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. Heimskringla91
    Sep 10, 2013
    0
    Absolutely horrendous. AI is utterly stupid and the addition of "capture the flag" greatly decreases the challenge of battles. Naval battles are disgustingly impossible due to glitches, they are a required auto-resolve. Pay an additional $8 in order to play This game is just completely broken. As an avid Total War since the first Shogun Total War, I am disgusted. I really hope I canAbsolutely horrendous. AI is utterly stupid and the addition of "capture the flag" greatly decreases the challenge of battles. Naval battles are disgustingly impossible due to glitches, they are a required auto-resolve. Pay an additional $8 in order to play This game is just completely broken. As an avid Total War since the first Shogun Total War, I am disgusted. I really hope I can get my money back for this. I'm pissed at the positive reviews this is receiving from critics. Quite the travesty.… Expand
  2. HaZZarD88
    Sep 5, 2013
    0
    waited years and paid lot of bucks for what a F**kin BETA ????

    the other sad thing is that the worst total war ever made is also the one in my favorite era ....

    thanks CA and SEGA

    you really deserve my ZERO
  3. Kolombus
    Sep 6, 2013
    3
    Ok, where to start... bought the game and well, disappointing is the first word that comes to mind. It feels unfinished, almost rushed. The ingredients of a great game are there, but it just doesn't deliver on any level as previous TW titles did.
  4. Caesar_Flavus
    Sep 6, 2013
    5
    Well I believe that all the positive reviews were written by company employees or some test group guys? most positive reviews state nothing and look like advertisement: "buy it buy it buy it!" Now about the game, IMHO Napoleon and Shogun were much better. There is no more good old TW experience here, I just don't know how to describe it. Game design looks bad and they removed many goodWell I believe that all the positive reviews were written by company employees or some test group guys? most positive reviews state nothing and look like advertisement: "buy it buy it buy it!" Now about the game, IMHO Napoleon and Shogun were much better. There is no more good old TW experience here, I just don't know how to describe it. Game design looks bad and they removed many good things such as family tree. I d recommend to play Rome 1 with Roma surrectum 2 mod, you ll get more fun.… Expand
  5. Roller_101
    Sep 6, 2013
    0
    This game is a disaster. A lof of technical issues (no AA, no SLI support, very bad framerate considering how ugly it is, etc), very confusing and awful menus (tech tree menu and unit cards are just super nasty, etc), strange design decisions (NO FAMILY TREE, idotic skills for armie casual simplified province thing, etc and VERY imbalanced. Currently this game plays like unplayable beta.This game is a disaster. A lof of technical issues (no AA, no SLI support, very bad framerate considering how ugly it is, etc), very confusing and awful menus (tech tree menu and unit cards are just super nasty, etc), strange design decisions (NO FAMILY TREE, idotic skills for armie casual simplified province thing, etc and VERY imbalanced. Currently this game plays like unplayable beta. AVOID AT ALL COST!… Expand
  6. Machinist_X
    Sep 8, 2013
    2
    Totally disappointed in the buggy casual game that rome 2 is, they have removed previous features much loved by the community for no reason but to make the game easier for braindeads, UI has gone backwards for ease of use, trade information for example are simplified, diplomacy is broken for example you will need to pay 3000 for a trade agreement with a faction worth 60-120 per turn, AI isTotally disappointed in the buggy casual game that rome 2 is, they have removed previous features much loved by the community for no reason but to make the game easier for braindeads, UI has gone backwards for ease of use, trade information for example are simplified, diplomacy is broken for example you will need to pay 3000 for a trade agreement with a faction worth 60-120 per turn, AI is extremely passive even on the hardest difficultly allowing you to basically expand with ease, land units can magically turn into a naval unit and sail around the seven seas without actually needing to build ships, the game is not optimized even i have had graphics problems with a 770gtx which is one of the best cards available on a fresh install of windows 8, multiplayer is still capped at 2 player and has desync issues and crashing like shogun 2 did previously, unit balancing is awful, you can spam foot companions with macedon for example and rape a full army within 2 minutes of battle. AI bugs in battles and get stuck in sieges and open battles due to bad pathing. CA are pumping out DLC factions you have to pay for on day 1 which should be in the game from day 1 anyway and its just pure greed of them to charge for them. Currently i have no movitation to play the game even though i only owned it a few days and was waiting for it for years, its like total war has been consoled ported, i can only hope the modding community is given the tools to sort out this mess out and i doubt i will buy another total war game even with preorder bonuses.… Expand
  7. Viljanen
    Sep 5, 2013
    1
    The game is laggy and ugly even on my relatively good computer. I'm not going to play it until it is patched and hopefully optimized and I can't recommend it to anyone. I feel sorry I preordered this unfinished game.

    At the moment it is the ugliest Total war game ever. The graphics look like they are 10 years old.
  8. Red_Oktoberfest
    Sep 4, 2013
    5
    Total War: Rome II is a box of chocolates, you don't know which is the good or bad chocolate each time you reach for one.

    BATTLE; The battle is, to be frank, not great. This is especially bad since one of the main selling points of the entire franchise are the battles. In battle there are no tactics, the enemy just charges straight at you with everything, even missile units. Although    Total War: Rome II is a box of chocolates, you don't know which is the good or bad chocolate each time you reach for one.

    BATTLE;
    The battle is, to be frank, not great. This is especially bad since one of the main selling points of the entire franchise are the battles. In battle there are no tactics, the enemy just charges straight at you with everything, even missile units. Although going into melee combat was typically the only thing you could do back then, but there's no tactics. No flanking, no individual units fighting, no formations, nothing. It's just a giant blob in melee combat that even includes the enemy missile units. It's also uncommon to see enemy generals charging into your lines well before the main line can get there.

    Also in many many scenarios you'll find that yourself or the enemy has a capture point. This is dumbing down the battles considerably, further detracting the game's selling point. You can win the "main" battle (As in two main battle lines fighting) but one enemy skirmisher unit can reach your capture point, win the battle, and your army is destroyed despite a clear victory. It's hard to counter this due to the running speed and how fast a single unit can capture a point. One tactic you can do yourself is have two-unit armies, one unit runs to the extreme left or right, and the entire enemy army chases that unit. The other unit proceeds to go to the enemy's capture point, and the enemy doesn't react due to chasing that unit. Even not chasing any units they typically don't react to anything, flanks, ranged units, nothing.

    I haven't played any sieges yet, but I've only heard bad things about it. Mostly about path-finding, which I've already encountered in open-field battles somehow. The worst thing I heard was that as defenders in a siege, you absolutely have to go out and meet the enemy in the field, or else they stay in place and win due to the timer or you get bored if you got the timer disabled.

    CAMPAIGN;
    The gameplay has changed very significantly in Rome II. Managing your cities is actually important due to the re-emergence of squalor from the days of yore in Medieval II. This combined with the many different building types in four trees (Barbarian, Eastern, Hellenistic (Including Carthage), and Roman.) makes a large variety. Although I wished that there was a difference between the Barbarian building trees, into Britons, Gauls and Germans.

    On the topic of variety, the 500-Units claim is a hype, and tripe. Many of the units are recoloured for other factions, and many of them have no statistical difference. Two examples are the Carthage & African Artillery trees, and the Arabian & Aethiopian Cavalry. There are many more, The Romans also have access to almost every faction unit (Including "unique" units) by constructing auxiliary camps and adding an "Auxiliary" prefix to their names. This brings down the "500 Units" to possibly one-fourth being unique, while still a lot, is still a half-truth and essentially a lie in advertisement to get buyers.

    The faction-count is the same as Shogun 2, but there is promise of free and paid DLC later on. Two of the factions (Carthage and Rome) have families/sub-factions to choose from, which only change which bonuses and detriments you receive.

    GRAPHICS;
    Needless to say the graphics in the game are very well made, and well executed. Even on low settings it is above many similar strategy games. This is made better with the inclusion of "Extreme", going above the formerly "Ultra" in terms of graphical appeal, and melting your computer. One of the most useful features is the inclusion of a Benchmark to see how well your computer can run with the options. But it is rather misleading since battles are more complex than the benchmark, consisting of thousands of troops individually animated, individually fighting, individually dying....

    STABILITY;
    For myself, the game is very stable and I can play for hours on end. But a vocal part of the user-base literally can't open the game at all. This is becoming more and more common with each Total War game, and this is the worst so far. If you thought Empire or Shogun 2 were bad with stability, you should look at the Steam forums for Rome II. For me the game runs well, so I can't really comment on the stability but I won't recognize that it is completely stable.

    I seem to be running out of characters, damn you, 5,000 character limit! So I'll leave you with this mixed review of 5/10. The game is fun, but there's a lot holding it back and it's like Empire all over again, promise things but don't deliver or half-deliver.    … Expand
  9. Latrec
    Sep 4, 2013
    3
    After my senses came down from the inital hype of this game, I came to write this off as Terrible. This is why:
    -Terrible UI: Both within the campaign map and battle screens, the UI is simply too complex to easily understand and remember. I handled RTW1's UI within seconds of playing it. No such luck in RTW2; buttons are randomly placed, look alike, and are hidden out of the way. I'm    After my senses came down from the inital hype of this game, I came to write this off as Terrible. This is why:
    -Terrible UI: Both within the campaign map and battle screens, the UI is simply too complex to easily understand and remember. I handled RTW1's UI within seconds of playing it. No such luck in RTW2; buttons are randomly placed, look alike, and are hidden out of the way. I'm spending too much time wondering what a button does again, rather than actually you know playing.
    -Stupid Character/abilities:
    a) WTF is cunning? Authority? What does it affect specifically? I cannot seem to find this information anywhere, EVEN IN THE ENCYCLOPYDEA! WTF?
    b) The Rally troops ability used to be a button to keep wavering units from routing... Now it just buffs a single unit instead... And the second wind button? wtf? RTW1 was an attempt at being historical while keeping the game balanced and fun.. RTW2 is the exact opposite. Fail.
    c) The lack of a family tree is a bit of a letdown, but there are other features that have been implemented to continue to make things somewhat interesting.

    Enemy AI: On the campaign map the enemy is simply TOO defensinve (and even incompetent at that, sometimes). I've sent small armies as map scouts before, only to spot an army three times the size within reach of me, BUT because I wasn't yet near the city, that army never attacked my scouting party. It just sat there, waiting. I've also marched towards a city (while suffering from a plague/-20% morale) only to have the army garrisoning it run away, wait until I conquer the city, then return to reclaim their city. Their reconquista fails and they get destroyed but they could've potentially defended their town had they simply stayed put in it.

    Protraits: They are ugly. Confusing. GTFO.

    Lag: I can run Shogun 2 on ultra. I can run Skyrim with 4k texture mods, ultra settings, ENB presets, extended LODS, and a ton of other graphic mods, just fine. Hell... My computer will start to overheat before I really see a hit to my FPS. But this game... It lagged with 500 units total on the battlefield. It lagged again on a lower setting with a less detailed map. And it lagged again on High setting with a similar map. Clearly EA needs to fix this aspect of the game.

    On the plus side the map is more detailed than before. No more barbarian cities; all cities are owned by a faction. I believe the dev team may have also fixed the glitch/ability to make 500,000gpt conquering only mediterranean coastal cities, but I'm as of today unsure, as I've only played the Suebi so far.

    And last but not least, a word to EA: I truly understand the marketing/financing impact of DLCs, but developping a DLC alongside the game itself is just wrong. It's like buying a house and realising you need to spend another $xxx on the garage attached to it. Wtf?    … Expand
  10. Chamber
    Sep 5, 2013
    0
    I have played every Total War game since Medieval. My favorites are Rome and Medieval between which I logged in over 1000 hours (including mods) of gameplay.

    I feel compelled to share what I have experienced playing Rome II. What follows is a short summary of my 19 hour-long campaign thus far from installation (steam) through my last turn (85) playing on HARD/HARD mode as Rome, the    I have played every Total War game since Medieval. My favorites are Rome and Medieval between which I logged in over 1000 hours (including mods) of gameplay.

    I feel compelled to share what I have experienced playing Rome II. What follows is a short summary of my 19 hour-long campaign thus far from installation (steam) through my last turn (85) playing on HARD/HARD mode as Rome, the House of Julii.

