Praetorians

I have a soft spot for RTS games that dare to remove the economic layer and force you to think purely about soldiers, terrain, and timing. Praetorians is precisely that kind of game. Released originally in 2003 by Pyro Studios, the Commandos developers, and re-released on Steam in 2014 via Kalypso, it holds a Metacritic score of 78 and a design philosophy that still feels distinct today: no wood, no gold, no idle villagers. Your only true resource is honour points, earned through combat, which gate your access to elite units like the Praetorian cohort itself. Everything else is won by seizing villages and converting their population into squads. The tactical layer is where the game earns its keep. Three factions, Romans, Barbarians, and Egyptians, each bring a distinct unit pool. Romans favour disciplined, high-count formations; their Legionaries can lock into a Turtle formation to shrug off arrow fire, while Spearmen in Stationary stance skewer charging cavalry. Barbarian Berserkers hit fast and fight dirty. Egyptian War Chariots punish anything caught in the open. The rock-paper-scissors logic goes deep: German Cavalry can Impale Charge through infantry lines, but Roman Spearmen forming a wall stop that cold. Use the wrong unit and you can absorb 100% casualties for zero enemy loss; use the right one and the maths flips entirely. That kind of punishing matchup clarity is exactly what I want from a tactics game. Scouting is not optional. Hawk scouts extend your line of sight over open terrain, while Wolf scouts are the only reliable way to spot enemies hiding in forests. Send your legions forward without running scouts ahead and you will walk straight into an ambush that resets the mission. The 24-mission campaign spans the Gallic Wars, Caesar's dalliance with Cleopatra in Egypt, and the final civil war push toward Italy, with four dedicated tutorial missions that actually integrate into the story rather than dumping you in a sandbox. Objectives vary usefully: hold a fort against a siege for 20 minutes, race across the map to relieve an ally, assassinate an enemy leader to flip his troops. That variety keeps the campaign from feeling like a march from A to B. The weaknesses are real and worth knowing before you spend money. The original multiplayer infrastructure ran through GameSpy Arcade, which is long dead, so coordinated online play requires third-party workarounds or direct IP connections. Unit pathfinding has always been a sore point; troops frequently choose odd routes, and the HD remaster released separately by Torus Games did little to clean up the underlying engine. In skirmish mode the AI's primary tactic is snapping up undefended villages faster than you, which makes careful tactical ambushes feel less rewarding than they do in the campaign. Commanders level up and provide area buffs, including a Roman Centurion who accelerates stamina recovery for tired Legionaries nearby, but the system lacks the depth that later games like Total War would build on top of this same concept. For newcomers, the four tutorial missions teach conscription, siege engine construction, and formation switching in a way that is actually patient and logical. You do not need a background in Roman history or RTS mastery to get through the opening act. But the mid-campaign missions, particularly the Crassus retreat at Carrhae where you start heavily outnumbered by Parthians, will force multiple restarts unless you scout aggressively and pre-position archers on high ground before the enemy pushes. That combination of accessible entry and steep mid-game ramp is something I respect. If your idea of a good evening is pausing, repositioning a century of spearmen to block a ford, and watching the plan survive first contact, Praetorians delivers that in a compact, focused package that most modern tactics games have moved away from.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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