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. Beeeno
    Oct 3, 2013
    4
    This is an unfinished and broken game released without beta testing with several heavy issues. Advertisement before game release was false as the game is not fully localised in Italian and Spanish language. Untill today we've had 3 patches but the mess is still on. If you want to buy this game wait 'till next Xmas sales and check how patching proceeds. Just my two cents. P.S. I'veThis is an unfinished and broken game released without beta testing with several heavy issues. Advertisement before game release was false as the game is not fully localised in Italian and Spanish language. Untill today we've had 3 patches but the mess is still on. If you want to buy this game wait 'till next Xmas sales and check how patching proceeds. Just my two cents. P.S. I've preordered a CA/Sega game for the LAST time.… Expand
  2. Yoritomo
    Oct 3, 2013
    4
    Rome II the divorce between TW Fans and Developer.
    From Shogun 1 i played all titles in Series and loved the MP Part of Shogun 2. Now i am totaly disappointed from my pre-order after 3 Patches and 4 Weeks trying to find joy in playing this game.
    Singleplayer Gameplay is still broken and cant be fixed by patch. Exploring new bugs every day is not fun. Facing Bugs that are unfixed since    Rome II the divorce between TW Fans and Developer.
    From Shogun 1 i played all titles in Series and loved the MP Part of Shogun 2. Now i am totaly disappointed from my pre-order after 3 Patches and 4 Weeks trying to find joy in playing this game.
    Singleplayer Gameplay is still broken and cant be fixed by patch.
    Exploring new bugs every day is not fun. Facing Bugs that are unfixed since Empire is a insult.
    Seeing the potential of the game and realize that it wont be reached is frustrating.
    Technical aspects may be fixed with upcoming patches, Mistakes in Gamedesign wont.
    This game feels like its a beta version for a console or smartphone TW Title.
    Absolute no depth at strategic campaign mode (from broken AI to Province Design) and no tactical depth at real time battles. Camping, Spamming, rushing, no brain AI better autoresolve it. Wait 4 Minutes till AI done its turn, spend more time waiting than acting is not a game.

    No beta pre-release, a step back for Multiplayer mode. All the inventions from Shogun 2 are gone and the player is draw back to a empire like gamelobby without a chat. Empire MP works fine now, this mode in Rome 2 seems to be alpha. MP Campaign and you will face stupid AI with a player by side and play a waiting game till it crashes for no reason.

    Score 4 cause i belive CA will get the tecnical aspects done and already apologiesed for the mistakes.

    Quo vadis Total War Series?    … Expand
  3. Rome
    Oct 6, 2013
    4
    Ugly graphics, even on Ultra. On Extreme(the highest setting) it begins to look somewhat ok(but not very great), but at a heavy cost: even on high end rigs(like mine) you'll get fps as low as 20. It's nearly 2014, there is no excuse for an (supposedly) AAA title to have 2009 graphics. I feel cheated just by looking at the game...

    Battle camera is a complete joke. There is no click and    Ugly graphics, even on Ultra. On Extreme(the highest setting) it begins to look somewhat ok(but not very great), but at a heavy cost: even on high end rigs(like mine) you'll get fps as low as 20. It's nearly 2014, there is no excuse for an (supposedly) AAA title to have 2009 graphics. I feel cheated just by looking at the game...

    Battle camera is a complete joke. There is no click and drag action at all. I said: NO CLICK AND DRAG ACTION!! What were they thinking? The camera movement is just horrible. Since you'll be using the camera all the time during battle, this is a potential game breaker for me. However it should be an easy fix, so why are they not fixing the camera!!?

    Tech tree. It's awfully uninspired. No really interesting choices here. Every step in the tech tree will mostly bring you benefits like +2 trade income, -2% unit costs etc. Yawn, it seems utterly irrelevant and dumbed down.

    Icons. Apparantly CA thought it a great idea to have all uni, building, and tech icons look like something a an average 10-old greek child would have drawn thousands of years ago. They are just ugly to look at. I guess they wanted them to have an ancient feel... We dont want that!! We want them to be highly detailed, beautiful and in 3D. Another moronic design decision.

    This games deserves not 0, it deserves a maximum of 4, so thats what it's gonna get from me.    … Expand
  4. J4MESOX4D
    Oct 26, 2013
    4
    It's not very often a series declines game after game but the Total War titles seem to be on a downward spiral to nothingness and Rome 2 highlights the sheer drop in quality from the excellence of the original.