    The game installs without a hitch. I'm glad given how anxious I felt after having read so many negative reviews. The optimist in me feels vindicated.

    The intro plays and while I feel underwhelmed I do not care. After all, I want to play a strategy game and not watch pretty rendered videos.

    I jump into the campaign as the House of Julii and then I see the campaign map with Roma at its center in all its glory. I get giddy with excitement at what's to come.

    Everything looks good but it lags a bit, running at 20-22 fps. I look at video options and the graphics are set at “Extreme” by default. Curious, I think, that this would be the default. I dismiss it as a quibble and proceed to change it to “Ultra” just so that I can get 30 fps. I still get the same performance despite lowering the settings. Even if I lower the settings to "High" (And I have a semi-monster rig) the fps in the campaign map remains at 20-25 fps at best. So I keep it at "Ultra".

    Oh well, it's not a big deal. I decide to accomplish the given objectives by taking out the Etruscan League. I proceed to attack one of their cities and a battle ensues.

    My first battle in Rome II. Oh, the anticipation, the excitement, the folly of hope! It happens to take place at dusk and everything looks very brown and very dull. But the my army is amassed before me and I must lead them. So I look at them. Maybe I drank the Kool-Aid for too long, but I am shocked to see that the models still look like clones of each other. It doesn't matter, I think to myself, let's see them march. Interesting, the sound of marching is not in-sync with their motion. Oh well, not a big deal.

    I look at my control options and I see that I cannot set them to "Guard" which I find odd. I start the attack and follow my units with the new cinematic option just so that I that I can take it all in. I await the fruit of a "40% higher budget than Shogun 2" and "50% more animations" with joy. One minute and 34 seconds the battle is over. Say what?

    Yes, Rome II's battles give a new meaning to Caesar's famous remark: I came, I saw, I just paid $60 for this!

    I'm getting ahead of myself. There was a full minute and 34 seconds of glorious fighting to describe. Two perfectly formed and organized armies make contact, disintegrate into a blob of hard to distinguish clones each attempting to perform a ridiculous animation that in no way relates to what each unit is doing. And this at an incredibly fast pace where it is almost impossible to appreciate the nuance of the bloated animations.

    I decide to auto-resolve battles as much as I can from now on, although from my experience with other TW games I know that is not very smart, especially early on. In fact, on Hard mode it was impossible to get anywhere in past TW games if you just auto-resolved battles before the mid-game.

    I'm on turn 85 and I have auto resolved every single battle except 4 including that first battle. If this fact by itself is does not prove that the AI is ridiculously bad then I don't know what does. But moving on.

    I like the campaign map despite its low fps so I stick to that. I quickly overrun ever Etruscan League city in Italy without a challenge. Their last city is in Corsica so I worry about building a transport. No need, my troops can just walk on water a la Jesus.

    They have 2 large armies stationed there and I think to myself, "Well, I think I'm gonna have to fight this battle. This is too important to leave up to auto-resolve, however effective it's been."

    I land and then during their turn the Etruscans move their entire 2 armies into the sea. Oh well, I take over their city with, you guessed it, auto-resolve.

    They then suicide by attacking Rome with ONE ARMY at a time. Man, no wonder no one talks about the Etruscans --history is written by those who are not mentally challenged.

    By now I am very frustrated with the game, but I keep playing. Why? Because I am a true fan, I set aside this week to do so and I still believe in the glory that is Rome. (Or maybe the hype machine really did a number on me, who knows?"

    So I keep playing. I get acquainted with the UI which is a bit frustrating because the Encyclopedia which explains the building orders is not user friendly. Nor in some cases even helpful. For instance, no where does it say that you have to build a Training Field in your Province Capital. Nor is attrition and food explained in detail anywhere. Eventually you understand it but you cannot read up on it like you used to.

    I actually like the concept of attrition and food a lot and I think that it was a good design choice. The fact that all your regions' food supplies are linked into one unified supply is clever. Also, linking your army's replenishment rate to your food supply is intuitive and makes it important to maintain a good food supply. This is one of the few things in the game that matter because they have actual consequences. Around turn 30 I lose of my men due to attrition. It feels good because it hurts.

    Now, let me talk about public order. Never mind that it is a complete mystery knowing why it goes up or down (I don't feel like qualifying this statement but if anyone challenges me on it, I will), it has no consequences and it's therefore thrash. Now this I must qualify. So there is an imminent threat of a slave revolt in Magna Graecia despite my attempts to avoid it and the next turn a cinematic comes on. Oh it's Spartacus(not really)! is about to get real!

    Unfortunately, the slaves driven to cast off their chains by the cruelty of their masters get ready to bring about a Mexican standoff lasting 10 or 12 turns, until I decide to attack them just to raise my general's stats.

    I have since experienced 11 slave revolts and they never, ever attack my cities. Nor do they have a measurable adverse effect on my economy or diplomacy or anything. They just stand there. Endlessly.

    When I do crush them I get this other video. I actually like both videos and I guess I better because 85 turns in they are the ONLY in-game cinematics I've seen. So by around turn 40, I start to ignore public order altogether. It is broken and it means absolutely nothing.

    I also face many, many non-slave rebellions and only once was one of my cities attacked. Of course, it would be more accurate to say that only once did the rebels suicide against my impregnable walls.

    I cannot emphasize how disappointing this is. When playing Rome, that masterpiece which now shines brighter by comparison, I used to dread rebellions. They could undo your conquests, they could outright end you. They definitely meant something. Now they mean nothing. They are a joke. By the way, let me take this opportunity to address something else. AI turns take way too long to complete. By turn 40, they can take up to 3 minutes; by turn 80 they can take up to 5 minutes. And campaign fps even at HIGH” on a great rig lags down to 7-8 fps. Ultimately, that is why I stopped playing. I couldn’t put up with it anymore. There are other things to address such as diplomacy a joke) and internal politics which has to be the single most disappointing thing about this game. In a few words, it's not a feature to speak of, it's a whole lot of nothing. It's a pre-alpha concept that was not developed. It's a slap on our collective face is what it is. I'm too tired now. I'm going to bed. Perhaps in my dreams I will play the Rome II that I envisioned. Maybe I'll just play Rome I before going to sleep. A sad day, indeed.    … Expand
  11. ExTotalWarFan
    Sep 5, 2013
    1
    This is what happens when you decide to forsake your fanbase for the console kids. Rome 2 isn't a worthy successor to Rome 1 by any stretch of the imagination. Creative Assembly deserves to be shamed and Sega deserves to lose profit for releasing a casualized, unfinished game.
  12. MDLion
    Sep 5, 2013
    0
    we all know the issue by now. the game is a stripped down console version and total war is dead. the critic reviews are total garbage and flat out lies.

    how can you mark a game so highly when its literally a broken game that's unfinished as well as missing all of the series features.

    shame on you all for that. shame on you.
  13. nihonsean
    Sep 5, 2013
    1
    This game is a complete disappointment. You can try to ignore the fact that the game has several serious technical issues (no crossfire/SLI support, occasionally crashes, extremely long load times). You cannot however ignore the fact that the game play is completely lacking: extremely dumb AI, no sieges (cities can simply be assaulted and taken instantly), 500 units that are mostly copiesThis game is a complete disappointment. You can try to ignore the fact that the game has several serious technical issues (no crossfire/SLI support, occasionally crashes, extremely long load times). You cannot however ignore the fact that the game play is completely lacking: extremely dumb AI, no sieges (cities can simply be assaulted and taken instantly), 500 units that are mostly copies of each other, bad music, and a horrible UI.

    It is pretty. But pretty will only get you so far.

    DO NOT BUY THIS GAME UNTIL THEY FIX IT. This is a beta release for money. Don't let them fool you, and don't buy what they professional critics are saying. No idea what game these guy played, but it wasn't this one.    … Expand
  14. Sheridan
    Sep 5, 2013
    1
    Having been a dedicated fan of the Total War series since 2006, starting off with the original Rome, this is likely to be where I leave the series that I used to love more than any other game. Up to Napoleon, every game felt like an improved experience.
    Every title was unique, and enjoyable at the very least. Shogun 2 became my first disappointment, the battle pace did not feel    Having been a dedicated fan of the Total War series since 2006, starting off with the original Rome, this is likely to be where I leave the series that I used to love more than any other game. Up to Napoleon, every game felt like an improved experience.
    Every title was unique, and enjoyable at the very least. Shogun 2 became my first disappointment, the battle pace did not feel comfortable (after 1000+ hours of multiplayer), although they did nail many other nice features in the game.

    I can hardly see how some other players have given such a positive feedback on the game that was meant to be the sequel to the original Rome let alone how 'professional' reviewers could choose to ignore to mention so many flaws to the customers. Rome 2 has one of the best campaigns in the game although many features are dumbed down far too much. When it comes to the core of the series that is the battles, the story is very different.
    Going from the disappointing battles to Shogun 2 to this was shocking the average battle lasts 3, sometimes 4 minutes. Battles with 5000 men on each side are over within 5. The tactical depth is no longer present, and the battles feel more pointless than ever before. They are nothing worth to play.    … Expand
  15. Mike_Mac
    Sep 5, 2013
    1
    Please, please DO NOT buy this game if you are a TW fan! As a TW fan from the beginning Rome 2 has come as a complete disappointment to me (and a waste of £30 that I could have made much better use of). Setting aside the release bugs the game's real problems rest deeper within the battle and campaign AI. CA for some reason have decided to remove nearly all of the tactics, management andPlease, please DO NOT buy this game if you are a TW fan! As a TW fan from the beginning Rome 2 has come as a complete disappointment to me (and a waste of £30 that I could have made much better use of). Setting aside the release bugs the game's real problems rest deeper within the battle and campaign AI. CA for some reason have decided to remove nearly all of the tactics, management and strategy aspects that gave depth and a long-term challenge to older TW games.

    Battles:
    Battles have degenerated into an arcade-like tic-tac-toe competition with no apparent impact from terrain or tactical positioning. They nearly always degenerate into a mass melee around the newly added 'capture points' in themselves one of the daftest inclusions to a strategy game, as they are placed completely without consideration to the terrain. The AI is woeful and the biggest attraction of the TW series its battles and your ability to snatch victory from defeat by intelligent generalship has now become its biggest downfall, as you watch yet another mass brawl erupt in the middle of the battle-field, where your input has little to no effect on the outcome.

    Campaign:
    Although some of the new features of Rome 2 are welcome agents are now much more interesting and some of the city management is a lot more streamlined the overall campaign is now both massively over-simplified. Many of the ability to manage the details of your cities are now gone and city management has been so pared down that you just don't feel engaged with what is going on, or able to act decisively to effect a change when a problem arises. The AI opponents are largely passive and are ridiculously easy to defeat (even on the most difficult setting). At the same time the multitude of minor factions mean that you wait for ages at the end of each turn for the computer to process their actions (I resorted to reading a book while waiting).

    In sum I cannot believe the same company that gave us the first Medieval and Rome Total Wars can in all good conscience release this game. After around 4 hours of play I realised that it wasn't getting any better, gave up and returned to Medieval 2. I doubt that I will play Rome 2 again, as there is only so much the independent modding scene can do to improve it (you can't polish a turd!!). In all honesty I therefore cannot give Rome 2 a score of more than 1/10. There are some good points nestled in there among the bad, but the game as a whole is a massive step backwards and represents a missed opportunity for CA.    … Expand
  16. themrchook
    Sep 6, 2013
    2
    Very poor optimisation, AI is poor and siege AI is just non-functioning with issues like enemy units just standing there or even more bizarrely wandering off in random directions until they just run into archer fire and die, simplified mechanics and game functionality when compared to Total War: Rome (seems to be the trend, would have like to have seen it broken for this game) but thisVery poor optimisation, AI is poor and siege AI is just non-functioning with issues like enemy units just standing there or even more bizarrely wandering off in random directions until they just run into archer fire and die, simplified mechanics and game functionality when compared to Total War: Rome (seems to be the trend, would have like to have seen it broken for this game) but this does not make the game more fun, punchy or exciting. Slightly updated graphics but nowhere near what I expected. I can forgive releasing with a few bugs and issues as this is normal but there are just such a large amount of them. This is why people pirate games, you don't deserve my money for this and you won't be getting it ever again.… Expand
  17. Radox0
    Sep 6, 2013
    2
    I've enjoyed the Total War series immensely through the years: I even enjoyed Empire at release as I didn't really encounter any of the crashes others did, and the bugs that were there were play through-able Rome 2 on the other hand, is a half finished game; I hope they realise their mistakes and patch it relentlessly to get it up to scratch as I want this game to be a success but rightI've enjoyed the Total War series immensely through the years: I even enjoyed Empire at release as I didn't really encounter any of the crashes others did, and the bugs that were there were play through-able Rome 2 on the other hand, is a half finished game; I hope they realise their mistakes and patch it relentlessly to get it up to scratch as I want this game to be a success but right now, as it is, it's not even deserving of a 5/10 average score… Expand
  18. nguyenhoainam
    Sep 6, 2013
    2
    When I first played Shogun: Total War, I thought "Damn! How is this game possible?" Shogun was well ahead of its time in terms of ideas, scale, quality... every aspects! It was just GREAT!!! So great you just cant believe it...

