Total War: Rome II

 PC
  • Publisher: Sega
  • Release Date: Sep 2, 2013
User Score
4.4

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 3974 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,184 out of 3974
  2. Mixed: 613 out of 3974
  3. Negative: 2,177 out of 3974
Buy Now
Buy on

Review this game

  1. Your Score
    0 out of 10
    Rate this:
    • 10
    • 9
    • 8
    • 7
    • 6
    • 5
    • 4
    • 3
    • 2
    • 1
    • 0
    • 0
  1. Submit
  2. Check Spelling
view
per page
  1. gdwitt
    Jan 19, 2014
    4
    Uhhh. I played the game before I read the reviews.
    I bought all the DLC's before trying it.
    I didn't encounter too many battle bugs because I autoresolved due to graphic issues. I believe CA knows everywhere it's broken. The campaign map is awesome, a wonderful work of programming and graphics. I would urge then to loosen up the city-province options and let us empire build. All the    Uhhh. I played the game before I read the reviews.
    I bought all the DLC's before trying it.
    I didn't encounter too many battle bugs because I autoresolved due to graphic issues.
    I believe CA knows everywhere it's broken.
    The campaign map is awesome, a wonderful work of programming and graphics.
    I would urge then to loosen up the city-province options and let us empire build.
    All the new petty restrictions break the game.
    Penalize unhappy civilizations like CIV5.
    Let us leave standing armies.
    Just let this game be like Medieval 2TW.
    Please don't give up yet.    … Expand
  2. Mikimax
    Sep 24, 2013
    4
    Well, what can i say what others haven't.
    I had high hopes for this game, expected it to be the pinnacle of the franchise and then it all fell down.
    Maybe after 2 expansion pack this game will be in line with Shougun 2.
  3. Backslider
    Oct 5, 2013
    4
    A gutted and souless excuse of a Total War game. It's pretty, and introduces a couple interesting mechanics, but that's where it ends. A mountain of well loved and/or classic Total War features have been inexplicably amputated from this gimpy game. Family trees, seasons, loose formation, agent cutscenes, epic general speeches, all of these and more are gone.
    Despite boasting a huge unit    A gutted and souless excuse of a Total War game. It's pretty, and introduces a couple interesting mechanics, but that's where it ends. A mountain of well loved and/or classic Total War features have been inexplicably amputated from this gimpy game. Family trees, seasons, loose formation, agent cutscenes, epic general speeches, all of these and more are gone.
    Despite boasting a huge unit count, the units feel bland, and therefore so do the factions. 200 reskinned units of spearmen with identical stats do not an interesting unit roster make. Combat feels arcadey; battles are over in a couple minutes, with units flying across the battle field while making liberal use of magical cooldown-based abilities click, click, click click. It feels more like Dance Dance Revolution than Total War.
    The AI is terrible, but will likely be patched. But what of all the other things that are wrong with the game? Time will not fix their horrible design decisions, and AI tweaks won't bring back all the gutted content. Don't waste your money on this game. If you want CA to make a good TW game, they have to know when they've made a mistake.    … Expand
  4. Strategist1979
    Sep 11, 2013
    4
    This game is just broken. The AI is so stupid. This game is not challenging at all. It is very buggy. RIP Total War franchise. The only reason I'm giving this a 4 is because there seriously are worse games out there. I can not believe they spent as much production dollars on this as they did. unbelievable. Time for people to get fired.
  5. Zebrastealer
    Sep 18, 2013
    4
    Rome II at launch, really deserves no higher score than a 4. I can see where a lot of people are coming from with their utter disgust and 0's across the board. This game is in bad shape, completely unacceptable for a $60.00 title to launch in this unfinished and bug riddled state.

    Eventually this game may end up warranting a midland score of a 7, after a year of patching, paid DLCs    Rome II at launch, really deserves no higher score than a 4. I can see where a lot of people are coming from with their utter disgust and 0's across the board. This game is in bad shape, completely unacceptable for a $60.00 title to launch in this unfinished and bug riddled state.

    Eventually this game may end up warranting a midland score of a 7, after a year of patching, paid DLCs and another expansion. I've played every CA total war game and expansion since the original shogun total war. Actually I should correct myself I own Napoleon Total War but never played it beyond 30 turns or so Empire was a disaster at launch, just like Rome II.

    Really, to think, we all actually thought Creative Assembly learned their lesson after Empire Total War. They aim too high, promise the moon, then deliver a fraction of the promised features, game improvements, etc. in a stinking pile of buggy poo.

    This game needed another 6 months of development time to release properly. Just like all future Bioware titles, this will be the last time I ever buy a Creative Assembly title on pre-order. May as well wait til the following winter for the inevitable Steam sale since the game won't be playable until then (at the earliest) anyway.

    Shame on you Creative Assembly.    … Expand
  6. Substance2020
    Sep 5, 2013
    4
    As mentioned by others the bugs etc. but if nothing else the loading times kill this game dead. I have a very decent PC(i7920, gtx590, 6GB) and waiting to load campaigns, battles, turns is excruciating. It's almost a return to the days of the Commodore 64 and tape loading. Your life is being wasted and you don't even get interesting loading screens to look at/read. They could at leastAs mentioned by others the bugs etc. but if nothing else the loading times kill this game dead. I have a very decent PC(i7920, gtx590, 6GB) and waiting to load campaigns, battles, turns is excruciating. It's almost a return to the days of the Commodore 64 and tape loading. Your life is being wasted and you don't even get interesting loading screens to look at/read. They could at least give you a mini game to play perhaps tetris...

    I'm a big fan of the Total War series but I'm sorry to say Rome 2 is NOT enjoyable. If the loading times get fixed then maybe it get's an 8/10.    … Expand
  7. fox294
    Sep 6, 2013
    4
    Really liked Rome 1. After a few hours of Rome 2 I'm about ready to quit. Almost every single mechanic is either a downgrade or a side-step from the original. It's just not much fun at all, and it's riddled with performance issues. Shame.
  8. Sencho
    Sep 9, 2014
    4
    The first Rome Total War is one of my all time favorite games. With eager anticipation I pre-ordered Rome 2 on Steam after many years of waiting. However, I immediately had trouble running the game after the release, not a unique experience of course. I consoled myself with the fact that my pc was old and that it was at fault that the game was nearly unplayable.

    Fast forward almost    The first Rome Total War is one of my all time favorite games. With eager anticipation I pre-ordered Rome 2 on Steam after many years of waiting. However, I immediately had trouble running the game after the release, not a unique experience of course. I consoled myself with the fact that my pc was old and that it was at fault that the game was nearly unplayable.

    Fast forward almost exactly a year later. After getting enough money together for a new gaming PC, I eagerly installed Rome 2 to finally have a real crack at the game. Sad to say, after 4 hours of play I find myself very disappointed. Even after a year of patches I find the campaign AI to be erratic and units in battle glitchy. The weird looking faces on the campaign map characters still happens and I generally feel that things are still a mess. I hope Creative Assembly learns from the mistakes it made with this game. It wasn't ready for release a year ago and, in view of the current state of the game, I think its still not at a place where it should be released had it been delayed until this year. Creative Assembly has been a company that has shown true vision over the years, I hope they haven't lost that.    … Expand
  9. WhataTwist
    Sep 10, 2013
    4
    Rome 2 has been a massive step back in the franchise since Shogun 2. Somewhere in there is a good game, but it's bogged down in bugs, horrific AI, graphics problems and tons of really bad design decisions. Give it a few months for modders and patches to make it playable and then buy it.
  10. Jesper
    Sep 12, 2013
    4
    You betrayed your fans CA. The game is broken and even if it was not, I would give it an 8/10. What keeps it from getting 10/10 is that the game is heavily dumbed down. There is so much that has been simplified in the political system that you do not really care for any of the characters that belong to your faction. For example, with no family tree there is no need for caring if someoneYou betrayed your fans CA. The game is broken and even if it was not, I would give it an 8/10. What keeps it from getting 10/10 is that the game is heavily dumbed down. There is so much that has been simplified in the political system that you do not really care for any of the characters that belong to your faction. For example, with no family tree there is no need for caring if someone dies, someone else will just instantly pop up and take his place. It feels like you did not listen to the community at all when making the game. You just dumbed it down to make it more accepted for a wider audience. Regarding the game being broken, perhaps SEGA pushed your deadline too early to be able to finish the game the way you wanted it to be. Or is it just the fan in me that makes up excuses for such an unfinished game. I guess you just have to get used to hate loving this genre. In conclusion however, I have not lost my trust in you CA(though it is quite shaken). But know that we fell for your awesome trailers for ROME II and we somehow ''knew'' that you could not this up... yet you did! We will not fall for your trailers again!… Expand
  11. Mannschaft
    Sep 5, 2013
    4
    Disappointment.
    No family tree
    Graphics worse than Shogun 2 Capture points in open fields on non-siege battles Every faction has a British accent (Slavic if you have the German version) Battles end quicker than a virgin's first time with a lady Horrible AI, it does not react at all to being flanked Minor factions are destroying all major factions Every faction and their mom has    Disappointment.
    No family tree
    Graphics worse than Shogun 2
    Capture points in open fields on non-siege battles
    Every faction has a British accent (Slavic if you have the German version)
    Battles end quicker than a virgin's first time with a lady
    Horrible AI, it does not react at all to being flanked
    Minor factions are destroying all major factions
    Every faction and their mom has ships everywhere
    Sieges are boring
    Unit cards are huge and take up a lot of screen
    Upon hitting end turn you have enough time to have a fap until you're able to play your next turn
    Obviously set up to charge lots of microtransactions like the previous two or three titles ($2 for blood)

    The list goes on but I'm tired and need to go have a fap. Avoid this game for now. I only gave it a 4 because it's a Total War game.    … Expand
  12. Jexiah8bit
    Sep 5, 2013
    4
    As someone said, publishers have used the digital age to turn us all into suckers who beta test their "finished games" only after paying full price. Total War: Rome 2 is the penultimate example of this. If you do not believe me, youtube the glitches and bugs in the AI and game design. You will be astounded. For my experience, I can only say that this is a new low and I am deeply troubledAs someone said, publishers have used the digital age to turn us all into suckers who beta test their "finished games" only after paying full price. Total War: Rome 2 is the penultimate example of this. If you do not believe me, youtube the glitches and bugs in the AI and game design. You will be astounded. For my experience, I can only say that this is a new low and I am deeply troubled by the scores most "professional" game sites are giving this game.… Expand
  13. Mordobb
    Sep 3, 2013
    4
    This game is what i feared. Just a repixeling of the old engine. Same AI, Same Bugs, same behavior.
    EA is re-milking this cow with each new iteration since Medieval 2.
    As a long time player.. Shogun Total war. I ve lost all hopes of real improvement. They are just repixelating and improving the GFX capacity. But the core is the same as ever, the team is totally unable to really improve    This game is what i feared. Just a repixeling of the old engine. Same AI, Same Bugs, same behavior.
    EA is re-milking this cow with each new iteration since Medieval 2.
    As a long time player.. Shogun Total war. I ve lost all hopes of real improvement.
    They are just repixelating and improving the GFX capacity. But the core is the same as ever, the team is totally unable to really improve anything. Almost a decade of players same complains: AI, Interesting multiplayer that work, bugs on release that are the same of the last iteration.    … Expand
  14. Grindtoof
    Sep 21, 2013
    4
    I found a site selling digital copies for 50 bucks, pre-order. Even 50 bucks was too much for this game in it's current state.
    Where to begin:
    The first thing I noticed was that the game's graphics, controls, and flow felt more like a console game than any previous Total War title- WTF? The best way I could equivocate it was the difference between Dragon Age I and Dragon Age II, whereas    I found a site selling digital copies for 50 bucks, pre-order. Even 50 bucks was too much for this game in it's current state.
    Where to begin:
    The first thing I noticed was that the game's graphics, controls, and flow felt more like a console game than any previous Total War title- WTF? The best way I could equivocate it was the difference between Dragon Age I and Dragon Age II, whereas DA1 felt like it was meant for a computer, DA2 seemed watered down and felt like a console port on the computer.
    Back on topic: Graphics on overhead map or laggy and choppy- probably something to do with the animated clouds and random birds...dumb. Playing as a Roman the whole family/ruler/faction experience is askew and there is no explanation provided: You can't marry your leader and generals to produce offspring- in fact offspring do not come of age and join your ranks- just random dudes that become available. I had to start 'adopting' opposing faction members because my House Julia died out. A really disappointing aspect to an otherwise fun minigame.
    Diplomacy could have been great, but, has missed the mark. You may or may not like how conveniently a faction's opinion of you is broken down into a numeric roster- its kind of neat to know that the AI tracks all of the stuff you do representing your faction, but, I don't need a spreadsheet to explain why a neighbor doesn't like me. Something else that really iritates me about Diplomacy: You can only give a percentage of the money in your coffers (so you have 5,000 talons, you can only give gifts in increments of 500- wtf?)
    Battles in single-player are really, really buggy. First, I really like the new, true line of sight feature in R:TW2. I also like the combination of naval and land battles on some maps- the potential is really, really cool. Too bad all of that potential is eclipsed by stupid objective markers that earn/bleed victory points. So, strategy and tactics become very one-dimensional, and every battle becomes a matter of holding these artificial objectives- dumb. The game suffers bad AI: command a unit to attack another unit, and they stop mid-attack- you have to repeatedly order the unit to attack. Enemy units will run up to your line, or your unit, stop, and then run away (all the while getting whittled down by ranged units). When units break- they break in a straight line and are very difficult- almost impossible to eradicate. Unit stats are incorrectly represented at times- to the detriment of your plans. What happened to the complexity of battle found in Shogun? Geez. Btw, don't expect those great, unique General speeches at the onset of every battle- they're gone! The General says something inconsequential (and barely audible) at the beginning of each battle- you have to physically zoom in just to hear it...Lame.
    Missions are non-existent in my game: I received a couple in the first twenty turns, and not one since: I'm almost to 200 turns in my campaign, mind you.
    Agents have real potential to be cool- too bad all three types do roughly the same thing: sabotage and assassinate. I mean, don't get me wrong, each of the three types are supposed to do specific things, but, those things really aren't explained.

    In closing there are a lot of cool ideas poorly implemented in R:TW2. Do yourself a favor and save your sixty bucks- don't pay for this beta in it's current state!    … Expand
  15. ComicBookGuy
    Sep 13, 2013
    4
    A good game soured by a rushed release and unfinished content. The alpha screens and videos showed something much better than was delivered, a real shame really. I did enjoy the game until I started to crash in battles with more than two armies present, co-op is shamefully incomplete, and worst of all the fixes will be paid DLC.

    Really that is what you can sum up Rome 2 as, a shame. A    A good game soured by a rushed release and unfinished content. The alpha screens and videos showed something much better than was delivered, a real shame really. I did enjoy the game until I started to crash in battles with more than two armies present, co-op is shamefully incomplete, and worst of all the fixes will be paid DLC.

    Really that is what you can sum up Rome 2 as, a shame. A real shame.

    Who do we blame? Publisher or Developer. My bet is both.    … Expand
  16. Achilleslastand
    Oct 13, 2013
    4
    This game clearly needed at least 3 more months in development and that's being generous. From the hype/propaganda spread by CA/Sega/Craig/Will to the quite numerous bugs and performance issues as well as features from previous TW titles mysteriously omitted. Add to that a 60$ price tag and possibly more if you purchase if you add the Greek states DLC and you can see how the game hasThis game clearly needed at least 3 more months in development and that's being generous. From the hype/propaganda spread by CA/Sega/Craig/Will to the quite numerous bugs and performance issues as well as features from previous TW titles mysteriously omitted. Add to that a 60$ price tag and possibly more if you purchase if you add the Greek states DLC and you can see how the game has gotten below average reviews. I have seen titles made by smaller development teams for half the price of R2 that were more polished.
    I myself will never purchase another CA product upon release and in all likelihood possibly never.
    Caveat Emptor{Buyer Beware}....    … Expand
  17. Spineker
    Sep 3, 2013
    4
    Where to start? Well not a whole lot of technical problems can't run it at ultra but already knew that.

    Problems are many mainly don't feel part of the game like in older TW games were you controlled most everything and interaction with the game made you feel part of it. Not going to happen here feel no connection with my faction at all. Avatars are the ugliest I have seen in 10    Where to start? Well not a whole lot of technical problems can't run it at ultra but already knew that.

    Problems are many mainly don't feel part of the game like in older TW games were you controlled most everything and interaction with the game made you feel part of it. Not going to happen here feel no connection with my faction at all.

    Avatars are the ugliest I have seen in 10 years they are that bad and when they talk they just open and close their mouths do not even remotely connect to the speech.

    It took two years to sail from Rome to the other side of Corsica. I think my army would have starved. The 1 year turn sucks.

    The battles I will say the units respond better and pathing is much better in this release. The biggest problem with battles is they are over in like 3 to 6 mins. The units make contact 30 seconds later one or the other is running.

