Is Rome2 worth buying?

[Xellos_Moon]

Ive played the first medieval:total war and Rome:total war and ever since then i have been a fan. I didnt bother buying empire, shogun and napoleon because i wasnt a fan of the time period in the first place.

And now im thinking of buying R:tw2 and the price tag is insane haha. But im willing to get it cause i love roman history and i was a fan of the first game. All the Reviews are great but recently ive seen a few bad reviews on youtube apparently its very buggy and not at all what they said it would be. So my question is is it worth buying after all? Did you guys enjoy it the way you did the first game?

[zig&sharko]

Playing to Rome 2 without mods, for example DEI or others doesn't make sense at my opinion.Too much pseudohistoric aspects.If you like historic campaigns try yourself ALEA JACTA EST

http://store.steampowered.com/app/313660/?l=french

[sapphire]

I must admit I didn't like it when I first got it because I was disappointed that certain features were missing and general buggyness.

Now I enjoy it, it has been patched a lot so it is much more stable, you get used to some of the big changes they made, like needing generals on each army and not needing a fleet to take sea route. You basically need to use full stacks most of the time as the AI builds up their armies quickly and can be quite passive. Each settlement get's an internal garrison and most battles I encountered in the campaign are sieges more than open field battles, which can feel repetitive.

I loved the original RTW but it feels dated going back to it but I can still enjoy it, even the arcade-ness and some of it's flaws; Rome 2 can be quite arcadey but it doesn't however seem that great compared to RTW in terms of first impressions and how it feels and plays imo (subjective).

I would recommend waiting until it's on sale at a cheap price and then picking it up.

[Alwyn]

I'm enjoying Rome II more than I expected to, considering the many negative comments about the game. I liked Rome: Total War a lot. In Rome II, I particularly enjoy:-

- the different styles of armies - some rely mostly on sword infantry, others on skirmishers or cavalry. The most effective tactics will vary, depending on which faction you are playing and on the opposing faction.

- the balance between 'open field' battles, battles in un-walled towns and battles in walled cities. I tend to prefer open field battles because I find siege battles repetitive after a while. I like the region system in Rome II which means that siege battles are relatively unusual.

- the way that the game is challenging (for me, at least) even on Normal difficulty. I had to learn, for example, how to fight against eastern horse archer-based armies when playing as Cimmeria. If you get the game, I recommend Strategy forum for Rome II here on TWC and also the Rome II videos made by Decimus Maximum Meridius - he comments on tournaments and on tactics involving individual units, you can find them on YouTube.

The big mods such as DeI seem to be very popular, so trying them looks like a good option. I'm still new to Rome II, so I am still learning how to play the vanilla game and adding small mods as I go along, in particular:-

- Sebidee's Iceni Roster expansion (more units for my Iceni campaign), which is one component of his larger Unit Roster Overhaul.

- .Mitch's Guaranteed Major Faction Empires. sapphire mentioned that AI factions can be passive in Rome II. That can happen (having said that, even with the vanilla game and playing on Normal difficulty as the Iceni, the Brigantes declared war and sent a large army into my homeland within a few turns, which impressed me). In the new Eagle Standard article on Medieval II, IlluminatiRex wrote:

I wasn’t all that big of a fan of rebels holding those regions in the past, primarily since I was so used to all regions being held by a faction of some sort – whether they were a major or minor player. Now I see it as a great opportunity to have a mad dash to capture territory before rival major nations do.

I see the Guaranteed Major Faction Empires mod as a way to overcome that passivity and to create a similar dynamic to the one which IIlluminatiRex mentioned in Medieval II: if you know that the other major factions are likely to expand, then you have a reason to expand into neighbouring lands before they do.

- I am also using Time Travelin' Tim's No Civil War Emperor Edition, since I do not feel that I understand Rome II's political system and because I have seen people saying on forums that civil wars keep happening (and can continue to happen endlessly). Presumably the civil way system was intended to make the later stages of the campaign more challenging - as I see it, the Guaranteed Major Faction Empires mod should do that.

[Xellos_Moon]

After reading my plight a friend decided to share his steam rtw2 for me woohooo. I'm going to play this game for a week

[RMSN NIKE]

If you like it, but don't need it in a rush. Wait for the next 75% sale of Rome 2 and all DLC, sold separately, probably when Total War: Warhammer comes out. Or check out other sites for 75%. You don't have to buy the DLC, but they will be really cheap when on sale.

[Tinteex]

If you can wait for a sale, then i'd say yes!

[Xellos_Moon]

ive played like 5 hours of it sincd yesterday and i have to say... its pretty underwhelming. These battles look really unrealistic as , the UI is pretty weird(it doesnt give me the information that i really need unlike the first game) and the AI is terribad! what the hell

[Alwyn]

I'm sorry to hear that you didn't enjoy it. You mentioned that the UI doesn't give you the information that you need. It certainly took me more than 5 hours of play to get used to the new style of UI (I was used to the ETW UI). On the campaign map, I learned that sometimes hovering over text gives you more information. For example, if you are looking at a settlement (with the settlement selected), and a summary of the settlement's happiness, food etc in the left hand bottom corner of the screen, I found that hovering the cursor over the happiness rating caused an extra box to pop up, with more detailed information about the things which were affecting public order in that area. In battles, I was confused about why I couldn't see the information about whether a unit was active, warmed up, tired etc by hovering over the unit - then I looked at the 'Battle Information' options and found that ticking the final one caused that information to appear when I hovered over a unit.

If you feel that the battles are not realistic, there are mods such as Conflictus Antiqarum Culturam, Divide et Imperia and Rome II Total Realism which might make the game feel more authentic for you - they are available here. (Sorry if I am telling you things that you already know.)

