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. wolverine101
    Sep 3, 2013
    1
    It could have been better much better. All the crashing is terrible just terrible. I hope they patch it soon as these many issues just won't do nor these lying scores it's dejavue all over again with the origional RTW the game does not rate 100 or 90's and that's all these jerks can give just to be like the other lemmings or smurfs. Quit lying and give it the score it deserves because ofIt could have been better much better. All the crashing is terrible just terrible. I hope they patch it soon as these many issues just won't do nor these lying scores it's dejavue all over again with the origional RTW the game does not rate 100 or 90's and that's all these jerks can give just to be like the other lemmings or smurfs. Quit lying and give it the score it deserves because of performance and gameplay.… Expand
  2. Xenophon
    Sep 4, 2013
    1
    Horrible UI.
    Horrendously confusing unit cards.
    Poorly optimized.
    Fix the triremes.
    Where is my guard button.
    Make a unit card that covers half my screen.
  3. N1kke
    Sep 4, 2013
    1
    I have been waiting this game for a while but what i get Broken game, i have super rig and my FPS is 15-25-fps i luv total war series but why release buggy game i don't wanna play low settings or medium because i know my rig can do better than that and EVEN medium settings lag is terrible..
  4. Kagemaru
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    I'll start out by saying this game will most likely disappoint the majority of people who play it whether old fans or new. Beyond that, I'll just stick directly to the point when stating SOME of the problems. Key word being "SOME."

    No MSAA compatibility anymore despite having it for ages in Total War series. Terrible graphics options. No DX11 options found in Shogun 2. No SLI/Crossfire    I'll start out by saying this game will most likely disappoint the majority of people who play it whether old fans or new. Beyond that, I'll just stick directly to the point when stating SOME of the problems. Key word being "SOME."

    No MSAA compatibility anymore despite having it for ages in Total War series. Terrible graphics options. No DX11 options found in Shogun 2. No SLI/Crossfire support for you PC enthusiasts out there. AI is more mentally handicapped than they were in Shogun 2 without mods. Units do not hold formation pretty much ever once they clash with an enemy. Just try the Spartan Phalanx. It's a joke unworthy of the name Phalanx. I imagine the Roman one doesn't fare much better.

    All the unit cards are terribly close to identical in appearance and name. Most of the stats for said units are too close, making you wonder if they just ran out of ideas or were lazy and simply duped units, slightly changed stats and then changed the suffix to their unit name. The new lighting effects are a joke and glitchy as all hell. I've seen children in the comfort of their homes make better lighting effects for existing games with post processing effects. Creative Assembly is pitiful.

    Back to the problems though Crazy broken bugs like ships sailing right onto land, skating across the landscape and running over your troops. That last one might actually be hilariously entertaining, but it won't distract you from the fact this game runs anywhere from 50% to 30% of the frames of Shogun 2 despite having 20%-25% the graphics quality of Shogun 2 in DX11. It's pitiful that this is the best they could do 2 years later. It literally resembles more so Empire or Napoleon graphics. in some cases Napoleon looks better than this game when it comes to texture work.

    If you think you can have a high-end PC, buy the game, and have it look like it does in the trailers, your optimism will quickly be crushed by the reality of it all. The only way to get this game to look that way is to lower certain settings in the game, or turn them off completely, downsample a higher resolution than the game supports like 1440p/1620p (Good luck keeping fluid frames with 1 GPU there) and then tweaking a SweetFX setup for it on top of that to get some better HDR/Bloom/AA/and shading overall. Even then you'll still find jaggies riddling everything, and inferior graphics quality for what is a game released in 2013. TLDR? "Shameful display." That's all you need to take from this.    … Expand
  5. pleox
    Sep 3, 2013
    0
    Don't even bother to buy the game right now, there is a high change you will have tons of problems, since low fps, crashes, etc; even with high end rigs. You can check lots of foruns to see whats going on. There is no way a game that expensive could get out like this. Shame
  6. 3THO
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    So after I played over 10 hours, I will adjust my 10/10 to a 4/10. The AI is just too stupid, a donkey i a compliment to them! I can defeat 3 armys with 1 on legendery! The AI is killing the game.. Also, i have lag... while I can run all other newest games on ultra settings! I have to tune down alot of the settings to have 20+ fps.... stupid framerate! If they fix all of this, i willSo after I played over 10 hours, I will adjust my 10/10 to a 4/10. The AI is just too stupid, a donkey i a compliment to them! I can defeat 3 armys with 1 on legendery! The AI is killing the game.. Also, i have lag... while I can run all other newest games on ultra settings! I have to tune down alot of the settings to have 20+ fps.... stupid framerate! If they fix all of this, i will change again to a 8/10! I am very sad about this....… Expand
  7. Apapin
    Sep 3, 2013
    0
    I expected wayyy more. I hate the way the soldier look on the bottom tab. Also it lags a lot with wayyyyy toooo long loading screens. My computer is suposed to run this game very well but the game thinks otherwise.
  8. leet8845
    Sep 3, 2013
    0
    This game is not finished. They released it with no driver support. No crossfire, no SLI. Terrible! Official word is blaming AMD and Nividia. What a joke. Make a game that don't work and blame others.
  9. mendocious
    Sep 3, 2013
    0
    Shame on reviewers for giving this game a free ride. As of release day, Creative Assembly is selling a totally defective, half-finished game that beyond its half-baked design innovations is unplayable by roughly a third of modern gaming computers. Don't buy this game until it's Steam saled for $10 or less, and only if they've patched it up.
  10. nebz
    Sep 3, 2013
    0
    Biggest over hyped game of 2013 no doubt. Poorly optimized and buggy. Loading times are ridiculously slow.

    UI is clunky and not very streamline. I am a big fan of the Total war series so it saddens me to admit this is nothing but a disappointment. Before the zealous fanboys scream ''your pc is I have an ultra end gaming computer and can run arma 3, and metro 2033 at over 50fps on ultra.
  11. hailey
    Sep 3, 2013
    0
    The worst Total War game since Empire. They took every bit of progress they made with Shogun 2 and threw it out the window. What we have instead is an uglier, worse game on the same engine.
  12. missey100
    Sep 3, 2013
    0
    I have been waiting about 8 years for this game, stayed up all last night for the 8am launch.
    And well its utter utter at the moment unplayable lag, graphics look at all settings, my pc can play any game on the market at ultra settings! so its a top on the line gaming pc .
    i didn't pay £30 for a beta game
  13. maksfighter
    Sep 3, 2013
    1
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I am very upset!!!! .Horrible optimization and miserable graphics first Rome looks better if this guano. Millions of bugs.Ai is very stupid.Developers cheated players.… Expand
  14. Mike1986
    Sep 3, 2013
    0
    Sadly a disappointment. Poor performance, AI still charges into your spears with its general, multiplayer adds nothing to the original Rome 1 concept.
  15. femmefatal
    Sep 3, 2013
    1
    to counter the silly 10's being thrown around out the wrongfully I had to give this game a 1. It's not worthy of a 10 and everyone knows itl It's not worthy of a 1 but we have to even things out. Right now it has some intuitive issues and crash issues and diplomacy issues and I saw them. Figuring out how to build took about 3 turns and having to have a plat form before one builds is justto counter the silly 10's being thrown around out the wrongfully I had to give this game a 1. It's not worthy of a 10 and everyone knows itl It's not worthy of a 1 but we have to even things out. Right now it has some intuitive issues and crash issues and diplomacy issues and I saw them. Figuring out how to build took about 3 turns and having to have a plat form before one builds is just more micromangement the game doesn't need. Diplomacy is silly in that no one wants a simple trade agreememt or non aggression pact. Crashing is a big issue with me because I rarely have them but this game crashed on the very first battle. a bad one too reset my whole computer and did a hard reboot. I'm sure there will be more issues like the AI is pretty easy too but hopefully that is because of these early factions I've encountered if it gets better without mods I'll up my score until then it gets a 1… Expand
  16. sonofdiablo48
    Sep 3, 2013
    1
    Needs work it has a lot of issues right now. crashing, diplomacy, AI, intuitive gameplay. Graphics are good though I wouldn't give it a 10 but we have to be fair about this 7.5 is closer to home it shouldn't get a 10 just because it's CA and RTW2
  17. bill-evans
    Sep 3, 2013
    0
    Worst strategy game i've ever seen.
    It's not a game, it's trash, it's not Rome, it is repainted Shogun2. The game is so poorly done absolutely everything fighting, strategy map, interface, diplomacy, AI, facial animation which is hard to believe that these same people who made the last game of the series. I withdrew my pre-order from Steam two months ago, but support did not want to see    Worst strategy game i've ever seen.
    It's not a game, it's trash, it's not Rome, it is repainted Shogun2. The game is so poorly done absolutely everything fighting, strategy map, interface, diplomacy, AI, facial animation which is hard to believe that these same people who made the last game of the series. I withdrew my pre-order from Steam two months ago, but support did not want to see the two letters that i send. So i got proof that i was right, and the game 60-bucks full of crap. In the CA thought of me as well as the buyer, but it is not thought as a player. This game a lack of respect for fans of the series. I will not even more buy a game of CA until the demo.    … Expand
  18. bills6693
    Sep 3, 2013
    5
    Not at all compelling campaign map play. Battles have very little tactics. New UI is not useful and much information is obscured. Disappointed in new mechanics. Still a TW game but lost that 'one more turn' addictive quality and in an attempt to simplify it, they have made it much worse.
  19. JaM1977
    Sep 3, 2013
    7
    Worst game of the series.. Battle Combat lacks any tactics, its just about making all units to fight in one huge blob. strategy part is no better. Its dumbed down to any "fast Clicking" RTS level..
  20. dbyron87
    Sep 4, 2013
    5
    I'm starting this review by saying that this could have been an amazing game. Truly, it could, but in the state that it is now, it just isn't. The worst part about everything is that some of the problems, i don't even think willl be addressed.

    Let's start with the good, shall we? + I love the campaign map, it is big, awesome and epic, the scope is enormous, and i like that, i also    I'm starting this review by saying that this could have been an amazing game. Truly, it could, but in the state that it is now, it just isn't. The worst part about everything is that some of the problems, i don't even think willl be addressed.

    Let's start with the good, shall we?

    + I love the campaign map, it is big, awesome and epic, the scope is enormous, and i like that, i also like how we can expand our cities and the new way they're developed, make some cities really strategic.

    + The visuals are good, i didn't have the problems, some people had with the graphics, so i could enjoy them, and they're very pretty.

    + The soundtrack, it is...Good. I mean, the original Rome soundtrack was better, the Shogun 2, as well, but it is a good soundtrack.

    Now the things that have a problem, but, may become amazing later:

    +- The diplomacy as it stands is...Insane. The AI tries to negotiate at least, but it's way too stubborn for it's own good, not making deals that would save it, etc...Needs some tweaking, but, it would be nice if some factions continue to be stubborn for the rest of the game.

    +- The political system. Ok, no more families, no problem about that. But as it stands is too artificial, too little control, it's just not fun. With some tweaking, it would be quite cool, but may take some work.

    Now, the bad.

