Carthage never turned up its nose at easy pickings. Also, Corsica by this time had fallen under Carthaginian dominion. So, it remains a mystery why we start the game at war with them, and they manage to put up quite a fight, too. What we do know, however, is that by 272 BCE, the Etruscan flame had been pretty much extinguished and the remaining cities of the Etruscan league (most likely more than the two on the map) had been made into clients of Rome. We know the Etruscans influenced much of Roman culture, institutions and language and so our own as well, but anything more than broad strokes is just a question mark. One of the biggest shames of European history is that we know so very little about this ancient civilization. Duncan spends a lot of time talking about them until the fall of Veii in episode 9, little more than a century before the start of the game, but then falls silent, mainly because his sources do. With this whirlwind tour of minor details out of the way, let’s talk about a bigger issue, namely the Etruscans. Latium is not Italy, though plenty of Romans would think so. We could have also gone with the Julii, of Caesar’s fame, but we liked the idea of being from a line of aspiring king-killers it was a Junius that did for Caesar, too. The game starts with us in charge of the Roman Republic as the House of Junia, the same family as the man who drove the last of the kings, Tarquinius Superbus, from Rome two centuries before. After a five-year campaign of bug fixes and other improvements by the Creative Assembly, the developer, it now plays a lot better, and it’s recognized as a worthy installment in the fantastic Total War series. Total War: Rome 2 wasn’t received too well when it came out in 2013, thanks to a massive amount of bugs and gameplay issues. Not sure if that speaks in Hannibal’s favour or not. Apparently, no artificial intelligence would ever be crazy enough to march its elephants over the Alps. In this article, we’ll focus on Rome’s consolidation of Italy and the Punic Wars, which we’ll end up finishing a lot sooner than the actual Romans did thanks to a few shortcomings in the game’s artificial intelligence. Recorded between 20 by Mike Duncan, it’s an authoritative source for anybody looking for a sweeping history of the Roman Empire and we’ll be putting in references to specific episodes for anybody looking to check our facts. However, our main inspiration will be the fantastic podcast series The History of Rome. Instead of a beginner’s guide or a powergaming strategy, we’ll have some hefty tomes at our disposal. We’ll be doing so by playing the game as faithfully to history as we can. In this article, we’ll be strapping on our gladius and putting Total War: Rome 2 through our historiographical wringer. In this series, we’ll be taking a look at some of the bigger games around and seeing if they’re really as true to history as they claim to be. Of course, plenty of games marketed as historically accurate aren’t, especially to history enthusiasts. Here at the History Guild we like video games, especially ones with a historical setting.
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