Building Rome: The touch controls of ROME: Total War on iPad

Rome wasn’t built in a day – and for iPad it took a while. Here we describe our journey in a series of five enlightening dev diaries, from our first experiments with touch controls right through to completing the full and glorious experience of ROME: Total War on iPad.

We always knew we wanted the player to feel like a General in their tent, drawing directions onto a huge Campaign Map and pushing models of troops into position. This is how we began thinking about touch controls.

Controls that manoeuvre units on the Campaign Map were based around drawing paths onto whatever you want the units to interact with, be that a peaceful settlement or a threatening enemy army. We then brought these controls to the battlefield so players could draw paths directing their troops into combat.

Navigating the UI with touch controls was kept pointedly simple, using taps, holds or swipes to interact with the options. We reserved the tap and hold function for tooltips and info panels.

In the same spirit of keeping things simple, we made the camera controls match those already used on the iPad. In ROME: Total War, the pinch, spread, rotate and pan gestures behave exactly how you'd expect. You can even draw squiggly paths and circles with your finger like you would in a painting app, giving the iPad touch controls even more precision than the desktop controls.

The controls were thoroughly tested by our own QA department, Beta testers, and eager staff keen to give it a whirl. We dedicated considerable time to collating this feedback, observing how people played, and trying out new tweaks to get the most intuitive touch controls possible.

ROME: Total War is now available for iPad on the App Store. Advance to the minisite for videos, screenshots, and tips on building and ruling your empire.