Total War: Rome II

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

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 3974 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,184 out of 3974
  2. Mixed: 613 out of 3974
  3. Negative: 2,177 out of 3974
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  1. FightingSlug
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    I give this a zero because right now this game is unplayable for me. I Have 3 HD 7970's and an I5-4670K processor and my frame rates are in the 20's with huge drops and there are major graphics issues. I have spent several hours trying different fixes and no success. I will update once the game becomes playable.
  2. sonnet
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    Hugely disappointed: other than the various bugs and poor performance, what's really disarming is the AI.
    Worst AI ever seen in a TW game. I can hardly imagine CA fixing that.
    Money totally wasted
  3. Hector
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    The game won't even launch on PCs. A huge step down from the first game Total War: Rome regarding user-interface, computer A.I., campaign length and graphics even!!!
  4. El_ZardoZ
    Sep 4, 2013
    3
    This is beta!!! Don't pay for being a beta-tester for CA Anyway if you are real fan of Total War series I seriously doubt that you will enjoy it even after debugging.
  5. thenewking
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    I was so exited to play this game for ages and its a serious let down for me.
    The visuals and graphics are very nice but that's about it.
    I hate the whole new campaign system its simply horrible and not enjoyable, it feels like your not apart of the game. Everything i love about the whole building your empire is gone, you cant see the buildings in the menu as they have been changed to    I was so exited to play this game for ages and its a serious let down for me.
    The visuals and graphics are very nice but that's about it.

    I hate the whole new campaign system its simply horrible and not enjoyable, it feels like your not apart of the game.
    Everything i love about the whole building your empire is gone, you cant see the buildings in the menu as they have been changed to awful avatars/icon cards along with the troops. Why make a massive change like this when it was perfect? was it because CA couldn't be bothered to create detailed buildings and unit cards.

    Battles are just way to fast its like playing c&c you can not even enjoy a battle and watch your men fight like the good old days as its just to fast paced.

    Overall of a game i was expecting to brilliant and Rome 2 compared to the other Total War games.

    if its not broke do not change it!
    This is by far the worst Total War game to date!    … Expand
  6. qurkad
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    A real step backwards in gameplay compared to Shogun 2. The new features do not compensate for what was lost from the old game. It seems that CA wanted to sell this game to casual public.

    Whats with all the bugs? i loaded everything, downloaded the steam account like it said, downloaded all of the necessary updates. I have all of the system requirements, but game lags and crashes.    A real step backwards in gameplay compared to Shogun 2. The new features do not compensate for what was lost from the old game. It seems that CA wanted to sell this game to casual public.

    Whats with all the bugs? i loaded everything, downloaded the steam account like it said, downloaded all of the necessary updates. I have all of the system requirements, but game lags and crashes.

    Biggest disappointment of 2013 for me. Total Mess    … Expand
  7. vodafak
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    Terrible performance issues, looks worse then Rise/Fall of the Samurai, crashes, quite a lot of bugs. Land battles are too fast, almost pointless, while naval battles are terrible. AI is terrible, even user interface is one of the worst I've ever seen. Waiting for AI turn to finish takes forever. There are bunch of balance issues as well...etc.
    I don't think they got one thing right with    Terrible performance issues, looks worse then Rise/Fall of the Samurai, crashes, quite a lot of bugs. Land battles are too fast, almost pointless, while naval battles are terrible. AI is terrible, even user interface is one of the worst I've ever seen. Waiting for AI turn to finish takes forever. There are bunch of balance issues as well...etc.
    I don't think they got one thing right with this game. It's a failure of epic proportions.
    Worst of all, CA clearly lied about the performance requirements and I can't even get a refund on Steam.    … Expand
  8. pepevlad
    Sep 7, 2013
    0
    Yeah not very good. Missing the best part of online from shogun 2 and its very buggy/boring. The battles also last little over 5 minutes due to the AI doing nothing but rushing in a mob or sitting there waiting to die.
  9. kytsata
    Sep 15, 2013
    0
    Sadly this game was a failure. Do not buy until it gets patched in a year. Ya it's really bad. Do not buy. Don't buy it becaues it's really bad. I hate it.
  10. jhonjoyojnohjn
    Sep 4, 2013
    2
    I'm a huge fan of the whole series and this is an inexplicably dismal entry. My rating is relative to Shogun 2, which for me is one of the best games I've played: polished, balanced, stylish, engaging on several levels, huge without being bloated and these are all qualities which appear to have been entirely gutted from the latest instalment. I'd be willing to forgive a large number ofI'm a huge fan of the whole series and this is an inexplicably dismal entry. My rating is relative to Shogun 2, which for me is one of the best games I've played: polished, balanced, stylish, engaging on several levels, huge without being bloated and these are all qualities which appear to have been entirely gutted from the latest instalment. I'd be willing to forgive a large number of bugs, but clearly, there have also been some very bad design decisions in there. Really awful, confusing UI in places; woeful AI (maybe that's not entirely new); player decisions just don't seem important on the strategic map; un-tactical, boring battles. Maybe these things are exacerbated by each other and could be improved individually, but my overall impression is that it's just fundamentally uninteresting and unbalanced on top of being an extremely sloppy release. As a new game out of the blue, maybe this would pass for a 5 or 6, but the benchmark has been set high and this falls very short of it. Very disappointing.… Expand
  11. JohnDeer
    Sep 7, 2013
    1
    I played this game for almost 25 hours so far. I could not play longer. This game has many issues. I am not talking about performance issues, surprisingly I did not have many. I am talking about flowed gameplay issues terrible AI, Victory Points which kill all tactics in the battle, lack of family tree, 3-5 minutes waiting for turns etc. i don't know if this can be fixed in futureI played this game for almost 25 hours so far. I could not play longer. This game has many issues. I am not talking about performance issues, surprisingly I did not have many. I am talking about flowed gameplay issues terrible AI, Victory Points which kill all tactics in the battle, lack of family tree, 3-5 minutes waiting for turns etc. i don't know if this can be fixed in future patches, I hope so, but for now this game will go to shelf for a few months.… Expand
  12. Classical
    Sep 7, 2013
    0
    Claps to the devs you just made a abomination thats called Rome 2
    now you can go walk hand in hand with EA and such
    hope you like the money you got from it
    and thanks for letting down True Total War Fans
  13. IgnasPrzybylski
    Sep 9, 2013
    6
    My first impression was great gameplay and awful optimalisation. I ran Shogun 2 on very high settings without a problem and it was really pretty, while in Rome 2 my good old 448-bit GTX 260 had terrible issues because it cannot support dx 11. I was shocked, first TW games looked way better than what I saw. Got a rather cheap new GTX and the performance is good, I have no more problems withMy first impression was great gameplay and awful optimalisation. I ran Shogun 2 on very high settings without a problem and it was really pretty, while in Rome 2 my good old 448-bit GTX 260 had terrible issues because it cannot support dx 11. I was shocked, first TW games looked way better than what I saw. Got a rather cheap new GTX and the performance is good, I have no more problems with it. The poor AI doesn't really bother me that much, I got used to it and sometimes it's cool that I can hold them off with small armies just because they're dumb. Simplified city management... I like it, to me it's much better than management from the previous releases. Simplifying armies wasn't a very good idea though. Recruiting right on the general anywhere in the province is comfortable, but limit of armies sucks, I mean, economy should be the only thing that stops me from having a lot of troops. What I don't like about it is that I can't just split whenever I want. I can't leave some additional units to help city's garrison, they can't stay anywhere without a general now. This is imo the worst thing in the gameplay itself. But ok, it doesn't really make the game bad, garrisons are pretty strong now, at least I don't have to pay all those guards I usually kept in my cities. The most annoying thing would be ending your turn. There's so many minor factions it takes ages to wait for your next turn and it takes even longer when I alt-tab, not to mention that stuff happens, AI may attack me or some diplomatic proposal may appear. Personally I just play piano or write SMS in the meantime. If you don't have anything to do while waiting for your turn you will spend most of the time looking at the silly AI running around several times longer than in previous games. Of course, it's nice that there is a big variety of factions instead of just anonymous rebels like in, say, Medieval 2, but sometimes it's just scary to press "end turn". I thought it took long in Shogun 2, I don't anymore. Technical issues will probably be fixed, but even though my rig is rather mediocre (i3, gtx650ti boost, 12gb ram) it works and looks decently on high settings now. Lack of a nice multiplayer like the one in Shogun 2 disappoints, that's a huge step backwards. I loved almost everything about Shogun 2, except the fact it's set in Japan, which I dislike. I wanted a new TW game with S2's awesomeness set in Europe, but I feel a downgrade. It's still a fun game to play though, the only thing I really want fixed now is BLOOD. I don't care I have to pay for that anymore, I just want it released SOON, not year after I stopped playing the game. I like watching them fight, but without blood it's really dull. At least the "kill captives" and "raze city" options have returned.

    Pros:
    - very comfortable province management
    - great skirmish map choice
    - huge map
    - very pretty gfx and good audio

    Cons:
    - awful technical issues right after release, bad performance
    - no more depth in multiplayer
    - long wait between turns
    - still no blood    … Expand
  14. dizzel679
    Sep 17, 2013
    0
    I am a huge fan of total war series and I pre-ordered this game as soon as it became possible. What can I say after I've tried it? It's horrible! I've payed 54 euros to participate in a beta-test and developers don't even admit that there's something wrong with the game. The AI is not just stupid and not even absent-minded, it's glitchy, buggy, call it whatever you like! Bugs follow meI am a huge fan of total war series and I pre-ordered this game as soon as it became possible. What can I say after I've tried it? It's horrible! I've payed 54 euros to participate in a beta-test and developers don't even admit that there's something wrong with the game. The AI is not just stupid and not even absent-minded, it's glitchy, buggy, call it whatever you like! Bugs follow me everywhere, performance is just poor on a machine which runs Shogun 2 Ultra with around 20 FPS(with antialising and all other stuff maxed out). And while that's going to be patched eventually, the ugly interface and retarded gameplay will remain forever. Very, very dissapointing.… Expand
  15. pansarskott
    Oct 17, 2013
    0
    Yes I will give this game 0 out off 10. Why? This is not a totalwar game, this is a farse...

    I have been playing this franchise seince the beginning and loved it. Yes there have been some ruffspots like the AI and such but the games has allways been playeble and some with patches and the right mods have been fantastic (Rage of Dark Gods) and I'm still playing most Totalwar titels from    Yes I will give this game 0 out off 10. Why? This is not a totalwar game, this is a farse...

    I have been playing this franchise seince the beginning and loved it. Yes there have been some ruffspots like the AI and such but the games has allways been playeble and some with patches and the right mods have been fantastic (Rage of Dark Gods) and I'm still playing most Totalwar titels from time to time.

    Whats different with RTW2 is the false advertising, the stripping of features, the dumbning-down and streamligning, the arcade elements, the hundreds of bugs. The game is still, after 4 patches, unplayeble becuse you get fail-fatige from all the problems this game has.

    Patches is another thing I find disturbing. I have never seen a game getting this many patches so quikly after realese and NEVER a Totalwar game. CA states that: "The game had a troubled realese" Troubled? The game wasent finished!! It would need another six moths atleast.

