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Looks like 3 more factions added this week. Unique nomadic tribes, offering a different play style from the conventional factions.

Free until Oct. 29. Then it jumps up to 8 bucks. Seems like they are trying to make up for the poor launch with free (for limited time) content.

Details: http://www.joystiq.com/2013/10/22/nomadic-tribes-join-total-war-rome-ii-in-new-free-dlc/

So how is the game currently? I heard it sucked at launch due to being buggy but is it any good now?

I gave the game a C+ after a week of playing after launch. Granted I ran into very few game breaking bugs, unlike some evidently, but it just didn't feel finished. The bugs, coupled with piss poor AI and just general changes to core gameplay seem like steps back for the series.

With it patched up and new content rolling in, I'd say its a solid B. Even patched up, it still doesn't have the endearing qualities that the first Rome:Total War had.

Not the most thorough review of where the game stands at the moment, but nothing really else comes to mind.

The game is pretty much where it should have been at launch. A fair number of bug fixes and implementation of features has rendered it into a pretty decent game. As stated, I like playing it with the Radious Mod - rebalances a few of the tech and gives you more armies to play with. It's hard to compare it to the other games - it's semi close to Shogun in style, but absolutely dwarfs it in scale. And I can't fairly compare it to Rome 1, because I almost never played Rome 1 without heavy modding.

- Oh, and in case anyone missed it, Rome II now has workshop integration on Steam.

 Bromsy wrote:
The game is pretty much where it should have been at launch. A fair number of bug fixes and implementation of features has rendered it into a pretty decent game. As stated, I like playing it with the Radious Mod - rebalances a few of the tech and gives you more armies to play with. It's hard to compare it to the other games - it's semi close to Shogun in style, but absolutely dwarfs it in scale. And I can't fairly compare it to Rome 1, because I almost never played Rome 1 without heavy modding.

- Oh, and in case anyone missed it, Rome II now has workshop integration on Steam.

Well, I'll be damned, maybe it's finally time to try it out again. I was waiting for that moment when the game stopped being a beta. I guess I'll give it a go once I'm done with Sleeping Dogs.

It's been pretty problem free for me since day 1. *shrugs* The game has gotten smoother with the patches, but always was playable for me.

BTW, they have a free faction pack for download until the 29th. After the 29th you've gotta pay for it, so get it downloaded. It's for the horse tribe barbarians. I tried playing them last night... their not easy. Let me give you a hint. Focus on food structures before anything else.

Edit: I see NELS already beat me to it.

Yeesh, so I finally reached the highest tier on my very hard game as Rome using the Radious Mod - you can have 10 edicts, 5 of each type of agent, 30 armies and I think 18 fleets. And I was still making something like 75k a turn and had a 50 food surplus when I was nearly maxed out on armies and had seven or eight fleets.


Controlled basically all the Mediterranean, Hispania, the Levant, Northern Africa and Gaul, but I had never gotten involved in the patchwork of tiny feuding Hellenistic city states in asia minor.

Well, their sybaritic excesses offended me, so I crossed the Hellspont from my Macedonian provinces with twelve legions, moved north from Antioch with another eight legions of eastern veterans, and had two more move in from Rhodes supported by a couple of my fleets - one of which was an entire fleet of Assault Hexaremes (Try taking that out with transports).

It was a damned inspiring time to be Emperor of Rome.

- and it wasn't as much of a steamroll as it could have been, even one territory factions had at least two full armies - and I basically declared war on all of them at once. Except for Pontus, those plucky little bastards get a pass, they can be a client state.

Wish I had your attention span Bromsy. I'll get halfway through a campaign and want to try a different faction. Done it about 9 times now. Currently about to invade Rome with my Spartans, after taking over all of Greece. I'll probably run into a Carthaginian army and want a faction that has Elephants. Its a vicious cycle.

My biggest annoyance with the game at the moment is that whenever you get an abundance of cash, every Tom, Dick and Harry wants a piece.