    The biggest let down though is the lack of feel part of the game that has always been something I loved about TW and it just doesn't exist here. The technology tree went backwards and is not interesting at all. The city control is bad and not interesting at all. Raising armies is way to easy and being connected to a General is stupid. With one year turns and taking two to land and army on Corsica there is no way in hell I will ever get to enjoy the huge world.

    In the end I don't really care if I go back to playing or not there is no excitement like "Wow I need to go to the store ok one more hour I will go!" Nah I leave the game all time have really no care if I play it or not most likely will too see if it gets better but with already many turns gone I doubt it.    … Expand
  18. Hner
    Sep 6, 2013
    4
    After more than 20 hours of playing I gotta change my initial rating. In its current state I'd give it a solid 4/10. Too many bad design decisions and on top of that a plethora of bugs and performance issues.

    In its core it's a dumbed down version of the original Rome TW with a pretty campaign map.
  19. deadmeat2k
    Oct 26, 2013
    4
    This review is based on the game, as it currently is (patch 5). I have played for about 25-30 hours. I fancy the new region based system, which makes it so much easier to manage cities compared to earlier TW games. The graphics are really great and run pretty well with the latest patch applied. However a number of things, seriously spoils the game: The agent system, screws up the gameThis review is based on the game, as it currently is (patch 5). I have played for about 25-30 hours. I fancy the new region based system, which makes it so much easier to manage cities compared to earlier TW games. The graphics are really great and run pretty well with the latest patch applied. However a number of things, seriously spoils the game: The agent system, screws up the game completely, being way too dominant, the civil war system is impossible to understand, and is really just an annoyance and the diplomatic and trade systems are fundamentally flawed simply doesnt work in their current state. The battles are some fun, but often feel too chaotic and arcade style. All together the game is a dissapointment. Would have wished for a Darthmod for this TW game too, to fix all these things, but that will unfortunately not happen.… Expand
  20. hhslf
    Sep 3, 2013
    4
    Awful performance, probably the worst Total War AI ever (and that's saying a lot), graphics are nothing like the Siege of Carthage video even on max settings (probably mostly due to performance issues), a lot of reskinned units (every faction gets skirmishers, light infantry, heavy infantry etc., they're not functionally different in any way), battle formations collapse on contact becauseAwful performance, probably the worst Total War AI ever (and that's saying a lot), graphics are nothing like the Siege of Carthage video even on max settings (probably mostly due to performance issues), a lot of reskinned units (every faction gets skirmishers, light infantry, heavy infantry etc., they're not functionally different in any way), battle formations collapse on contact because you have less control over your units, and battles are over too quickly. Another horrendously botched Creative Assembly launch, they should have learned by now not to release unfinished games. I'm sure that performance and graphics issues will be patched in time (but with CA's record I expect it to take months). The major issue for me is that the game has been made more casual, CA has clearly made an effort to attract a larger audience by making the game more cinematic and less historic and layered. I've come to this conclusion because tactics are less important due to formations collapsing almost instantly (even hoplites and Roman legions quickly descend into a blob of hacking one on one animations), no fire at will mode for many units with javelins (such as Roman heavy infantry, you won't be able to control when they throw their pila, they do it only on a charge now), no guard mode (meaning your units will mindlessly chase hostiles they've driven off even if you don't want them to), and very quick battle times (if you know a thing or two about tactics you will make any difficulty AI route in under 10 minutes, even fighting against full stack armies). In short CA have made the change to more casual game play, this accompanied by a buggy launch has made R2TW lackluster at this point. If you're interested in battle tactics more than seeing epic Hollywood battles (which will get boring quickly), you should look to other Total War games. Rome 1 is still very playable, extremely deep and satisfying, especially with all the love and care modders have added.… Expand
  21. ge0s
    Sep 10, 2013
    4
    Its fairly easy to say Rome 2 may be the worst Total War game in the series as it stands right after release, but damn does it hurt. Even Empire didn't feel this bad for me and it's likely due to Empire's problems having to do more with AI and smaller technical details than the blatant problems appearing in Rome 2. Unfortunately most the TW fans have taken the PreOrder Free DLC hook lineIts fairly easy to say Rome 2 may be the worst Total War game in the series as it stands right after release, but damn does it hurt. Even Empire didn't feel this bad for me and it's likely due to Empire's problems having to do more with AI and smaller technical details than the blatant problems appearing in Rome 2. Unfortunately most the TW fans have taken the PreOrder Free DLC hook line and sinker, but now its our job to try and warn other gamers about this game as it stands. It's easy for gamers not familiar with the problems plaguing CA's AI flaws to buy the game out of nostalgia for the Rome:TW brand, which is easily the most famous and most know game in the TW series.

    The AI simply doesn't act competent in any way shape or form. Usually poor AI isn't a big deal for us TW fans, we've seen it before and usually upped the settings for a tougher challenge(not anymore). Most TW AI is at least smart enough to exploit flanks and run down archers in battle, while attacking major cities with larger stacks on the campaign map. Rome 2's AI however suffers from some of worst AI I've ever seen in a strategy game and worse it feels like CA has added deliberately gamey features to cover over its incomplete AI. Units will charge solo then turn tail before impact with a better unit, allowing your ranged units to sit behind and slowly pelt them to death. When a unit does decide to charge it'll send all of its units (including archers) into the front of Phalanx and Legionaries without trying to first use its ranged units to dwindle your numbers or exploit flanks along alternate routes. These are things you could see the AI doing to some extent in Shogun 2 on release, but are astonishingly absent from Rome 2. Formations, a staple of Ancient Roman period combat and often what won battles in Antiquity, completely dissolve into blobs when sent into combat; a far cry from the constant formation and impact units had in the original Rome:TW. Your well set phalanx and legion formations will collapse before impact (usually after throwing javelins), instead these units rely on puffed up numbers CA has put in to give those unit better strength, that was usually due to superior formation.

    On the Campaign map, AI appear to always try to max out the number of armies they have, resulting in many factions having a 3 or more small Armies of 2 or 3 units, with only 1 army with a medium size force but no where near the number of units it needs to pose a threat. I have managed to find one army in the entire game with a massive unit stack at about turn 30. It came from a random barbarian tribe north of Greece and proceeded to wreck Macedonia, burn Athens, grind Sparta to dust until I could finally see it take out Epirus. Due to the AI splitting its forces, this single fluke army carved out an empire until I smashed it with a Legion half its size, discovering it was nothing more than a bunch of tier 1 troops. After you destroy a faction its remaining armies will then suicide charge with single unit stacks, rather than group up and attack as one.

    Unit balance has become another major issue. Navies themselves are pointless (beyond later game catapult/ballista ships) while Land armies can instantly gain bigger ships, easily ram the smaller naval triremes and win most boarding actions due to land units having 200 men vs the 60 aboard naval units. That's if you can get the boarding function to work properly for yourself, leaving you forced to use ramming while the AI can pick and choose who to board, although I imagine this will be one of the first things fixed within a month. This makes the formidable Naval powers of Carthage and Athens feel no where near as formidable as they should be to take down. Elephants are far more over powered than they should and a single general unit with Elephants can destroy and entire army on its own. However the worst offender of poor balancing goes to the Roman dog units. These units have trainers which send out packs of dogs as shock troops, which historically were used to scare enemies and weaken them before the real Roman assault began. In Rome 2, however, you might as well build legions of just them as they can destroy units in seconds and stop an elephant or chariot charge dead in its tracks.

    Rome 2 saving grace is its streamlined map and city management which is really well designed and its fantastic to see your cities grow in size. The technology tree is also streamlined, but still well displaced and easy to understand. I also like the number of factions and the map itself, but waiting for all of them to take their turn takes forever and don't dare play a co-op campaign.

    Multiplayer is a huge step backwards however, as the great campaign style fight for territory multiplayer is completely gone, leaving only custom battles. The ability to also call on jump-in multiplayer battles while in campaign, first introduced in Napoleon:TW is also no where to be seen. A feature that could save the poor AI.    … Expand
  22. MrJade
    Sep 16, 2013
    4
    This game looked to be a new era in the Creative Assembly's star studded history. The pre-release hype, coupled with the amazing screen shots, and stunning CGI footage certainly seemed to reinforce this belief.
    Then the game was released. Not only did the single player campaign have bugs, but it had bugs that rendered the game nearly unplayable (minutes of wait time between turns, massive    This game looked to be a new era in the Creative Assembly's star studded history. The pre-release hype, coupled with the amazing screen shots, and stunning CGI footage certainly seemed to reinforce this belief.
    Then the game was released. Not only did the single player campaign have bugs, but it had bugs that rendered the game nearly unplayable (minutes of wait time between turns, massive frame rate issues, and more). The game's AI is equally crippled. The enemy will hardly ever build a large army, and even when it does the army is comprised entirely of early game units, even 100's of turns into the game. The major factions, Carthage, Sparta, Egypt, Rome, Macedon, are all swallowed up by smaller factions because of the ignorance and idiocy of the game's AI.
    Battles rarely present a challenge, and this reflects poorly on the Creative Assembly.
    All in all, this game is a bust. Hardly worth your time, and you should only pick it up out of the bargain bin.    … Expand
  23. Doctor-J
    Sep 5, 2013
    4
    The AI is completely broken, the battles in a city have no strategy at all, there are f0ck1ng special powers in the mid of the battle, i feel like i'm playing a MOBA, and I HATE MOBAs!!! I really miss the General Speech, it was one the favorite features in Rome TW. I'm really disappointed with this game, specially because they probably won't add the speeches back so soon, or maybe not atThe AI is completely broken, the battles in a city have no strategy at all, there are f0ck1ng special powers in the mid of the battle, i feel like i'm playing a MOBA, and I HATE MOBAs!!! I really miss the General Speech, it was one the favorite features in Rome TW. I'm really disappointed with this game, specially because they probably won't add the speeches back so soon, or maybe not at all. The reason i like Total War games is because they're games about history and realistic battles, not some goddamn MOBAs that have no strategy at all! This Game needs a ENORMOUS patch...… Expand
  24. luc1kjke
    Sep 3, 2013
    4
    So I've selected "Very High" graphics just to make sure game runs smoothly and hoping to increase it later but I was incredibly surprised seeing graphics equality of Rome I with lags. My specs are: X4 955/6950 2gb/8gb ram. I'll wait for a patches but for now this isn't how surprise fans Creative Assembly!
  25. Antiks
    Sep 4, 2013
    4
    The attempt at simplifying the game not only took away from what made the series great but in some ways made it more complicated/less intuitive for people familiar with the Genre. Over all the game is alright but doesn't really live up to the standard set by the previous Rome title.

    The simplification of the cities takes away a lot from the crowds who like to experiment and specialize    The attempt at simplifying the game not only took away from what made the series great but in some ways made it more complicated/less intuitive for people familiar with the Genre. Over all the game is alright but doesn't really live up to the standard set by the previous Rome title.

    The simplification of the cities takes away a lot from the crowds who like to experiment and specialize different cities in different parts of their empire. Also, armies relying on a general to field and actually being recruited by the general in place takes away from having to manage the logisitics of your empire. This makes the game overall less of a simulation and more of an arcade title of the RTS fights. Research is also taken down to two very basic easily obtainable paths.

    For some these may be welcome changes but as someone who likes the empire building and civilization style large branching tech trees these are significant problems. The title is clearly made for a broader audience who don't want to have to get bogged down with the logistics and economy management of previous games.

    On top of changing the general game play these changes have made some things more difficult; the removal of some of the more detailed city/settlement management tools has made it in some cases extremely hard to understand why your city/province is unhappy.

    The combat remains more or less the same though it seems some what easier to route/destroy your enemies. It's possibly less tactical but I'm not sure if I'm confident in saying that yet only having played about 15 hours.

    There are significant wait times between turns but that is somewhat expected.

    The game has beautiful graphics.

    I would say if you liked the world map part of Rome, research, and auto completed most of your battles you could probably give this game a pass. If all you did was play for battles and were irritated by having to manage your empire then you may like the changes that were made.

    For people like myself and my group of friends I cannot recommend you play this game. Personally I'm more concerned with empire building than doing the little RTS battles, for me they were just the cherry on top that made Total War special.    … Expand
  26. WerewolfAlpha
    Oct 6, 2013
    4
    Another case of paid reviewers giving the buggy ass game a 78 and the ACTUAL PLAYERS GIVE IT A 3.8.
    Terrible AI, game lags constantly, end game is a DISASTER of game-ending bugs. The UI is like they just started making these games. Did they fire their entire team and hire people off the WarZ team??? Wasted my money on this. Total War is Over. Total Failure is HERE!!!
  27. KeyserSozeNZ
    Sep 7, 2013
    4
    Maybe in 6 months time this game will be worthy of a 6 or 7, but you can only review it in the state it is in now. The AI is terrible, pathing issues, AI doing nothing, having to reissue orders multiple times etc. Oh and the prologue is stuck in a loop for, another bug which has been acknowledged by CA, so I'm fighting the same battle over and over again.

    I know games will have bugs but    Maybe in 6 months time this game will be worthy of a 6 or 7, but you can only review it in the state it is in now. The AI is terrible, pathing issues, AI doing nothing, having to reissue orders multiple times etc. Oh and the prologue is stuck in a loop for, another bug which has been acknowledged by CA, so I'm fighting the same battle over and over again.

    I know games will have bugs but we are talking some real big deal breaking bugs here, which makes me surprised they would even release in this state it's that bad.

    Avoid for now and pick up on sale in 6 months time.    … Expand
  28. Saratosa75
    Jan 18, 2014
    4
    So, after numerous patches and Steam offering 50% off, I decided to get it.
    I've read user reviews so I kept my distance until now.
    So here is what I think after some crucial patches: Perhaps the first 30 turns are enjoyable and the it gets very boring. Almost like a job with no paycheck . First, the turns. Clicking the turn button is when you could go and Get yourself a sandwich or    So, after numerous patches and Steam offering 50% off, I decided to get it.
    I've read user reviews so I kept my distance until now.
    So here is what I think after some crucial patches:
    Perhaps the first 30 turns are enjoyable and the it gets very boring.
    Almost like a job with no paycheck .
    First, the turns. Clicking the turn button is when you could go and
    Get yourself a sandwich or take care of other things at home.
    Since you probably have uncovered almost the whole map, you gonna have
    To wait a lot for the AI do it's turn.
    Once you clicked turn , you gonna spend an hour just to be sure
    That your provinces aren't rebeling or nobody sent some agents to your territory.
    This is what is going to be 80% of your "gaming".
    The battles will get boring, especially sieges, since they are still have bugs.
    You gonna try to auto solve both the sieges and the naval battles, because they are just simply awful.
    The game still looks nothing like they advertised it.
    It runs slow and you gonna hear your computer fans spinning up,
    While graphics wise, the game just don't look to good.
    If you have to turn down the graphics, it looks like a game
    10 years ago.
    The AI is bad, probably worse than the first rome total war.
    So you may play 30-40 turns and then you gonna forget about it.
    It's not worth a full retail price, that's for sure.
    As a bargain bin title, it may be worth about 15 dollars.    … Expand
  29. Liteit
    Nov 17, 2013
    4
    Great franchise which i liked since the first Rome. But this game is terrible. they just made out a raw game, which is practically unplayable with its poor optimization and crashes. Obviously they would fix everything but the first impression is ruined. Hope next time they won't treat their fans like that.
  30. uziel
    Sep 4, 2013
    4
    ehhhh.... poor graphics (ugly sometimes water, trees, commanders`s faces), poor performance, too fast foot mobile units, sometimes stupid AI. rest is good
  31. Thwaite
    Sep 7, 2013
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Please Read before you grade.
    Several key elements exist within any game that very import to a lot of gamers such as immersion, re-playability, user friendly interfaces, uniqueness, and the list can keep going and going depending upon the player and their personal interests. I will review several facets of the game as they are important to me and stood out fairly immediately.

    Stability
    For my system, the game is not stable at all. Rome II is default set to high graphics and causes immediate issues. I have also found these same issues (freezing, graphical glitches, black screen of death, ect) were discovered with several different "standard" computer systems. Several known bugs have already populated the technical support forums with issues from integrated Intel chip-sets and graphics cards. My aging gaming laptop was barely able to keep up and setting the graphics down to low helped out tremendously. At the obvious sacrifice of visual stimulation. The game ended up looking like Medieval: Total War from 2001. Even with the game set to low, the performance was still very sluggish however playable.

    After starting the game up for the first time and loading the tutorial, I didn't make it very far past that. After annihilating my enemy in a very fashionable noob manner, the screen turned black instead of populating a victory window. Needless to say I ended up closing the program and "failing" my first mission. After doing a little bit of homework, this is also a known error with game as of day one.

    Immersion
    Immersion within Room II is non-existent comparatively speaking. There is not any avatar/character customizations, renaming, history, background story, nothing. The generals and statesmen are empty husks of simple skills with predefined names in order to keep track of your armies. When they died in battle or of old age, it doesn't mean anything to the player because there is literally no connection. When you are required to replace the generals you eventually don't even look at the names on the newly populated list. You just randomly click and go because there isn't any difference. Where did these people come from? Who knows? Who cares? They just in charge of my entire army now! They are also identified as royal versus non-royal families. What does that mean to you? Nothing, not that I have discovered thus far anyway.