    - The battles. The units move way too fast, not only the light cavalry, that is supposed to be fast, but the heavy infantry is really fast! I like the Hoplites skill that makes them run fast, it reminds me of Marathon, but every heavy infantry moving like skirmishers is bad. Then there is the combat speed, that is fast as well, really fast. I understand when Cavalry Vs. Missile is fast, i understand when Heavy Infantry Vs. Cavalry is fast, but in this game, the combat resolution is way too fast. You coudn't pull a Cannae or Gaugamela in this engine, because there is just no room to manouver. The best way is just too click the units in the enemy and wait, the enemy don't try to maintain cohesion and a battle line, so, no worries. The units don't mantain their formations as well, so your legionaries will be fighting like a bunch of Gauls.

    Conclusion, there is more good than bad, but...The selling point of the TW series is the cinematic and tactical combat, and as it is, that's not in the game. The battle is shallow and unfun, they need to fix those, or the game is lost.    … Expand
  21. ElBasque
    Sep 3, 2013
    6
    If it wasn't rushed out it had the potential to be a 10/10 RTS.

    As it was rushed out, as it stands, its around a 6. The AI is still a bit derpy but that's not really a negative point, especially as I'm not the best player. But the speed of the battles is much too fast, frequently if ordering a three unit attack, after ordering the last to attack, the first unit has already massacred    If it wasn't rushed out it had the potential to be a 10/10 RTS.

    As it was rushed out, as it stands, its around a 6.

    The AI is still a bit derpy but that's not really a negative point, especially as I'm not the best player. But the speed of the battles is much too fast, frequently if ordering a three unit attack, after ordering the last to attack, the first unit has already massacred everyone and is idling around waiting for new orders. Its a race to get all the directions made before you're needed again. It renders the battles simply a chore. I don't know why there's a cinematic button as you need to see all the battlefield at all times with unit on unit fights lasting 10 seconds at best. Playing on "slow-mo" is where the default pace should be.

    Graphically is not optimised in the slightest, and I'm sure the devs know this and are working on it. Its not a big issue for me personally but the downright lying through screenshots months ago is a bit gaul-ing.

    Strategically speaking the shedding of much of the micromanagement smacks of dumbing down. Paraphrasing dev quotes about how you don't now have to have 1-2 unit armies marching across the map to reach the main force is true; but when was any of that ever an issue? In a game that prides itself on realism why is spawning a unit of fully-equipped cavalrymen in the middle of a Germanic forest the preferred option?

    Also ive ran into a peculiar problem that no-one else seems to have had. After winning an engagement in the prologue, clicking "end battle" when prompted, it took me back to the main menu, and upon clicking resume prologue it took me back to the pre-battle strategy map. I had to fight every prologue battle twice to move to the next stage. I doubt that was how it was meant to be.

    Its obviously not a 9 or 10, those written by hype-influenced CA/TW fanboys. Neither is it a 0 or 1, those written by elitist zealots expecting perfection or something to show off their latest Nvidia Titan graphics card. It is, at the moment, a solid RTS let down by untuned graphics and stupid niggles that should appear in a mediocre title.

    Reading this after October 2013? I'd expect it to be an 8 by then, I hope I'm not disappointed.    … Expand
  22. luc1kjke
    Sep 3, 2013
    4
    So I've selected "Very High" graphics just to make sure game runs smoothly and hoping to increase it later but I was incredibly surprised seeing graphics equality of Rome I with lags. My specs are: X4 955/6950 2gb/8gb ram. I'll wait for a patches but for now this isn't how surprise fans Creative Assembly!
  23. SensualPro
    Sep 3, 2013
    5
    Very dissapointing the multiplayer I wanted a interesting multiplayer that when you play you can upgrade your units and your general like Shogun2 but this is very boring and repetitive.
  24. CaptainThom
    Sep 4, 2013
    5
    Initially i gave this game a 9/10 based on my experience in the prologue which i really enjoyed and i would like to apologise for that beacuse that was far from true, since starting the campaign there are a number of glaring issues which has left me dissapointed and annoyed at how broken gameplay is.

    Politics Politics is a new feature in a total war game which makes it all the more    Initially i gave this game a 9/10 based on my experience in the prologue which i really enjoyed and i would like to apologise for that beacuse that was far from true, since starting the campaign there are a number of glaring issues which has left me dissapointed and annoyed at how broken gameplay is.

    Politics
    Politics is a new feature in a total war game which makes it all the more surprising how its completely ignored in the tutorial. Characters have traits which are supposed to effect internal politics and their ability on the battlefield (Gravitas, ambition,cunning etc) However after 12 hours of game play i still have no idea what any of them do.

    Diplomacy
    During my campaign as the Iceni tribes have rejected trade agreements for no apparent reason and anything below high likeness has been rejected. Its almost impossible to get any other tribe to become an ally despite having extremely good relations with them.

    Sieges
    The Ai doesnt defend the walls instead massing all its units at the victory point. On the campaign map a town or city may seem poorly defended only for it to have a massive garrison of hidden units, its especially annoying when you have won an important battle to be confronted by such a large garrison and being forced to retreat from the region.

    Battles.
    When trying to attack the enemy with a phalanx the men all break from formation and charge. All units seem to have throwing weapons which they only use before charging you cant set them to fire at will. Theres pretty much no point in chasing enemy's down after a battle because even horsemen seem to walk along with them instead of attacking them.

    When defending against a larger force theres victory points in stupidly undefendable areas which can lead to you having to give up the high ground or wooded areas. The pace of combat has been massively increased so you have very little time to maneuver taking away a lot of the strategy from larger battles.

    Armies can now randomly walk across water with no cost which is stupid and if their larger than your navy they can properly beat your navy in battle.

    Sadly this is just a list of sum of the issues that i personally have seen and that have really hindered the experience so far for me, there's clearly a great game in there somewhere but it needs a lot of patching and probably a few mods to get it anywhere near the standard that we all hoped for.    … Expand
  25. Machiavelli
    Sep 4, 2013
    3
    My first impression of this game was a 9/10 however as I tried to delve deeper into the game I found that I simply could not, vast and very shallow a lake this is. City management has been simplified even further than Shogun 2. The immersive nature and detail of the cities in Rome 1 are gone replaced with prettier pictures but simpler mechanics. Perhaps this is the core of the issue, CAMy first impression of this game was a 9/10 however as I tried to delve deeper into the game I found that I simply could not, vast and very shallow a lake this is. City management has been simplified even further than Shogun 2. The immersive nature and detail of the cities in Rome 1 are gone replaced with prettier pictures but simpler mechanics. Perhaps this is the core of the issue, CA focused so heavily in making a gorgeous game (which it is, albeit unoptimized) that they forgot to reel the player in with detail management mechanics that while small are what ties and immerses the player in the game world in the first place. Each mechanic individually is indeed an 8 or 9 out of ten, However put it all together and try and immerse yopurself in the campaign and you find those little things that kept you playing 100 hours are no longer there. As a proper total war game it is a 3.

    This is the last time I preorder a TW game.    … Expand
  26. wisefool
    Sep 3, 2013
    0
    This game is one of the best strategy game I played but it's poorly optimized! Sadly, my core i3 and gtx 560ti can't run this on high settings. I just bought this game because of my total war collection
  27. hernethehunter
    Sep 9, 2013
    8
    Bugs and some game play issues aside at the moment this game will grow with patches. So that's why I gave it a genorous 8. Long time Total War fan since Shogun 1 but Rome 2 is more than just war and that might put some fans of previous titles off?
  28. Hner
    Sep 6, 2013
    4
    After more than 20 hours of playing I gotta change my initial rating. In its current state I'd give it a solid 4/10. Too many bad design decisions and on top of that a plethora of bugs and performance issues.

    In its core it's a dumbed down version of the original Rome TW with a pretty campaign map.
  29. Vivec
    Sep 5, 2013
    0
    I'm changing my score, at some point game turned out be unplayable. I'm getting such a low fps' it's annoying. I played every game on ultra until now. Even at lowest settings game still manages to lag.

    Battles are impossible to play, your army loses it's formation the moment you give an order. Campaign is much more better than former titles but i can't think another game which is poorly    I'm changing my score, at some point game turned out be unplayable. I'm getting such a low fps' it's annoying. I played every game on ultra until now. Even at lowest settings game still manages to lag.

    Battles are impossible to play, your army loses it's formation the moment you give an order. Campaign is much more better than former titles but i can't think another game which is poorly optimised as this.

    A game needs to be playable first to even get a rating!    … Expand
  30. Malorix
    Sep 8, 2013
    5
    Earlier I gave a score of 8 for this game. I played for 40 plus hrs now and have to lower that score. This game is not finished. I was extremely excited for this game, but at this stage it is simply not fun to play.

    - Tame campaign AI I was not declared war a single time in my Rome campaign!! There is no challenge. Conquer factions one at a time. They're rarely allied with one another.    Earlier I gave a score of 8 for this game. I played for 40 plus hrs now and have to lower that score. This game is not finished. I was extremely excited for this game, but at this stage it is simply not fun to play.

    - Tame campaign AI I was not declared war a single time in my Rome campaign!! There is no challenge. Conquer factions one at a time. They're rarely allied with one another.
    - Battle speed is too high. All battles are over in under 10 minutes. There is no satisfaction because units move too fast and I have lost the familiar TW feeling of control.
    - Naval battles are disfunctional. Real pity.
    - Beaten rebels keep attacking you after being defeated (unlike in Shogun 2).

    There is much that I do like in the game (UI actually, recruitment at general only, limited amount of armies, diverse battles, naval/land battles, the idea of the political factions, etc.). But unfortunately they are prevented from shining because of gameplay flaws.

    I doubt whether CA can fix these issues they purportedly couldnt with Empire but I keep an open mind.    … Expand
  31. balrog1987
    Sep 5, 2013
    4
    I'm changing my score for now, because of obvious reasons -
    1) AI
    2) UI 3) No connection to faction no family tree 4) Diplomacy needs rebalancing 5) The sea battles are terrible, transports are op 6) No blood seriosly, in a game about warfare?Grow some balls. 7) Battle pacing is terrible 8) Too many too fast reloading magic abilities 9) Pushed out before the GPU drivers were    I'm changing my score for now, because of obvious reasons -
    1) AI
    2) UI
    3) No connection to faction no family tree
    4) Diplomacy needs rebalancing
    5) The sea battles are terrible, transports are op
    6) No blood seriosly, in a game about warfare?Grow some balls.
    7) Battle pacing is terrible
    8) Too many too fast reloading magic abilities
    9) Pushed out before the GPU drivers were created terrible optimization
    10) Even on extreme graphics are blurry and lack proper AA
    11) is it not enough?    … Expand
  32. dodzylla
    Sep 3, 2013
    9
    The game is very good, but the AI is still the same every battle is very easy, on very hard too, so this is very disappointing the UI is disgusting.

