stage 3, as masters of the known world. Naturally, the campaign ends with Macedon at Stage 2 and Persia at Stage 4, just before Alexander dies.

D-L

Dawn of an Era: The campaign begins roughly 50 years after the death of Alexander the Great. His empire has crumbled into a handful of squabbling successor states and the forces of the Roman Republic are about to take their first actions away from the Italian peninsula....
Death from Above: Early in the campaign, before most factions gain access to armored heavy infantry, raining down missile fire will be one of the most deadly attacks in your arsenal.
Death of the Old Gods: A major cause of unrest in Barbarian Invasion are the three clashing religions (Christianity, Paganism, and Zoroastrianism). One of the reasons the Western Roman Empire starts out in such tough straights is because so many of their territories are split between Christians and Pagans.
Decapitated Army:
- Downplayed, per series tradition. The loss of a general in combat is not necessarily an Instant-Win Condition for that battle, but it does cause a huge morale shock to the side that loses them, potentially causing them to break and flee. Sufficiently disciplined and experienced troops can fight on much longer in this situation, if not indefinitely.
- Played straight in the overworld, however. If all of the ruling family of a faction is killed, they are eliminated. All of their cities and armies join the "rebel" faction and lose most of their garrison. In Barbarian Expansion, this is especially useful when fighting hordes, as the end of a faction means all of the special horde units disperse. This means a lucky assassination can change 4, full-stack armies of Vandals led by the faction leader into three minor rebel armies.
Deliberate Values Dissonance:
- Present in quite a few traits, especially some of the "Roman Virtue" ones. Having your Generals living a life of luxury, being deceptive and secretive, and ruling the masses with an overly authoritarian iron fist makes you more popular with the senate, while winning many glorious battles regardless of cost and being fans of the blood-sport gladiatorial games and chariot races will make you more popular with the people.
- Any traits or ancillaries for Generals which imply homosexuality are universally negative. Lower levels typically decrease influence and fertility, while the higher levels of the traits can devastate command rating and troop morale, not to mention dropping influence and fertility even further. For the Roman factions, these can also hurt your popularity with the Senate and the people. This one is a bit odd since homosexuality in the ancient world wasn't an inherently negative thing, with many famous Romans and Greeks known to have engaged in same-sex relationships.^note
Depraved Bisexual: A very possible combination of traits for a General. The higher level the "Depraved" traits become, the more he loses in Command Rating and Influence.
Desert People: The culture, unit rosters, and certain bonuses of Egypt, Parthia, and Numidia are all in line with them being factions from the desert regions of North Africa or the East. For example, their units are much more combat-capable when fighting in the desert, which is especially true for Egypt. Another such aspect is that the Parthians and the Numidians have some of the best cavalry available, but their infantry is rather weak. Egypt and Parthia are playable factions in the base game, while Numidia only becomes so in the Remastered edition.
Developer's Foresight:
- Fight next to a city and you'll be able to see it almost entirely on the battle map. Fight near the ocean with a fleet nearby, and you can see the ships on the edge of the map, in the background. Fight next to one of the Wonders and you'll see it in the distance. Fight a battle in Sicily, and you'll see Mt. Etna spewing smoke on the horizon. Rome is the first game in the series that introduces the concept of buildings catching fire and collapsing into piles of rubble if they're heavily damaged by siege weapons.
- Nearly anything your Generals do can earn them a new trait or ancillary. Have a general visit or become governor to a town with an Arena? He may become a fan of the games. Leave a General between cities at the end of a turn? He might gain a trait regarding logistics. Have a General regularly fight armies of a particular faction? He may earn a trait that has him hate that particular faction and get a bonus commanding against them. Hire mercenaries often? He may get a mercenary captain in the retinue. Govern a city with a temple? He may get a priest of that temple in his retinue. This even applies to agents and naval captains.
Difficult, but Awesome:
- Playing as Parthia. Sure, they have huge tract of land, but most of it is simply miles upon miles of empty wilderness with cities few and far between. This means that corruption is very high, troop waypointing is tedious, and their roads are often beset by rebel armies. They are also one of the most financially impoverished factions at the start of the game. Their forte is horse archers, which require practice to use effectively, are awful at capturing cities, and count as very weak in auto-battle. Their infantry is pitifully weak, among the weakest in the game in fact. As if all that's not enough, they start out next to the wealthy, powerful, aggressively expansionist unstoppable force that is Egypt. However, survive long enough to get high-tier horse units like Cataphracts, and Parthia will become the Timurids of 3rd century BCE.
- Playing as the Greek Cities. Your starting territories are spread out and you'll almost instantly be attacked on all sides. (The Brutii Romans in western Greece, the Scipii Romans and Carthaginians in Sicily, the Macedonians in northern Greece, and the Pontic and/or Seleucid factions in Asia Minor.) If you can survive however, you'll have access to some of the most awesome infantry in the game (particularly the Spartan hoplites,) and some of the most profitable territories as well.
- The Seleucids have a powerful, varied unit roster but start out in a very tough position. They are surrounded by enemies on all sides, most of which are entirely capable of reducing their slow phalanx units to Swiss cheese with horse archers or something similar. However, if they make it to the late game, they get perfect copies of the mighty Roman Legionnaires added to their roster along with mighty War Elephants.
- Playing as the Western Roman Empire in Barbarian Invasion. They start off like their Eastern/Byzantine counterparts with a lot of territory...only of most of that to either split off in rebellion or fall to the arriving barbarian tribes. Gone are the professional legions of centuries past, reduced to using mostly weak levies and mercenaries, while there is significant religious unrest between Christians and Pagans. Despite those setbacks, they're still one of the more powerful factions in-game, and should said issues be resolved, can be nigh unstoppable.
Digitized Sprites: Units will change from 3d models to digitized sprites when they are far enough away from the camera, to improve system performance. In technical terms, this is known as "Draw Distance". Unit Cards are also made with a 2D rendering of a 3D model of the represented unit. An important fact for newcomers of the modding community when creating custom units.
Disaster Dominoes: Battles between evenly matched forces tend to play out like this. One moment, the sides will be evenly matched, then one unit will break and flee. The units next to them will now suffer a drop in morale due to seeing a friendly unit flee as well as having their flank exposed, then they too will flee. It is possible to see a battle go from "balanced" forces to one side routing completely within seconds.
Disc-One Nuke:
- The Britons can recruit Woad Warriors once a Shrine to Andrasta has been constructed. Shrines are the most basic religious building, and can be built in any size settlement right away, no matter how small. For most other factions, units which require a religious building to construct require at least a "Temple" or equivalent. Woad Warriors are a grade above the warband rabble melee units otherwise available to the Britons, though their lack of armor makes them vulnerable to missile fire and they become outclassed once you start running into other factions with better-armored/more-disciplined infantry.
- Macedon's Light Lancers. Despite being classed as light cavalry, Light Lancers have a charge strength equivalent to Roman Legionary Cavalry. Legionary Cavalry is a high-tier, post-Marian Reforms, expensive, two-turns-to-recruit heavy cavalry unit. Light Lancers are comparatively cheap, only take one turn to recruit, and can be recruited right away at the start of the campaign. Though their lack of armor leaves them vulnerable to missile fire and prolonged melee combat, they can decimate everything your opponents can throw at you save for forward-facing phalanxes in the early part of the campaign. Their weaknesses eventually make them outclassed, but they continue to have their uses even late into the campaign.
Do Well, But Not Perfect:
- Because AI controlled factions tend to promote Captains to Generals whenever the ruling family is down to their last few members, it is wise to avoid killing that faction's less useful Generals. Promoted Captains almost always come with a command rating of 2-4, sometimes come with other beneficial traits such as "Brave" and "Battle Scarred," and typically come with no negative traits. As such, killing your enemy's most useless leaders will typically lead to them being replaced by more competent ones.
- Allowing your treasury to build up may seem like a good thing, but having more cash on-hand leads to higher corruption and greater likelihood of your governors developing negative monetary traits like Embezzler, Gambler, Miser, and the like. To avoid this, it's best to keep your actual treasury total low at the end of each turn.
- In Barbarian Invasion, it is wise to avoid capturing the final territory of one of the barbarian factions. If you do, that faction will become a "horde", being gifted with several stacks of powerful units with which they can reestablish a homeland.
Drill Sergeant Nasty: Generals can acquire traits which fit this, typically increasing movement points for armies but decreasing troop morale on the battlefield. There is also the Drillmaster ancillary, which is this trope in nutshell.
Early-Bird Cameo:
- The Eastern Roman Empire in Barbarian Invasion reappears later on in Medieval II: Total War as the Byzantines.
- The "religion" mechanic present in Barbarian Invasion that causes unrest if a faction of one religion controls territory dominated by another gets greatly expanded upon in Medieval II.
Early Game Hell:
- When playing as one of the non-Roman factions who shares a border with the Romans. Greece? Carthage? Gaul? Be prepared for your Roman neighbors to attack within the first few turns of the campaign. Not only are they a tough and wealthy foe, being at war with them also deprives you of establishing Trade Relations with them, meaning you'll have to fight them at an economic disadvantage. And gods help you if one of your other neighbors decides to attack you early on as well... In fact, some campaign guides even advise that you pull out of your Roman border settlements just to give you a few extra turns of peace to build up your army and treasury.
- Some factions have harder starting positions than others:
  - As the Seleucids, you start surrounded by enemies or potential enemies, with a war on two or more fronts in the early game being not only possible, but likely.
  - As Parthia, you starting location is poor and remote, with money struggles being an inescapable part of your early game.
  - As the Greek Cities, you start with a diverse range of territories scattered across the map, so be prepared to fight for your life all around the known world against a myriad of enemies.
- The Western Roman Empire campaign in Barbarian Invasion is renowned as being one of the most difficult in the entire historical Total War series of games. You start with a sprawling empire, but half of it is going to rebel once you press the End Turn button for the first time. Meanwhile, barbarian hordes are pressuring your borders and will cross them to take whatever they like once you show weakness. There is not even enough money in your treasury to pay the salaries of all your starting troops and family members, with many of the latter being disloyal and likely to turn rebel to siege your remaining cities soon enough anyway. It is truly an experience to challenge even seasoned Total War players.
- Taken up to 11 in the Alexander expansion. You start out with a few territories, none of which are especially rich, two armies that you can't pay upkeep for, the Persians sending a full army every single turn, and your primary units being irreplaceable because you can't recruit them at any of your starting cities. It is difficult to survive the first few turns. However, once you conquer Northern Greece and Asia Minor, your money problems disappear and the Persians are weakened enough that full armies become rare. You also have access to the powerful Macedonian pikes and heavy cavalry. The last two-thirds is primarily mopping up.
Early-Installment Weirdness: Rome was the first Total War game to be ported to mobile and, unlike its successors, retained its original title rather than being updated to reflect the franchise's change in name format which began back with Total War: Shogun 2. Rome is distinguished further in that both Barbarian Invasion and Alexander were released as separate titles, whereas later games had their expansions integrated as Downloadable Content. For the longest time, Rome also had a number of disadvantages with regards to gameplay^note in comparison to its successors, though this was rectified when all three Rome titles received an "Imperium Update" in 2025.
Earned Stripes: Used to show a unit's experience level. Stripes will appear from 1-3 and then go from bronze to silver to gold to represent that unit's experience level. If that unit suffers high attrition in a battle and is retrained, the experience level will drop proportionally to the amount of new soldiers it takes on.
Easing into the Adventure: For the Roman factions, as well as the more powerful factions lucky enough to be far away from Rome such as Egypt and Parthia. There are typically a few unaligned "Rebel" cities conveniently close by that you can likely capture with your starting forces alone. While a few of your neighbors may declare war on you, none are particularly threatening (at least that early) and there is ample opportunity for establishing trade relations and alliances with other nearby factions.
Easter Egg: In a game replete with historical inaccuracies, one of the biggest and coolest ones is Themiskyra, the mythical land of the Amazons. It can be found in the very northern part of Germania at the top edge of the map. It's not valuable as a province, nor is it particularly strategically placed, and if that wasn't enough the Amazons keep a garrison of highly experienced and powerful female soldiers including chariots. If you lose the battle then you have to take five turns marching your tattered army back to get more troops (and another five to come back and have another go), and if you win, it's extremely hard to maintain because of distance-from-capital public order penalty. Conquering Themiskyra and holding it is the ultimate Rome: Total War Bragging Rights Reward. Interestingly, the Senate may ask you to conquer Themiskyra if a Roman faction has conquered the provinces near Hyperborea.
Easy Communication: It is possible to instantly command units on opposite ends of the battlefield. There is a setting that forces the camera to stay on your General and makes this more difficult, giving you the option of averting the trope.
Easy Level Trick:
- For whatever reason, AI opponents will sometimes move the bulk of their garrisoning army just outside of a city. Often, they leave just a single unit inside of the city itself. This provides an interesting opportunity should you choose to assault the city. The enemy's main force will appear as reinforcements on the very edge of the battle map while you are free to position your troops much closer to the city. Simply storm in and capture the town square from the tiny defense force. If you're quick enough, you can capture the city and win the battle by holding the town square without ever engaging in the enemy's larger force. It will still be treated as a loss by that larger force and they'll be forced to back away from your newly won city on the campaign map.
