{"id":12,"date":"2017-07-26T01:05:08","date_gmt":"2017-07-26T01:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onehitpixel.com\/?page_id=12"},"modified":"2017-08-17T13:02:48","modified_gmt":"2017-08-17T13:02:48","slug":"total-war-rome-ii","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/onehitpixel.com\/review\/total-war-rome-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Review of Total War: Rome II"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the end of the day the Total War faithful will love it, but it may not be enough to entice the Civilization faithful to defect.<\/strong><\/p>\n

ou know, I really like strategy games. I wish I was better at them, but I genuinely really enjoy them. I\u2019ve already had the pleasure of reviewing the enjoyable\u00a0Company of Heroes 2<\/em>\u00a0this year and I\u2019ve just finished playing\u00a0Total War: Rome II<\/em>\u00a0for this review. The\u00a0Total War<\/em>\u00a0series is a long-standing favourite in the real-time strategy genre, maybe not quite up there with the behemoth that is\u00a0Starcraft 2<\/em>, but it\u2019s fairly unique take on the strategy genre, where it emphasises huge battles with massive forces is enjoyable by many, despite its difficulty.<\/p>\n

Total War:\u00a0<\/em>Rome II<\/em>\u00a0is the titular sequel to the series\u2019 third entry, released back in 2004 and with it developer The Creative Assembly aims to bring a collection of new improvements and additions to the\u00a0Total War<\/em>\u00a0formula, while going back to one of the series\u2019 most memorable settings and indeed one of history\u2019s most memorable and plentiful war eras.<\/p>\n

By far the most notable difference in\u00a0Total War:\u00a0<\/em>Rome\u00a0II\u00a0<\/em>over previous series entries is its increased expansion outside of the battlefield itself, often reminding me of\u00a0Civilization<\/em>. The addition of new difficulty conditions, provincial groupings and the vast amount of civilisations on the campaign over-map. While this brings along many improvements to the game, it also adds some confusion in terms of the game\u2019s identity. We\u2019ll get to that in a bit.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with the basics though:\u00a0Total War: Rome\u00a0II<\/em>\u00a0is beautiful. From the moment you begin the game\u2019s more story-based and cinematic prologue and make your presence known on the battlefield, the visual fidelity and sheer scale is immediately noticeable; environments look amazing in the Italian sun, the sea swishes and glistens, and no matter how much you zoom in you\u2019ll see just how much work went into each soldier.<\/p>\n

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That brings a heavy asking price in terms of system specifications for your PC, however.\u00a0Total War<\/em>\u00a0games are known for their resource intensive nature, and\u00a0Total War:\u00a0<\/em>Rome\u00a0II<\/em>\u00a0is no exception. Optimisation seems to have improved over previous entries, however, I could still only attain a 30-40 fps constant on not-even-maximum settings. It\u2019s clear why, the sheer number of troops on-screen is massive, but be prepared to have your toaster buckle under the game\u2019s pressure.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not all sunny skies and clear seas though when it comes to visuals, in fact the stormy weather often brings some rather annoying issues. While the game saves after every turn in campaign, it\u2019s more than a little frustrating to be hit with a random, titanic frame-rate drop during rainy naval battles. Taking your army to the sea to battle is a dangerous enough (if not often necessary), I tended to be even more apprehensive when doing so in case my frame-rate hit the one\u2019s and two\u2019s, requiring a relaunch. The Creative Assembly promises this will be fixed in the industry\u2019s staple week-one patch, so it\u2019s not too much of a put-off.<\/p>\n

Audio is a bit more pedestrian; the typical Roman-esque, victorious soundtrack one would expect from a game set around ancient Rome is present. It\u2019s nice ambient music to have as you conquer the world. The war-cries of your men as they charge into battle and slay their foes are again as expected, but they\u2019re well done and are a nice indication of how you\u2019re doing in the game\u2019s battles.<\/p>\n