    Another calamity within Rome II that erodes any element of immersion for the game is waiting for your turn. I am not opposed to turn-based strategy games, honestly I love them however I do have a significant problem with the amount of time Rome II takes to get back to your empire. By the time my empire had scouted or obtain city-states from one part of Europe to the Middle East, I had to watch and wait for ALL of the empires to take their turn. This may not sound that bad, but it is, because you will wait on average 10+ minutes for all of the other empires to move their armies and all other units. I was able to get up and do some chores, make my kids lunch, watch some TV for a moment and come back to my computer and it still was not my turn! By this time I was ready to just turn the game off because I was losing interest. Not to mention during some stages of your empire's development, you may only have a minute or two worth of improvements and/or movements to make. Thus, most of your game play hours are spent watching little computer army symbols skip around a map.

    Artificial Intelligence
    Dumb. I could leave the review at that because there really isn't any other way of describing the AI, but I'll try to elaborate. I have slaughtered over 1,000s of enemy hoards, outnumbered 3 to 1, just by using simple military strategies at the loss of only a few hundred of my forces. These same battles were originally calculated as being a defeat or victory with severe losses, at times predicting over 60% my forces will die. I am not an epic military strategist and I only had the difficulty set to normal however I find it hard to believe I was able to turn the tables of battle by approximately 50% in my favor (You'll always have some battle losses regardless of what you do).

    THE GOOD

    Entertainment Value
    Regardless of all the problems annotated above the game is still highly addictive and fun to play. I am honestly surprised at the fact I have played 25 hours of this game within first 5 days of release, but the game is honestly hard to put down. There is nothing better than scaling the walls of my enemy and slaughtering the archers as they try to flee or running the enemy down with my cavalry as they retreat from the battlefield; out flanked and tasting my Spartan spears!

    Potential
    There is a lot of room for improvement which can be added in order to make it more timely and enjoyable for the average player. Such as adding a save option on the battle maps for starters, would be nice considering you have an hour to finish the battle. Sometimes the enemy just doesn't want to walk into your trap and these    … Expand
  32. iamymr
    Sep 7, 2013
    4
    This review spoils the prologue:

    I am depressed. From the moment this game was announced, I was so excited. The Carthage footage, checking the forum every week for a year to see the new factions. I love Shogun 2, and this was looking to be S2 and then some. Rome Total War is my second favorite TW game. Conquering northern Africa as my Scipio family, managing my family, doing cool    This review spoils the prologue:

    I am depressed. From the moment this game was announced, I was so excited. The Carthage footage, checking the forum every week for a year to see the new factions.

    I love Shogun 2, and this was looking to be S2 and then some. Rome Total War is my second favorite TW game. Conquering northern Africa as my Scipio family, managing my family, doing cool events, building up epic armies, managing settlements .
    R2 was going to be all this and more.
    So they led us to believe.

    The game's development was very tightly kept secret. There were only about 10 gameplay footage videos or so, with various CA/Rally Point "presentation" ones being the most prominent.
    With what I did see, the UI looked a little meh. I wasn't in love with the unit cards or the city management, but I would reserve judgment until it came out.

    3AM EST, September 3rd. My body is ready. The 9.9 gig download is ready to be unpacked and be played immediately.
    4am EST. Apparently it takes an hour for me to unpack this thing. Okay. I'm still going strong.

    I boot up the game, I watch the epic intro. Awesome. First thing I do is go to settings. I have an old Macbook pro with a 330m graphics card (bare minimum.) The game had me in Very High settings. That can't be right. I'll do medium.
    And then I start the prologue. My first impression. Why am I playing an N64 game? Why are Rome 1's graphics better? Oh well, let's actually play!
    I beat up some Samnites or whatever, I kill some catapults. My allies are yapping. Yada yada yada, I'll get there eventually, let me cross this river.
    "Sir, we are overrun!" DEFEAT!
    Uh what? It was timed? Hurm. Okay.
    So I replay the prologue, this time rushing to past that stupid river. Cutscene here cutscene there, and I beat it. Cool.

    Prologue 2 starts. City Management. All right. I learn about buildings and stances and reinforcements cool.
    I expand all my land to see what I can build. This is a mistake. If you expand your land and not build anything, you get punished via slums that appear. But you have to expand first to see what you can build. But you have no idea how much the buildings cost. This is stupid.
    I have to attack a port or something. I put my army in the water, and some boats magically appear (and count towards my unit upkeep, thanks, so now I'm making negative money.)
    "Merge with the navy." All right. Hold on I'm getting attacked by these boats, I'll wait a turn. Nope. Since I didn't merge then and there, I have some annoying checkbox that won't go away. So I reload. And the screen gets stuck. I can't move, I can't click on anything, I can't interact This is not a good first impression.
    I am barely making enough money, I sort of stop caring. I eventually have to siege some capital city or something. I build what looks like the Rams from the first game. BIG MISTAKE. They are just wooden shields or something. I reload realizing my mistake. But the game FORCES you to attack that turn. If you move away, you can't do anything. Crap. So I reload again earlier (glad I saved often.) I build stupid ladders this time. And I beat the prologue. Yay. (Irony: I can apparently take out gates with units. Thanks for telling me this game.)
    I did not get an achievement. It's called like Quaestor or something. So I reload and do it AGAIN. No achievement. And I view the prologue screen and it says Prologue 3, which I just beat, is still locked.

    Aye aye aye.

    I do an actual game. It's pretty cool. I choose Cornelia Rome. I get a negative penalty to Latin Culture. All right. I won't spread any culture.
    Food problems. Public order problems. I have 2 armies. If I want to move back and upgrade/buy units from Rome, I have to move the whole army. I do that, I get attacked by a two stack army from the north. Okay. I have to WASTE a general to act as a courier to move troops around. Sheesh.
    No family system. No sons, no daughters. There was some random thing about an adopted son. I said, sure he's mine. And nothing happened. It said "General" in green as a reward, but I didn't get a new son. Okay that's bugged.
    I was looking at some traits. The tooltip didn't show up. Bugged.
    I was doing a naval battle. I have a ship with like 40 dudes. Let's board this enemy. He gets stuck, and I lose all my units. Bugged.
    Province screen? Don't like it. You have client allies in the other three? Sorry you can't issue an edict.
    Cities have limited slots. And all the buildings are boring and lame. And there are like 60 of them. Let's have 4 different docks with barely any change in stats.
    Can't do 1v1 custom battles. Generals have to be present. Custom battles have limited slots for some units.
    Units are just reskins of each other. Iberian Swordsman! Cool! Nope, just reskinned Hastati. :(
    And the turn times! 2-5 minutes waiting for these other factions that I don't care about.

    So depressed. I am going to go play the older games. Oh Shogun 2. My dear love. You never let me down.    … Expand
  33. HONDOMAN
    Nov 4, 2013
    4
    I want to know what game the critics were playing, because it certainly wan't this one. This game is rampant with bugs. It is flat-out broken. The A.I. is horrendous. I don't even know why the game was released. It needed at least six more month's. Absolutely no polish, because the game wasn't even finished to begin with! Why i everything red as well? It looks like you're playing on Mars.I want to know what game the critics were playing, because it certainly wan't this one. This game is rampant with bugs. It is flat-out broken. The A.I. is horrendous. I don't even know why the game was released. It needed at least six more month's. Absolutely no polish, because the game wasn't even finished to begin with! Why i everything red as well? It looks like you're playing on Mars. An utter disappointment, especially after the beauty that was Total War: Shogun 2… Expand
  34. M8ass
    Jan 16, 2014
    4
    In my opinion it should be criminal to post false advertising and lie on the game cartage and intentionally misguide the costumer. Rome total war 2 is one of those games, the squeal to one of the best total wars game that exists, Rome total war.

    In short its a rushed, unfinished game, full with bugs, and bizarre game play elements. I recommend waiting a while till the game drops in    In my opinion it should be criminal to post false advertising and lie on the game cartage and intentionally misguide the costumer. Rome total war 2 is one of those games, the squeal to one of the best total wars game that exists, Rome total war.

    In short its a rushed, unfinished game, full with bugs, and bizarre game play elements. I recommend waiting a while till the game drops in price and gets most of its bugs fixed before investing into this.

    unlike other games on the market its playable, and you can get some fun out of it, but there are better and cheaper games out there.    … Expand
  35. balrog1987
    Sep 5, 2013
    4
    I'm changing my score for now, because of obvious reasons -
    1) AI
    2) UI 3) No connection to faction no family tree 4) Diplomacy needs rebalancing 5) The sea battles are terrible, transports are op 6) No blood seriosly, in a game about warfare?Grow some balls. 7) Battle pacing is terrible 8) Too many too fast reloading magic abilities 9) Pushed out before the GPU drivers were    I'm changing my score for now, because of obvious reasons -
    1) AI
    2) UI
    3) No connection to faction no family tree
    4) Diplomacy needs rebalancing
    5) The sea battles are terrible, transports are op
    6) No blood seriosly, in a game about warfare?Grow some balls.
    7) Battle pacing is terrible
    8) Too many too fast reloading magic abilities
    9) Pushed out before the GPU drivers were created terrible optimization
    10) Even on extreme graphics are blurry and lack proper AA
    11) is it not enough?    … Expand
  36. lukinhaz23
    Sep 5, 2013
    4
    My god, what a huge disappointment. AI is broken, UI didn't help, loading times take too long and the campaign is way too easy. I was very hyped for the naval battles, but the AI ruined it(i hope they fix this), i was not challenged not a single time in this game, not a single time. The battles tactics does not exist, all you have to do is select your entire army and right click theMy god, what a huge disappointment. AI is broken, UI didn't help, loading times take too long and the campaign is way too easy. I was very hyped for the naval battles, but the AI ruined it(i hope they fix this), i was not challenged not a single time in this game, not a single time. The battles tactics does not exist, all you have to do is select your entire army and right click the enemy's army and you win. Please CA, respect your hardcore fans and forget the rest of the audience. You lost who you was, shame. Not to mention the technical problems.… Expand
  37. Thuusos
    Sep 3, 2013
    4
    Disappointing. It's very unoptimized, the textures are terrible and the AI is terrible as well. Not innovative at all, it's basically a cash-grabbing rehash. Also, pre-order DLC? Really? I can't imagine the amount of pointless DLC they will add in the future...

    Avoid this like the plague.
  38. EroOu
    Sep 3, 2013
    4
    As a long time Total War fan, I was disappointed by this title to say the least.
    Unlike some, I have had absolutely no technical problems, and I'm not basing my judgement on something as petty as that. The technical problems always get fixed later.
    However, I found some of the new "features" quite counter intuitive. For example, the amount of armies you can field is limited (this    As a long time Total War fan, I was disappointed by this title to say the least.
    Unlike some, I have had absolutely no technical problems, and I'm not basing my judgement on something as petty as that. The technical problems always get fixed later.

    However, I found some of the new "features" quite counter intuitive. For example, the amount of armies you can field is limited (this penalizes good players who know how to divide their forces and encourages players to rely on mass.) You can no longer divide an army, not without first starting a new one in the nearest town, then moving that close enough to transfer units. If you want to have specific type of unit in your army, you need to start your own FedEx company (and by doing that, you're committing part of your army capacity, just to get the units you want in the front lines.)

    The information was obviously designed for the GUI, not the other way around. Someone thought that making everything small and inconveniently placed (I got standard GUI scale, 1600x1080) was a good idea. For example, the economy summary that used to fit in one page for easy one look glance, is not in a small box with a scrollbar. Same amount of information, horribly inconvenient to access.
    Unit information cards that used to pop up where you howered over with the mouse are now in the far left corner of the screen, whereas the units you're examining are on bottom center. You'll be looking like MeGusta going through your unit capabilities.
    And what about the tech tree? It is divided to 6 branches, just so you wouldn't notice how boring it is. Shogun 2 FotS had interesting tech tree, interesting and diverse technologies, easy one glance look and you could plan it all out. Now you need to go to 6 different branches, and nothing seems worth researching. But I guess that is just my personal opinion. Someone could think that researching {+Income, -Cost} 5 times in a row for agriculture is interesting and diverse tech tree.

    And of course the AI is derping worse than a mad horse on weed. But I trust that will get fixed, eventually.    … Expand
  39. slanderbot
    Sep 3, 2013
    4
    Definitely a let down in regards to pushing for new mechanics and interesting gameplay aspects for the TW series. Not to mention the abysmal performance and countless graphical and stability issues. I have to use two third party programs to even make the game playable. Shiftwindow to bypass texture issues (The OFFICIAL fix from CA...) and cursorlock because CA Fails to add region lock toDefinitely a let down in regards to pushing for new mechanics and interesting gameplay aspects for the TW series. Not to mention the abysmal performance and countless graphical and stability issues. I have to use two third party programs to even make the game playable. Shiftwindow to bypass texture issues (The OFFICIAL fix from CA...) and cursorlock because CA Fails to add region lock to their games. Their previous title, Shogun II, showed huge improvements to their gameplay and strategic flow, of which Rome II has little of. The new AI seems to have the potential to be a challenging opponent but normally just bugs out and does nothing, runs around after a worthless cav unit the whole battle, or charges their general right into the wall of spears right off the bat. I wanted to love this game, but CA seems to have taken to their old habits again, a pity.… Expand
  40. supercrackpuppy
    Sep 4, 2013
    4
    I have waited years for this game ever since it's announcement and i am surly disappointed we have the modern version of empire total war it sucks. Where to begin they have taken out core features of the total war franchise i can't move army's and units independent of generals on the campaign map anymore. Therefore i can not leave a garrison force in cities to protect them i have lost 2I have waited years for this game ever since it's announcement and i am surly disappointed we have the modern version of empire total war it sucks. Where to begin they have taken out core features of the total war franchise i can't move army's and units independent of generals on the campaign map anymore. Therefore i can not leave a garrison force in cities to protect them i have lost 2 cities to this already. You have a max number of armys and they all need generals the new imperium system sucks. As-long as my economy can support them i should be able to have as many army's as i dame well please. Also not mentioning the Ai is not effected bye this system at all i found myself the roman empire only able to have 4 army's while a 1 province county is sporting 6 massive army's. Now lets get to the technical stuff the game is poorly optimized. I have a 2600k i7 quad core a gtx 660 ti and 6 gigs of ram pretty standard mid range build. The optimization is so bad that i cannot run the game on anything higher than low without getting under ten frames. And get this on low i am lucky if i hold 20 to 25 frames not to mention constant lag spikes. I have had units run through enemy units and not engage there was one battle were i could not get my units to engage they were not routing they would not move. I have also experienced major texture issues and before anyone asks no my graphics card is not having artafacting this only occurs in Rome 2. Overall i am extremely disappointed and this game was over hyped and is not worth 60 in it's current state. Most of the technical issues will be fixed after a year of patches. At this point i am so fed up and want a refund. I will now go play other strategy games that surpass this like erurope universallis IV and Hearts of iron 3. Also on a side note i am a vet to the total war series i have been hear since shogun total war the first one… Expand
  41. eatsam
    Sep 4, 2013
    4
    Simply not fair to charge 55 dollars for a broken game. I still give it a 4/10 because it might get better through the months.
    Some features are just bad though and not broken. Like the messy battles and arcade-like campaign. Stupid traits etc.
  42. ChingPowWingWow
    Sep 4, 2013
    4
    This is going to be a very detailed review of the game, it was a huge disappointment so far for me. For readabilitys sake this is the things that I (and most other people) hate about the game

    -Retarded AI -Capture Points, The AI will neglect your army and go to the capture points straight and even sometimes break throuh your superior forces -Graphic issues (CA has announced a patch on    This is going to be a very detailed review of the game, it was a huge disappointment so far for me. For readabilitys sake this is the things that I (and most other people) hate about the game

    -Retarded AI
    -Capture Points, The AI will neglect your army and go to the capture points straight and even sometimes break throuh your superior forces
    -Graphic issues (CA has announced a patch on that one though), soldiers faces look incredibly stupid even on ultra
    -Balance Issues (Some factions are so overpowered that there is simply no fun found in battling with or against them)
    -Formations break after a few seconds (Even in phalanx the soldiers will break out of formation and shuffle around the map weirdly)
    -Insane battle speed (The battles are over even faster than in Shogun 2, I had no battle over 10 minutes so far)
    -Immersive Feeling Lost (No family tree, Recruitable generals, etc.)
    -Bugs (Roman units can't throw pila except when attacking, Phalanx units can't attack or will go out of phalanx)
    -Ridiculously bad UI (It takes up half of your screen and is totally dumbed down, there isn't even loose formation or guard mode!)
    -The power bar is out of control, the balance of forces is totally against you on the campaign map, but on the battlefield your power bar occupies 90%, what is that?)

    Me and most other people feel this way, I was overly excited. This game stil has some potential though, as long as CA decides to get on their asses and fix all those gamebreaking things.
    I give it a 4/10 as it is right now and will look forward to future patches and user overhauls. I really hope that this game gets fixed, at the moment it is absolutely unplayable for me.    … Expand
  43. Ahenobarbus
    Sep 4, 2013
    4
    As a long time Total War fan, I'm very disappointed with this mess. The developers have managed to mess up almost everything from their older titles and replace it with something worse.

