Total War: Rome II

Ahh i can't wait!! I've been following it since it was announced; I'm betting on the next faction to be announced will either be Parthia or Egypt.

 

 I was completely worng about there being another faction update on Friday, sorry. But I bet you're right about the next two factions being either Parthia or Egypt.

Here's some fantastic looking gameplay footage from the battle of Teutoberg forest. The graphics and the animations look great.

 

 

This game is shaping up to be quite impressive.

Edited February 28, 2013 by DecimusCaesar

I agree. I can't believe its still such a long wait though! Also, I really hope they have a good reason for dragging out the last two faction reveals.

And Parthia is out!

Finally!! Thank you Klingan, Parthia was fun to play as in the original but I can't wait to see them in action.

New footage has been released for Rome II, including a trailer for the battle of the Nile in 47 BC, and some gameplay footage.                      

                                                                                   Edited June 16, 2013 by DecimusCaesar

The latest game footage in the above post looks like a definitive step up from the original Rome Total War.

 

The graphics are very impressive. The gameplay expands on the existing Total War style.

There's lots of new footage in the run up to the game's release. Less than a month to go!

 

A Hannibal Trailer:

 

 

A Rome II intro Trailer:

 

 

A 30+ minute Tutorial Campaign intro about the Samnite War:

 

For anyone who is interested the game is out now (it has been since September 3rd). Compared to the original Rome, the game has come for a hammering especially from old time fans. Just check out the 700+ negative user reviews on Metacritic for that. Professional critics have been far more lenient and it has an average of 79 out of a 100 in positive reviews on the same site.

 

In my own view, the game is far more historically authentic than the first game, but it's less intuitive to play and is far, far too buggy, glitch-filled and rushed to deserve any high scores. It's not a bad game, but it falls low beyond expectations. Has anyone here at UNRV played the game? What do you think - is it epic or just an epic fail?

I will surely try it in one year or two, when they will release some hopefully well patched Gold edition or so.

Just deferred my purchase until they get the bugs out. Reloaded RTW original on my new comp where the battles with large units and everything set to max runs splendidly.

Honestly, when you have a game on Rome II's size and scale; you'd be foolish not to exepect bugs. In my opinion it is a sequel worthy of the original and it makes it tolerably historically accurate and very funnto play. That said I think alot of the critisims come from people believing that it was going to exceed the original game, because in the end it is extremely difficult to out do the original when it was absolutlely amazing. The bugs can be bad I've heard but I havent experienced many myself.

The AI seems to know what its doing on the battle map but can be a be helter skelter in the overall campaign. Diplomacy can best be summerized as asking your neighbors for reasonable things and being rejected for no apparent reason so I say that needs a bit of work. Battles are still great but I have to say that Im going to need to do some serious practice for the naval battles as they can be actually challenging and are out of my comfort zone, which is actually nice I guess.

Overall I think the game is great and was pretty much worth me following every announcement religiously for over a year. It has its probelms but so does every game and that doesnt really bother me. I will say though that I am anxious for the new Nomadic Cultures dlc they announced; Indo-European Steppe peoples have always been a facination of mine.

How demanding is it for hardware? I believe mine is just below the min requirements they publish, but i'm not concerned with speed... only showstoppers.

Edited October 3, 2013 by caesar novus

Honestly, when you have a game on Rome II's size and scale; you'd be foolish not to exepect bugs.

 

This is an overstatement. For the most part it's just a (poor) development philosophy due to marketing evaluations.

I haven't been playing console games since PlayStation 2, so I don't even know if the presence of an internet connection on modern console games makes them patchable; but back then, a console game could not be majorly bugged, no matter how complex it was: it had to reach the market in its perfect and ultimate state. On the other hand, PC games, even way simpler ones than Rome II may be, have since been affected by all sort of bugs and issues for the simple reason that software houses may find it convenient to meet a certain deadline, and continue to patch them later. Of course it doesn't equally affect every software house: some developers try to keep high standards, because an excessively bugged release will affect both immediate sales and reputation of the brand. This kind of philosophy sometimes produces games which are little more (or less) than beta versions: some entries of the Stronghold series come to mind, or the very recent and exemplary case of Final Fantasy XIV. But the cases are countless.

Edited October 2, 2013 by Number Six

For those who are interested they are now going to release a Caesar in Gaul  DLC in December 2013. It will (obviously!) revolve around Julius Caesar's war against the Gallic tribes. I would post a link but I don't understand the new settings (or they don't work for me).