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Thread: My Personal Reflection on Rome II

  1. #1

    Default My Personal Reflection on Rome II

    I have over 1,000 hours in R2, so that should say to you that what follows is hopefully fair-minded and balanced.


    #1 - The Release

    There's no way to ignore it. It's probably one of the worst AAA releases in a very long. It seems like eons ago, but hopefully we all remember when open field battles had capture points. And when transports regularly glitched through the coast. And the generally unstable AI and pathing issues it would have (sometimes not even moving all its units into battle). Only around patch 4 or 5 did I start to regularly play the game, and prior to then, I mostly played custom battle. After patch 4 or 5, I plugged in the occasional mod and found the game acceptable, though it wouldn't be until almost a full year of patches that Emperor Edition would bring the game to a point where I'd view mods as not absolutely necessary. And only at that point did the game itself seem to be pretty much crash-free for me.


    #2 - The Design

    In retrospect, the design wasn't as flawed as I first thought. The mono-chrome unit cards actually grew on me, and the mono-chrome building cards were at least easy to discern building functions with. Really, after seeing what Attila is planning on doing with unit/building cards (as well as unit flags), I have to say, Rome 2 was actually pretty good. Less aesthetically pleasing with unit/building cards than Shogun 2, but a little easier to glance at and know what I was doing. Plus, I found the campaign map naval transport situation actually an improvement over Shogun 2: it makes much more sense to have every unit on a boat than Shogun 2's system where a single gunboat could escort/carry the entire army stack. That said, transports in tactical functions were preposterously overpowed. And 1 turn-per-year was a disastrous decision for the Grand Campaign (another problem rectified by mods and eventually partially solved by the Imperator Augustus Campaign). Lastly, Civil War was a horrendous mechanic at first, but eventually got fixed and made into something more like defecting generals/provinces were in Shogun 2.


    #3 - The DLC

    An absolutely mixed bag. Personally, I enjoy CiG and HatG, and sometimes still load them up. They have good maps, are shorter in duration, and generally added a good deal of content (factions/units etc.). CiG in particular was well-done, because the map was less road-happy and you actually had to move through rough terrain at times. On the opposite hand, Beasts of War was very poorly conceived (though it did get a few more units after-the-fact, which partially made up for it). And Wrath of Sparta is just a snooze-fest that really adds nothing but a new map. For faction packs, I have to say, the Black Seas Colonies was the best (a very good pack of mixed-roster factions), while many of the others were good to average (Balkan DLC was the most average, in that Illyrian units are just super-armored Greek units in some ways while the other two factions have decent rosters).


    #4 - Battles/Tactical AI

    Battles are always pretty subjective, but I found the battles to be not that much worse than Shogun 2. Yes, for a while there was an issue of units blobbing, and there is still the issue of true phalanx formations not being available to hoplites. But morale and unit balancing eventually came to feel pretty solid, and this fell into place before even some other elements. The two major issues were: siege and naval battles. Siege battles still don't work very well, though now the AI uses siege equipment instead of always dropping it. It doesn't use it too well, except for ladders, but it does use it in a spotty fashion. Sieges now are below-average but playable, though it took a while. Naval battle is still utterly awful, though. Glitches, poor design choices, poor unit balancing, etc. are an issue to some extent even now. But, the meat of these games - open field land battles - works pretty well, and the AI's ability to flank actually seemed better than usual.


    #5 - Campaigns AI

    A real, real problem area. Without mods, the AI seems to assemble armies haphazardly, and for unknown reasons tends to favor bottom-tier units despite having enough money in many cases to have much better troops. Moreover, the AI used Forced March stances for almost the whole first year in a way that made no sense and allowed ambushes easily by getting too close to my armies. Strangest of all, though, was the naval situation... fleets that loiter in areas of attrition for no apparent reason (as in, I'd see fleets of factions that aren't even at war with anyone parking their fleet in an attrition area for several turns in a row). Fleets that raid their own territorial waters. And armies garrisoning the port of a settlement rather than standing on land to garrison it (thus meaning they have to enter a defensive siege from the sea).


