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
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  1. MrZanyGaming
    Nov 5, 2013
    4
    Not a bad game, but there was so much more they could have done, not to mention the marketing campaign that blatantly lied to all the fans of the series. It's dumbed down, so if you're a fan of simple games that make you feel smart, then buy it. If not, then I would advise you to avoid Rome 2.
  2. bastianravenx
    Jun 19, 2014
    2
    HUGE disappoint when you play total war shogun and switch to this game like angel from heaven going to hell UI like crap. I played almost 20 hours just to find myself how bad this game
    such a let down people
  3. Agostinos
    Jul 1, 2014
    3
    After 13 patches and several mods tested, this game still sucks. It is flawed by design and working as intended!
    Dont you ever buy this if you want a strategy game. If you think of it as an app you might get if for some €€ at steam, install it, play it for some minutes, quit bored and annoyed and aswell deinstall that 20gb of massie failure.
    Unfortunately i paid the whole price and i    After 13 patches and several mods tested, this game still sucks. It is flawed by design and working as intended!
    Dont you ever buy this if you want a strategy game. If you think of it as an app you might get if for some €€ at steam, install it, play it for some minutes, quit bored and annoyed and aswell deinstall that 20gb of massie failure.
    Unfortunately i paid the whole price and i will never ever again play something from CA.    … Expand
  4. Thunder5555
    Mar 13, 2016
    3
    I should've been getting the hint when people told me that I need mods to enjoy this game...
    Even total war games can fail at the times, and this one is it.
    Something is just off with this one and just trying to ignore it and keep playing is not worth it when there's good total wars available.
    Empire, Rome, Shogun.. take your pick and I can tell you get a better experience than with this one.
  5. 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
  6. sirxchrish
    Nov 15, 2013
    5
    The game isn't bad but it's not good either and it certainly can't hold a candle to it's predecessor Rome 1. So here are a couple of things I liked and didn't like. This is just my opinion, so it's all debatable.

    Thing's I didn't like- -Dumbest AI. (Self-Explanatory.) -Shallow Campaign and Questionable In-game Design. (No Family Tree, Bare-boned Political System, Meaningless    The game isn't bad but it's not good either and it certainly can't hold a candle to it's predecessor Rome 1. So here are a couple of things I liked and didn't like. This is just my opinion, so it's all debatable.

    Thing's I didn't like-

    -Dumbest AI. (Self-Explanatory.)

    -Shallow Campaign and Questionable In-game Design. (No Family Tree, Bare-boned Political System, Meaningless Objectives/Victory Conditions, No cut-scenes or unique transformations with agents, Too many unplayable factions make conquering the world a very tedious task, Bland User-Interface, Unnecessary limit on how many generals or agents you can have, No general's speeches, etc.)

    -Inferior Music Score. (It's predecessor, Rome 1 had a way better soundtrack.)

    -Horrendous Multi-player. (No avatar system, Constant Crashes and Desynchronizations.)

    Things I liked-

    -Custom Battles. (Gives me the option to fight where I want, with the units I want.)

    -The Blood and Gore DLC. (I'm sanguinary.)

    -Military Traditions/Edicts/Expanding Cities in Campaign. (I loved making each of my individual armies unique with it's own traditions which add bonuses to their fighting ability. I liked the edicts cause they saved my men from starving to death with the Bread and Games edict. I also loved that animation where the city changes in appearance before your very eyes while on the campaign map.)

    -The Modability. (The Best Part of Total War Games are the creations that it's fans come up with.)    … Expand
  7. reviewobsession
    Jan 21, 2015
    5
    First, I agree with negative reviewers because they are right to be angry as customers who had to wait about one year to get their expensive game fixed.

    If you're not a Total War fan, buy this game. Don't be afraid of bad user reviews, CA fixed the game with too many patches and it's playable now. If you're a Total War fan, there are two things you should consider; "arcade campaign    First, I agree with negative reviewers because they are right to be angry as customers who had to wait about one year to get their expensive game fixed.

    If you're not a Total War fan, buy this game. Don't be afraid of bad user reviews, CA fixed the game with too many patches and it's playable now.