    The UI is unintuitive, uninformative and difficult to use eg. the old Shogun2 tech tree was a full page where you could compare options, now you have a little box that shows 1 option at a time. Unit    As a long time Total War fan, I'm very disappointed with this mess. The developers have managed to mess up almost everything from their older titles and replace it with something worse.

    The UI is unintuitive, uninformative and difficult to use eg. the old Shogun2 tech tree was a full page where you could compare options, now you have a little box that shows 1 option at a time. Unit cards are not as clear at a glance as in the past. Numbers of troops in each unit is now only shown by a mouseover.

    Diplomacy on any level above Normal is absurd, friendly factions wont even accept your help when their last settlement is besieged. Trade agreements are rejected because no reason.

    Developers are clearly obsessed with fire, you have flaming arrows, flaming javelins, horse archers have flaming arrows how Artillery has explosive ammunition what ).

    I don't even want to go into the battles, suffice it to say that what everyone is saying is true. They are ridiculously fast, with no formation holding within the unit Magical abilities are annoying, luckily you probably wont have time to even use them. No skill whatsoever appears necessary to destroy enemy even when outnumbered ).

    I'm fortunate in that my machine is not one of those suffering from major lag running most on High/Very High ).

    I still give it a 4 because hidden under it all is what could be a good game, but it looks like serious work is going to be needed before it measures up to previous Total War titles.    … Expand
  44. MrKieran
    Sep 4, 2013
    4
    Disappointing. Shogun2 was ok, but this game has serious problems. The graphics may have improved, but gameplay is bad (stupid AI, useless diplomacy, unfair battle auto-resolve, confused units that ignore orders or fail to shoot and other unreliable mechanics etc...) Also game lags as hell on very good hardware. I have GTX 680 and I have about 15 fps, prologue crashed few times.

    Very    Disappointing. Shogun2 was ok, but this game has serious problems. The graphics may have improved, but gameplay is bad (stupid AI, useless diplomacy, unfair battle auto-resolve, confused units that ignore orders or fail to shoot and other unreliable mechanics etc...) Also game lags as hell on very good hardware. I have GTX 680 and I have about 15 fps, prologue crashed few times.

    Very bad experience with this game.    … Expand
  45. Landwulf
    Sep 4, 2013
    4
    Huge dissapointment after months of excitment, too much marketing too little work, total war is one of the few strategy games that i still enjoy the most and it's going the wrong way by hyping people and then selling the beta version of the game.
  46. Rikalonius
    Sep 4, 2013
    4
    Beware the Nones of September. When a game receives and orgy of "best game" awards prior to release, it means some Roman-esque political machinations are going on between the developers and the gaming press.

    After a ten hours of post release play I'm ready to ask for a refund. The graphics at extreme fall well short of the advertised images. The UI is lazy. Shogun's UI was much    Beware the Nones of September. When a game receives and orgy of "best game" awards prior to release, it means some Roman-esque political machinations are going on between the developers and the gaming press.

    After a ten hours of post release play I'm ready to ask for a refund. The graphics at extreme fall well short of the advertised images. The UI is lazy. Shogun's UI was much better and much more culturally immersive. For instance I expected a full screen character sheet for my generals and my agents, but it was like something out of early 90s. It felt like a holder to be replaced by future art assets.

    The battles so far have been horrible. I'm not sure who they are making this game for, but I'm of the opinion that high strategy games should allow the player to issue commands and have units preform according to their training, not have to micromanage every aspect of a large armies movements. Don't my units have NCOs? My friend who started playing the Iceni said he lost a siege he was winning because an enemy unit took over some forest checkpoint. Does this make a lick of sense?

    The prologue was mediocre even given the bad ground AI; the sea UI was just unspeakably idiotic.

    I should have never bought this game at first release. I'm sure the game will get better, maybe, but as many are saying, this release is a bad omen for CA. We the players are going to have to start demanding more. I won't be buying another Total War game until after release and I've had a chance to read actual reviews and not hyped up gaming press reviews. They no longer have any credibility with me.    … Expand
  47. poerk55
    Sep 4, 2013
    4
    I honestly can't find one thing that Rome 2 does better than Shogun 2. What the hell happened?

    I was so looking forward to a new total war game set in this era, but as it is this game is just entirely unsatisfying and broken in so many ways.
  48. isleman
    Sep 4, 2013
    4
    If you haven't bought the game yet, I recommend holding off until the worst bugs and AI have been fixed. I would wait at least 2-3 months before the game becomes truly playable.
  49. aaronwestley
    Sep 4, 2013
    4
    Aside from consistent crashes when loading a tactical battle, the game is ok. If no crashes, would give an 8. Nice looks, removed some features I didn't enjoy in Total War: Rome.
  50. gaminitup
    Sep 4, 2013
    4
    Graphically better than shogun 2. The units look great, really impressive. Thumbs up. Noticed that battles between units seem to resolve too fast at the moment. Lines and structure of unit formations many times turn into a chaotic ugly brawl. Family tree is removed which is really a disappointment from past total war games where you would try to see your family line survive through theGraphically better than shogun 2. The units look great, really impressive. Thumbs up. Noticed that battles between units seem to resolve too fast at the moment. Lines and structure of unit formations many times turn into a chaotic ugly brawl. Family tree is removed which is really a disappointment from past total war games where you would try to see your family line survive through the wars. Units cards are confusing when trying to distinguish them from another of your army. It was a courageous new decision from the art director to make them feel more like art of the ancient period but it will take memorization to remember your levy pike men from your pike men and even from your hoplite unit cards for instance. Not needing transport ships to transport your land armies is a great plus which removes a tedious step from other total war games where we would have to recruit each one. Situations pop up during the campaign map where you are presented with a dilemma and given options on how to make a decision upon it is a fun addition.
    Disappointing not to see gold and silver deposits in provinces

    Naval combat has promise but at the moment feels like the combat is resolved very quickly and ranged units on boats kill the enemy far too quickly. Naval battles in particular the boarding action could last longer. Silly as it sounds, It does seem in many of the naval battles have that "bumper cars" feel to them, I think because many of the vessels are indeed ramming into one another to attempt to gain victory. Perhaps there should be a type of vessel that is specific to ramming, while the other small vessels could receive a damage penalty if they attempt a ramming action with a boat not designed for such a maneuver.

    It looks good graphically but the game feels very much like it is at the very least in a beta version at the moment. Plus with the official announcement of more features such as gameplay, and campaign modes, it feels like I would want to wait until those additions actually come out before investing a lot of time. I believe in supporting the developer to continue making these games, however its the first total war game that I decided on day 2 after release to wait a bit on playing the campaign mode until some of the kinks are ironed out.    … Expand
  51. Vetinari34
    Sep 4, 2013
    4
    A long-time fan of the Total War series, I am seriously disappointed in the release of Rome Total War II. It is almost as if it was never play-tested. The battles, the game map, the water: all beautifully designed, but the game itself...

    It takes a full minute or more to cycle through all of the ai turns, and on multiplayer campaigns, this goes up to ~5 minutes for some unknown    A long-time fan of the Total War series, I am seriously disappointed in the release of Rome Total War II. It is almost as if it was never play-tested. The battles, the game map, the water: all beautifully designed, but the game itself...

    It takes a full minute or more to cycle through all of the ai turns, and on multiplayer campaigns, this goes up to ~5 minutes for some unknown reason. Waiting for the AI to finish all its movements is excruciatingly boring. This time can be spent reading the encyclopedia for Rome Total War II, which is built into the game, if you like woefully inadequate and unhelpful explanations of the various inner workings of the game.

    There is a godawful happiness/food dynamic that you try to build up in your cities; the fully upgraded food source for your region, though it is worth 12 food, generates 12 unhappiness. Unhappiness and food is shared over an entire province(if you have captured all the towns in said province) leading to a frustrating rush to capture all of the cities/towns in an arbitrary grouping that may or may not have any bearing on history.

    There is a limit of 3 armies until you get 15 provinces, which makes it near impossible to hold all of the towns you have captured since the garrisoned units amount to nothing. Turns out you can't attack a city with a land army if another player's navy is blockading it's harbor too.

    The interface itself, at first glance, appears dumbed down, but then you realize that they've hidden so much information in tooltips that could easily be displayed on the screen with no negative impact.

    CA clearly tried to overhaul system after system in Total War to produce this game. Why? We may never know, but the Total War that I love is currently a shell of what it once was. At least Civ V is still amazing, I'll go back to that turn-base strategy until CA figures out that their new incarnation of Total War is simply not fun to play.    … Expand
  52. 2gutter67
    Sep 11, 2013
    4
    I don't really know what to say after what everyone else has posted in here, but I'll try and give it a shot.

    Basically, the game itself is complete un-immersive. If you have any experience with strategy games and I don't mean Command and Conquer, Starcraft, Company of Heros type RTS then you go into them looking to be drawn in with some kind of complex situations where you must    I don't really know what to say after what everyone else has posted in here, but I'll try and give it a shot.

    Basically, the game itself is complete un-immersive. If you have any experience with strategy games and I don't mean Command and Conquer, Starcraft, Company of Heros type RTS then you go into them looking to be drawn in with some kind of complex situations where you must actually think before you act and try to fix your mistakes before it's too late. This kind of thing doesn't really happen in Rome II.

    I've played only about 25 hours but this has been my experience. I've played as Carthage and have honestly seen no one even come close to challenging me either in the campaign or the battlefield. It's almost laughably easy to take over anything you want, whenever you want. Even Rome wasn't a challenge because they sent their entire army of about 8 legions across the ocean on "insta-boats" which I sank with my 2 fleets in 2 turns.

    To say the AI is bad is a bit of an understatement. I'm pretty sure that my 12 year old cousin who has never played any kind of strategy game before could play at least well as the battle AI in almost any situation be it a siege, naval engagement, or field battle.

    My most "epic" battle was when the civil war broke out which is quite a flawed mechanic btw in which 9 rebel stacks spawned outside Carthage at the random end of a turn. I was lucky and had 3 stacks of my own outside the city, and proceeded to crush roughly 12000 men in about 15 minutes and only losing perhaps 1/4 of my own troops. 15 minutes!!! To finish an absolutely massive battle!! Where is the strategy in this strategy game which prides itself upon it's RTS battles?

    I must say that the multiple victory conditions is a rather nice addition as is a fairly complete and competent diplomacy system. However some rather basic things like region trading should probably be included. When it must be removed from some games because the AI makes too random of trades, should you not fix the AI instead of removing the feature?

    Limited armies and navies is actually not that bad in my opinion.

    Everything involving graphics with this game is far and above my expectations. I've had a few glitches, but running an older system I'm not surprised or upset by those.

    Unfortunately, the thing that kills this game for me is just that I get bored terribly and utterly bored in about one hour of playtime. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I believe it's the lack of good battles which hurts this game. There is just something about Rome II that makes you feel as though everything you do has no substance, and that lack of the substantial makes Total War: Rome II only deserve a 7/10 at the highest.

    Perhaps they can patch the game into something better than mediocrity, but I must say that I probably will not be playing this game very much until I run out of anything else to do.

    I cannot say I won't buy another Total War game ever, but I most certainly will never be part of it's release. I will be watching carefully from the sidelines and hoping that this series can return to the standards of excellence to which it was known.    … Expand
  53. djvandyke
    Sep 4, 2013
    4
    Shamefur Dispray!

    User Interface: The minimalist user interface is an abomination more suited to outer space than Roman times. Where is the artistic touch from Shogun 2? The immersion that brings the game world to life? It's awkward, counter intuitive and feels like playing the latest app on an ipad than managing an ancient empire. Things like viewable tech and building trees are in    Shamefur Dispray!

    User Interface:
    The minimalist user interface is an abomination more suited to outer space than Roman times.
    Where is the artistic touch from Shogun 2? The immersion that brings the game world to life?
    It's awkward, counter intuitive and feels like playing the latest app on an ipad than managing an ancient empire. Things like viewable tech and building trees are in games for a reason, they are a practical and vital tool in planning strategies.

    Multilayer:
    Just a last minute after thought, the absolute minimum they could get away with.
    Might have been acceptable 5 years ago but not in 2013. They just didn't bother.

    Graphics:
    Looks worse and performs much worse than than Shogun 2.
    I can just about get it looking decent with my high end i7 GTX 690 gaming rig but the majority can not.

    AI:
    Awful campaign AI just ignores your troops again and lets you siege its cities.
    It as pasive and does not attack you even on hard.
    The battle AI is also less than impressive. It does not defend walls and will chase a single unit with its entire army at times.

    Bugs:
    The game has been released in a shoddy state. My first beach landing ended up with boats going through the beach and getting suck under sand and troops unable to get out because they were burred. What kind of quality control does CA have? THIS GAME IS BETA.

    Game speed:
    Yes again units fight for a matter of seconds before breaking leaving next to no time for tactical manoeuvrings. It turns Total War from a thinking man's game into a cheap clickfest RTS.

    Unit abilities:
    The click-able “fight better” buttons and power ups were the are the absolute worse thing you could do for this type of game. Total War should be more than just a RTS clickfest. We have enough of those.
    Again it becomes all about the reactions and less about troop placement and tactics.
    These bizarre magic are buttons available yet simple things like fire at will for pila armed melee troops have been forgotten. The way magic powers are displayed as disco lights and other unidentified flying objects is again totally immersion breaking.

    I find it hard to believe that the same company who went though the Empire fiasco, took a long hard look at themselves, pulled things around then got so much right with Shogun 2 has allowed itself to screw up so baldly again.

    4/10.    … Expand
  54. GeorgMithrandir
    Sep 4, 2013
    4
    I played over 24 hours and i finally have to say that the game needs A LOT OF WORK....the AI is horrible(battles last up to 10 min.)....so where is the challenge CA promised? Also it has limited optimizing and the time waiting for your next turn is REALLY BORING...I don't have any serious problem with the province system but i really hate the diplomacy....Even though i don't have a lot ofI played over 24 hours and i finally have to say that the game needs A LOT OF WORK....the AI is horrible(battles last up to 10 min.)....so where is the challenge CA promised? Also it has limited optimizing and the time waiting for your next turn is REALLY BORING...I don't have any serious problem with the province system but i really hate the diplomacy....Even though i don't have a lot of graphic problems (despite the fact that my pc is old), it makes me sad that CA made a step backwards....In conclusion i hope the game will get better with time but for now even 4/10 is the best i can rate it....… Expand
  55. EmineNc3
    Oct 22, 2014
    4
    Its been a little over a year since my last review and little has changed.
    The same stupid flaws of the game remain, all thats been done to improve things is add more DLCs to make more money.
    The game is the same as Empire, was an absolute nightmare.. that was their OPEN BETA... When Napoleon came out, it was much improved.. errors from Empire fixed etc. Now Attila is coming out, Rome    Its been a little over a year since my last review and little has changed.
    The same stupid flaws of the game remain, all thats been done to improve things is add more DLCs to make more money.
    The game is the same as Empire, was an absolute nightmare.. that was their OPEN BETA...
    When Napoleon came out, it was much improved.. errors from Empire fixed etc.
    Now Attila is coming out, Rome 2 support is basically at a finish.
    The next game will be the Full Release, as Rome 2 was the Beta    … Expand
  56. Fhear
    Sep 5, 2013
    4
    I will do it in a summit:
    Positive points:
    + Campaign Map is BIG, detailed and good designed for the gameplay + Many Factions with mostly individual units(no more hundreds of rebellion cities) + Provinces are a good idea + Diplomacy: Even if it's kinda buggy right now, and your diplomacy partners s.t. do illogical things, THEY actually join you in fights! Negative Points: - the    I will do it in a summit:
    Positive points:
    + Campaign Map is BIG, detailed and good designed for the gameplay
    + Many Factions with mostly individual units(no more hundreds of rebellion cities)
    + Provinces are a good idea
    + Diplomacy: Even if it's kinda buggy right now, and your diplomacy partners s.t. do illogical things, THEY actually join you in fights!