    I became a fan, played every games in the series... I think Rome is truly the pinnacle of them! Cant remember how much time I spent in that game, but I'm sure it    When I first played Shogun: Total War, I thought "Damn! How is this game possible?" Shogun was well ahead of its time in terms of ideas, scale, quality... every aspects! It was just GREAT!!! So great you just cant believe it...

    I became a fan, played every games in the series... I think Rome is truly the pinnacle of them! Cant remember how much time I spent in that game, but I'm sure it was plenty...

    Then came Medieval II, which I thought was great too. I just wasnt captivated by that era as much as by Rome's.

    Napoleon disappointed me, but I still believe that CA will come back with another masterpiece to revive the franchise!

    When they released Shogun II, I thought to myself Well, back to Japan is not half bad, though I would appreciate a new place to wage war though"

    And now, Rome II... Ok, I loved the first game and that era, just improve the graphics, the gameplay and I will spend countless time again in this game.

    But what have they done???

    - AI sucks
    - Graphics bugs
    - Gameplay lacks depth and options
    - Music and sounds is many steps backward
    - Multiplayer gone to (I play Steam version and let me remind you that Steam is argue-ably the best multiplay-experience provider out there, but it still sucks big time!)

    To sum it up, let me quote a comment some guy here said "CA put crap in a box and we spent 60$ for it"

    THAT'S HOW THEY TREATED US, LOYAL FANS OF THE FRANCHISE!

    **** YOU CA!!!    … Expand
  19. 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.
  20. Vastator
    Sep 5, 2013
    0
    I can tolerate problems such pathetic AI on sieges, worst UI of the series, fast and arcadish battles, "WTF" diplomacy, because these things can (hopefully in several months) be modded or patched.

    But what i can't tolerate are the lies of the devs and the false advertisement made before the game release: they advertised the game to be optimized and playable on every PC, and they    I can tolerate problems such pathetic AI on sieges, worst UI of the series, fast and arcadish battles, "WTF" diplomacy, because these things can (hopefully in several months) be modded or patched.

    But what i can't tolerate are the lies of the devs and the false advertisement made before the game release: they advertised the game to be optimized and playable on every PC, and they declared those very low requirements: complete lie!! You can't play such a huge game on a single core or on a weak dual core (i have though a way stronger PC), there are many people that have been fooled of that, go and see on the support forums! They are seeking help because the game (CPU intensive) run on 10 FPS! They can't be helped with that hw, they have been fooled by the minimum reqs.

    They showed totally different "alpha footage" than actually is on the game (go and see the old carthage walkthrough and compare with the actual one, it's depressing!). And what about day one DLC? They said that they were making them because the core game was finished and there was time to make them!! WTF, "finished"????

    Let's not talk about the performance: no matter what settings i choose, when the melee start the game becomem unplayable due to lag and low FPS (and i can play B3, C3 and Shogun 2 on high/ultra). Turns take 3 minutes to finish, and the campaign map lags as hell.

    CA was my favorite game company. With this score i feel like killing my father. But my father has raped me with Rome II :(

    I'm so sad, so sad about the current state of the game that you can't imagine. I followed its development from the July 2012 with very high hopes. Now all is lost.

    Why this?? WHY!!??    … Expand
  21. SlickNick
    Sep 6, 2013
    0
    The game as it stands is unplayable for the following reasons:
    1. UI
    2. UI
    3. UI
    4. UI
    5. UI
    6. Camera
    7. AI
    8. Lag

    Back to europa barbarium. Sigh.
  22. Ayreos
    Sep 8, 2013
    1
    Total War: Rome II does one thing right. It allows you to see which professional reviewers don't play the games they review for any significant amount of time or deliberately lie about their experiences playing them. This game is a hastily thrown together beta, and at least one year of full development away from being playable. The other comments cover the issues in exhaustive detail.Total War: Rome II does one thing right. It allows you to see which professional reviewers don't play the games they review for any significant amount of time or deliberately lie about their experiences playing them. This game is a hastily thrown together beta, and at least one year of full development away from being playable. The other comments cover the issues in exhaustive detail. Thank god i got to try it before purchasing. For anyone who did purchase it, i recommend asking a refund whenever applicable. Even though Steam policy doesn't support refunds, many European countries legally require a refund option regardless of agreements. For now, it's back to playing the first Rome: TW, with mods of course.… Expand
  23. jesterx7769
    Sep 4, 2013
    1
    The new studio has ruined this game.

    -Graphics: I have a newly updated gfx card and good system that I can run every other game on highest settings like Grid 2, however in Rome 2 I get 20fps, seriously? This may be worth it if the gfx were good but the textures and gfx are horrible. Each unit is unique which isn't worth the sacrifice. The world map is also horrible I have no idea why it    The new studio has ruined this game.

    -Graphics: I have a newly updated gfx card and good system that I can run every other game on highest settings like Grid 2, however in Rome 2 I get 20fps, seriously? This may be worth it if the gfx were good but the textures and gfx are horrible. Each unit is unique which isn't worth the sacrifice. The world map is also horrible I have no idea why it looks so bad compared to games like Crusader Kings 2 or EU4.

    -The voicing and character models is bad

    -AI and such is the same as always, so is gameplay.

    Sadly it is just the graphical performance that makes this game completely unplayable. Another new studio has ruined a good franchise they are just using the name to get sales    … Expand
  24. psychoravin
    Sep 4, 2013
    1
    I wanted to like it but in this state I cant. I cant beiieve the differnce in scores of the pro reviewers and the fans such broad spread you know something is up when all the pro reviewers think so much of a game. wonder how much they got paid on prop up one of those streamlined games as such. I had two crashes and I've never had crash problems before with any game. I actually after aI wanted to like it but in this state I cant. I cant beiieve the differnce in scores of the pro reviewers and the fans such broad spread you know something is up when all the pro reviewers think so much of a game. wonder how much they got paid on prop up one of those streamlined games as such. I had two crashes and I've never had crash problems before with any game. I actually after a short session wanted to play something else like The Sims 3 how terrible. I even thought of playing the origional RTW but remembered how bad the ai was in that one and all the rest up to Shogun 2. I'd play Shogun 2 but I don't like asian games that much, but I do like challenge so I'd play SPARTAN or SACRIFICE. This one didn't make my interested list though I wanted it to so bad. Needs lots of work.… Expand
  25. naox
    Sep 6, 2013
    1
    rome total war 2 is like windows vista. It needs patching (and promises will be made) but mostly people will have much lower expectations when next game in series will be released.
  26. jesperkjensen
    Sep 6, 2013
    1
    I really looked forwards to the release of the Rome 2 Total War game which promised a great experience, new features and a challenging game. However, what I discovered was instead a really unstable game that crashes several times, a stupid AI, many bugs like ships going through land or the AI simply standing around, soldiers that can't leave their boats, land invasions that cannot be madeI really looked forwards to the release of the Rome 2 Total War game which promised a great experience, new features and a challenging game. However, what I discovered was instead a really unstable game that crashes several times, a stupid AI, many bugs like ships going through land or the AI simply standing around, soldiers that can't leave their boats, land invasions that cannot be made because a ship is blocking their port (WTF?), etc. etc. etc.. To me it seems that all their promises with this game were not held, and for this a think a bad review is in place.… Expand
  27. Romanium54
    Sep 7, 2013
    1
    Developers need to remember that gameplay is the most important thing in a game. The graphics are only cool if they improve an already fun game. They don't make a game fun by themselves. No one will care about the graphics if they are too bored to ever star the game. Get it?
  28. DuskRaider
    Sep 7, 2013
    1
    If you are expecting this to be like the previous CA games MTW2 or even RTW1, then do not purchase this game as it is totally different using none of the great features that were used in these games.
    The number of factions they have is good, but that's about it for me on this game.

    Very poor, I for one will never ever pre-order a CA game again.
  29. Kaje85
    Sep 5, 2013
    2
    My concerns with this product are not technical, they are functional. Whilst the game does have it's bugs, they are easy enough to fix with patches over time the deeper issues with this game lie in the fact it is essentially a prettier total conversion mod for Empire Total War.
    Gone are the little quirks that made Shogun 2 a charismatic foray into the world of a Japanese warlord, instead    My concerns with this product are not technical, they are functional. Whilst the game does have it's bugs, they are easy enough to fix with patches over time the deeper issues with this game lie in the fact it is essentially a prettier total conversion mod for Empire Total War.
    Gone are the little quirks that made Shogun 2 a charismatic foray into the world of a Japanese warlord, instead we are back to a campaign mode with as much charm and tact as a Syrian politician.
    It feels like a gross afterthought, there's nothing to do other than for it to serve as something to look at between battles and the latter aren't that great either. A rock/paper/scissors game where the AI has the intelligence of a PE teacher.
    Seriously, a huge step back for Creative Assembly.    … Expand
  30. kopiko
    Sep 6, 2013
    2
    In a nutshell, this game overpromised and underdeliver. Hell, even that is an understatement. I'm not gonna touch on the AI/FPS issues, nor the multiplayer component and just focus something so fundamentally wrong with the campaign. Here's the thing, if the game needs 1 min 30 secs to complete a campaign turn during the opening stages of the game on a Intel i7-3849QM 2.80GHz, 16gb ram,In a nutshell, this game overpromised and underdeliver. Hell, even that is an understatement. I'm not gonna touch on the AI/FPS issues, nor the multiplayer component and just focus something so fundamentally wrong with the campaign. Here's the thing, if the game needs 1 min 30 secs to complete a campaign turn during the opening stages of the game on a Intel i7-3849QM 2.80GHz, 16gb ram, something is very wrong.

    Simply put, it is far too ambitious for its own good. There is far too many minor factions to process and when it is finally your turn, you find that there is very little to do apart from moving your spy or pretend that you have something to build in your province. The kicker is the more you explore which you kinda have to do if you want establish more trade routes, hence more gold in your coffer the slower the turn gets! The total war series used to suck me in with me telling myself that my next turn will be my last one(which is obviously a lie) and when I finally dare to glance up at the clock, it is 5am, Now, I don't even want to click the 'end turn' button any more, I just don't know what I am supposed to do while I wait for the AI to finish their turns. Read a book? I probably can play a movie on my iPad as I wait. Maybe I can even walk the dog when I am about 75 turns in.

    The worst part is I don't think this is something patch-able. Sure, you can improve the framerates issues, maybe even inject a smarter thought process for the AI in a later patch, but the cutting down the waiting time for a campaign turn? That is bit rich all things considered. Unless they trim down the amount of minor factions or limit the size of the map(what are the chances eh?), I don't think any number of patch is gonna help. And that makes everything sad.    … Expand
  31. 39OakTree
    Sep 4, 2013
    2
    Beware the mindless drones are striking 10/10 for a halfsquezed on a platter. This game is not worth a green rating, its way to unpolished to receive even a yellow one unless youre a fanboy cretins ofcourse. how about some of you actually buy the game first and play an hour before posting this terribly uncritical comments that sound like diarriah in a kindergarten.
  32. SoulSurgeon
    Sep 8, 2013
    5
    I pre-purchased this game the day it was pre-released. I installed it the day it came out. It ran ok the first night...but I noticed a LOT of bugs. I tried some custom battles. I used 4 squads of Spartan Hoplites against some Rome Cohorts...I got pwned. I even out-flanked them and out-maneuvered them...nope, dead. It is on "normal" difficulty.