    #6 - Agents

    One area with almost no silver lining. Agents were too generic, capable of doing roughly the same exact things (stop armies, sabotage buildings, kill agents/generals) with only a unique ability or so each. Further, agent spam at one point was tremendous, making a single-settlement start a die-roll as to whether it would be playable or not based off of the luck of whether you'd get crucial buildings sabotaged or not prior to getting a second settlement. Agents still are largely un-fun, as I always use Champions to train troops, spies to poison armies, and rarely use dignitaries other than in spots where I want to change culture.


    #7 - Army System

    Another mixed bag. Army traditions were a good concept that was under-developed, with too few traditions to choose from with some factions having useless options (like a buff for sword infantry for a side with only Falx-units and spears for foot inf). Similarly, forcing a unit to be in an army wasn't exactly unrealistic, but capping the number of armies based off of the number of owned settlements is still unfun, and for a while was imbalanced (with only two armies available for the first 5 settlements or so prior to one of the mid-range patches). But a hidden joy: no more waiting-30-turns-for-a-new-general. While a lot of hate was sent the way of the Army System, and some of it deservedly so, I have to acknowledge that at least I always had a general for every army, with only super rare conditions (agent spam of assassinations in a single turn) leading to a spot where generals were in short supply.


    #8 - Rosters

    This was a problem area. Iceni, Rome, Macedon, Seulicids, Parthia, Egypt, and eventually Suebi all feel well-rounded enough. Most other factions feel at least a little lacking: Arverni get Oathsworn but lack more than a couple units in any category, Pontus is in the same boat but with Bronzeshield Pikes, Greek States in some cases lack acceptable melee units, Carthage lacks melee units (aside from mercs), nomadic tribes lack foot soldiers almost at all despite having to defend in sieges (an issue Attila looks to be fixing by not making nomadic types having to settle at all until they want to), and so on. Again, mods fixed this issue to a great degree (DeI, for one), but it was a massive let-down that even some vanilla sides (again, Arverni and, until a certain patch, Suebi) were thread-bare.

    ---

    My overall impression with R2 is that it is at this point a good game (but not fantastic), and was bailed out by mods and freebies for a while until it was (mostly) fixed. It still suffers from the worst naval combat since Empire, has annoying issues with army system mechanics and agents, and has sieges that are marginally worse than most Shogun 2 sieges (themselves not exactly a highlight of Shogun 2).

    And my overall verdict is that, unlike Empire, I will probably not play R2 much after Attila comes out... Napoleon and Empire were both good games in their own rite, in a way, and both grew on me and offered different things despite one being sort of an improved version of the other in some areas. Yet R2, with its lacking politics, lacking diplomacy, and other issues, is making Attila to look more like a fixed game than a different version of it. Attila has won me over to even considering a pre-order from what I've seen and read (and the fact that this info is only appearing a month prior to release rather than numerous months out).

    While R2 is a good game now, it took too long to get there and had too many mis-steps along the way (BoW DLC, design flaws, etc) to say it was as fun as most of the other TW games. I got my money's worth out of it, but it won't be something I look back on fondly, and will probably collect dust on my virtual library shelf as soon as Attila comes out. While I'm glad R2 got continued support/patching, on this one occasion I have to say I'm not all that thankful for it because it both broke mods too frequently as well as was what any responsible AAA company should have done anyways... if a product is blatantly unfinished, I shouldn't be expected to praise someone who fixes it if they were the one's who sold it in the first place. I reserve my praise and thanks, instead, to the modding community, which often could create marvelous fixes for free and was never obligated to do so.

    And that's that.

  2. #2
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    Default Re: My Personal Reflection on Rome II

    Quite interesting that you conclude that Rome 2 is a "good game", yet you won't play it any more, and won't look back on it fondly.

