Rome was not built in a Day. This saying is a pretty apt description of what your expected playtime with Total War: Rome II will be like. The game requires a significant time investment to be truly appreciated, and as seems to be the case, to be truly optimised. The game seems to have quite a few teething issues at launch and a promised weekly patch schedule might end up making it truly shine in a few weeks or months.
The game has expanded in scope to cover a vast area of the ancient world covering most of Europe and the Middle East. While the Game launched with only 8 factions and 4 DLC factions of which one is free, developer The Creative Assembly (CA) plans to release more factions later on with some of them being free for all. While this may seem less than what Rome: Total War had, Rome and Carthage allow you to choose a ruling family house from 3 influential dynasties which can change your approach to the game and acts as a faction in itself.
There is a 2-5 hour prologue campaign to get you up to speed with the mechanics of the game. However it sorely lacks a naval battle tutorial which does seem necessary given the supportive role naval combat seems to have been relegated to. Coastal Battles now involve combined land and naval forces which can do amphibious landings, a first for the series. Naval Battles are more about boarding and ramming, which is aided by strength of numbers rather than type of ship. Transport ships are automatically spawned when an Army moves into the water from the campaign map which can be exploited tactically to surprise the enemy.
The large campaign map is divided into provinces and regions. A province is made up of multiple regions allowing for a greater variety of battles than just sieges of the Region Capitals as in previous Total War games. Controlling all regions in a province grants additional bonuses to its wealth generation and allows for passing of province wide edicts. Each settlement has its own garrison and the units in that garrison are dependent on the various buildings constructed in the settlement. Buildings are once more managed through a common screen which lists all settlements and buildings in a region. There are options to build multiple types of each building, each of which grants different bonuses.
The Traits and Followers mechanic for Generals, Admirals and Agents has now been extended to the armies and fleets they command. Traditions allow armies and navies to gain certain traits and if such an army is defeated or disbanded, these may be revived when raising a new army. Traditions are independent of the units in the army, but are rather attached to the army as a whole.
Line of Sight plays an important role in this game especially in battles as units can now take advantage of the terrain to hide from the enemy. The minimap gives a good indication of the line of sight of your units in battle. This allows for setting up ambushes and makes scouting a necessity. The weather conditions also come into play and one gets the option to wait for battle in their preferred conditions. There is also the introduction of a tactical map on both the battle and campaign maps which offers a bird’s eye view of the entire battlefield. In campaign mode, this can show other ancillary information about the regions one has discovered.
The New UI can lead to a lot of information overload, but it’s extremely useful at communicating precisely what one’s units are doing. The pottery style unit icons distinguish each unit’s role, rank, veterancy and status. Mousing over each unit card reveals additional status information about that unit. Details about the unit’s stats pop up in a card on the left which can also show a unit portrait instead. The rather large size of these UI elements can look quite cramped on smaller resolutions. It is also missing the individual unit formation controls which used to allow one to set precise orientation, depth of unit and position; though it can still be done by right clicking and dragging around.
The diplomacy system has been overhauled in Rome II and you now have to face not just global politics with other factions, but also internal politics with your nobles and rival dynasties. This internal politics paves the way for the game’s new Civil War dynamic which lets you turn the Republic into your own Empire. This can add new twists to the endgame as you will suddenly be forced to counter stiff opposition at home. Civil War occurs for Rome and Carthage when one’s dynasty becomes imbalanced in influence with the rival dynasties and for the barbaric tribes when one’s faction is deemed too weak.
The AI has always been a weak point of Total War games and Rome II does show signs of improvement in some areas. The AI does pick up opportune targets, but rarely does it do anything surprising. The Campaign AI is no different making rather illogical moves at times or just waiting for you to come and put it out of its misery. With the introduction of Capture Points in battle you can usually expect the AI to make a beeline for these if attacked or be concentrated around them in defence, even if the map offers ambush opportunities. Auto-resolve is quite inaccurate at times, especially in naval battles. It does not count the strength of numbers but rather considers the unit stats. So, if faced with a fleet you outnumber with auto-resolve giving you a bad result, it might be a good idea to play the battle manually. The game even has achievements for never using Auto-resolve in a campaign. Its inaccuracy also extends to siege battles where the defending forces seem to get a bonus even if they are made up of inferior units. Auto-resolve now allows one to pick stance of battle from Aggressive, Balanced and Protective which changes the percentage of casualties sustained.
The main hindrance of the game is its apparent lack of optimisation, a rather shameful critique for a PC Exclusive. It seems that reducing the Unit count to its lowest settings can do wonders for your fps, though you will be seeing a lot less dead bodies piled upon the battlefield. This setting is CPU dependent and exposes the game’s lack of multicore optimisation. Dual screen users should also note that the cursor is not locked to the game window and can accidentally cause loss of focus on clicking on the other screen. However, the game’s graphics are quite breath-taking when turned all the way up to extreme and can be enjoyed with the cinematic mode camera in the lulls during the battle. On lowest settings however, one might just get a hint of nostalgia since the game resembles it’s prequel to a degree.
The game’s Multiplayer allows for both campaigns and battles over the internet and LAN. Battles give you the ability to choose units based on a credits system which can let you field a swarm of cheap but weak units or a small force of expensive elite units. You can also choose what bonuses you receive.
The Game currently offers 4 historical battles which have their own limitations and objectives. These can be played on multiple difficulties and let one experience that small thrill of being able to change history.
As any Total War fan knows, the game has a lot of depth to offer, and the same is true of Rome II. One could spend days stomping around one’s authority on the ancient world, wanting to continue for just one more turn. And still have barely just scratched the surface.