- In the unpatched game, a besieging army without siege equipment would always march toward an open gate and stop when the gate closes, even if they were right under a wall's arrow tower. This meant that a single group of peasants with the most basic of palisades could repeatedly lure and decimate an enemy army via the city wall. This was most noticeable in Sardinia when playing as Carthage, as your barely armed town would endure repeated attacks by Rome's finest. This AI trick was fixed in the major patch that came out with the Barbarian Expansion.
Easy Logistics:
- You can send armies to the other side of the world and they'll be just fine from a logistics standpoint. They won't suffer any sort of attrition no matter how far they go and even if they are completely cut off by hostile enemies. The units can easily be retrained back to full strength in any city with the appropriate buildings. Need to replenish your unit of Roman legionaries in a freshly conquered Alexandria? No problem!
- During the time period represented by the game, large-scale campaigning did not typically occur during the winter months due to the challenge of supplying military forces of significant size. In the game, your armies perform equally well in-battle at any time of year, though they do have decreased movement range on the map during winter.
- It is possible to garrison a tiny 400 person village with a huge army of thousands of professional soldiers without any impact on supply. In fact, generals and armies can be left in the middle of the desert for years and even decades and suffer no attrition whatsoever.
Egypt Is Still Ancient: This trope is played with, in a much earlier fashion than normal. A common point of criticism is that, despite being set in the time of the rise of the Roman Empire, the Egyptian models are still shown to be based on New Kingdom Egypt, looking like they did over a thousand years before the time of the game. When Total War: Rome II came out, it fixed this, as Egyptians now look markedly more Hellenistic.
Elites Are More Glamorous: Elite units have more fancy armor that make them stand out from the rank and file units.
Elite Mooks: Every faction has elite units at the high end of the tech tree which generally cost a fortune to recruit and upkeep. Whenever you see these units in an enemy army, be prepared for a difficult fight.
- Rome gets upgraded versions of their already powerful legionaries: the Praetorian and Urban Cohorts.
- The Greeks get Spartan Hoplites, the single toughest infantry unit in the game, but who can only be recruited in Sparta and Syracuse.
- Macedon gets Royal Pikemen and Companion Cavalry, which are significantly stronger versions of their mainline pike and cavalry units.
- Carthage gets Sacred Band infantry which are nearly as good as the Spartans, but can be recruited in any city with the required structure, an Awesome Temple of Baal.
- Egypt gets the Pharaoh's Guard, which is a mighty phalanx unit with far better stats than the standard Nile Spearmen. They also get elite archers in the form of Pharaoh's Bowmen.
- The Seleucids, Numidians and Armenians get their own versions of legionaries, though only the Seleucid Silver Shield Legionaries have stats that match the awesome power of the originals. For the other two factions, their imitation legionaries still by far constitute the best infantry they have. The Seleucids also have Silver Shield Pikemen, which are a much more powerful variant of phalanx pikemen.
- Parthia, Armenia and the Seleucids get Cataphract heavy cavalry who can stand up in prolonged melee like quality heavy infantry while retaining the other advantages of cavalry, and Armenia get Cataphract Archers, a unique heavily-armoured horse archer unit.
- Germania gets Berserkers who, while berserk, are more than a match for any other infantry unit in the game. They also get Chosen Axemen, who can carve through any enemy formation with their deadly axes.
- Other barbarian factions like Gaul and Dacia get Chosen Swordsmen and Chosen Archers, who are much more powerful versions of their respective mainline units. All barbarian factions except the Britons also get Noble Cavalry, which are strong heavy cavalry designed to punch holes in enemy lines.
Elite Tweak: As Egypt, capturing Rhodes, and with it, the Colossus of Rhodes. This will kick Egypt's already-formidable economy into overdrive. The Colossus of Rhodes increases all maritime trade by a whopping 40%, and Egypt starts in the possession of several territories with highly profitable maritime trade (and several others nearby into which it can expand). Capturing and fortifying Rhodes essentially gives Egypt license to print money for the remainder of the campaign.
Embarrassing Nickname: Characters with negative traits that reach high levels can acquire titles of this type. These include "the Lily Livered," "the Fat," "the Drunkard," "the Perverse," "the Idiot," etc.
End of an Age:
- The Barbarian Invasion expansion takes place at the twilight of the Roman Empire. While it's possible to fend off the hordes as either East or West (and even regain some lost glories along the way), the game makes it very clear that "Classical Antiquity" has passed on.
- Militarily, the dominance of heavy infantry is likewise fading, as the advent of the stirrup has allowed for heavy cavalry to begin wielding truly devastating weapons and armor, along with giving rise to recurve bow-armed horse archers who can bring lethal firepower to bear wherever they please. Thus begins the age of Medieval warfare.
Enemy Chatter: Zooming in on opposing armies will allow you to hear commands like "March!" and "Halt!" being given, as well as statements like "We're under attack!"
Enemy Civil War:
- The inevitable Roman Civil War can seem like this if you play a non-Roman faction in the original campaign.
- The Barbarian Invasion expansion features possible civil wars in the Eastern and Western Roman Empires, as well as the division of the Gothic faction into Ostrogoths and Visigoths.
Event Flag:
- Once a Roman city in the Italian peninsula has built an Imperial Palace, the Marian Reforms will trigger. This will open up the extremely powerful Imperial units, including Legionnaires, for recruitment by the Roman factions, turning them from relative Jack of All Stats to the meat-grinder war machines history knows and fears.
- If a Roman city with a Gladiatorial Arena goes into revolt, it may turn into a special Gladiator Revolt instead of the usual Rebel rabble. It's largely the same, save for them having access to some better units.
- Once one of the Roman factions reaches high enough popularity with the people, it may kick off the Roman Civil War. If you're playing as that Roman faction, the game will get much harder as you turn against your former powerful allies. If you're playing against Rome, it may be an incredible boon as your most powerful enemies will suddenly turn on each other.
Evil Pays Better:
- You can enslave the population of a captured city; it disperses the enemy population around other cities with governors; be careful, as while this relieves you of the squalor problems in addition to your unrest woes in the captured city, it can cause problems in the cities you dispatch the slaves to. Check where you have situated your governors. Or just kill most of them, which gives you even more money.
- The horde mechanic possessed by some factions in Barbarian Invasion encourages you to sack enemy cities after you capture them, as that not only gives you a huge amount of money but also greatly reduces the population of each city. Since you cannot stay a horde forever and need to take territory by settling in cities in order to win the campaign, a reduced population helps greatly with maintaining public order. For these reasons, guides usually recommend that you sack each city you come across at least once before settling in it. Cities with very large populations can even be sacked multiple times for repeated profit.
Evolving Character Portrait: The portraits of male family members and other generals retain the same pre-middle aged adult appearance from 16 all the way up to 50, when they are aged up with grey/white hair and more roughly-textured faces. This does not hold true for agents, who retain the same middle aged appearance throughout their lives,
Exposed to the Elements: Some of the units, like most of the Egyptians and some Barbarian troops, do not look like they could survive in frigid conditions for any amount of time.
Extreme Omnisexual: Generals can acquire traits and ancillaries implying that he is a massive womanizer, openly and promiscuously gay, and into bestiality. These traits are not mutually exclusive.
Face–Heel Turn: It's possible for rival factions to bribe your generals and settlements to their side, which results in this sort of thing happening. If the rival is of the same Civilization-type, this can also include the whole, or part of, the army that the General commanded.
Faction-Specific Endings: Each culture type (Roman, Barbarian, Greek etc.) gets their own unique victory cutscene with swappable flags for individual factions who also get their own unique text. This also applies to Barbarian Invasion, though the cutscenes take the form of a more generic shot of flags overlooking armies; later ports which promoted NPC factions such as the Slavs and Romano-British resorted to rather unimpressive shots of their armies taken straight from the battlefield. Alexander, rather than a cutscene, has a narration by BRIAN BLESSED as the camera takes you over the map, which is now entirely the domain of Alexander's Macedon.
Fake Longevity: The game is quite slow moving. Most of your turns will be spent constructing buildings, recruiting and waypointing troops, and scanning your territory for rebels and possible invaders. Big epic battles, despite being a selling point for the game, do not tend to occur all that frequently.
Fair-Weather Friend: Don't count on your allies to support you when you really need them. Conversely, abandoning your allies to fight a war on their own is bad diplomatic form, and will result in a hit to foreign relations.
A Father to His Men: A General with traits that fit this trope benefits from greater troop morale in battle.
Fight Woosh: When two (or more) enemy armies engage on the Turn-Based campaign map, a top-down Fight Woosh zooms down to the block where the fighting takes place; after the loading screen, an exact replica of the block, but with much more details and massively upsized, will be used for the Real-Time battle.
Fire Keeps It Dead: Casualties in battle as a result of fire attacks, whether by Arrows on Fire, siege equipment, or boiling oil, are far less likely to recover after.
Flavor Text: Unit and Building cards usually contain a several paragraph description detailing the unit or building in question. Except for a few notable exceptions, these descriptions are reasonably historically accurate.
Foe-Tossing Charge: Elephant units will plow through just about anything the game has to offer when sent on a charge. Chariots are also capable of this against anything other than a forward-facing phalanx. Cataphracts, General's bodyguards, heavy cavalry, and light cavalry are also capable of this in decreasing order of effectiveness.
Foreshadowing: Barbarian Invasion essentially works as a transition expansion to help players of Rome adjust to the changes that they'll see in Medieval II.
- In terms of warfare, there is a sharp decline in the quality and availability of heavy infantry, formerly the backbone of any army worth its salt in the main game. Additionally, there are more units with an Armor-Piercing Attack who can easily counter the heavy infantry that does remain, just as there is in Medieval II. Cavalry also gets an increase in quality, availability, and variety across most factions, reflecting its rising importance in Medieval European armies.
- In terms of the campaign, it introduces the idea of different religions (Christian, Pagan, Zoroastrian) and the concept that a faction of one religion holding a city primarily of a different religion will cause immense unrest. It also introduces the idea of factions appearing at a certain time, as well as "horde" factions who do not possess territory, but instead go around raiding settlements.
Foreign Ruling Class: A possibility due to bribing enemy Generals from other cultures to your side, as Barbarian, Egyptian, Eastern, Greek, Carthaginian, and Roman portraits are all different. But, they will marry native women, and the children will also look native, even having native names.
Fragile Speedster: Parthia is one as a faction, particularly early in the games. They're limited to weak light infantry and will be doing most of their fighting with horse archers. Horse archers are fast and can do a lot of damage if used effectively, but they're miserable at capturing cities and require serious practice/micromanagement on the battlefield lest they get run down by enemy cavalry or shot to pieces by enemy archers. They also count as being very weak in an auto-battle. However, if they're able to establish a chunk of territory and upgrade their cities, they get access to unmatched Cataphract heavy cavalry, turning them into Lightning Bruisers.
Friendly Fireproof: Averted. Your missile and siege weapons make no distinction between your own troops and those of the enemy when they hit. Thankfully, after the first patch, most ranged units will automatically stop firing if the only enemy target within range is engaged with your own troops. You can overrule this action if you so choose.
From Nobody to Nightmare:
- Some of the smaller, less historically significant factions can pull this off in the campaign. It's not unheard of for Armenia to conquer Asia Minor or Numidia to bring down Carthage. Of course, you can do this too if you choose to play as one of these factions.
- Captains, who lead armies when no General is present and are otherwise unremarkable, can be promoted to Generals and adopted into the ruling family, potentially even rising to the rank of Faction Leader. Promoted Captains almost always come with a command rating of 3-4, sometimes come with other beneficial traits such as "Brave" and "Battle Scarred," and typically have no negative traits. (Unlike those born into the ruling families, who are far more likely to develop negative traits.) Because of this, promoted Captains in enemy armies can be quite difficult as foes.
- You can also turn generals with terrible stats into all-conquering heroes through your own skills on the battlefield. A fresh-faced 16-year-old with no command stars and cowardice traits can be transformed into a fearsome, battle-scarred vanquisher of all before him after several heroic victories. This can take only a few turns if you're fighting a massive war with a faction of equal or greater strength.
Frontline General: Your Generals and their bodyguards are a cavalry unit on the battlefield, and quite powerful at that. Further, their presence increases the morale of nearby units, so keeping them near the front lines is encouraged.
Full-Circle Revolution: In Barbarian Invasion, if the Roman Rebels successfully usurp the Western or Eastern Empires, there is nothing to say that another rebellion can't arise.
Full-Frontal Assault:
- Implied by the "Naked Fanatics" of some of the barbarian factions. However, they are depicted in loincloths for ratings purposes.
- The highly acclaimed Europa Barbarorum Game Mod has "Gaesatae" who fight in the nude. They're extremely effective but critically weak to arrows and javelins. Since it's a mod and doesn't face censorship, they actually are depicted in the nude.
Game Mod: There is a vast and bewildering array of mods for the game, from minor enhancements to vanilla gameplay to total conversion mods that offer players entirely different experiences as compared to the original. In recognition of the diverse and dedicated modding community, the Remastered edition adds a mod manager and Steam Workshop support for players. Among the most prominent mods are:
- Darthmod, which offers a larger map and enhancements to enemy AI and gameplay while trying to preserve the basic feel of the original game.
- The Rome: Total Realism series consists of total overhaul mods that aim for historical accuracy, with some of the mods choosing to focus on smaller maps to portray specific conflicts from antiquity.
