Rome II - 2 Months Later - Feedback needed

[=Vastator=]

1-What would you give the game out of 10? - 4-5

2-What are you most upset about currently? (if anything). - AI , especially siege, combat mechanics, broken naval battles, awful performance, lack of features, new feautures not working

3-Have Creative Assembly been doing a good job with updates and fixes? - bad, only fixing minor things (except CAI, where the work done is good)

4-If you had a friend who plays Shogun 2, would you recommend them Rome 2 now? - Not at all

5-What price is this game worth in your opinion? Hard to say

6-What are you most impressed with in the game? -Full zoomed Graphics (although at lower level of zoom the graphic is worse than Shogun 2), faction diversity, reasonable loading times.

7-In your opinion what needs to be done to improve the game? (if anything). -Too long list, but see 2.

8-How many hours of Rome II have you played? - Steam says 39 hrs, but are a lot fewer (due to a bug)

9-Have you played/ enjoyed the multiplayer? - yes, rushing, spamming and cheating are the only winning strategies.

[Hoplite of Ilis]

I will ask you to pretend as if the game has just released (in this state). FORGET ANYTHING YOU THOUGHT BEFORE PATCH 4.

You really drive a hard bargain..... I mean really!... Ok, this is for unmodded game.


1-What would you give the game out of 10? 4/10 Half game, half rating!

2-What are you most upset about currently? (if anything). Graphics, proper formation fighting (units not fighting as a whole when they should), battle cannot be seen, lack of Total War feeling.

3-Have Creative Assembly been doing a good job with updates and fixes? No.

4-If you had a friend who plays Shogun 2, would you recommend them Rome 2 now? No.

5-What price is this game worth in your opinion? 25-30 Euro.

6-What are you most impressed with in the game? Nothing impressive. With graphics like these, I imagine being impressed with what it would look like. I only like the unit close up view.

7-In your opinion what needs to be done to improve the game? (if anything). Release the other halh of the game which includes top graphic settings, proper formation fighting, and a Total War AI.

8-How many hours of Rome II have you played? 4 campaigns.9-Have you played/ enjoyed the multiplayer? Haven't played it.

[Boyar'sNephew]

1-What would you give the game out of 10? - 4/10 on launch, 7/10 now - with potential to improve.


2-What are you most upset about currently? (if anything). - Small unit sizes when unmodded, 160 men max? Come on! Also some certain members rep-whoring and reiterating their same over-inflated, ego-boosting opinions over and over. It's embarrassing.


3-Have Creative Assembly been doing a good job with updates and fixes? - Unsurprising yes


4-If you had a friend who plays Shogun 2, would you recommend them Rome 2 now? - Yes, but each to their own.


5-What price is this game worth in your opinion? - As much as any other new release, bit of an irrelevant question.


6-What are you most impressed with in the game? - Campaign map, animations (Dat shield flip), the music in certain areas (The best pieces are on the loading menus! What's that all about? Get them in the main game!)


7-In your opinion what needs to be done to improve the game? (if anything). - Scale, intelligence, unit variety. SIEGES.


8-How many hours of Rome II have you played? - Around 40


9-Have you played/ enjoyed the multiplayer? - Never play multiplayer.

What he said, across the board. Even in terms of hours played.

[karamazovmm]

well, especially early on, it was "click end turn, alt-tab, forget the game is on, return after half an hour" 'cause the wait times were so dreadful. now, at least for me, it's "end turn, go do something else, return to the game and quite 'cause it's so ing boring". then there's the "let's try another game now that patch 1956 is out, maybe they really improved it this time! nope...". and let's not forget there are people that like to give many chances to the game despite the obvious failures ("maybe it's fun if i play with faction X instead of Y"), then there's also the fact that you just can't properly assess a TW game in a couple of hours

actually mid to late turns are the worst


1-What would you give the game out of 10?

Launch I gave 6/10, now I give a 7/10

2-What are you most upset about currently? (if anything).

A select group of people here keep going on circles, creating the same threads over and over again. They are not only stifling the discussion, but also avoiding new and older members that came back because of the game to enjoy the forums.

if the question is regarding the game, that would be the BAI. The sieges aint working as they should, we have a problem of overly pursuit of the flags, they were supposed to give a more dynamic feel the sieges, but the AI when not confronted at them, doesn't know how to react. We also have a problem of passivity when they are defending non walled cities. though that may well be understandable, given that the AI has the option to sally forth, and accounted that the losses against it VS being protected by some buildings is worth the cost

The open battle AI has also developed a strange behaviour, they are now doing the chicken dance army wide. Its best explained via a example:

I attack 2 stacks of the AI, normal open field battle

The AI will wait if the reinforcements are from their backs, if they come from the sides or my back, they will attack and flank me with 2 forces. However the AI sometimes will wait for the reinforcements, inside the range of my artillery, thus getting pummelled.