    Since day 2, I have spent 30+ hours    I pre-purchased this game the day it was pre-released. I installed it the day it came out. It ran ok the first night...but I noticed a LOT of bugs. I tried some custom battles. I used 4 squads of Spartan Hoplites against some Rome Cohorts...I got pwned. I even out-flanked them and out-maneuvered them...nope, dead. It is on "normal" difficulty.

    Since day 2, I have spent 30+ hours trying to get the game to launch..it won't...freezes on the load-up screen. Right now there are 434 positive reviews of RTW2, and 767 negative...make that 767. CA and Sega have my money....I don't have anything in return except anger and frustration. I'm going to make sure that they lose lots of money by helping scare away potential buyers...until the game is FIXED. DO NOT BUY THIS GAME yet. Wait until they get their together.    … Expand
  33. 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
  34. Ed_
    Oct 30, 2013
    7
    After the release of patch 5, the game improved really well. The gameplay became enjoyable and the AI improved slightly.

    The campaign map is very nice, graphics is amazing. The new family and upgrading system are also fascinating, however the one-year turn system is pretty annoying and fast.

    All in all, download all the patches and feel the difference.
  35. ozozio
    Sep 7, 2013
    5
    I Wanted to like this game.. I wanted to,, so Bad. But it has been a letdown. The problem with Rome 2 has less to do with the fact that it feels like a title from over ten years ago and more to do with the fact that it is full of poor design decisions, simplified game mechanics, and horrible UI. Overall, the game suffers from a lack optimization and tones of bugs.
  36. tomezom
    Sep 9, 2013
    1
    The worst gaming purchase I've ever made. Besides terrible beta state, fails to reach the bar raised by its predecessors in the art direction, music, and mechanics. It's lame AI, coupled with a purposedly dumbed down UI and city management (for console testing), linear gameplay and poor multiplayer makes this an incredible disappointing experience.
  37. Jay8329
    Sep 27, 2013
    2
    Update: The 3 released patches fixed a few things. The really long turns have gotten some what faster, "some" balancing has been done, and units hold their formations slightly longer than before. The most hilarious fix I read in the patch list was a fix for misspelled words..I could give a crap about that there are more pressing matters to focus on CA. With that being said, the 3 patchesUpdate: The 3 released patches fixed a few things. The really long turns have gotten some what faster, "some" balancing has been done, and units hold their formations slightly longer than before. The most hilarious fix I read in the patch list was a fix for misspelled words..I could give a crap about that there are more pressing matters to focus on CA. With that being said, the 3 patches still don't do it for me, but I'll bring my score up for the effort, but not by much. Still many missing features, no family tree. still buggy land and naval battles, still arcade like battles that end in 10mins now instead of 5 so I guess it's an improvement, Ai is still retarded and does the jig while getting slaughter by missle units and they still fail to engage 80% of the time, and we still have that ridiculous army limit!! Geez that is a crappy decision., etc, etc, ect, ect..
    Also, I got to love the sudden flood of naive brainless individuals giving this game 9-10s in an attempt to boost the rating and the user complaining about a 0 score. I gave this a 0 because it's BS I friggin paid $70 for a game in Alpha stage. It's like buying a computer only to find out the I have a really pretty monitor and tower but no guts. So to all those ppl "Go kick rocks!

    Rome II the Arcade game...or something!??? WTF is this garbage.
    0.) This takes the cake, half the total war fan base can't even play this junk because it fails to work. Many CTDs and freezes....worthless...someone should be fired and kicked square in the a$$ on the way out the door.
    1.) Your Units are set to run by default...so they are running all over the place like idiots every time you order a move.
    2.)No Family Tree- wtf, I thought this was Rome, a family tree is a pretty important part of the game...or maybe not, hell I don't know...retarded CA.
    3.) Has more bugs than Empires Total War ever did, and that's seriously saying something!
    4.) Serious limitation to recruitment- Now you can only recruit units through a General and only a General. No more recruiting units in your cities, which pretty much hamstrings your ability to recruit a garrison army that you feel is just right to hold that city on the border of your enemy. Now you have a preset "Generic Garrison". I guess I don't need more than 4 archer units to hold miles of walls...oh yeah that leads me to my next point.
    5.) You no longer have the option to build walls...yep that's right, no option to build walls in your smaller villages or towns. Walls are reserved for your "More important" capital cities. Well that's great and grand and all, but I guess my other towns are worthless and F***ed. I suppose my generic garrison army can handle it..... or not.
    6.) You are no longer allowed to detach any units from your Army unless you have another General right next to that particular Army/General you wish to exchange units with. So I guess CA figured it was wise to keep me from detaching half my army to garrison a city I just captured so that I can send my General on his marry little way to do something useful. Instead I have to park his a$$ in the city for 10 flippin turns (Which Equals 10 yrs btw) until the public order stabilizes...awesome!
    7.) Battles last a WHOPPING 3-5mins! No time for tactical maneuvers, not that it matters with this AI, it's over too fast. You just send all your guys into this blob of troops just like you would if you were playing good old Command and Conquer.
    8.) No fire at will options for your Legionaries. Instead your Legionaries throw their pilums every time you order them to engage then enemy, which is absolutely AWESOME when you send a unit to support another unit already engaged with the enemy and your Legionaries throw that SWEET volley of Pilums right into the backs of your own troops..Brilliant move!
    9.) No loose and tight formation options-guess we didn't need them
    10.) We got magic abilities just like Warhammer. (Remove all fatigue, better accuracy for archers, reload faster, and many more fun abilities from Middle Earth) Every single unit has some retarded special ability that you need to use as much as possible..so it turns into a classic click fest.
    11.) You can only trade out of one port, which is probably one of the many bugs, while your others just sit and be useless.
    12.) Countless other bugs, from Red skies to enemy units doing the jig while you pepper them with arrows all day, to the classic suicide generals getting impaled on spears.

    All of these issues and retarded features, among a ton of other issues I really don't feel like listing because it would take 2-3 days, makes Rome II the worse game of the series so far and probably the death of the total war franchise. I sure do hope CA really enjoys this piece of crap, dumbed down, casual, console geared, kiddie game they have created. As for me, there is nothing Creative about this and it's gone into my coaster collection of sh!t games to be used to set my beverages on. At least I'll get some use out of my stolen    … Expand
  38. Samze
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    They messed it up, the AI is horrible, the interface sucks and the pc opt is just terrible, and the graphics looks like they took a step back, and what's up with the 1 general cap
  39. KebabRemover
    Sep 26, 2013
    0
    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!
  40. RalexSteele
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    I have enjoyed a lot of the TW games in the past, and I have some very fond memories of some of my campaigns. The battles were always exciting, and I felt like every decision I made had a huge effect on the outcome. At times, I even won battles where I was outnumbered 10:1 with tactics and luck.

    Rome II takes that all away. The battles are chaotic, and controls seem sluggish,    I have enjoyed a lot of the TW games in the past, and I have some very fond memories of some of my campaigns. The battles were always exciting, and I felt like every decision I made had a huge effect on the outcome. At times, I even won battles where I was outnumbered 10:1 with tactics and luck.

    Rome II takes that all away. The battles are chaotic, and controls seem sluggish, unresponsive, and ultimately pointless. You fair just as well by sending your troops on a full frontal assault as a tactical skirmish.

    Multiplayer... it's broken. Desyncs, problems with spectating, and save game problems.
    I have a beast of a PC and this game is so badly optimized that my gpu jumps 20 degrees C on menu screens, and runs at 97% load during the game in any screen. Meanwhile, I can run BF3, Crysis, and Metro and stay under 30% load and not have any heat spikes. Not to mention rome 2 seems to like tormenting cores 1 and 7, but refuses to use 2,3,4,5,6, or 8 for more than 2-5%

    The gameplay doesn't save it either: spend 30 seconds managing your empire through ugly buttons in the clunky AI, then end turn and wait 4-10 minutes for the AI to finish up all the turns for the other nations. (Keep in mind, that's 4-10 minutes on a top of the line machine I don't want to guess how long on a mediocre or aging system)

    Spend your money elsewhere hell, buy a nice dinner, you'll enjoy that more and longer.    … Expand
  41. Type4101
    Sep 13, 2013
    0
    Rome II is proof that the current system of "professional" reviewers is utterly broken or corrupt. As commercial magazines and websites (who rely on advertising money from game makers) pass out 8's and 9's to this newest entry of the Total War Series, long-time players and fans weep tears of sadness. Gone is the tactical depth the series was famous for. Gone is the strategic depth thatRome II is proof that the current system of "professional" reviewers is utterly broken or corrupt. As commercial magazines and websites (who rely on advertising money from game makers) pass out 8's and 9's to this newest entry of the Total War Series, long-time players and fans weep tears of sadness. Gone is the tactical depth the series was famous for. Gone is the strategic depth that the series was famous for. This game is a step backward in almost every way, and fans know it. Dumbed down, and made into an arcade-like casual game, Rome II may sadly mark the end of the Total War Series. If consumers keep buying dumbed down versions of previously awesome games, and reviewers keep showering them with fake praise, then the industry as a whole is spiraling down the toilet. If you haven't played a Total War Game, and want to know why they are beloved by fans around the world, try Rome I, Medieval 2, or Shogun 2. Farewell Total War Series. I will miss you.… Expand
  42. iopuge
    Sep 5, 2013
    0
    i would love this game if only the price would be 5 dollars. No way I will pay 80 bucks for this glitchy crap.

    This horrible game has serious problems:

    - AI is not working properly

    - UI is retarded

    - Optimization was lost somewhere in CA office

    -Only 4 historic battles. WTF? Lazy developers!

    -Graphics are awful

    WANT MY MONEY BACK!!
  43. Clownageddon
    Sep 6, 2013
    0
    I have bought and played all TW game including expansions except the Alexander one. I have tested most mods for MTWII and RTW and a few for the other ones.

    I have a mediocre gaming rig, but the game runs perfectly on ultra for me. 15 hours of play logged. Not one hickup. Its beautiful, with good framerate and lodsa eyecandy, even if i HATE the BIG! user interface and the UGGLY BIG unit    I have bought and played all TW game including expansions except the Alexander one. I have tested most mods for MTWII and RTW and a few for the other ones.

    I have a mediocre gaming rig, but the game runs perfectly on ultra for me. 15 hours of play logged. Not one hickup. Its beautiful, with good framerate and lodsa eyecandy, even if i HATE the BIG! user interface and the UGGLY BIG unit cards. So this rewiev is not biased by technical performance on my system.

    The game sucks. A huge leap backwards. Instead of writing the same thing over and over again, read the other 0 score reviews out there to se why. But to sum up:

    Its a dumbed down, arcadey, eye candy wrapped console port with way better marketing budget than the testing and development budget put together. Calling this a strategy game is just laughable.

    I am now done with this series. The good times of playing TW will not come back. TY CA. In total, you have provided me with countless hours of great fun, even if i got a bit sad in the end there, starting with NTW and ETW. Good luck on your expansion into the console market and i hope your new costumer base is as faithful, forgiving and naive as the old one.    … Expand
  44. Scottyprophet
    Sep 4, 2013
    2
    Really big disappointment. I don't have any of the graphical lag problems that many people are complaining. It's not like any Total war game from the series... the campaign map is actually pretty nice and an improvement on Rome 1 but the battles really let the game down.

    Firstly the AI is really bad and predictable... secondly the strategy element it gone as you just charge your men in    Really big disappointment. I don't have any of the graphical lag problems that many people are complaining. It's not like any Total war game from the series... the campaign map is actually pretty nice and an improvement on Rome 1 but the battles really let the game down.

    Firstly the AI is really bad and predictable... secondly the strategy element it gone as you just charge your men in and hope you rout the enemy army and thirdly the battles don't last more than 6 minutes most of the time and 3 minutes is your men marching which means (like point 2) there is no time for any flanking moves etc, armies don't hold formation anyway so it all ends up in a big blob of fighting.

