Expeditions: Rome is set in a fictionalized 74 BC ancient Rome, where our protagonist is fleeing aggregated families in Rome, after the murder of their father. Sworn to revenge, and also to save their sister and mother who still live within the Roman walls, they're enlisted by a close friend of their late father, Lucullus. Lucullus is a Consul of Rome, and thus holds immense power, granting the protagonist a chance to prove themselves in the Third Mithridatic War with Greece. After proving their might in battle, they are rapidly elevated to military greatness with the title of Legate, granting the rare authority over a Roman Legion, to act with limited supervision in the best interests of the Roman Republic. Thus, the Legate sets out on a multi-year conquest across many countries in the hopes of one day earning enough recognition to not only save their family, but also to avenge the wrongful death of their father.
The narrative of Expeditions: Rome is largely compelling, as it's driven by some universally solid story MacGuffins, allowing players to empathize either with a revenge story, or one of redemption. Expeditions: Rome is told across four chapters, each of which taking place some time after the previous chapter, and each focusing on different parts of the world, Greece, Africa, Gaul, and Rome. In each chapter, the Legate is tasked with a major objective for the region, such as defeating the legendary King Mithridates. Accompanying the Legate is a surprisingly charming group of companions, each of which fit very comfortably into an RPG style game. The game is fully voice acted, and quite well done, which allows the characters to really shine, and also brings nice color to the world in the form of side conversations. As the Legate attempts to achieve their major goals in each region, they're inevitably side-tracked by other activities, such as putting down rebel forces, or appeasing the Queen of Egypt. Expeditions: Rome is also blessed with a compelling villain, who's known from the outset to be responsible for the murder of the Legate's father, and yet plays a major role in the story, repeatedly gaslighting the protagonist in a comical fashion. Overall, the story was enjoyable, with a fun cast of characters.
The gameplay of Expeditions: Rome is interestingly divided into two parts. One half of the game is commanding the Legion in a grand strategy style world map, where they must overtake outposts, claim territory, and gather resources across the map to upgrade their fort. As the Legate travels across the world map, they are often presented with random encounter style scenarios, which often are for RPG flair, either granting the Legate additional resources, or potentially penalizing them for poor choices. There are four major resources in the game, Denarii (gold), Servi (slaves), rations, and medicine. While the game provides you with five companions, you can recruit mercenaries which fill up to eight slots of party members, and four Legion commanders. The choices the Legate makes during these random scenarios, as well as during conversations in the campaign, will impact the approval ratings of companions. While main companions will not abandon the Legate, mercenaries may mutiny and leave the party, which forces the Legate to be mindful of the personalities in their party. Running out of rations hurts not only the morale of the party, but also of the Legion, meaning they'll perform worse in battle. Likewise, injuries mut be treated with medicine, or else party members can perish on the road. Thus, the overworld represents a nice little puzzle, where the Legate must plan the optimal use of their resources, as they fight through outposts.
The other major component of the gameplay is the more traditional area based locations on the map. While there are a few towns which are more open ended for exploration, most locations are specifically intended for mission based gameplay. These missions see the Legate partnering up with four or five other companions typically, whereas siege missions could involve commanding fourteen units spread across three platoons. The combat is somewhat similar to Divinity Original Sin, where unit positioning, exploiting fire and status, and similar RPG elements are heavily on display. There are generally five main classes, each of which has sub-class trees, which allow for further unit customization. In addition to classes, the game also features a wide variety of gear, graded into different tiers of rarity, which can provide additional augmentations to damage or resistance, as well as weapon specific feats or abilities. The combat felt, very very punishing in the first act, as it took time to learn the game mechanics, and the player lacks access to weapon upgrades until Act II. However, once weapon customization was possible, things felt significantly more manageable. The game features an action, bonus action, object interaction style action economy, which is nice because tactical items, such as bandages or caltrops provide even further utility to characters.
Overall, I enjoyed my time with Expeditions: Rome. It's a very solidly rounded out CRPG, with a compelling story, and fun combat. The overworld sections of the game did feel at times to slow down progress to the story, and I was a bit disappointed there were not more options for exploration, as is typical in RPGs. However, aside from these minor aspects, the game was an enjoyable experience overall.
