There's a historical mission in Rome 2 that is centered on the final Roman assault on Carthage during the Third Punic War. You should play it when you have a chance since it's a pretty epic 3D battle and it's a good challenge. It took me a couple of tries before I finally won it.

That's the second time you have recommended a single battle. I may just do, even though I can't say I've ever done. But it's worth a shot or two to see how I do I reckon. Thanks for the recommendation Panzer.

Having completed two campaigns in Rome 2, a few thoughts....

It's a good game, and I'm glad I waited so long to give it a go. I saw no obvious bugs, or glitches. It is polished and complete, and the DLC expands Rome 2's footprint and gives me some alternatives to the grand campaign. I liked the Rise of the Republic campaign a little better than the grand campaign, which is still good in its own right. But the smaller, more focused map of the DLC campaign has more immediacy and I found I preferred this.

I absolutely love the maps in this game. Both the strategic map and the battle maps are fantastic. Especially the battle maps, which honestly I can't praise enough. As shown in that Carthage shot, these battle maps are authentic, not simply generated as a representative terrain map. The maps are huge (although maneuver isn't really a thing in battle), gorgeous and my favorite in the series. I also highly rate Warhammer 2, but having played Rome 2 I can only shake my head at how poor the battle maps are in comparison to the magnificent ones in Rome 2. I did indeed get the achievement for fighting 100 manual battles in a single campaign (The Centurion), so you know I saw a lot of battle maps. Only once did I recognize a map from another battle. In all the posts I make in the future running the rule over the various titles, I will surely cite battle maps as Rome 2s biggest strength.

As part of reaching 100 manual battles I fought quite a few naval battles. It's rather rudimentary, as the fighting ships are basically barges with oars with a regular land unit standing on it. Near the end I could recruit some very heavy hitters, called Assault Hexeres Sacred Band, ships whose ramming simply cracked any enemy ship in two. But this campaign saw easily the most manual naval battles I have fought in any campaign. Ramming and boarding. Simple, but surprisingly engaging.

Land combat is standard TW fare and nothing stood out for me. Agent play is probably my least favorite. Nothing intrinsically wrong with it, but the agent types and actions are rather lackluster, aside from the Champions, who, when embedded, are a massive boost for unit and general XP. This, combined with all the weapon, armor, shield and hull bonuses I had from such a sprawling empire, made my troops significantly better than any I came across in the campaign. This enabled me to sweep the map, and at the end only Sardinia and Corsica were not under my control. Aside from perhaps Syracuse at the end, no nation really stood any chance of even fighting me to a standstill. Over the course of those 192 turns I never once faced enemy artillery in land battles, which is very odd, and the battles were worse for their absence.

I don't care much for the political side of the game. It's shallow and I just can't get in to it. If it were more akin to something like say Crusader Kings I might enjoy it more. As it is, it's just a matter of monitoring loyalty, and clicking this or that to boost it. Secessions or civil wars can obviously add some drama and intrigue to shake up a blobfest, but I managed to avoid those in both campaigns, and honestly I'd rather this just wasn't a thing. Feels like busy work.

I also mentioned corruption and I don't care for its implementation. At the very least corruption should not be identical in every city or settlement. I won't harp on it, but I think this could have been handled better mechanically. I liked the tech trees, good bonuses and logical unlocks. I completed all the tech branches with a few turns to spare so it felt like it was balanced just right.

Diplomacy is poor, like all TW games. It's not useless, but it is too simple. We don't expect more, but at the same time I think CA could revisit this side of the game and make it more complex and interesting. We will never see EU IV level diplomacy in Total War, but I need more.

The AI was good. They are aggressive and opportunistic, made an effort to field full stacks. They are maybe a bit too vulnerable to ambush opportunities, especially as this game grants an ambush any time you engage a stack on forced march. But even laying an ambush along likely avenues of approach is probably a little too effective, Time and again I beat stronger local forces by defeating them in detail, picking them apart by ambushing their blundering stacks. But I was disappointed in the composition of the AI stacks, especially late game when I expect to face stacks of top tier troops, but that never happened in either run.

In total for both runs I got 45 achievements, the most rare unsurprisingly was Polymath for winning RotR as Taras. This has a completion percentage of just 0.2% and now sits as my most rare in any game. There are alot of cool and interesting achievements in Rome 2.