    If you're a Total War fan, there are two things you should consider; "arcade campaign gameplay" and "succesful battle mechanics"(after many patches and tons of scripting). Arcade campaign is too easy because there is no time limit, logistic planning, senate politics and complex city management. I think it's not bad to try new mechanics as a game developer but they lost depth in these systems. On the other hand I have to say diplomacy is much better than older games in the series. Battle system works very good. Battle AI is better than old ROME. Campaign AI is broken so you have to install mods. Nothing to say about graphics and sound, they are great. But UI is still terrible and I'm afraid they won't change it. In spite of problems I'm sure you won't regret when you buy this game because of its epic battles (but don't except challenging campaign and get ready for strange frustrating bugs) Just wait for 70% discount    … Expand
  8. SchnitzelPoof
    Nov 4, 2015
    5
    After stubbornly giving the game another chance, I've decided to update my review.
    Even after all the patches up to the Emperor's Edition, many of the design decisions make little sense: the way armies or fleets move, how they engage (or rather don't, thanks to a ludicrous cat-and-mouse game that never ends); a single agent able to stop your entire army turn after turn after turn after    After stubbornly giving the game another chance, I've decided to update my review.
    Even after all the patches up to the Emperor's Edition, many of the design decisions make little sense: the way armies or fleets move, how they engage (or rather don't, thanks to a ludicrous cat-and-mouse game that never ends); a single agent able to stop your entire army turn after turn after turn after turn; a land army destroying an entire fleet because it happened to be inside a port city (without any option to withdraw); random diplomacy; endless back and forth wars, in which cities are easily captured (and recaptured), while armies "force march" out of your reach; and this really annoying thing, where different cultures cannot use any buildings of each other - even something as basic as a farm; so when you or an enemy take a city, everything must be razed / replaced. As a result, if a critical food producing city is taken by an AI that can move more than you, for just ONE turn, even when you retake it, you must rebuild from scratch, suffering many turns of starvation penalties.
    Most pre-battle screens show either you, or the AI, having overwhelming force superiority, so there's almost no point in playing the battles yourself. I've gone through almost my entire campaign clicking only on auto-match.
    As a result, the early game is nothing short of frustrating, instead of being an intense competition to break-out against capable rivals. Afterwards, when you become powerful, many of those design choices are mitigated, simply because you can afford losses. What follows is mostly a race to conquer as much of the map as possible, which, while interesting, isn't exactly the epic confrontation between civilizations you might expect.
    Bottom line, there is a lack of excitement in this installment of Total War, despite all the potential that exists in the covered period.    … Expand
  9. Ender1183
    Nov 13, 2013
    6
    I would figure I would finish a Campaign before I made a recommendation. I just didn't know it would take 80 hours to finish. If you a fan of the Total war series chances are you have already have this game and have either been blinded by your fandom or the hype that this would be the best TW to date. It didn't take me long to quickly realized this was a rushed game, put out several monthsI would figure I would finish a Campaign before I made a recommendation. I just didn't know it would take 80 hours to finish. If you a fan of the Total war series chances are you have already have this game and have either been blinded by your fandom or the hype that this would be the best TW to date. It didn't take me long to quickly realized this was a rushed game, put out several months before it was ready. I can only imagine that CA was forced by Sega to get the game out before some of the other big titles of the holiday season got out. There are several features that where in previous TW games such as the political and family system that where not even half as complete in past games. I completely didn’t care what happened to my family if someone was being bribed or shamed, I just didn't care. I was really happy when I won my civil war and could be an empire so I would not be bothered by the family bs.
    As for the campaign map you end up building the same 3 builds to have enough food and keep public order under control. This makes it almost impossible to upgrade your army or economy and very boring since you can't specialize a providence until late in the game. I'm sure if I started a new campaign I would have an easier time but since there is no building tree that is easy to compare buildings, even of the same type, there is a lot of trial and error before you can get the balance right. An other problem I ran into was that the auto resolve doesn’t seem to take into account the quality of your units. There where several battles where I would lose in the auto but crush the AI in a battle. The research is also out of balance even after 200 turns unless you focus on one tree you can't even upgrade to the best builds. Which is also impossible because you will have bad pubic order of lack of food because you ignored those trees. Over all I would say once you beat your civil war that is a good place to stop. After that it is a steam roll over the AI who is to passive or has so horribly manage there own providence they are starving to death. Its too bad there weren’t options to have a short campaign and start later so you could see some of the late builds and units when they would matter.
    It has been a common theme that the AI in the TW series has always been bad but this game takes it to a new level. Don't bother with sieges just auto resolve. The AI will run to there death when attacking or sit there and get pounded by your artillery until they are so softened up that sending in a few units in will make them rout. After been told that is was going to be the best AI yet it is actually worst then any other. There have been some improvements with the patches but it is still easy to beat the AI in a battle and on the campaign map... unless you play on a harder setting but all that does is buff there morale, armor and income.
    Tried a few MP battles but it seems that is has come down to who can macro the fastest and press a units special ability buff the most. There is no chance to sit back and watch the units fight it out or use much more of a strategy then rush your units in spamming the special ability and flanking your cav around to the back to make units rout. Well it was fun to play against friend and make your own rules you can't really do that against pubs.
    Overall I did enjoy the era and the workshop looks like it is starting to fill up with some interesting mods and tweaks. Hopefully CA can patch up this game but I have a feeling they will save any changes for the expiation pack. If you haven't played TW before I would look and see if you can pick up Empire up for cheap before getting this game. If you are a fan and just held off buying(good for you) I wouldn't pay more then 30 bucks. By then it maybe patched up enough to make it enjoyable and with the workshop there maybe a few decent mods to fill in the games.    … Expand
  10. Hellmut34
    Nov 8, 2013
    5
    Been a fan of TW games since the first Shogun came out. Although i have enjoyed this more than Empire TW i just can't justify giving the game a decent mark.
    So much about it is done badly and i can't for the life of me understand why the dev's would have ever have thought that it was the best direction for the game to go.
    I worry for the upcoming impending Warhammer Total War now. For me    Been a fan of TW games since the first Shogun came out. Although i have enjoyed this more than Empire TW i just can't justify giving the game a decent mark.
    So much about it is done badly and i can't for the life of me understand why the dev's would have ever have thought that it was the best direction for the game to go.
    I worry for the upcoming impending Warhammer Total War now. For me i play Shogun 2 again, its much much better than this.    … Expand
  11. Lopsang
    Nov 14, 2013
    5
    Rome 2 has an awesome concept and I've been a fan of the series for a long time. Unfortunately, SEGA wanted the devs to rollout the game maybe some 6 months to a year too early. As a result, the game is incredibly slow for no purpose, and bugs are rife. Buy this game during a sale.
  12. DatGamingCritic
    Nov 17, 2013
    5
    Rome II... A good game but first one is the better of the two. In this TW you can only choose I think it is 12 factions from what I remember. In the old one it was 24. However the graphics are stunning but the gameplay is lousy. It's just basically troops go there. They attack for 2 minuets. In the old one it's more Troops go there. Wait fall back! Because there are like 400 odd troops onRome II... A good game but first one is the better of the two. In this TW you can only choose I think it is 12 factions from what I remember. In the old one it was 24. However the graphics are stunning but the gameplay is lousy. It's just basically troops go there. They attack for 2 minuets. In the old one it's more Troops go there. Wait fall back! Because there are like 400 odd troops on the other side. I don't know. This one just seems a bit meh to me.