    Attila has won me over to even considering a pre-order from what I've seen and read (and the fact that this info is only appearing a month prior to release rather than numerous months out).
    This is completely baffling to me. I think you should read your own long post again and think hard about whether you really want to pre-order from CA again, based on what you just wrote yourself.
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  3. #3

    Default Re: My Personal Reflection on Rome II

    Quote Originally Posted by SirRobin View Post
    Quite interesting that you conclude that Rome 2 is a "good game", yet you won't play it any more, and won't look back on it fondly.

    This is completely baffling to me. I think you should read your own long post again and think hard about whether you really want to pre-order from CA again, based on what you just wrote yourself.
    Funny thing is, I don't exactly disagree with you on the pre-order issue. Like I said, the key term is 'considering'... in the past, I would have pre-ordered probably the first week it was possible to do so, and we are sitting at what, a month to go or so until Attila and I'm still on the fence. That does say something, I think, about what Rome 2's release has created in the fanbase (even among some of the die-hards).

    Rome 2 is a good game... but like I said in this long post at least once, it took a rather long time to get there, and that's a lot of the problem. Had Rome 2, out of the box, been stable, and had the Imperator Augustus campaign been there, and had at least passable AI for sieges been there right away, I think I could say that the game was quite good... I could have lived with the naval aspects being sort of bad and a few rosters been a little small, but not when the game itself wasn't even stable or functional in some ways.

    Again, I got my 1,000 hours and my money's worth. And Rome 2 is a good game right now, finally. But between its release and Emperor Edition, it was only enjoyable with mods, and that's not how a game should be. Mods should be extra stuff you add after you've gotten a lot out of a game, not something you turn to right away. And even then, while the patching was appreciated, it broke the mods and I gave up altogether for a bit when the patches were every two-three weeks for a stretch. I always like to have a couple of campaigns going on at once and take more real-time (months) to finish 'em all gradually, switching between one to another when I get tired of a particular unit set and its tactics. And the patching made such a thing impossible to do that with any mods. Thus it was a real mess.

    I'd look back with some sentiment on R2 had it been as it was at Emperor Edition back a month or two after release. But that just wasn't the case.

    And to finish up by re-visiting the Attila pre-order statement: again, I pre-ordered N:TW, Shogun 2, FotS, and Rome 2 all in the first week I could do so, sometimes IIRC on the first day. Attila really looks to have focused on fixing virtually everything (family trees, politics, agents, unit cards, etc.) that people complained about while adding new mechanics (true nomadic factions, more unique faction traits, true razing of cities, etc.). So, yes, I'm at least back to considering pre-ordering Attila, because it feels like they listened and learned a very harsh lesson from R2. Yet just 'considering'. That's how much R2 hurt their credibility to me.

  4. #4
    Darios's Avatar Ex Oriente Lux
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    Default Re: My Personal Reflection on Rome II

    Quote Originally Posted by SirRobin View Post
    Quite interesting that you conclude that Rome 2 is a "good game", yet you won't play it any more, and won't look back on it fondly.



    This is completely baffling to me. I think you should read your own long post again and think hard about whether you really want to pre-order from CA again, based on what you just wrote yourself.
    Well, I do understand where the OP is coming from. R2 is a decent game and I'm nearing the 900 hour mark myself, yet many of those 900 hours came while waiting for CA to fix the game. Make no mistake about it, CA has fixed the game, and what we are playing today is what they envisioned the game to be from the beginning. That's good in the sense that they cared enough to fix the game's sleuth of bugs, but bad in the sense because we see that R2 was flawed from the design stage, lacking many of the features that people were hoping to see.

    Ironically, it seems that CA took all of our criticism/suggestions and added these features into Attila. The game will have family trees, interesting migratory tactics/features, Diplomacy (Marriage Alliances and Trading Regions), complete destruction of cities, etc.) From what I can see, it looks like it's going to be what R2 should have been. One of the CA heads gave an interview yesterday in which he said that every couple of games they feel like they have to reinvent everything for the pure sake of change. Sometimes they don't get things right but they feel that it is their duty to bring about something new. Rome: Total War was a new and revolutionary game that was a huge jump from older TW games. Everyone loved it, but it did have its flaws, and M2TW was a vast improvement upon it. Empire: Total War was also a huge jump for CA with a brand new engine. As a result the game needed a lot of patching to bring up to scratch and even today it is not my favorite game to play. NTW and S2 were vast improvements and I still get a load of fun out of them. Unfortunately, CA took their most popular title "Rome", went back into experimentation mode, and we all know what it led to. Therefore, the OP considering pre-ordering Attila is not a bad thing at all, as history shows that CA is going to get it right this time around.