    The ambition of the game seems to be overriding the quality of the finished product. It's a half baked game that is woefully presented, cumbersome AI and a very bland interface    It's not very often a series declines game after game but the Total War titles seem to be on a downward spiral to nothingness and Rome 2 highlights the sheer drop in quality from the excellence of the original.

    The ambition of the game seems to be overriding the quality of the finished product. It's a half baked game that is woefully presented, cumbersome AI and a very bland interface with management options lacking and a dreadfully simplistic challenge which you'll find exceedingly tedious over a session. The shockingly poor technical side adds to disappointment with considerable framerate problems and sloppy realtime battles. As you progress. the end of turn system becomes intolerable with turns taking in excess of minutes as the AI plays catch-up. This boils down to the seemingly dated engine and leaves you waiting without control for an unacceptable amount of time. This kills the flow and adds to the overall dismay.

    CA either need to go back to the games' roots or sell the licence because this series is dwindling to oblivion. If you want a fine strategy game of the Roman era; you'd be better off re-installing the original. It may be over 10 years older but it's streets ahead of today's messy attempt at rejuvenating the Total War collapse.    … Expand
  5. ElPortoChris
    Oct 25, 2013
    4
    Horrible game, great marketing campaign. They started the hype early on this one. We are all suckers. I want my money back. Oh wait, it's already gone in that huge marketing budget.
  6. Dunadd
    Oct 28, 2013
    4
    Rome II has a few nice features the original Rome Total War lacked, like cavalry being able to dismount for assaults on cities and a battlefield AI which, after patching, is reasonably competent and doesn't throw it's generals in immediately to their deaths to try to run down a unit of skirmishers. Unfortunately it not only drops many of the most interesting, enjoyable and atmosphereRome II has a few nice features the original Rome Total War lacked, like cavalry being able to dismount for assaults on cities and a battlefield AI which, after patching, is reasonably competent and doesn't throw it's generals in immediately to their deaths to try to run down a unit of skirmishers. Unfortunately it not only drops many of the most interesting, enjoyable and atmosphere enhancing features that were in the original Rome, but also implements many features in ways that destroy game-play, believability and historical accuracy. It also seems unfinished

    The province system in which cities are grouped into provinces in which buildings in one city affect every city in the province held by the same faction is interesting, but the way buildings work is pretty annoying.

    You can research technology, but the starting tech isn't even bronze age you need a tech advance for battering rams and ladders.

    The level of detail you can see in your settlements population, happiness/unhappiness, squalor etc is massively reduced as is info on where income and trade income comes from.

    The political system and 1 year turns result in generals being recalled or dying as soon as they get any significant experience or skills. Agents don't last much longer.

    The stylised icon interface is annoying and not intuitive.

    The AI and bugs in assaults on walled cities is pretty terrible even after patching.

    There are over 100 factions, but many are out of period or just made up, including client states like Carthage's two and they slow the AI turn down more and more as the game progresses.

    Worst of all are the instant super transports. Any army can create transports to carry it by stepping off a beach, for free. They're capable of fighting in sea battles and beating any starting fleet whether in auto-calc or not by weight of numbers.

    Every faction from Scythian nomad horse archers to Spanish and African tribes goes for a sail in the Mediterranean, with nothing much to fear from enemy navies. Factions which lose all their cities also take to the sea. They then either float there till they slowly die, or hover off the coast forcing you to place armies in all your coastal cities for dozens of turns until they slowly die of attrition, or else they take cities by avoiding your land armies and acting as vikings. What? Build fleets to hunt them down you say? But you can't afford to ships for fleets take time and money to build and require pay. Instant transports don't and your own field armies are tied down on land preventing them from coming back by sea.

    Bizarrely the game designers have decided that transports should be just a slightly inferior version of a large oared warship with the same hundreds of oarsmen and ram and sleek design as a warship. In reality in the Roman and Hellenistic period transports were usually commandeered merchant sailing ships, because they could carry enough troops, horses and food and water for them. Oared warships were good for ramming, boarding and raking the oars off of enemy ships but all those oarsmen and the narrow hulls to make them maneuverable left them with no room to carry more than a few marines. They usually followed coastlines so they could land to get food and water for the oarsmen each day and so they could land if there was bad weather as oared galleys were not very seaworthy. Yet insta-super-transports somehow fit hundreds of soldiers, horses and elephants.

