Return to Rome 2

With the release of the Emperor Edition update, I decided to return to Rome 2 to see what was new. I’ve played it on occasion since release, usually to test a new patch, but this is the first time I’ve gone back to the game and completed an entire campaign. Actually, it’s the first time I’ve completed an entire campaign – period. But more on that later.

So let’s start with the technical stuff. The game is in far better shape than at release. I didn’t have too many issues with the release version, at least not for the first 20 or so hours, but over time they began to grow increasingly apparent. I’m pleased to say that Rome 2 now runs extremely (and consistently) smoothly, even during some large 40v40 siege battles. If you zoom into a mass of troops fighting in a battle of that scale it can still drop rapidly in terms of FPS, but it’s certainly not unplayable, and the typical 20v20 battles that make up the bulk of a campaign are completely fine.

There also seems to have been some slight graphical tweaks, although I’m not entirely sure. I played on Ultra settings (Extreme didn’t really seem to add anything noticeable other than a FPS drop) and it still looks great, but it feels more sharp than at release, with more vibrant colouring. Bugs! In about 60 hours of play, I don’t think I saw a single bug, so that’s certainly an improvement.

But what about the AI? Battle AI is now consistently solid, although on release I’d see more of the AI holding back units in reserve, and that’s something I didn’t really see at all this time around. That said, the Battle AI does its job. It holds formation, uses its units fairly appropriately and flanks where it can. But ultimately, unless it outnumbers you in terms of numbers and/or quality you won’t have too much trouble defeating it.

Siege AI has probably seen the biggest improvement given that on release it would just stand still a lot of the time and do nothing or, on occasion, it might blindly decide to run its entire army through a wall of spears. I’m glad to say that neither of those things happened during my time with this update. Path finding seems much improved, and enemies sensibly attack at multiple points rather than just try to charge through a tiny kill zone. Campaign AI is a lot better. It seems to manage its economy far more effectively and puts together far more sensible army compositions (as opposed to 90% slingers).

There have been a few changes to the campaign map in terms of building mechanics, but the political system has had the most significant overhaul with new info screens, making it far more clear how the civil war mechanic is playing out. In the release, civil war was pretty much inevitable, but now it’s possible to avoid it entirely (as I did in my campaign) by managing the political side appropriately. It’s still not exactly particularly exciting or in-depth, but it’s much better than how it was presented at release, although I did find it very easy to re-balance the power struggle whenever I needed to.

There’s quite a bit of free new content that’s been added to the game in terms of units and factions, plus an entirely new campaign, in addition to other mini-campaign DLC. I played through Caesar in Gaul, which was a neat, self-contained little campaign, and then through an entire Grand Campaign. I haven’t yet played the Hannibal campaign or the new Augustus campaign. As I said, this was the first time I actually played a Rome 2 campaign through to completion.

I’d played a few, 3 or 4 in fact, since release, but I always stopped before hitting my victory conditions. Why? Because I felt, and still do, that the conditions are a little too excessive. The easiest to obtain is the Military Victory, but it requires control of at least 90 regions. And the fact is, once you hit about 50, you’re pretty much unstoppable and there’s very little fun to be had in steam rolling the rest of the map for another 8 hours or so.

Thankfully, allies count towards your victory count, and that’s how I finished my campaign this time around, by simply signing alliances with every other major power. Even so, it still felt like a bit of a slog towards the end. I wish they’d reduce the conditions to something more manageable. For example, I hit every condition for the Economic victory save for income per turn. I was about 60 thousand short. Plus, you need to maintain 15 trade partners, which in an ever shrinking map of expanding empires, isn’t easy to do.

Overall though, I have to say Rome 2 has finally won me over. I enjoyed my campaign a lot, played most of the battles (at least until the very end) and found myself getting quite addicted due to the ‘just one more turn’ quality. Is it still disappointing? Well…yes, but I think that’s mostly because the release was such a disaster and it’s hard to shrug that feeling off. But if I had to review it again now, based on what it’s become with a year or so of patches and support, I’d probably give it a solid 7/10. It’s slowly transformed into a worthy entry into the Total War series. But seriously, guys – don’t let this happen again.