[Malarkey95]

Hey The humble bundle offer is great you get COH 1, RTW, M2TW+Kingdoms, SEGA CLASSICS, S2:FOTS, ATTILA total war, COH 2, Valkyria chronicles, Warhammer 40k etc. 12 dollars plus dlc in store is 75 percent off so Age of charlemagne which is great £2.49

[Xellos_Moon]

I'm sorry to hear that you didn't enjoy it. You mentioned that the UI doesn't give you the information that you need. It certainly took me more than 5 hours of play to get used to the new style of UI (I was used to the ETW UI). On the campaign map, I learned that sometimes hovering over text gives you more information. For example, if you are looking at a settlement (with the settlement selected), and a summary of the settlement's happiness, food etc in the left hand bottom corner of the screen, I found that hovering the cursor over the happiness rating caused an extra box to pop up, with more detailed information about the things which were affecting public order in that area. In battles, I was confused about why I couldn't see the information about whether a unit was active, warmed up, tired etc by hovering over the unit - then I looked at the 'Battle Information' options and found that ticking the final one caused that information to appear when I hovered over a unit.

If you feel that the battles are not realistic, there are mods such as Conflictus Antiqarum Culturam, Divide et Imperia and Rome II Total Realism which might make the game feel more authentic for you - they are available here. (Sorry if I am telling you things that you already know.)

Yeah nah the game is fine. I think I just expected too much from it. Like if it wasn't the sequel to Rome:total war, IMO, it would be a legedendary game. The original game just spoiled me haha

[RMSN NIKE]

That is how most people felt when the game was released. But for people who played the game without nit pick, on game problems, and compares with any of the previous titles, by judge the game as what it is supposed to be, a "stand alone" title without any baggage trains, Rome 2 is a very enjoyable game.

[KEA]

I had bought the Empire Edition on Steam for sale recently and I really enjoy it. In fact, I find it better than Empire or Napoleon. Of course, this now is the heavily patched version and I don't find that many annoyances (c'mon, siege battles in RTW and M2TW weren't really playable too). I can imagine that the original version was a nightmare to play.

NB, do not buy games on release - they are at best 0.4 Beta then. Wait for the successor to be in the pipe. At that point it should be fairly patched (and often much cheaper).

[Fallen851]

Siege battles in RTW were perfectly playable.

[Spear Dog]

Rome 2 is pretty much fully patched now and all bugs mostly sorted. I thinks it's a great game - different (in game play mechanics, strategy, tactics and such) from the what's gone before, but for me that's a good thing. What I really like is the in-game mod manager and the extensive selection of mods in the Steam workshop - whenever you feel something could be better or not there at all, browse through workshop, pick a mod you think is worth trying and click on subscribe. Easy as that. Love it!

[Col.KanKrusha]

I have just come back to the game after a big break and I would say that on second look yes this is worth buying.

Playing as Rome the first few turns are a bit slow because the Etruscans are weak. After that the game is great.

For or a first play through I would very strongly recommend a mod that limits enemy agents or agent actions. I would
moderately recommend a mod that adds units to the Etruscans. I would somewhat recommend a 2 or 4 turn per year mod as it is pretty annoying having your generals die of old age all the time.

However, I would play one campaign before getting a massive overhaul mod

[Rex Romanorum]

I´ve come to play this game on the last weeks for the first time and I´m almost sure I´m not gonna buy it. So many stupid things in every levels is not worth it even at 20 bucks.

You can´t do because your armies get poisoned every turn.

You can´t do because you get backstabbed by a friend faction (even with +300 green diplomacy) Diplomacy is shameful and I would be ashamed if a I release the same diplomacy system 10 years later than the original game. You don´t need diplomats around the map, that´s all.

Your units do what they want in the battlefiled, they loose formation, if you try to attack in hoplite wall it´s basically like "do what you want just go in there". No guard mode so you have to babysit every singler archer unit or they would rush into the melee because they have to purchase the units behind that. Formations are useless.

All battles are city battles, I have played for like 25 turns and fought ONE single open field battle. This should be called Ancient Garrison Simulator. If you want a city to be stronger you have to raise an army or spend a building slot to a military building that is almost useless. But you cant go just raising armies like nothing because you cant move units alone without the general.

I´m not even talking about the AI because I would smash my in keyboard into the wall.

The game is in pieces so if you want to play it all you have to pay two games to actually play a single broken game. I don´t know how my friend was stupid enough to pay for that but I´m not doing it. I was hoping it could be modded into something different but I tried Divide et Impera and it doesnt convince me. The game is so it can be modded. It adds realism but the problems I listed are way beyond what is modable. They claim they have improved the AI but all i see is they dont have the chance to act like fools because battles are slower and that´s all. Unless a better mod comes out and the game is 10 bucks I´m not buying it.

[KEA]

Siege battles in RTW were perfectly playable.

As long as you don't mind pathfinding, units getting stalled, bizzar rout behaviour, units ignoring commands and things like that, yes, siege battles in RTW and M2TW were perfectly fine.

[RMSN NIKE]

As long as you don't mind pathfinding, units getting stalled, bizzar rout behaviour, units ignoring commands and things like that, yes, siege battles in RTW and M2TW were perfectly fine.

Haven't encounter any of those problems. But I play with Medium unit size, where I can put 2 or 3 units side by side, depends on the width of the street. I guess bigger unit size would cause those problems.

[Tenerife_Boy]

As long as you don't mind pathfinding, units getting stalled, bizzar rout behaviour, units ignoring commands and things like that, yes, siege battles in RTW and M2TW were perfectly fine.

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