    Unlike in the original Rome you can fight out sea battles rather than just autocalc them. The ships and marines in sea battles look great, but the way sea battles work is pretty lamentable. Boarding is made very easy. No need to use grapples (iron hooks on ropes) to get close to an enemy ship to board it, let alone use a corvus (rotatable boarding ramp with a spike on the end to go through the enemy deck) bumping into them is good enough. Even more ridiculously, once one ship is boarding another no other ship or marines can touch either of them.

    Historically smaller galleys could outmanouvre and defeat larger ships as at the battle of Actium. In Rome II small ships are incapable of doing much damage to larger ones, even where the large ship is a transport or some lightly built viking style ship. Historically a small oared galley with a metal plated ram could turn faster than larger ships and immobilise them by oar raking (shearing off enemy ship's oars using ram). Or they could sink them by ramming broadside and holing it below the waterline.

    The myriad bugs a requiring endless patching and missing features suggest it was rushed out incomplete and without even beta testing.

    Rome II runs poorly and with poor graphics on many PCs and laptops unless the Graphical Enhancement Mod is used. Mistakes made in the ongoing patching process make the game currently not run with mods. Anyone thinking of buying should hold off for at least 6 months and maybe a year or two till patching is over and better mods finished    … Expand
  7. SirenSounds
    Oct 29, 2013
    4
    Horribly disappointing game. So much potential lost in this series due to this game and where it could have been and where it went.

    Gameplay is lacking on soo many levels!! As soon as you hit "Start Battle" the whole reason to even purchase a TW game goes out the window as your units and the AI units become a visual mob-mosh pit-pile of black ants fighting at a standing distance. Its    Horribly disappointing game. So much potential lost in this series due to this game and where it could have been and where it went.

    Gameplay is lacking on soo many levels!! As soon as you hit "Start Battle" the whole reason to even purchase a TW game goes out the window as your units and the AI units become a visual mob-mosh pit-pile of black ants fighting at a standing distance. Its such a disappointment. How can CA go from the visually stunning ETW, Napoleon, Shogun II to this?

    Unit abilities are weak, uninspired, difficult to manage, completely unnecessary for battles that last 2 minutes or less. Can you imagine? TWO minutes and a battle between 5,000 vs 4700 men is over with. You barely have time to even tell a unit to move-attack-brace before it becomes a mosh pit of indistinguishable masses. So now you have no idea if your units are using shield wall, phalanx or just some form of chaos/anarchy attack.

    Campaign AI is a complete and total step back from other TW title in that nations-tribes refuse to attack you and will instead wander about the map on sightseeing tours. Imagine if you will an army of 9000 men, just 2 days outside of Rome and the Legions stationed there decided to simply go off to Naples for some R'n'R? This occurs constantly around the map. Or entire armies will become navies to sail around the Mediterranean looking for mermaids.

    Bottomline, even if this game is half price its over-priced in its current state. Even as a $9.99 Steam deal its borderline, and that's being generous.    … Expand
  8. cucconet74
    Nov 16, 2013
    4
    I'm a great fan of the TW series but this game has been released unfinished and, after 6 pathes, is still unfinished.
    The IA is really stupid and unchallenging, the game is souless and boring
    DON'T BUY IT!!
  9. Matteo21
    Mar 30, 2014
    4
    only new players of Total War saga are going to like this game, this is the worst, too much advertising and not programming enough. i'm am italian and this game is not translated in italian, but CA wrote on the pack "All in Italian". bad for a Total War fan!
  10. troj2002
    Nov 3, 2013
    4
    Sadly the game is broken in many ways, was rushed out and is disappointing after all the anticipation.
    Battle Ai is broken still to date especially in sieges, where they suicidally rush your lines towards the ''holy'' capture point, an entire army disintegrating and rushing to their death just to reach the siege capture point.
    Not worth buying your money is better spent on purchasing    Sadly the game is broken in many ways, was rushed out and is disappointing after all the anticipation.
    Battle Ai is broken still to date especially in sieges, where they suicidally rush your lines towards the ''holy'' capture point, an entire army disintegrating and rushing to their death just to reach the siege capture point.
    Not worth buying your money is better spent on purchasing previous iterations of the franchise    … Expand
  11. 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.
  12. Serene86
    Nov 15, 2013
    4
    All I can say after forcing myself to play for 43 hours since release, it's not me. The game isn't fun. It looks great on my machine. It's just not fun. And I don't want to force myself to play a game I am not enjoying. Back to Minecraft until something good comes out.
  13. Fyeris
    Nov 17, 2013
    4
    I REALLY wanted to like this game. The trailers made it look exciting and action packed, but a lot of the game mechanics seem wrong or broken. Most of the factions seem to play the exact same, and the game focuses more on simply smashing your troops head long into those of the enemy, as opposed to previous games focusing on flanking and positioning. Overall, while I wanted this game to beI REALLY wanted to like this game. The trailers made it look exciting and action packed, but a lot of the game mechanics seem wrong or broken. Most of the factions seem to play the exact same, and the game focuses more on simply smashing your troops head long into those of the enemy, as opposed to previous games focusing on flanking and positioning. Overall, while I wanted this game to be great, it landed somewhere in the "meh" range. Not worth the $45. Would buy again for $10.… 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. Chatterly
    Mar 2, 2014
    4
    Ever been in a chocolate shop and seen a delightful confection that looks like it will melt in your mouth in a gush of warm chocolaty goodness and sweet cacao bliss? You buy it and bite down and for a moment it is everything you might hope until you get to the flawed burnt out husk of bile and hatred that lies at the center.