    My summery is that I will never again pre-order a Totalwar titel, and the risk is that I never buy another of their games if they continue down this path.    … Expand
  16. Tiggers
    Nov 24, 2013
    0
    I'm updating my previous rating.

    After 7 patches in about 11 weeks and 357 hours of play-time, I think I have been patient and understanding. Rome 2 is still *basically* garbage in a single player campaign (I'm referring to the mechanics, not the pretty map), multiplayer is such a HUGE step backwards from Shogun2. (I have played competitively in multiplayer tournaments since Empire,    I'm updating my previous rating.

    After 7 patches in about 11 weeks and 357 hours of play-time, I think I have been patient and understanding.

    Rome 2 is still *basically* garbage in a single player campaign (I'm referring to the mechanics, not the pretty map), multiplayer is such a HUGE step backwards from Shogun2. (I have played competitively in multiplayer tournaments since Empire, so I feel that I can judge this about 60% of my game time has been multiplayer).

    I am actually going to the extreme of deleting this game. I will now have Rome 1, Shogun 1, Medieval, Empire, Napoleon, Shogun 2 on my pc. Rome 2 is off.

    I have also decided *not* to risk buying their brand new Total War Arena... Fool me once. I suggest you consider the same.    … Expand
  17. frestor94
    Feb 4, 2014
    0
    Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,HorribleHorrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible Horrible,Horrible,Horrible,Horrible !!!!!!!!!!!!!… Expand
  18. Goekhan
    Oct 23, 2013
    3
    In short, I call this game a failure in the series, simply because the changes over the previous titles, and the new additions are poorly implemented, and they are not fleshed out enough to make a difference. What I don't understand is, even though they had a bigger budget, and "experience" from the previous titles, accomplishments and mistakes, how have they come up with such a disaster.In short, I call this game a failure in the series, simply because the changes over the previous titles, and the new additions are poorly implemented, and they are not fleshed out enough to make a difference. What I don't understand is, even though they had a bigger budget, and "experience" from the previous titles, accomplishments and mistakes, how have they come up with such a disaster.

    Longer version, the battles play way more faster than any previous title in the series, and mostly it becomes a blob-fest where your orders doesn't matter. This is where you'll notice that nearly all units have an ability, maybe more than one, and this is another example to the bad implementation. You win battles by using to these abilities, rather than a careful planning and execution of the strategy. Which is a shame, as I think many people play this game for its epic battles. Not to mention that the AI is still troubled, and most of the time do stupid stuff.

    Among the new features, now you pick a stance for an army. Why? It felt natural before; if you have slow moving units, your army movement was bound to those units. To move fast, you had to use cavalry-only forces to hit and run, or catch an enemy. To ambush, you had to set up "camp" in forests, and alike. It felt natural, you didn't have to click on anything to "toggle" those stuff. Also, the way the recruitment is done in this game is just retarded. Why change the old ways? Recruit from any city/town, group them up, send them to the general. While it seems logical in Rome; that your general has to stand still, it is not. Game tries to "emulate" the process for you, but it makes so in a stupid way. Shogun II's system was better, recruit at general, and recruits move to general, also can get intercepted. Recruit in towns, group them up and send them to general yourself. Etc...

    Naval combat... I don't like it. The best naval combat was naturally in Empire Napoleon. There, you can execute some strategy. Any other game, where cannons are not involved, it generally ends up in an orgy on some ship, and all other ships around it. Still, combining naval combat with land combat, that's a very good step. However, that thing is bugged aswell, I am unaware if it is fixed but, there are just a few landing points, and when all of them are occupied, all your ships can just watch the rest of the battle.

    City management also suffers. You cannot get a clear picture of what is what that easily, and this IS a big problem. UI has always been one of the weakest points in Total War games in my opinion. Instead of expanding on and improving what they had, they just skimmed the UI heavily, and buried the essentials even deeper. Introduction of bread, and changes to growth, while sounds sensible, takes away a part of the game; town/city development. In Shogun II, if you captured a well developed city that belonged to your enemy, you'd be keeping it intact, because any sacking/razing done would affect the accumulated growth aswell. Now, there is no point, a city is always the same, razing or sacking doesn't change a thing.

    Among other new things, the political system is rudimentary, non-essential at best. It involves a few buttons that are totally unnecessary, and takes up hard-disk space in short. Also, (for Rome and Carthage at least), political system sort-of gets disabled after the major rebellions. As I've said, poorly implemented and not fleshed out fully.

    The performance of the game is on the floor. While I can play Shogun II on extreme, and even Rome II offered me Extreme, it turns out, I can only play it at low-medium. Just unbelievable.

    I can go on. But among this many negative reviews, I think you get the point already.    … Expand
  19. athropos
    Sep 4, 2013
    5
    Horrendous performance problems on high end systems plague an otherwise average total war game.

    Running this game on:
    i7-3770k
    GTX 680 SLI
    16 gigs of ram

    There is no SLI support as of yet and performance is abysmal. There might be a good game under there but in it's current excessively rushed state this game cannot get anything over a 6/10.
  20. IICRASHII
    Sep 4, 2013
    5
    crash crash crash all what i get i have coreI7 2700K 3.5GHz stock 16GB rams, Radeon HD6870 1GB and i run everything on medium and high no antialiasing no ssao and game crash alot in campaign
  21. PublicEnemy
    Sep 4, 2013
    5
    Needs a lot of bug fixing and graphical performance improvements. All CA releases are shaky, and that is fine, but after so many titles CA did not learn from their mistakes.
  22. lesith006
    Nov 19, 2013
    3
    No cut-scenes ,
    no family tree or a working politic system ,
    too modern UI feel more like supreme commander than Rome total war ), battle too arcade like just take a group of the best units and right clicks like if you were playing diablo WIN ), stupid BAI and CAI with many path-finding problems both on the campaign map and in battles, even the music is not appealing and not    No cut-scenes ,
    no family tree or a working politic system ,
    too modern UI feel more like supreme commander than Rome total war ),
    battle too arcade like just take a group of the best units and right clicks like if you were playing diablo WIN ),
    stupid BAI and CAI with many path-finding problems both on the campaign map and in battles,
    even the music is not appealing and not culture specific rome as the same music as the averni or parthia )
    Generals pop up from no where and you have difficulties to recognize them as the portraits diversity is really poor !

    Well, to sum up still a Total failure patch 7     … Expand
  23. fishplease
    Sep 14, 2013
    1
    Granted, large PC releases usually have a "breaking in" period where the teething troubles are ironed out it's difficult to test every aspect of a game this large without delaying the release by a year and some launch issues are always to be expected. This, however, is too much. To release a game which is at best unoptimised, at worst unplayable and in all cases unfinished to pre-orderingGranted, large PC releases usually have a "breaking in" period where the teething troubles are ironed out it's difficult to test every aspect of a game this large without delaying the release by a year and some launch issues are always to be expected. This, however, is too much. To release a game which is at best unoptimised, at worst unplayable and in all cases unfinished to pre-ordering customers (the franchise's most loyal fans) is disgraceful, especially considering that the finished article will be available at knock-down price in a few months. You could fool me into thinking that this is a beta version intended to work out all the bugs in preparation for a more lucrative console version of the game.

    Even disregarding the game's complete unplayability for all but a handful of users, Rome II feels dumbed-down in comparison to previous releases and is obviously intended for a console port at a later date. Land battles often take longer to load than they do to fight, and the implementation of "victory points" (capture the flag) in field battles is a monumental which ruins what should be the best part of the game. Unit special abilities, originally limited to the general's ability to rally his troops, have now been extended to the point that every unit has two or three the micromanagement of abilities in battle is nigh-impossible and their very inclusion adds to the impression that the game is being groomed for a console release. Infantry moves too fast and even the most disciplined units (legionnaires, hoplites etc.) break formation as soon as contact with the enemy is made. The guard mode button has been removed, meaning that units will chase after any enemy they rout regardless of the tactical situation. I can't comment on siege battles as the game freezes every time I attempt one. The unit cards deserve a special mention they all look like Roman frescoes, which adds a bit of authenticity but falls flat on its face when you realise that they all look the same. Confusing your levy spearmen with your crack assault troops in the (brief) heat of battle is not an infrequent occurrence.

    Naval battles are woeful. Armies can now move over the sea, spawning transports when they do so. These transports are stronger than most dedicated naval vessels (since they hold about three times as many troops each) making the maintenance of large fleets futile. Even when two large fleets meet there is little by way of tactical finesse involved simply point each ship in the direction of an enemy and hope for the best. Ships seem to randomly rout regardless of their circumstances, and naval combat is over as quickly as land combat.

    The campaign has moved backward. Character attributes are never explained (except by looking them up in the clunky in-game encyclopaedia). The politics system is never explained in tutorials. Agents all seem to do the same thing. The character development system, which was pretty good in Shogun 2, is redundant now that generals' life expectancies are typically 20-30 turns. Limiting factions to a certain number of armies depending on their size prevents the strategic distribution of forces on the campaign map you can't, for example, take a settlement with a full army and leave a few units behind to defend it while you move on to the next one. Once you capture a settlement, constructing buildings of any type is difficult when every building seems to reduce public order. "The peasants are revolting because you've built a new shield-maker!" Seriously?

    I won't go in to how bad the campaign AI is, but suffice it to say that I played through an entire campaign and was not attacked once. Not once.

    All that said, my biggest irritation with RTWII is not the game itself but the reviews. It is abundantly clear that none of the critics giving this game 80%+ have actually played it. "Plays smooth" really? Have these critics been paid off? Is that where CA's testing budget went? Only a couple (notably the Guardian here in the UK) have had the bottle to tell it like it is. I hope this debacle gives CA a bloody nose and makes them reconsider making their foray into the dumbed-down console market at the expense of the loyal players who got them where they are in the first place.

    The graphics are very pretty though.    … Expand
  24. wzhou34
    Sep 21, 2013
    0
    Confusing building tree
    Confusing tech tree
    Long AI turns
    Poor optimization

    Worst thing is, armies auto build ships when they touch water. It is absurdly easy to attack a city over water, defeating all strategy about choke points and such. The Mediterranean is blue land!