    Won't even go into the customizing generals part because they die in 20 turns (because turns are yearly and not seasons anymore). You find yourself just giving your next general the same stuff and not really caring because he will be dead soon anyway.. rinse and repeat.

    Co-op campaign? Great idea.. sadly me and a friend waited 3 minutes after each turn for the AI to run its course on the 114 or whatever factions... over 300 turns that's a lot of time just sat there staring at circles.

    Advise: Save your money until CA can fix the game or play the Superior Medieval total war    … Expand
  45. 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
  46. petterb
    Sep 10, 2013
    2
    Waited a long time for this game and havent been this dissapointed since Orion 3. The strategic part of the game is way too simple. Technology is too simple. Diplomacy is too simple. AI is far from good enough. Too bad i didnt read the reviews before actually buying the game. Im a huge fan of the Total War series, but this is the series low.
  47. Megatanis
    Sep 10, 2013
    1
    eheheh reviews average score: 8.1
    user average score: 4.0
    I hope this is the final word on the "are official reviewers biased or are they not" issue. Rome total war 2 on release is unplayable, simple as that. I am using a 2.7ghz dual core, 4gb ram and 1gb video card (specified RECOMENDED requirements on the box, not minimum) at medium graphics (options are from low to ultra high,    eheheh reviews average score: 8.1
    user average score: 4.0
    I hope this is the final word on the "are official reviewers biased or are they not" issue.
    Rome total war 2 on release is unplayable, simple as that. I am using a 2.7ghz dual core, 4gb ram and 1gb video card (specified RECOMENDED requirements on the box, not minimum) at medium graphics (options are from low to ultra high, medium is 2/5). Loading times are unbearable. Whole thing is glitchy as hell, on this same rig I could play Shogun 2 at decent graphics and reasonable loading times.
    Really, do they test this stuff before release, or do they think we all have a 2000$ last gen pc?
    So, not able to judge game (the few things I saw are nothing special compared to previous iterations) since it is literally unplayable.
    Needless to say I play total war series since shogun 1..oh well I guess I'll have to find a better job so I can afford a rig that can run RTW2.
    I'll give it a 1 because of the latin quote at the end of the cool (but nothing special) intro     … Expand
  48. VideoDead
    Sep 9, 2013
    5
    I'm not going to go into all the other stuff other reviewers have gone into (awful graphical optimization, terrible A.I.), but rather some seemingly small details which have annoyed me a great deal.
    1 Victory points in open battles. The very thing that prompted me to come and write this review scenario: i had a large force consisting mainly of chariots, got ambushed by a much larger    I'm not going to go into all the other stuff other reviewers have gone into (awful graphical optimization, terrible A.I.), but rather some seemingly small details which have annoyed me a great deal.
    1 Victory points in open battles. The very thing that prompted me to come and write this review scenario: i had a large force consisting mainly of chariots, got ambushed by a much larger force of enemies consisting mainly of spears. I retreat, they chase, giving me no option but to fight. Battleplan: give them the run-around pelting them with javelins (this is the sort of thing that would've worked in any previous TW game). Got into the battle and lo and behold, a victory location! Thus, the enemy ran all his spears into the victory location, sat there for 50 seconds and won a "decisive victory" resulting in the complete annihilation of my army.
    2 If you attack a port settlement from the sea you cannot disembark your troops onto that city's wharfs and jetties. This just seems completely illogical, say no more!
    3 Why can't i shoot arrows at troops on boats waiting to disembark? Another battle i lost was due to the enemy's boats getting tangled up thusly stuck forever while my vast amount of archers sat 20 feet away on land unable to shoot them (i play unlimited battle time btw so i couldn't wait it out)
    4 Troops just seem to die very quickly and don't hold their formation and phalanxes and shield-walls are useless. It makes it hard to micro-manage when you can't take your eyes off a unit for more than 5 seconds in case they're completely wiped out. Why isn't there a "guard" button like there has ALWAYS been in TW?
    5 Interesting units, where are they? I remember Rome TW 1 having flaming pigs and head hurlers. And why aren't my general's elephants armoured like they are on the unit card?
    6 Diplomacy is just cack and i don't see the point. No-one wants to trade, even factions that are apparently my best-mates, so i just don't bother.

    Other than those negatives i'm not going to judge the game too harshly as i've always found TW games tend to grow on you after you give them a chance, especially the interface (still not sure about it though).

    I'll give it a 5 out of 10, but without all the stuff i've mentioned plus all the other stuff you'll read about in many negative reviews, i'd probably give it a 9 out of 10    … Expand
  49. 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.
  50. Naku
    Sep 4, 2013
    5
    I've been waiting for this game with hope since i'm Total War fan, i played all titles in series since first Shogun. I would not tell that this is worst launch in Total War series history but it's close to Empire. But since CA have so much experience now in 2013 im suprised that this game came in such terrible contition. I cant point out pros for this game becousei just can't enjoy playingI've been waiting for this game with hope since i'm Total War fan, i played all titles in series since first Shogun. I would not tell that this is worst launch in Total War series history but it's close to Empire. But since CA have so much experience now in 2013 im suprised that this game came in such terrible contition. I cant point out pros for this game becousei just can't enjoy playing it right now, there are so many bugs and glitches that eh...

    - Horrible optimalization, horrible performance even on high-end machines.
    - Clunky UI
    - Loading times
    - False advertising, they showed something different on thieir alpha version.
    - Way too fast battles, every battle ends in under 10 mins.

    Big, big disapointment...    … Expand
  51. BurningTemplar
    Sep 6, 2013
    3
    First, I have to explain the difference between an alpha game and a beta game.
    -Alpha: The game is not finished at all and full, bugs, poorly optimized, messed IA and also not balanced.
    -Beta: The game works pretty well, there are some bugs, the IA is at last playable, optimization is ok and the same for the balancing. Rome 2: Total War, is in a pre-alpha stage. -There is no fu***ng    First, I have to explain the difference between an alpha game and a beta game.
    -Alpha: The game is not finished at all and full, bugs, poorly optimized, messed IA and also not balanced.
    -Beta: The game works pretty well, there are some bugs, the IA is at last playable, optimization is ok and the same for the balancing.
    Rome 2: Total War, is in a pre-alpha stage.
    -There is no fu***ng AI, I can defeat 10 armies with few men. -In a battle, 1200 vs 5000 I won losing 300 guys. Also they don't know how to siege and how to defend settlements. The campaign AI is a little better but still crap.
    -The bugs are thousands, watch lastest Angry Joe videos and you will notice dat.
    -Who designed campaign UI? Rly, why didn't they fired this guy and the AI one?
    -They paid critics to make good reviews.
    -Balance? What is balance? R2TW does not know what that thing is.
    In the end, R2TW is in worst stage than R1TW when it came out, and R1TW was in a rly, rly bad state.    … Expand
  52. Leving
    Sep 5, 2013
    2
    Perhaps the worst game in the Total War series. Poor graphical optimization combined with weak, campaign mechanics and real time battles signal a major step back for Total War.
  53. MichalZ
    Sep 6, 2013
    2
    Its slow even on most power full PC(low fps, frame drops, lag, freezes), buggy to the point of being unplayable and full of glitches even using latest drivers and patches. It's sold as full game but its technically a beta. You are paying for early access to beta version of the game.
  54. HazardGamer
    Sep 4, 2013
    5
    The game is full of bugs

    Insanely stupid AI. The only way it could possibly protect a capital city is if it had 40 units guarding it. The AI also doesn't know how to use siege weapons, and will often fail to even get past the wall. Death from above, and a 2000 man army lies dead at my feet... with 3 of my units lost. Some cities can only contain 5 (capital) or 3 buildings, yet    The game is full of bugs

    Insanely stupid AI. The only way it could possibly protect a capital city is if it had 40 units guarding it.

    The AI also doesn't know how to use siege weapons, and will often fail to even get past the wall. Death from above, and a 2000 man army lies dead at my feet... with 3 of my units lost.

    Some cities can only contain 5 (capital) or 3 buildings, yet nothing was done to display why a capital city such as Rome can't contain 6 buildings. Hey, maybe it's just a bug.... as if there wasn't enough of those already.

    The AI will constantly abandon cities (capital ones aswell) even if it has more units than the approaching enemy.

    Agents who can't enter armies, cities or board ships.....

    Siege engines are bugged so much that units either get stuck or fail to actually use them.    … Expand
  55. ZOLTAN
    Sep 6, 2013
    2
    If you are expecting Total War Rome 2 having played the first one then you will be disappointed. This is some new game based in the same era without the complexity or depth of play of the old one.

    The information you require to make your decisions is hard to find thanks to a bad UI but that's OK as there are no real bad decisions in this game. During battle you can and you can spend    If you are expecting Total War Rome 2 having played the first one then you will be disappointed. This is some new game based in the same era without the complexity or depth of play of the old one.

    The information you require to make your decisions is hard to find thanks to a bad UI but that's OK as there are no real bad decisions in this game. During battle you can and you can spend your time watching the game play rather than worrying about playing it and use your magic abilities like fast reload for your missile troops with infinite ammo.

    They have taken away a lot of the realism and management completely and introduced pretty graphics.    … Expand
  56. 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.
  57. Falrinth
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    Well for me and all my numerous friends who were hyped for Rome 2 this game is huge disapointment. It looks and works worse than shogun 2. Looks like half trough development phase. Shaders not working, AA not working properly, performance is horrible at i5,i7 and to date GPUs while shogun 2 looked much sweeter and FPS high and smooth. The look of this game doesnt look at all, not even 20%Well for me and all my numerous friends who were hyped for Rome 2 this game is huge disapointment. It looks and works worse than shogun 2. Looks like half trough development phase. Shaders not working, AA not working properly, performance is horrible at i5,i7 and to date GPUs while shogun 2 looked much sweeter and FPS high and smooth. The look of this game doesnt look at all, not even 20% of how its shown on "screenshots" from producer. On top of that numerous game braking bugs, broken AI, horrible placeholder interface, bugs, battle speed silly fast, awkward camera, awkward units behavior, fights looking far worse than shogun 2... well i dont know where to stop, but this game is just cr... compared to predecesor. No fun at all to play... Ah, and btw. shaders seems to be broken aswell no difference which one i choose at system that can handle them all it all looks like if there would be some cr.. shader on.… Expand
  58. Heathy
    Sep 5, 2013
    5
    So, I didn't want to rate it super low out of complete disappointment, It does deserve some points for being a considerably deep game and you can tell a lot of research went into creating the units and factions.

    The Pros. Ill start with the things I found to be an improvement on the series, Then move onto a list of problems. First of all, The provinces and edicts, This system seems    So, I didn't want to rate it super low out of complete disappointment, It does deserve some points for being a considerably deep game and you can tell a lot of research went into creating the units and factions.

    The Pros.

    Ill start with the things I found to be an improvement on the series, Then move onto a list of problems. First of all, The provinces and edicts, This system seems to be a much better idea overall than having individual towns not really gaining any benefit from neighbouring towns beyond the overall benefit you have from owning that town any way, when you capture the 3 or more towns in a province you can install a region wide bonus on those towns, which to me is an improvement.

    The physics system, another good addition to the series, combined with units shielding themselves from ranged attacks, it makes certain situations feel more dynamic.

    Other Pros would probably be the Naval sieges and army traditions these are new concepts for TW and it seems to be a fun addition to attacking coastal towns shogun 2 was halfway there with bombardments, but being able to send men in from the sea is another winning addition to the game. it just adds another level of depth to battles, the traditions seem to be another flat buff to a force that has survived long enough to gain plenty of battle experience. you can even resurrect old forces to keep their traditions alive.

    Cons.

    Terrible performance on a game touted to run on anything. (I get a steady frame rate in shogun 2 but this is simply inconsistent, changing the detail doesn't seem to make any difference on the frame rate or stuttering units in large battles)

    Armies are tied to generals, So if you have a broken unit you either need to move another general to his location to switch units out or disband, there are no interchangeable town garrisons unless a general is there as all units can only move with a general.

    no restacking broken units, you can't combine half dead stacks of men into a new full stack, you either have to disband and buy new units or wait for them to regenerate.

