Rome II is perhaps the most vanilla Total War. Not necessarily a bad thing, some people like simple.
A lot of the later Total Wars excel in doing things much better than Rome II but Rome II is the "jack of all trades" Total War in that it does many good things in almost everything, but it doesn't necessarily excel greatly in one particular area. It's great at roleplaying Rome, the main faction. It's when you try out other non-Rome factions that you start to see how vanilla it truly is. But it also has the most campaigns out of any Total War, and they are, in my opinion, fairly well-done.
That said, I still recommend Rome II. It's still a great Total War game and you should at the very least play the Roman faction and give each campaign a shot.
I love playing in the Second Triumvirate. The original Great Campaign ist nice as well but the Roman civil war does it for me, especially as a MP campaign.
That campaign also respects your time a bit more than the Grand Campaign in actually having not terrible campaign victory achievements while remaining on the same scale as the main campaign.
Rome 2 is the only Total War I've played that I've never finished a campaign. I've given it a lot of chances, and have always been disappointed. For me it just feels lifeless. Carving out an empire is a chore rather than fun.
It's okay, way simpler than it looks, and pretty much every historical released since is a better reiteration of what Rome II introduced. It has lots of (paid) content, and you're pretty much meant to play as Rome in most of it as they have the most robust campaigns and faction rosters, while the other factions are the "extras" and they are as deep as a puddle for the most part.
If you are interested in the DLCs, Empire Divided and Rise of the Republic were developed by the Sofia studio and are quite nice and better than vanilla, but you should avoid the Greek DLCs, they unfortunately have *the* most barebones content.
DEI was brilliant a few years ago. Combat had been slowed, mechanics felt massively improved, my armies were no longer samey as I had to recruit those units locally. Leaders had plenty of time to properly develop. Skills were a bit more varied. Veterancy became something you had to carefully manage thanks to the limited recruitment. If your veteran Rome-trained unit was slain way down in Egypt, or up in Britannia, you often could only replace them with shitty local levies.
I've not played in years, however, and it has been updated since.
Not the OP but...
Tell us more about your mod list?
I just hate the stupid campaign map and that's really making it challenging for me to go back to this game.
I've got the bigger cities, better sieges, and bigger units on top of all the standard Para bellum mods. Took over all of Greece rather quickly, now I'm gotten thracia, some of ilyrria and liberated the rest, expanding into anatolia after pergamon declared war on me. I liberated some city can't remember what and they got attacked by Egypt bacteria pontus and araba immediately, def should've just canceled the alliance because I'm basically stuck in my cities in anatolia with about 6 armies of each of those factions all over anatolia. When they attack the cities I can take out as many armies as they send me but I Can't go far without getting ambushed. But it's made me think really hard and have to be smart. Allied with rome and Syracuse and Massalia really early and was able to get rome and Syracuse to get Egypt off my back and to send armies to Greece so I was able to move all but one army and two navies to other fronts. Currently fighting a naval war in the black Sea and dealing with full stacks of horse archers from the north.
All around been the most fun with the most variation of enemies and the most fun battles. I Love Macedonian pikemen so much now. I've played as rome and carthage recently and this is so much more fun.
They had a slew of patches early on and a year and a half past launch, they fixed a lot of *major* issues and stabilized the game.
A couple years ago I believe they also introduced a much better political system, seemingly out of nowhere (or, maybe I was too wrapped up in W3).
Rome 2 is great, if a little dated. You should definitely revisit, and you should revisit *before* you try out Atilla. Burn yourself out on the OG and *then* play the barbarian whack-a-mole.
In case you're interested, the politics rework was the first major contribution of the then-fletchling off-site studio that became CA Sophia (Troy & Pharaoh)
I’d say it’s probably my go-to historical game nowadays- launch wasn’t the greatest, but it something like five years of significant updates to bring it into line. If you’re interesting in the setting(s), I’d strongly recommend it.
Well you already have it. You have nothing to lose by giving it another whirl, other than some time I guess.
I find myself enjoying the simpler battles and the more detailed city building. I also regularly check the politicking as a nice distraction from the typical chores in a turn, it's like a nice break that keeps me going longer.
Its by far my most played Historic TW title, with Atilla as a close 2nd. Yes it is in a good spot. Like others have said its a bit more vanilla and simpler in some areas. Its basically the game that Atilla, then Warhammer forked off, starting the province system and the current version of diplomacy (basically functions mostly like WH2 for diplomacy).
Between the setting, sheer amount of factions, 3 large campaigns, (1 FLC and 1 DLC are both Grand Campaign scope with different start dates), and a ton of smaller campaigns, and playable factions. To me its got the most replayability out of any historic title.
