Rome: Total War (RTW) is an interesting mix of real time strategy and city management. You spend part of the game controlling the units of a mighty army, smiting your enemies in the field, and another (smaller) part of the game managing your cities, populations and, of course, money in order to support the men in the field. The meat of the game is in the battles, of course, as I doubt few would pay for a real time strategy game based on bartering for the price of wheat.

Over a year after it was first announced (and one of the most populated and colorful gaming forum discussions we’ve had at Appletell), Feral Interactive now invites Mac gamers to take command of history’s greatest battles as they release Rome: Total War Gold Edition on February 5th. Originally developed by The Creative Assembly and published by SEGA, the game will be released for the Mac under the Feral Legends label.

Last year, Feral Interactive announced their Feral Legends series of games, which they’re using to bring older PC games to the Mac. The first release in this series was Sid Meier’s Pirates. Now Feral has officially announced the second Feral Legends game, Rome: Total War Gold Edition. This top-rated strategy game from SEGA will be released in March. Attendees at Macworld Expo 2009 in San Francisco, Calif. can experience the game for themselves at the Feral’s booth #2530 in the South Hall of the Moscone Center.