    Overall
    -Amazing Graphics
    -Not enough Factions
    -Easy gameplay
    Score 57/100    … Expand
  13. DarkMandalore
    Nov 18, 2013
    7
    After 90 hours I can say I like the game quite a bit although I'm somewhat disappointed in it. They made a bold move trying the new system's out but some have come out tedious or limiting by quite a bit. I miss that in the first Rome you could have as many troops as you could afford and split them into as many "armies" as you liked general or no general, the only limitations were did youAfter 90 hours I can say I like the game quite a bit although I'm somewhat disappointed in it. They made a bold move trying the new system's out but some have come out tedious or limiting by quite a bit. I miss that in the first Rome you could have as many troops as you could afford and split them into as many "armies" as you liked general or no general, the only limitations were did you have enough available population and do you have the income to sustain your armies. I also miss being able to fully develop cities and towns with all upgrades based on population rather than having 3-6 slots to work with total. In most towns you can't have any walls, not even a simple defensive palisade. There are definitely some nasty bugs, though the worst I've personally encountered is when the enemy is coming from the sea they tend to have at least one ship lock up where your forces cannot hit it without siege weaponry. Troops cannot board vessels on the shore to go and deal with them even if the ship in question is one they themselves came ashore on. The AI has been really tame in the world map and is purely driven by capture points in many battles. The AI will regularly try to run right through multiple phalanx formations to go right for the capture points making battles no longer about the fight so much as watching your troops murder hundreds of unthinking AI troops hell bent on taking that point regardless of what's in the way. The food and squalor system is somewhat obnoxious. You'll have entire town building sets dedicated to one or the other. There's a command console, but it doesn't do anything aside from closing the game when you type "quit". The AI has a nasty habit of demanding money from you for ALL diplomatic agreements, even for non-aggression treaties to keep you from attacking them, yes, that's right, they want YOU to pay THEM to keep you from attacking and conquering them. Auto-resolve can be quite inaccurate on occasion, some battles you'll walk up to say you would lose almost all your troops but then you fight it and lose almost none of your men while others put you in favor when the enemy actually has a notably superior force. That doesn't happen often but it does happen enough to be mentioned. There is no demand surrender button in battles for use when you've got a notable upper hand, only "Concede Defeat" meaning that if you have a bug like I mentioned earlier and no battle timer then you cannot hope to win courtesy of a stupid glitch.