    The campaign map UI, now a lot of folks have complained about the unit cards, I personally do not mind them that much, it would of been nicer to see graphic representations of the units in question and not just a tapestry image but its not as big of a deal as the whole UI in general, the event message window takes up about 3 times as much space as it does in shogun 2, the hot bar and information panels are either non existent until you click an army or town, or are simply convoluted beyond recognition, Infact the whole UI feels like it was designed for a console. There was nothing wrong with the UI's in the previous titles, it makes no sense why they redesigned the best working part of the franchise.

    The battles themselves are over rather quickly, if you want even the smallest chance of changing the momentum of a fight or being able to simply keep pace with the battle, you have to play it in slow motion otherwise everything just happens so fast, most battles are over within 6 mins.

    The AI in general is no better than previous titles, the technology tree feels a step back from shogun 2, the diplomacy has gained a few options, but the AI which manages it doesn't always see a beneficial request for trade or NAPs, often asking for gold in return for something that is going to benefit them just as much as you.

    only one agent per army, maybe a balancing issue?
    no family tree? why?

    If you ask me, skip this for a while wait for some patches perhaps it'll get better, but I think shogun 2 is a far superior game.

    Edit: One part of the Campaign I didn't mention was the victory conditions and i'm not sure if I like it or not, basically there are no more short or long campaigns as far as i can tell you can simply win in 1 of 3 ways, economic, military and cultural, its a bit of a change from the previous games in which domination and military might was practically the only way to win. it could make for some fun games.

    after the game is patched ill try to remember this review and alter it based on the performance and quality of life changes.    … Expand
  59. Styrr
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    Last time I ever made a pre-purchase... every game i did this was a mess... and i have to say Rome 2 is the worst of all.
    I really loved the TW series from the beginning and loved it up to shogun 2 (even though I missed the variety of the previous titles) but Rome 2 is just a big disappointment.
    I won't complain about the bugs and the performance issues as I'm pretty sure this will get    Last time I ever made a pre-purchase... every game i did this was a mess... and i have to say Rome 2 is the worst of all.
    I really loved the TW series from the beginning and loved it up to shogun 2 (even though I missed the variety of the previous titles) but Rome 2 is just a big disappointment.
    I won't complain about the bugs and the performance issues as I'm pretty sure this will get fixed in time. I even can live with the crappy AI since I'm used to it. But the casualization is horrible:
    - no immersion (family tree?)
    - battles are absolutely mindless and superfast paced. As soon as the units are engaged there is no tactics anymore
    - who's idea has been the army limit? what a crap...
    - campaign map management is simplified very much
    - pretty sure cash-cow DLCs for things that should've been in a full price title will follow (not that 65eur wasn't a hell load of cash for a game already)

    I'm back to Medieval 2: Stainless Steel and Rome: Europa Barbarorum. The good old days when gameplay was more important than hollywood (and they even messed this one up)    … Expand
  60. Maximus44
    Sep 7, 2013
    0
    Over 25 hours played.

    The game is total junk and should have not ever been released in its current state. Like others had said terrible UI, same units for all factions besides Rome and Egypt, same music over and over again, lack of artwork even for the loading screens. Terrible avatar type graphics. Lack of wonders. Do they have any effects by the way as we were promised? No    Over 25 hours played.

    The game is total junk and should have not ever been released in its current state. Like others had said terrible UI, same units for all factions besides Rome and Egypt, same music over and over again, lack of artwork even for the loading screens. Terrible avatar type graphics. Lack of wonders. Do they have any effects by the way as we were promised? No notification as was shown by CA when you take a region that has a wonder. Generals with ships that are better than full navies. Longer than usual turn times. No seasons. One turn per year. Each faction feels the same. No sense of accomplishment. Generals die too quickly. I won't even mention the terrible AI. Diplomacy is still not right. This is an obvious cash cow for SEGA. Wait for an expansion maybe that actually works instead of buying this mess. Oh and the sound. Could you not include more than just a few songs? Rome 1 had many more beautiful songs. One could write for hours on the flaws of the game.

    Some positives such as the edicts, army traditions, large map, and the province system, but everything else brings the score down.    … Expand
  61. Tamlynn
    Sep 8, 2013
    0
    I would rather play RTW1, particularly with the Europa Barbarorum mod. For someone who absolutely loved the original and played it for many, many years, this is a heartbreaking fail. No need to list all of the problems, as they are covered in so many of the other reviews just adding my voice to the chorus. Not sure what game the critics were playing, but the massive discrepancy betweenI would rather play RTW1, particularly with the Europa Barbarorum mod. For someone who absolutely loved the original and played it for many, many years, this is a heartbreaking fail. No need to list all of the problems, as they are covered in so many of the other reviews just adding my voice to the chorus. Not sure what game the critics were playing, but the massive discrepancy between their reviews and actual user reviews suggests that most of them are either bought or incompetent. Both CA and the critics have utterly failed. This is probably the last straw for me... Don't see myself ever buying another CA title again.… Expand
  62. AstraL
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    I'm shocked, did not expect this from Creative Assembly, game simply is unplayable, 15-25 fps on strategic map on minimal settings...
    CA give me back my money!
  63. wobblydoggy
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    A bit gutted really, I obviously as others had been waiting for this release for quite some time. Initially I found the game unplayable due to the unlimited video memory option not being ticked in advanced settings. Once I had done that I could play on extreme though still a bit laggy on the campaign map. I also found the campaign to be extremely shallow... What happened to the cut scenesA bit gutted really, I obviously as others had been waiting for this release for quite some time. Initially I found the game unplayable due to the unlimited video memory option not being ticked in advanced settings. Once I had done that I could play on extreme though still a bit laggy on the campaign map. I also found the campaign to be extremely shallow... What happened to the cut scenes from medieval total war, they were great. It seems in general the serious has begun to degrade. The battlefield quality isn't anywhere near as good as I had been led to believe. I suppose I shouldn't have bought on launch day so partly to blame. Game is a bit rubbish as it stands.… Expand
  64. Damascus
    Sep 5, 2013
    0
    This 0/10 is for the price of Rome II and for exploiting the DLC-concept far beyond the point of shame. At this point it doesn't even matter what the game has to offer.
  65. Dumdas
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. It's very simple...the game simply doesn't work for a lot of people! Currently more than 7000 people seems to be unable to even launch the game (based on the amount of views on this thread in the official forum). CA seems to be in the woods as they have not posted a single reply or comment on this thread yet. Not even a confirmation that they are looking into it...It's like buying a car that doesn't start and then being ignored by the car saleman...would you put up with this?
    I just want my money back....    … Expand
  66. chivo88
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    This game need serious patching and modding because at current states its just a garbage. I don't understand what SEGA and CA were thinking releasing it now.

    Zero score for such poor performance. Sorry guys but I cant give anythyng higher than this because it is not the first time. Empire was same crap.
  67. janki
    Sep 6, 2013
    1
    A game sold in beta-state. Optimization is awfull. In battle units move waaaaay to fast. AI is dumb. A lots of good features that made the TW series good were removed. Where the hell is my family tree?
  68. brizec
    Sep 6, 2013
    1
    I've been a supporter of the TW franchise since it's inception, and this installment has been the biggest disappointment of the series.

    It seems, like so many other companies making games these days, that all the development money was spent on nice looking trailers and PR to hype the game, and the actual game was ignored. It plays like an alpha stage game. The battles are messy, the    I've been a supporter of the TW franchise since it's inception, and this installment has been the biggest disappointment of the series.

    It seems, like so many other companies making games these days, that all the development money was spent on nice looking trailers and PR to hype the game, and the actual game was ignored. It plays like an alpha stage game. The battles are messy, the amount of bugs is ridiculous. The user interface is awful, I have a hard time understanding how some people enjoy this game. First Rome has much better gameplay.    … Expand
  69. Argon
    Sep 8, 2013
    1
    Tested on i7 2600, GTX 770, 16gb RAM on HIGH and EXTREME graphics quality:

    - Graphics are horrible, the Anti alaising is completely messed up (Empire TW looks better... seriously) - AI is not reliable, often attacks an army of 16 units with only 1 unit on campaign map and just stands around until you get closer in real time mode - FPS drops are common, triggered i.e. by pressing    Tested on i7 2600, GTX 770, 16gb RAM on HIGH and EXTREME graphics quality:

    - Graphics are horrible, the Anti alaising is completely messed up (Empire TW looks better... seriously)
    - AI is not reliable, often attacks an army of 16 units with only 1 unit on campaign map and just stands around until you get closer in real time mode
    - FPS drops are common, triggered i.e. by pressing spacebar during combat
    - Multiplayer Campaign unplayable, processing the moves of the AI factions takes around 3min EACH turn
    - UI is confusing, the art style is appealing but gets in the way of things

    I'm sick of beta testing games that I paid 50€ for. No for Sega until patched properly!    … Expand
  70. Antonivs
    Sep 10, 2013
    1
    I waited 9 years for this game. I pre-ordered the CE. I wanted to love this game. But after several hours of single player game play and several failures at Co-op; I just stopped playing. Maybe it will be playable in a month or two.
  71. Carnifex
    Sep 6, 2013
    3
    As the old saying goes; Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. I'm not sure what might e said about the fourth or fifth time.

    Total War: Rome 2 was probably the biggest "Not again" moment I've had in recent years. While the series was hit and miss in general depending on what time period was offered and how that changed overall gameplay Total War: Rome was generally    As the old saying goes; Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. I'm not sure what might e said about the fourth or fifth time.

    Total War: Rome 2 was probably the biggest "Not again" moment I've had in recent years. While the series was hit and miss in general depending on what time period was offered and how that changed overall gameplay Total War: Rome was generally considered one of the best in the series.

    Total War: Rome 2 had a lot to live up to and unfortunately it didn't. The fact that Creative Assembly hasn't exactly reinvented the wheel as far as combat mechanics and tactics over the last what, ten years(?), should make for a very rich and refined experience now. The problem is the same UI issues, A.I. issues, overall poor performance that plagued previous installments are back. This time around there are so many bugs and issues that the game is almost laughably broken.

    The whole "wait for the patch" mentality has worn thin for me, especially on a big budget game that clearly was shoved out to meet a release window. This was an utter disappointment to a series I was once a big fan of. 3/10    … Expand
  72. durrdurrdurr
    Sep 5, 2013
    0
    Poorly optimized.
    No guard mode.
    Clueless AI.
    The battles are over too quickly.
    No family tree.
    You can't change to loose or tight formation.

    Stick to Rome: Total war or its mods.
  73. Necromonger
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    Extremely disapointed and i see revieuws of this game scoring 9 and 9.5
    Do game revieuwers get payed these days ?
    This game isnt even in Beta stage, seriously what an abomination... I got a beast of a system and it runs crap, crashes, textures bugs, politics what politics ? insane wait times per turn... I wait a few months to the modders can fix this game as the originel is    Extremely disapointed and i see revieuws of this game scoring 9 and 9.5
    Do game revieuwers get payed these days ?

    This game isnt even in Beta stage, seriously what an abomination...

    I got a beast of a system and it runs crap, crashes, textures bugs, politics what politics ?
    insane wait times per turn...

    I wait a few months to the modders can fix this game as the originel is just to bad to play.    … Expand
  74. Raye
    Sep 4, 2013
    3
    I've played Total War for over 10 years now and I can honestly say that this release is just as bad as Empire, if not worse. They have slowly taken the winning formula for Total War and dumbed it down for the masses. 'Casual gamers', the console and phone game generation have been the downfall of many a great PC game series. From top to bottom this game is purely sacrilegious to any TotalI've played Total War for over 10 years now and I can honestly say that this release is just as bad as Empire, if not worse. They have slowly taken the winning formula for Total War and dumbed it down for the masses. 'Casual gamers', the console and phone game generation have been the downfall of many a great PC game series. From top to bottom this game is purely sacrilegious to any Total War fan who values depth and tactical battles. They have taken away all of our control and implemented gimmicks to please the casual gamer. I will provide some insight into the fundamental flaws at the core of the games design rather than elaborate on the myriad of optimization problems and bugs the game suffers from at this time.