Then when my ammunition for the artillery is gone, the attacking behaviour is changed to a defensive one, before 1.5 they would keep the attack, now they retreat, reform and wait for my attack. This is terrible since I can pretty much run then down with cavalry and make pin cushions of them with skirmishers

3-Have Creative Assembly been doing a good job with updates and fixes?

They have, although they have been slow to fix what I'm most discontent with

4-If you had a friend who plays Shogun 2, would you recommend them Rome 2 now?

Sure, but I would say to hold their money, given that they won't receive the DLC

5-What price is this game worth in your opinion?

I paid U$35, its a good price and so far its a more than fair price

6-What are you most impressed with in the game?

The map, the unit details, the supplementary objectives, the research that went into it

7-In your opinion what needs to be done to improve the game? (if anything).

They need to improve 3 things:

BAI - pathfinding on sieges is still problematic, for both the player and the AI. Static behaviour on defensive non walled sieges. Attacking behaviour needs to be improved, after the first wave of siege engines has been used, they don't use the rest that they have built and go for the torches. The Chicken dance army wide I described earlier in the open battles

CAI - Better bonuses to the AI, so that they can try to make larger empires, its a thing that is very hard to balance and it takes minute tweaks and I know it takes more time and the CAI has been receiving major improvements

Political System - I don't even try to balance anything anymore, there is no pay off in investing in it. We need more:
- political action options

- interference from the other parties, like an army going rebel, or its movement points being reduced to 0 for a turn or 2 due to a political action, the general being recalled and so forth

- a more punishing civil war, check for armies going rebel, more than 1 city revolting, 1/4 to 1/6 is a good number.

- the continuity of the system after the civil war, because when that is done, it doesn't work anymore


8-How many hours of Rome II have you played?

320h

9-Have you played/ enjoyed the multiplayer?

I haven't played multi yet

[jthewonder]

1-What would you give the game out of 10?
At release: 5
Now: 6

2-What are you most upset about currently? (if anything).
The Artificial Idiocracy and lack of a "soul"

3-Have Creative Assembly been doing a good job with updates and fixes?
No, but it has been acceptable. It is NOT acceptable that they need to do this. In my oppinion it shows that the released was rushed, and that we're basically playing an open beta atm.

4-If you had a friend who plays Shogun 2, would you recommend them Rome 2 now?
Maybe, but if i had 10 minutes to convince him, i would spend 6-7 of them on warnings. And if i was less selfish i problably wouldn't recommend it at all.

5-What price is this game worth in your opinion?
Well Arma3 gave us a 25% discount IIRC if you preordered to get access to the open beta. Something similar would be fair in this case i believe.

6-What are you most impressed with in the game?
In my oppinion this game has ALOT of good things going on, but none of it has ever "impressed" me, like the previois TW games allways did.

7-In your opinion what needs to be done to improve the game? (if anything).
Not sure if it can be changed enough, sure bugs might be ironed out and the AI might be improved, but adding a "soul" after release is impossible i fear. Im hoping an expansion will bring it back.

8-How many hours of Rome II have you played?
274 so far, but i haven't touched it the last 2 weeks (i still read patch notes however). At least half of those hours have been used on fiddling with mods in order to find the right combination for me.

9-Have you played/ enjoyed the multiplayer?
Played yes, enjoyed no. I've tried about 5-7 multiplayer campaigns so far, and despite having spent atleast 30 hours on these, i've only tried 2 or 3 fights without descyncs, crashes and so on. Add corrupted save games, unbelievable loading times and severe performance hits and you got a failure on your hands. Haven't tried any MP Battles though, i only compete with people i know.

[Praetorian_BGX]

1-What would you give the game out of 10?
At release: 1
Now: 4

2-What are you most upset about currently? (if anything).
Unit formations/Blobbing, AI

3-Have Creative Assembly been doing a good job with updates and fixes?
No, i noticed only performance boost.