    That all said there are a lot of positives. The graphics are great, especially if you get a mod to remove the grainy, always afternoonish effect. When there's no capture point combat seems to be MUCH better, the AI actually tries to fight instead of running right through your lines. The map looks great. I LOVE the new line of sight features. Even though, like I said, the AI is fairly tame to the player, you'll see the borders of nations change frequently, wars happen quite often and can be vicious often completely devouring entire nations. New nations rise and fall often. There's several ways to make your money and if you do it right you can run your nation tax free with the maximum in full flag armies. Cities look nice and are usually pretty well built. No nation is immune to defeat. HUGE world map. I'm really liking the spy agent capabilities, no campaign is complete without them really. It's pretty darn fun to play once you snag the right balance mods from such places as the steam workshop or TWCenter. There are many mods you can get and if you like you can mod it yourself for a custom balanced game tailored to your idea of a proper balance.

    If there was one major addition I'd like to see it would be something along the lines of a big continent expansion allowing you to play all of Africa and Asia as well as Europe complete with local factions of the time. I hope with the future they can fix the issues I've listed and put out some awesome expansion grade content at the same time. The game will take work to be perfect, but it's not bad. It's not a typical Total War game, but it's still one I'd recommend.    … Expand
  14. Onigun
    Oct 4, 2015
    4
    It's been 2 years, the final patch has been released and so much stuff is still broken. AI will clump it's units into groups and wait to die, the prologue has no objectives or tutorial teaching you the game outside of the initial battle. To make everything worse this is still a highly priced game with no complete edition and DLC still segmented off into expensive packs.
  15. Maslopup636
    Jan 9, 2014
    1
    Штурмов нет. Стратегической части нет. Морские бои мало того что унылы, они не имеют никакого отношения к античности. Интерфейс заслуживает отдельного слова, такого малоинформативного, страшного и запутанного убожества не видел уже давно Оценка 1.Штурмов нет. Стратегической части нет. Морские бои мало того что унылы, они не имеют никакого отношения к античности. Интерфейс заслуживает отдельного слова, такого малоинформативного, страшного и запутанного убожества не видел уже давно Оценка 1.
  16. Meglos
    Apr 26, 2014
    2
    As a long-term player of Rome Total War I was looking forward to this game, but it has disappointed me in the way that most strategy game sequels do. I would have been happy if they'd kept everything the same as the original game, but streamlined some of the management and made the AI less stupid in strategy, combat and diplomacy (anybody new to the franchise would probably have enjoyedAs a long-term player of Rome Total War I was looking forward to this game, but it has disappointed me in the way that most strategy game sequels do. I would have been happy if they'd kept everything the same as the original game, but streamlined some of the management and made the AI less stupid in strategy, combat and diplomacy (anybody new to the franchise would probably have enjoyed that too). Unfortunately the new game is everything that most sequel strategy games are: more pretty and more complicated. Not complicated in a puzzling, challenging sort of way, complicated in a "lots more dull things to deal with" sort of way. Hundreds of regions acand custom unit types, after the first rush of interest, are just a bore. I guess the sort of programming that requires adding lots and lots of "stuff" is easier to do than the sort that makes the computer think and act like a clever and crafty human.
    If you're the sort of person who likes auditing accounting spreadsheets, you'd probably like this game. If you actually want to have some fun, avoid it.    … Expand
  17. ninjamandela
    Apr 28, 2014
    2
    First of all I'm a fan of Total war series since the first Rome game. But this new game, although its pretty when it works most of the time its crashes because you need a high end gaming rig to play. Even then the game still is broken with lots of bugs. There are up to 12 big patches already released by CA to correct and fix their broken game but still have not iron it all out. I've paidFirst of all I'm a fan of Total war series since the first Rome game. But this new game, although its pretty when it works most of the time its crashes because you need a high end gaming rig to play. Even then the game still is broken with lots of bugs. There are up to 12 big patches already released by CA to correct and fix their broken game but still have not iron it all out. I've paid $74 when it came out and kinda regret it. I've lost 100 hrs or Rome Campaign too with one of those patches. Not being able to load it anymore. Plus all these DLC add-on that cost at least $3 should be free. I will not spend a single cent anymore on this game and any other CA release games.… Expand
  18. Mitzu
    May 1, 2014
    4
    Can't give this more than 4/10. Played all total war games since Rome 1. It feels weird when a game 10 or so years older has better AI and unit colission than it's much newer counterpart. I bought it when it came out and was able to play a game as Rome. Stopped playing for a while and started it up again and just fount it as sad as it was before. Can't play it anymore, I guess i'll justCan't give this more than 4/10. Played all total war games since Rome 1. It feels weird when a game 10 or so years older has better AI and unit colission than it's much newer counterpart. I bought it when it came out and was able to play a game as Rome. Stopped playing for a while and started it up again and just fount it as sad as it was before. Can't play it anymore, I guess i'll just install shogun 2 and medieval 2.… Expand
  19. pajomife
    May 20, 2014
    2
    The most disappointing game I ever played,sorry,i dont play it no more,The transport ships Spam to disguise the lack of CA competence to add proper naval invasion its the ultimate ultrage,
  20. tykeman3
    Aug 29, 2014
    1
    this game has destroyed my views of total war..... that is all you need