Random Minor Civilization: "Hey dude! Pay me for a non-aggression pact, even though you have more people in 3 full stacked Armies than I have actual people! "
Me : "Aren't protection rackets supposed to work the other way around? No thanks."
RMC: "Oh, okay! Well, I'll give you some time to think about it and hit you up again next turn."
Me: "Seriously? If you aren't trying to trade, declare war or be a client/satrapy stfu"

Rinse and repeat, damn near every turn. I don't remember Empire or Shogun having this problem.

Is there a "Do Not Call List" mod out there?

Also, I absolutely love the campaign map Army avatars fighting it out after the battle. I love the one where after you have a brief back and forth,you stab the dude, he falls to his knees and you contemptuously bash your shield into him and he flops to the ground, dead. I look for that one every time.

 NELS1031 wrote:
Wish I had your attention span Bromsy. I'll get halfway through a campaign and want to try a different faction. Done it about 9 times now. Currently about to invade Rome with my Spartans, after taking over all of Greece. I'll probably run into a Carthaginian army and want a faction that has Elephants. Its a vicious cycle.

My biggest annoyance with the game at the moment is that whenever you get an abundance of cash, every Tom, Dick and Harry wants a piece.

Random Minor Civilization: "Hey dude! Pay me for a non-aggression pact, even though you have more people in 3 full stacked Armies than I have actual people! "
Me : "Aren't protection rackets supposed to work the other way around? No thanks."
RMC: "Oh, okay! Well, I'll give you some time to think about it and hit you up again next turn."
Me: "Seriously? If you aren't trying to trade, declare war or be a client/satrapy stfu"

Rinse and repeat, damn near every turn. I don't remember Empire or Shogun having this problem.

Is there a "Do Not Call List" mod out there?

Yeah, it does get irritating. Plus I wish the cash payouts weren't tied to your overall amount of cash. Why should the minimum amount I am able to offer to some backwoods barbarians to trade with me be 56,000 bucks?

- but that's why you have to stick with it - everyone is either a client state, hates me far too much for diplomacy to work but is terrified of me, or is at war with me.

Started playing as the Selucids.

Holy feth, you get to start with Elephants!!!

but ewwww, starting general's are Peltests

 Grey Templar wrote:
Started playing as the Selucids.

Holy feth, you get to start with Elephants!!!

but ewwww, starting general's are Peltests

Peltasts? What are you supposed to do with that, fight ants?

And to fill out the sillyness, they aren't actually a ranged unit. They're just an elite light melee infantry unit with the shield wall ability.

Wait what? A peltast in the game isn't ranged?

In 5 battles there is a distinct lack of ranged attacks emanating from that unit.

That's really stupid. They were ranged javelinmen in history, god damn it!

EDIT: Actually, apparently they were more similar to Hypaspists in their role during the Hellenistic period. My bad.

 NELS1031 wrote:
Wish I had your attention span Bromsy. I'll get halfway through a campaign and want to try a different faction. Done it about 9 times now. Currently about to invade Rome with my Spartans, after taking over all of Greece. I'll probably run into a Carthaginian army and want a faction that has Elephants. Its a vicious cycle.

My biggest annoyance with the game at the moment is that whenever you get an abundance of cash, every Tom, Dick and Harry wants a piece.

Random Minor Civilization: "Hey dude! Pay me for a non-aggression pact, even though you have more people in 3 full stacked Armies than I have actual people! "
Me : "Aren't protection rackets supposed to work the other way around? No thanks."
RMC: "Oh, okay! Well, I'll give you some time to think about it and hit you up again next turn."
Me: "Seriously? If you aren't trying to trade, declare war or be a client/satrapy stfu"

Rinse and repeat, damn near every turn. I don't remember Empire or Shogun having this problem.

Is there a "Do Not Call List" mod out there?

Also, I absolutely love the campaign map Army avatars fighting it out after the battle. I love the one where after you have a brief back and forth,you stab the dude, he falls to his knees and you contemptuously bash your shield into him and he flops to the ground, dead. I look for that one every time.

I've been like that to. I've probably had about 12 differant games going so far. Sparta is the furthest along I've gotten conquering all of Greece and the Balkans, as well as all of Italy. I deleted all my saved games, and started fresh, and I've not got a Seleucid game going (talk about easy mode...), Egypt (not so easy), Athens, Sparta, and Roxallanni (these buggers are TOUGH to get going).