However,\u00a0Total War:\u00a0<\/em>Rome\u00a0II<\/em>\u00a0definitely has its problems, starting as early as the prologue. It does a great job of explaining things as it goes, up until it actually wants you to do something. For example, the game tells you all about your naval army and what you can do with it, just not how you do it. This extends to almost every important mechanic in the game: From resources, to the game\u2019s provincial divisions. To how families affect diplomacy, to fame, technology, pretty much anything to be honest. There\u2019s some sort of online, wiki-style resource you can click into on certain elements, however it\u2019s poorly laid out and still poorly explained.<\/p>\n

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In many ways Total War: Rome II is trying to do a bit of everything; it\u2019s a jack of all trades but a master of none.<\/p><\/div>\n

The problems aren\u2019t just there, however. While the game controls extremely well in-battle, there\u2019s rarely an excuse to actually go into one of the larger scale battles. It takes longer than simply using the auto-resolve option and takes you away from playing in the over-map section of the game, which is the part I enjoyed the most.<\/p>\n

This is where the game is at its most\u00a0Civilization<\/em>\u00a0like. You can control your country\u2019s production, buildings, technology and conquest through this area, much like in a\u00a0Civilization\u00a0<\/em>game. Battles can be auto-resolved, giving you a Civ style \u201cthis is your likelihood of success\u201d bar, so you can decide whether to fight it or not. I like the option a lot and it\u2019s not a new option to the series, but I feel like it takes away from the game\u2019s main attraction: The battles.<\/p>\n

Battles were definitely fun when I did decide to play them; the sheer amount of units on-screen and the massively increased variations on units in\u00a0Total War:\u00a0<\/em>Rome\u00a0II\u00a0<\/em>was awesome to behold. The game\u2019s cinematic camera is a disappointment though. While it\u2019s a cool feature to explore at first, it quickly becomes boring and reduces your ability to change tactics on the fly. Armies can organised into various formations, although this is again poorly explained. What formation is good for what situation just isn\u2019t explained and that\u2019s poor.<\/p>\n

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The technology tree isn\u2019t as fleshed out as\u00a0Civilization<\/em>\u2019s and it feels like it\u2019s not making all that much of a difference because I\u2019m not noticing the upgrades in battle. The game does however give you more choice over diplomacy and economy. The game now divides areas into provinces and you can adjust the tax rate and edicts for each province independent of the others. The diplomacy screen allows you to make various offers and pacts with other countries you\u2019ve met and the sheer amount of them makes this a deep and rewarding experience.<\/p>\n

Total War: Rome II<\/em>\u00a0also adds new victory options aside from the usual military victory. The Economic and Cultural victories add some variety, but can be attained more easily through military conquest anyway, so it feels like a somewhat hollow addition.<\/p>\n

Multiplayer is of course present in\u00a0Total War:\u00a0<\/em>Rome\u00a0II<\/em>\u00a0in the form of team-based head-to-head battles ranging from two to eight players and multiplayer campaigns which allows two people to play against each other in either competitive or cooperative campaigns. The co-op campaign offers the best experience here, although an already frustrating problem of how long turns take to go through is exasperated by having to wait on another human player to make their moves. As someone who just generally doesn\u2019t like multiplayer in RTS games I\u2019ll stick to single player, but the multiplayer won\u2019t disappoint those who find that to be an attractive part of the package.<\/p>\n

Overall I didn\u2019t dislike my time with\u00a0Total War:\u00a0<\/em>Rome\u00a0II<\/em>. There are some extremely fun elements to the game. The battles are great and the over-map gameplay is really fun. I felt the over-map mode\u2019s quality detracted from the game\u2019s main feature. The\u00a0Civilization<\/em>-style additions are welcome, but they\u2019re not done in a way to satisfy me as a big Civ player. In many ways\u00a0Rome\u00a0II<\/em>\u00a0is trying to do a bit of everything; it\u2019s a jack of all trades but a master of none. At the end of the day the\u00a0Total War<\/em>\u00a0faithful will love it, but it may not be enough to entice the\u00a0Civilization<\/em>\u00a0faithful to defect.<\/p>\n

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At the end of the day the Total War faithful will love it, but it may not be enough to entice the Civilization faithful to defect. ou know, I really like strategy games. I...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":10,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onehitpixel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onehitpixel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onehitpixel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onehitpixel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onehitpixel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onehitpixel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onehitpixel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onehitpixel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}