    BUT i need 150 words so don't buy this game all of the bugs at launch made it unplayable but even with all the patches i think it is number 12 now the core game play is just no where near as good as shogun 2 ..... and all the meta scores giving it an amazing reviews seem a little suspicious to me =/
  21. Maeglin
    Oct 17, 2014
    8
    To be honest my rating is based on Rome 2 as it is now. If I had written this review after it came out, or even half a year later it would have been much lower.

    Right now it is very enjoyable with a decent AI and the two player campaign is really great and good for hours of game-play. Did Sega screw up on this title and brought it out way to soon? Sure and they disappointed everyone    To be honest my rating is based on Rome 2 as it is now. If I had written this review after it came out, or even half a year later it would have been much lower.

    Right now it is very enjoyable with a decent AI and the two player campaign is really great and good for hours of game-play.

    Did Sega screw up on this title and brought it out way to soon? Sure and they disappointed everyone who loved Shogun or who started playing it for the first time. What I learned is that i will never, ever, buy any Total war game anymore within the first 3 months after it comes out. As with every title they need more patches to make it playable. And it are always the same bugs , AI, Siege battles and failing diplomacy.

    But if you are willing to wait that long and have the patience, I must say you are in for a treat. There are so many factions to play with in Rome and no game is or feels the same. The AI, even after all the updates, is still a bit to passive but they will surprise you and inconvenience you when you least expect it. The graphics are stunning and the battles are very challenging. It provides more diversity beween factions then Shogun and has a more surprising diplomacy system. The world is huge and finally there are a lot more options on and around the sea which adds to the atmosphere of conquering.

    Despite all it's flaws it is becomming the most addictive Total war game for me, after having spend hundreds of hours on Shogun 2 and all the games before it so that is why the high rating.    … Expand
  22. Goby
    Jun 3, 2016
    4
    I got this game way after the ordeals experienced by many at release. I have to mention that when I compare the two versions (the initial release and Emperor Edition) side by side, the improvements are definitely noticeable. My problem, though, is the fact that after three years since release some very obvious mistakes are still in the game. Some of them can be fixed or improved with mods,I got this game way after the ordeals experienced by many at release. I have to mention that when I compare the two versions (the initial release and Emperor Edition) side by side, the improvements are definitely noticeable. My problem, though, is the fact that after three years since release some very obvious mistakes are still in the game. Some of them can be fixed or improved with mods, but in the end they are still gamebreaking.

