NOTs
Naval Battles
Total War has always struggled with lackluster naval warfare since their first inclusion and Rome 2 is no different in that regard. If anything, the sea battles in Rome 2 are worse than those of Shogun 2, normally devolving into a mass of ships ramming each other with no real strategy involved.
While the lack of a good tactical naval game is disappointing, the biggest problem is that the free transport ships any army gets when crossing the sea are extremely effective at ramming, which makes a dedicated navy largely redundant. Hopefully patches will improve matters somewhat, but I doubt that the naval part of the game will ever be particularly thrilling.
Game Performance & Bugs
Pretty much every Total War game has had a somewhat buggy launch, but Rome 2 is among the worst of the series in this regard. Judging by the response on the forums, a great many people are experiencing performance problems. I’ve experienced a few crashes and multiplayer de-syncs, as well as a few issues with the tactical battle AI, but these generally haven’t damaged the experience too much.
One of the biggest areas of complaints with the game performance is how long the AI campaign turn takes; on single player by turn 50 the AI turn was taking on average about 2 ½ minutes, with co-op campaign AI turns taking up to 4 minutes. Again I am hopeful that patches will improve the performance and certainly eliminate many of the bugs, with the developers having issued an apology on their forums and setting policy of a patch every week until the issues are resolved.
Verdict
Variety comes in many forms in Total War: Rome II. With endless variants of armies, a plethora of battlefield and different tactics to fight against and deploy no two battles will be the same. The presentation form the visual experience to the animations is stunning. It does come with some issues which thankfully are being addressed. All in all as long as your computer can handle the intense strain of running Total War: Rome II the game is worth it: I would strongly advice double checking the minimum requirements though.
[Editor’s Note: Total War: Rome II was reviewed on the PC. The game was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]
