• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Rome Total War 2

iliveonramen

Pontificator
DP Veteran
Joined
Sep 23, 2011
Messages
11,273
Reaction score
5,733
Location
On a Gravy Train with Biscuit Wheels
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Very Liberal
Anybody else excited about this game? I've been a fan of the Total War series since Shogun one.

Total War: Rome II - Review-in-progress impressions - IGN Video

Here's a video.

For those that have played the series here are some improvements.

Instead of micromanaging every city they are putting together regions. In the old Rome series could get a bit ridiculous.

Max number of armies. Ever get tired of those factions with lots of smaller armies you have to chase around? The number of armies a faction can have is dictated by their size. In Shogun this would be a pain. You would come up to a single city and they would have 3 stacks of armies. This will mean fighting wars on multiple fronts will actually be taxing.

Deeper family system. So in the previous Rome Total War you had 3 families if you played as the Roman empire. They've expanded this but have also included faction systems in other playable factions.

Not mention...looks freaking gorgeous! I'm anticipating buying a new gaming computer next month and I'm planning on ensuring it can run this baby at near max.
 
Games looks fun but with school I only have time for one or two games. And right now one of them is FF14 and I think the other might be Smite.
 
I am a BIG BIG BIG fan of the total war series, have been playing since the original shogun. Rome total war was probably in my opinion the best in the series. I don't think I'll end up buying this though because there are so many quality free to play games now. I also just didn't dig Shogun 2 very much.

I think Midievel 2 was the last great one they did.
 
I am a BIG BIG BIG fan of the total war series, have been playing since the original shogun. Rome total war was probably in my opinion the best in the series. I don't think I'll end up buying this though because there are so many quality free to play games now. I also just didn't dig Shogun 2 very much.

I think Midievel 2 was the last great one they did.

Napoleon total war...:2razz:
 
I am a BIG BIG BIG fan of the total war series, have been playing since the original shogun. Rome total war was probably in my opinion the best in the series. I don't think I'll end up buying this though because there are so many quality free to play games now. I also just didn't dig Shogun 2 very much.

I think Midievel 2 was the last great one they did.

I feel you on Shogun 2.....just not enough variety among the factions for me. Of course it makes sense...it's all Japan but it lacks the feel of the Total War Games were different factions have specific units (French Calvary for example in Total War...or English Longbowmen).

I did like the artwork and the "feel" to the game.
 
there are expansion packs to give you more different types of units.

Yeah I've seen those. I think I bought the Prussian since that's my favorite country to play as but they were limited...like 1 Death Heads Calvary unit active etc.

I like it when countries have completely different flavors. Like Roman legions vs Gauls charging with big two handed swords or Middle Eastern nomadic tribes with horse archers etc. When picking a faction is part of determining how your armies are built and your strengths.
 
I've already got it pre-ordered. :mrgreen:

I just hope that the graphics don't kill my CPU. Some of the newer games have been running kind of sluggish lately.

Yeah I've seen those. I think I bought the Prussian since that's my favorite country to play as but they were limited...like 1 Death Heads Calvary unit active etc.

I like it when countries have completely different flavors. Like Roman legions vs Gauls charging with big two handed swords or Middle Eastern nomadic tribes with horse archers etc. When picking a faction is part of determining how your armies are built and your strengths.

You ever try the Europa Barbarorum mod for Rome 1? It added so many different (historically accurate) units and factions that it'd make your head spin.

Wiping out the Bactrian Greeks and Seleucids with hordes of Saka horse nomads was freakin' glorious. lol
 
Last edited:
You ever try the Europa Barbarorum mod for Rome 1? It added so many different (historically accurate) units and factions that it'd make your head spin.

Wiping out the Bactrian Greeks and Seleucids with hordes of Saka horse nomads was freakin' glorious. lol

I didn't but I'll give it a try. I still have my Rome discs. That's another great thing about the Total War series...a lot of gifted modders in the community.
 
I didn't but I'll give it a try. I still have my Rome discs. That's another great thing about the Total War series...a lot of gifted modders in the community.

Fair warning. The difficulty spike is massive. I think I made it as far as conquering Macedonia, Spain, and North Africa as the Roman Republic before I eventually got sick of having to massacre four or five different full stack armies every turn and gave up.

At one point, I was literally waking up in the middle of the night in absolute terror of invading barbarian armies marching down from the alps to ravage my lands. It was that intense. :lol:
 
Still no comparison to Hearts of Iron.

Pretty graphics do not make a great game.
 
Still no comparison to Hearts of Iron.

Pretty graphics do not make a great game.

Entirely different kind of game though, so hard to make that comparison. Love both series.
 
Anybody else excited about this game? I've been a fan of the Total War series since Shogun one.
Yah, I played Rome Total War 1 extensively, loved the game. I'm looking forward to the multiplayer, with its smack talk about phalanxes and cataphracts. Not sure how the campaign will be, it might be tedious, but I plan on using it for practice for multiplayer.
 