I haven't messed around with the nomads at all, how are they?

 Bromsy wrote:
I haven't messed around with the nomads at all, how are they?

Damn tough against other nomads. I am not that familiar with horse armies, and my micro suffers because of it. The AI seems to frequently out maneuver me, and the fact that other factions don't seem to pay upkeep like we have to means i'm often times facing better equipped armies (armored horse archers vs my unarmored).

I think if you can survive the other nomad tribes to get out to factions that are more infantry based, you'll steam roll, but I've found that initial survival is the tough part.

Ahahahaha, so I got a mod that changes pike armed units - makes the unit size 256 for most of them and changes around their stats some - while also making them more expensive to train and upkeep. My garrison army just fought an equal sized enemy main force - they charged straight into my beautifully deployed phalanx of levy pikemen, sixteen ranks deep. It was glorious slaughter.

Blood and Gore DLC drops today for 2.99...

Its my birthday, so feth it. Got it DLing now.

I might get it eventually, but I don't have any desire for it. I'm glad that their doing a good job on all this DLC though. CA may have had some issues with the launch, but their customer service since then has been absolutely stellar.

Another fortunate thing is that its a Steam game, which means Mods galore.

And they're easy to apply to the original game. I never liked conventional modding, don't trust myself not to feth up my game.

Did that with Civilization II Gold Edition. Messed it up good.

I was in Indigo yesterday and came across a Total War: Rome 2 novel. Anyone know if it is any good?

Could not say. I've seen them advertise it on steam, but that's it.

THe faction i'm playing atm is the miser faction as i have to buy a new comp before i can really play the game :(. Back to rome total war XGM i guess...which is the best mod I have played...I will beat it soon as egypt! soon...maybe

Well they seem to have fixed the aggression problem with the AI. I nearly got overrun by Persia and other assorted eastern friends.

Combat AI is still sub-par but they make it up in numbers.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Well they seem to have fixed the aggression problem with the AI. I nearly got overrun by Persia and other assorted eastern friends.

Combat AI is still sub-par but they make it up in numbers.

My biggest problem with the combat AI is #1 Numbers, and #2 Improbable happenings. I'm sick and tired of my veteran Spartan Hoplites getting crushed by spear warriors with no upgrades...

Even steadfast leadership fails sometimes

 djones520 wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Well they seem to have fixed the aggression problem with the AI. I nearly got overrun by Persia and other assorted eastern friends.

Combat AI is still sub-par but they make it up in numbers.

My biggest problem with the combat AI is #1 Numbers, and #2 Improbable happenings. I'm sick and tired of my veteran Spartan Hoplites getting crushed by spear warriors with no upgrades...

I thought Hoplites were just generally sub par in this game? I don't know, I haven't ever played as one of the greek cities, and in my successor kingdom games I only use 1-2 units to hold the flanks of my pike wall. Have you tried any of the mods out there? I know one of the Radious unit mods gives 6-7 new units to each of the greek factions. It's part of the overall Radious mod you can get off the workshop.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?622535-Radious-Unit-Pack-2-Rise-of-an-Empire-%2823-9-2013-Released%29

Or there is a Hellenic Revival mod that is geared toward the greeks and just gives them a ton of new units and buildings, looks like; if you don't want all the other changes Radious brings to the table.

 djones520 wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Well they seem to have fixed the aggression problem with the AI. I nearly got overrun by Persia and other assorted eastern friends.

Combat AI is still sub-par but they make it up in numbers.

My biggest problem with the combat AI is #1 Numbers, and #2 Improbable happenings. I'm sick and tired of my veteran Spartan Hoplites getting crushed by spear warriors with no upgrades...

Then clearly you are using them wrong, secure the flanks with cavarly and employ the phalanx ability. Also plant your general in the middel of your lines. Soften the enemy with peltasts also helps. So far with both Sparta & Macedon I have yet to loose a battle against Barbarian hordes using said troops. Although those damned Romans have prooved a bit harder.
I like what the last patch did with the game, fianly the AI goes on the offensive, and it reall can be felt when you have three full stacked banner armies bearijg down on you and your trusy soldiers. Its at those moment veterancy & the resarch really helps.