    Negative Points:
    - the Battle A.I: is absolute bad(even on legendary), sometimes buggy and not capable to do the simplest maneuvers
    - the Turn loading Times are EXTREME long in further gameplay
    - The Battles are WAY to fast and reduced in complexity; also they reduced some features p.e. "loose formation"; often the battles are just 5 minutes long
    - Bad gameplay-decisions p.e. Flags in open battlefields(you have to capture them to win); magic abilities from some units or the general; autotransport for the navy; too strong torches etc...
    - Balancing of the units is not the best atm
    - 1 year per turn (agents/generals die too fast)
    - no family-tree(generals are generated from a random pool)
    - no recruitment/agent videos
    - EXTREME reduced Multiplayer-Gameplay
    - many many bugs and glitches, as well as bad performance atm

    Maybe they will patch it back to life    … Expand
  57. MaxiWilliam
    Sep 5, 2013
    4
    Its a good game but why so many soldier and other fraction have same armor or classe combat Grec have Roman armor Sparta have German armor what the its this Where the real Grec armor or Sparta armor I want cry Im still in Shogun 2 Still better of Rome II for now....
  58. RingoPrime
    Sep 6, 2013
    4
    I was so excited about this game and it is my first big disappointment of 2013. I have a GTX 690 with 4gb VRAM yet the game only detects 2gb as it has no multi GPU support! A PC game in 2013! Really?! Add my 32gb RAM and i7 3770k quad core running at 4.3ghz to the mix and you would think this game would run fast on all the max settings? Wrong, benchmarking puts it at around 30fps! I setI was so excited about this game and it is my first big disappointment of 2013. I have a GTX 690 with 4gb VRAM yet the game only detects 2gb as it has no multi GPU support! A PC game in 2013! Really?! Add my 32gb RAM and i7 3770k quad core running at 4.3ghz to the mix and you would think this game would run fast on all the max settings? Wrong, benchmarking puts it at around 30fps! I set all the graphics to low and the fps appears to be locked at 66....why? Turns take forever, random graphics glitches, terrible AI that makes the game boring, stupid capture the flag in land battles that essentially throws any terrain based tactics out the window, did I mention the AI? Oh yes, but it's that bad it needs mentioning twice! Creative Assembly needs to fix this broken game....and quickly, the first Beta patch has made no improvements and if anything my fps dropped by 1-2! Patches are supposed to make things better, not worse!!! CA need to get their whole development team and probably a very good external QA team to fix the following:

    - Hardware optimization (especially multi GPU and cards with large VRAM)
    - AI
    - Campaign turn times
    - Remove capture the flag from land battles, it is not welcome and has ruined the primary attraction of the TW franchise.....you know....the war part.
    - Improve unit textures, Shogun 2's were better
    - Overhaul character avatars.....they look....terrible, seriously just replace them with concept art, CA's art department are the only ones who come out of this launch with their reputations intact!

    There are probably many other things that need addressing, but CA need to accept that the game is broken and needs fixing quickly.....I would also like to see some kind of special offer for people like myself who pre-ordered this game in the hope CA had learned from previous mistakes. I certainly won't be buying another TW game at launch, that is for sure.    … Expand
  59. Mangeduvet
    Sep 6, 2013
    4
    There are just too many issues with this game on release to give it a higher score.
    - Low fps
    - Performance issues - Multiple fixes needed to even get the textures right Further on. - A.I is so bad in battles and the campaign map that it's laughable - No guard mode (stand ground) - No fire at will mode for melee infantry using javelin, only works when charging You cannot    There are just too many issues with this game on release to give it a higher score.
    - Low fps
    - Performance issues
    - Multiple fixes needed to even get the textures right

    Further on.
    - A.I is so bad in battles and the campaign map that it's laughable
    - No guard mode (stand ground)
    - No fire at will mode for melee infantry using javelin, only works when charging

    You cannot release a game in this state! You simply can't, It's exactly like paying 60 euros to play a BETA. I'll probably never pre order a game CA makes ever again, first thing you need to do is look in forums and sites like these and be sure that there are no game breaking problems that you don't want to pay FULL price for...

    For everyone thinking about buying this game, WAIT until it's on sales or something because it's not worth the money they are currently selling it for, and definitely not your time. The game has some serious potential but as of right now it's not close to what it could be. I'm probably forgetting some of the issues I've encountered playing.    … Expand
  60. Googleness
    Sep 6, 2013
    4
    Total war is long term game so you are expected to do a campaign for about a week or two if you play casual.

    50 turns into Rome II -> 1. End turn 2. Alt Tab 3. Have babies, get them married. 4. Get grandchildrens 5. have your new grand kids to come and see the historic moment. 6. clean pc from dust. 7. Alt tab 8. wait few more minutes 9. turn 51! yay! grand pa 'his c'wap is    Total war is long term game so you are expected to do a campaign for about a week or two if you play casual.

    50 turns into Rome II ->
    1. End turn
    2. Alt Tab
    3. Have babies, get them married.
    4. Get grandchildrens
    5. have your new grand kids to come and see the historic moment.
    6. clean pc from dust.
    7. Alt tab
    8. wait few more minutes
    9. turn 51! yay! grand pa 'his c'wap is cool!

    in more serious note,
    1. graphics the game gave me automatic Extreme settings which runs kinda well but game looks bad.

    2. gameplay this is NOT total war. total war is about using agents on the strategic map with wise and smart province management combined with small specialize inferior forces to outmaneuver and outmatch your opponents and conquer the world. here we got world map which is basicly LAME version of civilization with no sense what so ever. a battle mode in which there is no strategy only blob wars over victory points in which slingers will annihilate everything (try it... full slinger army will destroy anything in the game lol). In fact game so bad they added "Economic" and "cultural" victory so you don't need to conquer anything! just use diplomacy and ofc enhanced auto-resolve which tells you now not only if you win but how many troops you get left with!

    3. Navies are so crap now they deserve their own section, you take and unit and drive them into the see they turn into a fleet. the get a ramming ship! and they can board. no need to build navies just get 20 mobs send them into the sea and you got doomstack navy. Also because land units can now easily turn free into NAVAL units some weird stuff happens like minor barbaric tribe from north Europe invade into Arabia!!!! wtf is that crap.

    4. Politics, no more senate floor... no more family tree.... now you get weird list of generals which shows who got most power... once in few turns you get some weird event which cause little problem until you resolve it.. how? pick a button.. that's it. no politics what so ever!

    5. diplomacy... hmmp... well... faction so stupid they will stay with 1 province, no armies, under siege and refuse peace treaty 5000 gold that stupid. in previous games you could set trade agreements and do stuff here it's dumbed down diplomacy as most options like switch cities, stop wars, exchange map information, BRIBE are removed from the game.
    then when you finnaly manage to get trade agreement some weird stuff happens like your new buddy wants to help you in your war so he sends 1 ship to navy blockade a port of the enemy last city for OVER 20 turns and so you can't kill them... bah.

    6. limited number of armies, navies and agents.
    on previous games you could recruit some units then have a captain with them which if he was successful could be adopted and become a general but here you need to "Raise" force as general or admiral then recruit straight to him the forces and most of the game start you can have no more then 4-6 armies! it's pathetic. as militant player I did lots of conquest and combat on this series with smart small forces and wise tactics but here I'm limited to 3 armies! on game start so basicly if you got bad luck and enemy got allies or 2 factions declares war o you suddenly 4-5 doomstacks vs your 1 little stack as you can't divide it to ambush them or use one small force to lure them while your main force gank their cities sun-tzu style... nope.

    7. city development is utter stupid. no point at all you reach to a point where you got income like 10k per turn while city is mostly level 2-3 buildings. no need to build anything! the population remains the same when it's growing you actually get more building slots to get more money from buildings. actually building more advanced stuff in cities gets you ton of squalor and shortage in food which do not benefits enough income wise (extra 1000 per turn for empire wise upgrade) to actually do it so build 2-3 military building rest is farmings and agricalture boosting buildings tehn get ton of money and spam slinger armies of doom :X fail.

    this is fail game from design to execution. shogun 2 is superior and more pretty, Rome 1 is a better game and much better game with mods. Medieval 2 was one of the best game in the series.. add medieval 2 with a mod which exteneds the map so you can do grand campaign on HUGE map which contain the vanilla all the Kingdoms campaigns at same time for utter victory.
    Empire was decent as casual total war and had good points as it did gunpowder decently but overall Rome 2 is step backward.

    "IT WILL GET A PATCH YOU FOOL!" fact: i finished campaign on all of the total war games WITHOUT patches. on Rome II I cannot finish a campaign cause the end turn takes 2 years to finish cycle 30000000000000000000 factions.
    rig: 8 Gb ram i5 2500K GTX 550Ti OC edition Win 7    … Expand
  61. tomtucker09
    Sep 6, 2013
    4
    A flawed product. Even discounting the terrible performance issues (which will no doubt be ironed out over the course of the next 6 months, as per Creative Assembly's Standard Operating Protocols), I felt like this game didn't capture the 'soul' that it's original did.

    Ironic, since Shogun 2 did this very well in my opinion it truly immersed you in the time period and the 'zeitgeist',    A flawed product. Even discounting the terrible performance issues (which will no doubt be ironed out over the course of the next 6 months, as per Creative Assembly's Standard Operating Protocols), I felt like this game didn't capture the 'soul' that it's original did.

    Ironic, since Shogun 2 did this very well in my opinion it truly immersed you in the time period and the 'zeitgeist', while providing an enjoyable game experience. Rome 2 on the other hand... meh. Maybe the mod community can make this the engrossing epic is should have been. The battles are particularly bad the AI is terrible, and the fights are just brawls with no real tactics involved. They're over so fast that there's no opportunity to flank, or skirmish, or anything really. Want to use a classical Hellenistic 'hammer and anvil' tactic? Or recreate a Roman legionary maniple formation? Don't bother, it's pointless. Doesn't matter which faction you are: form a straight line, and march that line towards the enemy. Rinse and repeat.

    Too many resources went to marketing this one, and not enough to actual design (or even proper beta testing). I'd only recommend buying this if you are a Total War maniac, with money to burn and even then, expect a lackluster experience.    … Expand
  62. StuG
    Sep 6, 2013
    4
    BAI: 2. Quite stupid, too bugs
    CAI: 4. Low engagement, diplomacy same of napoleon, arcade-feeling
    Graphics: 4. Nice to see at ultra/extreme but far too many resources needed for what it offers User Interface: 6. I like it, the units/city panel icons are nice but too big, a bit confusing in general Management: 4. Arcadey and i say it all Average: 4. 55 euros is a robbery: 20 for the    BAI: 2. Quite stupid, too bugs
    CAI: 4. Low engagement, diplomacy same of napoleon, arcade-feeling
    Graphics: 4. Nice to see at ultra/extreme but far too many resources needed for what it offers
    User Interface: 6. I like it, the units/city panel icons are nice but too big, a bit confusing in general
    Management: 4. Arcadey and i say it all

    Average: 4. 55 euros is a robbery: 20 for the game, 25 for the patches

    CA MUST fix it and give FULL support to the mod community or this will be their last game many people buy.

    Bye    … Expand
  63. Raven76
    Sep 7, 2013
    4
    I have been a fan of this series for very long time. I played all the original and in each you felt apart of SOmETHING. It captivated you in the feel and era especially the originally Rome and Medievals both. You felt your empire grow, your cities build you started from nothing until a golden age reigned or you died in that attempt. The thing is it was fun and you couldn't wait to do itI have been a fan of this series for very long time. I played all the original and in each you felt apart of SOmETHING. It captivated you in the feel and era especially the originally Rome and Medievals both. You felt your empire grow, your cities build you started from nothing until a golden age reigned or you died in that attempt. The thing is it was fun and you couldn't wait to do it again and again.
    This game is a piece of garbage when it come to obtaining that. If CA attempt was to create something dynamic and different they didn't even achieve this a two year old could have done better with their imagination and toys!!.
    Sadly Sega's acquisition of CA has again turned another beloved title into A MONEY MAKING VENTURE in which the original fans and those who could be, have been have been left in some perpetual zombie filled spectacle. The thing is any new people to this title would have to be kidding themselves into delirious stupidity in forking out money for this terrible product when such titles as Civ and others are out there- the only thing in CIV is the RTS battles then there would be no need for this garbage!!

    "CA" WE BESEECH you before you put out any other product SPEAK TO THE FANS, ASK THE FANS and tell SEGA to quit with the deadlines. The problem is when there are fools who will fork out cash me included but I make an oath now I will never buy another CA game until I feel you understand what the fans truly want) and there are no refunds it makes little SEGA is a huge company and if CA falls onto itself it means nothing in the long run of profits and profit making they'll just find something else that is beloved and was unique and fresh and RUIN IT only until they have milked it with subsequent sequels until they have totally dumbed it down
    WTF were you thinking of getting rid of Patricians Family TREE HUH??? what??? not to mention the kindgergarten drawings akin to shogun which shows me u use the same templates it was a quick shortcut I know and as for CITY MANAGEMENT it was one of the things that truly made the system so beloved so unique I give four because there is an occasional glimpse of what it meant to once play these games.....

    DISGUSTING    … Expand
  64. TWAddict
    Sep 7, 2013
    4
    4 is probably a little unfair for the work that has gone into this game, as with previous TW games the history and research is very good HOWEVER the disappointment and genuine horror I am currently feeling at this moment makes me score this game so poorly. This coming from someone who has played over 900 hours on Empire, 800 hours on Napoleon and prior to steam probably 3 to 4 thousand4 is probably a little unfair for the work that has gone into this game, as with previous TW games the history and research is very good HOWEVER the disappointment and genuine horror I am currently feeling at this moment makes me score this game so poorly. This coming from someone who has played over 900 hours on Empire, 800 hours on Napoleon and prior to steam probably 3 to 4 thousand hours on Shogun1, Rome, Medieval 1 and 2 (plus all the add ons and many custom TW games). I should have waited, you see my playing time on Shogun 2 is only 44hrs, I tried to like it but grew to hate it. Unfortunately Rome 2 has some of the same stupid faults and traits, Shogun2 had warrior nuns, now we have Iceni onager ships please Hate the cartoony interface like shogun2, and the real time battle engine is just like shogun 2, far too fast to relish and enjoy like the set piece battles of its predecessors. Why spend all that time on detail and effects when your obviously pitching to the pre-adult txt-a-holic Michal Bay watching console playing demographic! What next Transformers Total War Wait let me plug three mice in and 2 keybards and I can click and smash them all together while watching the a whirling vortex of Ongager pirates and warrior nun spear laser cavalry.
    As for the AI, well AI has always been contentious in the TW series but at least in the older games such as Rome 1 and Medieval 2 while the AI sometimes sucked they were at least enjoyable and infinitely more playable. CA seem to be breaking what didn't need touching and making the bad bits even worse. Will have another crack at it soon now the patch seems to be out, although not today though, no not today, maybe tomorrow or next weekend, someday, anyway back to Napoleon or maybe Sid Meiers Gettysberg or Antietam, Xcom possibly, just something that doesn't make me feel like a moron.    … Expand
  65. limonata
    Sep 7, 2013
    4
    There are too many problems right now for this game to be considered playable.
    - The AI is absolutely terrible, every battle they simply bunch up together in the middle of your army. The siege AI is broken entirely and they often don't even move.
    - Naval battles are terrible. Ships become unresponsive and ignore orders, the boarding/ramming mechanism is bugged and often decides to do the    There are too many problems right now for this game to be considered playable.
    - The AI is absolutely terrible, every battle they simply bunch up together in the middle of your army. The siege AI is broken entirely and they often don't even move.
    - Naval battles are terrible. Ships become unresponsive and ignore orders, the boarding/ramming mechanism is bugged and often decides to do the wrong thing.
    - Ships become stuck and continue to attempt to row forward (they cannot row backwards), units become stuck walking into trees.
    - Capture points in the middle of field battles eliminate a lot of tactics and make it impossible to win with an inferior force.
    - Game is so badly optimized it makes me wonder if they even tested it on more than one computer, nVidia have even stated that they can do little with a new driver release and that the problems come from the terrible optimization.
    - Removal of the family tree it's not the end of the world but it is missed by a lot of people and it makes me wonder why they bothered to take it out? It means I have no attachment to my generals and means I don't care when they die.
    - Politics system is a complete waste of time, no one I know who plays the game even bothers to check the politics screen.
    - End turn time is abysmal and on a coop campaign it is much worse and has stopped all my friends from playing them.
    - Unit cards are terrible and the building cards are even worse what is wrong with a simple picture of the unit, like in every other total war game?
    - The UI is terrible and needs some serious work.

    If all they had done was take the first Rome and improve the graphics it would have been far better than what we have in Rome II. There are some good things about the game but they are overshadowed by everything that is wrong. It's possible that patches could save this game but it will be months and even then there is so much to be fixed I think it is doubtful.    … Expand
  66. SgtBash13
    Sep 7, 2013
    4
    I don't normally submit reviews on games, however after awaiting this longly anticipated sequel to be released, I can't help but vent my frustration & disapointment to others. Rome 1 was surely one of CA's most fondly admired titles in the Total War series, therefore it was vital that more than ever CA stepped up & delivered a 2nd that we all craved for. Rome 2 however fails do to this,I don't normally submit reviews on games, however after awaiting this longly anticipated sequel to be released, I can't help but vent my frustration & disapointment to others. Rome 1 was surely one of CA's most fondly admired titles in the Total War series, therefore it was vital that more than ever CA stepped up & delivered a 2nd that we all craved for. Rome 2 however fails do to this, poor graphic performance & constant bugs equals a frustrating experience when you were promised (and expected) far far better. Shogun 2 is more than this ever will be & sadly the Total War series is in demise, like so many others.
    Typical Cash & Grab im afraid!    … Expand
  67. danyellow
    Sep 7, 2013
    4
    Rome 2 is an ok game, but does it make a worthy successor to the original Rome? No.

    The original Rome was the most innovative total war yet, and Rome 2 was supposed to live up to that. But when it comes to the end, it turned out to be one facepalm after another. As repetitive as it sounds, this game desperately needs a huge patch. They released the first patch, but for me personally,    Rome 2 is an ok game, but does it make a worthy successor to the original Rome? No.

