I think that I played a very different game in comparison to the rest of the forum .

[dRokon100]

Okay, yesterday I FINALLY booted up Rome II, fearing that, thanks to the less-then-kind reaction on the forums, it would unleash an evil force upon the world that will consume me, my neighborhood and, eventually, the world.

[beat]

Or it can just be a terrible game/"scam".

Nonetheless, I booted it up, expecting that the dark forces/terrible bugs lurk behind it....

And there was nothing. Nothing that makes me break my keyboard and fly over to London to beat up CA, steal my money back, and spend my money on EU4. Maybe it was just a temporary spell? As I continued my playthrough with some mods(for that filter stuff, Radious batlle mod and extra factions) I thought that this game might be okay.

In fact, it may be *gasp* good!

Battle speed isn't that much a problem, especially with Radiousmod installed. The enemy units managed to stay in formation, and even pulled some good moves. I did have some lag, but that might be because my computer is several years old. It looks good, too, no zombie legionaries seen yet. It could use some polishing, yes(graphics department and UI, mostly) but it is actually good.

You don't see that on General Discussion, wherein only doom and gloom is allowed, and everybody who disagrees get shredded to pieces and told to play their game and run away from General Discussion, get called a fanboy and a brownnoser and told to continue playing the game non-stop if it's that good.(I want to, but school+homework s stuff up.)

All in all, Rome II gets a solid 8.5 from me. It can use some improvements, yes, but it is pretty good in its own right.

*runs to nearest flame-proof bunker*

[BunnyPoopCereal]

Now you're saying the game is okay but only with mods?

[Sanzo Hidochi]

Pretty sure he never said it's only good because of mods, just better. He'll elaborate, I'm quite sure.

[dRokon100]

NO! Vanilla was also good, only the graphics and faction roster can be expanded by mods.

[BunnyPoopCereal]

But you acknowledge that battle speed is a problem. Though the extent of the problem is mitigated by Radious mod? So mods do more than just extend faction rosters and improve graphics.

[Yayattasa]

So mods made the game good. RESOLVED

[BunnyPoopCereal]

But you acknowledge that battle speed is a problem. Though the extent of the problem is mitigated by Radious mod? So mods do more than simply extend faction rosters and improve graphics.

[MrExpendable]

I think he's saying that the only thing that this game could use is more unit variety, better graphics and slower battle speed, which can be done with mods.While I don't agree with him that these are the only issues, I do agree that this game isn't as broken as the majority here says.

[✠Ikaroqx✠]

It's not broken at all. It just doesn't match many people's personal preferences.

[Yayattasa]

^this could be said about pretty much everything that exists.

[DeVrie]

Battle speed isn't that much a problem, especially with Radiousmod installed

LOL. Great to see you're enjoying the vanilla game. Is Radious mod included in that *solid* 8.5 rating you're giving it?

[Anax of Rhodes]

How's the technical performance of your game? Lag spikes? Choppy framerate?

[Winterspawn]

For me the game is actually good. I've had no crashes in the 26 hours I've played, the AI is actually clever most of the times (it actually managed to attack my where I was weakest during a for me defensive battle, I had 2 streets protected with strong units and one with the town garrison which is way weaker, then most of their forces went that way, I send some hoplites from the middle street to support then and when they where about to arrive the AI quickly went to the middle street where I now had only a few defenses), I did got stuck in the diplomacy screen once, the boarding button during naval battles is broken and sometimes dead soldiers hang in the air. Movement speed for land units is a bit too fast as well.

[zznɟ ǝɥʇ]

I love this game and love the battles. I don't want to sit and wait 20 minutes for my phalanx to break the enemy spearmen...three minutes for that is fine. Most of my battles are 5-10 minutes anyway given that I pause and hover and explore.

Haters gonna hate

[pericles_plato]

This is by far my favorite total war game. I have not even thought about laying the other total war games. I am greatly enjoying my vanilla game. I see no problems with it as of yet, though I have only played 11 hours.

[Mid-shipman Crunch]

It is not that bad of a game. If everyone on this site had to design the game there would probably be as many people on this forum ready to break balls. Could the game use some improvements? Sure like most things. When all of the wonderful modding teams take a carck at it, I am sure some of you will find something to your taste. Others will just flip excrement.