    Another unfortunate thing is that many people (especially those who are big fans of the Hellenistic Era) are butt hurt to see their favorite period/game get the shaft and believe that CA does not care to make a good game anymore. Another release like R2 would completely destroy CA's credibility, you can tell by the way they're advertising (gameplay videos) that they want to do things right this time. With that in mind, I also intend on pre-ordering.
    Last edited by Darios; January 10, 2015 at 09:02 AM.
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  5. #5
    Humble Warrior's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
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    Default Re: My Personal Reflection on Rome II

    Quote Originally Posted by SirRobin View Post
    Quite interesting that you conclude that Rome 2 is a "good game", yet you won't play it any more, and won't look back on it fondly.



    This is completely baffling to me. I think you should read your own long post again and think hard about whether you really want to pre-order from CA again, based on what you just wrote yourself.
    Agreed. The OP`s post is SO accurate, I agree with almost every synopsis, then he says he might pre-order Atilla on what CA merely says?

    Makes no logical sense. That`s like going through a terrible war then walking right back into it again facing the same enemy having learned nothing.

    This is why we can`t have nice things.

    p.s.
    However, I still repped him for his accurate main post.
    Last edited by Humble Warrior; January 10, 2015 at 09:08 AM.

  6. #6
    alQamar's Avatar Citizen
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    Default Re: My Personal Reflection on Rome II

    good post Anon and goes much more into depth as my last thoughts about Rome 2 (signature).
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    Default Re: My Personal Reflection on Rome II

    Apart for some fallacies(Such as Carthage having no melee units) i'd say a pretty objective and accurate review.
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    Default Re: My Personal Reflection on Rome II

    Quote Originally Posted by Darios View Post
    Another unfortunate thing is that many people (especially those who are big fans of the Hellenistic Era) are butt hurt to see their favorite period/game get the shaft
    yes, im pissed off about that...

  9. #9

    Default Re: My Personal Reflection on Rome II

    Quote Originally Posted by DeliCiousTZM View Post
    Apart for some fallacies(Such as Carthage having no melee units)
    Carthage really did lack almost any melee infantry units at first, though. They had Libyan Infantry, and that was it for that category outside of mercenaries. And the mercenaries weren't even on the custom battle roster until around HatG I think. Carthage does have spear infantry, as well as pikes, but melee infantry was super lacking in custom battle for a while, and without mercenaries Carthage really does have just Libyan Infantry IIRC even now. They did get some dedicated factional melee mercs, though, with HatG (Noble Infantry, for one, from the Iberian cultural rosters).

    ---

    Again, as to the 'pre-ordering of Attila' issue, it has to be taken in light of the fact that TW games are among my favorites to play, and I'd consider myself a rather heavy gamer. Starting with N:TW, I pre-ordered practically immediately for every game in the series (note: I got Empire only well after its release, after getting N:TW actually... N:TW was when I got into the series despite being 22-ish years old when N:TW came out). So, while R2 was one of the worst pre-orders I've made, it's still the only bad one in the TW series for me.

    I'm not trying to convince anyone that pre-ordering is necessarily a good idea, and I still haven't pre-ordered myself. After all, I agree that people need to vote with their wallets. But when CA clearly seem to be listening and making changes, finally, and implementing them in the next game while still adding new mechanics and material, then it might not be so bad to pre-order and thus encourage them as they listen more and more and actually consider what their consumers want (which would have largely avoided the BoW debacle, had they stopped to think about it).

    And at the end of it all, I pre-ordered R2 and that decision makes me culpable, as well. Now that we live in the age of early-access and patch-it-after-the-fact gaming, I can't act as though I didn't know the risks of pre-ordering. As Darios pointed out above, the lack of gameplay videos for R2 should have made me think twice about pre-ordering. However, that CA dropped the ball so blatantly does sting, and does make them more at fault than me to at least some extent.