    Everything else is fine.
  33. Maggotfist
    Sep 15, 2013
    2
    Beautiful game with so much potential. Game breaking crash bug at turn 57 on Suebi campaign. AI is almost non-existent. Poorly optimized graphics. Aside from the bugs and crashes VERY fun.
    It's a game of magnificent scope and ambition, but is CLEARLY in beta phase. I am very much looking forward to the final version after some patches.
  34. PlasticMenace
    Sep 3, 2013
    8
    A great game, but not the masterpiece it could have been. A little bit less marketing and a little more AI development could have cured the blemishes of previous Total War games, but unfortunately this is not the case. A beautiful and incredibly performance heavy game that will hopefully come into its own as patches and optimisation occurs. While I feel that the Total War series and Rome 2A great game, but not the masterpiece it could have been. A little bit less marketing and a little more AI development could have cured the blemishes of previous Total War games, but unfortunately this is not the case. A beautiful and incredibly performance heavy game that will hopefully come into its own as patches and optimisation occurs. While I feel that the Total War series and Rome 2 too indeed comes a long way there are niggling bugs that seem to re-occur every iteration. Nonetheless, Rome 2 provides a deep, intuitive and sometimes intimidating addition to the impressive Total War series. Some reviewers, compare the RTS and Turn-Based features to the Civilizations or Starcrafts of this genre, we should remember that Total War has its own unique place in strategy games and fills a vital niche that only CA has filled. Rome 2 was not built in a day and the workmanship put into the soldiers, variety of units and animations show this, but several more of these days should have been spent on the AI, which I'm afraid carries the series curse of sluggish movements and silly decision making.… Expand
  35. AstroCat
    Apr 15, 2018
    8
    I've enjoyed and fully supported CA since Shogun 1, and this was a complete scam and rip off at launch. At the time of this review we've had 9 patches since "launch" and it is finally starting to becoame an ok product. I wouldn't have even come close to recommending this game until now. With a few mods I now can finally have a bit of fun with Rome 2, it's not what it should have been butI've enjoyed and fully supported CA since Shogun 1, and this was a complete scam and rip off at launch. At the time of this review we've had 9 patches since "launch" and it is finally starting to becoame an ok product. I wouldn't have even come close to recommending this game until now. With a few mods I now can finally have a bit of fun with Rome 2, it's not what it should have been but at least its playable now.

    The EE version has finally made this the base game it should have been almost a year ago. I can finally feel comfortable about recommending Rome 2. As well I've been enjoying myself playing the game, although I still do use mods to further customize the experience.

    2018 update: Nice they are still supporting the game, but what really gives this game life, depth and longevity is the mod, Divide et Impera, I can't recommend it enough!    … Expand
  36. Sheriden
    Sep 3, 2013
    10
    Finally got Rome 2 after a long wait. I am very happy with what we've got, and I know CA will improve the game over the coming months with patches and updates. The game is huge and people need to me more understanding when dealing with a game on this scale. This game will keep me entertained for YEARS. Highly recommend to any strategy/TW fan.
  37. hastatimaster
    Sep 3, 2013
    9
    only played Rome 2 two hours this morning but it didnt take any longer then 30 minutes to realize how great this game is and how much more great i can be with modding and patching, far out weighs Rome TW so i think it deserves 9 thats not a fanboy score its my honest opinion.
  38. DMFW
    Sep 3, 2013
    9
    So far impressed with the game. I'm not running into any problems with the load times. The only thing I find bad is the ui is very different from shogun 2 which I've been playing a lot recently. Not perfect but it's what I was expecting. Worth the money.
    Haven't checked fps but on extreme no lag. My specs i5 Oc to 3.7ghz, 660 and 8gs ram. Load times no different than shogun though the    So far impressed with the game. I'm not running into any problems with the load times. The only thing I find bad is the ui is very different from shogun 2 which I've been playing a lot recently. Not perfect but it's what I was expecting. Worth the money.
    Haven't checked fps but on extreme no lag. My specs i5 Oc to 3.7ghz, 660 and 8gs ram. Load times no different than shogun though the turn lengths extend because of the size of the game.    … Expand
  39. Mrtonyxdxd
    Sep 3, 2013
    10
    Total War ROME 2 it's just a deep beatiful strategy game like every other game of the total war series! Don't be fooled by the bad review couse it has some imperfection but WHATEHELL it's only the performance that need to be improved and some Ai adjustement nothing more! Keep it classic and buy this game because it deserve it. I gave this a 10 couse there are people that give it 0 whileTotal War ROME 2 it's just a deep beatiful strategy game like every other game of the total war series! Don't be fooled by the bad review couse it has some imperfection but WHATEHELL it's only the performance that need to be improved and some Ai adjustement nothing more! Keep it classic and buy this game because it deserve it. I gave this a 10 couse there are people that give it 0 while they have played like 5 min into the game and then they keept playing Ride to hell Retribution. You will love this game as soon you start the campaign!… Expand
  40. Gratson
    Sep 3, 2013
    10
    I'm a huge fan of the Total War series, and so far I'm NOT disappointed! The game is clearly a member of the Total War series, anyone who has played their previous titles will be familiar with the general gameplay. However there are new features in just about every aspect of the game that have been added, everything from province management, to agents to battle, that makes this feelI'm a huge fan of the Total War series, and so far I'm NOT disappointed! The game is clearly a member of the Total War series, anyone who has played their previous titles will be familiar with the general gameplay. However there are new features in just about every aspect of the game that have been added, everything from province management, to agents to battle, that makes this feel different from other Total War games. As a long-time fan of the series, I love the changes, I'm looking forward to a couple hundred hours of gameplay (I had 300+ on Shogun 2). Thumbs up!… Expand
  41. MetaAwesome
    Sep 10, 2013
    4
    The latest addition to the Total War series demonstrates some interesting new features, however the core gameplay takes a leap backwards.

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

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

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

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

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

    This review has not touched on any of the bugs encountered by players. There are loads of them.    … Expand
  42. FooyFooy
    Sep 10, 2013
    4
    A huge let down after Total War Shogun 2 added so much to the game and had great new feature. However, in Rome 2, they added a good amount of things to the campain UI and made the world map a lot more pretty, they took away so much more. Shogun was a step foward but Rome 2 was 2 steps backwards. I'm not going to talk about the AI too much sense that can be patched later on. They made theA huge let down after Total War Shogun 2 added so much to the game and had great new feature. However, in Rome 2, they added a good amount of things to the campain UI and made the world map a lot more pretty, they took away so much more. Shogun was a step foward but Rome 2 was 2 steps backwards. I'm not going to talk about the AI too much sense that can be patched later on. They made the unit cards all look the same making it difficult to identify the unit type, and you can now only use seige equipment on prvincial capitals which is weird. They took away the personalities of generals and made the upgrading system for them very confusing. Now generals die all the time of natural cuases and there is no way to continue they're legacy with children or a family tree like in Shogun 2. They talked about how the solider tactics were realistic and the charges were much better but it is really just a mosh pit compared to Shogun 2 chharges. You also have to babysit every unit now since there will be one unit next to them being massecered while they just sit and watch. They will only fight if you direct them to a specific enemy or when they are attacked. Climbing over walls is verry troublesome as once they finaly manage to get on the walls, they have to wait till the last man is on to move an inch and get down into the city. The Naval battles are absolutly horrific in they're current state, so I suggest you just auto-resolve them all. There are actually some positives such as a new larger map stretching from modern day Portugal to modern day Pakistan. They introduce a new province system consisting of minor settlements and one provincial capital which i love, and makes managing the cities much easier. The cities themselves are a pretty as ever before. They actually seem like cities now, and invasions have much better settings. Now to the verdict. I was largely dissapointed with this game, If you are new to the total war franchise, DO NOT get Rome total war 2, get shogun 2, a vastly superior game. I give this game a 4/10 since it is still an ok game. It seems to have been rushed out the door. I would suggest if you own it yet, you wait for the patches or buy Shogun 2 in the meantime.… Expand
  43. curtisimo
    Sep 10, 2013
    3
    This game is nowhere near ready for release. I'm sick of pre-ordering supposed AAA games just to be given a beta stage product on release day.
    The stripped out features, enumerable graphics glitches, dumber than dirt AI and unplayable multiplayer make me forget any of the good aspects of this game.
  44. Stolas
    Sep 10, 2013
    4
    Feel that I paid £30 for an Alpha build, I saw better graphics, better AI and a different game entirely to what I'd bought in comparison to what I'd been shown on Rally Point and the Creative Assembly's many media releases.

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

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

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

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

    Also dissapointed in how the Critics have reviewed it, makes it awfully clear they play the game for about a half hour when not even knowing the franchise's history!    … Expand
  45. FanaticGamer89
    Sep 10, 2013
    3
    In 2004 Rome Total War was released. It was the first 3D game in the Total War series. I loved that game and still do. When I play Rome Total War I am taken to the classical era. For its time the graphics were fantastic, the UI was great and the AI was okay. Even though most effort was put into Rome, each culture felt unique and had their own variation of the UI, their own soundtracks andIn 2004 Rome Total War was released. It was the first 3D game in the Total War series. I loved that game and still do. When I play Rome Total War I am taken to the classical era. For its time the graphics were fantastic, the UI was great and the AI was okay. Even though most effort was put into Rome, each culture felt unique and had their own variation of the UI, their own soundtracks and their own strategies.

    Fast forward 9 years and Rome 2 has just been released, but how does it compare to its predecessor?

    Here is my honest opinion of Rome 2 with the good, the bad and the ugly. I honestly think Rome 2 could be the best game they made and I wanted to love it. Unfortunately, there are too many issues in the game currently.

    The Good

    - Rome 2 is pretty. Very pretty. The battlefields are more alive than ever and the cities look great even at medium high settings The units look better than some FPS games. Yes there are sometimes missing textures (will get to that soon) but it still looks fantastic.
    - Custom battles are fun. I love custom battles where I can play against another army. Yes the battles are shorter than in Rome 1 but I still thoroughly enjoy them.

    The Bad
    Things such as bugs, can be easily fixed.

    - The game is buggy. This is expected for a first day release, but there are lots of bugs. Missing textures, massive frame rate drops, unkillable admirals and dumb AI makes the game seem almost complete but not quite.
    - Campaign battles are boring. Remember I said custom battles are fun? Well the same isn’t for campaign battles. The AI seems to love spamming Mobs and Skirmishers both of which are easily disposed of. I’m finding myself winning every land battle with almost no losses. The campaign battles are more of a cat and mouse game than a battle.
    - Sea battles are confusing. I thought we could initiate boarding at sea, but all we can do is ram ships like a bunch of dodgem cars. Having two lines of ships individually ram each other is repetitive to say the least.
    - Friendly fire. Yes I understand friendly fire isn’t a bad thing, but it kills more of my own men than theirs. Like any good general I position my archers and skirmishers behind my lines, but they seem to kill more of my own men than theirs.
    - AI seems far too passive. They don’t attack with big armies, only tiny ones which always get repelled.

    The Ugly
    Game mechanics, cannot be easily taken out or fixed.