    First off: The campaign victory conditions are utterly ridiculous and will take ages to achieve (100-200 hours to finish one campaign, depending on your resolve). Sooner rather than later you will find that the game has slowed down to a grind, whatever faction you play. The Steam global achievements for this game tell me that not a lot of people finish their campaigns on harder difficulties - and the reason is not because it's too difficult to handle. In previous games there were short and long campaign modes, but this one has neither - it has just one and it should be labelled "eternal mode". Therefore playing several campaigns to experience the different factions is pretty much out of the question.

    Autoresolving is overpowered. I understand that the developers want to limit the time spent on campaign battles by having us choose to skip some where the outcome is fairly certain. This system is TOO EASY to abuse. THE MORE MEN YOU USE TO OUTNUMBER AN ENEMY, THE LESS CASUALTIES YOU SUSTAIN. And that's another gamebreaker, because once your empire is large enough, it's easy to outnumber the enemy in battles, especially if you're using Radious mod to overcome the other problems with the game (thankfully, Radious can be implemented in parts and you don't have to install the campaign mod that does this). Two changes in the code would've fixed this easy: 1 - attacking walled settlements or villages with high defensive ratings should cause you more casualties; 2 - replenishing your armies in recently conquered territories should be drastically lowered. At the current state you can just blitzkrieg your way through enemy regions once you have a few armies to spare for an offensive. The only mechanic stopping you is local unrest, most of which decays the next turn. Autoresolving is why you probably won't finish the game. At one point the battles requiring your presence will be bygones and you are tempted to just autoresolve all the way through - not the Total War I know.

    Marketing. Unfortunately SEGA has gone down the route of several other corporations in the video game industry. Now you don't even get the complete game upon purchase. Guess what, most of the interesting factions you'll have to buy separately. I should mention that the factions are already in the game, but you'll have to dish out more $ just to be allowed to play them. In fact, the whole DLC collection costs more than the game itself, while adding very little content, or content that should be in the main game.

    Not enough unit variation. Uncle Radious will help you out here, just download his unit packs in the Workshop.

    Lack of settlement models. Considering the fact that the game is expecting millions of players to finish the campaigns, they should have added way more settlement types in the game. I've been playing barbarian factions and I've been through all of the barbarian territories - every single one of them chooses between four or five different models. FOUR OR FIVE models for more than 40 barbarian regions? Excuse me for **** but learning strategies by heart and replaying them in different scenarios at different locations is not how I've come to love TW.

    4TPY mod is a must. Without this your generals and agents are highly unlikely to become specialized in anything and will die of old age very fast - agents in particular are absolutely essential and in higher difficulties in vanilla they will stress you out very, very bad. They don't add a challenging aspect to the game, they are just a bigtime annoyance that have the power to stop entire armies turn after turn and wither away all your men. If you don't have skilled agents, good luck doing... anything!

    There are more bad features, but there are features to credit as well.

    Despite some bugs like javelinmen not throwing their spears when they should, battles are a lot of fun with the Blood & Gore installed. It's proper madness in every aspect. Ballistas projecting massive rocks through enemy ranks, knocking them back in either direction; Arrows and thrown spears pierce the enemy in a very visual way - lots of gore; the individual fights between men in combat are detailed and visual. When you got the time to observe how it all goes down on ground level, it's one of the better features in this game.