    But, going back to Darios again, it's not just CA's word-of-honor for Attila, this time around: I've watched each gameplay video for Attila to try and confirm what I'd read about, and things are looking accurate and honest. Because of this, I'm in a tricky spot where I'd like to encourage CA to keep listening by pre-ordering Attila, yet I just can't get the R2 release out of my head. It's tough. In the end, I'll probably get Attila either way, but whether I pre-order or not is up in the air.

    ---

    Finally, I'll re-iterate: yes, R2 is a good game today. As good as Shogun 2? Well, no, but not all that far behind anymore. But Shogun 2 took far less patching to be stable for me, and was pretty enjoyable out-of-the-box without needing mods immediately. And it's still a bit better today, even compared to R2:EE.
    Last edited by AnonMilwaukean; January 11, 2015 at 04:26 AM.

  10. #10
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    Default Re: My Personal Reflection on Rome II

    Quote Originally Posted by AnonMilwaukean View Post
    ---

    Finally, I'll re-iterate: yes, R2 is a good game today. As good as Shogun 2? Well, no, but not all that far behind anymore. But Shogun 2 took far less patching to be stable for me, and was pretty enjoyable out-of-the-box without needing mods immediately. And it's still a bit better today, even compared to R2:EE.
    Rome 2 EE isn`t anywhere even close to as good as Shogun 2. I`ve been playing Shogun 2 solidly for about a week and it`s by far better. S2 has almost nothing wrong with it out of the box. I don`t need 10 mods to fix it. Stuff like Agents, battle atmosphere, etc work very well without me fighting every little bit. Even the Warscape is acceptable although you do get the shifting men trying to get a scripted kill move. Only sieges are my bug bear with this and even that`s not too bad because you can see it`s not a broken mechanic tied together with gum and string. If only Ca could get sieges right- Not since MTW2 have they managed it and that was with the Australian team!

    It`s fluid, gets to where it wants to and works.

    Rome 2 EE feels broken and indirect compared.

  11. #11
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    Default Re: My Personal Reflection on Rome II

    Quote Originally Posted by Humble Warrior View Post
    then he says he might pre-order Atilla on what CA merely says?

    Exactly. Does not compute. Besides, he's too kind to CA regarding the bizarro battle mechanics, the real game killer.

  12. #12

    Default Re: My Personal Reflection on Rome II

    And the DLC's, in case you didnt know, were found by modders way before they were released; I remember in Total War Center some threads pointing out that over inspection of the game's files some modders found units that were to appear in future DLC (I remember seeing the camel cataphracts as one of them, or some kind of camel unit) and were not included for the sole purpose of selling already existing game content;

    The same kind of happens with Culture Packs, many mods and overhauls unlocked all factions and added diverse and unique units to all of them... until CA locked groups of factions that we already had for free, and charged for them. This is stealing. Period. These factions were already existing in the base game anyways, so its not like they are giving any content to us, they are unquestionably locking content;

  13. #13
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    Default Re: My Personal Reflection on Rome II

    Great post +rep I agree with almost everything except the AI makes good use of the faction rosters if the faction has been around for a long while. They work up the tech tree over time, which is nice. I'm also in your camp in that other than IA I considered the game worth my money but will not be playing a campaign through after Attila. Cimmeria is the only faction remaining that still intrigues me.
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  14. #14
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    Default Re: My Personal Reflection on Rome II

    R2 EE is no where near S2, maybe add some of Atilla features and it might come close?. The family tree, clone armies, lack of navy battles and basic pollitics is whats holding Rome 2 back, those are all CA choices too.
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  15. #15
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    Default Re: My Personal Reflection on Rome II

    Quote Originally Posted by Lionheart11 View Post
    R2 EE is no where near S2, maybe add some of Atilla features and it might come close?. The family tree, clone armies, lack of navy battles and basic pollitics is whats holding Rome 2 back, those are all CA choices too.
    With Attila being largely based on Germanic factions destroying the Roman Empire, there is a very real possibility that clone armies will remain the norm in the upcoming game.

