Expeditions: Rome Gameplay Preview – Everything is on Fire!

Expeditions: Rome is a very solid turn based strategy game about a young member of a powerful family trying to make it in the political world of Rome in order to protect their family. There’s a lot of political intrigue and drama.

Before going into the turn based combat and production of this game, both of which are very solid by the way, I have to go over the Twitch integration available for this game. Now I know not everyone playing the game is a streamer but I’d highly encourage people to check it out if they can stream the game to some friends. The Twitch integration brings an already solid and well polished game to another level.

You have to enable the integration from the game and both your Twitch account by adding the Expeditions: Rome extension. Once added, everyone watching your stream will earn coins which can then be spent on some abilities that can be very helpful or very frustrating.

For example, one ability lets the viewers set an area on fire. You can quickly see how this can be a very dangerous or helpful ability. The fire can be used to help you by burning enemies or you can die rather quickly if all the tiles under you are ablaze.

To make matters worse, there is an ability where viewers can knock any unit down for a few turns. Being knocked down into fire is a recipe for disaster. Hopefully you will have good friends because if not, you are in for a very rough ride.

Other abilities include renaming units, healing units, and restoring their abilities. These things seem insignificant but once you throw in human interaction there’s unlimited potential for shenanigans and hijinks. In my streams, everything and everyone were constantly on fire and to unforeseen consequences. One of the levels required that I set every boat on fire. One of my friends was so wrapped up in setting everything on fire that he inadvertently set all the boats on fire for me and I managed to win that game in one round before making a move.

Other streamers had viewers that renamed a unit, got really invested in it, and spent all their coins trying to keep them alive while other viewers tried their best to get him killed. The Twitch integration really is magical as it takes control out of your hands and the game becomes incredibly volatile, unpredictable, and most important of all, fun.

I hope everyone gets to experience the pure chaos because it definitely evolves and elevates the game into something entirely new. Even if people choose not to engage with it, the game is already a very solid and well made turn based strategy game.

The combat is actually pretty challenging and requires very careful planning as units take damage quite easily if carelessly moved. In addition to the combat, the game looks, feels, and sounds great. There’s a lot of voice acting in the game and in multiple languages so that is always a nice touch.

Overall, Expeditions: Rome is a very well made turn based strategy game elevated to another level with the Twitch integrations. It’s definitely worth checking out if you can stream the game to your friends! Just remember to lower the costs of actions so more chaos can be had. I lowered the cost of setting things on fire to one and let’s just say everything was on fire all the time. It was a whole new experience playing the game in this way that I haven’t ever experienced before. Going forward, I would love to see this as an option in every game.