    Uninstalled after 5 hours
  25. Ccoreli
    Sep 21, 2013
    0
    I was extremely excited for this game. Literally hundreds of hours on Rome Total War. Thing i loved most about RTW was that cavalry could actually be used as SHOCK troops. Their charge could smash light infantry aside and seriously hurt heavy infantry. In RTW 2, cavalry are next to useless. They stop on contact, don't smash through units, and have no moral effects. If 900 horseman areI was extremely excited for this game. Literally hundreds of hours on Rome Total War. Thing i loved most about RTW was that cavalry could actually be used as SHOCK troops. Their charge could smash light infantry aside and seriously hurt heavy infantry. In RTW 2, cavalry are next to useless. They stop on contact, don't smash through units, and have no moral effects. If 900 horseman are charging at a line of infantry, something other than a huge blob of crappy melee units attacking good melee units should happen. Also, cavalry are made even more useless by the fact that i have yet to engage an enemy army in the field (38 turns in). Every single fight is when I'm besieging an enemy city. And these assassins? Two assassins and a champion can reduce a defending force of 3000 down to 1200. How is that at all in any way fair or possible?
    Broken AI
    Broken combat
    Broken UI
    Broken campaign map
    Horrible problems with the fps
    2 minute wait between each turn
    awful diplomacy
    No history
    Awful character design
    Generic units from faction to faction
    3 armies? Are ya sh*tting me?
    Awful naval combat and design
    Building a city is obsolete. Four or six structures at the most.    … Expand
  26. johnbrandon1981
    Sep 23, 2013
    0
    I'm re-posting my amazon review here in the hopes a gamer might be saved while CA and Sega might be duly punished for this atrocity:
    Listen now to the tale of a fool who pre-ordered this game because of the love he had for the magnificent original that debuted 8 long years ago. This game is a travesty and a bitter surprise, a betrayal by Creative Assembly and Sega of a loyal PAYING    I'm re-posting my amazon review here in the hopes a gamer might be saved while CA and Sega might be duly punished for this atrocity:
    Listen now to the tale of a fool who pre-ordered this game because of the love he had for the magnificent original that debuted 8 long years ago. This game is a travesty and a bitter surprise, a betrayal by Creative Assembly and Sega of a loyal PAYING customer. Calling this buggy, half-baked, ill-contrived, ill-conceived, dumbed-down, feature-stripped pile of amateur code a beta would be charitable.The ONLY thing CA improved upon is graphics, but considering the LONG years between sequels how could the graphics NOT be improved. I am morally entitled to a refund though I know no such thing will be forthcoming out the Somewhat Creative Assembly of Incompetents and their corporate masters, Sega(means thief in Japanese). I can only hope for some poetic justice, like Sega in its entirety going the way of their console business and those responsible for this mess at CA falling on their swords Roman style for this failure. I'm out $60 and I'm uninstalling this from my HDD. I tried hard to play this game, I WANTED TO ENJOY IT. Do you know what I did when I gave up playing? I WENT OUTSIDE AND MOWED MY YARD. The game I have waited near 10 years for inspired me TO GET UP, GO OUTSIDE, AND DO MUNDANE YARD WORK. The developers are as guilty of stealing as the pirates. The only intelligent way to support games makers is to pirate first and then pay later, or bring back demos. Even if I had pirated this game it would have been a of waste bandwidth and HDD space. After this I just don't know where to expect anything good from the games industry anymore and maybe nothing good can be expected.    … Expand
  27. rossburlz
    Oct 10, 2013
    0
    I preordered this game. (What a mistake that was!) First day couldn't even play more than 5 minutes at a time due to constant crashing. 4 patches later the game is still crashing. Just look at the size of the patch notes. This game was released in an alpha state and now the proud owners of this &*^@ game have to spend our time testing bugs for free... well not free we already paid for thisI preordered this game. (What a mistake that was!) First day couldn't even play more than 5 minutes at a time due to constant crashing. 4 patches later the game is still crashing. Just look at the size of the patch notes. This game was released in an alpha state and now the proud owners of this &*^@ game have to spend our time testing bugs for free... well not free we already paid for this game. CA had a 40% higher budget than shogun and all that seems to have been spent on some actor casted promo videos and videos of all these amazing features that are cut from the game before it is released. This game should be avoided like a plague in the state it is in. AI is a joke. Interface is a joke. Such a shame this game could have been so great yet it has fallen so low… Expand
  28. kalimah
    Nov 6, 2013
    1
    Was it the CEO that apologized for all the bugs in the game when it was released? He knew all along this was going to happen. If he didn't know, he should be fired. POS game..
  29. btemp
    Oct 4, 2013
    0
    I absolutely LOVE the total war games. Aside from bugs, they are everything I'd ever want from a game.

    Unfortunately, RTW2 is just buggy as hell. Major game imbalances, and while I've been able to play it my two friends haven't out of the box. We still can't get multiplayer campaign to work.

    So wait a while (still) before you buy. Game needs to be ironed out... a ton.
  30. Kcin14
    Nov 2, 2013
    0
    Terrible AI, Game-breaking bugs, confusing UI, and terrible battles. This game clearly was not ready for release and everyone who bought it paid $60 for Alpha testing. Huge Disappointment.
  31. Sigma77
    Sep 26, 2013
    2
    Again we all got tricked into paying full price for a beta. I don't really think I need to tell you from all of the other posts that you shouldn't buy this game until they fix everything. It's too bad too because it is a great game, it's just not complete and full of bugs and crashes for most people. The game actually runs okay for me but three of my other friends who also paid the steepAgain we all got tricked into paying full price for a beta. I don't really think I need to tell you from all of the other posts that you shouldn't buy this game until they fix everything. It's too bad too because it is a great game, it's just not complete and full of bugs and crashes for most people. The game actually runs okay for me but three of my other friends who also paid the steep $70 price at launch can't even play the game three weeks after launch.… Expand
  32. Belidon
    Sep 9, 2013
    7
    The atmosphere is all you would want from the sequel to the legendary rome: rome total war. It is a very enjoyable game but it just feels it could've been so much better. It's unoptimized, it lacks depth in the diplomacy and political systems and battles currently suffer from blob fights rather than well executed strategy.

    Patches and potentially mods can make this good game, great.
  33. macedonian21
    Sep 10, 2013
    5
    tbh i never have high expectations from a game as I know it will have problems anyway...but I hate the fact that I pre-order a game for the first time and get to play a more beta looking version of the game...hell I didn't even get the culture pack because I have to pay 7 for it...WTF?...don't get me wrong...the game underneath is good and fun for me maybe because I know how to find thetbh i never have high expectations from a game as I know it will have problems anyway...but I hate the fact that I pre-order a game for the first time and get to play a more beta looking version of the game...hell I didn't even get the culture pack because I have to pay 7 for it...WTF?...don't get me wrong...the game underneath is good and fun for me maybe because I know how to find the good part in everything sometimes but you said you had a 40% bigger budget for this game than for any other TW game before...what did you do with those money? gave it to reviewers so that they could give you a good ratting so on release you will sell a lot of copies?...first of all the publisher for rushing the game...and CA for giving us an unfinished game without even telling us about the current state of the game...wtf CA next time test the game yourselves before releasing...… Expand
  34. Folamour
    Sep 20, 2013
    2
    A total disappointment for a devoted Total War fan such as myself.

    Very briefly: *Broken diplomacy *Poor faction management -No family tree -Pointless politics *No event cinematics for agent actions and other important stuff. *Shallow tech tree *POOR AI *Lack of battlefield and campaign tactics due to the state the AI is currently in. *Battlefield UI is worse than the previous    A total disappointment for a devoted Total War fan such as myself.

    Very briefly:
    *Broken diplomacy
    *Poor faction management
    -No family tree
    -Pointless politics
    *No event cinematics for agent actions and other important stuff.
    *Shallow tech tree
    *POOR AI
    *Lack of battlefield and campaign tactics due to the state the AI is currently in.
    *Battlefield UI is worse than the previous titles, as I see it.
    *First day DLC(!) Come on...

    Unbalanced, broken, and incomplete. CA massively failed to meet the high expectations they have created through trailers, teasers, pre-release in-game videos and other promotional stuff. It seems they have spent more than half of their "increased budget" for marketing a bleeding carcass, that they have so professionally tricked people into buying it.

    2/10

    Keep playing Shogun 2. Do not waste your time and money on this.    … Expand
  35. IrOnTaXi
    Sep 20, 2013
    2
    I have played about 20 hours of the game.

    Let me tell my Rome 2 campaign story. Start as "British" culture. Conquer british isles as a collective in about 20-30 turns. No tough tough battles but I was still a bit nervous about getting wiped out. Spent 10-15 turns building some armies. Take my best army across the english channel to wreak havoc (or die in a wonderfully horrible    I have played about 20 hours of the game.

    Let me tell my Rome 2 campaign story.

    Start as "British" culture. Conquer british isles as a collective in about 20-30 turns. No tough tough battles but I was still a bit nervous about getting wiped out.

    Spent 10-15 turns building some armies. Take my best army across the english channel to wreak havoc (or die in a wonderfully horrible blaze of glory)

    I didnt need to worry. No one opposed my army.... ALL THE WAY TO ROME.. which I sacked and occupied. Not a single roman army came out to meet me.. and no one attacked after I sacked rome. I turned off the game.

    I got fooled again just like Empires. Son of a creek...    … Expand
  36. rapman1986
    Sep 21, 2013
    3
    I feel like beta tester. This is the first time and LAST time I'm buying game from CA, next time, torrent only.
    The AI is stupid, the game-play is boring, graphic optimization is terrible (blinking maps, low fps, part of forces is invisible...). I want my money back and time that i spend to try to play this "game".
  37. InnerDogg
    Sep 21, 2013
    4
    Who 'm ever gives this game a rating above 5 in the current state has ZERO knowledge of games and past TW series. At this point its a BETA version of the game, nowhere near finished. All they had to do was copy & paste Shogun, change everything to Rome era, and BAM Award Winning Game! Instead they lied to everybody pre launch, and released this crap.
  38. Turnip
    Sep 24, 2013
    1
    The game just feels empty and rushed. All of the elements that made the previous Total War games fun and addictive are gone or dumbed down. Meanwhile, the design team emphasized art and graphics and presentation over gameplay and replay value. It's like a bad sequel to a good movie. It makes me think that the Total War franchise may be dead.
  39. Hello12
    Sep 26, 2013
    3
    This game will only work great and best on the very best of home computers. CA implemented a graphic memory change for Rome 2. Napoleon and Shogun 2 you'd just pick your graphic settings, and off you go and play and have fun. With Rome2, you have this annoying feature that always checks if your overbudget on memory and if you are, the game downgrades you to a graphic setting the gameThis game will only work great and best on the very best of home computers. CA implemented a graphic memory change for Rome 2. Napoleon and Shogun 2 you'd just pick your graphic settings, and off you go and play and have fun. With Rome2, you have this annoying feature that always checks if your overbudget on memory and if you are, the game downgrades you to a graphic setting the game wants. The graphics after this process look bad. I think this new feature has caused more headaches than its worth. The Campaign map. Is well done. I like it. The Campaign AI has improved since Patch 3

    Campaign Battles. AI has no plan, but to engage your army in head on fight in a matter of minutes. Zooming in to units fighting. Rome drops frame rates like crazy. 2,000 soldiers isn't a big army. Frame rates should not be dropping to the extend they are, more so, as your graphics too have been downgraded to fight a battle. For me overall, Rome 2 is the worst total war of the series. I never stopped playing Empire because of the bugs and glitches. I still had fun with it. Rome 2, i can't do the same. Sega, seems to be at allowing games to be sold that are unfinished. I think gamers need to refuse to buy any game that Sega publishes from now on.    … Expand
  40. SammyHauguth
    Dec 25, 2017
    0
    Worthless, just like metacritic with all the ads...
    I reloaded an old save and poff I got -1400 in food...
    When I had 1400+ in november!
    Good work CA, last time I buy a game from these idiots!
  41. k-dub
    Oct 13, 2013
    0
    I registered just so I could highlight my digust for this effort by CA. First and foremost, I am a fan of the Total War series starting with the first Shogun. This game is unfinished, pure and simple. If the game was play-tested, you can hardly tell. It is so obvious it was rushed out before it was ready. Commercial decisions came at the expense of the consumer.