So all in all, I found I really enjoy Rome 2. It has a lot going for it, with a few things I see as missteps, or poor mechanical implementation. But the bottom line is I had fun and felt satisfied with the game and outcomes. On the one to Jessica Alba appeal scale, Rome 2 is a solid Charlize Theron.

This applies to all TW games where the "ambush" stance is available. The AI just doesn't know how to deal with it. However, in Three Kingdoms the AI will also use ambushes against you so you need to be careful whenever you see an enemy army move during the turn progression and then it suddenly disappears from view. I believe TW: Britannia is the only TW title I've played which does not have the ambush stance available.

The AI ambushes in Warhammer, too (clever wordplay), especially the Skaven, who are masters of this. Matter of fact, Skaven armies can get an ambush with an offensive attack.

But you are right, and it would be great if at some point in the evolution of Total War that CA would give the AI an overhaul. It's not terrible, but I think most players would agree the AI could use some sharpening.

Three Kingdoms will be next for me, but when I do not know. There's a Steam sale at the mo for Warhammer stuff so I picked up a new DLC and have launched a new run in WH2. I had a good time with Rome 2 and wanted a bit more Total War, but something different from ancient Rome.

Agreed and the other thing is that you start to notice common patterns with how the AI works after you've played TW games for so many years. Most of the TW titles have striking similarities with how the AI behaves.

Good point PM, and much of the success I have is down to knowing how to bait the AI and ambush them. This is so vital early on, when the AI gets a better start due to their bonuses. They tend to have more and better stacks in the first 30 turns, and being able to isolate their field armies and defeat them in detail is what allows me to catch up and overtake. I always play hard/hard, and while this isn't too bad, it does mean that the starts are precarious, and I need all of these tools to level the field. Sometimes even that is not enough and I suffer the odd defeat and restart

After I read some in-depth blogs listing the buffs and bonuses that the AI gets in TW games even on "normal" difficulty I decided that I would never bother playing a TW campaign on anything above "normal". I'm not a big fan of creating the illusion that the AI is "smart" by simply giving it cheats.

So no, I have never gotten the achievement for winning a campaign on "legendary" difficulty in any TW title.

I agree but see Hard as Normal if you know what I mean. Normal is a bit too easy in my view, especially on the battlefield. Normal/Hard would be a good compromise I think. But whatever gives the game you are looking for works for me. I have also not completed any campaign on legendary. Honestly I think i could with certain factions and the right breaks at the start. But it's the battle restrictions that do me in. The inability to pause and issue orders is the worst one for me. You can work around it, but then you are pausing, unpausing, issuing one order, immediately pausing again to unpause to issue another order to a different unit and on down the line. It's too much. If there were none of these battle restrictions I think I could perhaps pull it off with the right breaks. If you can survive the first 30 turns then there's a real shot at it.

Over the past two weeks or so I've been itching to do some strategerizing. With the lackluster release of both Warhammer 3 and Humankind my roadmap went off the rails, leaving a void. I've considered, and looked in to a number of games. Managed to complete a run in Civ 6 after a couple of aborted starts. I decided to pass for now on all the games I have on the wishlist, like Hearts of Iron (waiting for a sale), Steel Division (not quite convinced) and Grand Tactician civil war game (needs more time?).

I might have bought Three Kingdoms if it had gone on sale. I nearly reinstalled Atilla, as it's a top TW campaign and there are many factions I've yet to try. It's already been four years since I last played that one. Where does the time go? So that's a lot of 'nearly this, almost that'. Nothing seemed to click.

But then I was skimming through the library and Rome 2 was there. My reaction was 'yes, this'. I had done two campaigns when I played a year ago, Baktria in the Grand Campaign and Taras in Rise of the Republic. Both runs were a lot of fun. Rome 2 isn't my top TW title, but it's great all the same. A really good campaign, fantastic maps (both strategic and battle), even if I tend to prefer later eras. So what to play?

I started and aborted two RotR campaigns, as Turchana and Syracuse. I almost always play Total War on hard dificulty, but as I was new to Rome 2 I played those first two last year on Normal. But this time I wanted to play on Hard. The Turchana start wasn't bad, I was able to quickly give Rome a bloody nose. In RotR, Rome is not yet a powerhouse. But for some reason it just wasn't clicking. Maybe partly because I didn't understand how Turchana's building tree works. Etruscans are cool, but I gave it up after a number of turns.

