Is Rome 2 REALLY that bad!?

[Leonardo]

Here is a list of what Patch 17 fixed.

I even reposted the patch notes for all patches, which are more than 20 game patches, unless I missed one or two patches.

Here are the few patch notes I reposted for Attila until I stop playing Rome 2.

[Basil II the B.S]

My problems so far (I know I'm late by years) but bad reviews kept me away until now:
-the UI; You look at units icons and it's hard to distinguish what's a spear infantry from what's a sword infantry and that should be the basics; then good luck figuring out what is the best sword infantry among 3 while you are in the middle of a battle and everything is beaming. If you are a seasoned TW player, this drives you insane. They didn't do this mistake in Attila, but for some reason they didn't change the icons in Rome which could be easily doable with a addon.
-similarly on the campaign map it's hard to understand what does what; I had to look online about the effect of cultures, same for traits. Still rather clueless about politics.

-units not executing orders: it's painful to click 3 times on your missile units to target something just to watch them target the closest unit, which is currently fighting your own melee unit who gets shot in the back by your missiles.

[herne_the _hunter]

The UI is one of Rome 2 strong points. The unit, building and technology icons are easier to pick out what is what at a glance. Once you get used to it it's hard to go back to pictures

As for politics it's not as good as the politics of EU Rome but it's a huge improvement over Rome 1. Might seem conter intuative at first but it works.

[Basil II the B.S]

I also forgot: it's hard to see when your troops are fighting enemy troops because their flag is reduced while yours is huge. So you can't even see when they are routing and you can disengage them and move to other enemy troops, which makes you waste time. Another horrible decision.

edit:
-campaign wise, yes it'll be your army going from settlemend to settlement with few rare battles; the provinces system stimulates this too much because you'll be always rushing to complete the province
-it often makes no difference between mid tier and low tier units;
-the autoresolve is somehow worse than Rome 1, here a bunch of worthless troops will smash top tier units with gold exp and other bonuses
-cavalry sucks, in all its forms; horse archers somehow have to turn their horse forward to shoot; heavy and even super heavy cavalry get slaughtered by any kind of missile unit if you wait a second too much; super heavies like cataphracts are thus too slow to have any relevance whatsoever; the micromanagement is awful for both charges and missile; this is a nightmare for a cavalry guy like me;
-politics, save for the bonus given by character promotions have zero impact on the game;
-slingers are insanely powerful;
-agents, unlike Shogun 2, are back to semi-worthlessness; I just add them up to an army for the replenishment/movement points bonuses;
-most terrains are plain fields, unlike Rome where campaign map would resemble battle terrain
-technologies are semi-worthess except for making you make more money
-diplomacy is alright; no cheesy betrayals like in Rome, but not as necessary as in Shogun


And... yes it's too easy. This is due to the fact that provinces make you rush, the AI can't keep up and gets overwhelmed.


It's not a horrible game by any mean, however it lacks the fun Rome 1 had. The improvement in graphics have major downsides in troops balance, horrible micromanagement, generic terrain.

The map is a superb improvement, but the province system needs revisiting. Additionally, in Shogun 2 every little improvement you could get from agents, tech or buildings mattered. Some techs were crucial and game changing. In Rome 2 you can go randomly without putting too much effort. The game itself doesn't try too hard to explain what does what.

Unfortunately, this happened before when they created a game with a totally new engine. Shogun 2 has the engine of Empire, that was refined in Napoleon and then revisited even further for Shogun 2, all the revisiting made it great.

Rome 1 was the one lucky shot that was terrific straight away. Medieval 2, with the same engine, was a good game but not better than Rome despite the better graphics.
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edit 2: finished the Parthian campaign...fighting the grand total of 7 battles in the entire campaign.

When I finally headed West, Macedonia had taken the Carthaginian lands then moving to Egypt and Rome had expanded North-East.

So I invaded Macedon-Egypt and simply walked from settlement to settlement until Carthage. The few times I saw a Macedonian army... they withdrew. Macedonia was eliminated from huge to nothing by never meeting a single army. Rome did the same. I invaded, they withdrew.

I assume it's because I was walking with 4 full stacks at the same time, so they couldn't oppose resistance... but that's just pathetic, on Very Hard, if you grow too much, the AI simply gives up. It makes me miss realm divide of Shogun II.

The goals take way too much. The game feels too long and is rather unentertaining. Unless you plan to go for those objectives, forget about using the best units because they are so deep in the tech tree that it takes hundreds of turns before researching them.
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I tried the campaign as Carthage and their first 20 turns are possibly the hardest faction in any TW game on VH, ever. For the first time game mechanics actually matter and they tear you a new one. Harder than HRE in Med 2 when Milan/Venice/Sicily/Hungary/Poland/Denmark all come for you. Harder than the Seleucids in Rome 1, fending off Parthians/Armenians/Pontus and Egypt at the same time.