    Shame on you CA, I will    I registered just so I could highlight my digust for this effort by CA. First and foremost, I am a fan of the Total War series starting with the first Shogun. This game is unfinished, pure and simple. If the game was play-tested, you can hardly tell. It is so obvious it was rushed out before it was ready. Commercial decisions came at the expense of the consumer.

    Shame on you CA, I will never pre-order anything from you again. I am placing you right because EA on my naughty list.

    And shame on all magazine reviewers who gave this more than 5.0. Either your reviews are shoddily researched or you have no journalistic integrity. Or maybe both.    … Expand
  42. Yarev
    Oct 13, 2013
    0
    Terrible, shallow, waste of money. Even if CA fix all the bugs (which is very unlikely) it still going to be the worst TW game. The only hope are mods.
  43. LordFancypants
    Oct 24, 2013
    0
    Where do I begin? I can't run this game on the lowest setting without getting major lag on the main map. Even Empire Total War, which arguably was the worst of the series so far didn't lag there, and it had three maps, Europe, Asia and The New World. The AI is atrocious, the units are imbalanced, like the Pikemen who camp in a corner, eat all the catapult rounds and then wipe out yourWhere do I begin? I can't run this game on the lowest setting without getting major lag on the main map. Even Empire Total War, which arguably was the worst of the series so far didn't lag there, and it had three maps, Europe, Asia and The New World. The AI is atrocious, the units are imbalanced, like the Pikemen who camp in a corner, eat all the catapult rounds and then wipe out your elite swordsmen. The waiting times for turns are so long, I can fit a nap, fix dinner and watch the Godfather trilogy before its done.
    0/10- Absolutely broken    … Expand
  44. Hcosa
    Nov 6, 2013
    0
    I rate 0 just to counterbalance the people who rating 10 this is not a 10 game but neither 0, he has a score around 5 to 6, is still a bad game when compared to shogun
  45. Skelet0r06
    Nov 2, 2013
    2
    I honestly tried to like this game. I've been a fan of the total war series since the original medieval and have logged hundreds of hours of playtime in that and subsequent TW titles.

    The spirit of the franchise is now totally destroyed. A decline that started, for me, with empire total war has finally reached its conclusion in this nearly unplayable game:.AI turns take around 5    I honestly tried to like this game. I've been a fan of the total war series since the original medieval and have logged hundreds of hours of playtime in that and subsequent TW titles.

    The spirit of the franchise is now totally destroyed. A decline that started, for me, with empire total war has finally reached its conclusion in this nearly unplayable game:.AI turns take around 5 minutes on my mid tier system; textures load slowly or sometimes not at all on the campaign map; battles are hardly worth playing as the AI is terrible and the units are bland and nearly identical across factions (A trend that started with empire and has been brought to Rome with decimating effect.).

    The AI on the campaign map is just laughably stupid. On multiple occasions I've marched my armies towards the heavily defended capital of an enemy empire anticipating a massive battle with strategic impact only to watch the AI player move all of their forces into an adjacent territory on their next turn. The only defeats suffered are from backstabbing allies and simultaneous attacks launched by previously warring factions. The end effect for the player is that victories and defeats feel equally undeserved and unsatisfying.

    After having spent twenty hours with this game desperately trying to find the spark I found in the original games of the series I've finally admitted defeat. I feel as if I've been tricked into paying sixty dollars for a beta release.    … Expand
  46. jerkbot
    Jul 24, 2014
    0
    TW Rome II is a truly awful experience. Any person seeking to experience a renaissance of their time with the original TW Rome is in for a let down in almost every possible area.
    On a strategic level, the TW franchise has always been less complex than say, a dedicated turn based game like Civilization is, but Rome II takes the previous incarnation of Rome and dumbs it down in every    TW Rome II is a truly awful experience. Any person seeking to experience a renaissance of their time with the original TW Rome is in for a let down in almost every possible area.
    On a strategic level, the TW franchise has always been less complex than say, a dedicated turn based game like Civilization is, but Rome II takes the previous incarnation of Rome and dumbs it down in every interesting respect. There is no family tree control. No Senate activity relevant to the player whatsoever.
    Although there are three types of agents, all of them have such similar abilities and skill trees they might as well have only had one "mega agent" available to create. Speaking of agents, generals are now only useful in a military capacity. No more specialising generals for administration. If this was not enough to make you bored with your generals and agents early, they nature of the game is such that generals and agents are only likely to be alive for about twenty turns before they die from old age. You could almost say they are a metaphor for this franchise, if this is the direction they continue in. Twenty turns is certainly about as long as most players will want to play it anyway.
    On the tactical side, the units are boring. There is no reason to make any type of unit in any faction apart from a single top tier unit. Forget about balancing infantry, cavalry, ranged and siege units. Just make your faction's top unit. Even the lowest rated RTS game rewards combined arms, but not TW Rome II! Let's talk about the naval side. Rome II makes transport ships the epitome of naval warfare in this game. Dedicated naval warships need not apply. Just step your army into the water and auto that otherwise utterly broken sea battle.
    Which brings me to the battles in general. After months of patches, they are still awful. The worst in the series. Don't worry about the AI not being Hannibal like in its genius. Worry about the AI literally not getting off the boats so you cannot defeat them unless the timer is one and you happen to be defending. SO much else is bad about this game but I am running out of space. Do not buy. The only thing you can learn from this game is how corrupt game review publications have become.    … Expand
  47. noble_savage
    Mar 22, 2016
    0
    Pece of crap game from a piece of crap studio working for a piece of crap publisher.

    There was a time when CA made games for love, now they make fail games to keep Sega happy.
  48. MightyMeegosh
    Sep 2, 2014
    3
    Total War: Rome 2 was released a year ago tomorrow, and it is still broken.

    I'm a huge Total War fan. I've played every Total War game to date. Most I have logged hundreds of hours into with no regrets, until today. I was nearly half way through a promising new Macedonian grand campaign, when my controlled Athens fell under siege. It was a big surprise attack with massive game    Total War: Rome 2 was released a year ago tomorrow, and it is still broken.

    I'm a huge Total War fan. I've played every Total War game to date. Most I have logged hundreds of hours into with no regrets, until today.

    I was nearly half way through a promising new Macedonian grand campaign, when my controlled Athens fell under siege. It was a big surprise attack with massive game changing consequences on the line. The enemy brought several full army’s for a beach landing invasion of my Greek city. I had a full garrison complement and a veteran army to defend the city. It was sure to be a bloody, glorious day, win or lose. About 10 minutes into the battle the game started to stutter. A known problem since the games launch. It wasn't as bad as I had seen in before so I tried to play through it. The games stuttering increased the more I played. Like struggling in quicksand, it only got worse. Since the stuttering was also slowing down in game time, I had been playing this single battle for well over an hour. And it wasn't enjoyable one bit. My only option left was to quit the game. Which I did. But after seeing this game breaking bug/flaw one to many times. I decided to uninstall the game for good.

    This is just the straw that broke the camels back. There were countless glitches and flaws in this game that made it a broken and/or bad game. I know that such glitches have plagued the Total War series since its inception, but they never ruined the experience quite like this before.

    Total War: Rome 2 is a truly shameful display.    … Expand
  49. ThePurpleOrange
    Oct 7, 2014
    9
    After the fifteenth "Emperor Edition" patch, along with the mods: Divide et Impera; GEM - Graphical Enhancement Mod; and Bullgod's Unit Cards, I am thoroughly enjoying playing Total War: Rome 2 and I do recommend it to previous Total War fans.

    The game is now almost unrecognisable from the shambles that it was at release and I have increased my previous rating of a 4 to a 9.
  50. sir_langan
    Oct 29, 2013
    6
    While there are a lot of problems, a hell of a lot, this is still a good game. One of the problems this game has is that the bar was set so high after all the previous titles in the series. Without that as a comparison this would be a great game.

    But there is the comparison. Streamlining isn't something the fans of this series want. This game was streamlined in so many ways it is    While there are a lot of problems, a hell of a lot, this is still a good game. One of the problems this game has is that the bar was set so high after all the previous titles in the series. Without that as a comparison this would be a great game.

    But there is the comparison. Streamlining isn't something the fans of this series want. This game was streamlined in so many ways it is ridiculous. Hopefully it has a long redevelopment life.    … Expand
  51. cucconet74
    Nov 16, 2013
    4
    I'm a great fan of the TW series but this game has been released unfinished and, after 6 pathes, is still unfinished.
    The IA is really stupid and unchallenging, the game is souless and boring
    DON'T BUY IT!!
  52. hansoner
    Nov 19, 2013
    3
    Loved Rome 1. Rome 2 has too many glitches. Senate serves no purpose and just gets in the way. Game CONSTANTLY freezes (which is extra annoying after waiting 10 minutes for it to load). Fun when it works properly, but lately it has froze on more turns than it hasn't for me. Spend your money elsewhere. The frustration is not worth the cost.
  53. baktor
    Nov 30, 2013
    7
    This game takes a step back from Shogun 2. The game does have quite a few bugs, most fixed now. The combat has some awesome features with automatic unit grouping and better AI. The campaign is just as good and improves on the territory features. It feels lacking of differences and strategies from AI. The entire game will freeze up and drop to 3-6 FPS in some siege battles. This drop isThis game takes a step back from Shogun 2. The game does have quite a few bugs, most fixed now. The combat has some awesome features with automatic unit grouping and better AI. The campaign is just as good and improves on the territory features. It feels lacking of differences and strategies from AI. The entire game will freeze up and drop to 3-6 FPS in some siege battles. This drop is after a constant 75~FPS in everything.… Expand
  54. Brickfaced
    Dec 3, 2013
    6
    This game was certainly an anti-climax upon release, with numerous game breaking bugs and poor design choices. Although some of these faults are still present, CA have put a lot of effort into ironing them out, more effort than people seem to acknowledge anyway. Of course it should have great from the start, and it still isn't without its faults, but not that they aren't as crippling, theThis game was certainly an anti-climax upon release, with numerous game breaking bugs and poor design choices. Although some of these faults are still present, CA have put a lot of effort into ironing them out, more effort than people seem to acknowledge anyway. Of course it should have great from the start, and it still isn't without its faults, but not that they aren't as crippling, the beauty of the game can now stand out. It still doesn't have that pick up and play fun factor that previous Total War titles have, as the game seems to have formed some kind of hybrid with management rather than just assault. It feels like one half a total war game, and the other half Sid Meier's Civilizations. Individually the themes are great, but merged in the way that they are in this game, the hybrid isn't so appealing. It is still an intricate and ambitious effort, with enjoyment to be had once you see past the little faults. It's just that it isn't on the scale, or the addictive and time-eating measure of Rome 1.… Expand
  55. jprepo1
    Sep 25, 2018
    0
    Rote and uninspired compared to many of the earlier games in the series. Stick with the original or shogun 2
  56. Chunderfield
    Mar 24, 2014
    7
    Total War has a long, illustrious history. The pinnacle of which was Empire: Total War. That's is about as fine as they come. Since Empire we've had Shogun 2 and now Rome 2. I found Shogun to be underwhelming and now with Rome 2, the downward spiral into obscurity continues.