[Naked Emperor]

I´ve spent 63 hours on the game by now and it´s a love hate relationship. I suffer from almost no technical issues and I run the game on ultra settings, I bought a high end rig in June so that probably explains it. The game crashed again and again when I tried to take carthage but lowering the graphics a little solved that issue. When the A.I was besieging Karalis I had an Empire deja vu. The same bug that made the game stutter intensively manifested and 1 second ingame took 5 seconds in real life. This happened a lot in Empire TW during fort battles and lowering graphic settings didnt help so I had to autoresolve and lose the settlement.

But the thing that annoys me the most is the A.I....the horrible horrible A.I. The A.I that charges you and when they are 10m from you they have a change of heart and run back getting javelins or my countercharge into their backs. The A.I that lands their boats during siege and have an open road into the city but just stand there, the A.I that is besieging me and just stand there doing nothing. The A.I that has only declared war on me once or twice in my 3 campaigns which I play on VH or legendary and I´ve played for 63 hours....I don´t have armies to protect my home provinces because nobody declares on my anyway. In hundreds of turns I have never seen a decent A.I stack....only rubbish low end units that rout on impact...maybe a hoplite or two or unit of noble spearmen....but these are probably starting units that have survived. Why am I after close to 150 turns as rome still fighting levies or rubbish spearmen and trash missile troops? My Armored legionaries they are like "sure you 3 cohorts take care of the problem while we make some pizza"

Yes this is a beautiful game, rich with potential but until some core issues are fixed like the A.I it is only a decent game while it could have been great.

[Winterspawn]

I´ve spent 63 hours on the game by now and it´s a love hate relationship. I suffer from almost no technical issues and I run the game on ultra settings, I bought a high end rig in June so that probably explains it. The game crashed again and again when I tried to take carthage but lowering the graphics a little solved that issue. When the A.I was besieging Karalis I had an Empire deja vu. The same bug that made the game stutter intensively manifested and 1 second ingame took 5 seconds in real life. This happened a lot in Empire TW during fort battles and lowering graphic settings didnt help so I had to autoresolve and lose the settlement. But the thing that annoys me the most is the A.I....the horrible horrible A.I. The A.I that charges you and when they are 10m from you they have a change of heart and run back getting javelins or my countercharge into their backs. The A.I that lands their boats during siege and have an open road into the city but just stand there, the A.I that is besieging me and just stand there doing nothing. The A.I that has only declared war on me once or twice in my 3 campaigns which I play on VH or legendary and I´ve played for 63 hours....I don´t have armies to protect my home provinces because nobody declares on my anyway. In hundreds of turns I have never seen a decent A.I stack....only rubbish low end units that rout on impact...maybe a hoplite or two or unit of noble spearmen....but these are probably starting units that have survived. Why am I after close to 150 turns as rome still fighting levies or rubbish spearmen and trash missile troops? My Armored legionaries they are like "sure you 3 cohorts take care of the problem while we make some pizza" Yes this is a beautiful game, rich with potential but until some core issues are fixed like the A.I it is only a decent game while it could have been great.

True, there are some moments where the AI charges and then rapidly turns around right before impact, making them take projectiles to the back. Same thing goes for the mediocre units the AI uses. I just beat 2 full stacks equalling about 6000 men from the neavea or whatever named after the province next to egypt where this faction is with my 1600 men army and 1200 men crappy garrison and I lost 268 men while they lost about 5.4K, of which I captured 1048 of them. It may be statisfying to see those numbers untill you realise that you got it from killing spearmen levies or whatever they are called. I hope that CA will patch the charging bug and poor recruitment choices soon. The AI does also have way too many missile troops in it's armies just like any TW game ever. Modders fix that problem but I don't know why CA keeps refusing to solve it.

[Ataegina]

@dRokon100 PLEASE dont start positive threads!!!! thats terrible thing to do, you must HATE , now start to HATE and go NOW open 5 new threads until the clock reaches midnight!!

[Sean951]

I actually like the speed. I never had battles that lasted longer than 10-25 (very high end) minutes in Rome 1 unless I was playing as Parthia or trying to defend against a vastly superior force. The economy/public order has been the hardest thing for me to adjust to, and the Province/Region system wasn't quite what I had in mind, but overall I'd agree with 8.5. It might also be that I view the first 6 months after launch to be the real "beta" period since the game gets widespread use and Steam provides accurate metrics about what is happening. Yeah, it sucks, but with patches coming weekly, I think it's the best way to look at it. You pay up front for a better product down the line.