4-If you had a friend who plays Shogun 2, would you recommend them Rome 2 now?
No

5-What price is this game worth in your opinion?
Im not paying for broken things

6-What are you most impressed with in the game?
Amount of time and money invested into marketing propaganda.

7-In your opinion what needs to be done to improve the game? (if anything).
Nothing. Their recent statement is very clear - only minor fixes. RTW2 will remain "soulless".

8-How many hours of Rome II have you played?
About 50+

9-Have you played/ enjoyed the multiplayer?
Not playing multiplayer

[DarrenTotalWar]

Thanks so much for all this feedback, this will really make for an interesting video!

[DarrenTotalWar]

In the first post I explained I'm doing this for my channel that I'm starting.

I previously did videos for youtube.com/collegegamingvideos and our Road To Rome show got over 20,000 views. Now, I'm planning on starting a TotalWar only channel.

youtube.com/darrentotalwar

My first video will be up on november 3rd and will be aiming to look at the games strengths and weaknesses 2months after release.

[joedreck]

1-What would you give the game out of 10?
5 points
- 4 for battles after patch 4
- 1 for campaign, which have no any deep, satisfaction or anything else. Just boring.

2-What are you most upset about currently? (if anything).
CA always talk about something new and better, but at the end all Total War are just not readey experiments.

3-Have Creative Assembly been doing a good job with updates and fixes?
If from worst to bad is a good job, then yes.

4-If you had a friend who plays Shogun 2, would you recommend them Rome 2 now?
I was first who bought Rome and after people saw it, they lost interest in it.

5-What price is this game worth in your opinion?
EUR 29,90

6-What are you most impressed with in the game?
How much CA made wrong and did not used chances.

7-In your opinion what needs to be done to improve the game? (if anything).
From this alpha version to a ready game is a long way.
Improved political system, then trade system to make the campaign more exiting.
AI improvments I gave up since Empire.

8-How many hours of Rome II have you played?
Many, many and more at tools and editors to make it better.9-Have you played/ enjoyed the multiplayer?
No.

[Idomeneas]

1- 5 and thats only because of the generally nice work on units and terrain
2- Broken A.I, lack of immersion, stripped down to the point of boredom features
3- Certainly not, their fixes so far is like a 10 minutes walk when the destination is China
4- No avoid it at all costs
5- At the most 20 euros and Im really generous.
6- I wanted to be impressed but I failed with the help of CA
7- So many issues that I frankly dont know where to begin.
8- About 120
9- No I dont play multiplayer generally, I wanted to start with this title but Im reading of so many problems that i reconcidered.

[The Noble Duke Of York]

1-What would you give the game out of 10? I did not experience any of the severe graphics issues as others from the start even though my rig is the same as quite a few who were having issues (I5, 660Ti etc). So the game has run very smoothly from the start. I would give it a 7.


2-What are you most upset about currently? (if anything)? I am on my second campaign playing this time as the Iceni (I felt it beholden to start as Rome) and as I've played along there are a few things in the design that have had me scratching my head.

1. The Civil War: I actually think this is a marvelous idea CA had. Kudos to them for putting this in. I enjoyed the challenge when I happened in my Rome campaign (has not happened yet in my second). However after crushing the Senate Loyalists and electing to continue as an "Empire" no other challenge, internally, was ever afforded me. The Legions did not declare a successful general "Emperor" and give me trouble and I found that just odd. A marvelous idea they had (CA) and executed in an incomplete way!

2. In my Iceni campaign I get pop ups telling me things like "A wine merchant has arrived from the east and wants to trade in your territory but your own merchants want him stopped. Do you A) Let him B) Stop him C) Take a monopoly on his business?" Let's say I choose A and the next turn I am informed that my decision was a wise one and my trade flourishes. Or does it? I don't actually notice any difference in my economy. So what the heck was all of that for? Again, this is a really neat idea but poorly executed to the point were it is now an annoyance in my campaign.
Also, never saw this in my Roman campaign. Are the Romans special? Curious design issue.



3-Have Creative Assembly been doing a good job with updates and fixes? I've noticed that it takes less time to complete a turn late in game. I've also found the CAI to be more intelligent in diplomacy and it will now make alliances against dangerous states. On the graphical side I cannot say because I had no issues to begin with.

4-If you had a friend who plays Shogun 2, would you recommend them Rome 2 now?
I would tell them to wait for a sale and for patches 6 and 7 to be out.