    Pros: 1. Phenomenal graphical potential if your hardware can handle it. 2. Cinematic camera mode. Makes it    Total War has a long, illustrious history. The pinnacle of which was Empire: Total War. That's is about as fine as they come. Since Empire we've had Shogun 2 and now Rome 2. I found Shogun to be underwhelming and now with Rome 2, the downward spiral into obscurity continues.

    Pros:
    1. Phenomenal graphical potential if your hardware can handle it.
    2. Cinematic camera mode. Makes it quick and easy to get a glimpse of the action up close.
    3. Strategic camera mode. A nice zoomed-out tactical camera option that's very reminiscent of Supreme Commander.
    4. HUGE world map.
    5. Decent in-game Encyclopedia
    6. "Continue Campaign" option right from the launch screen in Steam.

    Cons:
    1. The UI is unnecessarily huge and impeding
    2. The In game advice cannot be turned off. No matter how many times I click "suppress advice", I still get it. If you turn it on "Audio only advice" to avoid getting the extremely poorly animated advisor from popping up, It still pops up, only with no text.
    3. Animations were underwhelming. Units looked like little paper-doll clones.
    4. WAY too much DLC for extra cash. The only one worth getting (and should've come standard with the game) is the Blood and Gore DLC. Makes me feel like I bought an intentionally bare-bones game with the intent to sell me DLC later.
    5. Standard Total War long load times.
    6. Research trees are small and boring.
    7. Ultra high system requirements. It's a real hog. Crashes and freezes way more than I care to mention. I've been steadily reducing graphics settings in an attempt to improve stability.
    8. Infuriatingly clunky political system controls.
    9. Voice acting became repetitive and corny after the first hour.
    10. Generals have magical. ♥♥♥♥ing. powers. That you have to manually control in battle.

    Conclusion:
    Rome 2 stays true to its Total War heritage. I jumped in and it felt familiar and comfortable. It's a weak and unworthy successor to the original Rome though. The resource management is basic, and the empire building is rather shallow. Empire: Total War felt deep. I felt invested in that masterpiece. I feel very little with Rome 2 other than disappointment at wasted potential. It's a big budget game that's worth no more than $30.    … Expand
  57. carsal
    May 14, 2014
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. After 12 patces and 6 dlcs the game is still unplayable. The worst of the whole series. Biggest fraud in video game industry that I ever see. There is no way to preorder a game of CA ever before… Expand
  58. herr_rosa88
    Sep 13, 2014
    4
    Rome II is a total letdown to all Total war fans. I have bought every game since Medieval Total War (except for Napoleon) and this game is the only game in the series absolutely deteste. Despite loads of patches Rome II is still a buggy mess. The few good things about RTW do mostly exist in the previous games and the game offers nothing new except revisiting the period.

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

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

    Do not even pick this game up at a big discount!    … Expand
  59. lareth
    Aug 14, 2014
    2
    So many negatives compared to the positives.

    + The fight and movement system is alright. (except for sieges) Graphics are not as good as they said, but they are alright. - Streamlining is the worst thing in this game, and it covers everything from techs, politics to battle. Release was horrible, but with all the patches the game didn't become good in the end. It is almost    So many negatives compared to the positives.

    +
    The fight and movement system is alright. (except for sieges)
    Graphics are not as good as they said, but they are alright.

    -
    Streamlining is the worst thing in this game, and it covers everything from techs, politics to battle.
    Release was horrible, but with all the patches the game didn't become good in the end.
    It is almost unmoddable, not counting making new units and stat changing. So it can't get any better.

    They released this to get money. That's it, and no amount of PR and lies can change that.    … Expand
  60. Eboles
    Aug 14, 2014
    4
    This game is a joke, after shogun 2 this game is big fail in several aspects. The game is really bad optimized, you can use a good pc but you will have low fps. The battles are ridicously short, two armies of 2000 each can finish the battle in like 5 minutes and the naval battles are a **** chaos.

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

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

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

    I would continue with this review telling you all the fails of this game, CA really should say thx to the modders community because they saved this stupid broken game. I got it for 13€ and im not sure this worth it...but for 54€? hell no , dont worth your money.    … Expand
  61. ESKIMUZ
    Sep 29, 2014
    2
    I don't understand how such an experienced team like this could fails so hard in understanding what the fans wanted and to delivery. The only thing that makes this playable are mods, and they are made from Fans. I hope that the director, Tim Heaton, got fired for this failrure, he and his idic "90 metascore". Look where it brought you, fool.
  62. Homie234
    Jun 19, 2015
    0
    This is the worst Total War Game ever. After the game finally completed its loading process you are confronted with a game plot which drags on endlessly. I've just bought this game out of laziness, because Rome I was not working on my Windows 8 and I wanted to check out the new version, why not? But at the first version everything went very smoothly and you could proceed in the game richThis is the worst Total War Game ever. After the game finally completed its loading process you are confronted with a game plot which drags on endlessly. I've just bought this game out of laziness, because Rome I was not working on my Windows 8 and I wanted to check out the new version, why not? But at the first version everything went very smoothly and you could proceed in the game rich in variety and clearly. Now you don't understand why your army (two armies with 20 units each) gets crushed by 15 hostile basic units or why an agent or army simply can't move, by the way played by an intermediary level. Why can't I move my army without an appointed general? Where is this option to demand money or I declare war? Why can't I build watchtowers? Why can't I blackmail any of the other gaming characters? Why does the army entities have such a comic like design? What are the stupid missions all about? (Hire an agent even if I already have 3???) And why the hell does it need a complete minute to end a round or to load a fight?????!!!!
    I'M SO DISAPPOINTED! The money is definitively NOT worth it.    … Expand
  63. JXL
    Jan 17, 2016
    3
    I have been defending rome 2 since it came out against all the terrible reviews. That ends now. They have done a terrible job with the cooperative campaign. So many glitches. The final straw was the inability of my coop ally to reinforce me and vice versa, while still killing the troops that were supposed to reinforce. if you do not want to make coop viable...don't build it.
  64. OnionBoy
    Aug 19, 2016
    0
    Quite literally the worst game I have ever played. Total War games are what first got me into gaming. As a massive fan of the series I cannot put into words how disappointed I was was this game was released. It's 3 years on and it's still awful. The problems it had were not possible to be fixed via patch. They had to release a re-hash of the same game (Total War: Atilla) which was aQuite literally the worst game I have ever played. Total War games are what first got me into gaming. As a massive fan of the series I cannot put into words how disappointed I was was this game was released. It's 3 years on and it's still awful. The problems it had were not possible to be fixed via patch. They had to release a re-hash of the same game (Total War: Atilla) which was a definite improvement but still bad. This game doesn't scratch the surface of what's good about Total War. DO NOT BUY… Expand
  65. Lokomoko99764
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    It's a buggy mess that's literally unplayable for people like me in its current state (Hence the 0: unplayable). This was the first and last time I'm pre-ordering a TW game. I thought they had gotten over the terrible releases ever since Empire.
  66. Tornadium
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    The game simply isn't finished. It's not even the extremely poor technical issues that kills the game for a lot of people. They've cut so many corners, the gameplay has been mashed together, alpha build features were cut out that really should have been in the game.

    It needs MAJOR overhauling.
  67. Pike22
    Sep 7, 2013
    0
    They released it without even testing it properly, assuming no one would notice the uncomplete features, mechanics and even graphics engine which is poorly optimized. The reason I give this a 0 is so that they would stop living on pre-orders and on big expectations which are created by ads, but don't deliver.
  68. TeunisD
    Sep 4, 2013
    6
    Pro:
    - Great campaign map with alot of features.
    - Good foundation if it's moddable.
    - Good battle music.

    Negative:
    - Bugs, alot of bugs.
    - No music in the campaign map.
    - Battles are WAY to fast.
    - Graphics are not as advertised.
    - Very system heavy. Minimal specs are not going to make it. Bad optimilization.
    - Typical things like formation movement still not fixed.
  69. fernandus
    Sep 6, 2013
    6
    Hi guys.
    How to start Well, i am a huge TW fan, i´ve played every single game of the franchise. This one is NOT the biggest f*** up CA did with TW, BUT, i expected more.
    When i started the game for the first time, the first thing i noticed was the POOR graphics... WTF I ran Shogun 2 in the highest quality and now THIS I remember CA people saying this will not need NASA rigs, folks    Hi guys.
    How to start Well, i am a huge TW fan, i´ve played every single game of the franchise. This one is NOT the biggest f*** up CA did with TW, BUT, i expected more.
    When i started the game for the first time, the first thing i noticed was the POOR graphics... WTF I ran Shogun 2 in the highest quality and now THIS I remember CA people saying this will not need NASA rigs, folks who ran Shogun 2 will be fine, lovely BS I´m playing Rome 2 like Rome 1.... very disapointing, the rest of the issues will be fixed.... i hope.
    finishing... CA don´t release a BETA game pls     … Expand
  70. Konda
    Sep 14, 2013
    1
    Firstly, I created my account to review this game. I usually dont review games here, but I felt I owed it to you all to do this.
    Firstly the positives. The attrition while maintaining siege is good, although its not been done very well. You seem to lose standard amount of men each turn, instead of getting random results (disease for example).
    Negatives... well, let me start off by saying    Firstly, I created my account to review this game. I usually dont review games here, but I felt I owed it to you all to do this.
    Firstly the positives. The attrition while maintaining siege is good, although its not been done very well. You seem to lose standard amount of men each turn, instead of getting random results (disease for example).
    Negatives... well, let me start off by saying that the game is horribly optimized, buggy, the multiplayer coop is unplayable etc. Its all that, true, but I dont even care. If there was a gem below all this rubbish I would be able to live with it.

    But no, this is not a gem. Its horrible. The victory points in battles are completely ridiculous, and remove a lot of realism from the battles (CTF anyone?). The AI is dreadful no matter what it does... in amphibious assaults it just stands in the beach until the time runs out. Guard button is not there anymore, making battles a horrible point and click babysitting fest. The user interface is incredibly bad, considering that the Shogun 2's was pretty damn good. The tech tree is just pointlessly difficult to use. There are no more family trees. The game has no more seasons, as 1 turn 1 year, so youre not going to be attached to your characters for long anyway. The main problem however is the terrible army management. You have a limited number of armies, so you can have 3 x 2000 men armies, but not 4 x 500 men armies. Makes no sense whatsoever. Individual units cannot move from, lets say, city A to reinforce city B without a general anymore. You cant divide your armies. You cannot recruit from towns that dont have a general. I could literally go on forever. Literally.

    Im sorry people, this game is a total mess. Even if you ignore the horrible optimization and bugs, the game itself has nothing to offer when compared to older Total Wars, it actually has less to offer. Please people, do yourself and everyone else a favor, and dont give your hard earned money to these moneygrubbing idiots.