    This is that game. It's as if someone took a QA list of their    Ever been in a chocolate shop and seen a delightful confection that looks like it will melt in your mouth in a gush of warm chocolaty goodness and sweet cacao bliss? You buy it and bite down and for a moment it is everything you might hope until you get to the flawed burnt out husk of bile and hatred that lies at the center.

    This is that game. It's as if someone took a QA list of their bugs, packaged them up as a game, and shipped it out with pretty box art. It bluescreens, it hands, it has an almighty memory leak that could suck down the 7th fleet, units behave unpredictably, rather than embark your armies will take a world tour, and that's just the short list.

    We want Creative to make good games, but they don't. They make early access games that might be patched into something playable. The concept is great, but it's the same concept from ten years ago and their quality and testing only get worse with each new release.

    tl;dr: Give it a pass.    … Expand
  16. post_no_bills
    Dec 24, 2013
    4
    Games should be fun. This game isn't.

    The game is a poorly designed, tedious grind, with all the fun of filling out your tax forms. Hugely disappointing. They would have been MUCH better off just re-skinning Shogun 2. Every single feature of this game is worse than Shogun 2, without exception.
  17. gabailey2
    Feb 9, 2014
    4
    This is an astonishingly mediocre game. They took everything that made the other Total War games great, turned it on its end and removed core features. Don't get fooled by the score. It's not so-bad-it's good. It's just boring. I almost feel bad saying this as you can tell effort has been put into making the game, but in the wrong areas. I could forgive glitches if the base game wasThis is an astonishingly mediocre game. They took everything that made the other Total War games great, turned it on its end and removed core features. Don't get fooled by the score. It's not so-bad-it's good. It's just boring. I almost feel bad saying this as you can tell effort has been put into making the game, but in the wrong areas. I could forgive glitches if the base game was excellent. It's not. 9 patches in, it's still astonishingly poorly optimized, plenty of DLC already, and all in all not worth anyone's time and money.… Expand
  18. Truth_
    Nov 5, 2014
    4
    There are thousands of reviews and thus I do not expect this to be seen. And there is little to nothing I can say that wasn't said, or wasn't said better, elsewhere. I am simply posting to add my score.

    I was mad just the same as everyone else. The difference, however, is that I was expecting it. I was expecting graphical and technical glitches galore. I was expecting bad AI. And    There are thousands of reviews and thus I do not expect this to be seen. And there is little to nothing I can say that wasn't said, or wasn't said better, elsewhere. I am simply posting to add my score.

    I was mad just the same as everyone else. The difference, however, is that I was expecting it. I was expecting graphical and technical glitches galore. I was expecting bad AI. And I even expected, although hoped against, the game's mechanics that weren't pulled out in Shogun 2 weren't further widdled or dumbed down. And I got what I expected.

    There is little variety to troops between factions, there's little variety to the gameworld, there's no role-playing/story elements like was promised, economy is incredibly simple and easy, AI is horrible on the campaign map and in battle, and multiplayer did not work for the longest time.

    In all, it seems all facets of the game are worse. If only the probably hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars spent on motion capture, that doesn't even seem that great or functional, was spent on making a better game.

    Note: Kudos for releasing free factions with each DLC expansion. And kudos for patching the game constantly (although that wins little points as there should have been fewer problems to begin with).