However, once you decide that Caralis and Lilybeum are not worth the investment and it's better to focus on Africa... it goes back to easy. Such a weird game.

[Coxy]

Personally I love Rome 2. I get the love for Rome 1 - it's in my top 10 games ever list (been gaming since the 80's so that counts..!)

But it's just too dated for me to play now. There's too many improvements in Rome 2. Yes they streamlined a lot of things at province level. But damn I love it still. Put over 400 hours into it on steam (which when you hardly ever get time for gaming nowadays is a lot) and can't ever see myself getting tired of it. I was there day 1 and I had bugs / glitches. But once the Emperor edition came out it completely changed my perception of the game. For me, it's my favourite Total War game. Although I've not played the latest ones due to my (old) PC.

My personal favourites:

1. Rome 2
2. Third Age (mod)
3. Medieval 2 Kingdoms
4. Stainless Steel (mod)
5. Medieval 2
6. Shogun 2
7. Rome

That's the order I play them all nowadays. Would love to try Atilla one day but not until we can afford a new PC (probably a few years still!)

[Dismounted Feudal Knight]

I haven't played Rome 2 for a long while now, but when I was playing, I had the following issues:
> Characters didn't matter. Generals died too fast, and when they lived, they were virtually irrelevant.
> AI consisted largely of spamming full stacks in one region. Wot? It was harder to take out one region places than to conquer empires.
> The UI struck me as simplistic, at least, with the building options, but I could work past that.
> The politics menu was a good opportunity, but it struck me as a little wasted and bland.
> Hotseat was a bit disappointing and inflexible. I tried it a few times, and it didn't seem remotely decent.
> General polish was lacking.

I haven't played recently, so those issues may well have been addressed to some extent. I'm also thinking of getting DEI when I'm able to boot the game up again.

For some reason, one thing I liked was siege battles, PvP mostly, and sometimes regular style involving multiple AI armies that were heavy on artillery. There was a good gig running for a while there when it was a true competition. I even considered myself good at it. Now, of course, the bottom of my experience bucket is rusted out for the game >.<

[Grimmy]

I've changed my rating system from depending on the vanilla game all by itself to including the mods and modders the game attracts.

In that new rating system, Rome 2 comes out good. Most of those things a player might find bothersome have a mod or mods to change it.
Rome 2 doesn't rate Great! for me because imo, the tactical side lost out in this game. Battles now feel somewhat more like chores to be endured than joy to be had in playing.

CA is losing ground though, over all. That's because vanilla release still matters.

[Aduna]

I know I'm late to this thread, but nonetheless, I feel it shoudl be said. Yes, Rome II is -REALLY- THAT bad, in comparison to say, Shogun II. Shogun II had so much polish everywhere, a great looking UI, little movies when your agents succeed or fail, contextual speeches your general gives before a fight, the start of some interesting city management and nodes for trade giving control of the sea a point, even the start of an interesting multi-player mode using their Avatar system. Rome II just...tossed all that away, dumbed everything down, and then came on board with some the most horrendous bugs ever seen in a Total War game.

...that said, if you are comfortable with modding, Rome II - Emperor edition is one of the BEST current, Total War games given it has some exceptional mods, Divide et Impera in particular, that actually catapults Rome II far ahead of even CA's most current offerings in terms of depth of strategic play for the grand campaign type of player. Wiht mods in mind, Rome II isn't all that bad at all, and it is infact, one of the best Total War experiences you can get and has, also been, traditionally, exceptionally fair on it's pricing given how often on sale and how discounted the DLC is has been. That the price alone makes Rome II worth a buy, as even in it's vanilla state, it's still a solid 20+ hours of play.

[bigdaddy1204]

I still play Rome TW (2004). The problem with Rome II is that the campaign map is terrible. The economy doesn't work. Buildings are terrible. Agents are so bad they make me rage quit. The music on the campaign map is bland, sparse and uninspiring. The factions are balanced horribly. Syracuse can field a full two stacks army plus fleet and large garrison with a single city, while Carthage can't? Yeah right. Carthage is horribly implemented. Terrible unit roster, hideous choice of territory split across disunited provinces. Rome gets insane advantages. All combines to make the faction Carthage unplayable.

I've stopped playing Rome II for years. I play Attila instead. Its still missing a few things compared to Medieval 2. But it is a much better game than Rome II.

[Anna_Gein]

The factions are balanced horribly. Syracuse can field a full two stacks army plus fleet and large garrison with a single city, while Carthage can't? Yeah right.