    Campaign map looks aesthetic, so do the interactions between characters. Although for some reason they often move Sonic-style fast and you can't slow that down. The new province system is great - much less micromanagement and way more comprehensive    … Expand
  23. Legatus85
    Aug 11, 2015
    3
    I'm very disappointed with this game. For several reasons mainly the poor game mechanics and features.
    The worst by far is the building system which is an absolute catastrophe! What happened? There are 6 building slots for the region capitals and 3-4 for the minor towns. That's it??? There are a few different branches of construction like religious buildings, industrial buildings,    I'm very disappointed with this game. For several reasons mainly the poor game mechanics and features.
    The worst by far is the building system which is an absolute catastrophe! What happened? There are 6 building slots for the region capitals and 3-4 for the minor towns. That's it??? There are a few different branches of construction like religious buildings, industrial buildings, commercial buildings etc. Then you choose what kind of building in each branch you want to build. But you better choose carefully cause you only have a few slots to build on. This makes the building system extremely limited and boring! But the worst of all is the effects from the various buildings. You can upgrade buildings from level 1 to 4 (or sometimes 5). Up to level 2 it usually fine but as soon as you upgrade to level 3 or more the buildings bring negative effects as well as positive (only very few exceptions). Basically it either reduces public order due to squalor or it consumes food. It follows a system only based on building level and category since it makes no sense at all based on what the building actually is! The lack of effort is amazing, its like the made a system first with the effects from the buildings and then randomly filled in the empty spaces with a name of a building and a picture. Its so poorly designed that you are actually being punished for upgrading the buildings. Why????? To me this ruins the entire game and make it unplayable. Compare it to Rome 1 or Medieval 2 where you had more building in one city than i a whole region with 4 cities in Rome 2 and with no limitations. But I guess that's to complicated for the "wider audience".

    Another thing that's been dumbed down is the population system. Instead of showing the actual population and the percentage of growth based on different factors which made town development and planning interesting in Rome 1 and Medieval 2. It now shows the growth in plain numbers and the required accumulated growth to get a population surplus. When you have enough population surplus you expand the city with a new building slot (unless you already have the maximum number of 3-6 slots). I guess % and numbers above 500 is to complicated too.

    Next is the extremely simplified and boring traits and retinue system for generals. Its limited to 3 traits and 1 retinue per general. Plus 1 bonus you get to choose at each level up (which follows standard template for all characters). In Rome 1 your general received traits and retinue based on events in his life and with no limits to the number of traits. For example if he lost health in battle he would get the trait scarred which had some effect on his influence and popularity and so on. Which made it interesting to shape a character and follow him throughout his life. Traits could be inherited as well. In Rome 2 your generals lacks personality and get replaced automatically when they die, then you go through exact the same process of choosing upgrades for the new guy at level up. You just don't care about them. On the other hand the 10 year old's of the wider audience probably don't appreciate a sophisticated system of character traits.

    But if you are one of those who don't care about strategy and planning and challenge and so on, don't worry your armies will replenish themselves automatically (no retraining here) you can stop and kill almost an entire army with a couple of spies and then finish the job with a few units that's easier to manage.

    I wont say much about the graphics since its not that important to me personally but could the unit cards, building pictures (or rather lack of) etc be any more boring and same looking? They actually had to give buildings different color backgrounds to be able to distinguish them from other type of buildings

    The AI is too poor to mention, its not worth the attention.

    If the next game in the series continue on the same path as this it will be a point and click linear game with an advisor saying click on this enemy to kill it, well done! Click on this settlement to make it happy.

    The things i like about this game:
    I welcome the region system with a fortified capital and smaller towns with no walls.
    Useful garrison armies.
    Beautiful campaign map

    So this game is a huge step backwards for the franchise. Things don't make sense. Rome 1 was infinitely better. They betrayed the fans and stripped away everything that was good and unique to have a much much simpler game so that people who uses a computer for the first time in their life also can play and enjoy. They could have made a great game but they just didn't want to and didn't care.

    I give it a poor rating mostly because it's such a disappointment from previous games. A sequel should be better than the game before. It would score slightly better if this had been the first game in a franchise.    … Expand
  24. Syndicater
    Feb 15, 2016
    1
    I am astonished at the state of this game. Did they think that I wouldn’t notice the clumsy interface, the wretched documentation, the absolutely untenable naval combat, the weird bugs, the lock-ups, the game-killing glitches? Did they think I wouldn’t notice the AI? Did they really think this was an acceptable AI for a single-player game? A single player game with disappointingI am astonished at the state of this game. Did they think that I wouldn’t notice the clumsy interface, the wretched documentation, the absolutely untenable naval combat, the weird bugs, the lock-ups, the game-killing glitches? Did they think I wouldn’t notice the AI? Did they really think this was an acceptable AI for a single-player game? A single player game with disappointing multiplayer compared to the clever multiplayer in their last release?… Expand
  25. scarfake
    Jan 8, 2016
    2
    low fps, bad ai, bad diplomacy, complicated interface, unnecessary country, too much turning time, boring and nonsencial details... i think rome 1 is better than this. also dlc scams exploit you
  26. crazytony0
    Feb 21, 2016
    1
    For a game that is supossed to replace the orriginal this is just sad. Graphics are good, but the AI and the user interface just sucks, uninstalled the game now, off to the orriginal again.
  27. focknee
    Feb 16, 2017
    4
    FAIL do not waste your time to play this, graphics AI and gameplay are all a FAIL.
    This game is not finished.
    First time CA has failed me Shame on you to release this FAIL.
  28. Berik
    Nov 4, 2018
    4
    The difference in scores between users and the critics probably give it away, but this game did not deliver on its promise. instead it insulted many Total War fans.