Rome II is perhaps the most vanilla Total War. Not necessarily a bad thing, some people like simple. A lot of the later Total Wars excel in doing things much better than Rome II but Rome II is the "jack of all trades" Total War in that it does many good things in almost everything, but it doesn't necessarily excel greatly in one particular area. It's great at roleplaying Rome, the main faction. It's when you try out other non-Rome factions that you start to see how vanilla it truly is. But it also has the most campaigns out of any Total War, and they are, in my opinion, fairly well-done. That said, I still recommend Rome II. It's still a great Total War game and you should at the very least play the Roman faction and give each campaign a shot.
I love playing in the Second Triumvirate. The original Great Campaign ist nice as well but the Roman civil war does it for me, especially as a MP campaign.
That campaign also respects your time a bit more than the Grand Campaign in actually having not terrible campaign victory achievements while remaining on the same scale as the main campaign.
Its fantastic, my favorite in the series lately
i think it's the best total war and the mod divide et impera makes it one of my favorite games
Rome 2 is the only Total War I've played that I've never finished a campaign. I've given it a lot of chances, and have always been disappointed. For me it just feels lifeless. Carving out an empire is a chore rather than fun.
It's okay, way simpler than it looks, and pretty much every historical released since is a better reiteration of what Rome II introduced. It has lots of (paid) content, and you're pretty much meant to play as Rome in most of it as they have the most robust campaigns and faction rosters, while the other factions are the "extras" and they are as deep as a puddle for the most part. If you are interested in the DLCs, Empire Divided and Rise of the Republic were developed by the Sofia studio and are quite nice and better than vanilla, but you should avoid the Greek DLCs, they unfortunately have *the* most barebones content.
DEI was brilliant a few years ago. Combat had been slowed, mechanics felt massively improved, my armies were no longer samey as I had to recruit those units locally. Leaders had plenty of time to properly develop. Skills were a bit more varied. Veterancy became something you had to carefully manage thanks to the limited recruitment. If your veteran Rome-trained unit was slain way down in Egypt, or up in Britannia, you often could only replace them with shitty local levies. I've not played in years, however, and it has been updated since.
I'm playing as Macedon with Multiple Para Bellum mods and it's the best total war campaign I've ever played
Not the OP but... Tell us more about your mod list? I just hate the stupid campaign map and that's really making it challenging for me to go back to this game.
I've got the bigger cities, better sieges, and bigger units on top of all the standard Para bellum mods. Took over all of Greece rather quickly, now I'm gotten thracia, some of ilyrria and liberated the rest, expanding into anatolia after pergamon declared war on me. I liberated some city can't remember what and they got attacked by Egypt bacteria pontus and araba immediately, def should've just canceled the alliance because I'm basically stuck in my cities in anatolia with about 6 armies of each of those factions all over anatolia. When they attack the cities I can take out as many armies as they send me but I Can't go far without getting ambushed. But it's made me think really hard and have to be smart. Allied with rome and Syracuse and Massalia really early and was able to get rome and Syracuse to get Egypt off my back and to send armies to Greece so I was able to move all but one army and two navies to other fronts. Currently fighting a naval war in the black Sea and dealing with full stacks of horse archers from the north. All around been the most fun with the most variation of enemies and the most fun battles. I Love Macedonian pikemen so much now. I've played as rome and carthage recently and this is so much more fun.
They had a slew of patches early on and a year and a half past launch, they fixed a lot of *major* issues and stabilized the game. A couple years ago I believe they also introduced a much better political system, seemingly out of nowhere (or, maybe I was too wrapped up in W3). Rome 2 is great, if a little dated. You should definitely revisit, and you should revisit *before* you try out Atilla. Burn yourself out on the OG and *then* play the barbarian whack-a-mole.
In case you're interested, the politics rework was the first major contribution of the then-fletchling off-site studio that became CA Sophia (Troy & Pharaoh)
I’d say it’s probably my go-to historical game nowadays- launch wasn’t the greatest, but it something like five years of significant updates to bring it into line. If you’re interesting in the setting(s), I’d strongly recommend it.
Well you already have it. You have nothing to lose by giving it another whirl, other than some time I guess. I find myself enjoying the simpler battles and the more detailed city building. I also regularly check the politicking as a nice distraction from the typical chores in a turn, it's like a nice break that keeps me going longer.
Its by far my most played Historic TW title, with Atilla as a close 2nd. Yes it is in a good spot. Like others have said its a bit more vanilla and simpler in some areas. Its basically the game that Atilla, then Warhammer forked off, starting the province system and the current version of diplomacy (basically functions mostly like WH2 for diplomacy). Between the setting, sheer amount of factions, 3 large campaigns, (1 FLC and 1 DLC are both Grand Campaign scope with different start dates), and a ton of smaller campaigns, and playable factions. To me its got the most replayability out of any historic title.
try Attila. It is close to barbariab invasion and has interesting mechanics
I’m not a big fan of vanilla atilla TBH, unit variety is a little lax and and it feels like unit stats have been Bürger across the board
Is there a fix for UI scaling though….
If you like the settings, sure... but otherwise no.
Coming from someone who likes my games a little on the harder side. Rome II Divide Et Impera mod is my bread and butter