The issue here is the AI worsened as the franchise progress. Manly the AI is not programmed to adapt to the new gameplay features. So CA gives bonus instead.

In Rome 2 the main source of your income remains the base income (aka money given out of thin air) until mid-game. It is the same for all playable faction. However because of corruption/empire maintenance, bigger faction get less money from their settlements. The result is bigger faction like Carthage are poorer than one settlement factions like Syracuse.

[Basil II the B.S]

The battle AI is kind of better though. There are attempts to flank with cavalry and the AI protects its own infantry line with reserves to prevent being cheaply charged from behind. This was noticeable in Shogun 2 as well.

The fact that when you ultimately manage to envelop the AI and get a nice charge from behind, low-mid tier units don't rout (and they did even at top difficulties in past games), leaves you with a WTF face.

I'm not exactly sure what went wrong with battles but I don't seem to be able to enjoy them at all. In Empire the main issue were the repetitive battlefields, everything was a grass field. Here the battlefields are... weird. Often grass fields, sometimes really well developed hills. And that's still not the main problem. Units behaviour is.

Just like AI difficulty bonuses seem to be messed up.

[Basil II the B.S]

I still play Rome TW (2004). The problem with Rome II is that the campaign map is terrible. The economy doesn't work. Buildings are terrible. Agents are so bad they make me rage quit. The music on the campaign map is bland, sparse and uninspiring. The factions are balanced horribly. Syracuse can field a full two stacks army plus fleet and large garrison with a single city, while Carthage can't? Yeah right. Carthage is horribly implemented. Terrible unit roster, hideous choice of territory split across disunited provinces. Rome gets insane advantages. All combines to make the faction Carthage unplayable.

I've stopped playing Rome II for years. I play Attila instead. Its still missing a few things compared to Medieval 2. But it is a much better game than Rome II.

Carthage gets screwed hard by the province system I discussed in another thread.

The combination of the spreadout positions and cultural differences is utterly devastating and forces you to choose between Sardinia/Sicily or Spain. Once you choose, it's playable but it's still a rather insane quest.

Even the fact you'll have to rely on mercenaries is acceptable as it's historically true.

The Nova Carthago/Lybia mechanics are weird though, expecially the former, makes no sense. I could pass on Carthage having a client called Carthago Nova, but that'd be Kart Adash as settlement on the map, so why is the faction Carthage owning it and the colony not owning the city it takes the name from?

Historically it'd make some sense as after the First Punic War, Hamilcar withdraws to Carthago Nova and basically acts semi independently from there, expanding. Hannibal takes over and does the same. Let's say ''Carthago Nova'' was the faction of Punic oversea colonies, then why does it have Iol?
And where's Cirta? Numidia is essentially represented by the Masaesly, that's great, but they end up deep in the desert... and there's no Massyli to rival with them. And the former are Carthaginian allies early on, they only switch sides later. So CA did a lot of historical research and then set up things in a way that makes no sense nor particularly helps the gameplay.

Carthago Nova, the faction, is helpful early on to keep the Spanish factions and the Saharian factions at bay, but then you want to get rid of them. At that point, it was better as it was in Rome 1. Carthage simply controls its own settlements (it did lack Carthago Nova in Rome 1 too, lol CA), but Numidia made more sense then than now.


If they wanted to make some sense, even considering the family system they added they could have gone with:
-Hannonids controlling the province of Carthage (all of it, screw the Lybia client), Lylibeum, Caralis and Iol
-Barcids controlling Cathago Nova, Ibossim, Corduba province and Tingis

They remain allied until one or the other is on the verge of beating Rome, then they split and eventually go at war with each other.

Add Massyli controlling Cirta and the inner land of North Africa, Iol being just a coastal region.
Masseyli and Masaesly start with a strong rivalry so that they eventually go at war with each other for the control of Numidia.

Was it so hard?

[bigdaddy1204]

I even reposted the patch notes for all patches, which are more than 20 game patches, unless I missed one or two patches.

Here are the few patch notes I reposted for Attila until I stop playing Rome 2.

That's insane. Thanks for posting.

There was a time when games might have one patch, usually released with the expansion pack, and that was it. What this 20 patch debacle suggests is that the game was released too early, when it was not in a fit state to be released.

[OnnaBushido]

Is Rome 2 really that bad? Not as bad as deliberately inciting rebellion in your own cities and then exterminating the populace with a couple of full stacks of urban cohorts. I would do that and then move the armies to the next city with rising pop/unrest.
Rome 1 taught me that good imperial governance included regular genocide.

In contrast with Rome 2, the more food, the more growth, the merrier. The new nuisance is that you must crush those secessions every 20 turns or so. Well it's realistic at least. Rome has had many civil wars IRL.