Syracuse starts on Sicily of course. In every strat game I play which includes the Med I am drawn to Sicily. In EU IV it becomes my main naval base. Same with TW, as it is so nicely positioned to dominate the seas, and as a jump-off to invade the boot or the Barbary Coast. But here, Syracuse is just screwed. We start on the eastern end, and Carthage on the western. And man, do they bring it. They had some serious stacks in the very early going and I just couldn't match them. This can often be overcome with tactical strategery, especially ambushes. But with their endless wealth and clear head start I saw a long slog just to fight them to a standstill. Abort number two.

So what to do? Let's go back to the Grand Campaign and have a look. I preferred the more densely packed map in RotR, but I also really enjoyed my Baktria run in the GC. I should have found a four-turns-per-year mod, but I didn't. I spent quite a while looking in to the Divide et Impera mod. In the end I chose to skip it, for now. I think I'd like it for some of the same reasons I liked Stainless Steel so much in Med 2, particularly the supply and recruitment changes. But I passed in the end because the campaign objectives are already so demanding that to add a lot of micro and mechanics that impede speedy progress made me think it would all be too much. If Rome 2 had 'short' campaign objectives like other titles then it all seems much more manageable with DEI. So the only mod is the unit cards that F/O recommended.

Can I apply a 4TPY mod mid-campaign? Probably not.

In the end, after running the rule over most of the factions I settled on Egypt. With the bump in difficulty I wanted another edge faction. Egypt has a fantastic starting position of course, and a +20% tech speed out of the box. They're Hellenic, so a good roster. Really, everything is set for a good start, if your initial war or two comes off. The Seleucids are the most threatening potential enemy, occupying positions to the north in the Levant.

We start at war with Cyrenaica to the west. I quickly scraped together a 3/4 stack and invaded with my King (Pharaoh), and was fortunate to meet their main armies in the field, so I could defeat them piecemeal and take their cities one by one, eliminating them, and then another faction who held the last city to complete the province.

I immediately sent my armies south toward Kush and as they approached the border Kush declared on me. At this time I got ballistas. The next turn Kush offered peace and a lot of money. But they started it and I refused. It was a sharp war of maneuver, but my economy had already churned out four field armies and it was over quickly, giving Egypt three full provinces (plus Jerusalem) inside 30 turns. This is a really good start,

By taking Ethiopia we hold a lot of land that is spread out over vast distances. In other parts of the map this would be a stiff challenge to keep secure. But here, I have the narrow coastal track toward Libya to the west to defend. The desert to the south means no threat from that direction, and the Red Sea acts as a buffer to the east, while Jerusalem acts as a breakwater to the northeast. Naval invasion is still a concern, but for so much territory the security is relatively manageable. Rome 2 AI is opportunistic and aggressive in the campaign, so I'll need to keep on my toes.

The Seleucids should have been my greatest worry (along with Carthage now), but they've already been destroyed! Didn't expect that, but no complaints.

Egypt's a good faction with a good starting position, roster and bonuses. And I got off to a great start. The campaign is long but so far so good.

Great post DBond and I still have Rome 2 installed and I currently have a Coop campaign going as well as a solo campaign. I know we've discussed this issue before but my major beef with the higher difficulty settings in the Total War games is that it doesn't make the AI any smarter. It just gives them cheats/buffs in the form of lower unit upkeep costs, faster access to elite units and even outright more money.

I'm still wondering if the historical title TW era is over. "Three Kingdoms" was mostly historical but it also had a significant fantasy/myth aspect to it and of course Troy is an entirely fictional war based on Greek mythology. I haven't heard any news at all from CA about any new developments with historical titles.

Not sure what's in the pipeline either, but with WH3 falling flat I could see a return to historical. Medieval 3 is my greatest hope.

Yes, we have discussed the difficulty settings quite often, you and I. I understand your position, and quite agree with your points. For me, normal's just too easy over the course of a campaign. it feels perfect in the first thirty turns or so, but before long I feel like I outpace the AI too quickly and the challenge goes. Hard is better for me, the bonuses give the AI some of the help it needs to compete with a good player. This is especially true for battle AI. Sometimes I gent bent out of shape about the strat map bonuses, and the fact my enemies can field more and better armies so quickly. It means some starts get aborted, yes, but for those which gain traction the game comes to me, and Hard ends up being a better equilibrium over the course of the long campaign. Harder start, but better balance later.

You mean both commercially and critically? Have you seen info showing that the sales have been disappointing? I'd be curious to read it.

No, but without how poorly it's been received I have to think sales suffered. It topped the sales charts in February, but I wonder how it's gone since then. It still sold a lot of copies, but I'd suspect has fallen short of expectations, but am only speculating.

