Europa Universalis: Rome

Europa Universalis Rome or just Rome as the fans call it, is a spin-off of the main EU series which instead of taking place around the colonial era takes place during the time of the Roman Republic. The game mostly uses the Europa Universalis Gameplay but also introduces the Character feature from Crusader Kings.

The timeline is in between 280BC and 27BC, you can play as 53 nations on the map, the map itself goes from Scotland to the Arabian Peninsula.

Warfare

Warfare had a large number of changes, now there are only several units to be created unlike EU3's 100's to stop confusion. They now also require you have the right resources to build them e.g Iron for Heavy Infantry. A good mix of all units or the classic 3 infantry 3 archers 2 cavalry increasing numbers as needed is normally a good route to go. Also introduced are Battle Events which depend on your general they are powerful events and can win the battle for you although they fire randomly. All units get better modifiered as the Land Tech is increased.
And for Navies there is only 1 boat type and that does improve as Naval Tech increases, they can carry units, blockade and fight other units of there type. They can also have a character equiped as Admiral.

Trade:

Trading has also been reworked, there are no longer Centre of Trades and instead you use new resources to trade such as Iron, Amber and Salt. These new Resources grant bonuses as well and you can internally trade within your empire allowing provinces with horses to trade with provinces with Iron. This generates profit and allows both provinces access to the 2 resources. A good empire will have maximum money inflow and allow an army to be created in all 4 corners to quickly deal with any threat.

Colonisation: 

In EU3 the player would colonise the new world, africa, asia ect. In Rome the player colonises Europe and some parts of North Africa. The way to do it has also been reworked. Now uncolonised provinces have barbarians living in them and before you can colonise them you must defeat them with your army, when that has been achieved first you need an adjectant province to have a higher population that 10 and you need to pay to set the colony up when this has been achieved congrats you will have built a colony. A colony grows slowly although it can be greatly speeded up with Wheat, Barbarians still live in Colony's and they will occasionally uprise and try to get as much plunder as possible. Over the course of a game someone playing as Rome could work there way from Northern Italy all the way to Britain, although there are some Tribal Nations in there path but they shouldnt be too much of a problem.

Characters:

Characters are a new feature to the EU series, they all have different traits which are gained through events and have different stats such as Charisma and Martial. They are given posistion of power, they are General, Admiral, Governor, Leader of the Nation, Diplomat or Tech researcher. There different stats effect how they do there jobs and traits can increase or decrease there potential at other jobs. There are 3 main government types, Republic, Monarch/Dictator and Tribal. Republic is a elected position by the people, Dictator/Monarch is a inherited position and Tribal Leader is random at the end of the current leaders life.

Technology/Religion:

Technology has also been reworked from EU, now a character has to be placed in the position of researcher and when a new tech level has been achieved not all improvements are instantly discovered. It now depends on the character you have chosen to discover these new techs and the better they are the faster they are achieved.
Religion also plays a big part and you can have powers invoked which if done in your favor can grant powerful bonuses for a year, such as higher population growth. There sucess depends on your ruler and sometimes on the Religion tech researcher.

National Idea's:

National Idea's make a return but they also have been reworked. Now they are all dependant on the tech level of a nation and the better it is the more powerful they all become.