- The Roma Surrectum series focuses on the Roman factions, but is also a total overhaul mod aimed at historical accuracy. The RTR and RS teams have been working together on RTR Imperium Surrectum, which is the most ambitious and popular (in terms of downloads) total overhaul mod on the Remastered Edition.
- Europa Barbarorum is a classic mod of the original release, involving painstaking historical research and even authentic music and voice-acting in order to give players as accurate a portrayal of classical antiquity as possible.
- Barbarian Empires expands upon the original, fleshing out non-Roman factions with historical buildings and units while maintaining a semblance of vanilla gameplay.
- The Fourth Age: Total War is a total conversion mod that puts the player in the Fourth Age of Middle-Earth, based on The New Shadow, Tolkien's uncompleted sequel to the Lord of the Rings. Centuries after the defeat of Sauron and the destruction of the One Ring, a Shadow Cult is rising that once more threatens the peace that has endured for so long.
Gameplay and Story Segregation: The game tends to include a lot of info on what makes a given unit special, usually taken from actual history—which may not actually be reinforced in their stats. For instance, the description of the Hastatii and Principes units gives a pretty good explanation of how the two tended to differ tactically (Hastatii were lightly-armored shock troops used to engage the enemy initially, while Principes were better-equipped troops that finished off anything that broke the Hastatii line), but in-game, the only difference between the two is that the Principes is all-around stronger.
Gang Up on the Human: Due to the still primitive nature of the diplomatic system in the series, every AI faction is scripted to attack the player's faction once certain conditions are met, no matter the player's strength or economy in relation to their own. This leads to broken alliances at the drop of a hat and weak factions attacking you despite having no chance of actually winning.
General Failure: Generals who repeatedly lose battles will develop traits along this line. These traits reduce his command rating and lower troop morale, making him even more likely to lose battles. Vicious Cycle indeed.
General Ripper: A General who frequently has high casualties in battle, slaughters routed opposing units, battles the same enemy faction repeatedly, and who frequently presides over the "Extermination" of captured cities can develop traits in line with this trope. At lower levels, it can increase his command rating, raise his own men's morale in battle, and lower enemy morale. If it develops to higher levels, his own men will see their morale drop and he'll become almost unusable as a governor due to significantly increased unrest.
Generational Saga: Depending on the faction, the Campaign typically starts you with a middle-aged faction leader, his two-to-three 18-35 year-old sons (including the Faction Heir), and perhaps a few young grandchildren who have not yet come of age. The campaign spans up to 284 years, so quite a few generations will be added over time as well.
"Get Back Here!" Boss:
- Enemy Generals can be like this. Typically, they are extremely difficult to kill and, being mounted units, can quickly flee the battlefield. If they manage to break away from your army while fleeing, your only hope to run them down is with faster Light or Missile Cavalry. If they escape the battlefield, they'll regroup with any other units from their army who managed to flee and will need be fought again.
- While not strictly a "boss" unit, fighting Missile Cavalry can have this effect. They are the fastest-moving units in the game, and the AI is pretty much scripted to run away whenever any opponent comes close. Even if you have Light Cavalry, it's unlikely that you'll be able to catch them. Fortunately they are large and lightly armored targets, so they are somewhat vulnerable to other missile units, but most Missile Cavalry units can also form a "shooting circle" to minimize their casualties to incoming fire. This would be a case of Chasing Your Tail if it wasn't for their ability to fire at you AND run away at the same time.
Gladiator Games: The Roman factions can build Gladiatorial Arenas and, for a price, put on games that improve Public Order in the city since it makes the citizens happier.
Gladiator Revolt: Cities with a Gladiatorial Arena who go into revolt may have "The Gladiator Uprising" as their rebellion. In practice, it's the same as a standard revolt with access to some better units.
Glass Cannon:
- Chariots. They are a staple of the Briton and Egyptian factions and can cut huge swathes through the lines of all but the most heavily armored infantry. However, they die very quickly if charged into quality spear infantry, get bogged down in close quarters fighting, or get hit by volleys of fire from missile troops.
- Mounted ballistae in Barbarian Invasion. They will tear apart even the toughest units with ease, but die whenever a cool breeze blows on them.
Grim Up North: The northernmost areas of the map are some of the most sparsely populated, with harsh winters decreasing farming output and trade opportunities, making them financially poor as well. It is also home to the vicious barbarian factions.
Going Down with the Ship: This happens involuntarily to any units you have on a ship if it is sunk during a naval battle. Loading large armies or important family members onto a ship for a multi-turn voyage is extremely risky as a result. It helps if your naval force is strong enough defeat any Rebel or enemy faction ships that they may stumble across. They can also experience a shipwreck between turns, sinking without even engaging an enemy.
Going Native: Happens to the Roman factions in Barbarian Invasion. The Eastern military starts looking more like a Greek/Parthian force from the main game than anything Roman. The Western military takes cues from the main game's barbarian factions, with a greater emphasis on mobility with faster-moving, less disciplined light infantry as the main fighting force supplemented with a wide variety of supporting troops. Both represent Truth in Television, as the Romans by this point no longer had their world-conquering legions of professional soldiers but were instead more and more reliant mercenaries and volunteer defensive armies.
The Government: The purple SPQR Roman faction based in Rome at the campaign's start. If you play as a Roman faction, your family members can get positions in the leadership. It typically acts as a nuisance, and will inevitably attack you when you become too powerful.
Government in Exile:
- A faction's capital can be taken and they'll continue to fight on from their other territories. This is common for Greece and Carthage, who often lose their homeland early on but can continue to fight deep into the campaign from their territories in Anatolia and Hispania, respectively.
- Barbarian Invasion features "hordes". Taking the last settlement of a faction causes several large armies to spawn and the faction to get on the move until they find a new homeland, at which point the "horde" disbands, leaving them with a significantly smaller force.
Guide Dang It!:
- Managing the traits and retinues of your family members and agents without a guide handy is quite frustrating, both for gaining good ones and avoiding bad (frequently crippling) ones. Even over two decades since the game's release, questions about traits and ancillaries are still some of the most common questions on Total War forums. Further, nowhere in the game is it mentioned that you can move ancillaries between two characters who are in the same city or army. It's incredibly helpful to pass the good ancillaries of aging characters onto younger counterparts, potentially keeping them in for generations, while moving bad ancillaries off of good characters.
- The General typically rides at the front of his bodyguard unit, putting him in serious danger of being killed when charging into the enemy. However, hitting the "Rally" command causes your general to keep still to rally while the rest of his unit keeps charging, leaving your general much safer in the back of the unit while his unit is simultaneously attacking. This unexpected quirk is pretty key to actually use your general's bodyguard for fighting while not going through generals like they're going out of style.
Happily Adopted:
- Played straight for Captains who are adopted into the ruling family after achieving a great victory. They are treated as a son and can be named Faction Heir, eventually even becoming the Faction Leader.
- Enemy Generals who accept a bribe to join your faction also get the same treatment — but they might want to hire a few local mercenaries, as the local citizens might not be as happy about said adoption, especially those of enemy factions.
Hard-Coded Hostility: The Rebel faction is permanently hostile to every other faction for the entire duration of the campaign.
Harder Than Hard: The game has the standard "Easy" to "Hard" difficulty options for both Battles and the Campaign, but also has Very Hard. Downplayed in that it's hardly "impossible," but it is quite challenging. In battle on Very Hard difficulty, it is possible to see things like cavalry routing phalanxes and inexperienced militia units going toe-to-toe with your grizzled veteran professional troops.
Have a Gay Old Time: Certain Greek cities might be ruled by "Lesbian Rebels" ^noteRebels from Lesbos, that is during anarchy.
Heel–Face Turn: It's possible to bribe an enemy General, (along with their army, either whole or part, especially if the army is of the same Civilization-type as your own) into joining your faction.
Heel–Face Revolving Door:
- It's possible for bribed characters to swing back and forth between one side and the other, helped by the fact that they gain the "Disloyal" trait when bribed, making future bribes cost less.
- In Barbarian Invasion, when the leader of the Rebel Roman factions are dealt with, the surviving units return to their original controlling faction.
Hello, Sailor!: A general left aboard a ship between turns may develop homosexual traits.
Hero Must Survive:
- Heavily Downplayed with Generals. There is no instant-lose condition if your General falls in battle. However, your General's death will severely lower the morale of your troops, making them much more prone to routing. Unless you have a high-morale army of seasoned veterans, losing your General will make winning the battle much harder.
- Played straight in the Alexander expansion with Alexander himself, who must survive in the campaign and historical battles.
Hero with Bad Publicity: It seems that as a Roman faction, the more the People loves you, the more bitter the Senate become toward you. Considering that crushing the Senate and ruling Rome by force is a winning condition, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Historically, this is pretty much how the pattern went with Populares reformists, some of whom were part of the Senate. Their fate was to be killed in increasingly creative ways by the other senators. The example that mostly overcame this pattern was Julius Caesar.
Hired Guns: Mercenaries can be hired by any General unit traveling between cities. The types of mercenaries available varies depending on the region. For instance, mercenary hoplites can be recruited in Hellenistic regions, barbarian band mercenaries in northern and western Europe, and even elephant mercenaries in North Africa and the Middle East. For some factions, hiring mercs will be vital to their success, helping to fill in roster gaps for some of the more Cripplingly Overspecialized factions.
Hit-and-Run Tactics: A specialty of the "skirmish" factions, but downright required when playing as Parthia. Fragile Speedster horse archers are the backbone of the Parthian army, with only very weak light infantry available in a game where heavy infantry rules the day. Until you're able to afford the extremely powerful but cripplingly expensive Cataphract heavy cavalry, your only chance is to harass the enemy armies with your horse archers to thin their numbers, weaken their morale, and tire them out so that your infantry stands a chance against them.
Hordes from the East:
- Parthia starts with the easternmost territories on the map and faces the Crippling Overspecialization of having terrible infantry and a dependence on Fragile Speedster horse archers. They struggle to do much of anything when controlled by the computer, but a skilled human player can turn them into the Mongols or Timurids (classic examples of the trope) a thousand-plus years early with devastating Cataphract heavy cavalry and the funds to pay for them.
- One of the biggest threats to both halves of the Roman world in Barbarian Invasion are the Huns, who have recently come out in full force from the eastern steppes. On top of that, they tend to uproot any faction that stands in their path of conquest, so the Romans may also have to deal with hordes of Goths, Vandals, Sarmatians, etc., all looking for a new homeland within the empire's borders, then face an invasion by the Huns themselves.
Horse Archer: A staple of the eastern/steppe factions. They can also be recruited as mercenaries by other factions in those regions. They can be devastating if used effectively, though this requires series practice and micromanagement as they are Fragile Speedsters who need to use Hit-and-Run Tactics to survive.
Horse of a Different Color:
- Camel units (Dromedaries) are available to a few of the eastern factions, as well as the Numidians. They can also be recruited as mercenaries in those regions. While slower than standard horse cavalry, they get bonuses when fighting in desert areas and make horse units more prone to fleeing, as horses dislike the smell of camels.
- War Elephants can be recruited by Carthage and some of the eastern factions, as well as be recruited as mercenaries in those regions. They are very expensive to recruit with high upkeep, but they are like having tanks 2,000+ years early. Their biggest weakness is that they can be spooked by fire, causing them to run amok and potentially trample your own forces...
Hunk: Traits that imply attractiveness can increase a General's influence and popularity.
Improvised Weapon: The Peasant units of some factions use pitchforks as their primary weapon.
Inadequate Inheritor: When your Faction Leader dies, your Faction Heir is promoted to the position and the game automatically selects a new Faction Heir. It is usually the eldest son of your new Faction Leader, or his next oldest brother if he has no sons/they aren't "of age" yet. Thankfully, you have the ability to manually change your Faction Heir if you deem the one the game selects for you to be inadequate, at the cost of giving the old one the "Disinherited" trait which hurts his influence.
"Instant Death" Radius:
- Amusingly, due to how the physics engine treats chariot impacts versus spears, all chariots in the game will drop dead instantly the moment they touch the spears of an intact phalanx. Also, be warned, moving chariots have a similar effect on cavalry, so a single heavy chariot on an open plane can mow down stacks of heavy cavalry before succumbing.
- The schiltrom formation in Barbarian Invasion is basically a circular phalanx which, much like its predecessor, will cause any cavalry who pass within speartip distance to immediately drop dead.
Instant Militia: Most factions can recruit Town Watch, Militia Hoplites, or equivalent who fill this role. They're dirt cheap to recruit and have minimal-to-no upkeep costs (if garrisoned in a few cases), so you can use them keep your towns safe while your main fighting force moves on. They're essentially just Peasant units given better equipment and training, useful for padding defensive forces in a pinch and dealing with low-end Rebel units who pop up.
Instant-Win Condition: When capturing an enemy settlement, you can win the battle either by destroying/routing all of their forces (as it is for non-city battles as well) or by holding the settlement's "Town Square" for a certain amount of time. If you manage to do the latter, you win the battle even if the enemy has non-routing forces remaining. (However, those remaining forces will appear outside of your newly captured city on the Campaign Map if enough remain, so you'll still have to deal with them.)
Insult to Rocks: Used in the description text for the "Deranged" trait:
"There are those who say that this man gibbers like a deranged rock ape. The rock apes will take offense at this slur.”