    The original Rome was the most innovative total war yet, and Rome 2 was supposed to live up to that. But when it comes to the end, it turned out to be one facepalm after another. As repetitive as it sounds, this game desperately needs a huge patch. They released the first patch, but for me personally, it did more harm than good, as it degraded performance.

    Issues that need addressing
    -A.I. (Both battle map and campaign) A.I. in campaign would attack a 15+stack army with a single unit. A.I. isn't as intelligent as I would have liked it to be.
    -U.I. is not the greatest it's a lot of menu then submenus.
    -Graphics need a huge overall (bad textures, horrendous faces, etc.)
    -Battle speed NEEDS to be slowed down. All my battles have been under 10 minutes (Usually averaging 6 minutes.) 2 of those minutes are spent walking to the battle, 3-4 mins for the entire battle.)
    -Naval battles are buggy!
    -Capture points make no logical sense in game. (needs to be removed)
    -A lot of features from the original rome have been removed. (assassination videos, family trees, unable to toggle use of pila on roman units)
    -Campaign end turn times are LONG

    Overall, they released the game way too early. The game is 60-70% done in terms of content, and 30% done in terms of testing. What really grinds my gears is that before release, a lot of the community at TWC were addressing 60-70% of the current gameplay issues. Also, it would have been smart to release a beta to a variety of people with different systems, to have had a stronger release.    … Expand
  68. Ahumata
    Sep 8, 2013
    4
    40 hours into the game, single player and multi player, this is a staggering disappointment. While I don't run into any performance issues despite having a 3+ years old gpu, mostly everything else is still wrong.

    Short version: Rome the Europa Barbarorum mod is still a far better offering. Rome alone is still undethroned by Rome 2. AI is terrible, is there even one? Battles are too    40 hours into the game, single player and multi player, this is a staggering disappointment. While I don't run into any performance issues despite having a 3+ years old gpu, mostly everything else is still wrong.

    Short version: Rome the Europa Barbarorum mod is still a far better offering. Rome alone is still undethroned by Rome 2.

    AI is terrible, is there even one? Battles are too messy and simplistic. Units don't respond well and can't hold formation. Strategic map gameplay is better but dulled by slow progression, no sense of stakes and overlong load times. Alexander conquered the known world in 10 years, you couldn't conquer much in 10 turns. UI is very questionable, good in some parts, terrible in most others. Diplomacy finally feels somewhat relevant.

    Long Story
    I didn't play Empire or Shogun 2 and stopped at Medieval 2, being an immense fan of Medieval and Rome (+Europa Barbarorum) before Medieval 2. So I'm coming from the "classical" TW games and it's from that experience that I'm reviewing Rome 2.

    ===Strategy & Management
    I would say that management and diplomacy have been overall improved. Things, while feeling more abstract (since everything goes through icons and cards now), give a little bit more depth to the strategic game. It feels a bit disembodied, but it generally works. However, the AI is absent, both from strategy and battle, and that doesn't help making the game involving. The world is huge, many factions, but it doesn't feel deep, so it's hard to connect to what goes on. No sense of real stakes, no sense of grandeur or epic. So in that sense, with the fact that everything is abstract and the upgrades you go for are stuff like "+3% to this" or "+2% to that", therefore never feeling like anything's really meaningful or matters, the strategic layer does feel a bit boring very soon. You'll be trying to complete provinces, which are sets of regions owned or controlled by you, chasing ghostly signposts in-between.

    Not to mention the extremely long load times between turns, as the game features so many factions. I'm not sure who thought that it would be so great to have dozens on faction active on the map at the same time: it simply breaks the pace utterly, all this mostly for factions that are simply not interesting enough to exist in that way. I'm all for diversity and richness, but there could have been many other ways to include all those peoples significantly and in a relevant manner that wouldn't have bogged the game down completely.

    ===Battles
    Battles, I don't know where to start. There is no AI. If you lose, it's because you have the wrong unit makeup AND are significantly outnumbered. Just moments ago I played a battle where I went in 1500 against 3000 in a siege. In any TW game, a victory in such circumstances would have been very, very hard to pull off. But instead, here, I just "happened" to win: somehow my two cavalry units killed 1600 men (according to the tally) and routed most of the enemy army while I all I did was stand there watching a mess of fisticuffs in broken formations. All of this took but a few minutes.

    Which is the next problem. Battles are so messy and so deadly, that they're done, for the most complex ones, in less than 15 minutes. Most of the time, it's 2 and 4 minutes. There again, as everything soon descends into close-up fistfights (units just won't maintain formation), it doesn't help making you feel involved. Stuff just happens, very fast, and there's none of the planning, waiting, and flying over the battlefield to give decisive orders that previous games might have gotten you used to.

    ===Multiplayer
    Co-op multiplayer has a pretty great point in that you can lend your units in battle to that spectating friend, so he can play the battle with you. Makes you wish you could end up with battles where every unit is controlled by a person. The unit abilities system calls for that, too. As you manage your army over 5-15 minutes long messy battles, there simply isn't enough time or room to micromanage every unit to the extent of making worthwhile use of its special cooldown-based abilities. So that too is a design blunder. The game is full of them.    … Expand
  69. Stephen2013
    Sep 8, 2013
    4
    Don't buy this game I bought it and I know what you're thinking; Shogun 2, Rome, Medieval 2 where great I can look past the bugs.

    It is not finished. The bugs in this crash the game; my first bug happened before I had my first fight and my first turn I clicked on the faction button and it crashed the game. I tried again a couple of days later and played it for a while it    Don't buy this game I bought it and I know what you're thinking; Shogun 2, Rome, Medieval 2 where great I can look past the bugs.

    It is not finished.

    The bugs in this crash the game; my first bug happened before I had my first fight and my first turn I clicked on the faction button and it crashed the game.

    I tried again a couple of days later and played it for a while it crashes each time you try to invade carthage I tried twice in a row and it just freezes and crashes to desktop.

    The FPS are appalling, the AI turns take about ten seconds in the first 6 turns then jumps to 3 minutes. The campaign AI is okay (they don't randomly attack you but they are very passive) the battle AI is totally stupid.

    Due to a stupid capture the flag mechanic in the battles you will lose even if you outnumber the enemy if you allow a flag to be captured.

    Don't let games companies treat you like this the developers have had years to solve these issues but they don't why? Because we keep buying it.

    We will all need to wait a month before they patch this thing play Rome 1 Total War instead.

    Also Day 1 DLC is a joke.

    Not buying a Total War game again this is my last purchase.    … Expand
  70. x8igh7
    Sep 9, 2013
    4
    I've own, and have played, every Total War game but this one has been a major disappointment. I paid for a top flight game, and I got RTS simulator for dummies. Where is my family tree? I think there actually is one somewhere in this mind boggling UI...

    AH HA! After playing for 10 hours as the Germanic Tribes I finally found the tab that showed my faction and leader. I'm not really    I've own, and have played, every Total War game but this one has been a major disappointment. I paid for a top flight game, and I got RTS simulator for dummies. Where is my family tree? I think there actually is one somewhere in this mind boggling UI...

    AH HA! After playing for 10 hours as the Germanic Tribes I finally found the tab that showed my faction and leader. I'm not really sure what any of the numbers mean, or why I should care about my faction leader, after all I'm 10 hours in without even knowing he existed but I found it! Apparently there is a division between Elder Chiefs and Other Chiefs (very informative name, I know) and I need their favor. I don't know how to get that favor, or why I need it though. But, hey! At least the have the foundation of a system (which fully functioning in Rome 1), right? Ugh, wait, I forgot I paid $60 and this isn't a $10 indie game.

    Okay, lets do a little diplomacy. Oh, look, this faction next to me is friendly.. and we share the same blood! Sick, lets open a trade agreement... No? Wait, why? They have 80 approval of my faction, but they have a low chance of accepting a simple trade agreement that would benefit both of our factions. Hmm... Lost me on this one. By the way, I think you trade the stuff that your cities harvest such as Timber, Leather. But I can't find any information on this anywhere, and I have no idea what any of it means or does.

    Okay lets fight some battles! For the most part I can build the armies I want and have a little fun with the AI (though it gets quite repetitive). The graphics got a bit better with the patch, but it's still a bit underwhelming. I like the new provinces regions. I think that adds some cool depth and gets rid of the monotonous sieges at every city. However, I lose my generals about every other turn at this point because I get rushed by 5 enemy agents all trying to kill a single my leader, with no apparently way to counter this rush other than hope I can use my own agents (which are limited and spread across my armies and lands) to kill them during the next turn. (For the record, agents have always been my least favorite part of the series).

    All in all, a very disappointing release. I would need to withdraw my support for the series based on this showing. It's grown on me a bit since I've stumbled upon new features many hours into the game that seem to be hidden away, but I can't very well justify to anyone the $60 price tag based on the current state of the game.    … Expand
  71. bartd
    Sep 9, 2013
    4
    I waited for this game to long not to play it and all i have experienced is a huge disappointment!

    The only thing improved is soldiers behavior(they raise shields and fall on the knees s but apart from that it is rubbish... game looks like it`s not finished. i feel like playing Rome 1 again :) Creative Listen: This is strategy game! Focus on strategy than! AI ,unit    I waited for this game to long not to play it and all i have experienced is a huge disappointment!

    The only thing improved is soldiers behavior(they raise shields and fall on the knees s but apart from that it is rubbish...

    game looks like it`s not finished. i feel like playing Rome 1 again :)

    Creative Listen:

    This is strategy game! Focus on strategy than! AI ,unit "intelligence", diplomacy and battle! stop wasting your time on pointless birds, raindrops on the screen, grass and trees and other crap...

    by the way ships behave like bricks!

    i could go on but i think i have made my point!    … Expand
  72. logan0178
    Sep 9, 2013
    4
    There are significant number of bugs, performance problems and glitches that make this game difficult to enjoy.

    The battle AI is horrible. During defense battles they just sit there and stand their ground while your ranged units shoot them to death, and in offense battles they just make a beeline towards your capture point and ignore all other considerations even if it's a suicide    There are significant number of bugs, performance problems and glitches that make this game difficult to enjoy.

    The battle AI is horrible. During defense battles they just sit there and stand their ground while your ranged units shoot them to death, and in offense battles they just make a beeline towards your capture point and ignore all other considerations even if it's a suicide charge through your phalanx.

    Naval battles are poorly done and the boarding commands are not responsive. You have to continuously give commands to board for melee ships or they just get into close range and sit there.

    Amphibious battle AI when attacking tend to glitch out completely where one or a few characters in the army unit does not get off their ship and when this happens they cannot be attacked or take any other action so you end up having to wait out the full 60 minutes before the battle is over and they lose by default.

    Campaign map inexplicably has terrible fps performance and turn ends could take a long time even on a high end machine like mine. (16 gb ram, 2 gb graphics card, quad core top of the line intel cpu)

    The campaign AI is also passive and very ineffective and very rarely if ever fields even a full army. In higher difficulty levels it simply gains a cheating advantage in resources and unit stats rather than actually being smarter. It takes no time at all to gain an absolute advantage because no factions ever expands to enough territory to pose a threat once you've expanded past a few provinces.

    There are also various settings removed from modding like campaign_unit_multipler which will make player modding more difficult, but this is not calculated into my score since my review is only for the base game. I am only mentioning this as a side comment.

    Even with all these issues my score would've been higher if this was the first game in series or of the genre, but frankly many of these same bugs and design issues have been seen in every one of the past total war games and there's no excuse for them to release their game with these known issues without fixing them.

    Bottom line is, this game had great marketing and propaganda going for it but little to no testing based on the number of obvious bugs and glitches players run into in even the first hour of playing.

    This game is not worth getting at the current time. Perhaps in a few months once most of the bugs are fixed and it's on sale on steam with 60% off.    … Expand
  73. kaibert
    Sep 9, 2013
    4
    Performance problems aside, this game gets a 4 out of 10 for gameplay at this time.

    I will not play this game until mods have fixed the glaring mistakes made by the developer team. Many features seem tailored to the casual crowd, apparently for monetary gain.

    There are many new strong features, but the current state of the game is a disgrace to loyal fans of the Total War series.
  74. titanictwist
    Sep 9, 2013
    4
    Rome Total War 2 could be a great game. Unfortunately the game becomes boring very fast. Why? Because your only opponent in the game is the AI, and the AI is about as smart as a baby. Playing a strategic game against a baby gets boring very fast.

    -On the campaign map the AI will barely ever attack you, and if it does it is usually not in a way that makes strategical sense (constantly    Rome Total War 2 could be a great game. Unfortunately the game becomes boring very fast. Why? Because your only opponent in the game is the AI, and the AI is about as smart as a baby. Playing a strategic game against a baby gets boring very fast.

    -On the campaign map the AI will barely ever attack you, and if it does it is usually not in a way that makes strategical sense (constantly sending 1 unit against your full stack).

    -In Field battles the AI is incredibly easy to beat. The only thing it cares about is the new Victory Points (bad feature). Therefore it uses the same strategy every battle of rushing straight at the Victory Point no matter how suicidal that is. You can win against armies 2-3 times your size without much effort.

    -Siege Battles are the worst as the AI doesn't even function on them. On defence the AI will stand around in one spot while you shoot it with arrows, You can win without losing a unit if you have enough ammo. On offence the AI will get stuck outside the walls, get stuck in their boats, and it doesn't attempt to capture gates or anything to let its troops stuck outside in.

    -Naval battles the AI actually can beat you. Only because your own ships rarely listen to your orders and often end up sitting around while the AI shoots them.

    If your a veteran of this series or are even decent at strategy games you will find even the hardest difficulty laughably easy. This is the worst AI of the series and therefore it is the worst game play of the series.    … Expand
  75. Efix484
    Sep 9, 2013
    4
    Horrible UI.
    AI is brain dead
    Poorly optimized. Navy is useless (Normal troops can spawn magical boats) No more guard button. Units don't fight in formation (Phalanx have to brake to attack etc) Stupid magical powers (flaming javelins etc) Arcadey useless effects (Glowing light on everything) Unit card that covers half my screen. (5 times bigger then shogun) Awful and useless    Horrible UI.
    AI is brain dead
    Poorly optimized.
    Navy is useless (Normal troops can spawn magical boats)
    No more guard button.
    Units don't fight in formation (Phalanx have to brake to attack etc)
    Stupid magical powers (flaming javelins etc)
    Arcadey useless effects (Glowing light on everything)
    Unit card that covers half my screen. (5 times bigger then shogun)
    Awful and useless generals and agents 3D models (Really awful)
    Civil war is pointless (Both choice mean nothing no color beam sry)
    1 year turn, no point caring for generals they die way to fast
    No more seasons
    and again
    Horrible UI
    Horrible UI
    Horrible UI
    Horrible UI    … Expand
  76. Fudaman
    Sep 9, 2013
    4
    AI is broken, naval battles are useless and there are plenty of bugs to go around. The general skill tree is a step down from shogun. I put 10 hours into this...wait a month before considering to buy. The critic reviews have been obviously paid off by sega.
  77. AjaX
    Sep 10, 2013
    4
    I have been a HUGE fan of the total war series since the release of the original Rome: Total War, it is easily one of my favourite games of all time and I have spent probably over 1000 hours playing it over the years and over the past few months I had been playing a mod called Roma Surrectum 2 to keep me busy up until the launch of Rome 2, after 17 hours of playing the new release, I amI have been a HUGE fan of the total war series since the release of the original Rome: Total War, it is easily one of my favourite games of all time and I have spent probably over 1000 hours playing it over the years and over the past few months I had been playing a mod called Roma Surrectum 2 to keep me busy up until the launch of Rome 2, after 17 hours of playing the new release, I am going back to playing Roma Surrectum 2. Rome 2 is terrible, I started off on a legendary campaign with Rome and was able to steam roll through Italy, Greece, North Africa, Spain, most of Europe and completely wipe Egypt out of the game with ease, the AI is a joke and offered no challenge what so ever. My longest battle was only 7 minutes and 35 seconds long! This game has great potential but they HAVE to fix the AI ASAP! its the worst I have seen in any total war game, I would gladly go back to playing Empire instead of this. Also, this game does not run smoothly at all, I have a pretty beefy rig and run most games on ultra but for some reason I have to run this game on normal settings and still only barely get 30 fps and it has crashed several times in the 17 hours that I have played it. It is an obviously unfinished game and has many more months to go until it is going to be enjoyable to play so DON'T BUY IT YET! After 17 hours I am done with it and like I said am going back to a MOD for the original Rome HAHA.....Unbelievable...… Expand
  78. Liberalis1
    Sep 10, 2013
    4
    Cons: -Really bad AI.
    -Super fast battles (on average 3min...)
    -No family tree. -Broken siege battles. -All armies can magically transform into fleets. -Badly optimized game. -No unit numbers displayed on unit cards. -Campaign AI too weak. -Naval battles broken. -Flaming javelins wtf! (do they have lighters on them ?) -No role-play. -Generals acquire too quickly traits, and    Cons: -Really bad AI.
    -Super fast battles (on average 3min...)
    -No family tree.
    -Broken siege battles.
    -All armies can magically transform into fleets.
    -Badly optimized game.
    -No unit numbers displayed on unit cards.
    -Campaign AI too weak.
    -Naval battles broken.
    -Flaming javelins wtf! (do they have lighters on them ?)
    -No role-play.
    -Generals acquire too quickly traits, and always the same ones... (pain in the behind)
    -Too many in-battle special-options for units. (most are irrelevant)
    -Political systems are useless and badly integrated !!!!
    -Broken Multi-player Campaign.
    -Not enough open field battles.
    -Useless capture points that hinder the AI from having an actual battle.
    -No walls for non-capital cities.
    -Over-powered elephants.
    -Almost no cinematics (small in-game videos).
    -No historical event messages.
    -AI turns take forever.
    -Phalanxes not used by AI (or rarely) .
    -No out of the box 40 unit stacks on the campaign map.
    -Unclear trait/skill-tree.
    -Un-immersive music.
    -No battle speeches.
    -Impossible to build Colosseum & Circus Maximus in the same city...
    -Disappearing rebellions on the campaign map (slave revolts)
    -Marian reforms can be researched and acquired too early in the campaign.

