With Empire Divided, it may be time to return to Total War: Rome II

Ugh, pre-ordered the game from WinGameStore out of Canada. Got my key, tried using it in Steam and I get the following message:

“Not Available. Sorry but the following items are not available for purchase in this country. Your purchase has been cancelled.”

WTF?! Did they sell me a bogus/blackmarket key?! Never had this happen before. Emailed their customer support, we’ll see what happens, but not a happy camper right now.

I once bought a bad key from them and they got me a replacement, I think within a day. My guess is that they will refund your money if they can’t fix it.

Wingamestore is totally legit.

Got an email, they messed up their keys, said the problem was fixed now. Gave me a refund, reordered the game, we’ll see if they have their keys straight now :)

Wasn’t there supposed to be a free patch around the time of release that included some of the QOL improvements that ED brings to the table? I haven’t seen any sign of a download.

The power and politics patch went live earlier today.

I got a 1.4 GB download - I bought the expansion as well, though.

Finally got my key, frustrating but they made good. All is well with the Empire :)

The performance of Rome 2 is significantly better than Attila and Warhammer (and War > Attila, as it’s 64-bit). I can still play Rome 2 just fine on the 860gt and i3. The battles maps do looked relatively denuded of vegetation by comparison though.

So… any thoughts by anyone so far?

To be honest my first impression is not an overwhelmingly positive one. That’s not to say it’s bad per se, it just seems very… i don’t know. More off-kilter? than any previous Total War expansion. I think i have about 30 turn in an Aurelian Roman campaign.

For one thing it’s kind of … boring, unfortunately. For another it just seems to have a hard time setting the stage - this is supposed to be a big civil war, but they didn’t really go the distance to making the Roman-but-enemy factions feel like anything other than a random opponent that churns out stacks. Another is a strange decision to make the game about… color filters? Every battle has a sort of “emotional setting” filter applied to the colors. Battles are all tinged green or brown or blue. It’s an… interesting? artistic choice. I do (think) i see what they’re getting at, the world turned upside down feeling, but… not sure. There are also a lot of “personality through numbers” things going on under the hood - stuff like the rise of religious cults and banditry, all of which kind of sound fun, are more or less just a number on a screen. To be fair they’ve tried to support this narrative engagement by creating a lot of scripted pop up events. There are a lot of interesting historic hot takes going on here, about the rise of Christianity and the increasing semi-divinity and absolutism of emperors, but you do have to peer through the spreadsheet to see them.

I really wanted to see a rise of Sassanian Persia, i guess; i feel like the most important event 200ad-600ad in the eastern Mediterranean was the rise of a unified Persian empire and whose appearance helped lead to the downfall of Rome both politically and culturally in that region.

Weirdly you can “save” the Republic as Rome and convert your Empire back to a Democracy… through a button you click, Paradox like, in a menu. #winceface.

Yes I don’t talk much here, but when it comes to historic total war I like to chime in. This campaign seems boring. I agree with all of your points.

I think we have gotten spoiled. Total war: Warhammer 2 (not 1) has a LOT going on. From the map to all the strategic/tactical considerations. As a game.

I prefer Atilla honestly. Here is my problem, and I am sure you might agree: We would LOVE some more historic total war, even if it is strange. I mean come on, where are we gonna get a Queen that rises up against the roman empire? Boudica? that would be a fun campaign now that I consider it …

Bottomline: Total war: Warhammer 2 (NOT 1) is a serious contender for best total war game ever. And hardly anything can match what it does. Busywork a bit but …

(and I am 45 turns into this empire divided campaign – just seems boring)

I think some of this ennui might actually be exposing the tiredness of the current TW engine. Strip away the fancy, glitzy abilities and mad fantasy over the top trappings, and the core gameplay is somewhat…well, boring.

I felt this a bit with the original TW Rome 2, although mods helped. Attila was interesting for a while but didn’t grab me.

I’m thinking they need to rework how units fight, as in model mass etc a bit better, strip away some of these fancy clickable abilities, slow the battles down a bit.

Thing is, maybe any era will be boring after the bombastic silliness of Warhammer.

That’s been my feeling about it for years. While I get swept up in the hype and buy it anyway (with the exception of this last one - I’ve finally built up enough resistance) the last TW I truly enjoyed was Shogun 2 and it’s 2 expansions.

Everything just needs rethinking at this point. I don’t really want to play a game where every campaign has a hundred dramatic battles, nor chase full stacks around the rosie, nor every city is a triple wall defended fortress. I’d actually like to see a Total War game that had something like 50 campaign turns as it’s goal, and have every single turn be full of interesting and historically themed decisions, and then change the nature of combat so that it isn’t this battle of annihilation that most TW battles are, nor make troops as expendable as they are now. Terrain and Weather need to become an actual consideration again, ect. The whole thing just badly needs a refresh. And i’m just tired of whack-a-stack gameplay.

I really like Attila but it has such enormous problems; to play “perfectly” you need to fight hundreds of minor battles, because the city defenses need you to manually fight each defensive battle to reach maximum effect.

In terms of revamping the battle engine, I’d like to see the battles slowed down a bit, less micro-management and less click-powers, more focus on formations and on units maintaining cohesion.

Here is an old thread with some battles reports from the original Rome: Total War. I’d like to see an engine generate more battles like that, especially the Spartan Ambush I described.

I love TW: Warhammer 1&2 but even with a fantasy background, I’d like to see more stable battles. And for historical stuff, definitely.

Rome 2’s Ceaser in Gaul campaign fits this ideal very well. It’s sharp, thematic, small scale and tight.

I actually think it’s the best campaign they made for Rome 2 and Attilla, though I haven’t fully explored the DLC for both of those games yet.

I like all the DLC campaigns for Rome 2 better than GC and agree this one is very good indeed, just be ready for a battle on your hands as the natives (all of them) do tend to get a bit restless and come at you from all sides relentlessly.

This 100x.

Yeah CIG (Caesar in Gaul) is tight, focused but relentless. No pushover. Gaul wants you gone, even the guys that say you are friends. I’ve had some campaigns that looked like a WWI line that is hard to cross. BTW interesting new mod that encompasses the Legions of Rome of into that campaign, giving you some unique legions. Ill look it up and link or just search “Caesar” in the more recent steam mods.