    Objectively I want to rate this game a "5" as it's playable and has fun elements of other Total War games I've enjoyed... but for some reason I just can't have fun playing this game. Unfortunately I must give it a "4".

    The game is clearly inferior to prior titles. I do not expect this to change. My only wonder is if this will affect future sales of new titles.    … Expand
  19. northernlad
    May 13, 2015
    4
    easily the worst total war game ever made .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
  20. 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
  21. herr_rosa88
    Sep 13, 2014
    4
    Rome II is a total letdown to all Total war fans. I have bought every game since Medieval Total War (except for Napoleon) and this game is the only game in the series absolutely deteste. Despite loads of patches Rome II is still a buggy mess. The few good things about RTW do mostly exist in the previous games and the game offers nothing new except revisiting the period.

    The bad aspects    Rome II is a total letdown to all Total war fans. I have bought every game since Medieval Total War (except for Napoleon) and this game is the only game in the series absolutely deteste. Despite loads of patches Rome II is still a buggy mess. The few good things about RTW do mostly exist in the previous games and the game offers nothing new except revisiting the period.

    The bad aspects of this game are plentiful:
    - The collision detection is awful, which makes the battles look rather like orgies.
    - All buildings requires so much food that you barely can build anything interesting.
    - The guard button has been taken away which forces you to baby-sit your units.
    - The city expands so much in the campaign map when you build that it covers a huge chunk of the region.
    - The character interfaces in the campaign looks cheap and horrendously ugly.
    - The game is just unpolished in it's wholesome and there are loads of glitches where ever you look.

    Do not even pick this game up at a big discount!    … Expand
  22. orangefalcon40
    Aug 1, 2014
    4
    I'm a big fan of the Total War series. The original Rome was great and that got me started, then Medieval 2 was a triumph. I loved Empire and Napoleon was OK but Shogun2 was not as good, killed my laptop (Core 2 Duo, 4Gb Ram, 1Gb NVidea graphics card supporting direct x 10) and Rome 2 is unplayable on it, I'm having to play it on my wife's desktop PC. What really annoys me, even more thanI'm a big fan of the Total War series. The original Rome was great and that got me started, then Medieval 2 was a triumph. I loved Empire and Napoleon was OK but Shogun2 was not as good, killed my laptop (Core 2 Duo, 4Gb Ram, 1Gb NVidea graphics card supporting direct x 10) and Rome 2 is unplayable on it, I'm having to play it on my wife's desktop PC. What really annoys me, even more than my inability to garrison my towns with units of my own choosing (GRRR) is the difficulty in changing the orientation of a unit. I had one battle where I was attacked in a fort and had barricades to erect but could I rotate them 90 degrees to block the side entrances? No. Then there's the crashes and the slow downs.....… Expand
  23. Eboles
    Aug 14, 2014
    4
    This game is a joke, after shogun 2 this game is big fail in several aspects. The game is really bad optimized, you can use a good pc but you will have low fps. The battles are ridicously short, two armies of 2000 each can finish the battle in like 5 minutes and the naval battles are a **** chaos.

    The unit cards are really ugly and confusing, the cities building system is a bit    This game is a joke, after shogun 2 this game is big fail in several aspects. The game is really bad optimized, you can use a good pc but you will have low fps. The battles are ridicously short, two armies of 2000 each can finish the battle in like 5 minutes and the naval battles are a **** chaos.

    The unit cards are really ugly and confusing, the cities building system is a bit confusing too, no more cinematics when a battle starts or when an agent try to do some action.

    The diplomacy is really broken too, IA factions dont know when they are losing a war and wont accept peace with you. The AI is really bad too, the AI factions camp all the time in their cities or will do kamikaze attacks....

    I would continue with this review telling you all the fails of this game, CA really should say thx to the modders community because they saved this stupid broken game. I got it for 13€ and im not sure this worth it...but for 54€? hell no , dont worth your money.    … Expand
  24. Lucelin
    Aug 22, 2014
    4
    So Rome 2, Worse than i had hoped for, pretty much sums it up. But I suppose i should add more. My first experience was an all night download update after the initial install, followed by another 6 hour download, followed by another one.

    Then i couldn't load the game because the steam "auto start" screen wouldn't open to the correct size. Once i finally got to play it, it was weird. I    So Rome 2, Worse than i had hoped for, pretty much sums it up. But I suppose i should add more. My first experience was an all night download update after the initial install, followed by another 6 hour download, followed by another one.