    I'll give the game 1/10 as it is, and 2/10 when its optimized. Shame... a real shame.
    And by the way, the site that gave it 100/100 should consider stopping game reviews completely.    … Expand
  71. zer0sum
    Sep 5, 2013
    5
    I have been a big fan of everything CA for years. I really enjoyed empire and shogun, thinking that they basically did everything correctly in those games. I find Rome II to be disappointing. It's hard to put my finger on why, exactly. I think a major part of the problem is the long wait between turns. It breaks immersion and it is not fun to sit there for a minute while the enemy crunchesI have been a big fan of everything CA for years. I really enjoyed empire and shogun, thinking that they basically did everything correctly in those games. I find Rome II to be disappointing. It's hard to put my finger on why, exactly. I think a major part of the problem is the long wait between turns. It breaks immersion and it is not fun to sit there for a minute while the enemy crunches numbers. This is actually my chief complaint. If the game loaded faster and crunched turns faster, then I would probably be enjoying this game a lot more.… Expand
  72. sniper797
    Sep 17, 2013
    0
    Awful buggy GAME with broken mechanics....... My god how the total war franchise has fallen, used to love it a few years back

    Go b buy something worth your money
  73. alexman
    Sep 17, 2013
    1
    This is not a total war game it does not have what made the original total war the epic game it used to be.
    Rome 2 is extremely dumbed down and streamlined, it feels casual its not immersive.
    i managed to take over half the world in a few turns, the original rome had a lot more settlements to conquer. The battles that are supposed to be epic is easily won even on hard, and feels rushed    This is not a total war game it does not have what made the original total war the epic game it used to be.
    Rome 2 is extremely dumbed down and streamlined, it feels casual its not immersive.
    i managed to take over half the world in a few turns, the original rome had a lot more settlements to conquer. The battles that are supposed to be epic is easily won even on hard, and feels rushed and boring. you dont need tactics you can just rush head on on a 3:1 bigger army with better soldiers than you and win. you pay full prize for a half finished game thats lacking.

    The game is broken and definitely still beta, the AI is stupid, l find bugs everywhere which isnt just annoying but gamebreaking.

    As stated by everyone else bad UI, unit cards are bad, settlement building is boring dumbed down and ugly.    … Expand
  74. Joye15
    Sep 17, 2013
    0
    The biggest problem with this game (beside all bugs, and that it feels more like an alpha) is that it is not a strategy game any more!

    This is beyond patching! This game plays exactly like an arcade, you just click your units to attack and after few minutes you will win. Without any tactics! Even on the very hard legendary difficulty! Campaign has likewise too arcade feeling. You    The biggest problem with this game (beside all bugs, and that it feels more like an alpha) is that it is not a strategy game any more!

    This is beyond patching!

    This game plays exactly like an arcade, you just click your units to attack and after few minutes you will win. Without any tactics! Even on the very hard legendary difficulty!

    Campaign has likewise too arcade feeling. You will conquer settlement after settlement until you will get finally bored, even playing on the highest difficulties, without any strategic planning whatsoever!

    Moreover because you will always win this game has zero re-playability even though it has sandbox campaign.

    Even if you are total war fan you will enjoy this game only till you will win it once for every faction which, considering how arcadish this game is will be very very quickly.

    However on the other hand this is beautiful game which could be so good if it would offer challenging game-play.

    The reason why I am giving it 0 is that this game is supposed to be strategy but it simply isn't. Anyone who wants to play strategy should either find another game or get back to previous total war titles.

    Thus this game gets 0 as a strategy.

    But if you are looking for an arcade i give it 7.5/10. Players who care only about graphic and arcade like battles will enjoy this game.    … Expand
  75. slumpy
    Mar 12, 2014
    0
    garbage game is still garbage. 10 patches later and it's still god awful. Nothing has been fixed. Not one. avoid this title. this is a waste of hard drive space (not to mention 60 bucks) and you are FAR better off playing Rome 1 or Medieval 2 for your TW fix. CA is clearly not the same company it once was and now seems rife with incompetence and under a publisher that does not give agarbage game is still garbage. 10 patches later and it's still god awful. Nothing has been fixed. Not one. avoid this title. this is a waste of hard drive space (not to mention 60 bucks) and you are FAR better off playing Rome 1 or Medieval 2 for your TW fix. CA is clearly not the same company it once was and now seems rife with incompetence and under a publisher that does not give a single **** about the customer.

    I would not buy this game at even half its current cost. At most, Rome 2 is worth about 15-20 dollars if you're feeling particularly generous.    … Expand
  76. keklolgloat
    Dec 11, 2019
    0
    Pre-ordered this game in hopes I could play it with my bro-sef come launch in some co-op fun.
    We knew it would kind of suck at first, but a day-of patch would probably smooth it out.
    The patch never came. Long story short the lan-party ended in hostility and misery. This is a game that has caused so many gamers grief both emotionally and physically and deserves every gamer with a    Pre-ordered this game in hopes I could play it with my bro-sef come launch in some co-op fun.
    We knew it would kind of suck at first, but a day-of patch would probably smooth it out.

    The patch never came. Long story short the lan-party ended in hostility and misery.

    This is a game that has caused so many gamers grief both emotionally and physically and deserves every gamer with a conceince and self-respect to deny these greedy f'''n publishers anymore of your money.

    For shame Casual Assembly, for shame. Another hero of the gaming gods fades from its former glory into an EA abyss of bargin-bin titles that gamers scoff' at.    … Expand
  77. faceless-1
    Oct 21, 2013
    0
    Day 1 DLC, Broken game play, Broken AI, constant glitches, UI, missing guard button. These are the top problems of Rome 2. This is game is the worst total war so far.
  78. siamoinballo
    Jan 19, 2014
    0
    It's a superficial game, without any history connections, without any sense. It has a lot of bugs, the artworks (expecially in diplomacy) come directly from the last century. With an i5 4670k oc+ gtx770 2gb oc the graphics in battle still sucks, but you need to install it on ssd if you don't want to wait 2 minutes when you pass the turn. The worst total war ever. Rome 1 is better, believeIt's a superficial game, without any history connections, without any sense. It has a lot of bugs, the artworks (expecially in diplomacy) come directly from the last century. With an i5 4670k oc+ gtx770 2gb oc the graphics in battle still sucks, but you need to install it on ssd if you don't want to wait 2 minutes when you pass the turn. The worst total war ever. Rome 1 is better, believe me friends. It's not a game for the total war community, it's just a s**t..… Expand
  79. Mynameispingu
    Nov 1, 2013
    2
    Like most reviewers here, I was once a very big Total War fan.
    But since this installment I am no longer. For;
    1. The state it has been released is just a diabolic mess 2. The AI is a diabolic mess 3. It feels really lazily made 4. What happened to the soul? I felt this dying when Shogun 2 came out. 5. All of this pointless DLC that's already in the game, but you want us to pay more    Like most reviewers here, I was once a very big Total War fan.
    But since this installment I am no longer. For;
    1. The state it has been released is just a diabolic mess
    2. The AI is a diabolic mess
    3. It feels really lazily made
    4. What happened to the soul? I felt this dying when Shogun 2 came out.
    5. All of this pointless DLC that's already in the game, but you want us to pay more than your already AAA title release price. I mean honestly in the previous installment of Rome, once you conquered a faction, you could play as them in a campaign. This is no longer the case, for you basically have to purchase half the factions at an incredibly unreasonable price (for e.g. 3 factions cost you £5.99).
    so my advice to people wishing to purchase this game, wait for an ultimate edition with all the DLC, that way you'll save money and your hair.
    My advice to SEGA and CA, please sort out your no more pointless DLC, no more 5 minute battles, do what you did for your old multiplayer that was way funner, and iron out the bugs before release.

    ALSO DO NOT LISTEN TO THE 'REAL' CRITICS
    Who just are seemingly paid under the table to write relatively nice things.
    The game's a f*cking disaster.    … Expand
  80. Einherjar_DK
    Sep 7, 2013
    5
    This is not a game this is a beta. With optimisation issues that make it unplayable more often than not, Rome 2 is so broken it's a disgrace it was allowed to be released in this state. Aside from the frankly game-breaking performance issues, the gameplay is a real step down from previous titles. The AI is as incompetent as ever. The campaign map has been taken in completely the wrongThis is not a game this is a beta. With optimisation issues that make it unplayable more often than not, Rome 2 is so broken it's a disgrace it was allowed to be released in this state. Aside from the frankly game-breaking performance issues, the gameplay is a real step down from previous titles. The AI is as incompetent as ever. The campaign map has been taken in completely the wrong direction, with all areas of gameplay dumbed down, and soul-sapping load times rubbing it in. Battles are simply no fun to play. Combat is resolved in minutes, with units destroying each other near-instantaneously. The array of stupid unit abilities emphasises the arcade-like nature of the battles.

    I won't go into the host of minor complaints with the game. Creative Assembly have released an unfinished product that you SHOULD NOT BUY. Those of us who have bought the game now wait for CA to fix the performance issues and independent modders to fix the gameplay. You decide for yourself if this is the state a game should be in at release, and whether this is the sort of product that you should pay for.