5-What price is this game worth in your opinion?
The price it is currently sold at. Given the hours I've put in and the fun I have had it was. But I also have a decent job and this was not a hardship to purchase.

6-What are you most impressed with in the game?
Unit diversity is much better in this game than Vanilla Rome I. I also think the CAI is better. Gone are the days when a faction declares war on me with one army that is 50% full and they only have a city to defend. Now they seem to combine against threats. It's not perfect yet. The CAI is still far too passive but in older titles it was too aggressive and sometimes suicidaly. I also have stopped auto-resolving sea battles with this title. I love them. They are done well and a pleasure to play!

7-In your opinion what needs to be done to improve the game? (if anything).
The BAI needs a lot of work. The BAI is just dumb as rocks on the field of battle. They still run around in a sprint like older titles. If they have a allied army they'll wait till that army marches past my flank to join them before they attack. I love that. That means I have ample time to even the odds with ballistas or skirmishers.
The siege AI is also just dreadful. Work needs to be done to teach the AI how to use siege equipment or manage a defense. But that's been a problem with every title in the series.

8-How many hours of Rome II have you played?
over 80 and counting!

9-Have you played/ enjoyed the multiplayer?
I don't play multiplayer in any game. I am very anti-social.

[perifanosEllinas]

1-What would you give the game out of 10?

At release 1/10 (epic fail).Massive bugs,zero polish,lots of stripped features,berebones multiplayer and the whole game felt like an unfinished beta.Completely unacceptable.

Now 3/10 (bad).The game is still very bad,but it is at least playable on more PCs and the performance is slightly more stable.My rating is still very low though,because most of the features are still unfinished or/and don't work properly and the game overall is a huge leap backwards compared to TW Shogun 2.It doesn't even feel like Rome's period at all.
When the best feature of a strategy game is the cinematic camera,then you know that this game has failed miserably.

2-What are you most upset about currently? (if anything).

The disgusting marketing propaganda full of lies that CA made before release,which shows how much CA disrespects its own customers and cares only about money and the metacritic scores.

The DLC whoring,including cut content.

Their current attitude.They keep ignoring the fan's feedback and they still defend their failed gameplay decisions.

The broken phalanx formation(both versions).They both function wrong,look wrong and have the wrong role on the battlefield,which practically means that they are wrong in every aspect.I actually called the game "Failanx Total War" after I first tried the battles,because of how broken this special formation is.

Broken naval battles.

Broken siege AI.

Units ignoring orders even after repeated clicking.

Totally unfitting and impractical sci fi futuristic UI in both campaign and battles.The UI has been way worsened compared to RTW in every possible way.Way too streamlined (in the bad way,not more accessible and easier to use,but actually stripped of many important information) and visually ugly in both campaign and battle.The battle UI is huge with no reason and takes way too much space of the screen but at the same time it lacks vital information.

No family tree.

No skill tree.You're supposed to know what comes next when you choose a skill.

Random and useless traits.For example "zeal",while the game doesn't even say what those traits do.Yeah,"warrior" is not much of information,is it?

Broken politics.Βy far the most unfinished and disappointing feature of the game.Ridiculously high prices,no effect for the rest of the campaign at all,generic generals,wrong modifiers (for example it says +1 influence and the result is losing 1 influnce) etc.

No religion.

No strategic depth at all.The game is way too streamlined.

Horrible optimization.

Ridiculously fast battles.They last for about 2-5 minutes and most of that time is spent on marching instead of fighting.The morals are ridiculously low and units rout in seconds after initial contact.

No formations.The battles in this game are massive heavy metal pits.

Battle breaking magic abilities for units that make absolutely no sense at all.They are just magic buffs,even if CA continues denying that.They simply have no place in a historical TW game.

Totally unfitting animations in battles.

1 turn per year.

No seasons.

Very bad relation between the campaign and the battle maps.

No guard mode.

Way too oversized cities on the map.

Extremely poor and generic unit rosters.

Retarded unit stats.The barbarian elite units are way overpowered,while the civilized professional elite units (like the Spartans) have way too low stats.And by the way,the Spartans also have wrong equipment.

Transports.They must simply be removed.They make navies and admirals useless and they cancel the strategic value of land as natural defensive barrier.

Capture points outside of sieges.They must simply be removed too.They take away any sense of tactics in the battles.

Completely boring,uninspiring and forgettable music.

