Creative Assembly’s classic historical strategy game Rome: Total War is being adapted for tabletop and will make an appearance on the crowd-funding platform Kickstarter later this year or in early 2022. Head of publisher PSC Games Will Townshend told Wargamer that it will be a “medium-weight wargame with an economic engine.”
The Rome: Total War board game is an officially licensed version of the video game and is already in development. Designed by Simon Hall, it’s apparently aimed at closely resembling the original, while emphasizing its army-building and enemy-conquering component.
What does the Rome: Total War board game involve?
Total War: Rome Remastered
Image Credit: SEGA
Rome: Total War was originally published in 2004 and re-released this year as Total War: Rome Remastered. Its sequel, Rome II, was published in 2013. It combines real-time and turn-based strategy in a campaign focused on conquering the ancient Mediterranean world.
As Townshend told Wargamer, its board game interpretation will involve dice throws, army development and upgrades. Hall is the third designer to develop an adaptation of Rome: Total War. He previously helped develop a set of rules for ancient and medieval tabletop battles named Field of Glory: Ancient and Medieval Wargaming Rules.
Trial and error
Total War: Rome II screenshot
Townshend said that the pandemic delayed the development of the game and that two previous iterations of a tabletop version had been considered by PSC Games before they went with Hall’s design.
Martin Wallace, creator of Brass: Lancashire and the Anno 1800 adaptation, conceived a version in 2019. This was more focused on empire-building and featured an intriguing system for automating enemy moves.
This was considered to deviate from the core Rome: Total War experience. “Through a lot of trial and error, shall we say, we’ve come to where we think the game should be,” said Hall. The board game will launch on Kickstarter for crowdfunding in late 2021 or early 2022.