    Then i couldn't load the game because the steam "auto start" screen wouldn't open to the correct size. Once i finally got to play it, it was weird. I have played and own all the total war games, and i was confused. Took me a couple of solid days of play to get my head around the city building.

    The combat mechanics are nothing we haven't seen before. The AI is nothing we haven't seen before. The gazillion factions make turn ending take forever. The graphics use massive resources(again nothing new there) but load times are acceptable.

    Naval combat is just impossible to enjoy and I have just resorted to auto resolve. A real step backwards Creative Assembly.

    Attacking siege battles are also incredibly difficult as the auto build siege equipment just doesn't really do anything except let your troops get killed. Again I have resorted to auto resolve and again a step backwards Creative Assembly.

    What's with all the army formations that no one uses, just learn from your mistakes from Shogun 2, don't repeat them.

    Diplomacy again nothing we haven't seen before

    Did the developers at Creative Assembly have a stroke?

    Anyone notice the massive sore difference between the critic score and the user score. Clearly the critics enjoy getting payed and not playing computer games.

    Most people believe that you can't polish a turd, but Creative Assembly have sure done a mighty fine job of polishing this one.    … Expand
  25. 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
  26. simon665
    Feb 21, 2015
    4
    I very much looked forward to this game. I spent countless hours playing it. At one point, playing as Rome, I controlled all of Europe and most of North Africa. Just as I was getting ready to invade Greece, the number of rebellions in rear areas was simply out of control. In out of the places, like the northern Baltic, small settlements could rebel and create armies that were moreI very much looked forward to this game. I spent countless hours playing it. At one point, playing as Rome, I controlled all of Europe and most of North Africa. Just as I was getting ready to invade Greece, the number of rebellions in rear areas was simply out of control. In out of the places, like the northern Baltic, small settlements could rebel and create armies that were more powerful and larger than anything I could field. How elephants can magically show up here is beyond fantasy. Also, the covert actions were far more organized by my various enemies than could be believed. Within a few turns northern Italy, most of Spain and the Baltic states were lost to vast armies that magically appeared. It would have been nice to have been warned, but even if you were, these rear area revolts were simply too strong. A turn or two later Rome fell and I lost interest in this game. If I were to suggest an improvement to the game, I would allow the building or improvement of fortifications of settlements. This would have stopped the loss of far flung outposts because they were just too weak to defend against huge rebel armies. I will not go into the poor AI in the battles, many people have already done that. The Roman army was famous for building structures like forts and defenses, this is lacking in this game.… Expand
  27. Bribarian
    Mar 26, 2015
    4
    An extreme disappointment. I can't understand some of the "10" scores. I imagine they are either not Total War fans, or they simply played the game for less than an hour. Lots of bugs, poor AI, and just a huge mess. Graphics and maps would be a step up, if not for all the bugs.
  28. Mefisto_
    Jul 27, 2015
    4
    From the score you see above you may consider that this game is somewhere in the area of crap, and yet its true.

    If you install few mods from Steam, there will be enormous choice of fractions to play both in custom battles and campaign. One of the best features in Total War games is campaign, and examples of Empire and Shogun total war are confirming that. However, in this game    From the score you see above you may consider that this game is somewhere in the area of crap, and yet its true.

    If you install few mods from Steam, there will be enormous choice of fractions to play both in custom battles and campaign. One of the best features in Total War games is campaign, and examples of Empire and Shogun total war are confirming that.

    However, in this game there is nothing special holding you from carrying on long campaign play through, as politics and economics features as well as poor user interface(in my opinion) are stopping you from doing that.

    Now, as I have noticed from many user reviews, optimization is a great issue. Surprisingly, in contrast to all trailers and demos before the release of this game, graphics are not very good. Moreover, benchmark test for performance made me and my friends laugh as faces of Roman soldiers are looking like orcs or goblins from The Lord of the Rings.

    Talking about performance, my PC is running Battlefield 4 at 80 fps least on Ultra settings, while GTA 5 is flying at 75 fps average on Ultra settings as well. Yet, this piece of sh!t is still lagging on me, in fact, that forced me to write this review.

    So considering price tag at the release date and all the issues connected with this game, I think 4 - 6 is a fair score, not minding critics opinions, as most of us know, they are not the most reliable source to judge products.    … Expand
  29. 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.
  30. 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
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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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