    Don't really know what you mean about the lack of naval battles. R2's naval conflict is probably better and more realistic than in any other total war game. Attila is supposed to improve naval combat somehow? Horse archers on galleys?)))

    R2 does have a political system and it's interactive, it's just not very...interesting, logical, or effective. You can completely ignore it and nothing of major consequence will occur. Epic fail on CA's part here.

    I understand the desire to make your generals feel more interesting and realistic, but this wasn't really the era of dynasties and family alliances (except among the Hellenistic Greeks). Rome was a republic and consuls/senators were not about to marry off their daughters to Gallic chieftains. It makes all the sense in the world to have this feature on Attila though as the Germanic peoples began to consolidate themselves as kingdoms as opposed to tribes.

    As I have said before, it sucks that CA made R2 the way they did but after a while it does start to grow on you. I long ago accepted that R2 will be the game that it is and that are no longer any new serious patches/updates to look forward to. Once you accept the game to be what it is (as opposed to what you wish it could have been) it is very easy to sit down and enjoy it.
    Last edited by Darios; January 12, 2015 at 02:05 AM.
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    Default Re: My Personal Reflection on Rome II

    Quote Originally Posted by Darios View Post
    Don't really know what you mean about the lack of naval battles. R2's naval conflict is probably better and more realistic than in any other total war game. Attila is supposed to improve naval combat somehow? Horse archers on galleys?)))
    Really? I find them ridiculously tedious and historically inaccurate, even more inaccurate than the ones in ETW and Nap, which were bascially chaotic explosions, so that's quite an achievment. No oars, no wind, insta-lock and ships exploding, because that rock hit directly the ship's ammunition store.

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    Default Re: My Personal Reflection on Rome II

    Yeah that post was a bit odd, shogun 2 naval battles was rather fun and (admittedly with mods e.g. LME that tone down explosions, and reduce ship speed and turning speed) NTW naval battles were fantastic especially with smoke mods. They felt so atmospheric and involving.

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    Default Re: My Personal Reflection on Rome II

    Agreed. Well said.

  19. #19
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    Default Re: My Personal Reflection on Rome II

    My opinion of R2: I had 15 hours pre EE, I have 165 hours after it. I still do not like the long campaigns only victory conditions because I am a casual player although I am a pretty old fan now (since Med2 came out but from it I went to Rome and invested almost 2000 hours in it - played that game for 3 years nonstop) and I believe that agents are way too strong for what a real agent could do. But it is ok now, I guess. Finished 2 Roman campaigns, 1 Macedon campaign and a Seleucids one almost (I want to restart that). I did half of an Arverni campaign and stopped because I surrounded myself with allies and I tried Carthage and Suebi on numerrous occasions but never made it through early game and quit. I will probably play R2 until the next TW comes out because I am not very interested in the time period of Attila but the game lacks the replayability of its named predecessor> Rome TW.
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  20. #20

    Default Re: My Personal Reflection on Rome II

    I think the game in its current patch is excellent, I really like the new campaign mechanics, larger zones of control allow defense of strategic points and number of armies limitation/AI behaviour means you don't typically have a single AI faction front-loading their forces or bypassing defenses with lots of small armies. The only thing I would complain about in the current patch is that agents are too powerful, I believe that agents should only be able to act against settlements and other agents.

    As for the game in general, from release, it was a buggy mess and not really up to scratch for its price. DLC was also bad, I want to support CA and have enough cash to buy all the DLC's but making me buy the game piece by piece makes me feel like I'm being ripped-off. I honestly feel that it would have made more business sense for CA to have put all the locked factions into an expensive expansion pack and emphasized in-game achievements, especially when the game was buggy too. People who I know who are fans of games like CIV IV and other strategy games haven't even touched ROME II because of this and are afraid to touch previous games in the series too because of complaints of bugs and now crucial parts of the game being sold separately.

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