In the Back: Always the best way to handle your foes - while there may be some other factors to it, as a rule, being attacked from behind will cause a significant morale penalty that will rout enemy units faster.
In the Blood: The traits of your family members can be passed on to their children. This holds true for both positive and negative traits, so it can be a blessing or a curse. Less frequently, complete opposite traits will be passed on, such as your Brave, Generous, and Pious General having a son who is Cowardly, a Harsh Ruler, and Sacrilegious.
Involuntary Battle to the Death: Routing units who are completely surrounded will enter a "fighting to the death" mode. As such, it is best not to completely surround routing units so that you don't suffer unnecessary casualties.
Irony: The narrator for Parthia's intro boasts about how wealth flows through their land when in fact Parthia is so poor that it's one of the few factions in the game that you can easily go bankrupt with.
Gold will buy a thousand warriors. And a thousand warriors... why, they are the start of an empire!
Jack of All Stats: Militarily, the Roman factions before the Marian Reforms. Virtually every faction has at least a unit or two better than the Roman equivalent, but none have as complete of roster as the Romans do. They can easily put together a balanced force of infantry, cavalry, missile, and artillery units while opposing factions who may be better in one of those areas will be weaker, if not completely deficient, in the other two. Overall as a faction, however, they avert it because they can quickly establish the best economy in the game which allows them to crank out more and better troops faster than the other factions.
Javelin Thrower:
- The most basic missile unit for most factions, when it isn't slingers. They have worse range and less ammo than slingers, but can arc their fire over friendly troop lines and typically do more damage. Both are inferior to archers, however.
- Several factions have mounted javelin units, who have worse range and less ammo than Horse Archers, but tend to be cheaper and lower in the tech tree.
Join or Die: This is a possible option to give enemies, but they will VERY rarely accept to becoming a vassal. You can get offered this choice as well, but it's never really worth it.
Joke Character: The Western Roman Empire in Barbarian Invasion get a unique general called Gratianus the Lily-livered who starts out with every negative morale trait that he can have. He also has a "Mother-In-Law" ancillary in his retinue, which lowers his stats even further — despite not being married.
The Juggernaut: The Roman factions following the Marian Reforms. Already possessing the most robust economy in the game, the reforms upgrade Rome's Jack of All Stats volunteer armies into the known-world-conquering juggernaut professional legions that were nearly unmatched in the ancient world.
Kavorka Man: Generals can have such a high "Ugly" trait that children will shriek in terror when they come near, but can still have a faithful wife, prolific fertility, and be a known womanizer.
Keystone Army:
- The barbarian factions suffer from a lack of discipline which not only increases the chances of their units charge the enemy without orders, but also makes them very susceptible to mass routing when they lose their general in battle. In contrast to this are the "civilized" factions who can fight for a bit longer, if not indefinitely, without their general if their units have high experience and morale.
- This also occurs for entire factions. When the ruling family is wiped out, the faction is destroyed no matter how many armies or cities they control. This is also an incredibly efficient way to deal with "hordes" in Barbarian Invasion. Unlike standard factions, barbarian hordes can keep fighting even if they lose all of their cities. This can be exploited if there is only a single family member left, as a minor victory or even an assassination of the faction leader can make multiple full armies disperse instantly, leaving only a few rebel armies of a few units each.
- In the Alexander expansion, the death of the titular character by any cause - in battle, through plague, etc - will see your entire campaign end instantly in defeat.
Kick Them While They Are Down: You see that routing unit that's running away from you helpless and unable to harm your units? Kill them anyway. If they aren't shattered, they might rally to attack your units again, and while a routing unit is under attack, it cannot rally.
The Kingslayer: A Total War staple. Naturally, faction leaders are the most difficult characters for an assassin to kill.
Last Stand:
- Units that are in a city's square will fight to the death, and if they have to fight there, they usually are fighting to the death. In city or castle fights, if a defending unit routs, it will attempt to run to the city square. Sometimes, if you get to the square and are controlling it, a enemy unit somewhere else might rout and run right into your soldiers. Soldiers completely surrounded in the field will also fight to the death; but this is just to break out.
- On the campaign map, armies with nowhere to retreat to will also make a last stand. If they are defeated, the entire army is annihilated, no matter how many survivors manage to flee the battle itself.
Leeroy Jenkins: Certain highly "impetuous" units like Berserkers and Roman Gladiators may charge without orders. Berserkers can also enter a "frenzy" mode, during which they cannot be controlled. They'll just start attacking any and all nearby enemies once frenzied.
Lightning Bruiser:
- Cataphracts. While they are the slowest horse cavalry unit, they're still much faster than any infantry. Their Foe-Tossing Charge is second only to elephants in the game and their heavy armor allows them to go toe to toe with all but the most elite spear infantry in a protracted melee battle. The only things keeping them from reaching game breaker status are their massive recruitment and upkeep expenses, as well as being extremely high in the tech tree, so they won't show up until very late in the campaign.
- Clibinarii in Barbarian Invasion. They're essentially Cataphracts on steroids, trading some additional speed and charge strength for even heavier armor and an Armor-Piercing Attack.
Losing the Team Spirit: As is standard for the series, troop morale is a huge factor in battle. Outnumbering the enemy, having their flanks protected, and having a General nearby are some of the many factors which increase troop morale. However, losing your General or having nearby friendly units flee will badly demoralize your army. (Losing a standard in battle as one of the Roman factions can actually demoralize your entire faction.)
Lost Roman Legion: The Battle of Teutoburg Forest (where the idea the trope is based on first came about) is included in the game as a "Historical Battle" you can play and try to win.
The Low Middle Ages: Barbarian Invasion begins just prior to the fall of the Western Roman Empire and proceeds into the era of, well, the barbarian invasion of western Europe.
Luck-Based Mission: Agent actions and naval battles can only be resolved automatically, leaving you with no ability to influence the outcome. You are merely given the probability of success as you hope the Random Number God is on your side. Save Scumming can also be used to great effect.
Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: As is Truth in Television, shields are the only form of defense for many units, especially light infantry and for missile units who have one. Even then, they tend to only protect against attacks from the front. Higher quality shields can reduce incoming missile fire to Scratch Damage, if not completely nullify it, but again, only if its from the front.

M-Z

Magikarp Power: Several factions fit this.
- Parthia starts out with some of the most financially poor starting cities in the game which are separated by huge tracts of empty wilderness, making troop waypointing tedious and leading to high corruption. They have pitiful infantry and their best initial units, their horse archers, require serious practice and micromanagement to use effectively but even then are terrible at capturing cities. However, when powered up enough, they can become the ancient equivalent of the Timurids via access to their unrivaled Cataphract heavy cavalry.
- The Greeks and Carthaginians start out with scattered territories and enemies all around them. In fact, it's not uncommon for them to be the first two major factions to be eliminated. However, if they survive, the Greeks get some of the best infantry (particularly the Spartans) and most profitable provinces in the game, while the Carthaginians also get some very powerful units (including Sacred Band hoplites nearly as good as the Spartans as well as Armored War Elephants).
- The Seleucids have good units (including the overpowered phalanx in several varieties) with a varied overall roster, but have numerous enemies on all sides out of the gates, particularly expansionist Egypt. If they survive until the late game, they get Silver-Shield Legionnaires, who are every bit as good as Rome's.
The Magnificent: Generals with high level traits can pick up epithets in this vein, both in positive and negative fashions. Positive ones include "the Great," "the Conqueror," "the Just," "the Fearless," etc. Negative ones include "the Butcher," "the Wrathful," "the Mean," etc. Spies and Assassins can also earn these.
Marathon Level: Any battle where the enemy army contains missile cavalry. Missile cavalry are the fastest units in the game, are programmed to fall back when your forces draw near, and can fire at you while falling back. Even if you completely annihilate the rest of the enemy's army, expect to be chasing their missile cavalry around the map until they run out of ammo.
Mauve Shirt: Automatically generated captains can lead armies and navies if no official general is present. They have no real special skills to speak of like generals, and can die just as readily as Red Shirts, but you can get attached to them nonetheless if you recognize their name over time. Their names are associated with the faction they were recruited for, giving them that tiny bit of flavor over the nameless hordes of unknown soldiers. Army captains also have the chance of being promoted into full-blown generals for their victorious efforts, though Tall Poppy Syndrome will make doing this cause a loyalty reduction to your established generals.
McNinja: Roman factions can recruit Arcani, a secret society of fanatics who worship Jupiter. Armed with twin gladii, they wear intimidating masks, black shrouds, and well-crafted armor. They can hide practically anywhere in the wilderness, they have exceptional stamina, fighting ability, speed, and morale. To round it all off, they operate with less than half the number of a more conventional unit type, perhaps invoking the law of Conservation of Ninjutsu. Their role is to flank and ambush the enemy, and perform the least capably in a straight-up fight against superior numbers.
Mercenary Units: It is possible for a General out in the field to recruit mercenaries, providing that they have space for them in the army, and their faction has the money to pay for them. In many cases, said mercenaries are simply a reskin of another unit, but a few are not. In any case, such units resemble members of a native faction - Barbarians, Greeks, Easterners, Africans, and a lone Roman-styled pre-Marian triarii-type unit. Also, while it is possible to upgrade a mercenary unit's weapons and armor, they can't replace casualties, save from merging with another unit of the same type. All come with a price tag, and while some are worth it, like Mercenary Hoplites, some are little better than Peasants, like Numidian Mercenaries who have a lower melee attack or break quickly like Eastern Mercenaries. Still, if one has the money, and they are in a mercenary rich territory, it's not impossible to build up a fully stacked army within a few turns, especially in Anatolia. They're also invaluable to some of the Cripplingly Overspecialized factions to fill in gaps on their unit rosters. Also, if one just turned an enemy general, and settlement, to their side, recruiting a few mercenaries can keep the population under control for a few units to be recruited in order to keep the peace.
Mighty Glacier:
- Heavy infantry, especially legionaries or hoplites. They tend to be some of the slowest units on the battlefield (especially when the latter is in phalanx formation), but are also some of the toughest, being heavily armored and able to dish out as much damage as they can take.
- The phalanx formation. While incredibly slow and difficult to maneuver, they are able to steamroll just about any other form of infantry. Defeating them requires either slick maneuvering or another stronger phalanx, which is largely Truth in Television.
Military Mashup Machine: If you want sick, look at the incendiary pigs; the pigs are pointed at enemy units (preferably elephants) and then set on fire! Stand well back.
A Million Is a Statistic: The trope is almost used by name in the description for the "Conqueror" trait for Generals.
"If you kill a man you're a murderer. Kill many of them and you're a hero!"
Million Mook March: The faction intro videos end showing a massive army of that faction in this fashion. You can (and likely will) recreate it during the campaing when you march your armies off to war.
Money for Nothing:
- Played straight for the Roman factions. Once you've established a chunk of territory and set up trade relations with your neighbors, money tends to become a non-issue thanks to a snowballing economy effect. You almost have to actively try to go bankrupt by wasting money and intentionally failing to reinvest. This is Truth in Television as one of the strengths of the real Roman Empire was their vast wealth, which coupled with their massive population, fueled their world-dominating war-machine legions.
- Downplayed for most non-Roman, non-barbarian factions. While not as easy to pull off as it is for the Romans, it isn't too difficult to end up with overflowing coffers while still upgrading your cities and bolstering your armies. Egypt is a prime example and can play it fully straight with some Elite Tweaks like taking Rhodes for the big bonus to maritime trade income.
- This becomes a problem as having a large treasury increases corruption, which drains income, increases unrest, and gives undesireable traits to your governors and generals. To prevent this, it's actually advised to end each turn with as little money in your treasury as possible.
Morale Mechanic: As is standard for the series. Once a unit's morale falls below a certain level, they will rout and flee the battlefield. Units made up of professional and/or veteran soldiers have naturally higher morale than militia or peasant units. Having a General with troop morale increasing traits, having the General near the troops on the battlefield, out-numbering the enemy forces, out-flanking the enemy forces, etc. will all contribute to higher morale for your troops. Conversely, having your General die, seeing friendly units routing, being outflanked, being attacked with fire or non-horse animals, etc. can all cause your units to cross the Morale Event Horizon and flee themselves.
Multi-Melee Master: Hoplite and phalanx troops will drop their spears and draw swords when in close combat, though they kill most effectively with spears in the phalanx formation.
Multiple Endings: After finishing a Short Campaign (Capture 15 settlements and destroy/outlive one or two specific factions), you can continue your campaign as an Imperial Campaign (capture 50 settlements including Rome). Both give an identical cut-scene with different text below. The game's text files also have text for conquering everything. Here is an example◊ for winning the Imperial Campaign as the Julii.
Narrator: As acknowledged above, Alexander is narrated by none other than BRIAN BLESSED.
Naval Blockade: You can use your navies to blockade enemy ports, depriving them of trade income and sea travel.
Necessarily Evil:
- Even the largest cities will inevitably succumb to overpopulation and squalor which will put their public order and income into the negative. The only ways to alleviate and slow the onset of overpopulation and squalor is to set the tax rate at maximum and to slaughter the populace of a conquered city. It also helps to not upgrade your farms as well.
- Subverted or at least downplayed in the Remastered version. There are now mechanics one can use to decrease squalor and handle overpopulation, making it more rewarding to build large cities.