    - The UI is too modern. Rome 1’s UI made me feel like I was playing in the era, Rome 2’s UI is too modern and confusing. Icons are oddly placed and are too small and unit cards are too big.
    - Transport ships. Units can run into the water and make transport ships. While the idea is okay, transport ships are just too overpowered. Why make an expensive navy when you can make an army of militia and march them into the water? I remember in the original Rome an invasion from sea took a lot of planning, in Rome 2 that planning is non-existent as you can just march your army across the water, literally.
    - City management. In Rome 1 I loved managing cities. When I selected a city I was taken into that city, could see information about it clearly and had to choose carefully what to build. Rome 2’s city management is simple, too simple. You don’t even have to select a city to manage it, just a region. I don’t find myself getting attached to cities or caring much about them.
    - No family tree. I loved the family tree in Rome 1, it made me feel attached to my generals as they were family to me (literally). Rome 2 has done away with the family tree and I can raise an army under a general whenever I want. Because of this, I don’t care too much for my generals well being.
    - No seasons. Each turn is a year, which is very quick and seasons no longer exist. The campaign map doesn’t seem as alive anymore as the only thing changing is the size of cities. If they wanted the game to have less turns in it then why make the campaign map so big? I would rather a smaller map with seasons as opposed to a big map with yearly turns. Generals and agents also age and die too quickly now.
    - I don't like the use of the horse as a movement token. It seems too arcade like to me. I loved seeing the armies move across the land in Rome 1, but in Rome 2 they seem less threatening moving around as a guy on a horse.

    So there is my opinion of Rome 2 thus far. I understand that the bugs will be fixed with patches and the game will improve in time, but I can’t shake the feeling that there are too many disjointed game mechanics, which unlike bugs will remain in the game. Patching those mechanics will be like putting a band-aid on a broken arm. I wanted to love this game, I really did but it is currently too disjointed.

    Take your copy of Rome 1. Boot it up and remind yourselves of what made Rome Total War so great.    … Expand
  46. tesfurdo
    Sep 11, 2013
    0
    This will be brief.

    I'm not going to state any of the issues that have been listed countless times by many others which I have experienced. What I will do is say this. I've never written a review for anything in my life, yet i felt compelled to sign up her and write this. I have played every total war game to date, even with teething problems with empire and shogun, I came to enjoy    This will be brief.

    I'm not going to state any of the issues that have been listed countless times by many others which I have experienced. What I will do is say this. I've never written a review for anything in my life, yet i felt compelled to sign up her and write this.

    I have played every total war game to date, even with teething problems with empire and shogun, I came to enjoy them... but with each release I find I enjoy them less. The devs know what they are doing by "taking the game series in a different direction"... they're making it more accessible to children. I am not a child and I don't enjoy successive games getting easier and fundamentally more basic. They go for graphical realism and turn the game in to an ever increasing simplification of historical battle accuracy. This latest installment is a perfect example... not a single nation had comparable units at this time... there are far to many units which are identical in every way (from fighting method to core battle stats) bar appearance. Also, hero units are pure fantasy. Quite why the devs thought they needed to introduce this kind of game influence I'll never know... it may add depth, but it destroys historical immersion completely.

    This isn't me hating on a game because I've not got what I want... I'm hating on it because I want the devs to bear in mind there are gamers out there like me... maybe there's not enough of us to make it financially attractive to make games with us in mind? If that's the case I'll hold my hands up and walk away from yet another title which is selling out. I'm pretty certain this will be my last ever total war purchase. Guess I'll just have to replay the classics and prey that the series takes the right turn for a change.

    I'm too disappointed to write any more...    … Expand
  47. rpuerta
    Sep 12, 2013
    0
    I have this game for over a week and can't even play it. I'm able to play all the other Total War games non stopping for hours at a time, but this one lags big time, very unplayable, boring and not fun at all. HORRIBLE Everything is Broken Nothing works like is suppose to be.
  48. westerntuna
    Sep 9, 2013
    0
    After 2 hours of play, I loved the game. 12 hours in, it's obvious how broken and incomplete the game is.

    No unit collision. Giant formations and unique unit animations mean absolutely nothing. Battles end up being giant brawls where you can't see what's happening. Battles rely not on actually winning the game, but capturing a flag. 100 men can defeat 3000 just by getting to the flag    After 2 hours of play, I loved the game. 12 hours in, it's obvious how broken and incomplete the game is.

    No unit collision. Giant formations and unique unit animations mean absolutely nothing. Battles end up being giant brawls where you can't see what's happening. Battles rely not on actually winning the game, but capturing a flag. 100 men can defeat 3000 just by getting to the flag first. Terrain and tactics mean nothing. Just the flag.

    End your turn? Get ready for a 5 minute wait for all the other factions to go next, even with AI moves turned off. AI even on Legendary don't start wars. Heck, I had AI at war with me offer trade agreements!
    In battle, AI will IGNORE your army, even if it means running through it, and go straight for the flag.

    Game is filled with bugs. Ships WILL get caught on the smallest rock, disabling the ship's AI. If a single person is still unloading or stuck on a ship or siege engine, the entire unit cannot be used. Co-Op campaign is unplayable due to dsync, and multiplayer crashes when I tried playing with friends.

    I played this a week after release. Even after several patches, it's still broken.

    If you skip this game, you won't be missing anything. Go back to Shogun 2. Or at least don't buy this until it goes on a really steep sale.    … Expand
  49. kcanon112
    Sep 9, 2013
    0
    Most people who rate this highly usually say "it's good but" this game is broken from the graphics to the AI, and what's worse is the optimization meaning it'll be difficult to get a good FPS even on good rigs.
  50. arflynn23
    Sep 10, 2013
    4
    Having been a fan of the Total War series for years (12 or so) I am so sad that this is what was released. Clearly the hype was just that. Hype. The game has major issues that I'm not sure can be repaired no matter how much patching is done. But for the sake of CA and Rome, I sure hope it can get better.
  51. TheUnbeholden
    Sep 10, 2013
    2
    Total War Shogun 2 was such a massive improvement... and now this? This is a disgrace to the Total War series... it's got strip away features, it's buggy to hell and back, AI are the most retarded they have ever been before, the map AI will almost never attack you.. and even when they do they only throw tiny groups of enemies at you. Never a big group. Enemies in game will stand there andTotal War Shogun 2 was such a massive improvement... and now this? This is a disgrace to the Total War series... it's got strip away features, it's buggy to hell and back, AI are the most retarded they have ever been before, the map AI will almost never attack you.. and even when they do they only throw tiny groups of enemies at you. Never a big group. Enemies in game will stand there and stare at you... without making any movements. Those god damn flags.. the god damn flags in a open field.. Oh man The UI in game is a terrible (except for the map screen). The graphics are glitchy and very average.
    Looks like a 2005 game. The videos showing how good the game look? Fake. Nobody has been able to get the game to look as good as some of the trailer showcased video footage of this game. Somebody up big time. This looks like a Alpha! They are selling a bloody alpha version for lots of money? Who the hell was in charge of this? It's a travesty. Long time fans are royally pissed off with good reason.

    +Cinematic cam
    +tooltips help you focus on the gameplay rather than being lost clicking stuff.
    +World Map
    +Province have capitals
    -Apart from tooltips, the UI is very limited.
    -AI are totally broken.
    -No challenge.
    -Graphics are bland.
    **** multiplayer, it's barebones 2 player gameplay. Nothing else.
    -Family trees have been stripped away, diplomacy, religion/politics & skill trees are worse than before.
    -Naval battles are plain screwed. The game automatically spawns ships when you send units to the sea, which are more powerful than actual naval ships. No fire at will or guard mode, no formations.
    -Your units refuse to go down walls
    -Most cinematics are gone.
    -No context sensitive battle speeches.    … Expand
  52. penguen2013
    Sep 5, 2013
    0
    Terrible beta release. Apparently CA does not care about the fun base any longer. Full of bugs. Constant ctds, horrible optimasation, terrible ai, game breaking features...
  53. Adolphobia
    Sep 9, 2013
    0
    Fix this crap... bad AI, no spy cut scenes, all streamlined, no family tree... i can't believe they just took my money, this is nothing like the game that was advertised, after shogun 2 how do they do this to us... i want my money back, il never buy another Total War game...
  54. Deathmarch
    Sep 9, 2013
    3
    Everything good in Shogun2 was ripped out of Rome2
    NO family trees, political part makes no sense and has little impact on the game
    They should rename it Total Siege War, because you'll never be attack by ai in field 99% of your battle will be defending a city or sieging one. gone are agent videos and agent diversity is gone apart form a few trait they do that same thing Generals    Everything good in Shogun2 was ripped out of Rome2
    NO family trees, political part makes no sense and has little impact on the game
    They should rename it Total Siege War, because you'll never be attack by ai in field
    99% of your battle will be defending a city or sieging one.
    gone are agent videos and agent diversity is gone apart form a few trait they do that same thing
    Generals are generic you'll careless if they die cause the game will generate a new one for you.
    ALL the battlefield feature have been gutted units don't hold formation, no guard mode, cant toggle skirmish for melee units with javelin. AI routes with in minutes if the ai allows them to engage in combat at all ,they will usually just stand there taking arrows to the face, OH yea Loose formation is gone too.
    Dumbed Down Too far    … Expand
  55. AjaX
    Sep 10, 2013
    4
    I have been a HUGE fan of the total war series since the release of the original Rome: Total War, it is easily one of my favourite games of all time and I have spent probably over 1000 hours playing it over the years and over the past few months I had been playing a mod called Roma Surrectum 2 to keep me busy up until the launch of Rome 2, after 17 hours of playing the new release, I amI have been a HUGE fan of the total war series since the release of the original Rome: Total War, it is easily one of my favourite games of all time and I have spent probably over 1000 hours playing it over the years and over the past few months I had been playing a mod called Roma Surrectum 2 to keep me busy up until the launch of Rome 2, after 17 hours of playing the new release, I am going back to playing Roma Surrectum 2. Rome 2 is terrible, I started off on a legendary campaign with Rome and was able to steam roll through Italy, Greece, North Africa, Spain, most of Europe and completely wipe Egypt out of the game with ease, the AI is a joke and offered no challenge what so ever. My longest battle was only 7 minutes and 35 seconds long! This game has great potential but they HAVE to fix the AI ASAP! its the worst I have seen in any total war game, I would gladly go back to playing Empire instead of this. Also, this game does not run smoothly at all, I have a pretty beefy rig and run most games on ultra but for some reason I have to run this game on normal settings and still only barely get 30 fps and it has crashed several times in the 17 hours that I have played it. It is an obviously unfinished game and has many more months to go until it is going to be enjoyable to play so DON'T BUY IT YET! After 17 hours I am done with it and like I said am going back to a MOD for the original Rome HAHA.....Unbelievable...… Expand
  56. zollyftn
    Sep 10, 2013
    0
    Unfinished game with many core features not working. Terrible performance even on high end PCs with normal details settings. Playing game is frustrating due to many technical problems(stuttering campaign map, bad AI, tons of bugs).

    Buy this game only when it is heavily patched and on discount one-two year after the release date.
  57. AznaktaX
    Sep 10, 2013
    3
    The game is broken, with glitches, graphical issues, and a horrendous AI.

    In its current state, I can't possibly buy this or even recommend it to anyone else. The only reason I don't give it a lower score than 3/10 is because it does have potential but it is totally overshadowed by its flaws. As for Sega....how dare you? How dare you abuse the fans' trust and bring out this    The game is broken, with glitches, graphical issues, and a horrendous AI.

    In its current state, I can't possibly buy this or even recommend it to anyone else.

    The only reason I don't give it a lower score than 3/10 is because it does have potential but it is totally overshadowed by its flaws.

    As for Sega....how dare you?

    How dare you abuse the fans' trust and bring out this game in its current extremely buggy state?

    I'm very disappointed!!

    Do not buy this!!