    GAMEPLAY:
    A huge number of features that were available even in Total War: Rome are missing both conceptually and mechanically. I will try and break down the problems point by point as they relate to gameplay.

    -No family tree.

    -No 'Loose' or 'Tight' generic formation commands. Can't spread to avoid enemy fire?!

    -No 'Guard' command, your units cannot be instructed to maintain their position and formation at all costs.Even the most disciplined melee troops devolve into a blob during melee combat.

    -You cannot toggle fire at will on infantry with javelins, they only fire when they charge. Some unfortunate tactical consequences are that they cannot throw javelins to break an enemy charge and then receive the broken charge, they cannot fire on skirmishers and cavalry harassing them, and if you move reserves to reinforce a battle line they will AUTOMATICALLY throw their javelins into the backs of your own men who are already engaged. WTF CA?

    -Troops have inappropriate context based behavior or a complete lack thereof. IE. They will stand in position and take arrows to the face from archers ten feet away (as if instructed to guard, but still lose unit cohesion in melee) and will not chase routing enemies. During a melee blob if a unit of men destroy their immediate foe (target) they will not engage nearby enemies. They will stand there watching their comrades get hacked apart five feet away.

    -Auto run breaks unit cohesion.

    -BATTLES ARE WAY TOO FAST! The battles last a few minutes generally. You spend three minutes walking to the enemy force. Your lines meet and devolve into a chaotic blob and the melee is typically over in about 30-50 seconds as one side routes. If you were inclined to flank the blob you typically don't even have time to move a single flanking unit around into position before the melee is decided. You're far better served simply committing the unit into the blob of doom right away and spamming the 'magic' combat buffs/abilities your men have. Speaking of..

    -MAGIC COMBAT ABILITIES! You can hit a button and suddenly your men charge with more force than usual or you can magically remove all fatigue? Get your voodoo out of my Total War. Abilities should have a justifiable function that makes sense.

    -Units run entirely too fast, especially with tactical map speed buffs on roads for certain units and while charging. I would seriously estimate that your men can charge at nearly 30mph.. Again, wtf?

    -Diplomacy has improved so far as the campaign AI actually interacting with you in ways beyond declaring war but it is almost always on their terms. If you prefer passive diplomacy you wont notice the problem but if you want to proactively cultivate an environment of success with your neighbors you will fail. The AI refuses to accept logical treaties of any kind without bribes, very unfortunate.

    -Magic boats appear when you move an army into the ocean... Magic.... Boats.... These transport ships are free and can be used to great effect in naval battles. Building and maintaining an incredibly expensive navy is rendered void of strategic value and ineffective. You can recruit a bunch of militia and march them into the sea and ram your enemies navy to death without much difficulty. Horrid.

    -The campaign AI is atrocious even on the highest difficulty setting. The AI nations will maintain small armies and play passively. If they do field large armies the majority of the time they will consist of almost all slingers or other skirmishers. This causes most battles to involve a 10 second melee blob of doom then 10 minutes of you chasing down skirmishers at random. Epic disciplined and mechanized meat grinding battles? I bought the wrong game.

    -Unit size is locked. Why do I have smaller unit sizes than the original decade old game?

    -One turn per year. Good luck utilizing the fresh general development ideas cause all your generals will die of old age very quickly assuming they survive even one blob of death thanks to the extremely high kill rates.

    -The UI is beyond inconvenient. It is a mess of sub menus and obscure iconography. You play the game through a figurative maze, not a streamlined UI for 2013.

    -The awesome in game encyclopedia of the legacy Total War games? Still gone.    … Expand
  75. conantbh
    Sep 8, 2013
    0
    This game was rushed. Abysmal optimisation, cardboard IA, first grader UI, broken replays, and totally lack of features such guard mode, chat lobby, multypler modes, family tree etc. We are lacking at least 6 to 12 months in development.
  76. MrPedantic
    Sep 10, 2013
    2
    Cons: Game-breaking bugs. AI terrible. UI unintuitive & weird. Battles supremely disappointing. Alt-tab seizure-inducing.
    Pros: Graphics better. Prologue decent
    DO NOT BUY. The game gets worse the more you play it. The Prologue is a nice start. I liked the way it walks you through most of what you need to know for the Campaign. However, even here there were glimpses of    Cons: Game-breaking bugs. AI terrible. UI unintuitive & weird. Battles supremely disappointing. Alt-tab seizure-inducing.
    Pros: Graphics better. Prologue decent

    DO NOT BUY.

    The game gets worse the more you play it. The Prologue is a nice start. I liked the way it walks you through most of what you need to know for the Campaign. However, even here there were glimpses of trouble. I gave up after bugs prevented me from finishing the Prologue 2 times. The thing with the Prologue is that you can't finish a turn unless you finish the objective they identify, and sometimes a bug prevents you from fulfilling the objective until the next turn...yeah.

    Then you get to the Campaign, and the bugs just multiply like, well...bugs. Even the proper "features" that were supposed to be newly-added into the game are terrible, almost to a fault. Battle objectives suck, and are totally irrelevant to any kind of strategy and yet can still decide the outcome of battles. Agents are arbitrarily grouped into 3 for no real reason that I can comprehend. The game's encyclopaedia is slow, not really informative, and if the game had been done properly, almost entirely unnecessary anyway. I could keep going, about the AI, the UI, the performance issues, the interaction between armies and navies, the interaction between embarked armies and the coastline, the graphical glitches, the collision errors, and so on. Turns take several minutes (due to 117 in-game factions), random frame hangs will occur for no apparent reason, and

    One particular category of failure that should be mentioned is with regard to cinematics. The intro movie is low-res, low-texture, low-polygon, and feels like low-setting gameplay rather than a beautiful, inspiring pre-rendered piece of art designed as a fitting intro to a wonderful game. Though I guess in its current state it sort of fits. In-game, cinematics are almost completely lacking. As opposed to the original RTW, where cinematics were in every construction card, and Shogun 2, where agents got beautiful, varied cinematics depicting their actions, the only cinematics I have seen thus far have been for family deaths. Even here, it is hugely disappointing. The cinematic is a short clip, maybe 10 seconds long, with no sound and having almost no meaningful content whatsoever.

    I'm giving this a 2/10 because despite its flaws, it has SOME redeeming qualities. The graphics are decent (not spectacular, but decent), the campaign map is far more reflective of reality, the cinematic view, so far as I've used it, seems a welcome and interesting addition, and at least it has few of the bugs in the original Rome: Total War. Unfortunately, they seem to have been replaced with a completely different, much more debilitating set of new bugs.    … Expand
  77. graduation
    Sep 6, 2013
    0
    They released the first patch and that made things a lot more worse. Shame on you CA, shame on your heads.
    I mean you cant be serious... Red Skies? WTF
  78. Krakenzzz
    Sep 5, 2013
    0
    60 bucks? For the copy of this? Really? Terrible performance, insane battle speed, it feels even faster than in Shogun2, same casual-oriented primitive campaign, now with a new CA`s top decision as ridiculous 1 turn 1 year. Crappy dlc politics, with cutted greek states, expect a of others. Thats the first impressions.
  79. happpening
    Sep 6, 2013
    2
    I was really looking forwards to this game and it has been extremely disappointing. For a start, the graphics are shocking. The very vast majority of users are going to have to play on low and even on extreme is looks absolutely nothing like advertised. The vegetation isn't even finished, it is still in alpha. The UI is far too big and confusing. Unit AI is absolutely shocking. There areI was really looking forwards to this game and it has been extremely disappointing. For a start, the graphics are shocking. The very vast majority of users are going to have to play on low and even on extreme is looks absolutely nothing like advertised. The vegetation isn't even finished, it is still in alpha. The UI is far too big and confusing. Unit AI is absolutely shocking. There are bugs everywhere.
    Do not buy this game until these issues are addressed, it is not worth the time or effort.    … Expand
  80. crokotay857
    Sep 6, 2013
    5
    Not worth buying. I don't know why but this game bore me so much. Removed family tree and adding army cap was a bad move in my opinion. I think they really need to make patch fast. Graphics and UI look much worse than Shogun 2 and that piss me off too.
  81. califfo93
    Sep 5, 2013
    1
    for ITALIAN users, and even the SPANISH ones: SEGA or CREATIVE ASSEMBLY have cheated us by writing on the packaging and on STEAM (except the change made on September 3 after its release) that the game would be "COMPLETELY IN ITALIAN" or "FULLY iN SPANISH "in breach of Article 20 of Legislative Decree 206/2005 which speaks of false advertising that is" any advertising which in any way,for ITALIAN users, and even the SPANISH ones: SEGA or CREATIVE ASSEMBLY have cheated us by writing on the packaging and on STEAM (except the change made on September 3 after its release) that the game would be "COMPLETELY IN ITALIAN" or "FULLY iN SPANISH "in breach of Article 20 of Legislative Decree 206/2005 which speaks of false advertising that is" any advertising which in any way, including its presentation, is likely to mislead the natural or legal persons to whom it is addressed or whom it reaches and which, because of its deceptive nature, is likely to affect their economic behavior or which, for this reason, it is likely to injure a competitor so if CA will not solve the issue, it will be resolved by a judge.… Expand
  82. abic007
    Sep 4, 2013
    7
    The fail of Rome: A strategic map without strategy... A tactical mode without tactics

    Skip it. Shogun II is better in every respect, as are several mods for the original Rome: Total War.

    Very bad strategy game!
  83. sergez
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    Fails of the Year 2013.
    What a disappointment, I really have nothing good to say. Worst game design. Looks worse than Shogun 2.
    Horrible UI, AI, textures, unit cards.
    Patches will not help.
    Poor game.
  84. 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.
  85. ers
    Sep 6, 2013
    0
    Great series of games turned into casual wear for school children. Do not be surprised if the next game will be released on consoles. This is not a strategy, it is not total war
  86. bilwit
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    Terrible game. Two steps backwards for the Total War franchise. In Shogun 2, the clans/matchmaking/map persistence/veteran units actually provided a modern framework that brought Total War into the competitive multiplayer gaming scene. They have since completely removed it and brought it back to 1998 lobby-only style. The reasoning behind this is that CA is currently working on a F2P gameTerrible game. Two steps backwards for the Total War franchise. In Shogun 2, the clans/matchmaking/map persistence/veteran units actually provided a modern framework that brought Total War into the competitive multiplayer gaming scene. They have since completely removed it and brought it back to 1998 lobby-only style. The reasoning behind this is that CA is currently working on a F2P game that's almost nothing like actual TW battles. Does this make any sense to anyone? I want to play TW battles in a meaningful and dynamic way which was teased with the Shogun 2 system, not some TW/MOBA hybrid. Also, the graphics are really, really bad even with everything set to "extreme." Anti-Aliasing doesn't even work at all which is extremely apparent in battles.… Expand
  87. hardingman
    Sep 12, 2013
    5
    Awful UI, systems explained incredibly badly, multiplayer is unplayable. AWFUL FPS, and the AI is beyond broken. Thank god the time period and epicness of the campaign can carry it off. JUST
  88. cyclopus
    Sep 4, 2013
    1
    Yesterday I spent damn five hours trying to finish prologue. It crashed like 30 times. This game is one huge bug.

    Don't buy it people. It is not worth current price.
  89. clarkethepigeon
    Sep 7, 2013
    1
    Having had this game since release I have only been able to clock up around 5 hours of play time according to Steam (and I suspect much of this has been time spent fiddling in options menus in an attempt to make the game playable). In this time I have established several things:

    Firstly, the graphics are absolutely jaw-droppingly awful. If you haven't seen the regiments of low-res    Having had this game since release I have only been able to clock up around 5 hours of play time according to Steam (and I suspect much of this has been time spent fiddling in options menus in an attempt to make the game playable). In this time I have established several things:

    Firstly, the graphics are absolutely jaw-droppingly awful. If you haven't seen the regiments of low-res potatoes in the game's community hub on steam then I suggest that you do so before you even considering purchasing this game. I don't know how it managed it, but I'm convinced that Medieval 2 looked better than this, let alone Empire or Shogun. The game is horribly optimised and only seems to recognise one of the cores in my processor, leading to extremely high temperatures and an unbearable amount of fan noise, and though my machine is a good deal more powerful than it needs to be to run Rome 2 at a high level the game lags horribly even in the campaign map. Bizarrely, the actual battles tend to run more smoothly though it tends to descend to a conflict between a few hundred sprites on glitchy black patches of terrain before long. In the graphics and presentation stakes, then, Rome 2 gets an absolute panning.