Nepharious Pharaoh: The Faction Leader of the Egyptian faction is referred to as Pharaoh. Being the leader of the strongest and richest non-Roman faction in the game, he can come across this way when you're at war with Egypt.
Noble Savage: The Barbarian faction intro in the main game implies this about about their people:
"Before my grandfather's grandfather was born, this was our land. These are our good places. Our gods live here, in the trees and rivers, they watch over us. We are happy, we hunt, we love, we have families, homes, and good life."
No Fair Cheating:
- If you frequently use cheat codes, your Faction Leader may acquire the epithet "the Editor."
- In the Remastered edition, players who use console commands to cheat will be barred from unlocking achievements during that session of gameplay, and the sbsequent save file that is created when they save and quit. There is a warning about this when the player calls up the console in game. Players can still cheat by editing game files (eg by editing the descr_strat file to give themselves more starting funds) without penalty, however.
Non-Standard Game Over: In Alexander, the campaign ends in failure if Alexander dies in battle or from any other reason, such as the plague.
Not Completely Useless: Peasant units are otherwise complete Cannon Fodder — they have weak-to-no armor or weapons, have extremely poor morale, and are prone to routing almost immediately. However, they can be useful to simply pad an army's numbers (allowing you to build more siege equipment per turn) and can be used to garrison a newly acquired city (preventing revolt) allowing your better troops to move on sooner, since only the quantity of garrison troops matters for suppressing unrest. They can also be dissolved in a city with a very low population, allowing you to re-recruit them as better units while helping to manage overpopulation at the city you recruited them from. So while they remain "useless" in battle itself, there are a couple of situations a unit of peasants can come in handy.
Not the Intended Use: While the campaign is intended to emulate Real Life historical rivalries and areas of conflict, you are perfectly free (and even encouraged in some cases) to avoid that. For instance, rather than immediately getting drawn into a difficult war with the powerful, expansionist, and rich Roman factions as Carthage, you can bail out of your territories in Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa to instead focus on conquering the Iberian peninsula (where you have one starting territory to expand from) and establishing the heart of your empire there, far away from Roman expansion. The same can also be done as Greece, pulling your forces and instead focusing on Asia Minor (where you likewise have a starting territory to expand from). Several campaign guides actively encourage this, as you'll buy yourself a few in-game decades in areas with far weaker opponents before Rome is back on your doorstep.
Obfuscating Stupidity:
- Since this is a strategy game, there is ample opportunity to behave as such in order to mislead your enemies. On the battle map, this may involve tactics like baiting the enemy into an ambush with apparently poor manoeuvring. On the campaign map, this may manifest as a deliberate strategy to deceive AI factions into believing that you are weaker than you really are. For example, when the Senate becomes wary of you as Roman faction, they will order the suicide of your faction leader on pain of being outlawed. A savvy player may comply and even use this opportunity to not just buy time, but to get rid of weak family members while building up their strength for the inevitable civil war.
Obstructive Bureaucrat:
- Your Generals can obtain traits to this effect while serving as governors. At lower levels, they give bonuses to management and city income. At high levels, they can actually come to have the opposite effect, as well as increasing unrest and harming your cities productivity.
- The Senate tends to act as this when playing as a Roman faction. They try to dictate the direction of your faction's expansion by demanding that you take certain settlements or blockade certain ports. This can be especially annoying if you're busy on one end of your empire and the Senate suddenly demands that you take action against a neutral faction on the other side, drawing you into a two-front war. If you fail too many Senate missions, they may impose financial penalties on you and reduce your chances of having family members elected to Senate positions, stagnating their influence.
Obvious Rule Patch: Prevalent. The first patch involved jacking up the costs of diplomatic bribes in order to counter the tendency of players to conquer the world on the cheap through corruption. The Remastered version came out with a slew of new ones, especially with the option to partially decouple population size from current unit size to make larger unit scales more playable without crippling development, and introducing ways to decrease settlement squalor without having to raze one's own cities.
Old Soldier: Family members can fight in battles alongside their bodyguards at any age, although there are traits that they can get as they age that will limit their combat effectiveness. Hence, it is quite possible to have a 90-year-old badass still leading troops as a Frontline General having already accumulated decades of battlefield experience.
Ominous Latin Chanting: Fittingly, a number of the songs on the sound track include this.
One-Hit Kill: Direct hits from siege equipment will kill any unit in the game in one shot. This even includes Generals, who are notoriously difficult to kill with ranged attacks of any other kind.
One-Woman Wail: Included in the song that plays if you lose or draw in a battle. The track is fittingly titled "Lost Souls."
Only in It for the Money: Mercenary Units can be hired by Generals anywhere outside of cities on the campaign map and generally have lower morale than your own recruited units, which makes sense in that they'd be less willing to give their lives defending a homeland that isn't theirs or while trying to expand a foreign empire.
Only Six Faces: Played straight for character portraits. While there are quite a few more than "six," you will start to see repeats as you get deeper into the campaign and your family expands.
Onrushing Army: When attacked by an AI army, they will usually fight the ensuing battle in this fashion. They will put their infantry into a big line at the front of their army, and crash it into your army.
Overrated and Underleveled: Carthage. Historically, Carthage at their height dominated the western Mediterranean and was an equal of the Roman Republic militarily and economically. The three Punic Wars fought between the two nations were the largest wars that had ever taken place at the time and lasted over a century. Carthaginian forces under Hannibal threatened the heart of Rome in a way no other outside force would for hundreds of years after. In-game, however, Carthage is significantly inferior to the Roman forces in just about every way. Only Carthage's highest-tier units like the Sacred Band heavy infantry beat out their Roman equivalents, and it's rather rare for Carthage to last long enough in the campaign to recruit them in significant numbers. Carthage is also lacking archer units of any sort (though exist in the game files which can be easily edited to add them into the game). Essentially, if you're hoping to rewrite history by leading Carthage to victory over Rome, be prepared for a much tougher task than you might expect.
- Triarii. The highest level of infantry availble to Rome before the Marian reforms trigger, and in-lore, the most veteran troops. They're the best Roman option for dealing with cavalry before the reforms - which would mean more if phalanx mercenaries weren't so common and cheap. But due to the game's Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors, these spear-wielding elites are utterly annhilated by common sword-wielding enemy infantry.
- Cataphract camels. Ostensibly the most elite cavalry unit available to Parthia, with a bonus when fighting other cavalry. But they're sooooo slow (combining the speed maluses of camles and heavily armored cavalry) that all their advantages are nullified. It doesn't help that there are very few engagements that the awesome yet practical regular cataphracts can't handle even without the anti-cav bonus.
Palette Swap: Units who can be recruited by multiple factions will look exactly the same save for the faction's primary color being swapped out.
Paper Tiger: Several factions may qualify, but Gaul seems to get hit with it the worst when you're playing against them. They start with a lot of territory and can be very intimidating when fully-stacked armies are sent your way. However, once you get into battle with them, you realize their armies are made up mostly of low-tier, poorly armored, and undisciplined spear and sword war bands who may charge without orders and have the tendency to rout at the drop of a hat the second they realize they aren't utterly overwhelming your forces and/or they lose their General. Finally, despite having a lot of territory, they are mostly financially poor, which makes building up their economy to support their military rather challenging.
Pelts of the Barbarian: Surprisingly uncommon throughout the barbarian factions, with the Germanic Berserkers one of the only units to actually wear pelts. However, some Roman units wear them, such as the standard bearer for units of Principes among others.
Perpetual Poverty:
- The barbarian factions tend to suffer from this. Their starting territories and those they can expand into early on are quite poor and sparsely populated, making it difficult to create a robust economy. They can also only build territories up to the "minor city" level, preventing them from accessing higher tier economic structures and trade-boosting paved roads. They can take over cities at a higher level and then enjoy those benefits, but that means allowing an enemy faction to progress to that point and then defeating them.
- Armenia and Parthia have some extremely poor starting territories and will typically be in competition with one another for nearby Rebel settlements to expand into. Unlike the barbarians, these factions can build larger cities and will become quite powerful with access to plenty of Money for Nothing if they are able to get to that level before going bankrupt.
The Power Of Hatred: Generals can develop a hatred for a certain culture as a trait, which will increase their command skill when fighting armies of that culture.
Power-Up Letdown:
- Increases in certain traits and certain ancillaries can actually be detrimental to your Generals, both in combat and as governors. For instance, the Bloodthirsty trait is beneficial to a General's command rating and troop morale at lower levels, but if it advances to higher levels, morale will be severely harmed due to your troops' disgust with the General's fondness for bloodshed. Some ancillaries are completely detrimental, such as the Drunken Uncle, Spinster Aunt, Pet Sheep, and Pet Idiot. Luckily, with ancillaries, you can move them between characters if they are in the same city or army. So if one of your good Generals picks up a negative ancillary, you can salvage him by moving the ancillary to another less important General.
- Downplayed by the Marian reforms. They do give a substantial upgrade via new Roman units, but existing units are not upgraded and immediately cease being retrainable. If facing a series of heavy battles a few turns apart, an old-style army could be decimated, be unable to come back to strength, and then crushed, while before they would have been able to retrain between battles. Downplayed as, once your forces have been fully transitioned to Marian units, the "Letdown" portion of the trope ceases to be.
Praetorian Guard:
- As a Roman faction, you can build a unit of actual Praetorian Guards. Needless to say, they are extremely powerful, if costly. In addition, all generals have a small unit of personal bodyguards, with faction leaders having larger units.
- Other factions also have units which are stated to act as these, aside from their duties as frontline soldiers. For example, the Pharaoh's Guard from Egypt.
Prematurely Bald: Hair loss is not presented as a symptom of aging in the character portraits, meaning that you could feasibly end up with a fresh 16 year old general with a balding head.
Prequel: Alexander covers his conquest of the known world, which sets the stage for Rome. Rome itself is a prequel to Medieval: Total War.
Promoted to Playable: Macedon in the original game was a nonplayable Greek faction that became the center of its own expansion. However. ultimately every game faction (including the emergent ones) got this treatment in the Remastered version, complete with voiceovers and animated cutscenes.
Properly Paranoid: The "Paranoid" line of traits increases a General's ability to root out spies and avoid assassination, but lowers many of his other skills. It is typically gained after a failed assassination attempt, giving justification to the "properly" part.
Protectorate: Rival factions can be turned into protectorates through diplomacy.
Proud Warrior Race Guy: The barbarian factions. Their units tend to have naturally higher morale, lower discipline, and their Generals are more likely to acquire Blood Knight-type traits.
Punic Wars: The campaign begins right around the time of the Real Life first Punic War.
Puppet State: An option that can be established through diplomacy is to turn an enemy into a protectorate. AI opponents almost never accept if you offer it to them, yet they will attempt to offer it to you even if your empire is much larger, richer, and more powerful.
Purple Is Powerful: Purple is the color of the SPQR Senate Faction. Despite having Rome as their only territory, they seem to hemorrhage powerful units and their Generals' command ratings usually grow like weeds despite them never leaving Rome's province and never actually fighting anyone. They're also technically in charge of the other three Roman factions who, combined, make for by far the most powerful force in the game.
Pyrrhic Victory: Absolutely possible to do, particularly when invading enemy territory. While your army might win the battle, it can come away too weakened to actually capture any cities or take on the enemy's other armies. Inversely, this is a good strategy if you find your own army hopelessly outmatched. (For example, if a formerly neutral faction launches an attack on one of your cities and reinforcements are too far away to get there in time to help.) Use any strategy you can to make sure your opponent's inevitable victory becomes a Pyrrhic Victory, thus slowing down their invasion of your territory. Also, the included historical Battle of Asculum is actually the real life battle that created this very term and can thus be considered the Trope Namer.
Quantity vs. Quality: Both sides of the axis can be played effectively, even against each other. A handful of high-tier, fully upgraded units can tear apart an army of peasants without even slowing down. An large enough wave of freshly recruited militia can simply Zerg Rush some Elite Army due to the size disparity.
The Queen's Latin: A strange variation of this trope occurs with the Romans who speak with throaty American accents, while every other faction speaks in a sort of vaguely "foreign" accent, with much rolling of R's and slurring of syllables. Ironically, the game's British also have the same accent as other non-Roman factions.
Race Lift: In Barbarian Invasion, the character portraits of any faction in the "Nomad" category portray men who look very Asiatic. This includes the historically Germanic Goths and Vandals. In Alexander, the Dahae are a "Barbarian" faction and so have character portraits which look European, despite residing in Central Asia.
Rain of Arrows: Because the game generally averts Annoying Arrows, volleys of fire from archer units can be some of the most devastating attacks in the game. Only forward-facing heavy infantry really have a chance of coming out of one of these unscathed.
Rags to Royalty: It is possible for the Captain of an army consisting of lower-class forces like militia and peasants to win an epic battle and be invited to join the ruling family. From there, he can be made Faction Heir and become the Faction Leader. If that faction is one of the Roman ones and they've captured Rome itself during the civil war, this makes him Emperor of Rome.
Rank Scales with Asskicking: No matter how incompetent a family member may otherwise be, being named as the Faction Leader automatically increases his command rating, influence, protection from assassination, and increases the size of his unit of bodyguards in battle. A general whose traits otherwise paint him as a cowardly, obese, gibbering buffoon can still be a destructive force on the battlefield.
Reading the Entrails: A Haruspex is a possible ancillary for family members and generals for the Roman, Greek, and Carthaginian factions. Having one gives +1 morale for all troops on the battlefield.