The stupid rule that only the provincial capitals can have walls,which resulted in cities with huge stone walls like Syracuse and Rhodes being portrayed in the game as tiny,wall-less villages.They didn't want to enable every city to have walls in order to reduce the sieges.That's fine.But why should only the capitals have walls?That's stupid.

Unreasonably huge negative modifiers to food and public order for every building that you want to build after a certain level.

No agent cutscenes.

Ridiculously long loading/end turn times.

No generals's speeches before battles.

Flaming torches.They make siege equipment useless.

The fact that you can't reposition the towers before the siege begins is totally stupid and frustrating.

That's all I can remember at the moment.I haven't played the game recently,but too few things have changed anyway.Judging by the patch notes that I 've read probably the battles last a little longer (but are still way too fast),the end turn times are slightly reduced (but still too long) and the capture points are not that often (but still way more often than they should be).

3-Have Creative Assembly been doing a good job with updates and fixes?

Nope.Nothing essential has been fixed yet.And the patches they've released have created as many new problems as they tried to fix.

4-If you had a friend who plays Shogun 2, would you recommend them Rome 2 now?

No way.I have actually kept my cousin and a couple of friends away from buying this product.I would definitely recommend it to my enemies though.

And an example of how boring this game is even to the casual gamers is the way I got the game in my hands.I have personally not bought it,because I didn't like what I saw before release and I decided to wait.A friend of mine however,who is not even a TW fan,bought it because of the impressive pre-release videos.He was totally disappointed by the fact that the game was nothing like it looked in those pre-release videos,but he decided to give it a try since he had payed for it anyway.He got bored of it within a couple of days and he just gave it to me for free,because he knows that I am a TW fan.

5-What price is this game worth in your opinion?

A game costs money after it is finished.TWR2 is still in beta testing phase.The testers should actually be payed for their work instead.

6-What are you most impressed with in the game?

The time and money spent on marketing propaganda,the amount of things/features/aspects this game failed on and the number of excuses the CA apologists came up with to defend this epic failure.

But if I had to choose an ingame feature that I really like it would be the cinematic camera.And that's the only cool feature of TWR2 to be honest.The idea and concept of regions grouped in provinces is also good,but the horrible UI and the rule that only the provincial capitals can have walls destroy it.

7-In your opinion what needs to be done to improve the game? (if anything).

More or less everything,but for a more specific answer see number 2.

8-How many hours of Rome II have you played?

About 50.I would have quit way before that,but I kept playing the game in hopes of finding something enjoyable about it and that just didn't happen.

9-Have you played/ enjoyed the multiplayer?

I'm a single player guy,so I haven't played multiplayer.

[Aenima]

1-What would you give the game out of 10?

Vanilla? A high 5

2-What are you most upset about currently? (if anything).

If I had to pick one thing, it would be the way battles have turned out. If I had to be super specific, the complete inability of the AI to handle siege battles on the offensive (flabbergasted by walls, doesn't know how to use siege equipment properly, practically runs onto the spears and swords of your men in a mad rush for the flag)

3-Have Creative Assembly been doing a good job with updates and fixes?

I would have hoped for more by this point, but then I suppose the game they want to put out there isn't what many of us want or expected. Still, they've done some good.

4-If you had a friend who plays Shogun 2, would you recommend them Rome 2 now?

I wouldn't recommend it to anyone in its current state.

5-What price is this game worth in your opinion?

£10.

6-What are you most impressed with in the game?

Visuals/campaign map

7-In your opinion what needs to be done to improve the game? (if anything).

Improve battle AI
Improve battle mechanics (no blobbing, give the option for guard mode, improve path-finding for routed units, allow banners for routing units for ease of finding and chasing)
Improve campaign AI, currently indecisive (army comes into region, leaves, comes back, leaves etc)

Major points there

8-How many hours of Rome II have you played?

About 45. 40 in the first week or two of release when I was on what I guess you could call the honeymoon phase, then a few hours over the course of the past two days seeing if it's improved. It hasn't, at least not enough to keep me playing.

9-Have you played/ enjoyed the multiplayer?

No, N/A




EDIT: OP, if you want a bit of a more in-depth "review" by me of the game in its current state, you can have a look at a thread I made. It's on the front page and I imagine you may have already had a peak since its relevant to your interests, but if not, hope it does some good:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...or-what-I-want

[TTRouble]

1- 5/10 - no more and thats in its current state.