I love grand strategy gaming, and have just about all of the Paradox (Europa universalis, HOI, Victoria, etc.) and Creative Assembly (sorrowfully a subsidiary of SEGA now) Total War games. I have not purchased Rome II yet though.

I watched the video and it seems interesting, but somewhat similar to the current iteration of Firaxis' Civilization V. I really don't like the setup in Civ V, for various reasons, so I tend to stick to the Civ IV and it's official and unofficial mods.

The Rome II video showed it to be a very "technically" complicated game, as in rying to find all the things you need to be doing just to make sure you are organizing your faction to best effect. Plus, as another member (Gothomas88) mentioned, the limitations on army numbers would tend to make it even more complicated after you expand a certain extent.

Still, I am willing to reserve judgment until I get more input from members who've played it a few times. I would be greatly interested to hear some player experience, both pro's and con's of this new version. :)
 
Last edited:
My CPU can't run it. :(

But that trailer is awesome.

"I dare say that would be quite a feat, even for the great Hannibal Barca."
 
I am going to sit down and get serious with the game later tonight, but I dabbled around with it some yesterday. What time I spent was playing the prologue and then loading a few factions in the main campaign to look at the various tech trees and building options for the different cultures; but the main thing that needed adjustment to and familiarization with was the new UI (campaign overview - not battle UI). My opinion right now is that the UI is clunky and unintuitive - this opinion may change after becoming more accustomed to it however. It just did not feel as if the information I wanted was readily accessible, and visual cues that I had come to expect in the series were lacking. I did not delve very far into the main campaign though, I think I ended turn twice with the Britons (forget their obscure faction name).

The battles I was exposed to in the prologue campaign were decent - gameplay here did not seem drastically changed. They were rather easy, but that is expected for the prologue/tutorial campaign.

Not enough time in game to render a verdict yet - so far however my feelings are "meh". We will see, I suppose the real test is whether or not I am playing EUIV or this come the weekend.
 
The Ars review was not kind.....

Total War: Rome II review: A total mess | Ars Technica

Like Rome itself, the Total War series could have been an empire that lasted for decades. Rome II should have been its crowning achievement. So why is it such a failure? The reasons are big, messy, and complicated, but to sum it up: Rome II takes everything that the Total War series does well and gets it just wrong enough to remove all the tension.

Apparently, as you open up more of the campaign map, it gets slower and slower between turns.
 
The Ars review was not kind.....

Total War: Rome II review: A total mess | Ars Technica



Apparently, as you open up more of the campaign map, it gets slower and slower between turns.


even with the very first end turn of the main campaign it takes a while to run through the end turn. Way too many factions. I sat there watching the crests going by and noticed two things.. 1) that they were alphabetical and 2) they had just then made it to "B" :doh
 
My opinion right now is that the UI is clunky and unintuitive - this opinion may change after becoming more accustomed to it however. It just did not feel as if the information I wanted was readily accessible, and visual cues that I had come to expect in the series were lacking. I did not delve very far into the main campaign though, I think I ended turn twice with the Britons (forget their obscure faction name).

That was the impression I got from the video as well. The guys playing did seem to be struggling a bit to figure things out.

The "atmosphere" also looked somewhat less than stellar; too minimalist and modern for the classical era.

I'm downloading the game now, so I'll have to wait and see how I feel after actually giving the game a spin.

Even if it does suck, it should be noted that Empire and Napoleon were total messes at launch as well. It was nothing that a few decent patches couldn't fix.

I'm willing to wait. :shrug:

Not enough time in game to render a verdict yet - so far however my feelings are "meh". We will see, I suppose the real test is whether or not I am playing EUIV or this come the weekend.

My sentiments exactly. If "Rome 2" turns out to be a less than engrossing experience, I'll simply go back to conquering the world with the "Neo-Roman" empire I imported into EUIV from Crusader Kings 2. :mrgreen:
 
Yah, I played Rome Total War 1 extensively, loved the game. I'm looking forward to the multiplayer, with its smack talk about phalanxes and cataphracts. Not sure how the campaign will be, it might be tedious, but I plan on using it for practice for multiplayer.

I love multi-player in almost every form...but I'm a campaign junky when it comes to strategy games. I'll have to give multi a try this go round
 
Fair warning. The difficulty spike is massive. I think I made it as far as conquering Macedonia, Spain, and North Africa as the Roman Republic before I eventually got sick of having to massacre four or five different full stack armies every turn and gave up.

At one point, I was literally waking up in the middle of the night in absolute terror of invading barbarian armies marching down from the alps to ravage my lands. It was that intense. :lol:

Ha! Noted. I'm not a fan of the stacks of doom you'll sometimes see in those games but always like a challenge.
 
Metacritic is interesting. Professional reviews mostly pretty good, but user reviews are slamming it. Total War: Rome II for PC Reviews - Metacritic

metacritic user reviews are usually dragged down by emotion driven rants of disappointment that are not fairly rated (of course the other extreme as well, undeserved fan-boy driven 10's), I just read a sampling of reviews there, and for the most part it was a slew of zeros and a few smattered 10's and then 4-8's which I would consider the "fair" scorers.

