Scourge of Rome

Scourge of Rome: Slot Overview

'Delenda est Carthago' or 'Carthage must be destroyed' was a phrase adopted by politician Cato the Elder to help push Rome into another war with its nemesis Carthage. The Third Punic War followed, which ended with the brutal destruction of the city of Carthage and the end of the Carthaginians as a major power. One particularly spiky thorn in Rome's side around this time was the Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca, the man famous for crossing the Alps to attack Italy in the Second Punic War - with the help of elephants. Hannibal ran amok through Europe for years before being driven off the boot and finally defeated at the Battle of Zama.

Fair to say Hannibal was indeed a Scourge of Rome as software provider Play'n GO has labelled him in this antiquity-themed slot. Scourge of Rome begins by plotting Hannibal's famous journey on an animated map from Saguntum in Spain down through the Alps into Italy and onto Rome. The base game depicts the army approaching mountains, while the base game imagines their snowy passing. These are not the common Colosseum slot-style visuals, which is appreciated; Scourge of Rome inhabits a less crowded niche of the classical genre and is all the better for it.

In the base game, Scourge of Rome's gaming grid is an unchangeable 6-reel, 4-row matrix where players get 4,096 ways to win. In free spins, the grid is very dynamic, shrinking reels, growing reels, and tossing ways to win all over the place. Joining in is possible by picking a stake of 10 c to $/€100, and gamblers should be prepared for a highly volatile trek through the hills. Play'n GO slots are generally available in a variety of RTP configurations, and Scourge of Rome is no different. If you want the greatest return value, the 96.2% one is it.

Onto symbols, and Scourge of Rome has 11 regular pays. Five of them are 10 - A card ranks, paying 1 to 1.4 times the bet for a 5-of-a-kind winning combination. Up from them are weapons, an amphora, a ring, a skull-wearing warrior, a helmeted warrior, and an elephant. Hitting winning combinations consisting of 6 identical high pays awards 4 to 20 times the bet.

Scourge of Rome: Slot Features

Firstly, in the base game, Hannibal and Hannibal & Sirius are wild symbols. Wild symbols substitute for all other symbols in Scourge of Rome except scatters. The Hannibal Wild may land on reels 2, 3, 4, and 5, triggering the Wild Flip if 2 or more land on a single spin. For the Wild Flip, each wild connected by a win has a 50% chance of becoming a full reel Hannibal & Sirius wild. Hannibal wilds do not appear in free spins.

Free Spins

Landing 3, 4, 5, or 6 scatter symbols triggers (or retriggers) 10, 15, 20, or 25 free spins. It is possible to win up to 115 free spins. In free spins, all elephant symbols are sticky. They pay even if there are gaps between them, and they do not need to start from the leftmost reel, Book or Dead style without the expanding.

At the start of each free spin, a random number of symbols on the lower part of the reels become frozen. At the end of each free spin, all frozen symbols fall from the grid, decreasing the reel sizes. Between each spin, a new full row is added to the top of the reel, increasing the total reel size.

Warhorn symbols may appear in the free spins round. When a Warhorn symbol hits, all elephants move +1 position upward before frozen symbols fall. If there are less than 3 Elephants in view, the Warhorn adds Elephants until there are 3.

Scourge of Rome: Slot Verdict

One reason why Hannibal sticks in the imagination is surely because his army had elephants in it. It's said the last elephant in Hannibal's army was Surus, or Sirius as he is known around here, and elephants play an extremely important role in Scourge of Rome. Visuals play their part, too, and the Hannibal character looks like an absolute boss, while his trek through the snowy Alps, as depicted in the bonus round, must have been horrifically hard going. Play'n GO has picked a classic moment from history, one which isn't used a whole lot in the gambling scene considering how popular Classically themed slots are, and brought it charging to life like an elephant trumpeting down a mountainside.

Scourge of Rome doesn't charge so hard in the base game, where way wins and the rare Wild Flip are its only real major weapons. Free spins are where battle really begins, and it is a little bit of a shame that wilds don't appear in them. Never mind, Scourge of Rome's bonus round has other tricks to deploy, and quite crafty ones they are, too. A clarification. When the rules say frozen bottom positions drop off, it doesn't only mean the very bottom row symbols. For instance, it is possible to get stuck in a situation where one reel holds few symbol positions, creating a bottleneck for landing regular wins. Elephants drop off the bottom as well, reducing their effectiveness. However, the vaguely 'Book of' pay system for elephant symbols is a potentially powerful one. In addition, reels are able to grow as well as lose frozen parts, possibly creating a substantial amount of space to stack with elephants when the war is going favourably.

Hannibal is a big character from history, and with winning potential of 40,000x the bet, he's been placed in a big game. Play'n GO slots aren't exactly famous for regularly popping their max win, however, so should Scourge of Rome manage to accomplish its full potential, and the game appears to possess the tools for doing so, it would be quite a battlefield win.