    Pros: -Really big map and mostly well done.
    -Lots of units.
    -Lots of factions.
    -Very nice textures and details.
    -Being able to choose the generals bodyguard unit.
    -Province/region system.
    -Campaign User-Interface.
    -Diplomacy/resource maps.
    -War targets (when they work).    … Expand
  79. Roger77777
    Sep 10, 2013
    4
    Total War: Rome II has potential, but to use that it would have needed 1 or 2 month more development time. Sadly, at the moment (Patch 1) the game is not playable. It crashes ever ~5th turn, calculating the next turn takes 2 to 5 minutes and the game has really poor graphics (where Total War: Shogun 2 was running fine). And then there is the horrendous AI...
  80. MetaAwesome
    Sep 10, 2013
    4
    The latest addition to the Total War series demonstrates some interesting new features, however the core gameplay takes a leap backwards.

    GOOD: Let's start with the positive. The campaign map is huge, there are many interesting units to recruit and there are a number of ways to customise provinces to suit your economic and military needs. The encyclopaedia includes short videos to    The latest addition to the Total War series demonstrates some interesting new features, however the core gameplay takes a leap backwards.

    GOOD:
    Let's start with the positive. The campaign map is huge, there are many interesting units to recruit and there are a number of ways to customise provinces to suit your economic and military needs. The encyclopaedia includes short videos to illustrate explanations, and the game is certainly more accessible to newer players of the series. The ability to set ambushes is improved upon, as the player now has the choice of building traps and reigning down fiery contraptions upon unsuspecting enemy troops.

    MIDDLE:
    With all this said, these features are merely the 'side order' of what Total War fans have come to love and enjoy. The 'meat' of Total War has always been the massively epic land battles, which unfortunately brings me to:

    BAD:
    After 20 hours playing as Carthage, Roman armies are attacking cities in what could only be described as a continuous stream of kamikaze warfare. Nearly all Roman armies and fleets encountered on the campaign map are made up of just one unit (not a very robust display of force for Rome, one of the world's first superpowers). This leads to the endless autoresolving of battles against an AI that is beyond idiotic, thus negating any sense of challenge and immersion.
    The battle AI is poor, particularly in siege battles where troops will stand motionless and capture the flag mechanics can be exploited. Considering that Creative Assembly have been developing Total War games for over a decade, one would expect an improvement rather than a marked disappointment.

    CONCLUSION:
    Total War Rome II feels like a city builder in which the concept of armies fighting one another was an afterthought that was 'thrown in' at the last moment. Large, epic battles should have been the strength of Rome II, not it's weakness.

    This review has not touched on any of the bugs encountered by players. There are loads of them.    … Expand
  81. Stolas
    Sep 10, 2013
    4
    Feel that I paid £30 for an Alpha build, I saw better graphics, better AI and a different game entirely to what I'd bought in comparison to what I'd been shown on Rally Point and the Creative Assembly's many media releases.

    A solid concept and game has been crushed by some arcade features, a lack of a family tree, lack of optimization, lack of guard buttons, I could go on, really! The    Feel that I paid £30 for an Alpha build, I saw better graphics, better AI and a different game entirely to what I'd bought in comparison to what I'd been shown on Rally Point and the Creative Assembly's many media releases.

    A solid concept and game has been crushed by some arcade features, a lack of a family tree, lack of optimization, lack of guard buttons, I could go on, really! The AI is just laughable, I constantly get my fleets stuck in ports, I HAVE PLAYED FOR 22+ HOURS AND NOT YET EVEN BEEN DECLARED WAR ON!

    This game gets a 4/10 from someone who owns each Total war game, aside from Shogun 1. I'm unwilling to change my vote, as I believe that Creative Assembly have entirely let down their audience, despite promising to make weekly patches that isn't enough, we were sold a game that we were told was fully released, that promised so many things but didn't. (Just watch the Carthage Siege video, look at the screenshots of the units, etc)

    This game reminds me of the War Z entirely, yet a lot more dramatic. CA have an age old and loyal audience, and lied through their teeth all the way to release. So dissapointed.

    Also dissapointed in how the Critics have reviewed it, makes it awfully clear they play the game for about a half hour when not even knowing the franchise's history!    … Expand
  82. arflynn23
    Sep 10, 2013
    4
    Having been a fan of the Total War series for years (12 or so) I am so sad that this is what was released. Clearly the hype was just that. Hype. The game has major issues that I'm not sure can be repaired no matter how much patching is done. But for the sake of CA and Rome, I sure hope it can get better.
  83. FooyFooy
    Sep 10, 2013
    4
    A huge let down after Total War Shogun 2 added so much to the game and had great new feature. However, in Rome 2, they added a good amount of things to the campain UI and made the world map a lot more pretty, they took away so much more. Shogun was a step foward but Rome 2 was 2 steps backwards. I'm not going to talk about the AI too much sense that can be patched later on. They made theA huge let down after Total War Shogun 2 added so much to the game and had great new feature. However, in Rome 2, they added a good amount of things to the campain UI and made the world map a lot more pretty, they took away so much more. Shogun was a step foward but Rome 2 was 2 steps backwards. I'm not going to talk about the AI too much sense that can be patched later on. They made the unit cards all look the same making it difficult to identify the unit type, and you can now only use seige equipment on prvincial capitals which is weird. They took away the personalities of generals and made the upgrading system for them very confusing. Now generals die all the time of natural cuases and there is no way to continue they're legacy with children or a family tree like in Shogun 2. They talked about how the solider tactics were realistic and the charges were much better but it is really just a mosh pit compared to Shogun 2 chharges. You also have to babysit every unit now since there will be one unit next to them being massecered while they just sit and watch. They will only fight if you direct them to a specific enemy or when they are attacked. Climbing over walls is verry troublesome as once they finaly manage to get on the walls, they have to wait till the last man is on to move an inch and get down into the city. The Naval battles are absolutly horrific in they're current state, so I suggest you just auto-resolve them all. There are actually some positives such as a new larger map stretching from modern day Portugal to modern day Pakistan. They introduce a new province system consisting of minor settlements and one provincial capital which i love, and makes managing the cities much easier. The cities themselves are a pretty as ever before. They actually seem like cities now, and invasions have much better settings. Now to the verdict. I was largely dissapointed with this game, If you are new to the total war franchise, DO NOT get Rome total war 2, get shogun 2, a vastly superior game. I give this game a 4/10 since it is still an ok game. It seems to have been rushed out the door. I would suggest if you own it yet, you wait for the patches or buy Shogun 2 in the meantime.… Expand
  84. MarkWester
    Sep 11, 2013
    4
    This game is not finished or play tested what so ever, I'd recommend waiting a few months, in its current state it really feels like Total War Rome 1 is more fun and has better AI, than this. I am surprised at the glaring difference between the product and the marketing campaigne. end turns take to long, there's a butt load of glitches. wait until it falls pricewise and give them time to fix it.
  85. LastJohn
    Sep 12, 2013
    4
    First let me say this, it pains me so much to give this game such a low score. I have played every game in the series except the original, Shogun. I have put in more than 700 hours into this series, and the Roman era is my favorite in history. Unfortunately, this game fails in almost every regard to live up to its predecessor Total War: Rome as well as the previous game Total War: ShogunFirst let me say this, it pains me so much to give this game such a low score. I have played every game in the series except the original, Shogun. I have put in more than 700 hours into this series, and the Roman era is my favorite in history. Unfortunately, this game fails in almost every regard to live up to its predecessor Total War: Rome as well as the previous game Total War: Shogun 2.

    Due to Creative Assembly's lack of a beta the coding in the game is horrific and causes MASSIVE lag even for people who have multi thousand dollar computers. Not everyone is affected, but most are. Here are some of the issues that plague this game.

    End Turn times -

    There are more than 100 factions that have to make their turn, which cause you to wait sometimes up to 6-7 minutes every time you end your turn which is extremely frustrating as the game is mean to play over the span of 300 years (or turns). The goods news, if you have a Excellent processor these speeds can be brought down to about a minute. I have compiled a lot of information from forums and the *general* consensus is that people with i5 and i7 processors generally take less than two minutes for a end turn (some as low as 40 seconds) while everyone else takes a back seat to about 3-4 minutes on average and some unlucky people 6-7 (especially after unveiling the map).

    Bugs and Glitches -

    There are a lot of bugs and glitches. To name a few, Ship battles are pretty much unplayable by most people which is a shame because they are beautiful. There is also a bug that allows units to burn down gates during sieges exceptionally easy by throwing torches at them, even metal gates, making the use for siege units virtually useless. To be fair, Creative Assembly probably did this on purpose due to the horrible A.I. not using siege units anyways so they needed a way for them to get into cities during siege battles.

    Also, there is a bug (that from I can gather plagues the Romans, which I played for 30 hours) that causes all of your generals to go insane. Literally. For me it almost always starts out with a trait called "Not quite right" which takes away 2 Authority and then after 4-5 turns their trait slots are maxed out with negative Authority traits. This makes the Roman faction pretty much unplayable for me. It doesn't just happen once, it will constantly plague your generals randomly (for me usually ,but not always, 1-2 turns after creating a general).

    Loss of Features -

    For some reason Creative Assembly decided to take away some beloved features. For instance, there is no more guard mode. If you don't know what that is I will explain it. Do you know how in movies armies march in formation? It looks beautiful and is truly epic. In Total War: Rome I they did this. And when a army clashed into yours it was amazing as they held their line. Well, some beyond comprehensible stupid person removed that from this game. When a army attacks you your units do not stay in formation, the battle simply becomes a mosh pit.

    There is also no Family tree and the tech tree has been dumbed down severely.

    Addition of features -

    Most additions are stupid in this game. There is flag sometimes placed in open battles that you must defend, you could have 7,000 troops and the enemy has 300 and if they capture the flag on the field they win. Also, in town battles, sometimes the A.I. will ignore your forces, run through them and try to grab the flag constantly being slaughter all the way there.

    Also, battles last for 3-5 minutes due to moral inbalance issues and the running/walking speed is extremely quick, making Archers useless. Some features are good, such as the Regional hub for provinces, but most are a step backwards.

    A.I. is so so so horrible -

    And finally last but not least. I can't mention everything wrong but this is a must. The A.I. is so stupid. *Most* games they will never declare war on you. They simply wait to be slaughtered. Then, in battles they have no idea how to coordinate an attack making battles way to easy. And they never create good armies. Almost always they will have a army comprised of 70% range units which is extremely annoying.

    I won't go into how stupid this games A.I. is, there is youtube for that and it is hilarious. Look Up AngryJoeShow A.I. fails. All I will say, is that I could forgive everything else until patches came except the beyond belief stupidity of the A.I.

    They should have just copied and pasted Shogun II's A.I. instead of redoing it.

    Final Verdict -

    I wanted this game to be epic. I wanted to love it. But this was a scam if I have ever seen one. More than likely it is Sega's fault. They have a track record of publishing horrific games. They want money and that is it. Some people play this game and overlook the flaws, but I am not blind. This game had no business being release, and maybe they will patch it, but I don't plan on holding my breathe.    … Expand
  86. Mattyo
    Sep 13, 2013
    4
    I wanted to like this game, I really did, but there are just too many issues so I'm going to hold off until it's patched to a point where the game is fun. However by then I'm going to guess that it will be on sale and I will have been ripped of by CA and Sega by buying a broken game on day one. So the lesson learned is wait for the steam sale when you get the game not only cheaper butI wanted to like this game, I really did, but there are just too many issues so I'm going to hold off until it's patched to a point where the game is fun. However by then I'm going to guess that it will be on sale and I will have been ripped of by CA and Sega by buying a broken game on day one. So the lesson learned is wait for the steam sale when you get the game not only cheaper but working better.

    On a positive note there is a lot to like about this game which is why I'm giving it 4/10 instead of 1/10 as it's not all doom and gloom. The visuals are pretty decent and new additions such as army history (rather than it all tied to a general who dies with all his upgrades) is fantastic.

    The biggest bug-bear for me though is I'm writing this review nearly 2 weeks after release and there's still no sign of SLI support. I want to be a PC enthusiast gamer but it's made difficult for me when you have releases like this. So I'll see what's on sale this weekend on Steam and pick up a game I know will work from being patched and have an SLI profile. Suppose that's the system you have to work with which sucks for the developers but they only have themselves to blame if they're going to release unfinished games.

    And I know there's a ridiculous amount of combinations for PCs but it's not like this is hasn't existed with PCs for like, forever.    … Expand
  87. krislawton19
    Sep 14, 2013
    4
    i've just signed up to leave this review, this game is so disappointing after watching the trailers and being a fan of the total war franchise from the start and with shogun 2 being awesome i expected this game to be even greater. The AI is terrible which wont be a game changer if you didn't just buy dogs which in kill 80% of any army without even engaging them, or the gates to a forti've just signed up to leave this review, this game is so disappointing after watching the trailers and being a fan of the total war franchise from the start and with shogun 2 being awesome i expected this game to be even greater. The AI is terrible which wont be a game changer if you didn't just buy dogs which in kill 80% of any army without even engaging them, or the gates to a fort opening and closing none stop so you cant burn the gate down. Boring though when you use 2000 men vs 8000 just dogs and only take 50 casulaitys. I can live with stuff like this though even on the highest difficulty but stuff like shoguns army controls missing in rome 2 makes me cry or how naval battles are pointless. People disappear from your armys to fast aswell, different forts are just the same fort rotated on the map a let down. it does have some nice things like line of sight and province but the more i play it the more i start to think do i really want the next one if its like this. how people can rate this game 8/10 i dont understand. granted ive only played 55hours of it so far and i am playing it on its highest settings across the board graphics/gameplay but im bored of it and let down and shogun keep me entertained for ...well lets say 5x this in single player alone. i unstand glitches and ai bugs all ways happen in these games but comon didnt you even do beta and its core machinics are just not there and its a shadow of other games… Expand
  88. comradenash
    Sep 19, 2013
    4
    This game suffers from a malady that only occurs when extremely high expectations clash with sub-par performance. The kind of storm that elicits thousands of "0" reviews on sites like this. This was not a 0 experience, but I'll have to admit that it was obvious while playing that the developers played it safe and played their deep recurring fan-base for fools.

    -Gameplay is only pretty    This game suffers from a malady that only occurs when extremely high expectations clash with sub-par performance. The kind of storm that elicits thousands of "0" reviews on sites like this. This was not a 0 experience, but I'll have to admit that it was obvious while playing that the developers played it safe and played their deep recurring fan-base for fools.

    -Gameplay is only pretty skin-deep. Further play reveals a disappointing regurgitation of mechanics that were aged in Empire Total War and have not evolved since.

    -Immersion is non-existent beyond playing as Rome. My brief foray into the celtic tribes showed me repetitive map design, the same soundtrack, and ridiculous caricatures for unit sounds. Would it have been so difficult to create a soundtrack for each culture?

    -Frame drops are frequent and render the game unplayable. I was able to move the camera freely throughout the battle map without issue, but the units were moving at what appeared to be less than 10 FPS.