    And last but not least, no SLI Support...    … Expand
  81. stu82r
    Sep 10, 2013
    5
    I love the epic historical battle experience provided by the Total War franchise, but as of now this one has seriously failed to deliver. After 15 game hours; the AI seems broken. It is neither challenging nor a threat on any difficulty. The graphics are not up to the standard that was displayed in development screenshots, and not what I expected from a 2013 TW release. There are some coolI love the epic historical battle experience provided by the Total War franchise, but as of now this one has seriously failed to deliver. After 15 game hours; the AI seems broken. It is neither challenging nor a threat on any difficulty. The graphics are not up to the standard that was displayed in development screenshots, and not what I expected from a 2013 TW release. There are some cool new features, the cinematic camera, the campaign map has improved, but nothing new that has drastically improved or expanded the series. Sure, previous Total War titles also had their own problems, but CA does not seem to be learning or improving from those problems, despite being aware of them. I expected a huge leap forward in all areas, instead it feels like a massive step backwards. What is left is a playable game that had potential, but it is filled with annoying bugs, poor design choices (the battles feel short and confusing, in part due to the horrible AI and a new capture the flag mechanic that makes no sense), and DLC that's simply a slap in the face. You want to play the Spartans as a faction? Please insert $8. The fans have once again paid the price, and it will once again be up to the fans and modders to rescue this mess. Did not pre-order, this is the last CA game I will buy. Not acceptable.
    If you want to buy it, wait a year and buy it with a DLC bundle on sale. Otherwise, get Shogan 2 as it is simply a better game.    … Expand
  82. Stewchops
    Sep 13, 2013
    6
    Very meh when compared to previous titles in the series. Did someone important leave the studio or did they just stop giving a It feels like a step back from the work of art that is Shogun 2. Frankly the $60 price tag is insulting. Even if it were a $40 game I wouldn't recommend it to anyone I valued as a friend as they might think I was nuts.
  83. Sidhewyn
    Sep 21, 2013
    4
    I really wanted this game to be s great follow up to the original that I loved so much. I am pretty disappointed. The quality of the music is top notch. Atmosphere of the game is nice but so much is not working. AI as others have mentioned is 1980s bad. Passive and clueless. The game mechanics at the strategy level is nice. City building and technology. Battle is "mushy" phalanxes andI really wanted this game to be s great follow up to the original that I loved so much. I am pretty disappointed. The quality of the music is top notch. Atmosphere of the game is nice but so much is not working. AI as others have mentioned is 1980s bad. Passive and clueless. The game mechanics at the strategy level is nice. City building and technology. Battle is "mushy" phalanxes and barbarian both fall into blobs and mash up. No real sense of Roman discipline etc. I find the tactical game to be just run at the enemy maybe flank some but really in most ways worse than the original. How can that be? The original was so many years ago. Maybe they can patch some of these issues. I really want to like this game!… Expand
  84. TheMagicHobo
    Oct 9, 2013
    0
    Rome 2 Total War. What can I say about this wonderful, magnificent, glorious alpha stage console RTS? Well, first of all, I pre-ordered it for $60, I waited an entire night and half a day to download it, and I eagerly drank up the first four hours. What happened after the first four hours you ask? I'd seen the whole game. In a day's worth of play I transformed Rome from a minor state onRome 2 Total War. What can I say about this wonderful, magnificent, glorious alpha stage console RTS? Well, first of all, I pre-ordered it for $60, I waited an entire night and half a day to download it, and I eagerly drank up the first four hours. What happened after the first four hours you ask? I'd seen the whole game. In a day's worth of play I transformed Rome from a minor state on the Italian peninsula to the eminent power of the Mediterranean. I accomplished this amazing feat by waiting through two minute average wait times after turns, watching the greatest soldiers of the ancient world charge at skirmishers only to run away after seeing my infantry then get shot in the back rinse-repeat, and auto-resolving naval battles because ACTUAL combat ships only make a difference in auto-resolves.

    The game has so many flaws, SO many flaws.

    Let me elucidate. Here is the summary of an actual amphibious assault I launched against Athens, the city. My massive army of Legionaries, Velites, and Artillery landed outside the city (since apparently we can't actually invade through the actual port that has no defenses). I then found out that artillery can't take part in naval assaults. I don't mean they don't spawn, I don't mean they can't use their weapons, I mean you land them and then they do nothing. Their artillery pieces are nowhere to be seen (even scorpions which could easily fit on the deck), and not only that but they won't do anything. The twenty some odd guys just sit on the deck and take no commands.
    Anyway, back to the battle.
    So yeah, at that point I was thinking, "Well damn, how in the name of Jupiter am I gonna get over this wall? Maybe I can go through the space between the wall and the sea that twenty men could fit between? Nope won't let me? Maybe I could stand threateningly in front of the gate until the enemy army charges out? Nope they're nowhere to be seen. Well what can I d-huh? I can do WHAT?" That's right. Your REGULAR UNITS can use their magically spawning flaming spear/molotovs to BURN DOWN A METAL GATE. So I did that and it worked.
    Now of course I'm expecting the entire Athenian army to be behind the gate, ready to defend their home from the ravaging Ro-uh? Hello? Anyone home? Well I'll just march my Legionaries in if everyone's okay with that? Cool? Okay.
    I wonder where the-OH I SEE. There they are, they're around my sides obviously preparing to spring an ambush and crush my arrogant forces. Any second now. Annnnnnnnnnnnny seconnnnnndddd. Ah screw it men just charge.
    So at this point I just ordered my entire army to rush the first victory point. And, lo and behold, there's the enemy army standing there. Waiting for me. Ready to die for their really stiff flag that never moves.
    -30 seconds later-
    Whew, that was a tough one. For a second there I thought I might actually lose. Lose the battle? HAHAHAHA, no way I would have to have my guys completely disrobe and disarm and charge into an army of hoplites to have ANY chance at losing. I thought I might lose a unit of Legionnaires.
    Anywho, battle over. Now I'm going to go set up my army for a cool picture while I wait the several minutes it takes the enemy to get off the battlefield.

    So yes. If you like winning and feeling cool for doing absolutely nothing except clicking your mouse and sitting for minutes on end, then Rectum 2: Total is the game for you.
    And I didn't even touch upon the Strategy map, or the graphics, or the turn times, or the diplomacy, or the unbalanced units, or the rest of the game really.    … Expand
  85. RKK-SINGH
    Dec 24, 2013
    5
    A huge disappointment and an embarrassment to the Total War series, this game is in need of serious patches because its bleeding really bad, skip this game. Game receives a 5 because the overall concept is amazing, however with all the lag, poor graphics it does not live up to the hype, don't even bother looking at it, instead buy Medieval II Total War or the original Rome Total War, thoseA huge disappointment and an embarrassment to the Total War series, this game is in need of serious patches because its bleeding really bad, skip this game. Game receives a 5 because the overall concept is amazing, however with all the lag, poor graphics it does not live up to the hype, don't even bother looking at it, instead buy Medieval II Total War or the original Rome Total War, those games will not disappoint you.… Expand
  86. shaarapollo
    Jul 31, 2014
    0
    Hardcore Total War fan since the first Total War: Shogun.

    I played Shogun, Rome, Medieval II (+ Americas) and Shogun II. I played all those titles for so many hours, they were an obsession. I probably spent more time on these games than I'm going to spend with my unborn children. Rome II is an abomination. I built my PC just so I could play it. The agony. The horrible mess it is...    Hardcore Total War fan since the first Total War: Shogun.

    I played Shogun, Rome, Medieval II (+ Americas) and Shogun II. I played all those titles for so many hours, they were an obsession. I probably spent more time on these games than I'm going to spend with my unborn children.

    Rome II is an abomination. I built my PC just so I could play it. The agony. The horrible mess it is... Every other reviewer has already nailed the issues so I won't reiterate. The biggest regret is that I bought it. I will never buy another CA title until I see they've fixed their issues.

    How far will I go for Rome? As far as giving it a 0 and wanting a refund. That's how far.    … Expand
  87. ShadowofZexa
    Sep 19, 2013
    0
    Total War: Rome II is total the my high end rig can not even run it a 30 fps at max settings I got a FX 8350 and 7970 and I don't even get a 30 fps stable if you want to play a RTS play Shogan 2 this game is freaking
  88. Hasforth
    Sep 4, 2013
    2
    Huge letdown

    The Hype Train was set for the game of the year, unfortunately it was derailed by a large number of bugs, graphical issues and just plain missing content promised by the developer in their massive marketing campaign. There is absolutely no unit cohesion, units will just blob together and hack each other down, looking more like a mosh-pit fight than a battle between    Huge letdown

    The Hype Train was set for the game of the year, unfortunately it was derailed by a large number of bugs, graphical issues and just plain missing content promised by the developer in their massive marketing campaign.

    There is absolutely no unit cohesion, units will just blob together and hack each other down, looking more like a mosh-pit fight than a battle between soldiers. One of the most iconic formations of the era; the pike phalanx is downright broken, enemies will just casually stroll through the pikes and kill the phalanx like it was nothing.

    The battle speed feels even faster than Shogun II's, it is clear that Sega is trying to push their Sonic the hedgehog franchise into the Total War one, I cant wait for Mr Eggman DLC

    Even on a decent rig AMD fx 6350 HD 7870 the campaign map stutters like crazy, and framerates will drop as low as 9(!) when selecting an army on the campaign map.

    One of the main selling points was a "darker kind of war" where facial animations and soldiers calling our useful information would play a big part. Unfortunately the unit portraits are god-awful and even though you pump up AA to 16x the edges are blurrier than a pond of mud

    CA really up with this one    … Expand
  89. paulmarine
    Sep 22, 2013
    0
    CA have released a game that is not even ready for alpha testing it is a disgrace they should be ashamed of this underhand deal literally stealing from consumers! the game is not even compatible with AMD's switchable graphics found in any decent gaming laptop. there previous games have been a triumph and have run well on my high end machine but this game averages around 5 FPS with blotchyCA have released a game that is not even ready for alpha testing it is a disgrace they should be ashamed of this underhand deal literally stealing from consumers! the game is not even compatible with AMD's switchable graphics found in any decent gaming laptop. there previous games have been a triumph and have run well on my high end machine but this game averages around 5 FPS with blotchy textures this game was not ready for release and has not been tested on a variety of platforms and CA are making little to no effort to communicate with a large portion of the community who are still unable to play a game they have paid for! stay away from this title and future release from creative assembly!… Expand
  90. Halfmad
    Oct 13, 2013
    5
    Played this now for around 40 hours, most of which weren't particularly enjoyable. I'm a long time fan of the Total War series, going right back to the original Rome and every single one in between these two. I have to say it can look glorious, but as many people who love this franchise know it's how it's plays that matters. Unfortunately it doesn't play very well at all, bugs aside thePlayed this now for around 40 hours, most of which weren't particularly enjoyable. I'm a long time fan of the Total War series, going right back to the original Rome and every single one in between these two. I have to say it can look glorious, but as many people who love this franchise know it's how it's plays that matters. Unfortunately it doesn't play very well at all, bugs aside the game is still a mess with poor strategy shown by the computer during battles even on higher difficulty settings. They have for some reason removed the family tree, which makes no sense to me at all, I don't feel involved in the combat or game the way I did with even older games such as MTWII. Can I recommend it? Sadly I have to honestly say no, fire up MTWII with some mods and play that instead, it's vastly more entertaining. Even if the few serious bugs that remain are fixed this is still a soul-less, vaguely entertaining game and I really can't understand how they've managed to create it.… Expand
  91. Achilleslastand
    Oct 13, 2013
    4
    This game clearly needed at least 3 more months in development and that's being generous. From the hype/propaganda spread by CA/Sega/Craig/Will to the quite numerous bugs and performance issues as well as features from previous TW titles mysteriously omitted. Add to that a 60$ price tag and possibly more if you purchase if you add the Greek states DLC and you can see how the game hasThis game clearly needed at least 3 more months in development and that's being generous. From the hype/propaganda spread by CA/Sega/Craig/Will to the quite numerous bugs and performance issues as well as features from previous TW titles mysteriously omitted. Add to that a 60$ price tag and possibly more if you purchase if you add the Greek states DLC and you can see how the game has gotten below average reviews. I have seen titles made by smaller development teams for half the price of R2 that were more polished.
    I myself will never purchase another CA product upon release and in all likelihood possibly never.
    Caveat Emptor{Buyer Beware}....    … Expand
  92. KnownOperative
    Oct 8, 2013
    2
    Releasing a unfinished Tech demo product into the market, At that price, which seems to have been untested seems to tell us, that companies nowadays think you can get away with it, with Fans and players paying the Company to Test their game. Back in the day, people use to get Finished tested products. Not this... mess.

    Its a great game Rome total war II. But i didnt intend to buy    Releasing a unfinished Tech demo product into the market, At that price, which seems to have been untested seems to tell us, that companies nowadays think you can get away with it, with Fans and players paying the Company to Test their game. Back in the day, people use to get Finished tested products. Not this... mess.

