Total War: Rome II Review - Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum.

[Elfgore]

I don't know what it is and I hate to sound like some guy who just can't get with the times, but the last four total war games pale in comparison to Rome and Medieval 2. I don't know what it is, but the new games just kinda blow compared to those two. Empire was eh, haven't played Napoleon but I assume it is similar to Empire, Shogun 2 is the only decent one, and as of now I have shelfed Rome 2 until they fix the damn thing.

They really dropped the ball on this release. You have moronic AI, units that don't listen, shitty graphics and FPS, and terrible campaign interface. I could go on but, I still have hope they can patch this game so it improves.

 

[Klepto]

The AI for the Total War games has been bad for a very specific reason: There are simply far too many possibilities to check.

It's like the difference between Chess AI and Go AI. Go has far simpler rules, but there are hundreds of possible moves per turn so an AI is incapable of planning more than a few moves ahead while a human can plan dozens of moves ahead. Meanwhile, chess only has about 3 or 4 moves worth considering for most of the game, so AI can check 20 or 30 turns ahead. Even running a Chess AI program on a typical PC will create an opponent unbeatable by humans at the highest settings, while the best Go AI barely plays better than an amateur.

Compare this to total war games, where there are not just thousands but millions of potential moves, and the rules are more complex than both chess and go combined. The typical strategy AI coding system of checking all possible moves and all the possible moves after those possible moves onward is impossible.

Not only that, but the Total War AI criteria for what counts as a good move or not is also going to be awful, because the AI cannot make judgement such as "What is the probability that the player will see these hidden units?" or "Will I flank the player before they notice?". In chess, the criteria is far simpler.

I don't buy it. Yes, programming AI for strategy games is incredibly complex, but that doesn't excuse TW's failures in comparison to comparable games. Paradox games (Europa Universalis, Victoria, Crusader Kings), the Civilizations, Starcraft, and virtually all other strategy games have better AI than the TWs. No TW game even gets the most basic elements of diplomacy down.

 

[Weaver]

Angry Joe's rant about it sort of sealed the deal on me waiting for a patch to buy it:

I'm really confused as to what happened. Shogun 2 worked great and was pretty rock solid in terms of visuals and stability. Rome 2 uses the same engine but so many more people are having issues with it.

I don't know what it is and I hate to sound like some guy who just can't get with the times, but the last four total war games pale in comparison to Rome and Medieval 2. I don't know what it is, but the new games just kinda blow compared to those two. Empire was eh, haven't played Napoleon but I assume it is similar to Empire, Shogun 2 is the only decent one, and as of now I have shelfed Rome 2 until they fix the damn thing.

They really dropped the ball on this release. You have moronic AI, units that don't listen, shitty graphics and FPS, and terrible campaign interface. I could go on but, I still have hope they can patch this game so it improves.

I sort of agree. I think it's the "scope" of the games in a sense. In Medieval 2 you could play as 17 factions and there was a fantastic variety in them. The problem with Shogun 2 is that the Japanese factions don't really seem all that different. I mean, it makes sense historically but it's not as fun to play and experiment with.

 

[Blaster395]

The AI for the Total War games has been bad for a very specific reason: There are simply far too many possibilities to check.

It's like the difference between Chess AI and Go AI. Go has far simpler rules, but there are hundreds of possible moves per turn so an AI is incapable of planning more than a few moves ahead while a human can plan dozens of moves ahead. Meanwhile, chess only has about 3 or 4 moves worth considering for most of the game, so AI can check 20 or 30 turns ahead. Even running a Chess AI program on a typical PC will create an opponent unbeatable by humans at the highest settings, while the best Go AI barely plays better than an amateur.

Compare this to total war games, where there are not just thousands but millions of potential moves, and the rules are more complex than both chess and go combined. The typical strategy AI coding system of checking all possible moves and all the possible moves after those possible moves onward is impossible.

Not only that, but the Total War AI criteria for what counts as a good move or not is also going to be awful, because the AI cannot make judgement such as "What is the probability that the player will see these hidden units?" or "Will I flank the player before they notice?". In chess, the criteria is far simpler.

I don't buy it. Yes, programming AI for strategy games is incredibly complex, but that doesn't excuse TW's failures in comparison to comparable games. Paradox games (Europa Universalis, Victoria, Crusader Kings), the Civilizations, Starcraft, and virtually all other strategy games have better AI than the TWs. No TW game even gets the most basic elements of diplomacy down.

All the games you listed have either grids (Civilization), minigrids (Starcraft) or a graph for the map (EU3 V2 CK2). Total War is the only game that is gridless. I repeat the fact that there are far fewer potential moves in these games than in Total War.