2- The battle animations walking, running, charging (human and horse) is inferior to RTW, flaming javelins, 1 turn/year, no family tree, no connection with your factions members,the limited building tree, unable to construct roads, construct magical transport ships anytime and anywhere, magical unit options, broken seiges (flippin works in RTW!), cities without walls or the ability to construct them, The capture the flags, the total dumbing down of the whole game and the The DLC whoring.

3-Nope.

4-Nope.. I've already told several friends not to get R2 until its fixed. In the meantime their still playing Shogun2, MTW2.

5- Not what I paid.. it was basically a beta at launch and still is so should have been free.

6- The pre release demos. The province system is good and the gfx for the units and detail when they don't look like zombies, ability to zoom in within the unit, campaign map.

7- CA needs a good hard look at what the mod's like RS2, RTR, EB etc have been doing and really improve on that.

8-70 - with 60/40 split between campaigns and custom battles.

9-Nope and no intention of playing MP I'm having hard enough time trying to enjoy the single player battles.

[Crymson]

1-What would you give the game out of 10? 5. The game was a 4 on launch. Very little has been fixed thus far where bugs are concerned; and even were they all to be resolved---which will likely never happen---the game just wouldn't be all that interesting. It lacks the character and depth of the other titles in the series. Worse, we were lied to about the features that it would have.

2-What are you most upset about currently? (if anything).

The game was released in incomplete form; it has some highly significant problems; and it is, in sum, a giant step backward from Shogun 2. Worse, CA's advertizing campaign falsely convinced us that Rome 2 would be Total War on an epic scale; instead, we received a highly limited and very bland product.

3-Have Creative Assembly been doing a good job with updates and fixes?

No. Four patches in six weeks might sound adequate, but it's a misleading number; the patches have individually fixed very little. The revelation that CA plans to release DLC with the game still so incomplete is offensive.

4-If you had a friend who plays Shogun 2, would you recommend them Rome 2 now?

Not a chance. I've had friends ask me if they should buy the game; my response has been that it is worth neither their time nor their money, and that if they simply must have it, they should wait until it is heavily discounted.

5-What price is this game worth in your opinion?

$10.

6-What are you most impressed with in the game?

The graphics, and that's not saying much; they're good, but they aren't exceptional. More, the game is so poorly optimized that my computer---it can generally play anything on high settings---can barely handle the graphics on medium without the framerate becoming intolerable. Worse, the glints and shaders used by Warscape make the units look awful from a distance.

7-In your opinion what needs to be done to improve the game? (if anything).

I have neither the patience nor the inclination (why bother?) to spend the amount of time that would be necessary to answer this question.

8-How many hours of Rome II have you played?

I preordered the game. I played 16 hours before deleting it and returning to other Total War games. For comparison's sake, I have put 120 hours into Shogun 2, 50 hours into Napoleon, 135 hours into Empire, nearly 300 into Medieval 2, and an indeterminate (for I do not play it on Steam) but much greater number of hours on the original Rome. I cannot estimate the amount of time I spent on the first two titles of the series, but I have no doubt that they extend into the 100+ realm as well. Every game in the series has had its fair share of issues, but no game before Rome 2 has been so intolerable as to compel me to shelve it altogether. This game is dreadful, plain and simple.

9-Have you played/ enjoyed the multiplayer?

No. I disliked the game too much to bother. I have other, much funner RTS titles to play online.

[Mr.IAmHere]

1-What would you give the game out of 10?
6-7 out of 10

2-What are you most upset about currently?
The 1tpy, broken hoplite phalanx, UI, and general lack of immersion. The Building system that doesn't really reward you for building up, and the lack of walls in many significant cities

3-Have Creative Assembly been doing a good job with updates and fixes?
They have been fairly good about it

4-If you had a friend who plays Shogun 2, would you recommend them Rome 2 now?
I haven't played Shogun II and the most recent one that I have played is Empire. I would say that they'd be better off picking up RTW or M2TW and getting some mods.

5-What price is this game worth in your opinion?
~$25-40 CAN

6-What are you most impressed with in the game?
The Graphics and Sound are nice, asides from soundtrack, seems sorta bland

7-In your opinion what needs to be done to improve the game?
UI overhaul, implementation of more immersive features, ability to upgrade province infrastructure (roads, walls) manually

8-How many hours of Rome II have you played?
~25-30 hours, will play more after a few more patches9-Have you played/ enjoyed the multiplayer?
Nope, SP for me

[tom_gr7]

1-What would you give the game out of 10?
3/10

2-What are you most upset about currently? (if anything).
Performance, lack of beloved features, lack of military formations in battles, no guard mode, no immersion, no family tree, lack of CAI, poor BAI, magical troop ships and magical fire burning thermite torches.