    Its a great game Rome total war II. But i didnt intend to buy something unfinished, then Pay the company to finish it. Im quite angry.

    Also, i see less, or nothing new regarding features, from Rome total war, to Rome Total war II.
    Other than the improved graphics, and minor changes.

    It seems, one of the Childhood features i used to play around with "viewing a city" as it developed a magnifying glass icon" was removed or not implemented.    … Expand
  93. YoungR
    Oct 19, 2013
    1
    Disappointed by Total War, they just get worse and worse simpler by each release. I miss the likes of Medieval and Empire. In love with Europa Universalis now!
  94. DukeWellington
    Oct 19, 2013
    3
    I've always enjoyed total war games, but this marketing scheme by The Creative Assembly portraying this game as a masterpiece full of complex strategy and huge epic battles was a complete shame. Broken A.I., rotten political system with no point or purpose, sloppy battles and somewhat disappointing repetitive music that plays over and over again, you'll enjoy the tunes at first, butI've always enjoyed total war games, but this marketing scheme by The Creative Assembly portraying this game as a masterpiece full of complex strategy and huge epic battles was a complete shame. Broken A.I., rotten political system with no point or purpose, sloppy battles and somewhat disappointing repetitive music that plays over and over again, you'll enjoy the tunes at first, but believe me.. it gets old real quick. Though the graphics are quite wonderful and rich in historical representation, that's all you get, and even the graphics cause immense problems even for powerful computers. That's the "jist" of it, after purchasing this broken piece of software I felt downright ripped off at the extreme price of 60.00. Has CA sold out to modern marketing "gimmics" that downright LIE to consumers to make a quick buck, imitating Hollywood by showing incredible "Trailers" on an epic scale edited in a fashion where people believe they are buying what's on the trailer, I really think so. Though they are releasing beta patches every 1-2 weeks, it's a slow drooling process and many mistakes that plagued the release are still around; Excellent modders such as Radious Mod (you can find his work on the Total War Center forum) have made the game a little more playable, but with so many problems it seems that the game may take years upon years to get a solid foundation. go head and try the buggy hunk of junk yourself and see. Any reviewer who gives this game a 100 on meta-critic is either a "Deceptive Marketer i.e. Snake Oil Salesman" or simply a fool.… Expand
  95. beltrazZ
    Sep 5, 2013
    5
    After 16 hours played, I suddenly realise during my Iceni campaign on legendary difficulty, that i´m not enjoying the new game in my favorite game franchise. The AI is so defensive it´s ridiculous. Usually a single region state just sits with 2 full armies at their capital and does nothing. Trying to get trade agreements with any other nation is a nightmare. The AI remains the main problemAfter 16 hours played, I suddenly realise during my Iceni campaign on legendary difficulty, that i´m not enjoying the new game in my favorite game franchise. The AI is so defensive it´s ridiculous. Usually a single region state just sits with 2 full armies at their capital and does nothing. Trying to get trade agreements with any other nation is a nightmare. The AI remains the main problem of the franchise. In Shogun 2 it was actually pretty good in my opinion but this is such a downgrade. The flagpoints in the battles are broken. There is no strategy when the flagpoints are active. And don´t even get me started on the naval battles. The ramming and boarding button is broken to me and my units simply don´t follow my orders. And the FPS is always low in the campaign map for some reason. It´s fine in the battles (mostly) but in the campaign map it just isn´t smooth. I really, really hope that they will release some big patches and gameplay tweaks. Please Creative Assembly, fix this mess of a game that you have just released. Make it as good or better then the first rome.… Expand
  96. omonrise
    Jan 13, 2014
    1
    first, it is just offensive that in 10+ years of the franchise, the game mechanics hardly advanced at all. look at europa series - each new game, TONS of new stuff. here? not so much
    second, those gushing "professional" reviews make me sick. it just shows that there is no independent gaming press. seriously "I had difficulties in [insert here]" and then a 88 score?
    third, the game itself    first, it is just offensive that in 10+ years of the franchise, the game mechanics hardly advanced at all. look at europa series - each new game, TONS of new stuff. here? not so much
    second, those gushing "professional" reviews make me sick. it just shows that there is no independent gaming press. seriously "I had difficulties in [insert here]" and then a 88 score?
    third, the game itself is a beta, but even when it's patched, it will be a dumbed down version of shogun2, which was imho a dumbed down version of medieval 2.    … Expand
  97. MisterFro9
    Jun 11, 2014
    7
    The game has come A LONG way since release. It was a huge disappointment at first, and there are still many things that would be nice to be fixed, but it is definitely fun as hell. With a few more tweaks this could have an amazing multiplayer scene.
  98. Synomas
    Oct 9, 2013
    0
    Video Games that are released, need to be released as finished products unless stated otherwise. Rome II upon release was an unfinished product, still to this day needing much work from Creative Assembly, and is an all around enormous disappointment. Many of the problems Rome II faces could have been resolved with extensive beta testing preceding the release of the game. Gameplay wise,Video Games that are released, need to be released as finished products unless stated otherwise. Rome II upon release was an unfinished product, still to this day needing much work from Creative Assembly, and is an all around enormous disappointment. Many of the problems Rome II faces could have been resolved with extensive beta testing preceding the release of the game. Gameplay wise, Rome II has extreme issues, which cause things such as professional Roman Legionaries to fight out of formation like barbarians, AI to starve itself to death and present extremely basic challenges even upon the greatest difficulty, and an entirely lacking Political system that pales in comparison to it's predecessor Rome I.

    This game is an enormous blight on the Total War franchise and an ENORMOUS step back from Shogun 2, Creative Assembly's high point in the Total War series. There needs to be HUGE amounts of work put into this game by the developers to get it to be a good game.    … Expand
  99. Tyer032392
    Sep 5, 2013
    5
    I will not beat around the bush, this game has several major problems. There are plenty of bugs, glitches, graphics issues, and a horrible AI with UI. I can honestly see where CA was trying to go with this game, but they either did not have the time, or just ran out of budget; my money is on the time. If one can get through the problematic bugs and glitches, horrid AI and UI, you can findI will not beat around the bush, this game has several major problems. There are plenty of bugs, glitches, graphics issues, and a horrible AI with UI. I can honestly see where CA was trying to go with this game, but they either did not have the time, or just ran out of budget; my money is on the time. If one can get through the problematic bugs and glitches, horrid AI and UI, you can find a fairly enjoyable game, if it was better optimized. This game is not optimized and is to be frank, a horrid addition to the series as it currently stands. With all this aside, the design changes has some pretty interesting changes, ranging from more personalized armies on the campaign, to the provincial management. There are also less battles than there use to be, and the AI is still acting like it can create army after army and is to passive for my liking as I can literally siege a city and they won't do a thing about it.… Expand
  100. padrin0
    Sep 21, 2013
    5
    I took a little time with this review, because I did want to have a few hours played, so that my opinion would not be biased by what I had read before the release and directly afterwards. Now I have about 30 hours in the game, played around with almost every faction (be it in a campaign or in battles) and feel like I have gotten a decent feel of the game.

    First off, I have to say that I    I took a little time with this review, because I did want to have a few hours played, so that my opinion would not be biased by what I had read before the release and directly afterwards. Now I have about 30 hours in the game, played around with almost every faction (be it in a campaign or in battles) and feel like I have gotten a decent feel of the game.

    First off, I have to say that I am surprised by the number of terrible reviews. I agree that the game is not perfect, and might even be a step backwards from former titles, but it clearly is not a game that deserves a zero rating. To me, zero would imply that the game is unplayable or was so flawed that you would not want to play it Rome 2 isn't either. But let me begin.

    Technical Stuff:
    When I first started Rome 2, it told me that the graphical settings for the game were set to 'Extreme', which is the highest setting available in the game. However, a quick use of the benchmarking tool revealed that my machine wasn't really able to run the game at these settings which is a bit disappointing. Now I am stuck somewhere between 'Very High' and 'Ultra' (which really is Medium and High, but somehow it has to be exaggerated). I get framerate drops every once in a while when a huge battle is underway, but generally the game runs smooth.
    The campaign moves of other factions take a very, very long time unfortunately, and as I have heard it only gets worse the further you progress in a campaign. So far, it usually takes about 30 seconds to a minutes until I get to go again. Annoying? Yes. Gamebreaking? No.
    The real issue are random crashes sometimes the game would just freeze without any obvious reason at all, and could only be killed via the Task Manager. Those crashes are massively annoying, as they force you to restart the game, load a save (which takes a really long time in itself) and probably have you fight the last battle again, because you couldn't save before it went down. Often times when this happend, I just turned of my PC and decided my gaming session was over.
    (FYI: My specs are: i5 3570K, HD7870 /w 2GB VRAM, 8GB RAM)

    TL;DR: (Graphical) performance on a mid-range rig is alright, could be better. Random crashes sometimes kill the fun.

    Gameplay:
    In general, Rome 2 _could_ be a good game. The campaign map is huge, leaving you with almost endless possiblities to expand and develop your empire. However, the UI is simple and you almost immediately have a general idea of where what is, what it does, and if you want to build it or whatever. For instance, when hovering over a building option, it is immediately shown what effects the new building will have.
    However, CA made some terrible design decisions, that can really spoil the game for you (it did for me): For one, the AI is terrible and I am not necessarily talking about battle AI, which is actually not all that bad. What really bugs me are the irrational decisions the AI makes on the campaign map. For example (and this is by far the worst) when you march on an enemy city that is heavily forified, with a full army garsioned inside, very often times the army will leave the city just before you besiege it even when the city you are assaulting is the last city of a faction! The armies that have abandoned the city will then suffer attrition (as they have no home anymore) and have handed you the advantageous position of defending from inside the city. I have not the slightest idea what CA thought when they designed an AI that deliberately but itself at a disadvantage. There are other issues with the AI: mediocre battle performance, unwillingness to accept win/win trade agreements with the player, the fact that they never declare war on you (even if they hate you and you leave cities next to their borders completely undefended... What bothers me the most however, is how the major factions seem to somehow be at a disadvantage when played by the AI. Carthage will usually disappear within the first twenty turns (major bummer, as you will sometimes not even encounter them if you are playing as Rome), and many other factions (including Rome!) never expand more than their original territory. It really is disappointing when in 50 A.D. Rome has not managed to conquer even Northern Italy...
    By the way, I play the campaing on 'Very Hard'. 'Legendary', I avoid, because I do not like the battle realism mode, that is locked in on that difficulty. I have not seen any difference in AI behavior between 'Easy' and 'Very Hard' anyways, so I doubt it makes much of a difference.

    TL;DR: Solid foundation, but horrible AI really spoils the fun in singleplayer. If playing another faction, Rome never grows beyond it's original borders sad for a game that is called Rome.

    Summary:
    As said twice before, Rome 2 is not a bad game. Unfortunately, it is not good either it is simply mediocre. I hope that it gets improved down the road, but as of now, it deserves no more than a mediocre rating.    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

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

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
76

Generally favorable reviews - based on 71 Critic Reviews

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