    Overall, a really sad offering from a team that could have done far better. The really unfortunate thing is that these are all issues that are extremely unlikely to be patched, as they seem like design decisions or corner cutting during the creative process.    … Expand
  89. InnerDogg
    Sep 21, 2013
    4
    Who 'm ever gives this game a rating above 5 in the current state has ZERO knowledge of games and past TW series. At this point its a BETA version of the game, nowhere near finished. All they had to do was copy & paste Shogun, change everything to Rome era, and BAM Award Winning Game! Instead they lied to everybody pre launch, and released this crap.
  90. Sidhewyn
    Sep 21, 2013
    4
    I really wanted this game to be s great follow up to the original that I loved so much. I am pretty disappointed. The quality of the music is top notch. Atmosphere of the game is nice but so much is not working. AI as others have mentioned is 1980s bad. Passive and clueless. The game mechanics at the strategy level is nice. City building and technology. Battle is "mushy" phalanxes andI really wanted this game to be s great follow up to the original that I loved so much. I am pretty disappointed. The quality of the music is top notch. Atmosphere of the game is nice but so much is not working. AI as others have mentioned is 1980s bad. Passive and clueless. The game mechanics at the strategy level is nice. City building and technology. Battle is "mushy" phalanxes and barbarian both fall into blobs and mash up. No real sense of Roman discipline etc. I find the tactical game to be just run at the enemy maybe flank some but really in most ways worse than the original. How can that be? The original was so many years ago. Maybe they can patch some of these issues. I really want to like this game!… Expand
  91. ironman3112
    Sep 24, 2013
    4
    This game was a large disappointment for me. I followed the game for the full year from the announce date until release. CA had an incredible marketing team, made the game look absolutely fantastic up to the release date. Any concerns on the forum were crushed by simply saying the footage shows was alpha footage. I can remember raising concerns about Al Bickhams videos showing the ai inThis game was a large disappointment for me. I followed the game for the full year from the announce date until release. CA had an incredible marketing team, made the game look absolutely fantastic up to the release date. Any concerns on the forum were crushed by simply saying the footage shows was alpha footage. I can remember raising concerns about Al Bickhams videos showing the ai in battles. Bickham played horribly and the ai won a couple battles, deep down inside I knew something was up, but I brushed it off thinking the final release would be better.

    When the day of release came I had already sunk 1 700 dollars into a new computer and had pre ordered the game thanks to having it gifted to me on steam for my birthday. I thought that Rome 2 would be too big to fail, that there would be no possible way that CA could screw it up.

    Boy, was I wrong. I'll start with the ai, the ai on the campaign map doesn't build very many large armies in the early game. They'd much rather have multiple small stacks roaming around. The armies that they do have usually consist of militia units and slingers, regardless of what stage of the game you're in. Ai empires typically don't know how to manage public order so any large empire will soon crumble (this is perhaps why large empires like carthage and the selucids were split up into satrapies or client states). This is just the tip of the iceberg for campaign ai failures.

    The battle ai is reasonable when fighting in an open battle, it creates a formation and sends every single soldier it has at its disposal at you and attacks your units. You'll typically be able to take on 3-5ai armies with 1 full stack of your own troops because they'll come at you 1 army at a time, with militia units that route incredibly easily.

    The true problem with the battle ai is when it comes to sieges. When it is defending its alright since all it has to do is camp flags, but when it's attacking it has a tendency to disregard your entire army, and bull rush the flag through your men as you hack them to pieces giving no consideration to the fact that you're slaughtering its entire army. This is gamebreaking. As well during sieges, (this isn't an ai issue, just a siege issue) it is possible to destroy the gates by throwing torches at them thus rendering all siege equipment completely useless. There is absolutely no need to build siege equipment when you can just destroy the gate with torches, there by making sieges really boring.

    The naval ai is pretty competent from what I can tell, my navy gets its ass kicked by transport fleets when I fight the battle due to transport ships being overpowered. Auto resolving battles with a navy against a transport fleet causes the Transport fleet to be annihilated, so at least that works as intended.
    Quick Points:
    -The graphics are pretty good when they aren't glitching out or causing your machine to lag. However I've found that shogun 2 is more optimized and at times definitely looks better.
    - The province system works as intended and is pretty reasonable overall. Makes recruiting easier than it was in previous TW games
    -with 172 factions the map is full of factions which is great, one thing that bothers me however is that a lot of the major factions get stomped by random no name factions, so your campaign can turn into fight no name faction A and no name faction Y. e.g. carthage gets destroyed by numidian tribes and egypt is destroyed by Ethiopian tribes typically.

    Finishing points:
    I haven't covered all the flaws in this game, there's plenty of them, however the game will get better with additional patches. So far there have been multiple patches released to fix these issues and more will continue to come out. What really irks me is that the game was shipped out the way it was September 3rd. It was a compete mess, CA has apologized twice and that is why they've sent out so many patches. I just hope that everyone remembers this release and refuses to pre order any other games let alone Total war games.

    I've played Total war games ever since Medieval 1 Total War, when I was 9 years old and this game has been the only one that's really pissed me off. I completely agree with angry joe's sentiments, check out his review its great, also check out what CA said in this interview with regards to meta critic, it's disgusting.
    http://gamasutra.com/view/feature/169354/how_creative_assemblys_process_.php

    anyways, this game definitely didn't live up to the hype. Just remember what happened with this game, the marketing, the promises, the buggy release, all the patches. Just remember this when you think about pre ordering the next game, because I gurantee that if you do pre order you'll be kicking yourself when this happens again.    … Expand
  92. Vicentum
    Sep 25, 2013
    4
    Creative Assembly it up. If you are interested in this game you must know that you are paying a full priced game for a beta version with mant different and exotic bugs.

    The IA is one of the most stupid ones I have seen, failing in so many different things that its predecesors could do properly. I have no word. As an example I will write about the siege battles. In Medieval 2 Total War    Creative Assembly it up. If you are interested in this game you must know that you are paying a full priced game for a beta version with mant different and exotic bugs.

    The IA is one of the most stupid ones I have seen, failing in so many different things that its predecesors could do properly. I have no word. As an example I will write about the siege battles. In Medieval 2 Total War the IA could use siege engines properly while in Rome II the army just smashes into the door in a huge moshpit.

    If you are reading this, don't bother to buy the game right now, wait a few months when hopefully the patches will have fixed the game.    … Expand
  93. wozmir
    Sep 25, 2013
    4
    I feel deceived by CA's marketing. What was meant to be the greatest TW game to date is nothing more than a beta version of something big. They're frantically trying to patch this up, to no avail. The AI's passive, the optimisation is lame, only modders are trying to save this game. I just wonder how could the reviewers give the game around 80%. It's not that it's bad it couldn't ever beI feel deceived by CA's marketing. What was meant to be the greatest TW game to date is nothing more than a beta version of something big. They're frantically trying to patch this up, to no avail. The AI's passive, the optimisation is lame, only modders are trying to save this game. I just wonder how could the reviewers give the game around 80%. It's not that it's bad it couldn't ever be good because it's unfinished.… Expand
  94. Tomasy
    Sep 25, 2013
    4
    This game at the date of release is in unplayable state. What's wrong with it?
    Well... basically everything in this product is unfinished and unpolished, that should be worked on for another 2 months. As a Total War series veteran this game is not fun to play at all. Even with AI difficulty on the highest level this game presents no challenge whatsoever.
    AI is braindead. Optimisation    This game at the date of release is in unplayable state. What's wrong with it?
    Well... basically everything in this product is unfinished and unpolished, that should be worked on for another 2 months. As a Total War series veteran this game is not fun to play at all. Even with AI difficulty on the highest level this game presents no challenge whatsoever.

    AI is braindead.
    Optimisation is a joke.
    Multiplayer is stripped from all features introduced in Shogun 2.
    UI is messy and hard to get information you are looking for.

    Creative Assembly is currently producing patches on weekly basis with questionable results. This game still got some potential left in it but if you though about acquiring Rome 2 you should wait for another month or two. After that time this game will be back on tracks hopefully.    … Expand
  95. marksmanjake
    Sep 25, 2013
    4
    Well it's obviously the worst launch Creative Assembly has ever made. The bugs, glitches, horrific AI and crashes destroy the game. If you take away all those errors, the core game itself is pretty bare bones. Compared to the excellent Shogun 2, so many features have been stripped out and nothing has been done to improve nagging issues like the stubborn diplomacy system and campaign mapWell it's obviously the worst launch Creative Assembly has ever made. The bugs, glitches, horrific AI and crashes destroy the game. If you take away all those errors, the core game itself is pretty bare bones. Compared to the excellent Shogun 2, so many features have been stripped out and nothing has been done to improve nagging issues like the stubborn diplomacy system and campaign map and battle AI. It's too easy to win even on legendary. I don't understand how this can be the biggest budget Total War and yet it feels so lackluster and broken. Based on the metacritic score, the reviewers must have played this thing for like an hour. I pray they're not moving to the console.… Expand
  96. Inkhand
    Sep 26, 2013
    4
    After the awesome that was Shogun 2, I expected the brilliance that was the original Rome to be brought up to date in a stunningly successful manner. Instead, I got Rome 2. Had this game's problems been limited to design decisions I would have rated it higher, but core design flaws mixed with crippling beta quality bugs drags the rating down to a 4.

    Rome 2 automatically selects the    After the awesome that was Shogun 2, I expected the brilliance that was the original Rome to be brought up to date in a stunningly successful manner. Instead, I got Rome 2. Had this game's problems been limited to design decisions I would have rated it higher, but core design flaws mixed with crippling beta quality bugs drags the rating down to a 4.

    Rome 2 automatically selects the graphics quality settings best suited to your configuration. Unfortunately, it seems to do this with unrestrained naive enthusiasm. I would describe my system as upper-mid range, yet the game unabashedly set my graphics to "extreme". The result was an extremely slow and jumpy game. After dialing back my settings until I was getting worse graphical quality than I did on Shogun 2 (which I could run at fairly high detail settings), I realized the issue was much deeper than mere quality settings. The game has not been optimized at all, as near as I can tell.

    Even when I was playing on extreme (slow though it was) the game's graphics didn't look anything like what we'd been promised during promo videos. The battle of Carthage promo had developers promise that the finished game would look even better, yet we're left with something arguably worse.

    During battles, I've seen ships sail through land. I've seen enemy units get stuck in some sort of strange time warp where they move at a fraction of the speed as my own or even their fellow units. I've seen towers captured by my own forces continue to fire on my men, as if I'd never taken them. I've seen individual men get stuck and dance around in place for no apparent reason.

    Naval battles are so unbelievably broken. An army can apparently take to the sea by magically conjuring a fleet of transports, a design concept I could buy into if they forced the army to take a turn to actually construct boats. Even then, these magic transports can outright obliterate a navy composed of supposedly dedicated warships. There is no balance here.

    Capture point battles are the most insipid design decision in a game that prizes strategy and outmaneuvering an enemy army. The AI rushes through you lines to grab the flag, and in a matter of moments your army still fighting desperately on the field is lost. Now, this has been fixed to a certain extent by the latest patches. But still, who thought bringing capture the flag to open field battles was a good idea? I can buy into it during siege battles, but nowhere else.

    And, speaking of siege battles, that's all this game has turned into. The game was supposedly designed to allow for more epic battles more often, but a combination of limiting the number of armies and poor AI, it turns into constant besieging (which is, quite often, so bugged you don't even want to play them).

    The much lauded political system is terribly, incredibly shallow. Generals die quickly, and you don't really care if they do because their bonuses are minuscule and poorly presented. There is no tech tree for you to look at, you have to read the encyclopedia to see where an ability will lead. There is no family tree, and while you supposedly have a family faction that you belong to... really, who cares? All they do is gather influence (in the form of senators that you can SPEND to do things?), do something with gravitas, and then you get a civil war. Big whoop. There are no strategic marriages, no continuing blood lines. Your faction leader dies, they pull the next guy off the street and put him in charge. It's boring.

    In fact, the entire game is boring. The nuance that was present in previous games (and especially Rome the first) is gone. No longer can you upgrade roads or add defenses to settlements. No longer are there contextual general speeches that play off of traits or who you're fighting, they don't even pan the camera across your troops. They are an afterthought, if that. No longer are there agent movies, which were an awesome part of Shogun 2 and Empire (and even Medieval 2, I think). Even the original Rome had some limited in game movies!

    CA claims that they had a 40% larger budget for this game. Where did it go? Live action teaser trailers and a marketing blitz aimed to get as many people as possible to preorder the game before we realized what a disaster it was?

    To be fair, CA is working hard to patch these issues. But really, a studio with their reputation and with such a purportedly large budget should never have released a game that is, essentially, beta test quality with bare bones features in place of the robust systems we expected.    … Expand
  97. jim_mojo
    Sep 27, 2013
    4
    I was very hopeful seeing the trailers and as i loved the sieges in med 2 total war, was hoping this would be great. Weeks after the game has been released and after a few patches the bugs that anooyed me are still there or not really improved. The enemy AI has a habit during sieges to stand there sometimes for an hour even though they outnumber you 10-1 The only way to win was put itI was very hopeful seeing the trailers and as i loved the sieges in med 2 total war, was hoping this would be great. Weeks after the game has been released and after a few patches the bugs that anooyed me are still there or not really improved. The enemy AI has a habit during sieges to stand there sometimes for an hour even though they outnumber you 10-1 The only way to win was put it on speedx4 and wait until the siege was over. Sending out troops did nothing other than lose a unit entirelly or they flee. If a 2gb patch came in the morning and fixed everything id stick to my guns with the rating some people were waiting for this game for years and were dissapointed… Expand
  98. mokawa71
    Sep 29, 2013
    4
    I believe the most of us liked the advertising of the game which looked great and made us buy the game.
    Game flaws are all known in this metacritic forum but lets hope the patches are improving the fun over the next weeks and months
    Anyway, my action to prevent a purchase of a CA/Sega game on release day is that I set a monthly reminder in my cell and lotus notes calendar. Secondly I    I believe the most of us liked the advertising of the game which looked great and made us buy the game.
    Game flaws are all known in this metacritic forum but lets hope the patches are improving the fun over the next weeks and months

    Anyway, my action to prevent a purchase of a CA/Sega game on release day is that I set a monthly reminder in my cell and lotus notes calendar. Secondly I used the code 0903 (release date) on my ipad to remind me on the catastrophic Rome 2 release. I can recommend this actions to everybody if you are serious with not buying a CA/Sega game on release day or never again.    … Expand
  99. mastro_akq
    Oct 1, 2013
    4
    Bought Rome 2 inspite of the critics, and now I know why everyone is upset about the game. Not counting all of the bugs and horrible AI that seems to take 10 steps back in the franchise, the cupboard is bare so to speak. The game is boring, and featureless. Sometime before release they decided to take out almost all or any interesting features and the gameplay is super basic and poorlyBought Rome 2 inspite of the critics, and now I know why everyone is upset about the game. Not counting all of the bugs and horrible AI that seems to take 10 steps back in the franchise, the cupboard is bare so to speak. The game is boring, and featureless. Sometime before release they decided to take out almost all or any interesting features and the gameplay is super basic and poorly done at that. The UI's, encylcopedia, tech tree exct are all out of place and look like something from a sci-fi game. The units cards are stylized art, most faction literally have about 10 troops, most are all clones shared across each faction. There is nothing epic about the campaign and you will find it dull and repetitively unappealing. From a TW fan that has played since Medieval 1, spare yourself the upset that is Rome2. Its a stripped, dumbed-down TW game $20 game being sold for $60 and an $8 DLC that should be free since the game is so basic and uninteresting.

    There is a ton more one could gripe about, but I hope this review helps some.    … Expand
  100. SouthMiddleton
    Oct 1, 2013
    4
    The main problem I believe is with Sega and not the game, making people pay for DLC and forcing an unfinished game out, they've put lining their own pockets before the fans which are the ones that actually buy their games.
    Everything that matter is wrong, the basics have been stripped down, more bugs than the amazon and the "all new and improved AI" is not just broken but smashed into the    The main problem I believe is with Sega and not the game, making people pay for DLC and forcing an unfinished game out, they've put lining their own pockets before the fans which are the ones that actually buy their games.
    Everything that matter is wrong, the basics have been stripped down, more bugs than the amazon and the "all new and improved AI" is not just broken but smashed into the dust. The difficulty now means nothing, no one attacks you or declares war, the multiplier always de-syncs, battles look like moshpits no tactics needed to win battle anymore, the cinematics are all but gone and where is the politics system that was talked about?!!?
    On the flip side the map is beautiful to look at and fun to move around, the city build system has more effect through out the campaign map and the units look good at best when they're not bugged out.
    All in all this is a once amazing game with an unlimited amount of play ability that only does as much to anger me and wipe out any historical accuracy. I might even go as far as to say this could be the last C.A. game I buy for a while until EVERYTHING is fixed, the most loyal fans of the franchises who have played almost every game can agree and see this has let everyone done and a lot will need to be done to get them back to where they were and to get their hardcore fans back on board.    … Expand
prev
Page:

Awards & Rankings

4
#4 Most Discussed PC Game of 2013
7
#7 Most Shared PC Game of 2013

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
76

Generally favorable reviews - based on 71 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 49 out of 71
  2. Mixed: 15 out of 71
  3. Negative: 7 out of 71
  1. Worth Playing
    Nov 18, 2013
    74
    The game is far less polished than Shogun 2, and a few more patches will help, but Rome II is still a flawed game that is underwhelming when compared to previous titles in the franchise.
    Read full review
  2. PCGamesN
    Nov 6, 2013
    70
    And here’s the rub: every addition, every sub-system, every mechanic is subservient to War. War is what Total War is really about. Everything else not directly related to conflict comes across as ancillary. Rome II is a game for warmongers, on both the campaign map and, obviously, on the battlefield. When peace is happening, nothing is happening. When war is happening, Rome comes alive.
    Read full review
  3. PC PowerPlay
    Oct 28, 2013
    40
    If you will play literally anything featuring Total War and Rome in the same title and don't value your time, this is for you. [Nov 2013, p.80]
See all critic reviews »