"I have never seen a liver so troubled..." (Haruspex flavor text)
Real Men Wear Pink: The primary color of the Parthian faction is bright pink. Don't underestimate them though, as they have some of the best cavalry in the game and can prove to be a very tough opponent if their Magikarp Power kicks in.
Reasonable Authority Figure: Quite a few combinations of traits can turn your Generals into one. However, as with most traits, this may eventually lead to drawbacks at higher trait levels. For example, being a "Kind," "Generous," and "Trusting" ruler will give you large bonuses to public order and popularity with the people. However, at higher levels, they also lead to a drop in law and order, a penalty to tax income, and an increased susceptibility to spies and assassins, respectively.
Reassigned to Antarctica: One option for dealing with particularly useless family members if you don't want to go the full Uriah Gambit route to have them killed. Simply send them to far reaches of your territory and have them build a fort. They will no longer be embezzling your money or driving up unrest as a governor, or demoralizing your armies as a commander. They can simply sit and act as unit of heavy cavalry guarding the frontier. Another similar option is to send them on a long trip to recruit a variety of mercenaries and bring them back to your territory, since being otherwise incompetent doesn't impact mercenary costs.
Rebel Leader: Various Rebel armies may spawn in your lands between turns. Usually they are just low-level rabble led by a Captain, but sometimes they spawn with a General (complete with his tough bodyguard unit).
Redshirt Army:
- Several factions not only have this trope as a possible tactic, but rely and thrive on it. A good example are the Barbarian factions that use cheap infantry units en masse to overwhelm enemy armies. The player can also do this with armies of cheap militia or even peasants regardless of faction. In fact, recruiting and using a bunch of cheap units to Zerg Rush opponents is quite effective early in the game when you're facing mostly weak "Rebel" faction armies, little better than brigands, who cannot replenish their losses at all.
- Late in the campaign, once you've established a large territory and built up your economy, this trope can cross over with We Have Reserves. So what that you've lost 75% of your army in a "Close Victory?" You can replace your losses from your vast, robust empire within a couple of turns while your crippled opponents can not. This actually has some historical justification for Rome, who could use their vast population, wealth, and production capacity to replace losses far faster than their enemies, as examples like King Pyrrhus of Epirus and Hannibal of Carthage found out the hard way.
Regional Riff: "Eastern" factions have "Arabic Summer" as "map viewing" music instead of Ominous Latin Chanting; ironically the song is an instrumental version of "Daye Miro" (A Kurdish song) with ancient instruments.
Ridiculously Fast Construction: Inverted. Even the simplest buildings take at least a full turn to construct, and there is no way to have your workforce work on multiple projects at once (barring repairs). Since each turn represents 6 months, this means it takes at least that long to construct something as simple as a wooden palisade around a small village, something that historically could be done in just a few days, even though your workforce is focused solely on that project. This means that it can take decades for a "Huge" (24,000+ person) city to build every structure it is capable of.
Risking the King: Sending your Faction Leader into battle is incredibly risky, but regardless of his other traits, simply being the Faction Leader gives him boosts to command rating and increases the size of his bodyguard unit of powerful cavalry in battle, so he may actually be the best choice for leading an army. Carries huge risk though should he die, especially if you don't have many other of-age family members since you lose if your Faction Leader dies and has no heir.
Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Strongly implied in the Scipii intro:
Scipii Narrator: "Our dead lie in many graves, put there by Carthaginian Swords and a few Greek ones. Even Roman blades have taken Scipii lives; that we do not forget or forgive. So, now our time has come. The spirits of the dead cry out for blood! I will lead my family in this undertaking, the Gods will grant us vengeance!"
Royally Screwed Up: Your family members can easily acquire traits indicating that this is the case, with various forms of implied incest included. Since traits can be passed on to their children, it can lead to generations of "screw ups". This can also be implied by various family member ancillaries who are entirely detrimental, like "Mother-in-Law" and "Drunken Uncle", which harm influence.
Rule of Cool: The reason for some of the historical anachronisms within the factions. The developers even stated that they knew the Egyptians of this era were a Hellenistic culture with forces similar to that of the other Macedonian successor states, but since they already had several of those, they went with the "Old Kingdom" Bronze Age look for something different.
Salt the Earth: In the course of your imperial campaign, it's likely that you will come into the possession of cities that don't make strategic sense to hold, usually due to them being the fringes of your territory where corruption and unrest are the highest, requiring massive economic resources to upgrade, and/or requiring massive troop resources to defend. So once you've captured it, you can exterminate the populace, demolish all of the buildings, and even send in a plague-infected character to drive the population even further down. Then abandon it and allow it to rebel. It can provide a good buffer against enemy forces who, even if they capture it, won't get much use of out it. The official website even recommends this strategy.
Save Scumming:
- All but required to level up your agents. Even if one is trained in a city with beneficial relevant upgrades, comes with a high "natural skill" trait, and picks up a useful ancillary, he will still have less than a 50% shot at assassinating or infiltrating even the easiest targets. The best thing to do is save and just keep trying until he succeeds in his mission. After enough successful missions, his skills will increase so that this becomes less necessary. This is also true for naval battles, since they can only be resolved automatically.
- Nothing prevents the player from saving before fighting a battle, then reloading if the battle doesn't yield the desired result. The Remastered edition even autosaves right before you fight a battle, although this is likely more for the purpose of preventing players from losing their progress from any game crashes.
Scary Impractical Armor: Generally averted, as most unit armor is reasonably historically accurate and thus, practical. In fact, the most impractical "armor" belongs to the units who wear none at all, as is the case for many barbarian units and several Egyptian units.
Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: In the unpatched version of the game, one could use a team of diplomats and all of the Money for Nothing to deal more damage to their enemies via bribes than any military force ever could. Simply bribe all but the enemy's largest armies and cause them to disband (or join your side, if the units were eligible). A patch would Nerf this strategy, however, by making it prohibitively expensive to bribe large armies or those led by Generals. Any cheap enough to still bribe are likely weak and easy to defeat in battle.
Scripted Event:
- The main campaign has the Marian Reforms, which will occur once a Roman faction has built an Imperial Palace in the Italian peninsula. Their unit roster will be upgraded from the Jack of All Stats Republic-era volunteer armies to the much more powerful Badass Army Imperial professional legions.
- Barbarian Invasion has emergence of rebel factions if a settlement belonging to either half of the Roman Empire or the Goth faction goes into revolt. If the Western Empire loses control of Britannia, the Romano-British emerge, and at a certain year the Slavs come into the game.
Sedgwick Speech: The commander of an army will always give a speech at the beginning of a battle. In the case of the Roman factions, these can be quite lengthy and varied, and occasionally quite bizarre. One general's speech mentions he has no idea why they are even there, but his mother said he should at least put in an appearance, which is oddly appropriate to how Roman generals were often appointed for their connections over their competence.
Shout-Out:
- When asking you to become a client state, Egypt will tell you that "All your Base are Belong to Us".
- One of the starting Carthaginian Admirals is called 'Admiral Akbar'. Even funnier if you stumble onto a large enemy fleet.
- A couple to Monty Python's Life of Brian:
  - Upon constructing an Aqueduct, the description reads, "What have the Romans ever done for us? This, that's what."
  - The Judean Zealots unit, which only appears when a few relevant provinces rebel, ends its description with "Their loyalty may be to Judea, but each group is its own "one true" resistance movement, or peoples' front, or popular front."
- Members of your royal family can receive a comedian in their retinue and, if you examine their credentials, you get "Nay, Nay, and thrice Nay, mistress. Now where was I? Oh yes... The Prologue..."
- There are a few in the achievements for the Remastered Edition:
  - Winning the "Siege of Gergovia" historical battle nets you "The Empire Strikes Back", while victory in the "Battle of the River Trebia" gets you "It's a Trap!", an iconic line from the same franchise.
  - Victory in the "Siege of Sparta" historical battle grants you "This is Sparta!"
  - Achieving victory in all the original Rome: Total War historical battles (not including Barbarian Invasion and Alexander, which have their own achievements) gets you "Time Commanders Participation Award". This one is particularly meaningful, as the original run of the gameshow (2003 - 2005) used an early version of the Rome: Total War engine, with the game being released a year after it was filmed.
  - Using a wardog unit in battle gives you the achievement "Let Slip the Dogs of War".
  - Eliminating the Gauls faction in the campaign grants you "Even That Little Armorican Village...".
  - Capturing the Statue of Zeus at Olympia nets you "Clash of the Titans", while taking the Colossus of Rhodes gets you "Shadow of the Colossus".
  - Training one of each type of agent - Diplomat, Spy, Assassin and Merchant - grants the achievement "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy...".
The Siege: There is the option to hold a siege until the province falls with relatively no damage. However, this can be undesirably time-consuming and so Storming the Castle is recommended.
Slashed Throat: The image accompaying the message announcing a successful assassination shows an assassin about to do this.
Sliding Scale of Turn Realism: Has the "Round by Round" variety, with each turn representing six months.
Space-Filling Empire:
- Downplayed in general, in that independent regions do exist, but are all controlled by the "Rebel" faction. Each city/region controlled by the Rebel faction is independent of all the other Rebel regions, they are incapable of expanding, incapable of engaging in diplomacy, and are the main targets of the actual factions at the start of the game so they generally have no territory left after the first two dozen turns or so.
- Played straight by independent groups which share cultural resemblance to one another, which are merged into one "empire" in several cases, including the Greek Cities.
- Inverted by the Romans ironically enough. Instead of one unified empire, it was split into three houses with agendas in somewhat different areas of the map. This was done to make it easier for Rome to expand in the areas (Gaul, North Africa, Greece) they did historically during the time period the game is set, as well as to make the "Roman Civil War" event actually work.
Spiked Wheels: Scythed chariots are available to Pontus and the Seleucid Empire. They can cut right through all but the densest enemy formations, cutting them to pieces in the process.
Spy Versus Spy: One of a spy's functions is counterspying, allowing them to intercept enemy spies and assassins in your territory. Spies and assassins can also be used to protect generals by embedding themselves in their armies.
Starter Villain:
- The Rebels, combining this with Warm-Up Boss, for everyone. Every playable faction starts with at least one nearby Rebel-controlled city meant to be your first target. This allows you to expand your territory and get a feel for the mechanics of sacking a city without actually having to declare war on another faction. Additionally, the Rebel armies which randomly spawn allow for open field battle practice and provide an opportunity to get your troops some experience and your Generals some command stars.
- Every playable faction has another nearby faction designed to be their initial antagonist. Once you've captured any nearby Rebel settlements, you'll likely need to go through this faction in order to expand further. Even if you don't attack them, expect them to attack you, even if it doesn't make sense for them to actually do so. Examples include Carthage and the Scipii Romans, Gaul and the Julii Romans, the Greek Cities and Brutii Romans, Seleucia and Egypt, and Parthia and Armenia.
Starting Units: Every faction starts with a Faction Leader, 2-3 "of age" sons including the Faction Heir, and a handful of low-tier units. A few factions start with a higher-tier unit or two they will not be able to recruit more of until they upgrade their cities, which can take dozens of turns. The biggest example are the Spartan Hoplites the Greek Cities start with and the Triarii the Julii Romans get.
Stealing from the Till: Some governors will dig through the tax revenues of the areas they govern.
Storming the Castle: When laying siege to a city, once you've constructed siege equipment (or have had a Spy open the enemy gates), you may choose to storm the city. The defenders understandably have a number of advantages which can make capturing the city a time consuming process with high potential for heavy casualties.
Strategic Asset Capture Mechanic: Featuring the Seven Wonders of the World as those strategic assets! Capturing the nearest city to the "Wonder" puts its under your faction's control and grants you a bonus. For example, the Great Pyramids increase the loyalty of Egyptians, the Colossus of Rhodes increases your maritime trade, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon increase your farming output, etc.
Stupidity Is the Only Option: So you've handed an enemy faction crushing defeat after crushing defeat and reduced their formerly expansive empire down to just two rural villages... yet they STILL refuse your offer of a ceasefire, forcing you to wipe them out. And even in the rare event they DO accept it, expect them to break it within a few turns.
Succession Crisis: In a franchise staple, a faction whose leader dies with no heirs to succeed him will degenerate into rebel provinces.
Suffer the Slings: Slingers are the basic missile unit for several factions, and are generally cheaper and available at lower tech tiers than archers. However, they cannot arc their fire over friendly troops like archers and peltasts can, cannot use flaming projectiles like archers, and have inferior range to even the most basic of archer units. That said, mercenary Rhodian and Balearic Slingers are improved versions of the basic slingers with better damage and accuracy, and can surpass basic archers in terms of range.
Suicidal Overconfidence:
- The campaign AI takes this up to eleven. Factions with no chance of even winning a single battle against you will declare war on your continent-expanding empire and will refuse even the most reasonable ceasefire treaties.
- The battle AI tends to be better about this, but is still susceptible. General units controlled by the AI are notorious for their overzealous charges; many a battles the AI opponent will get their generals killed early in the battle as they foolishly use him to charge into the brunt of your army, even if they consist of phalanxes. Now this overconfidence is sometimes warranted, since general units tend to be a very powerful unit with high morale, making it possible to rout entire stacks with a general unit. Sometimes the overconfidence in their general unit can win the AI battles this way; they get rewarded for recklessly throwing their general into the fray, routing your units. As one of the loading screen quotes puts it: "Fortune favours the bold"...
