Expeditions: Rome
Finished Act 1, now into Act 2.
So after a couple hours of playing a game of RISK on the Asia Minor Map along with a number of smaller scale missions in which you send some of your recruited mooks and one actual character NPC to disrupt enemy supply lines and such, I finally unlocked the finale of ACT 1. So it's established early on one of the big Roman consuls/generals got himself besieged and then captured while you were recapturing territory and building up your legion, and until you completely recapture all 11 parts of the map, you can't even take a shot the enemy King/Leader. Once you do this, his location appears on the map and you're explicitly told "Finish up everything you want to do here because this will end the campaign in Asia Minor".
What you're not explicitly told is that the final mission(called a SIEGE, but it's a full on ASSUALT mission. Discussed in more detail elsewhere ) is long and involved. Any consumable items stay consumed so best to stock everyone up before you head in and any damage taken stays taken so bring medics and bandages(despite the fact bandages require linens to make which are surprisingly hard to find in the first act, despite literally being cloth!) galore. There are some pick ups available during parts of the mission but if you miss them you can't go back.
That being said, the act finale is a test of your skills for sure. You're presented with a plan to divide your soldiers into two teams, a frontal assualt team and a smaller infiltration team to sneak in over the walls during the battle. Once picked you cannot switch out troops or weapons, though later on the two teams will meet up inside the city to fight alongside. And it's honestly nicely done, with each stage of the battle swapping back and forth between the two teams to give the impression that both teams are making progress along two different fronts simultaneously. Notably early in the battle, your infiltration team will be sabotaging enemy catapults(artillery) at the rear and in the next stage your frontal assualt team will face reduced or even no incoming catapult fire depending on how many of the catapults you were able to take down in the few turns you had available(plus you'll have the ability to direct catapult fire of your own onto enemy lines, something you never had the ability to do before this). The catapult fire is almost too easy, other then it takes about a turn before ordering the strike and the strike actually arriving, so enemies can move and scatter away from the target zone. However, if you do manage to tag enemies(and one particular strike inflicts knock down), you can just hit them again to kill them without them being to retaliate. I killed both named enemy leaders by catching them with a knockdown and then just dropping a rock onto them when they were unable to move(of course, the big bad of the act will be fine in cutscene just after, despite getting a giant rock dropped his head).
Until previous missions where the enemy would often get reinforcement waves, this time you do as well(albeit computer controlled allied soldiers), and it does give the impression of being part of a much larger battle(and the AI controlled allies can hold their own, so it is helpful). Especially since you can see your progress through the city as you go, realizing "oh, I was just there and cleared that out", so by playing the mission in stages it feels very big and satisfying. It's also long, taking at least an hour if not two to complete and god forbid if you haven't been leveling people up to this point or don't know how to properly equip them.
Once that's all said and done, your character gets to go to Rome(albeit without the legion, which MUST BE DISBANDED at the Rubicon) where you get to follow up on character quests and get story driven downtime(and some good old fashion Roman Politicking) leading you to Act 2, where you go to Egypt to do more campaigning. And also possibly bang Cleopatra. Yes, that Cleopatra, because it wouldn't be a Roman game with Egypt in it if she weren't there to meet and possibly romance.
But yeah, it's hit stride, it just takes a while to do so. The game doesn't really explain that certain special pieces of equipment, belonging to unique, story important NPC and noted as "Belonging to X" can be dismantled, which then allows you to remake it into a better version at an armory once you have it built in your camp. Which is basically a shinier version of that piece of equipment but also has notably higher stats and can only be used by said character. I wish I'd figured this out a lot earlier in the game, like about 10 hours before I did, because it might have made some battles a lot easier.
Also, apparently the PC was a cat in a previous life and you find this out from smoking some really good weed and visiting the afterlife, where a giant spirit cat tells you she was a bad cat and reincarnated as a human-you. It's not important to the story or character at all, it's a wierd little optional sidquest where you can take acid trip/visit to the afterlife because......you know what, it's just wierd okay. You're also offered a chance to go to heaven or go back to earth....and if you go through the golden "heaven" door, you get "Game Over: You have reincarnated as a Cat". So that's something in this game. Then again, Vikings had a series of dreams where you meet and talk to Odin and at one point fight with the dead in Ragnorak so why not I guess?
