The Wallstadt Review

So I purchased Total War: Rome some time ago. The game is simply excellent. After playing the offline campaign (which is quite entertaining) I wanted to on-line, and duke it out with the Internet folks. However, to play online, you need a valid cd-key. No problem, I thought, just type in the cd-key from the CD. But lo and behold, it didnt work. No matter how I typed it in (caps, no caps, hyphens, no hyphens) it wouldnt work. Eventually I gave up. Until a couple of months ago, when I wanted to give it another try. I started reading some internet forums, and apparently, some of those who purchased the European version of Total Rome War: Gold Edition (which includes the expansion pack) had problems with their cd-key. The solution, as proposed by the forum folks, was to contact Sega support and ask for a new key. At first, I didn't want to go through the hassle of registering. Then I saw some videos on YouTube of some online tournament for Rome, and I said, enough is enough, I am contacting Sega. I explained them my situation and gave them the details of my cd, so that they knew that I indeed had a legal copy of the game. This was done on a Saturday. The next Monday, first thing in the morning, I got an email with my new key. So after coming back from work, I went, fired up my TW:Rome, typed in the key, and voila! in no time I was playing my first online battle. FYI, it was a 3 2-man team match: 1)Germans/Scythia, 2) Carthaginians /Brits 3) Julii/Greeks (me). We defeated the Carthaginians/Brits using my hoplites as a wall, while the Romans charged them mercilessly. We did have some trouble with the elephants, but a some point they went nuts, and we prevailed. However, our forces were thinned out after the encounter, while the German/Scythia forces were intact (since they just watched our battle without intervening). I suppose I don't have to tell the rest of the story. In sum, we defeated one team, while we were defeated by another team. On the positive side, I had the second most kills (ca. 900), and this was achieved without even using spartans (because I thought it wouldn't be fair to use them nor historically accurate; but then I realized most of the other players were using elite units with total disregard to any historical consistency; oh well, I am a noob).


But I digress. The bottom-line of my post: Sega support rocks, and the world should know this.

Labels: TW:Rome