Supporting Leader: Can occur if your Faction Leader isn't particularly active in actually leading armies into battle. Your other Generals can be busy expanding your empire while your Faction Leader hangs back and uses his influence to keep the rest of the empire in check by reducing unrest, suppressing rebellion and, if playing as Rome, keeping the Senate off your back (possibly even by getting elected to positions within the Senate).
Surprisingly Elite Cannon Fodder: Weak units like Peasants, Eastern Infantry and Warband can survive multiple engagements as cannon fodder. As they level up in experience, they become stronger and stronger on the battlefield - a Peasant unit with the maximum of 3 gold chevrons' worth of experience is no bargain in combat.
Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- If you exterminate a smaller city's population after conquering it, you will have a hard time training units from it and spend forever trying to make it profitable. There are barely enough people left to keep things running, let alone recruit into the army - and each recruited unit means even less people to keep things running.
- While retraining an experienced unit will replenish its ranks and upgrade its equipment, it can also lower its experience rank, thanks to all the New Meat added to the veterans.
- If you have a general that consistently chases down routing enemies in battle and exterminates settlements after capturing them, he may develop the Bloody line of traits. This initially gives a boost to his command rating and the morale of his troops on the battlefield, presumably signifying that his men are proud to be commanded by a brave and capable warrior prepared to give no quarter to the enemy. However, further actions of this nature can cause the trait to progress to its highest level: Bloodthirsty. This significantly lowers the morale of troops commanded by the general, implying that he is such a murderous maniac that even his own men have become afraid of him!
- Generals who win multiple victories on the battlefield will get traits that increase their influence but lower their personal security, which makes them more vulnerable to assassination by enemy agents. This makes sense: the more well-known they are, the more likely they are to be a target for their enemies. Their increased influence rating can also be seen as them taking on more prominent roles in public life, which grants more opportunities to those who wish harm upon them.
- In Barbarian Invasion, a new Loyalty rating is introduced for all Roman generals. Aside from increasing their influence and lowering their personal security, victories on the battlefield will also lower their loyalty. This is realistic, as generals who demonstrate great leadership and prowess on the battlefield tend to be able to win the adulation of their soldiers and parlay this into making a bid for ultimate power. It is also historically accurate, as the late Roman Empire was repeatedly beset with the issue of usurpers using their loyal troops to try and take the throne. This progressively weakened the power of the Roman Emperors - especially in the Western Empire - and culminated in military strongmen like Stilicho and Aetius becoming dominant in the imperial court by the 4th and 5th centuries CE.
- Generals who fight frequently on the frontlines will gain traits that make them fearsome in personal combat, for example with bonuses to their hitpoints or those of their bodyguard units. However, these traits also lower their influence rating, with the justification that they have become heavily scarred from their valour on the battlefield and, well, not everyone can handle gazing upon these scars.
Surrounded by Idiots: It's possible for a Family Member to pick up retinue members that prove to be more trouble than they are worth, as in they aren't even mildly useful - some might be annoying, yet useful (Pet Sheep cause folks to lose moral, but make the general better against Barbarians for instance) - but then there's those that you just want to get rid of right away, on say that 80+ year old relative that will pop the cork any turn now, or dump them on that annoying loser family member that can't even beat a group of peasants!
Suspiciously Small Army: A standard unit size is usually between 40-60 men, and if you set unit sizes to "Huge" prior to starting the campaign, you can get up to about 240 men per unit. Even then, a full stack army cannot exceed 4800 men. In Real Life, armies in the ancient world could have tens of thousands of soldiers in single battles. Largely an Acceptable Break from Reality, since actually depicting tens of thousands of soldiers on a battlefield would be far too much for most computers to render.
Symbology Research Failure: The symbol on the Macedon faction emblem is the Greek letter "L", Lambda. Their units carry shields painted with a Lambda as well. It was indeed used as such in Ancient times, but only by the Spartans - the "L" stood for Lakedaimonia, the homeland of the Spartans. Even the acclaimed Rome: Total Realism Game Mod which strives for historical realism falls for this one, as they show Athenians carrying "L" shields. Athenians, or for that matter Thebans, Argives, Megarians, and citizens of nearly a thousand other states would not be caught dead carrying their mortal enemy's emblem on their shields... (For their part, most other Greek states did not have consistent shield designs, the design being generally personal to the bearer, although often inherited father-to-son. In most states, hoplites paid for their own arms and armor, including the shield; Sparta's consistent design is because Spartans were armed at the expense of the state.)
Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Downplayed in regards to the types of weapons used by infantry. Spears (and pikes) are extremely effective against cavalry. Even spear units who don't have a specific bonus when fighting cavalry typically still deal more damage to them than those with other weapon types. Swords, meanwhile, tend to be extremely effective against spear units in protracted melee combat. Sword units fare less well, however, against cavalry. Finally, axes tend to hack opposing spear and sword units up with ease, but really struggle against cavalry. Downplayed in that other factors can influence this, such as unit experience, unit discipline, and quality of armor and weapons. For example, Axe Warband may shred a unit of spear-wielding Militia Hoplites, but they'll barely put a scratch on a unit of Spartan Hoplites despite the weapon type advantage.
Tactical Withdrawal: A perfectly viable tactic that you will almost certainly find yourself employing at least a few times during the campaign. The AI will use this as well, particularly when your force has an overwhelming advantage against them. They'll start with their forces as close to the edge of the map as they can get and will typically retreat almost immediately.
Take It to the Bridge: A Total War staple, bridge battles can be initiated and are an excellent opportunity to defend yourself against numerically superior foes.
Take Over the World: The goal of the Imperial Campaign is to take over 50 provinces and Rome itself. It's actually possible to conquer every territory on the map, essentially taking over the "known world" of ancient Rome.
Tattered Flag: The "Faction Eliminated" screen shows the tattered flag of that faction above a battlefield.
Technology Marches On: In-Universe for the Roman factions once the Marian Reforms take place. Any of the pre-reform units you have can continue to be used, but they cannot be retrained, so any losses they suffer are gone for good. You'll need to construct new armies out of the post-reform units in order to continue.
A Thicket of Spears: Greek hoplites and Macedonian pikemen can form the classic phalanx formation, while Roman Republican triarii gain bonuses against cavalry. Pictish spearmen in Barbarian Invasion can form schiltrons but are weaker than other spearmen.
Thriving Ghost Town: Played with in different facets of the game.
- When cities are viewed on the battle map, you can see thousands of civilians milling about, averting it.
- During city siege battles, the civilians are nowhere to be found however, even in massive cities like Rome, playing it straight.
- Played straight in that, while city sizes are at least above the threshold of sustainability (unlike most examples), they're still ridiculously small for the cities in question. The practical upper limit for a city's population is ~36,000, whereas in Real Life, one of Rome's many advantages was its effectively infinite manpower compared to its rivals (the city itself having had a population of roughly one million).
Timed Mission:
- In the Imperial Campaign, you have 284 years (or 568 turns) to capture 50 regions and Rome itself. This is far, far more than you'll ever reasonably need.
- When playing as a Roman faction, the Senate will assign you timed missions. They typically consist of requests that you capture certain enemy cities or blockade certain enemy ports within a certain number of turns. Success will yield gratitude from the Senate, as well as financial and military rewards. Repeated failures may result in the Senate imposing penalties instead, such as fines and barring your family from influence-increasing Senate positions.
- In Barbarian Invasion, you have 113 years (226 turns).
- In Alexander, you have only 100 turns (50 years) to conquer most of the known world which is to take and hold 25 provinces. That's a pretty tall order since you can't even use Ballistas and Onagers (meaning you'll need to spend at least one turn besieging each city if you don't have a handy spy to open the gates) and can't set aside much time or funding for city construction.
- The battles themselves have a default time limit and can end in a draw if the time limit is reached. This function can be turned off, however.
Tiny World Power: The purple Roman "Senate" faction only controls the city of Rome itself. Despite this, they have numerous advantages a human player does not which make them disproportionately powerful. The city will never rebel against the Senate, even if it's deep in the red in terms of finances and unrest. Even if they cannot afford the recruitment costs and upkeep, the Senate spawns stacks of powerful units every turn, including late-game elite legionaries. Like other AI-controlled factions, they can spawn new family members and promote generals whenever needed. However, unlike other AI factions, despite never leaving their home province, their Generals seem to grow command stars as easily as most people grow hair, meaning their armies will always be led by strong commanders. Note to complete the Grand Campaign as any faction, conquering Rome is a requirement, so you will have to battle them eventually.
Took a Level in Badass: A universal constant. Generals accumulate command stars through winning battles whilst units gain more experience, assassins become more effective killers through success and whole nations grow into Rising Empires.
To Win Without Fighting: The game offers several ways in which this is possible.
- In the unpatched version of the game, one can pull this off using Diplomats to bribe enemy armies. Units who aren't eligible to join your faction will simply disperse. A patch would Nerf this, however, making it too expensive to be practical.
- It is possible by using Spies and Assassins to negatively impact the order of an enemy city to the point where it goes into full blown revolt. This is useful if you don't want to declare war on the faction that owns the city, but really want to capture the city. Since it will belong to the Rebels if it goes into full revolt, you can capture it from them instead.
- It is also possible - though extremely difficult - to kill off a rival faction by only using Assassins to murder all their family members. This is very challenging because Faction Leaders and Heirs tend to be very well-guarded and thus hard to assassinate even by high-level agents. Furthermore, the AI can easily adopt new family members or promote its captains.
- If you maintain a siege longer than the besieged city can hold out, it will automatically become yours. However, the AI almost always sallies out to attack no matter how weak their garrison is before it reaches that point.
Trivial Title: Downplayed in that Rome is a major force in the game, but the era the game is set in is still very much dominated by Greek culture, and the Successor States of Alexander the Great constitute a large portion of playable factions.
Turncoat: This is a possible ancilary which a general can earn by fighting armies of different civilizations (Barbarians, Carthaginians, Easterners, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans), which in turn increases his command when fighting those armies. For instance, a general with a Roman Turncoat will increase his odds when fighting Romans.
Tyrant Takes the Helm: This can happen to a faction if the Reasonable Authority Figure Faction Leader dies and is replaced by a bloodthirsty, psychopathic, authoritarian heir.
Undying Loyalty: Faction Heirs and Leaders can never be Bribed into changing their Faction. This also includes those traveling with them, or any cities that they are in, as a result.
United Europe: The Long Campaign objective is to control 50 (out of 103) regions in Europe (incl. North Africa and the Middle East) including Rome, though players can go on to seize it all. Despite being an Alternate History scenario by nature, the map cuts off Scotland and Scandinavia to reflect the real life limit of the Roman Empire. The game also includes the Sahara region which was inaccessible in Medieval.
Units Not to Scale:
- Averted on the battle map, where units are all reasonably relatively sized compared to one another. Cities and other structures are also reasonably to scale compared to the units.
- Played straight on the campaign map where, for example, full stack 20-unit army (containing potentially thousands of individual soldiers) will all fit on a single, small ship.
Universally Beloved Leader: Among the many other advantages it brings (increases to command, influence, troop morale, popularity, protection from assassination...), your Faction Leader having traits that fit this trope will greatly reduce unrest and the probability of revolt across your empire. Even conquered provinces who resent being under the heel of a foreign faction are somewhat soothed by knowing that at least their conquerors have a reputation for valor, fairness, and honesty. The same is also true for any Generals you have situated as governors within the province they are governing.
Unusable Enemy Equipment: Of a sort — Bribed Enemy Troops. When it comes to bribing an enemy army, an ambassador can only bring over Generals (along with any agents traveling with the force) and any units recruitable by the ambassador's civilization. However —
- If a Greek City ambassador went to a Macedonian army, and managed to bribe the force, only the units that the Greek City States themselves could recruit will join the armed forces of the Greek City States — the Macedonian-only units will return to their homes. Likewise, should that same Greek City ambassador attempt this tactic with a Roman-based force, ALL units will will disband. This happens with all other ambassadors of other factions — if they can recruit a unit that an enemy has, it will join, but, if otherwise, back to the farms they go.
- This is on an extreme level with Barbarian factions, aside from the General and Agents, a Gaul ambassador will not get Germanic and Briton units to join the Gaul ranks, even if the enemy force was full of Barbarian Peasants.
Uriah Gambit: Inevitably, as your faction's royal family grows, certain members will come along who have several detrimental traits and zero redeeming qualities. Rather than allowing them to hang around, spawning equally useless future generations, lowering the morale of your army as generals, and/or draining your resources as governors, you can simply send them off into battle by themselves to die. Then, in the off chance they actually win, they become better generals and are good, at least, on the front-lines. If they win enough battles they'll also get bonuses to Influence because they are great conquerors. Or if you really just want to get rid of them, you can send them on a nice cruise into pirate-infested waters.
- This is more difficult to do in Barbarian Invasion due to the new Loyalty mechanic. You can still level up weak characters by sending them on near-impossible missions, but their loyalty rating will decrease as they win more and more improbable victories. If you aren't careful with that they may rebel and you'll now have to contend with a powerful enemy literally of your own making.