None of the games you mentioned is famed for having competent AI either. Civilization AI has struggled even after 2 expansion packs even with the advantage of a huge grid and really simple city specialization (The AI basically follows the recommendations it sets the player anyway). Starcraft has the AI follow a preset list of builds that are specifically programmed for specific scenarios while total war is so divergent that giving the AI specific plans like that doesn't work. EU3, V2 and CK2 AI isn't even intelligent, for the most part it just makes random choices influenced by a few fixed factors (such as relationship modifiers and strength comparisons) while moving its armies towards opponents. Sure, it can play the game and tech up and build stuff, but that isn't an indicator of higher level planning, that just indicates it knows how to follow the rules.

There is another way of putting the differences into words without going too heavily into maths. Tactics in Total War is very much about pattern recognition (formations, flanking and securing flanks, ensuring vulnerable units are protected) and pattern problem solving (How many different routes are optimal to take to ensure I can surround the opponent in this city battle?), something humans are godly at while computers can't do shit. The most intelligent thing I have seen the AI do is be able to properly garrison cities via placing units at correct rank and file to perfectly block streets from multiple sides while keeping ranged units in a protected 'fortress' of sorts, and that's just incredible for an AI with this kind of game even though the player will still easily problem solve a way to crush it.

 

[Realitycrash]

I like the game, but I have issues.
The Diplomacy is silly (The AI REFUSES to trade. Why!? Even if you are 'in the green' relationship-wise with five factions, only one of them wants to trade with you).
You can no longer sell military access.

Some factions are unbalanced. I can ignore Rome being OP, as it always is, but giving Carthaginians and Egyptians War-Elephant Generals recruitable for 0 Denarii from turn one? That is fucking stupid. They feel as OP as the Cataphracts did back in Rome: TW.

Units stop chasing routing enemies and you have to specifically order them to do such. Killing routing enemies takes forever, even with light-cavalry. Like one kill every 15 sec or so, even if you have 80 Light Cav and you are chasing down 60 fleeing spearmen. Baffling.

Despite this, it's still a good game. I have a decent graphics-card, though not the best of the best (AMD Radeon 7750) and I can run it on highest setting without any issues. The graphics are about the same as Shogun 2.
I have no issues with the UI, but I wish you would have a clear skill-tree for the generals.
Agents seem a tad expensive now to recruit (1200 for a spy? O-key then..), and you can no-longer move units without having a general (and you can only have a certain number of generals depending on your empire size).

Overall, not a bad game. Will become better as it is patched and they fix or adjust some of the mentioned issues.
It is NOT an "Epic Fail" gameplay-wise. Don't believe the whiners. It might not live up to the hype, but it certainly isn't bad. The only fail might be that some people are having problem with even running it. But that's a launch-fail, a fail which belongs to the beta-testers and CA, not a fail with the gameplay and the game itself.

 

[In Search of Username]

I haven't really had any major issues. The graphics/performance could be a little better but they're not bad by any means. The gameplay itself, be it on the battlefield or the campaign map, is as fun as ever. It's a good game, just wait a while before buying it if the bugs are going to piss you off that much.

That said, I'm still UNBELIEVABLY TERRIBLE at it. I can't even finish the prologue.

 

[Oroboros]

The AI for the Total War games has been bad for a very specific reason: There are simply far too many possibilities to check.

It's like the difference between Chess AI and Go AI. Go has far simpler rules, but there are hundreds of possible moves per turn so an AI is incapable of planning more than a few moves ahead while a human can plan dozens of moves ahead. Meanwhile, chess only has about 3 or 4 moves worth considering for most of the game, so AI can check 20 or 30 turns ahead. Even running a Chess AI program on a typical PC will create an opponent unbeatable by humans at the highest settings, while the best Go AI barely plays better than an amateur.

Compare this to total war games, where there are not just thousands but millions of potential moves, and the rules are more complex than both chess and go combined. The typical strategy AI coding system of checking all possible moves and all the possible moves after those possible moves onward is impossible.

Not only that, but the Total War AI criteria for what counts as a good move or not is also going to be awful, because the AI cannot make judgement such as "What is the probability that the player will see these hidden units?" or "Will I flank the player before they notice?". In chess, the criteria is far simpler.

I don't buy it. Yes, programming AI for strategy games is incredibly complex, but that doesn't excuse TW's failures in comparison to comparable games. Paradox games (Europa Universalis, Victoria, Crusader Kings), the Civilizations, Starcraft, and virtually all other strategy games have better AI than the TWs. No TW game even gets the most basic elements of diplomacy down.

All the games you listed have either grids (Civilization), minigrids (Starcraft) or a graph for the map (EU3 V2 CK2). Total War is the only game that is gridless. I repeat the fact that there are far fewer potential moves in these games than in Total War.

