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Did you prefer Empire Divided? I think this time period is one of the best choices they could made for Roman history, as they seemingly aren't going to move away from Rome with Hannibal, Caesar, Augustus, Empire Divided and now the early Republic. Wrath of Sparta was pretty boring given that they only allowed you to play the clone wars which they did't pull off well like in Shogun

I loved Empire Divided.

But to be fair, I only played Aurellians faction in Empire Divided, so can't speak for the other factions. In these historical based expansions, I tend to always go with whoever the subject of the expansion is, as that is usually where all the development resources went into.

Playing as Aurellians Rome, it was constant war from turn 1. You've got 2 sizeable, hostile Roman factions to the west, at least 2 hostile German factions to the north/northeast, the Sassanids and Zenobya's Roman faction in the east that lean towards hostile. And all but the Senate have client states that will add the weight of their armies to their parent faction.

Because its a later period technologically and most of your enemies are part of the Roman "family", almost all your battles are on equal footing without being carbon copies of each other. You'll definitely know the difference between facing Gallic Rome, the Senate's Rome and the Eastern Rome armies. Because there was a bit more parity, tactics and maneuvering in battle on the campaign map seemed more important. There is no "Marian Reforms" for any of the Roman factions that puts them head and shoulders above their neighbors militarily, like in the Grand Campaign. The main playable barbarian factions are also a bit tougher, having had years of practice against Roman armies.

The improved loyalty system was also added for this expansion, which makes too much rapid expansion risky, as uppity generals from opposing families within your faction can get their own aspirations for an empire of their own. Now you have another war front, possibly in the heart of your territories. You gotta keep your frenemies happy while you fight your external enemies.

It was great fun, but I have to add that I played on second to highest difficulty with mods that also improved AI to make it more challenging. I played Empire Divided without mods for a little while before my favorite mods were updated and it seemed pretty easy, so keep that in mind. It also suffers from the same malady that every Total War game has, in that the end-game gets kind of tedious once you get the ball rolling and start dominating.

That's pretty good. I expected it to be a slightly later rehash of the Emperor edition GC. As for difficulty, I also only play on very hard because otherwise its pretty boring in TW. Sadly the AI mods for Rome 2 were never that great. I think I will pick it up on a sale.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Did you prefer Empire Divided? I think this time period is one of the best choices they could made for Roman history, as they seemingly aren't going to move away from Rome with Hannibal, Caesar, Augustus, Empire Divided and now the early Republic. Wrath of Sparta was pretty boring given that they only allowed you to play the clone wars which they did't pull off well like in Shogun

I liked it as well, I played mostly with Palmyra, as I like their use of Spears and pikes. But I did not really like the price they asked for the DLC but it was still Worth the coin. I hope they have sunk lots of time into working on the diplomacy system and such, as I liked those bitzs from Thrones Of Britannia, witch to my suprise was quite decent if a bit slow to get rolling campaing wise.