    Not at least until they fix the bugs.    … Expand
  58. 4rdi
    Sep 10, 2013
    3
    This game ruined the franchise! There are so many bugs (a good part of those re-occurring and resulting crash to the desktop) that it is not even possible to list the here. Graphics looks nothing like in the trailer. User-interface is complicated. Game-play changes, particularly, duplicating abilities of all agents, makes the game boring and less strategic. There is no way to describe howThis game ruined the franchise! There are so many bugs (a good part of those re-occurring and resulting crash to the desktop) that it is not even possible to list the here. Graphics looks nothing like in the trailer. User-interface is complicated. Game-play changes, particularly, duplicating abilities of all agents, makes the game boring and less strategic. There is no way to describe how bad the battle AI is! People playing the game first time should look forward to beat the battle AI while 2-to-1 outnumbered. Experienced players can sometimes beat the odds of 4-to-1! Campaign AI throws many small armies, sometimes consisting of only one "suicide" unit, against you instead of using high stacks armies that actually have fighting power. Campaign AI is also very peaceful and passive altogether. Altogether, this game highly disappointing experience for any fan of the series.… Expand
  59. vanderown
    Sep 11, 2013
    3
    Long time fan of the series, thought Shogun 2 was great. Rome 2 is the only game that's every disappointed me enough to make a Metacritic account.

    1. The UI is ONE OF THE WORST I HAVE EVER SEEN IN A VIDEO GAME. Coming straight from EU4 to this is a nightmare. Everything is hidden away in ledgers, or the encylopedia, and a very few things can be found out in tooltips. It's like the    Long time fan of the series, thought Shogun 2 was great. Rome 2 is the only game that's every disappointed me enough to make a Metacritic account.

    1. The UI is ONE OF THE WORST I HAVE EVER SEEN IN A VIDEO GAME. Coming straight from EU4 to this is a nightmare. Everything is hidden away in ledgers, or the encylopedia, and a very few things can be found out in tooltips. It's like the developers have gone out of their way to try to deny me easy access to information. I do not understand why. This is everything from Public Order, what Zeal/Authority/Cunning is when something levels up, what Enslaving Captives actually does. Not hints so vague you don't know if this is a game mechanic or flavor text. This is my biggest problem with the game and the reason I think no amount of patches can ever fix it. Because of the UI, Public Order/Food management is a chore and the campaign map itself drains me of all joy. Why do I need to manually count Public Order to see whether changing a building in X region will take me into negative development into keeping it at 100? Is it listed somewhere completely different, only hidden so well I couldn't even find it?

    2. Before Rome 2 came out, I was telling all my friends how much we could have if they got it to because of how much I enjoyed Shogun 2's Avatar mode with persistent generals and their unique and game-changing skill trees, satisfying progression, customizable unit and army bonuses. I spent many, many hours playing this in Shogun 2, and as soon as I'd played about two-three hours of the campaign I was ready to try Rome 2's. Surely it would be even better, and with all of this unit variety, twice the fun. Well, it's completely gone. It's not there. All of these features are removed. Shogun 2's Avatar mode was my primary motivation for buying Rome 2. It has been completely stripped from the game. You can do a versus battle. That's it. Guess I should have done my research or waited to pre-order.

    3. Battles. And flags. In open field battles. I don't think I even need to explain this. I could see a single flag with a large connected area for sieges, that's it.

    Do note that I didn't even mention the performance issues, the atrocious AI (Battle and campaign) and de-sync issues for the still 2-player co-op campaign. Even if these (mostly launch-related) issues are fixed, the core mechanics of the game and the UI solidify Rome 2's position as a significant step back for the series. This game is spitting in the face of all of its fans. I will be highly skeptical of ordering another Total War title after this fiasco. I was certain this game would be great, but in the last 3 years, this is the game I most regret purchasing. Very disappointing. The only thing I feel has improved since previous titles is unit variety, but everything else is so much worse I don't find Total War: Rome 2 worth playing.    … Expand
  60. jamesphillip198
    Sep 12, 2013
    3
    This game, in this state, is a complete wreck. I mean I love Total War series, I've had more than +5000 hours of all TW games easily, specially Medieval 2 and Rome 1. But the game is just a wreck. The AI is NON-RESPONSIVE, the fights seem like huge heavy metal moshpits, units don't mantain formations, and I could go on and on and on. Many people seem to have performance issues (2%This game, in this state, is a complete wreck. I mean I love Total War series, I've had more than +5000 hours of all TW games easily, specially Medieval 2 and Rome 1. But the game is just a wreck. The AI is NON-RESPONSIVE, the fights seem like huge heavy metal moshpits, units don't mantain formations, and I could go on and on and on. Many people seem to have performance issues (2% according to CA.) The whole game just feels like a beta-test IMHO, and they overhyped the game way past proportion. The idea is good, I really love TW franchise, but it's hard to love the game as it is. I hope they fix this mess with upcoming patches (bajillion patches). I'll see you in 6 months, TWR2.… Expand
  61. shadowstealer
    Sep 12, 2013
    0
    I was really looking forward to this game. I've been a Total War fan since Shogun and this was sounding as though it had the potential to surpass the fantastic Shogun 2. Unfortunately this has not been the case. I don't know what game half the games 'journalists' played but it was not the one the general public were promised.

    The basic ideas are the same and the potential is there but    I was really looking forward to this game. I've been a Total War fan since Shogun and this was sounding as though it had the potential to surpass the fantastic Shogun 2. Unfortunately this has not been the case. I don't know what game half the games 'journalists' played but it was not the one the general public were promised.

    The basic ideas are the same and the potential is there but the game is just broken and unfinished and untested. It is an insult. Features have been 'streamlined' far too much and the new modern UI isn't really much of an improvement. The campaign has framerate issues, the AI is passive and the battle AI is worse than that of the original Rome. Their lacks a guard mode and don't expect your units to actually maintain formation, they descend into a blob of death. Not that it matters because the battles are literally over within minutes due to terrible balancing. It's pretty apparent they didn't test this game at all.

    Capture points are the combat AI's only concern and it's stupidity in it's attempt to get at them, suiciding and generally providing no challenge. Capture points also appear in field battles for no good reason, if you take them you win in 50 seconds. No challenge as the AI doesn't bother to defend them. It's an unwelcome addition making the game feel arcadey.

    End turns can take up to 3-5 minutes running even on a high end rig, in the end you spend more time waiting for the CPU than actually playing. There are over 100 factions though, but that matters for nothing with poor AI and optimisation. Also you have a limited number of armies and navies you can recruit which is horrible. It's like an arcade game. I always used to rely on scout forces and skirmish forces, well too bad if you did. Now logistics are more silly, forcing you to create full stacks (oh you can recruit anywhere in a region now through the general not at the cities) which effectively lets you get away with making planning mistakes before you go into battle.

    There are so many problems and issues with this game that I could write forever. I suggest anyone who has not done so to check out Angry Joe's review. He covers all the key points. This game gets a 0 from me because I wanted a Total War game. Not a broken buggy simplified mess.

    Oh yeah and no family tree. Or special agent animations. Or real depth or attachment. Hollow and bland. Urgh.    … Expand
  62. zz77
    Sep 12, 2013
    0
    This is the worst title in Total War series. It's bugged to unplayable level. Both campaign and battle AI is dumb as stone. Developers didn't add any really great and innovative features, but completely wiped out many great features of previous titles. UI is very poorly organized, its modern appearance is just immerse-breaking. Even graphics looks like downgrade of previous Shogun 2 game.This is the worst title in Total War series. It's bugged to unplayable level. Both campaign and battle AI is dumb as stone. Developers didn't add any really great and innovative features, but completely wiped out many great features of previous titles. UI is very poorly organized, its modern appearance is just immerse-breaking. Even graphics looks like downgrade of previous Shogun 2 game. Don't waste your money and time on this crap!… Expand
  63. dyselehrt
    Nov 2, 2014
    5
    I have some 600 hours put into this game at the moment, and I will play it for many more to come. However, I would not recommend others to buy the game for the vanilla version since I do not think it is that much fun. It has improved in the latest patches yes, but it is still really not that good. If you do get this game though, do it for the mods. There are some incredible mods out thereI have some 600 hours put into this game at the moment, and I will play it for many more to come. However, I would not recommend others to buy the game for the vanilla version since I do not think it is that much fun. It has improved in the latest patches yes, but it is still really not that good. If you do get this game though, do it for the mods. There are some incredible mods out there which lifts the game immensely. But no matter what the AI will still be dumb as ****

    I suggest waiting for Attila since it feels like Rome 2 has been test-version of something greater to come. However, make sure not to pre-purchase it. You never know with Creative Assembly nowadays...    … Expand
  64. malekithau
    Sep 4, 2013
    2
    Starting playing with Total War games with the original Shogun. Played them all. This one is by far the most disappointing. I am very sad to say that it fails to meet expectations on so many levels. The strategic side of the game is pretty decent though not so good that it can make up for the main issue which is the tactical games. They are a joke. Blob versus blob not like an ancientStarting playing with Total War games with the original Shogun. Played them all. This one is by far the most disappointing. I am very sad to say that it fails to meet expectations on so many levels. The strategic side of the game is pretty decent though not so good that it can make up for the main issue which is the tactical games. They are a joke. Blob versus blob not like an ancient battle at all. The speed is comical. Usain Bolt would struggle to keep up with these guys lugging around 4 meter pikes and wearing full armour. Formations don't really exist. On contact your units just fall into an unformed blob. Units turn on a dime. There are plenty of other issues but I can't bring myself to play another minute of this game as is. I'd rather be at work................… Expand
  65. OASkittles
    Sep 12, 2013
    0
    This game is just awful. Just awful. Paid reviewers gave this game a ridiculous score. The UI is horrible, the graphics atrocious and a total step back from the Shogun game. The multiplayer is soooo long and reduced it is not even funny. The multiplayer deals with factions so you have to wait till their turns end, with over 100 factions in the game!!! The cinematics like they had fromThis game is just awful. Just awful. Paid reviewers gave this game a ridiculous score. The UI is horrible, the graphics atrocious and a total step back from the Shogun game. The multiplayer is soooo long and reduced it is not even funny. The multiplayer deals with factions so you have to wait till their turns end, with over 100 factions in the game!!! The cinematics like they had from Shogun were cut back as well as other great mechanics/media from Shogun. What the hell CA?!?! What the hell!?!?!… Expand
  66. Hamlsh
    Sep 5, 2013
    0
    Really terrible, I remember how I felt playing shogun 2 for the first time, I was excited. impressed and it was very fun, playing Rome II, I get none of these feelings, all they had to do was re-skin Shougn II, but they couldn't 't even do that right, the tech tree is badly designed, and there is no family tree and so no role playing. Every turn i get asked for gold by one of my retardReally terrible, I remember how I felt playing shogun 2 for the first time, I was excited. impressed and it was very fun, playing Rome II, I get none of these feelings, all they had to do was re-skin Shougn II, but they couldn't 't even do that right, the tech tree is badly designed, and there is no family tree and so no role playing. Every turn i get asked for gold by one of my retard neighbours, you can't attack by land a city that has its port blockaded with one allied ship, in battles if you select your group to attack the enemy they all converge on one enemy unit, ruining their formation, gauls and iceni are apparently voiced by someone trying to fake a really bad Swedish accent. Overall there is no immersion I don't feel part of the faction I'm playing, there is also no innovation in game play at all.… Expand
  67. Staki9
    Sep 10, 2013
    3
    When I bought this game, I desperately wanted to love it. Unfortunately, I couldn't bear to lie to myself and give this a 10 like so many other people are. Consumers don't like to think they were wrong, so why should they be? I might have a few reasons:

    The first problem with this game is the horrible optimization. I can run it OK at best, but I have a couple of friends with    When I bought this game, I desperately wanted to love it. Unfortunately, I couldn't bear to lie to myself and give this a 10 like so many other people are. Consumers don't like to think they were wrong, so why should they be? I might have a few reasons:

    The first problem with this game is the horrible optimization. I can run it OK at best, but I have a couple of friends with computers much better than my 2-year-old tin can that can't even get 20 frames on the lowest setting. This has been an issue in essentially every Total War game to date, and I can't fathom why Creative Assembly would release their game before fixing these issues (in the past, it took them months to fix optimization a repeat of this wasn't a good idea).

