They certainly can build an empire, but it’s far from guaranteed Rome doesn’t even control all of Italy at the start of the game. Italy can be easily invaded by sea if players don’t have a solid naval defense and a push to the Alps can leave Rome undefended. Carthage is present, but the Romans can’t simply dive into the Punic Wars without building their base of power. The only problem is their looming northern neighbors, the Etruscans who present an early challenge to the Romans trying to push northward to secure the rest of the peninsula. none of the factions have an obvious advantage just looking at this map. This ingame map couldn’t even zoom out far enough to show the entire scope of the campaign. All of central and southern Italy was theirs. In 272, the Romans had finally kicked Pyrrhus of Epirus out of Italy and subjugated the Samnites of the southern and central Apennines. The most important aspect of this start date is that Rome is completely primed to become the dominant power in the western Mediterranean, but they are far from the most powerful and quite vulnerable. At the start of Rome, specifically the larger scale Rome II, there are limitless options and few outcomes would be surprising.Ģ72 BCE is the chosen date for Rome II’s main campaign that has a map that spans from Scotland to the western fringes of India. Most historical eras in Europe had at least one dominant power, From Persia in its various forms to the Roman Empire.
One thing the Rome games do perfectly is to start the player in the absolute best time period for nearly any type of scenario to happen.