    Secondly, the actual meat of the game is simplistic and fails to engage the interest of the player. Campaign decisions are far inferior to previous iterations of the franchise and the sense of developing one's own cities has been removed with the strange decision to massively simplify the whole process. The fact that there are so many tiny factions plays havoc with diplomacy (the faction lists are just too long to sift through and relationships with neighbouring states will tend to be short) especially given that they persist even when they don't own any cities (armies belonging to a faction without any territory still count as a faction) which leaves the campaign map cluttered and frustrating, especially since the number of armies that the player controls is capped; you will spend a great deal of time simply chasing these around your territory.

    Another major problem with the campaign is the lack of focus on naval warfare (it simply isn't worth it) and the fact that you will find yourself autoresolving battles a good 90% of the time. In one campaign as Athens I conquered the entirety of Greece and Turkey without once having any kind of evenly matched pitched battle before becoming bored and giving up. There is nothing about the campaign that is compelling.

    Lastly, the AI is appalling in both the tactical and strategic portions of the game. Battles are easily won against overwhelming odds in the tactical sphere (all custom battles since the campaign gives very few opportunities for this) due to poor decision making and incredible gullibility on the part of AI generals (ok, its a Total War game; I didn't expect any less) and this cheapens any kind of strategic planning that you might employ in the campaign. Worse, from the strategic standpoint the AI does crazy things like retreating its army stacks away from its last city as my army approached (allowing me to easily capture the city with no resistance and to then confront the remnants one by one), or simply walking away from the contested area completely and not even attempting to put up a fight. This completely kills any kind of immersion you might have in the game when combined with the graphics and framerate issues that so many people are experiencing.

    For its broad ambition being its only redeeming feature, I give this game a 1.    … Expand
  90. Legion_ix
    Sep 4, 2013
    5
    Some reviews criticizing the AI very harshly dampen my hopes seriously. But after the very well made tutorial, where it was possible to see that the AI is still not good (like in every Total War game, maybe except Medieval 1), but by far not such a catastrophe as it was described in couple of reviews. So confidently I went to the main campaign. Now some hours of playing later, I have toSome reviews criticizing the AI very harshly dampen my hopes seriously. But after the very well made tutorial, where it was possible to see that the AI is still not good (like in every Total War game, maybe except Medieval 1), but by far not such a catastrophe as it was described in couple of reviews. So confidently I went to the main campaign. Now some hours of playing later, I have to admit Rome 2 is a huge disappointment it feels unfinished, confusing and counterintuitive, castrated and yet overcomplicated, and yes, boring most of the time. The reason for this is not the AI. Rome 1 managed to create a much more enjoyable gameplay with even a worse AI.

    Not finished

    Sadly in current status the game is on the late beta level. For sure it is better than by some other games published in early beta or even nearly in alpha but still it is not polished, not even finished. There is a massive amount of things that are simply not done or not done properly.

    Sadly there are tons of other minor or major undone or badly done things in this game. It is clearly that some months in development would improve the game hugely. For such an established company like CA you can expect a finished, polished product. Especially after the experience that they had with Empire.

    Music

    The soundtrack in Rome 1 was one of the things that supported the atmosphere massively. Without it would be a different game. It included some slow, relaxing but also fast, aggressive tracks. In Rome II there is barely any music and if you hear something it is just some tu-tu-tu in quasi ancient style that don’t create any immersion. In De Bello Mundi you get shivers by listening to the Gladiator main theme on the campaign map or a great feeling of an epic battle by listening to Conan theme. In Rome 2 you only get sleepy and bored instead.

    Click orgy

    Why to make things easier when it is possible to make them complicated? In other TW games you send the agent to the province and let him do his job. Intuitive and easy. In Rome 2 you have to click every time when she arrived in the new province. If you forget to click on the icon, well your problem. The agent won’t do anything.

    You want to make a new trade agreement? Then go to one of the both icons (click!), go to the faction symbol (click!), go to the agreement button (click!), go to the trade agreement (click!), go to send (click!), your counterpart sign it or refuses go to the accept button (click!), go to the button to stop the negotiations (click!). Congratulations you signed your first trade agreement! Just kidding, in most cases you don’t. So please go on to another faction and make click, click, click. And don’t worry now there are so many factions you can spend half an hour to sign couple of agreements and make hudreds of click, click, click besides.

    After some hours of click, click, click I was very excited by the glorious work CA did here. I’m confident a bit of more click, click, click would improve the gameplay even more.

    Road to win: “Cancel good feature and make the existing more complicated”

    It is impossible to explain why CA cut such important for the atmosphere and easy to implement features like family tree or wide building management. But it is even worse. Some of the features are now without any reason overcomplicated but not necessary better.

    UI Uber Interface

    I have to admit that I hated (and still hate) the unit icons and also don’t like the buildings icon. However the new UI approach looked good and I seriously thought it could be a good improvement for the gameplay. Unfortunately it’s not, it’s a catastrophe. And unlike most of the things mentioned above it won’t be completely fixed, since it is unlikely that CA will redone the UI completely.

    There are two problems with it.
    First. It is confusing and counterintuitive. Some things are on different places instead to be combined, or the structure doesn’t make any sense, or the icons are sometimes too large but in important to small, or is it just not logical at all.

    Second problem is the coexistence of such an UI with the Total War gameThe design, all these non saying criptical pictures and the information that are not visible on the “right” place but somewhere besides are out of place. You never get the feeling to play a game about ancient times. To create an empire, to build it up, to manage it, care for your characters and command your armies. The whole time you just clicking some pictures. A very, very big fail. I have to appreciate now modern UI and a historical game are just things that don’t match. At least not in this way done in Rome II.

    Conclusion

    I’m a bit angry but also very, very sad what happened with Rome II because I had such an expectation for it and especially shortly before the release very optimistic about the result. For sure it will be better through patches and mods, though due to some fundamental reasons even with that won’t be a game that a lot of us expected.    … Expand
  91. Fumes
    Sep 10, 2013
    2
    I have been a fan of the Total War series since the original Shogun. Every game have had its share of problems (AI problems being at the forefront) at launch, but they were salvageable through patching and modding. Rome II however is such a huge step-back on pretty much everything except scale and graphics that I have little hope of seeing this game ever measuring up to any of the previousI have been a fan of the Total War series since the original Shogun. Every game have had its share of problems (AI problems being at the forefront) at launch, but they were salvageable through patching and modding. Rome II however is such a huge step-back on pretty much everything except scale and graphics that I have little hope of seeing this game ever measuring up to any of the previous titles. In fact I would prefer to play the original modded Rome. The game is essentially a beta to the shame of CA and Sega. I will not be buying any more Total War games on release.… Expand
  92. Kadaeux
    Sep 6, 2013
    0
    Thank god I played this at a friends rather than buy it right away. tedious to the point of boredom mid-late game. 30 60 second turns followed by 5 minute AI turns. AI is terrible in every way. CA hit the nail on the head with the provincial and building system, but EVERYTHING else is just wrong. The 'faction' system for the Romans is something you can nearly ignore completely and itThank god I played this at a friends rather than buy it right away. tedious to the point of boredom mid-late game. 30 60 second turns followed by 5 minute AI turns. AI is terrible in every way. CA hit the nail on the head with the provincial and building system, but EVERYTHING else is just wrong. The 'faction' system for the Romans is something you can nearly ignore completely and it won't affect your game in the slightest. There was no point where I had to do anything with the diplomacy system other than declare war on small neighbors, rinse and repeat. There were no big enemy alliances to stunt my growth. It was a slow, boring, monotonous game. A long wait for this game, and a large disappointment.… Expand
  93. nikaianik
    Sep 3, 2013
    0
    Broken AI.
    Horrible Ui.
    Poorly optimized.
    Huge random FPS drops even in strong rigs.
    Confusing unit cards.
    Cap on armies and generals.
    One year per turn and only one season.
    One major step back from Shogun 2 in general.

    Stay away from this game until major patches and mods fix the game and wait for a demo
  94. Tytos
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    As a player of the TW series since Shogun1, here is my opinion.

    The good: - beautiful campaign map - nice soundtrack - lots of factions (though only a few playable) - smarter AI (still not smart enough) The bad: - no balance at all - battles are over in 3-5 minutes - no bit of realism whatsoever - very poor optimization - Multiplayer minimalized compared to Shogun2 -    As a player of the TW series since Shogun1, here is my opinion.

    The good:
    - beautiful campaign map
    - nice soundtrack
    - lots of factions (though only a few playable)
    - smarter AI (still not smart enough)

    The bad:
    - no balance at all
    - battles are over in 3-5 minutes
    - no bit of realism whatsoever
    - very poor optimization
    - Multiplayer minimalized compared to Shogun2
    - Interface
    - Drop hacking in MP still an issue
    - bugs/glitches
    - very hard to mod
    - turn timers

    Overall the worst TW release so far, this tops even the Empire TW disaster.    … Expand
  95. Selcer
    Sep 5, 2013
    0
    I want to start out with: This game works fine on my system. The sad fact is they took my favorite title in the franchise and turned it into a shambling patchwork abomination of bad ideas. They have added nothing to the original franchise. They have only stripped everything great about a total war series game and replaced it with a game that looks like it could be played on facebook inI want to start out with: This game works fine on my system. The sad fact is they took my favorite title in the franchise and turned it into a shambling patchwork abomination of bad ideas. They have added nothing to the original franchise. They have only stripped everything great about a total war series game and replaced it with a game that looks like it could be played on facebook in flash or a web browser.

    Without going into major detail the game has been simplified into basically a really bad RTS game. No longer will you weight the consequences of capturing a settlement with a lacking economy or raiding outlying buildings of your neighbor. Everything has been lumped together and simplified without any thought to the imbalances between factions this could cause. The battles themselves (which is all you'll be doing) end up as a blob of troops fighting where the opposition breaks and runs early regardless of odds. And like running your enemies down for xp afterwards? Hope you enjoy scanning the map for each individual troop because there is no mini map. I could go on and on but I will sum it up as this:

    Even when this game works flawlessly (which it doesnt for many), it is still an incredibly simple and boring game lacking all the details that makes a total war game unique.

    This game is a crime against nature only to be enjoyed by 12 year olds on their parents ipads.    … Expand
  96. Fedozzo
    Sep 10, 2013
    0
    This game is commercial garbage.
    Unplayable, graphics and gameplay simplified, arcadized and NO tactic at all.
    Capture point? WTF is this, a hsitorical strategy serious game or a arcade-console-casual game?
    It's pure it's the worst abort I everseen in my gaming life, is the biggest delusion of the year.
    DON'T BUY THIS ALPHA-ARCADE-PIECEOF**** and install Rome I.
  97. 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
  98. ConorEngelb
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    Rome 2 is a dumbed down version of Rome 1. The UI is a mess and the whole game feels gawky to me. Sure the graphics are nicer but I prefer original Rome gameplay.
  99. jkaiser
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    Terrible not even playable, i get 4 FPS and i was able to run shogun on ultra. The game badly needs optimizing and the limitations on armies is stupid and a step backwards for the franchise
  100. JoshW
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    I've played it for 8 hours before uninstalling it but I really tried to like the game. It should be called Total Wait: Rome II... Seriously, ending turns takes somewhere between 30 seconds to 2 minutes. Terrible AI, boring gameplay. It's got nothing to do with Shogun 2. I've actually played all games, since the original Shogun and it felt like Activision bought this franchise (BlizzardI've played it for 8 hours before uninstalling it but I really tried to like the game. It should be called Total Wait: Rome II... Seriously, ending turns takes somewhere between 30 seconds to 2 minutes. Terrible AI, boring gameplay. It's got nothing to do with Shogun 2. I've actually played all games, since the original Shogun and it felt like Activision bought this franchise (Blizzard someone?). This game has disappointed me as much as Diablo 3 did. Total Waste of 60 bucks...… Expand
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 »