At the moment it appears to be an emotionally driven dogpile of people ranting their frustrations - which while the frustration may very well be warranted - drag the score down disproportionately. It still does not bode well for the game when the fans get into these frenzies over a let down of a sequel to a beloved franchise though.

edit: I visited metacritic yesterday and looked at reviews for Rome II, I cannot recall what the actual user rating was but it was much higher, and the reviews tended to offer a much higher score (well at least not nearly as many negatives.. fan boys were out naturally with their early 10's). I have found myself wondering at times if there is not some semi-organized campaign to drag a game score down instigated at 4-chan or something.
 
Last edited:
Anybody else excited about this game? I've been a fan of the Total War series since Shogun one.

Total War: Rome II - Review-in-progress impressions - IGN Video

Here's a video.

For those that have played the series here are some improvements.

Instead of micromanaging every city they are putting together regions. In the old Rome series could get a bit ridiculous.

Max number of armies. Ever get tired of those factions with lots of smaller armies you have to chase around? The number of armies a faction can have is dictated by their size. In Shogun this would be a pain. You would come up to a single city and they would have 3 stacks of armies. This will mean fighting wars on multiple fronts will actually be taxing.

Deeper family system. So in the previous Rome Total War you had 3 families if you played as the Roman empire. They've expanded this but have also included faction systems in other playable factions.

Not mention...looks freaking gorgeous! I'm anticipating buying a new gaming computer next month and I'm planning on ensuring it can run this baby at near max.

I had the day off yesterday, so I spent a fairly ridiculous amount of time on Rome II (let's just say I racked up about 15-20 achievements). It's a pretty great game, but has some of the same basic problems that all the Total War games have had (not that I'm knocking the series - I'm a huge fan). So far my impressions are as follows:

The Good -

The sheer scale of the game is staggering. They've been advertising this game as by far the largest map that they've ever made, and they do not lie. Moreover, there's a metric ****ton of units, individualized tech trees depending on cultural background, etc, etc. This game is huge, and I imagine - more so than (e.g.) Shogun - playing as (say) Egypt will be a totally different experience from playing (say) Rome.

Graphically it's gorgeous. I actually recently bought a custom gaming desktop, so I've been running Rome II on the highest graphics settings, and the detail is fantastic. I especially love the effort they've put into varying the regions (both on and off the battlefield). Fighting (or moving around) in Egypt looks and feels totally different from sacking some crappy village in central Europe.

There seems to be a lot more variation in general in battle type/layout. I have yet to see the same town map used during an assault, and apparently (though I've not seen this yet) a few of the larger cities (e.g. Rome, Carthage, Athens) have custom maps of their own.

As they've done with every previous Total War game, this one's just a little bit better, more streamlined, and more intuitive than its predecessors. The changes they've made to the interface (especially the army cap) make for a much more efficient and less micro-managingly laborious experience, especially when you've started to accumulate some territories/provinces.

The Bad -

The new internal politics system doesn't seem to matter all that much. Granted I haven't played through an entire game yet (I'm guessing the full campaign takes several days - I played a LOT yesterday, and I only have about 15 territories so far playing the Romans), but so far I haven't seen politics impact the game in any but the most cosmetic of ways.

Diplomacy still sucks for the most part. Yes, they added specific numerical cues so you know exactly why everyone hates you, but still, getting even basic agreements out of people is essentially a matter of bribing them. This game is clearly better than it's predecessors on the diplomacy front, but it's still a Total War game, so diplomacy is still frustrating and fraught with random insanity from time to time.

I've noticed the usual weird AI glitches have not been entirely disposed of. This isn't a big deal, but it is occasionally annoying. For instance, I was defending a land/sea town assault yesterday. For the most part, my enemies moved their boats up to the coastline, disembarked, and proceeded to get murdered by my troops, but a couple of the boats just sat there at the coast, totally full of soldiers. Even worse, one of the boats almost entirely unloaded, but the last two troops couldn't figure out how to get off the damn boat, so the entire unit just milled around - untouchable by my troops, because the computer didn't recognize the unit as being on the ground yet - for the entire duration of the battle. I had to sit in fast forward mode for like a half an hour while everyone stood around looking at each other. It was annoying.

Conquering all the territories of an opponent does not instantly destroy any remaining armies and navies it might have. This means that after you've wiped someone out, their stupid little remainder armies will repeatedly try to take your cities. This isn't really a problem (strategically), but it's annoying to have to auto-resolve a bunch of tiny little crappy battles all the time. This was exactly the problem the army cap was meant to fix. For the most part, it's successful, but not so much in this one area.

But overall, I'm just being nitpicky. This game is excellent, and its clear that the Total War team just gets smarter and pushes itself harder with each iteration. Rome II does not disappoint. I imagine I'll be playing it pretty obsessively for the next several months.
 
Back
Top Bottom