Total War: Rome II (2013) by Creative Assembly

Attempt to divide and conquer in Creative Assembly's thoroughly broken, poorly optimized strategy sequel

I'm a huge fan of history, particularly classical history. I spent my time in college studying Roman Civ, so the game was hugely appealing to me. But I'll try and take a step back here in order to review it from the point of view of someone who isn't completely infatuated with history.

I'm a big fan of the old tactical JRPG style games, like Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics. I haven't done much gaming with its cousins in the subgenres of military strategy and real time strategy, but I really enjoyed how this game seemed to blend both of those genres together, and I respect that Creative Assembly is basically designing two games in one, here. There's the overarching strategical game in which you're managing your cities and towns and moving your military and spy/champion/dignitary units, and there's what is obviously the meat of the game in the battle system that occurs once you engage in combat with an enemy unit. They flow together quite nicely, allowing you to build up the efficacy of your units via upgrades in your cities and towns. It scratches the RPG itch in that way while at the same time providing a great strategical and tactical experience. You can easily find yourself dumping hours upon hours into this game, thanks to the patented "Just One More Turn" addiction technique made famous by the Civilization series. It's quite enjoyable, and there's quite a lot of it -- One campaign can take nearly 100 hours to complete.

There are some really cool features to the game. I got the most enjoyment out of it simply due to the fact that it strives to be historically accurate, and it does a great job of it. The Roman military is clearly split between the Manipular system of the middle Republican era, and the Marian reforms later on that transformed the army from the group of levied farmers it classically was into the group of professional, disciplined fighters that would eventually conquer most of Europe and all of known Africa. The historical accuracy of the military units also extends to the Celtic tribes of Gauls and Britons, the Iberian tribal fighters, African and Asian horsemen, etc. It's all really enjoyable given my interest in history.

There are numerous little touches that are really nice, as well. The art on the unit cards is really awesome. It's clear they went for an antique style with them, and it really works well. The Celtic tribes look particularly cool. Another thing I found really enjoyable was the pre-battle speeches that the general can be heard giving his troops. They're phenomenally well voice acted, and they make accurate references to religion and state. It's enjoyable down to the cornua that the centurions blow whenever you tell a unit to move. It matters a lot that they get the little things right here, as they do a lot to immerse you in the time period, and Creative Assembly has absolutely succeeded there.

An historically accurate depiction of Caesar vs. the Gauls

The actual combat, and being able to zoom in and out as your units go to battle against others, is absolutely phenomenal. You can zoom in and see each unit, in great detail, fighting against the enemy. Or you can zoom out and take in the entire battle from a colossal scale. Watching your cavalry charge the rear of an opponent is immensely satisfying. I had one situation where one of my legions was caught in enemy territory. I had had the foresight to send my units into a defensive stance, so the battle began with them entrenched in a wooden fortress. I was heavily outnumbered, and didn't have many units to do anything with other than just station them in the doorways of the fortress and hope they could hold off the enemy. They ended up succeeding, breaking the enemy waves at the entrance in true Roman legionary fashion. It was awesome, and easily my most memorable moment in a game filled with them. The problem is that about half of the most memorable moments are due to terrible bugginess, and those memorable moments always caused battles to end in disaster for me. Imagine fighting a battle for close to 40 minutes, and having it suddenly turn because one of your key units got stuck on geometry and slaughtered since you could no longer maneuver them. It's just as infuriating as it sounds.

I've gotten into this game somewhat late, playing it a full year after it originally released, and I've read quite frequently that people say it's become way better, that it's been fully patched and is now recommendable to everybody, but my experience with it has not proven this to be correct. I've had units refuse to enter a breach in a wall literally a dozen times, which has caused me to stop knocking down walls altogether and just use siege ladders. But then I had units get stuck on a wall and do nothing but continue to climb up and down the siege ladders, which caused me to lose an extremely important battle. I've also experienced a bug where my cavalry has run in the completely opposite direction from which I've ordered them. There are numerous other things like this that really destroy the experience for me, but it's also incredibly poorly optimized, even after Creative Assembly has patched the game several times and repackaged it into the "fixed" Emperor Edition. I'm running 780ti SLI and I see dips down to around 20 fps at times, which is absolutely ridiculous.

It really hurts me to give this game a thumbs down, because I did enjoy it quite a bit. But the frustration from dealing with its bugs and its poor optimization make it hard for me to recommend to anybody outside classical history buffs and hardcore Total War fans. If you fall into either of those groups, then by all means, take the plunge, because you'll get quite a bit out of this game. I surely have. But if you're not, then you should probably just pass it up altogether, because the frustration will likely outweigh any enjoyment you'd get out of the game.

⭐⭐