None of the games you mentioned is famed for having competent AI either. Civilization AI has struggled even after 2 expansion packs even with the advantage of a huge grid and really simple city specialization (The AI basically follows the recommendations it sets the player anyway). Starcraft has the AI follow a preset list of builds that are specifically programmed for specific scenarios while total war is so divergent that giving the AI specific plans like that doesn't work. EU3, V2 and CK2 AI isn't even intelligent, for the most part it just makes random choices influenced by a few fixed factors (such as relationship modifiers and strength comparisons) while moving its armies towards opponents. Sure, it can play the game and tech up and build stuff, but that isn't an indicator of higher level planning, that just indicates it knows how to follow the rules.

There is another way of putting the differences into words without going too heavily into maths. Tactics in Total War is very much about pattern recognition (formations, flanking and securing flanks, ensuring vulnerable units are protected) and pattern problem solving (How many different routes are optimal to take to ensure I can surround the opponent in this city battle?), something humans are godly at while computers can't do shit. The most intelligent thing I have seen the AI do is be able to properly garrison cities via placing units at correct rank and file to perfectly block streets from multiple sides while keeping ranged units in a protected 'fortress' of sorts, and that's just incredible for an AI with this kind of game even though the player will still easily problem solve a way to crush it.

Total War Modders regularly address these issues when improving the generally incompetent AI in TW games. The fact that modders can tackle these problems (often with much lesser resources than the devs themselves) while the development team themselves cannot time and again live up to even those expectations. That doesn't speak much about their AI programming skills, IMO.

 

[Blaster395]

Total War Modders regularly address these issues when improving the generally incompetent AI in TW games. The fact that modders can tackle these problems (often with much lesser resources than the devs themselves) while the development team themselves cannot time and again live up to even those expectations. That doesn't speak much about their AI programming skills, IMO.

Actually, all that AI modders do is change a few variables in the AI code along the lines of "Strength of response to Human flanking" or "Aggressiveness with cavalry". I have played a wide variety of mods and they are rarely a major improvement.

 

[Barciad]

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/06/total-war-rome-ii-review
I just read this review in the Guardian. Mr Croshaw himself would have been proud of such a demolition job. It is as buggy and as flawed as this review makes out?

 

[Frankster]

Battles actually load quite quickly, it's the end of turn "loading" that takes forever this time around.

Cheers for the response, decided to get the game after that as the lure of a playable if flawed total war was too much of a sirens call.
Can indeed confirm battle loading times are reasonable and though the end of turn wait is annoying...It's still not as obnoxious as a single shogun 2 loading screen which would happen multiple times per turn.

Only played a few hours thus far but from first impressions i can confirm some of what has already been said...:

Dumb AI: Considering that a month ago the escapist had a rome 2 feature by the devs on how much better the AI was... What happened here? Also at first i welcomed the constant kamikazing single unit forces as a free source of xp for my legions, but as my borders grew it became an obnoxious pain. Yey for autobattles.

Bugs: One time a kamikaze unit did actually take my city! Basically a carthagian general set sail to take one of my cities, killed all but 7 of his bodyguard unit before they landed, and though they weren't riding elephants due to disembarking, their stats still counted as if they were riding elephants...So imagine 7 bloodied men swamped by 600 roman haspati and utterly demolishing them dynasty warriors style, sending groups of romans flying with each blow.
I was laughing so hard i almost didn't mind losing the city.

Some personal observations:
-No blood, wtf? Oh right, its gonna be DLC like with Shogun 2. As a gore enthusiast, this annoys me no end especially as said blood pack likely won't be available for another 6 months or so i imagine.
-General speeches: i wont say there are none since at start of battle (after you deployed) your general says a few lines...But its nothing like the trait based speeches that old Total wars used to have. Shame.

 

[The Forlorn]

4 stars? Try 1.

This review is way too generous. I expected more from an indie publication like Escapist. This is the kind of pulled punches we expect from PC Gamer. This game is a wreck of forgotten features and truly abysmal AI. The features that are in the game are largely broken or poorly implemented. The optimization is a joke.

And you said nothing of the bait and switch pre-release footage, doctored marketing materials which were repeatedly said to represent actual in-game footage (NO ONE has graphics like they depicted because those graphics aren't actually in the game!) or the massive FPS drops.

 

[Sharonturn123]

I'm sorry but this game is absolute shit. I'm a hard core fan of the first one and i must say that this game is not playable, at least not now and not on my pc. I have a good gaming pc and I must say even when i tune down the graphics it still isn't nearly as good feel. Also AI is as intelligent as a common frog.