    Another issue is the AI in the game itself. The game obviously focuses around single-player (or co-op) and in that endeavor the AI is a complete joke. In battles, enemy units have no idea what they're doing and at times will just run back and forth in one spot, and sometimes even charge you only to retreat instantly. Defending a settlement against this atrocious AI isn't even fun. Even outside battles in the campaign map you'll end up seeing enemy armies abandoning their settlements at the worst possible times, leaving you an opening to simply walk in. Armies of 5 will recklessly charge into your army of twenty with a complete disregard for any logical solution (besides suicide, apparently).

    The campaign itself is amazingly large, which I absolutely love. The issue with this is you'll typically be looking at 2-4 minutes of processing AI turns in the campaign map. If you manage to take two minutes on your turn, you're still looking at AT LEAST an equal return of that time doing nothing and waiting for the (horrible) AI to take their turns. Essentially, you're looking at 20-30 minutes of campaign gameplay per hour of actual gameplay. That's an absurd amount of time to be doing nothing. Of course, those gameplay times are disregarding the game's other problems, which brings me to...

    Misc. issues. One big one that I (as well as others from what I've come to understand) is campaign battles (specifically co-op) that you choose to auto-resolve might not even register, and the game will freeze up at that point and render a campaign unplayable from that point forward. Random bugs like this coupled with the constant de-sync battle crashes and even game crashes entirely make this an extremely difficult game to actually play.

    The content is great, but endless technical issues make this game unplayable; even if you do manage to play uninterrupted, the horrible AI and buggy unit control render this game a laughable full-price release.    … Expand
  68. Alex692
    Sep 10, 2013
    2
    Couldnt play the game at first, it shouldve stayed that way. The game didnt even live up to an inch of my expectations. Ridiculous AI, very poorly polished and the game lagged like a mf at many points throughout the game. Still, this is ironically enough one of the best strategy titles out there, the only reason it doesnt get a 1...
  69. Datek
    Sep 11, 2013
    2
    This has the potential to be a great game someday. In it's current state, it is and disgraceful embarassment. This game is unplayable, and how it is possible to receive such high ratings from 'respectable' gaming review sites is beyond comprehension. No wonder the barbarians are up in arms. Watch the Angry Joe review on youtube if you are in any way considering buying this game.
  70. Drowsy
    Sep 9, 2013
    0
    Broken, incomplete. Never been this disappointed with a TW game before. I hope they can fix everything but i highly doubt it. Stay away from this one for now.
  71. Blankolf
    Sep 10, 2013
    0
    This game is just zero how can this: http://www.pictureshack.us/images/57736_Carthage_A_B_F.jpg happen on a triple AAA game like Total war series game like Rome II?

    The game has the most horrible AI I have witness in my veterany as a gamer, jesus, this is no longer a battle simulator but a game to laugh at. And the reason I am giving zero, is because from shogun 2 this game looks    This game is just zero how can this: http://www.pictureshack.us/images/57736_Carthage_A_B_F.jpg happen on a triple AAA game like Total war series game like Rome II?

    The game has the most horrible AI I have witness in my veterany as a gamer, jesus, this is no longer a battle simulator but a game to laugh at.

    And the reason I am giving zero, is because from shogun 2 this game looks like it was released BEFORE!! How can that possibly happen with 40% more budget than any other TOTAL WAR games!?!? Did they spent on Las Vegas or something?

    This Total War: Rome II deserves nothing more than a zero, all apologits are crying out in defense of the game, but if you trully love this series like I do, you would criticise so this never happens again... And sadly there's no patch that can fix:

    - Graphical downgrade (Seems like thrown the maps from alpha and beta to the bing or something)
    - It's not erratic A.I., it's USELESS A.I., they do nothing but sh*t on the battlefield.
    - A.I. again, on Campaign is so passive... Even on Legendary... My God!
    - Naval Battle, anyone who has played this knows these two words give them the shivers of the ammount of times they tried to do them and end up razed by a single fisherman ship simply because your troops won't listen to you.

    Seriously I love this series, but this is pre-alpha testing, since the alpha and beta images are far more supperior than the actual game, wtf did they do to the skins and maps they had?    … Expand
  72. MarkWester
    Sep 11, 2013
    4
    This game is not finished or play tested what so ever, I'd recommend waiting a few months, in its current state it really feels like Total War Rome 1 is more fun and has better AI, than this. I am surprised at the glaring difference between the product and the marketing campaigne. end turns take to long, there's a butt load of glitches. wait until it falls pricewise and give them time to fix it.
  73. BKMagnus
    Sep 11, 2013
    2
    Let me start by saying I am a long time TW fan. I have been playing them from the very start of the franchise, and have had fun with every title to one degree or another. You could always see the march forwards, the new features, the reworked Core of the games, the improved graphics. Always going one step forward. Untill now...

    For starters, its a broken mess. The AI (always a bone of    Let me start by saying I am a long time TW fan. I have been playing them from the very start of the franchise, and have had fun with every title to one degree or another. You could always see the march forwards, the new features, the reworked Core of the games, the improved graphics. Always going one step forward. Untill now...

    For starters, its a broken mess. The AI (always a bone of contention in the series) is the worst Ive ever seen at launch. The campaign AI is passive to the extreme, and when they do attack is only at near suicidal odds. The Battle AI is just broke, often standing still, running in circles, pacing back and forth, running straight through your forces, refusing to obey commands. Naval battles are so broken their useless, you almost have to auto-resolve them to get a victory. The graphics are a mess, and nothing compared to the "pre-alpha" footage show. Models are in places clearly low quality stand-ins never meant to be in the full release, textures are often of a similar quality, stand-ins to take a place in the development untill the real ones could be completed. All these things can be fixed with patchs though, so it is simply a waiting game.

    The following are what really drive the game down, and are not the sort of thing that will be patched out. Many, MANY wonderful features from other TW titles are gone. Family trees, varied agents, seasons, attrition, politics (in any working, or sensible fashion), formations, guard mode, character development (some would call it RPG elements), and much more are gone. In their place we have a poor UI, "magic" abilities that ALL units get to improve themselfs, useless, faceless characters that I find it hard to care in the least about, 1 year turns (which means everyone dies of old age very fast, there are no seasons, and it takes armies literally years to march to locations that would of been achieved in weeks in antiquity).

    Battles end in minutes. Armies tens of thousands men strong can and are destroyed in 3-5 minutes, leaving no time for any sort of tactics. Units dissolve into mosh pits as soon as battle is join, making battles not between diciplined armies, but masses of mobs pushing into eachother. The mass, and the speed of the battles means that all the wonderful MoCap fights are impossible to see. They threw in random "capture points" in open field battles, making all terrain, forests, or unit disposition useless and tactics pointless. Stand on flag for 30 seconds, win.

    I could go on and on about all the things I dislike about this title, but it can be summed up like this. This game was obviously streamlined to make it appeal more to the masses, and less to the Total War Old Guard. The entire game is fast, easy, boring, and frankly ugly in its current state. A massive slap in the face to my childhood with the series.    … Expand
  74. LastJohn
    Sep 12, 2013
    4
    First let me say this, it pains me so much to give this game such a low score. I have played every game in the series except the original, Shogun. I have put in more than 700 hours into this series, and the Roman era is my favorite in history. Unfortunately, this game fails in almost every regard to live up to its predecessor Total War: Rome as well as the previous game Total War: ShogunFirst let me say this, it pains me so much to give this game such a low score. I have played every game in the series except the original, Shogun. I have put in more than 700 hours into this series, and the Roman era is my favorite in history. Unfortunately, this game fails in almost every regard to live up to its predecessor Total War: Rome as well as the previous game Total War: Shogun 2.

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

    End Turn times -

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

    Bugs and Glitches -

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

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

    Loss of Features -

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

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

    Addition of features -

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

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

    A.I. is so so so horrible -

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

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

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

    Final Verdict -

    I wanted this game to be epic. I wanted to love it. But this was a scam if I have ever seen one. More than likely it is Sega's fault. They have a track record of publishing horrific games. They want money and that is it. Some people play this game and overlook the flaws, but I am not blind. This game had no business being release, and maybe they will patch it, but I don't plan on holding my breathe.    … Expand
  75. underdown
    Dec 9, 2013
    0
    I love Total War games; they have a great play style and can be tons of fun with friends, however this game is unacceptable. After waiting moths for Rome 2 to be released I was instantly disappointed with its terrible optimization, but i was willing to over look this as it was what seemed like a typical Creative Assembly release.

    Now months after the release and with 80+ hours played,    I love Total War games; they have a great play style and can be tons of fun with friends, however this game is unacceptable. After waiting moths for Rome 2 to be released I was instantly disappointed with its terrible optimization, but i was willing to over look this as it was what seemed like a typical Creative Assembly release.

    Now months after the release and with 80+ hours played, I am still dealing with game breaking bugs, and downright terrible AI. Coupled with the loss of features and content coming from Shogun 2, I am fed up with this game. Sure it can be fun and the game is a step in the right direction, but it is difficult to get into a game when every 10 turns or so you are forced to start a new campaign due to some new game break.

    I did not expect this of a game after paying $60 for a pre-order. This should have never been released at such low quality. Is it too much to ask for a game to at least equal its predecessor in features? I'm not even asking for innovation.    … Expand
  76. utumno86
    Dec 13, 2013
    2
    It pains me to give Rome II a bad review because the core elements of the game are actually pretty good. The graphics are great, even on my video card, and the battle AI (except in sieges) is pretty good, and probably better than in previous games. However, the smaller problems of Rome II are too many to enumerate, and I'll have to content myself with describing a few of the mostIt pains me to give Rome II a bad review because the core elements of the game are actually pretty good. The graphics are great, even on my video card, and the battle AI (except in sieges) is pretty good, and probably better than in previous games. However, the smaller problems of Rome II are too many to enumerate, and I'll have to content myself with describing a few of the most egregious.
    Crappy Campaign AI: To my mind, a Total War game has three phases: Phase I; the player uses his small starting army and province (s) to carve out a more substantial empire out of his weaker neighbors. Phase 2; the player uses his small empire in brutal wars against empires of roughly the same size that genuinely pose an existential threat. Phase 3; the players empire becomes so large that no other faction on the map can challenge him, and he rotely conquers enough territory to satisfy the victory requirements. Obviously Phase 2 is the most interesting part of the game, but it never happened in my first Rome II campaign. The AI could never get its together enough to form any decent sized empire, and I simply conquered states of one or two settlements until I became too powerful for the game to be interesting. Which transitions into

    The Campaign is too long For whatever reason, Creative Assembly decided to balance the campaign around being 300 turns, which have taken me in the neighborhood of 100 gameplay hours to complete. That is unacceptable. The 35 plus hours for the 100 turn short campaign in Empire was bad enough. The requirement of 110 settlements for a military victory is absolutely ludicrous; In my campaign as the British Confederation I was the undisputed master of the map by settlement 20 or so, and the 70 plus hours and 90 settlements it took to get from there to the victory condition was mere tedium.

