Rome II.
This game is perhaps one of the best games I’ve played in a very long time. The only game that can come close to this type of setting is maybe Assassin’s Creed. At launch, it was barebones. Now, it’s a £90 game full of expansions and launches, and Creative Assembly has redeemed itself. What game allows you to play in the deserts of Arabia, the Pyramids of Egypt, and the Seven Wonders? Creative’s Assembly new studio, Sofia CA introduced some much-needed updates, including lighting and graphical changes including RPG events. The Desert Kingdoms and Empire Divided has some excellent storytelling. There are thousands of mods if not to your liking.
The mods I play with are Divide Et Impera and Wars of the Gods. Great overhauls with plenty of factions to play with. This game is excellent even as vanilla. Though the game suffers from a lack of cinematics, especially faction introductions. In Shogun 2 you knew the purpose of each clan and you had a special video for it. In Rome II, you have the introduction but not a cinematic video. I do wish CA come back to this and release an update for cinematics. I also note that some of the battle maps, especially city settlements are copied and pasted, and hence you only play 6-7 unique settlements. For example, I was attacking Syracuse and the battle map showed up as Carthage’s unique settlement. I do implore CA to release their Arena maps into the game as a free update, and I also ask that they release new maps. Shogun 2 had a TED editor, whereas Rome II has around 5000 mods or so. I think RII deserves a TED update, a battle map editor that can resolve this problem.
The campaign is epic and the visuals are gorgeous. There are mods that do specific lighting, but the campaign’s new political system is quite good actually. It gives you a lot of freedom to enact stories. For example, I was playing DEI and it fits so well with the new family system. In my Carthage Campaign, Bostar, Leader of the Carthaginian Republic had decided to wreck’s Rome power. Using Hannibal, he turned Rome’s influence into a wretched hotpot and declared republic puppet city-states. He became more mad, and eventually conquered the Balkans and began declaring war on everybody. There were numerous attempts to destroy him but that flopped. Bostar than died, and a new leader, can’t remember his name, Amestos, withdraw from the Balkans, consolidated his power, and finish the threat of the Barbarian tribes. The Massilians had been funding Carthage and often being quite helpful. But they had occupied a good portion of Gaul and Hispania. Bostar had also recognised that Massilia’s growing influence would lead to war one day. Amestos became older, and soon a powerful woman noble decided to wreak havoc on her husband. Amestos removed her, and to the days of his passing, he became weary.
I’ve never been able to craft such a wonderful unique campaign experience such as this. It depends. If you’re a heavy paradox player this feature may seem light. If you’re a heavy traditional fan, this game may not be for you. RII also often has discounted sales, so pick and choose what you like. I love this game. I think this game needs a TED battle map editor and then everything’s fine. I do wish RII got some more DLCs and maybe why not add Mesomaerica in an alternate DLC? Creative Assembly can create historical DLCs with an alternate timeline? What if the Romans had sailed to the New World? I think this would be an epic DLC to create. I sincerly hope Creative Assembly creates more DLC for this game. Love it.
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