A game that puts you in the shoes of a Roman senatorial family, from the Early Republic (275 BC) to the end of the Civil War (44 BC), allowing for warfare as Legion Commander, Senate politics, Provincial government.

Key Features:

• Historical real-time strategy game on the Roman Republic from 275 to 43 BC, with over 10 different historical scenarios
• Six active Roman political factions, represented by players (up to 6 in multiplayers mode)
• Historically faithful representation of the Roman world politics, economy, diplomacy and military,
• Realistic 3D rendering of characters, buildings, resources, landscapes and military or civilian units,
• Large 3D map of antic Europe, from Britain to Persia, including multiple zoom levels and 4 different map modes,
• Over 150 historical events, dozens of stratagems that can be used by players, and all famous historical characters of Roman history
• A strategy game with a strong political content, that will make the most of the negotiating talent of human players, confronted to a high-level Artificial Intelligence.

GCM:

Please start us off by introducing yourself and telling us a bit about the company behind Pax Romana.

Philippe Thibaut:

My name is Philippe Thibaut and I am the Strategy Games Manager for Galilea and the Pax Romana game designer. I have been addicted to historical simulations for years now and a designer of games for quite a while too. My first design to be published was a boardgame titled “Europa Universalis”, which has since then become the PC Historical Strategy game hit that you know. Following this initial success, I decided to build up a team of game experts around me in 2000, for other projects (starting with the ambitious Pax Romana), and we merged in 2002 with Galilea, an older company already active in computer games to gain more means and market leverage.

GCM:

Forgive me if my knowledge of history is a little rough but your game is more about bringing the Romans into the Pax Romana rather than taking place during this period. What about the period preceding the Pax Romana caught your attention when looking to create a new game?

Philippe Thibaut:

Indeed, the Pax Romana is more a term that applies to the first centuries of our era. What I like about the Roman republican times was that it was both the time were Rome made her major conquests and a period when nobody could say there was a conscious “will” to grow to Empire status. In a way, I love the idea that it happened almost by accident! The reality is more complex, and I feel a lot of it stems from the realities of the Roman political system, which led me to believe it would be something really interesting to re-create.

GCM:

Pax Romana (the game) boasts a deep political system. Please give us some sense of how this system works and list a few features that gamers may not have run into before. In addition, what new threats and benefits will the advanced AI add in terms of dealing with both neighboring powers and Rome’s inner turmoil?

Philippe Thibaut:

Pax Romana’s political system could be summed up like this: a game playable re-enactment of the Roman Republic laws and rules. In other words, you are plunged into the life of a Roman senator and your political career and gameplay must follow a typically Roman Cursus Honorum, struggle with other senators in powersharing (there are for instance two elected head of states in Rome of theoretically the same powers). But aside from modelling the Roman Republic, the game is the first strategy game where all players are on the same “side”, and none of them can win the game if Rome loses (but only one will win in the end). You can imagine the amount of cooperation, diplomacy and dirty tricks this will require. And to add more “spice” to this, the game has a unique and innovative Stratagem system that you play like wild cards to tweak the “rules” once in a while. All these constraints, advantages and liabilities are of course known to the AI...

GCM:

Please give us a brief breakdown of Pax Romana’s gameplay modes.

Philippe Thibaut:

The game has two types of scenarios. The Strategic scenarios are single-player only and pit you, as the sole master of Rome, against all ancient nations from 275 to 25 BC. The Political scenarios offer all the strategic challenges of the first ones, but they are also multiplayer and up to six players, all of them roman, will compete against the outside world, but also against themselves. So they will be involved in military matters, economy, administration and politics.

GCM:

How is combat being carried out in Pax Romana?

Philippe Thibaut:

Pax Romana is a strategic game, so at this level, tactical details are irrelevant and somewhat of a hindrance. The important matters are force compositions and leadership. Military units have many different features in addition to mere fighting strength, and their commanders are rated for a wide spectrum of characterisitics. When battles do occur on the map (with terrain and weather factors also), the combination and confrontation of both sides’ elements lead to very different situations. Depending on the leaders involved, players will be offered a choice of battle plans (from 1 to 10 different options) and will have to make choices depending on what they know (or not) of their enemies’s capacities, units and maneuver elements, making it impossible to guarantee victory (numbers for instance are never an all-important factor).

GCM:

As for economics and the general day-to-day maintenance of an empire, how much control will the player have over these sorts of things?

Philippe Thibaut:

It can be full to almost none, as there is a possibility to delegate part or all the econmy to an advisor (AI). Knowing the game boasts 500+ regions and 50+ different economical ressources, over 20 different industrial infrastructures, a lot of trade possibilites (imports and exports) and models of supply and demand in 12 varied trading areas, there is much to do for one who would like to really play a plutocrat (btw one of the six Roman factions, dedicated to business).

GCM:

Please tell us about the multiplayer modes in Pax Romana with particular focus on having multiple players assuming the roles of Romans at the same time.

Philippe Thibaut:

The multiplayer mode is only in political scenarios. Players represent faction leaders (usually historically well-known characters, like Caesar) and they can play with over 150 senatorial families, 600 Equites (businessmen), the people of Rome, six major magistrates jobs open to annual elections, 30 provinces in need of governors, military commands of the legions, dozens of laws, political measures and various regulations to play with...

GCM:	I think when many people think of the Roman Empire, their mental image is largely Pax Romana-based. How much research have you done on pre-Caesar-Augustus Rome and are you looking forward to presenting a period of history that many may know little about?
Philippe Thibaut:	We are indeed before the Imperial era, and this was a time of politics reigning supreme. To sum up the game content and feel, not mentionning the 10+ years of historical research in it, I would say we did our best to mix Momsen’s History of Rome (for the huge amount of data in it) and Colleen Mc Cullough’s Master of Rome series, for the flavor and atmosphere.

GCM:	Lastly, please tell us a bit about Pax Romana’s graphics.
Philippe Thibaut:	Of course, we did not make a 3D game, and we never aimed at reaching the present levels of “fashion” and high-quality you find in some recent titles. Our objective was rather to immerge the player into a graphical environment that would make him feel like he is travelling back 2300 years ago!

GCM:	Thank you for your time! Would you care to leave our readers with any final thoughts or impressions?
Philippe Thibaut:	Our main goal was to offer a gaming experience where we would try to offer three things: a travel in time in accurate environment, a challenging human experience with fellow players and a game where you would never be god-almighty, even if your target is to be hailed “Augustus” (divine) in the end!

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