Vanilla Unit:
- The base infantry unit for most factions (above Peasants) are the Vanilla Units. Roman and Carthaginian Town Watch and Eastern Infantry are light infantry with poor morale, basic spears and shields, and very little armor. They're adequate for garrisoning towns as defensive units, driving off small Rebel forces, and supplementing larger armies as reserves/to increase their siege equipment-building capacity, but are easily outclassed by anything higher on the Tech Tree in combat.
- Downplayed by the base infantry units of the Barbarian (Spear Warband) and Greek (Militia Hoplites). While still the most "vanilla" units in their factions' tech trees, each comes with a very minor ability. Warband can use "War Cry" to lower the morale of enemy forces and Militia Hoplites can form a phalanx, but so can every nearly other infantry unit of their factions.
Vestigial Empire:
- Four factions (Macedon, the Greek Cities, Seleucia, and Egypt) are the "successor states" to the empire of Alexander the Great. They each control but a small fraction of the old empire's territory and squabble amongst themselves (as well as the encroaching Romans) to hold on to the glories of old.
- The Western Roman Empire in Barbarian Invasion. Immediately at the start of the campaign, they are an overextended mess rife with unrest and are almost completely bankrupt. Their military forces are spread extremely thin and are nowhere near the quality of their legionary ancestors. Every turn, most of their provinces are at risk of going into revolt, and even if they don't, they are the target of nearly every neighboring faction right off the bat including the Huns, who may very well be the toughest faction in the game, just as they were in real life during this time period. Choosing this faction is an uphill battle, considering the WRE is destined to get its butt kicked during the Barbarian Invasion campaign, since the decline of the empire is what'll give room for the game's barbarian factions to expand at all. The downfall of the empire is what's supposed to set the expansion's campaign in motion. All this reflects history fairly well, since the WRE was a vestigial empire during this time period. Considering these things, it does make it all the more satisfying when you can turn the tables around and win the campaign as the WRE, defying both the campaign's natural course and the course of history. The Eastern Roman Empire technically qualifies as well, but they are in significantly better shape than their Western counterparts, with much more stable provinces, fewer enemies, and stronger military forces.
- The Romano-British also count, as the faction is formed out of Roman citizens and remnant military forces left behind in Britain after the withdrawal of the legions in the 5th century CE. Historically, these people mixed with the Celtic culture of the British, and this is acknowledged ingame through some of their unit descriptions. They are an emergent faction that only appears in a campaign if the Western Roman Empire loses one of its provinces in Britain, and have a roster that is largely similar to that of the WRE. In the original release they are non-playable, but were made playable in the Remastered edition.
Victory Pose: If you completely eliminate an enemy army, your units will celebrate for a few seconds before the "end battle" screen appears.
Video Game Cruelty Potential:
- Incendiary pigs are a good place to start. They're doused with oil, pointed at the enemy, and set ablaze to cause enemy elephant units to frenzy.
- Someone really piss you off? Take a town, exterminate it, recruit peasants en-mass until its down to 400 people, demolish all the buildings, leave it to revolt and send an infected spy in to give it the plague. Congratulations, you have effectively depopulated the region for decades to come, and ensured that province will never advance much beyond village potential. This is recommended on the official site.
- Extermination is also a good way to handle an overpopulated city. Overpopulation leads to squalor (which can lead to bouts of plague) and increased likelihood of revolt. Since there is no real way to "depopulate" a city, the best thing to do is simply to pull your forces out, allow it to go into revolt, and then recapture it. Once recaptured, choose to "exterminate" the populace. Between the pre-revolt rioting and the post-capture extermination, you can reduce the city's population to a more manageable level. Remastered adds in other population control options to help avert the need to do this.
- You win battles by routing all enemy units on the field. After you manage this, you're given the option to immediately end the battle, then view its results and return to the campaign map. However, you can choose to instead pursue and kill all the fleeing enemy soldiers until either none are left or they exit the field of battle entirely (which is represented ingame by a red box along the borders). Note that armies vanish completely from the campaign map if a high percentage of their total number of troops is eliminated in battle (around 85%), so this incentivizes players to hunt down every last fleeing enemy rather than exit battles promptly, which may leave them alive to regroup.
Video Game Delegation Penalty:
- Horse Archers are a Fragile Speedster unit which requires significant micromanaging on the battlefield. However, they can be absolutely deadly when properly using Hit-and-Run Tactics. Unfortunately, Horse Archers count as disproportionately weak in auto-battles. If you're playing as a Horse Archer heavy faction (Parthia, Scythia, etc.), expect to manually play every battle as all but the most overwhelming matchups will result in losses when resolved automatically.
- You have an option in the settings to automate cities which do not have a governor. This is generally a bad idea, as the AI frequently makes poor choices about what buildings to construct and what units to recruit. Even if it's tedious, you're better off controlling them all to better manage what they build/produce.
Video Game Historical Revisionism: In a series known for its good research and realistic tone, Rome is probably the most fanciful entry. This is the reason why several realism mods were made, such as the appropriately titled Rome: Total Realism and Europa Barbarorum, both of which many fans swear by.
- Factions:
  - The depiction of Egypt is the worst offender in the game. At the time the game takes place, Egypt was dominated by heavy Macedonian/Greek influence and had armies similar to that used by the other Diadokhoi (Seleucid Empire, Macedonian Kingdom, etcetera). For reasons ranging from "it looks cooler" to "we don't want to make an Egypt: Total War", the game developers made the Egypt faction look like they came straight out of "The Ten Commandments" or "The Mummy Returns", complete with Pharaohs wearing makeup, chariots and soldiers wearing headdresses and armor made of gold and outdated bronze. Describing the Egypt faction in Rome: Total War as "Hollywood History" would be an understatement. At the game's release, Egypt's depiction was a heavy point of criticism by reviewers, and rightfully so, since portraying Ptolemaic Egypt as Old Kingdom-style pharaoh dudes is downright insulting, and didn't sit well with those containing even an ounce of historical knowledge and/or common sense. It's especially disappointing because Rome: Total War as a whole is applauded as being a well put together simulator of historical battles, to the point it was even used for The History Channel documentaries.
  - The Greek Cities being one unified faction rather than numerous independent city states. This one is at least an Acceptable Break from Reality, however, as game engine limitations would make it exceedingly difficult to accurately represent dozens of Greek states.
  - The barbarian factions being a stereotypical Barbarian Tribe/Horde with incorrect unit rosters and battle tactics. For example, the real life Germans were light infantry fighters who usually wielded spears. Here, they are all shirtless howling brutes who fight with giant axes and pike phalanxes. The berserkers quite literally stand a good foot or so taller than the other units in the game. And the Britons certainly wouldn't have hurled severed heads at enemies. (Though there is some historical evidence of them taking and preserving the heads of fallen enemies as souvenirs.)
  - The Parthian Empire was extremely wealthy and powerful, being one of Rome's biggest rivals during the era of the campaign and handing Roman armies some of their greatest defeats. Their faction opening correctly notes how "wealth flows through their land"... However, they are one of the most impoverished non-barbarian factions in-game, starting off with only a handful of far-flung territories to the east. The game map doesn't include 90% of the empire's territory further east, including numerous large, wealthy Persian cities and the valuable "Silk Road" that flowed through them.
- Urban Cohorts and Arcani were not elite troops. The former was simply the name given to a city's police force and firefighters, being closer to Town Watch than Praetorian Cohorts. The latter are based on Roman agents in Britain during the later years of the empire who ended up being disloyal to the emperor, so they were disbanded. It's safe to say that they didn't dress like ninja's.
- Unlike those depicted in the game, most Roman crosses had no top bars, resembling a 'T'; the bar on the Christian cross was added to post the "King of the Jews" sign.
- In the vanilla version of Barbarian Invasion, any faction that fell under the "Nomad" category had Hellenic voices, for some reason. It can be truly jarring to hear a Gothic warlord refer to you as "strategos"! Thankfully, patches were released to rectify this.
Villain with Good Publicity: It is entirely possible for your Generals to have traits that fit the trope. While their effects may cancel out, the traits themselves aren't mutually exclusive. Thus, it's entirely possible to have a General who is psychopathic, insane, with extreme blood lust, tortures his own citizens, and beats slaves to death in fits of violent rage, but is also beloved and considered a legendary conquering hero for his contributions to your empire, with a title like "the Magnificent" to match.
War Elephants: Available to a select few factions (Carthage, Seleucia, Parthia in the campaign, as well as Numidia in multi-player,) and available as mercenaries in certain regions. They are some of the most powerful (and expensive) units the game. Their presence alone severely demoralizes opposing armies, they're very difficult to kill, and they can demolish even the densest formations with a charge. The more advanced types even carry archers on their backs for more destructive potential. Unfortunately, in addition to their aforementioned expense, they have a weakness to fire which sends them "running amok." In this state, they cannot be controlled and will gladly trample your own soldiers, making them an Awesome, but Impractical addition to your armies.
War Is Glorious: Very much presented as the case by the game, much as it would have actually been in Ancient Rome. Winning many battles and conquering many territories not only gives your General traits making him a better commander and increasing troop morale, it also makes him more popular with the people and increases his influence.
Warrior Poet: Generals can have combinations of traits, including outright "Poetic Skill," that make them fit.
Weaponized Animal: Flaming Pigs are a unit you can recruit. Rather than actually fighting the opponent, they are instead coated with oil, pointed at the enemy, and set ablaze. They can break up enemy formations and have a good effect at lowering the morale of the opposing forces, but their greatest use is for scaring War Elephants which causes them to run amok.
We Cannot Go On Without You:
- If a faction's leader dies without an heir, that faction is eliminated. Any remaining cities will become Rebel cities. AI factions will almost always use their ability to promote a Captain to General when reduced to their final family member to avoid elimination this way.
- If Alexander in the Alexander expansion dies at any time, you lose, no matter how well your Macedonian forces may have been doing otherwise.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Intros for several factions use elements of this. The Brutii talks about how they know what is best for Rome, the Julii talk about how they need to secure the Roman Frontier and keep away unwashed barbarians, the Egyptians talk about bringing everyone under the Pharaoh's love, the Greeks talk about recreating Alexander's Empire and bringing order to the world, the barbarians talk about the need to defend their way of life.
With This Herring:
- Selucia is an example from the base game. You start out as a rump state, with a tiny military and underdeveloped cities that can't even recruit decent levies. You share borders with no fewer than four empires, including Parthia (which can effectively counter every early unit Selucia can field) and Egypt (arguably the strongest of the Successor kingdoms, and certainly the richest). All of these empires will immediately declare war on you, resulting in an average of two sieges per turn for most of the early game. Due to all these factors, Selucia tends to be the first faction to be completely eliminated in the main campaign. Sometimes it doesn't even last ten turns.
- Choosing to try and restore the Western Roman Empire in the Barbarian Invasion expansion hands you a massive empire right from the start - one which is on the verge of complete and utter destruction, with horribly overpopulated, rebellion-ripe cities that are divided from within by religious unrest and ruled over by incompetent, cowardly and disloyal governors. Your bank account is going to quickly go deeply into the red, and simply pressing the 'end turn' button carries a large risk of half your empire immediately turning traitor. In addition to your internal problems, you are beset on all sides by rampaging barbarians quite happy to take advantage of Rome's weakened state. Pulling the empire back from the brink is widely regarded as one of the greatest challenges in the entire franchise.
Word Salad Lyrics: The lyrics to the "map view" music are just a disconnected series of Latin nouns. Which is, admittedly, characteristic of some Roman poetry.
You Have Failed Me: Due to a bug, you can order an assassin to assassinate themselves. It is also possible for them to fail to do so.
Young and in Charge: It is possible for a family member as young as 16 to become the Faction Leader.
Zerg Rush:
- In the grand scheme, especially in the mid-late campaign, this strategy isn't really viable due to the morale mechanic. Cheap, low-tier units rout easily, and seeing comrades rout lowers the morale of nearby units. A bunch of cheap units can be more of a detriment than a benefit, allowing the enemy to start a chain-rout that results in your entire army fleeing. The AI doesn't know that, and will often prefer spamming a bunch of disposible trash over fewer competent units. Also, zerg rushes do work on a macro level - if you're being attacked everywhere at once, even a trash army will be able to triumph over cities you left essentially unguarded - or force you to expend limited resources on defending everything you have rather than taking out the enemy. .
- A possible tactic for any faction, but several factions specialize in it. Most notable are the various barbarian factions, particularly in the main game. (Most become a little more specialized with access to more elite units in Barbarian Invasion.) Their main strategy tends to be overwhelming opponents with large numbers of cheap but undisciplined spear and sword "warband" units. Late in the campaign, these factions gain access to higher quality units, but those units are mostly inferior to their tech-tree equivalents from the more "civilized" factions. They do tend to remain cheaper and more plentiful though, effectively upgrading the "Zerg" in your Zerg Rush.
- At the beginning of the campaign, this is a recommended strategy to use against the various "Rebel" cities. Nearly all factions start with a few of these on their borders, and since they cannot replenish their units in any way, overwhelming them with waves of cheap units is a good way to deal with them while expanding your initial territory before opposing factions can grab it.
- In the late game, this is a good way to deal with rebel armies that pop up in the middle of your territory. If all your real troops are on the frontier, just grab a governor and all the town watches from nearby cities and swarm their troops with ten times their number. Even if you are sending militia against decent rebel units, they will still prevail, and at a fraction the cost of training another army or bribing the rebels to disband.

Rome: Total War

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Rome: Total War

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