3-Have Creative Assembly been doing a good job with updates and fixes?
In my opinion nothing has really changed over the patches. Nothing at all. I even get worse performance than previously.

4-If you had a friend who plays Shogun 2, would you recommend them Rome 2 now?
absolutely not.

5-What price is this game worth in your opinion?
I cant say to be honest, but I'd make a guess at 3.74 in a steam sale.

6-What are you most impressed with in the game?
Tough one really, it was miles away from what i was actually hoping it would be. A true sequel to Rome 1. The province system works well, although i do think its just a way or dumbing down the and removing the micromanagement, ideal for the casual gamers.

7-In your opinion what needs to be done to improve the game? (if anything).
I think its gone too far for that.

8-How many hours of Rome II have you played?
According to steam 189 hours. however, pretty much 75% of that time has been applied heavily with alot of mods, if only to make it enjoyable. But overall the gameplay is the same.

9-Have you played/ enjoyed the multiplayer?
I dont play multiplayer.

[Jade Falcon]

1. 5/10

2. Broken siege AI

3. Plenty of updates certainly but not enough core game mechanics fixes.

4. No I'd tell them to keep playing Shogun 2 for at least another 6 months.

5. £15 and thats being generous considering its still buggy and unfinished.

6. I actually like the province system but I wish it was developed further. The little chats between troops is a nice touch as is the cinematic camera.

7. A completely reworked UI. Overhaul of battle mechanics. Reimplementation of old school javelins (fire at will) and guard mode. Further performance improvements, seasons and more turns per year. A family tree and a meaningful political system.

8. 35-40 hours, don't plan to play again until I at least see a substantial fix to Siege AI.

9. Played SP only.

[IlluminatiRex]

1-What would you give the game out of 10?

At this stage, an easy 9/10.

2-What are you most upset about currently? (if anything).

The UI infuriates me to no ends, and the Besieging AI. As well, there is no Family Tree and the politics are not explained well and don't make too much sense.

3-Have Creative Assembly been doing a good job with updates and fixes?

I would say yes.

]4-If you had a friend who plays Shogun 2, would you recommend them Rome 2 now?[/B]

Most certainly.

5-What price is this game worth in your opinion?

Fifty Dollars.

6-What are you most impressed with in the game?

The graphics for starters are downright gorgeous on Extreme. As well, I like many of the new campaign features like the new Province-Region System. I also like the limited amount of armies and navies.

7-In your opinion what needs to be done to improve the game? (if anything).

The political system needs to be refined and explianed better. As well, there needs to be some sort of family tree. If vanilla had those, plus 2TPY the game would be the best vanilla Total War ever.

8-How many hours of Rome II have you played?

Roughly 90 hours.

9-Have you played/ enjoyed the multiplayer?

The little bit I have played I did enjoy. I was in a small tournament type thing and I have played with some friends.

[The Forgotten]

1-What would you give the game out of 10?
9/10. At release it would have been 7/10

2-What are you most upset about currently? (if anything).
The battles still feel off. For example, Horse archers are quite useless and skirmishing is broken. Generals die far too fast is another.

3-Have Creative Assembly been doing a good job with updates and fixes?
I say yes, in two months they got the game to a much better state. One that I enjoy playing without wanting to tear my hair out.

4-If you had a friend who plays Shogun 2, would you recommend them Rome 2 now?
Yes, and I have.

5-What price is this game worth in your opinion?
$60. It is a good game from a popular developer. Sure I would like it to be less, but this is most logical.

6-What are you most impressed with in the game?
The scope of the game, it still amazes me that I can play 100 turns and still have met every faction.

7-In your opinion what needs to be done to improve the game? (if anything).
Make it more intimate, and also fix unit formations. I still care little about generals, and can go through them like an American with Twinkies.

8-How many hours of Rome II have you played?
Not many, together with another family member I have clocked about 140 hours.And that is because my family member leaves it on overnight without playing.

9-Have you played/ enjoyed the multiplayer?
Null.

I would also add that I am happy that CA has done so much to appease the fans. We have had the chance to get 8 free additional factions, so it is nice not having to shell out money for once.