In Rome, you play in a campaign or Multiplayer. All the screenies are from In Battle, but none from the Campaign management map. You control your towns, your economy and food storages. Like, you need to upgrade financial buildings like Roads, Markets or Ports to make Trade income and upgrade Barracks, stables and archery ranges for new type of troops. However, you can't just go Port - Shipwright - Dockyard, you gotta reach a certain number in your population of that one town and make a new Governement building to expand it for new and better types of buildings. Once you reach a population of 24 000, you have access to build any building (But of course, the better buildings cost a ton and takes a lot of time to build, like 6-10 turns). The population growth is affected by: Tax rates (The lower tax rates, happier people and more growth), management of the Governor/General/Family Member (The higher management level your character has, the more growth/happiness) and buildings (Temples, Arenas and Hippodromes all increases the happiness of population ~ Growth).
You have characters (Family members, Generals or Governors) who can lead your armies. Characters gives extra Moral to your troops in battle and possibly other buffs depending on his traits. You can get new Family members by birth or letting someone marry themself into your Family. (Or adoption of Commanders who has proven themselves in battle). Units for armies can be created in provinces. Every province has one Village/Town/Minor City/City/Huge City. The larger, the more buildings you can make in the province. More buildings, better troops. The troops of course has an upkeep cost and they can only be trained 1 unit (Most units of infantery are around 80 men if you play as a Roman Family, 80 was the historic size of Cohorts) every turn. If you're inside someone else's province (ex: Roman army is inside a Greek province), the army will suffer winter attrition when it's winter. (Every year got 4 turns on Rome Total War, but possibly more in Rome 2).
I actually find messing around on the campaign map managing towns/characters/armies is just as fun as playing the battles for victory in the campaign.
Did I mention cities can rebel if your population is unhappy? If like, a Roman army take over a Carthaginian town ,lets say Lilybaeum, and they leave Lilybaeum with like 2 units in garrison right after they took it and marches on for Syracause (Another town on sicily), the Lilybaeum will most likely Rebel and try take their city back. Back in 2004 and Rome Total War, AI was pretty crappy. It would make all kinds of bad moves on the battlefield and make nuisance stuff on the campaign map. In a lot of cases, the rebels gets a huge Gold experienced army (Max experience) full of Elite troops that marches into the rebelling town and makes it a Carthaginian town again (If the town originally was a part of Carthage) However, in the last Total War games, AI has become a valiant enemy on the battlefield and they make much less nuisance moves. (Thank God)
This was just some random info I wrote, dunno why. Just want to heads up people about this amazing upcoming game! It really requires strategy and cleverness to maintain all your provinces secure and to win against an enemy force much larger then yours.