    The campaign clock doesn't fast forward fast enough: The ability to fast forward the battle clock has one primary purpose: to make the time go faster when the game glitches out and your opponent either refuses to attack you in a defensive battle or you route the enemy army but the game doesn't notice (both of which happen far too often) and you have to run out the clock or concede defeat for a battle that you have won. The slow fast clock means that either of these situations can result in upwards of 45 minutes of down time to watch your army stand there waiting for the game to acknowledge their victory.

    The civil war mechanic makes no sense: The entire game I assumed that the intra-faction groups (for the British Confederation, Elder Chiefs and Other Chiefs) was important for the civil war mechanic, since that faction allegiance tab shows up every time you pick a general and the game acts as if having guys loyal to your faction is important when the other faction tries to adopt them. I assumed that all generals loyal to the Other Chiefs would join the rebellion or something. Instead, all that happened was, at the height of my military might, with some 80 settlements under my control and 12 full-sized armies, a single province changed color and sent out a few small armies to harass me. If that's all the civil war mechanic does, what the hell is the point? Why have all of the crazy faction tab stuff?

    Enemy's turns take too long: Since the map has 50 gazillion factions (as in Empire), and the game takes its sweet time pondering what to do for every single faction, every time you press that "end turn" button, you are looking at fifteen minutes of downtime. There has to be a way to streamline that.

    Normally, I would consider that all of this stuff is fixable and would hopefully be working better in a couple of patches (three of which have dropped since I started the campaign, which took the better part of two months). But the last straw for me was Creative Assembly starting to shill their Caesar in Gaul DLC. YOU, Creative Assembly. Fix your broken game I payed 60 bucks for before you start trying to gouge me for more content. What assurance do I have that the new content is any more polished than the content I already have? My advice to any Total War fans is to just play the original Rome: Total War. Its better in every way than this new mess.    … Expand
  77. Alespla
    Sep 4, 2013
    0
    I have every TW game and this is the WORST Total War ever! Run away from this! I can't believe I spent my money with it! I was so full of hopes, so ansious about this game, watching every tube video, every preview... It's one major disappointment...
    The game it`s a huge faillure, technically and on it`s concepts... I can't understand why CA changed the UI so much (they just destroyed    I have every TW game and this is the WORST Total War ever! Run away from this! I can't believe I spent my money with it! I was so full of hopes, so ansious about this game, watching every tube video, every preview... It's one major disappointment...
    The game it`s a huge faillure, technically and on it`s concepts... I can't understand why CA changed the UI so much (they just destroyed it!)... So many bug's, stupid AI, no cut scene videos at all, poor animations, it`s a mess!
    I would like to give it back and get my money back!
    Back to Shogun2 Total War...    … Expand
  78. Vetinari34
    Sep 4, 2013
    4
    A long-time fan of the Total War series, I am seriously disappointed in the release of Rome Total War II. It is almost as if it was never play-tested. The battles, the game map, the water: all beautifully designed, but the game itself...

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

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

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

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

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

    CA clearly tried to overhaul system after system in Total War to produce this game. Why? We may never know, but the Total War that I love is currently a shell of what it once was. At least Civ V is still amazing, I'll go back to that turn-base strategy until CA figures out that their new incarnation of Total War is simply not fun to play.    … Expand
  79. armitage
    Sep 4, 2013
    1
    Horrible, just horrible. In the short term there are the many well documented and game destroying technical issues (pretty sure CA must not have any testers on staff at all on this evidence). These will be resolved through patches etc in time, but it defies belief that they have repeated the mistakes of ETW all over again.

    Of a greater concern is that CA have also dumbed down this game    Horrible, just horrible. In the short term there are the many well documented and game destroying technical issues (pretty sure CA must not have any testers on staff at all on this evidence). These will be resolved through patches etc in time, but it defies belief that they have repeated the mistakes of ETW all over again.

    Of a greater concern is that CA have also dumbed down this game to such an extent that it no longer really resembles the great strategic game (at both the campaign level and the battlefield level) that I and many others fell in love with more than a decade ago. It is hard to see how these seemingly deliberate and intentional design choices (some might say flaws) can be resolved through a patch.

    As sad as it it I would conclude that Rome 2 sees the the Total War franchise terminally ill and only a concerted effort by CA can turn it around and redeem it in the eyes of their loyal fans.    … Expand
  80. Pharaun3
    Sep 5, 2013
    1
    This game shows best, how greed destroys potential. In it's current state the game is an early alpha. Many graphic cards are not supported, Creative Assembly gives an explanation that NVidia didnt yet provide new drivers what the hell? So why was this game published in the first place when they knew it will not work on most machines? This of course has created numerous graphic issues andThis game shows best, how greed destroys potential. In it's current state the game is an early alpha. Many graphic cards are not supported, Creative Assembly gives an explanation that NVidia didnt yet provide new drivers what the hell? So why was this game published in the first place when they knew it will not work on most machines? This of course has created numerous graphic issues and glitches so half the preorder community cannot play which is unforgivable for a series this large.

    Besides the graphics, the Ai is worst of all of the game series. No more charges with his general head on to your spearmen now he doesnt do anything. I played a few good hours and the Ai does nothing. Even in a siege situation he positioned his archers on walls yes but kept giving them move orders and such so hey cannot fire... On top of that the campaign Ai is even worse every turn an army with a win chance 1% keeps attacking, and after its defeat it attacks AGAIN. It's like he wants to die.

    Considering that someone was lucky and ran the game, and he doesnt mind the Ai, the game is ok. It's a generally good game, but the Ai, graphics, unintuitive UI and silly bugs destroy it into oblivion. If not the fact that its a Total War, it would be never bought and quickly forgotten.

    But the worst offence of all is the company tactic Release an alpha and make people test it for us so we save money on game testers, and then patch ti into working shape. This way we make money quicker and finish it with less hassle." This is unacceptable. On a side note giving out a DLC on the FIRST DAY is a terrible cash jump, but announcing more payable DLC when the game doesnt work for half the community, is PR suicide.

    Do not buy this game until christmas, it will be probably patched into shape then.    … Expand
  81. Sam84
    Dec 6, 2013
    0
    This release is by far the worse release yet, been a fan of total war games since the frist rome total war, it would take too long to list all the issues on this game.

    Bugs UI worse then any other previous release? (no fire at will button just to start) Pointless objectives, Politics seem pointless? DLC all over the place the list is endless Bottom line rome total war 1,    This release is by far the worse release yet, been a fan of total war games since the frist rome total war, it would take too long to list all the issues on this game.

    Bugs
    UI worse then any other previous release? (no fire at will button just to start)
    Pointless objectives,
    Politics seem pointless?
    DLC all over the place
    the list is endless

    Bottom line rome total war 1, medieval total war 2 is far better than this game so get them and save yourself a heap of cash. Skip this release    … Expand
  82. chellboy
    Sep 10, 2013
    3
    Im not sure what they are thinking! They released the game way to soon when fans would have understood. It is dumb down and streamlined way too hard. So many bad design decisions make it depressing to play this "Total War" game
  83. aaronwestley
    Sep 4, 2013
    4
    Aside from consistent crashes when loading a tactical battle, the game is ok. If no crashes, would give an 8. Nice looks, removed some features I didn't enjoy in Total War: Rome.
  84. GeorgMithrandir
    Sep 4, 2013
    4
    I played over 24 hours and i finally have to say that the game needs A LOT OF WORK....the AI is horrible(battles last up to 10 min.)....so where is the challenge CA promised? Also it has limited optimizing and the time waiting for your next turn is REALLY BORING...I don't have any serious problem with the province system but i really hate the diplomacy....Even though i don't have a lot ofI played over 24 hours and i finally have to say that the game needs A LOT OF WORK....the AI is horrible(battles last up to 10 min.)....so where is the challenge CA promised? Also it has limited optimizing and the time waiting for your next turn is REALLY BORING...I don't have any serious problem with the province system but i really hate the diplomacy....Even though i don't have a lot of graphic problems (despite the fact that my pc is old), it makes me sad that CA made a step backwards....In conclusion i hope the game will get better with time but for now even 4/10 is the best i can rate it....… Expand
  85. delappe
    Sep 5, 2013
    2
    As a big fan of the Total War Series and the first Rome game specifically (at least 150 hours played on that one alone), it is safe to say this game is a giant step backward. The simplicity of management and enjoyment of strategic battle that was present in the first Rome game has been systematically removed. The number of bugs, optimization, and ai are inexcusably poor for such a highAs a big fan of the Total War Series and the first Rome game specifically (at least 150 hours played on that one alone), it is safe to say this game is a giant step backward. The simplicity of management and enjoyment of strategic battle that was present in the first Rome game has been systematically removed. The number of bugs, optimization, and ai are inexcusably poor for such a high budget project, and so much less than I expected from the series. I hope some serious patches are released soon, but for me the game is probably a dead end now. Back to Rome: Total War for some serious modding, I guess.… Expand
  86. ajax_7
    Sep 5, 2013
    1
    First ever game I pre-ordered, having played every total war since Rome 1. I've loved every single one of them, sure they all have flaws but nothing that sticks out too much. Rome 2 has been an enormous step down, a huge disappointment and a waste of money. I wish I could take it back and wait for the next release. Multiplayer is disgraceful, I would prefer to play Rome 1. The UI isFirst ever game I pre-ordered, having played every total war since Rome 1. I've loved every single one of them, sure they all have flaws but nothing that sticks out too much. Rome 2 has been an enormous step down, a huge disappointment and a waste of money. I wish I could take it back and wait for the next release. Multiplayer is disgraceful, I would prefer to play Rome 1. The UI is horrible to navigate around and the army choices are limited. Having come from the outstanding multiplayer of Shogun 2, I won't be playing Rome multiplayer at all. The turn times have been an issue in all Total War games excepting Shogun 2, but in this release they are ridiculous. I can quite literally write a page of work while I'm waiting, my only fear somebody will initiate diplomacy and halt the process until I respond. The AI are terrible as always, and the campaign game feels cut down and shabby. The UI is hard to work with, there are limited management options and nothing really flows or makes sense. In battle, there are a huge amount of bugs but the ones that stick out are faulty attack orders and the complete stripping down of the UI. No fire at will, no guard mode etc. The unit cards are hard to read and take up almost half the screen. The graphics, at my current settings (Medium-High) are worse than Shogun which I can run on high, and the frame rate is slower. I thought that there must be a glitch when I saw my first battle lasted 5 minutes but no, every single battle takes 5 minutes or less. Politics is useless, there are no more events and overall there is no real flavour to the game. There are some good points, multiplayer loading times are vastly improved and the scope of the game is impressive, but unfortunately the good is lost in a sea of disappointment. It's an incomplete money grab, and CA have toyed with their fans including me who were so keyed up for the launch. I've learned a bit of a Roman life lesson; trust nobody and never jump into anything.… Expand
  87. R3DSOXN4TION
    Sep 10, 2013
    5
    This game is only half made. Before the patch the glitches were game breaking. There is no unit balance elephants for the win if the A.I. even sends more the one or two army units to attack you at all. The A.I. is incompetent doing nothing even if your troops are standing right out in front of them. The game stripped many features and had many half baked features this game was clearlyThis game is only half made. Before the patch the glitches were game breaking. There is no unit balance elephants for the win if the A.I. even sends more the one or two army units to attack you at all. The A.I. is incompetent doing nothing even if your troops are standing right out in front of them. The game stripped many features and had many half baked features this game was clearly rushed. Even after all of that its still a Total War game and it is still enjoyable, but not $60 enjoyable. Either buy Shogun 2, a far superior Total War game, or wait until a Steam sale to get this. Or skip it all together you wouldn't miss much except for a broken game.… Expand
  88. freundoderfeind
    Sep 11, 2013
    2
    This Game Is not bad but you can´t call it total war anymore. I played total sice rome I but rome II is the first game which I don´t like from total war. I miss all the good stuff from the older Games. I wish that they are patching it up soon and massive.
    In Hope
    Freundoderfeind
  89. labbey
    Sep 12, 2013
    1
    I am extremely disappointed in the game. FPS is 10-15 max in battles and just as bad in campaign on my ultra high end pc.