Ok I just looked up the current Steam Charts stats and I found the following on WH 3:

All reviews: "Mixed" based on 28,103 user reviews



Now here is the real interesting stuff:

All-time peak concurrent players: 166,519

Peak within the past 24 hours: 17,395

Playing as of 10 minutes ago: 15,376



Average daily players for the month of Feburary: 77,527

Average daily players for the month of March: 18,355

Last 30 days: 13,840



So the game sold well initially but there's been a very clear and massive drop in the number of people who are playing the game. In other words, it will have a short shelf-life.

Yep, because it looks great, but the campaign is a mess, and people had to play it to find that out. I expect a bump when Mortal Empires is integrated.

Picked the Eqypt campaign back up. Egypt are surely one of the top five factions in Rome 2 grand campaign. I didn't exactly stack the deck against myself. But so it goes. Playing again reminded me of some of the things I don't like about Rome 2. The turns per year thing is one of the most glaring. I said I should have gotten a 4TPY mod, but even 2TPY would be a big improvement. Characters don't live long enough to really build them up and get attached to them. They come, they go, and rinse repeat without ever really getting anywhere. I should have made a change here.

It also means it takes forever to sail anywhere. It's just numbers, but it takes 'four years' to sail from Sicily to Rome. Plus, ships have a low movement radius. I also don't like how corruption is handled and I wonder if there's a mod that at least changes it be somewhat proximity based to your capital. Or introduces tech, characters or traits that lower it. I don't mind corruption, I think it belongs in this sort of game. But it's a set scaling number across all cities that has no regard for governors, garrisons, buildings or proximity.

There was something else that bugged me and I made a mental note to mention it here, but lost it

After taking Ethiopia from Kush, I sent my armies back west, stopping over in Alexandria to cycle in some improved units I had teched up to, and then gave Carthage the good news, and now have that golden city plus the province, making four complete, plus Jeruslaem. I don't like how edicts are so limited. I have four provinces but can issue just a single edict, have to wait for higher imperium, and even then it's just one more edict available.

I'd also turn off the politics mechanic if I could.

Allied Rome and the two of us should eventually own the world. Good thing, because that's what the campaign objectives seem to be! Good grief the campaigns are demanding in Rome 2.

The politics mechanic was really vastly improved with the big Imperator update. Before that though I agree that it was poorly implemented and it just made no sense. If there's one nitpick I have with Rome 2 it's the agents. Even after their abilities were revamped with the Imperator update I think the agents are still too effective against armies. One of the things I really liked about "Three Kingdoms" is the complete absence of agents.

I'll take your word for it. I'd rather not have to deal with it. I see my influence? slowly dropping as each leader kicks the bucket with one turn per year meaning they die off quickly. It stands now at 88% which is great, but what's the best way to reverse the slide? Any tips?

Who do you play this with in MP, Jedi? What's that like? How do you handle battles? What does the other guy do while you're fighting one? Or do you just autoresolve to make it go faster? Do you agree to be friends or do you look to battle your friend?

As the political influence of your faction drops you have to start promoting members of that faction to a higher political office. For example if you are playing as Rome, you have to start promoting people through the different Roman political offices such as Quaestor, Praetor, Pro-Consul, etc. If the character has the prerequisite amount of influence then you can promote them.


Concerning the COOP campaigns, we auto-resolve all battles unless the odds are against us or the odds are very iffy (ie the bar is roughly at the 50/50) mark. In those cases then we'll do the 3D battle. While the attacked player fights the 3D battle the other player is a spectator unless he is temporarily "gifted" some units to command during the battle. For example, if Jedi is being attacked he will give me temporary command of his cavalry units since he knows I usually use them more effectively than he does and it also helps to lessen his load during the hectic battle. Oh and we always play our campaigns in Coop mode which means we are allies. Players can choose to play a campaign as adversaries though if they want that.

I see, thanks. Must take a half dozen coon's ages to get through a Rome 2 campaign that way. I like that you can hand duties to your friend, and yes, if you're doing that I suspect being allies sets the mind at ease

Thanks for the politics tips. That's basically what I do, but what's the trade off? Does promoting a secondary party member grant him things like gravitas that might reduce loyalty? So far there's just one other party, Greek Families, in my realm. So far they've been well behaved. And in both of the runs I completed a year ago I managed to avoid any civil wars, probably as much by luck as design.