    Right from launch problems arose when the game wouldn't run, crash, be littered with bugs and glitches. And if you got passed that, you'd discover that game has nothing to offer but a broken experience. Features that had    The difference in scores between users and the critics probably give it away, but this game did not deliver on its promise. instead it insulted many Total War fans.

    Right from launch problems arose when the game wouldn't run, crash, be littered with bugs and glitches. And if you got passed that, you'd discover that game has nothing to offer but a broken experience. Features that had been present in Total War games like the family tree was gone, the AI was so broken that it was nearly impossible to lose.

    As for graphics, it looked good in pre-released footage, but not in the actual game. Even beasty PC's didn't get the beautiful graphics that were shown, and instead had to sit and watch The Creative Assembly sell The Greek States DLC for additional money. Insulting to say the least. And, the mutiplayer is broken, because it constantly desynches or crashes.

    So what's actually good about the game? Well, it does some interesting things with city building options, and gives some new naval combat that wasn't in the series on this level before. There are many factions, though probably too many to even function.

    This game single handedly made sure i will never pre-order a game again, let alone try a new Total War game. It is broken till this day, and it is a bad show all together. i give this game a 4/10.    … Expand
  29. chrisr2112
    Dec 28, 2013
    9
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I really feel that the user reviews for Total War: Rome 2 don't give the game justice. Before receiving the game, i was well aware of many of the "game breaking bugs" and "horrible user interface" that people claimed the game had. I was also aware of the painfully low score on metacritic. None the less, i wanted to give CA the benefit of the doubt because i have not played a Total War game to date that i did not enjoy. I started playing and the first thing i noticed was the steep learning curve that came with managing your faction. There is far more detail in dealing with settlements (which are now divided into many provinces with settlements inside of them). Once I got the hang of it however, it wasn't too difficult to figure out basic functions that allow you to run your settlements efficiently. As for the actual battles, the game is absolutely stunning if you have a system capable of running it. Unless you play on lower settings, clone armies are no longer an issue with most soldiers having some form of variation from the others (this is particularly noticeable with the barbarian factions). The battle AI is not always the smartest, but still provides somewhat of a challenge. Overall, its not my favorite Total War game, but it is a worthy addition to a great series. I honestly cannot understand how people are giving the game 1's and 2's.… Expand
  30. IGNsus
    Mar 26, 2014
    0
    I am at a loss why Creative Assembly wanted to ruin their reputation with this pile of trash. It's also inexplicable how Total War: Rome II is made by the same studio that made Shogun II, an excellent successor to the original Shogun. The game betrays every single Total War fan. It is so casualized I felt like I was playing a tablet game. Some lamentable design decisions include no familyI am at a loss why Creative Assembly wanted to ruin their reputation with this pile of trash. It's also inexplicable how Total War: Rome II is made by the same studio that made Shogun II, an excellent successor to the original Shogun. The game betrays every single Total War fan. It is so casualized I felt like I was playing a tablet game. Some lamentable design decisions include no family tree, no attrition, no AI aggression, and my personal favorite: fire torches for gates. Then of course you get the expected technical issues of a CA game. But wait. This isn't your typical CA technical mess. It's much, much worse. On a nice computer you would be lucky to get more than 30 FPS on the campaign map. Do you like to wait 5 minutes at end turn? This game offers that. The biggest joke of this joke is unit AI, where units clump up together like a mosh pit and run randomly in all directions.

    Heh, I actually told people how great this game was going to be. Good job using misleading footage, CA.

    P.S. When your game is absolute trash, you might not want to anger your fans by releasing DLC.    … Expand
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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.
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  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.
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  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]
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