    Within an hour of trying to get the game working, anyone can see, this is not a completed product.
  90. Tooharsh
    Sep 12, 2013
    1
    I love Total War, I really do. But this game... I don't know if it is proper to call THIS a game.
    I played this for about 30 hours and the more I played, I became more disappointed.
    Huge amount of bugs, crashes, extremely stupid AI, poor optimization, minor UI issues like hidden skill tree for your characters and etc., etc. Now patches every week... CA promised us so much and gave    I love Total War, I really do. But this game... I don't know if it is proper to call THIS a game.
    I played this for about 30 hours and the more I played, I became more disappointed.

    Huge amount of bugs, crashes, extremely stupid AI, poor optimization, minor UI issues like hidden skill tree for your characters and etc., etc. Now patches every week...

    CA promised us so much and gave us so little... They fed us with gameplay videos and interviews, teasing. And then they released this. What a mockery.
    I feel like I was betrayed.

    Disappointment of the year, no doubt.    … Expand
  91. Roma_19
    Sep 12, 2013
    3
    Rome 2 effectively punished its consumer base by releasing the game unfinished. Even if patches make the game perfect, I mean a completely reskinned Shogun 2 would have been so much better than Rome 2. SEGA and CA are lucky the "press" has given them a total pass, the biggest concern is the streamlining of the game, features that really made the original Rome the epic game we all came toRome 2 effectively punished its consumer base by releasing the game unfinished. Even if patches make the game perfect, I mean a completely reskinned Shogun 2 would have been so much better than Rome 2. SEGA and CA are lucky the "press" has given them a total pass, the biggest concern is the streamlining of the game, features that really made the original Rome the epic game we all came to love.are gone, to favor a more arcade approach... Epic fail CA/Sega… Expand
  92. vivi1
    Sep 12, 2013
    3
    They sell a beta game for full price. Clearly unfinished campaing ui, undeveloped features (politics), terrible ai in combat and campaing. They laugh at the spanish and italian customers.

    The game has a lot of good thigs but those mistakes make the be below of the acepptable.
  93. gamir96
    Sep 12, 2013
    1
    Total war is about WAR!! no battles at all unless I attack a city. or the AI attacks my city with 1 unit in suicide missions.100% siege battles.dumb AI. no family tree, no immersion to the game. it feels shallow. no politics no senate,nothing that makes the game enjoyable. diplomacy is a joke. navy is useless cause you can magically take your army to the sea and it will transform in to aTotal war is about WAR!! no battles at all unless I attack a city. or the AI attacks my city with 1 unit in suicide missions.100% siege battles.dumb AI. no family tree, no immersion to the game. it feels shallow. no politics no senate,nothing that makes the game enjoyable. diplomacy is a joke. navy is useless cause you can magically take your army to the sea and it will transform in to a navy. open field battles have a FLAG?! that you have to capture or defend!!! that alone takes off all the enjoyment of battles of previous total war games. buggy to the point of just leaving the game alone. very poor choice of features. basically the game is crap regardless of the fixes the are going to do. I spend 60 bucks pre order for this THING CA I will never ever pre order again. thanks for the worst ever total war game. a decade waiting for this game and you did THAT?! shame on you. keep my money maybe you can enjoy it, I will not.… Expand
  94. gaminitup
    Sep 4, 2013
    4
    Graphically better than shogun 2. The units look great, really impressive. Thumbs up. Noticed that battles between units seem to resolve too fast at the moment. Lines and structure of unit formations many times turn into a chaotic ugly brawl. Family tree is removed which is really a disappointment from past total war games where you would try to see your family line survive through theGraphically better than shogun 2. The units look great, really impressive. Thumbs up. Noticed that battles between units seem to resolve too fast at the moment. Lines and structure of unit formations many times turn into a chaotic ugly brawl. Family tree is removed which is really a disappointment from past total war games where you would try to see your family line survive through the wars. Units cards are confusing when trying to distinguish them from another of your army. It was a courageous new decision from the art director to make them feel more like art of the ancient period but it will take memorization to remember your levy pike men from your pike men and even from your hoplite unit cards for instance. Not needing transport ships to transport your land armies is a great plus which removes a tedious step from other total war games where we would have to recruit each one. Situations pop up during the campaign map where you are presented with a dilemma and given options on how to make a decision upon it is a fun addition.
    Disappointing not to see gold and silver deposits in provinces

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

    It looks good graphically but the game feels very much like it is at the very least in a beta version at the moment. Plus with the official announcement of more features such as gameplay, and campaign modes, it feels like I would want to wait until those additions actually come out before investing a lot of time. I believe in supporting the developer to continue making these games, however its the first total war game that I decided on day 2 after release to wait a bit on playing the campaign mode until some of the kinks are ironed out.    … Expand
  95. Monlex
    Sep 9, 2013
    2
    Looks good at a first glance that's the positive thing one can say about Total War Rome 2 by Creative Assembly and Sega.
    Campaign AI (CAI) is broken, it manages to starve its own population, it cant attack in any reasonable manner as it will only send small stacks of units to attack. I actually had the CAI declare War against me once so at least i now know its possible, out of 40h+ Game    Looks good at a first glance that's the positive thing one can say about Total War Rome 2 by Creative Assembly and Sega.
    Campaign AI (CAI) is broken, it manages to starve its own population, it cant attack in any reasonable manner as it will only send small stacks of units to attack. I actually had the CAI declare War against me once so at least i now know its possible, out of 40h+ Game play that is obviously close to never but heck it did happen, once. I could make a long list of faults but its not worth it.
    Diplomacy is, as its traditional in any Total War game, broken.
    The Battle AI (BAI) is broken, again one could make a long list of what exactly is broken but its not worth it.
    The Graphical quality is good on the Campaign map and the Battle map's villages and towns look ok. The rest is a step back from the last iteration of the Total War games, that's kind of an achievement considering they had a 40% bigger budget.
    I was a fan of the Total War Games from Shogun's first release day and i did get them all, i am done i wont pay for anything from CA or Sega again. I did and do this with many company's by now and i am sad that another of my favorite series is gone for me.    … Expand
  96. Fudaman
    Sep 9, 2013
    4
    AI is broken, naval battles are useless and there are plenty of bugs to go around. The general skill tree is a step down from shogun. I put 10 hours into this...wait a month before considering to buy. The critic reviews have been obviously paid off by sega.
  97. zedfox95
    Sep 9, 2013
    2
    A poorly adorned skeleton of what could have been. Sadly, I think SEGA pressured CA to push this game out before it was ready. Maybe they even pressured them to add flags in open-field battles, or magic abilities too.

    Honestly, I was expecting some bugs, maybe performance issues. But I'm not exactly sure the issues this game has can be fixed without redoing some parts of the game entirely.
  98. scumbag
    Sep 25, 2013
    3
    A stripped back bare bones buggy game with terrible AI. Don't get me wrong I'll try and play it with the future patches but this has to be the worst launch of a game I've ever seen.
  99. AFKeying
    Oct 1, 2013
    0
    Horribly buggy, and completely unplayable. I have never seen a more incompetent company than CA for releasing such a broken game. I love the games when I can actually play them but I see now that they are just lining their pockets without putting much of any effort into creating a good game.

    I would hope, as with anyone that has a job they enjoy, especially one meant to contribute to    Horribly buggy, and completely unplayable. I have never seen a more incompetent company than CA for releasing such a broken game. I love the games when I can actually play them but I see now that they are just lining their pockets without putting much of any effort into creating a good game.

    I would hope, as with anyone that has a job they enjoy, especially one meant to contribute to the entertainment of others; that they would put forth effort in making something as streamline, flawless and pristine as possible. Instead; they came up with a game than runs under 1fps on release, AI turns in campaign take over an hour as the game progresses and battles are just unplayable for me. I don't even care to wait until they fix the game to play it; it should have been working when I first bought it.

    The only thing I've learned is that there is worse companies out there than Jagex, and they seem to seeking a trophy for screwing over everyone that buys their products. The mature thing to do would have been to postpone release, I'm sure anyone who pre-ordered the game would agree.

    Flush your money down the toilet, its entertaining than purchasing this mess of what they call game.    … Expand
  100. Jolly_Swagman
    Oct 1, 2013
    0
    This is worse than an alpha. CA has messed up totally. Instead of being a great game, this is
    Total War: CA's Fanbase III.
    The gameplay is awful, with an AI without any brain. They constantly suicide-rush their men into my units. 1 unit of war elephants I had managed to destroy two enemy armies in their entirety just by charging into them. I suck at strategy, but I have not lost a    This is worse than an alpha. CA has messed up totally. Instead of being a great game, this is
    Total War: CA's Fanbase III.

    The gameplay is awful, with an AI without any brain. They constantly suicide-rush their men into my units.
    1 unit of war elephants I had managed to destroy two enemy armies in their entirety just by charging into them.

    I suck at strategy, but I have not lost a single battle regardless of odds in 3 campaigns, not because i'm some sort of epic general as said, I suck but because the AI is THAT dumb. I will never purchase another CA game again.    … 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.
    Read full review
  2. PCGamesN
    Nov 6, 2013
    70
    And here’s the rub: every addition, every sub-system, every mechanic is subservient to War. War is what Total War is really about. Everything else not directly related to conflict comes across as ancillary. Rome II is a game for warmongers, on both the campaign map and, obviously, on the battlefield. When peace is happening, nothing is happening. When war is happening, Rome comes alive.
    Read full review
  3. PC PowerPlay
    Oct 28, 2013
    40
    If you will play literally anything featuring Total War and Rome in the same title and don't value your time, this is for you. [Nov 2013, p.80]
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