I’m personally a huge fan of both the genre and the franchise itself and it makes writing an impartial review extraordinarily difficult. So I’m not going to try. I’m just going to call it like I see it.









The Total War franchise has spanned 8 games over the last 13 years. In that time the series has garnered a massive following and huge praise year after year, but I can’t help but worry that Creative Assembly has thrown this game together too fast while ignoring the needs of its consumers. The game is a hodgepodge (yes that’s a word, I checked) of unnecessary and incomplete features.





The game has a fantastic base to build on. The sheer scope and ambition of the game is astounding to say the least. But that also becomes a handicap as players are forced to wait, sometimes for extended periods, in between turns while the computer processes every other faction. With nearly 100 separate factions it would be nearly impossible to trim down the wait. While this is a huge issue for many players, many more are aware that this is simply a fact of life and that keeping a book handy while playing alleviates much of the tedium. Along with this are the various facets of the game that seem to serve little or no purpose other than to give the player an occasional task to complete. Political intrigue tops the list of fillers, but sometimes the diplomacy makes you feel that simple straightforward conquest is the less mind-numbing of the options.





Total War: Rome 2 has 12 playable factions including the Greeks, Romans and Suebi (Germanic tribe). Each faction has its own variation of units with unique stats. Some are better with cavalry, some have fantastic infantry. And it is even historically accurate depending on geographical location. The problem is that some units are simply better, even overpowered, compared to “similar” units of a different faction. Many people complain that Roman heavy infantry is too strong, but forget that during this time period Roman infantry was considered the best in the world for a reason. If you want to beat the Romans as the Germanic tribes you have to be tactically aware of the situation and often avoid taking them head on.





The world is beautiful…if you can run it at the higher settings. The game is a graphical monster, and it causes issues with the masses that don’t have supercharged PC’s. That aside, the game has the same geographical features as its predecessor and the campaign map movement is nearly identical. There are a few quirks such as stances and some choke points, but the truth of the time remains: if an army does not want to engage is generally does not have to. The stances are an unnecessary feature in the overall game. Forced march reduces travel times but the AI doesn't take advantage of the morale penalty. Ambush stance and fortify stance have very little use as the AI tends to avoid aggression and in most cases it’s better to utilize the extra troops from a garrison than fight an open field battle with a stronger force.





The AI is the final nail in the coffin. Creative Assembly claimed that their AI was adaptable and utilized a progressive decision making model to maximize its chances at victory. I've never seen either of those options. The campaign AI will move a fully stacked army away from a settlement when the player is about to initiate a siege instead of garrisoning the city and is takes an extensive amount of time to actually upgrade its units. The battle AI is unimaginative and commits its forces piecemeal and will often stand there and allow the player to whittle it down with missile troops. I could go on and on about the fallacies of the AI, but simply put unless strictly scripted the AI does not show any initiative or intelligence whatsoever. One wonders if the developers accidentally included an alpha build of the AI with the final release of the game.

In spite of these drawbacks, CA has one bright shining star. The game can be patched. The graphical hiccups and, hopefully, the terrible AI can be improved. They also have a huge and very dedicated following that will allow them the time to fix their mistakes. The game can and will eat up the hours as you progress through the game, and you can look up only to realize you've spend half a day immersed in the Total War world.





As a fan of the series I have to say that I’m willing to give CA a shot to fix their mistakes. I don’t know that they deserve it after all the hype they drummed up, but I just want this game to be everything they promised too much. If I was to give it a score as it stands I would stick it at a 6/10. If I was to give it a score based on sheer potential I would reach a 9/10 easily. The ball is in your hands CA, don’t let us down!