150 hours in, time for a real review not like those professional clowns at the magazines.
Total War: Rome 2
I imagine that even the sound of it's name on the day of it's announcement might have caused some shivers of excitement to the old die-hard fans of this unique series.
Lots of months passed since that day, lots of teasers, adverts and an amazing trailer video showcasing some key parts of the Roman life, dressed up in enticing music.
I left a period of grace for CA since their launch days are usually terrible and we all know that, and this will not be part of this review.
Now we've been 1 month in since the release of the game and this time of grace is gone.
The good:
-Graphics The Graphics are beautiful, the soldiers have a lot more detail going on both on their faces and their equipment, even though support for different systems is not complete, if your PC can handle the game on maximum settings the eye candy is great.
-Province System The province system adds a lot of immersion value in your conquests and a feeling of achievement when a whole province is under your control.
-Politics This new feature has received a lot of bashing for all the right reasons, however I welcome it's addition and since it's a new feature I hope it evolves into something deeper and more complex in the future, although I'd hold a small basket.
-Army Traditions This new feature adds a lot of immersion and the feeling of evolution on one of the most important parts of this game, armies as years go by the veterans are able to teach the new recruits what they are all about and how they fight as a unit.
-Army stances with 4 stances to choose from, it's a new feature that is welcomed and adds some nice new ways to interact and move your armies around the map.
-Campaign map UI To be honest when I loaded up my first campaign I was lost, the first thought that came to my head literally is, what the heck is all this stuff, is this total war? But after a while I got used to all the new buttons and additions such as the overview map and how provinces work together. I have come to enjoy the campaign UI. I really like it now.
-Encyclopedia There's not much to be said here. Outstanding work, very detailed, complete and articulate. Let's you know how everything works if you are missing something.
-Campaign Objectives It took me about 3 days of playing to realise that each faction has these neat semi-historical objectives added to it, so if you don't want to set your own unique path to an empire you can try to follow the objectives which also add a big sum of gold when completed.
When playing on legendary mode, it's the only thing that can make the game potentially hard. Trying to complete all the objectives in the order presented. I have done Rome and it was actually pretty tough in the first 3 objectives, for all the wrong reasons but...
The bad:
-Gargantuan lack of depth
To sum it up, this series needs a lot new features, fast. All you can do now is pretty much build the same buildings over and over in all your provinces, train the same units over and over and fight battles with extremely similar enemy army compositions regardless if you are in Britannia or Parthia.
-1turn/year, lack of seasons
Simply put this is simply stupid. The generals and agents die before you ever have the chance to see them level up and shine except if you go on a conquesting rampage with 1 of them, which is not what people always want to do. The missing seasons also helped to add a pretty touch to the feel of the campaign map.
-Battle map UI
Gargantuan unit panel, extremely annoying advisor pannel. No reason to have guard mode button removed, it didn't make the game simpler, it worsened player control.
-Diplomacy
It's still weird and inexplicable.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't even if you duplicate the exact situation. Sometimes factions that are in love with you will not trade with you. Factions that are about to die next turn such as Egypt (always dies) deny your help vigorously.
-Missing family trees
Why?
-Campaign map AI
Well, I won't say it's bad, but I can say it's not polished. The CAI makes horrible use of the available army stances, and it simply doesn't know how to build cities and armies properly.
The ugly:
-Painstakingly unpolished for it's depth.
-Myriads of bugs both in graphics and gameplay.
-Horrible zoom system.
In some maps there are hills so high that the maximum zoom out you can achieve is at your soldiers feet. Makes battles unplayable in those maps and that is inexcusable.
-1v1 soldier fights
It's a bad design choice for this type of warfare and it makes it look weird when you zoom in instead of amazing.
This era is all about formations and maneuvering, it's not about Hoplite Jim duking it out with Berserker Vinnie.
-Battle AI I don't really mind the fact that the BAI sometimes makes bad decisions such as charging headlong into pike formations. This is okayish.
What is really pathetic of CA though is not the fact that the BAI is bad, it's the fact that it's broken.
In open field battles the BAI will move it's units even badly and attack you, maybe in predictable ways and easy to defeat, at least it will move around.
But siege battles? The BAI is simply broken, it's inexcusable for a company to sell a product where a major part of it's battle mechanic is not working at all!
If you are the attacker the BAI is so passive it makes you want to take your eyes out.
3 patches in I want you to try this, attack a city with 10 units of slingers. Walk up to the defenders sitting around between the town buildings, shoot all your ammunition at them.
Noone will move to attack you besides individual ranged units, 1 by 1.
Naval battles where you are the attacker, I have been able to reproduce the same thing for over 100 times in my campaign with a fleet composed of 5 light artillery quinquiremes.
If you attack from max range, they will sit there until you sink every last one of their ships.
It's not bad, it's broken.
To sum up the game was rushed, it was aimed for metacritics. I don't mind half features, or even missing features that much.
What really pokes me in the eye though is the fact that basic elements that are in the game are not working, sometimes at all.
That is like buying a music cd and after inserting it in your cd player you realise half the songs are missing 20 seconds of the original song.
3 patches in I'd give it 4/10. Spectacular but lacking.
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Originally Posted by Emperor Arcturus Mengsk
