Rome 2 is a Terrible Game.

You clearly have no experience at Rome 2, you selecting the worst rome 2 unit vs the best rome 2 unit (pretorians) no wonder they won, and no wonder the veterans which are 10 times better hold till the end.
You you want 2 pretorians surrounded routed instantly that would be stupid and unreallistic

Aww come on man you can"t say that its the fan most favorite rome total war ever since RomeTw, i know it's doesn't bring back the old vibe, but afterall it still a good games tho. Better than most modern total war nowadays.
It still fun and enjoyable tho.

The dumbing down of gaming has been happening for decades. I stopped being mad about if many years ago. Normies get what normies want. People want to right click on an enemy blob and watch the epic cinematic action. That's all. People who think and want a realistic challenge are a small minority. Complaining about it useless. The only hope left is indie developers who cater to niche interests.

Didn’t shogun 2 have the Provence system? Or am I confusing myself

I was wondering what I was doing wrong for my cavalry to be fleeing after 20 seconds of combat against archers that they'd just charged from the rear.

Good to know the new TW stuff is just shit. Guess I'll go back to M2 or find something else.

Your ass in that Game

had pretty much the same convo with my own personal lolcow
he tried strawmanning me by pointing out that the socii javelins will beat the praetorian guards when this is obviously about the shitty melee mechanics and balance

he had the audacity to shitfling the unit diversity meme too just to prove 1 unit spam wins by doing it when i finally caved and tried rome2 again and did a single mp campaign, ofc he hosted and picked rome and spammed half upkeep socii hastati only
he also had default auto resolve so he could force autoresolves to make it even more rigged

My thoughts exactly. So much bs holding back the game. The battles look beautiful but apart from that not much going for Rome 2. They should have kept the city management system from Rome 1 and the character development system. I still don't know what the zeal, authority , cunning actually does. It was simpler before with command, management and influence . And why have 3 agents that commit 3 actions each? Could have made it simpler

I played Rome 2 for 3 months,
1. I don't like province system there
2. I don't know why minor settlement don't have walls
3. Romans army in Rome TW can be fragile despite how strong they are, Rome 2 units like if your army have better stats just massacred your average army even though you have better tactics

I played as Macedonians, the dumb tactic I use was bring one balista to forced the ai to move them while my army just standing there and wait. The ai won't hesitate to charge to my pike Phalanx and killed themselves, Hammer and Anvil tactics won't effective despite how weak or strong the shock Calvary I brought, the enemy general just thrown himself under the bus by charge to my pike too

rome 2 makes me wanna punsh an Ostrich, bloody bird

Rome 2 could be better without predictable autoresolve.

I still play the OG Rome, played it last night.
Never played Rome 2 or watched that much footage of it, i played OG Shogun and Medieval, Rome (and Barbarian Invasion) and Medieval 2.
I took a big pause because i realised CA had peaked, you know they're peaked when they don't have love for the games anymore, do bug fixes or the community is more energised.
I came back and played Empire and it was a massive drop off.
I played Shogun 2 and it is decent but what is the building panels all about.
CA has changed and i knew it wasn't worth committing money to a company who had lost its key people and its passion. Picked up three kingdoms and troy for free and it confirmed they'd lost their way.

Rome 2 is alr but Rome 2 dei is my favourite total war experience

Hi Volound. In your opinion, which total war games have a good collision system that enables you to use tactics effectively? I have only ever played Shogun 2 for the last couple years and have loved it. I was looking into Rome 2, since I love the time period, but after learning about the mechanics being altered to discourage flanks and real-life tactics, I am very discouraged to play Rome 2. Which total war games would you recommend to play after Shogun 2 for players like us?

Rome 2 is the best total war game ever

I respect that different TW fans have different takes on Rome 2. To be fair, i agree with a lot of the critiques which you and others have leveled at the game: dumbed down campaign and battle mechanics; a warscape engine which struggles with melee combat at times; difficulty which ramps up AI buffs rather than making the AI smarter and more advanced. Having said all that, I still find Rome 2 to be an enjoyable game, especially with the DeI mod. I also think that you are far too generous to Rome 1; a great game no doubt, but the campaign and tactical AI was by no means better than what the newer titles offer.

I haven't played Rome 1 in quite some time, so I'll refrain from making comments on that battle scenario. The Rome 2 scenario was exactly a fair depiction of combat:
1) You chose literally the most powerful and resilient infantry (Praetorians) to go against Socii Extraordinari. The latter are decent for battles against pre-reform infantry, but are no match against elite post-reform infantry. Perhaps there is an argument that the Praetorians (and Roman infantry in general) are OP, and I might see some validity there. But with the game's current unit roster and meta, picking the right units for the right job is pretty important. Moreover, you focused on the armor stats, but really morale and melee attack/defense are the more important determinants. The Praetorians have a significant advantage over the Socii in melee attack and morale, which, when combined with their pila volley and charge means you will need a very robust line to withstand their attack. More to the point - if you are trying to counter top-tier melee infantry in Rome 2 with your own melee, you should counter-charge instead of simply receiving the charge. Receiving the charge against units like Praetorians is not viable unless your units with expert charge defense (hoplites, phalanx).
2) Higher Difficulties do significantly buff up the AI unit stats. I don't recall how Rome 1 handled the difficulty grades, but from Medieval 2 onwards, the AI stat buffing has been a major deficiency with TW titles and is by no means limited to Rome 2. For this reason, there Very Hard battle difficulties are NOT RECOMMENDED in Rome 2; they don't affect AI behavior while affording significant cheats (stat buffs). Play normal or Hard at the most for battle difficulty; tactics, like those shown in the above video, are much more viable and better simulated.
3) The battle capabilities were not well-timed or chosen for the Rome 2 scenario. Battle rhythm offers some buffs at a significant penalty of fatigue. Increased fatigue impacts morale and fighting capabilities, which puts your already over-matched Socii Extraordinari at an even greater disadvantage. Meanwhile your Gladiators had killing spree and frenzy capabilities, both of which went unused in their flanking/rear attacks. The button-enabled capabilities are a bit arcadey for my tastes, but there is some tactical decision-making required to employ them correctly, which seemed to be lacking in your Rome 2 playtest.

Rome 2 is a very much an infantry-centric game, with a big weighting given to dedicated heavy infantry units. You can in fact employ pincer and envelopment tactics against superior forces, but you do need troops of sufficient quality to hold your front line or otherwise distract the enemy. A phalanx or hoplite formation, or a kiting skirmisher tactic would have been a much more logical and viable option to go against Praetorians. That aside, I do agree that Vanilla still leaves something to be desired in terms of overall balance and realism. DeI is one of many mods for this game and it does a fantastic job of rebalancing the tactical and campaign gameplay. Front-line combat will generally last much longer (affording the player time to analyze and decide on actions), and morale shocks (rear charges, elephants, fire missiles) can have a more decisive impact on the enemy; chain routes become very feasible once you understand how all of the updated mechanics work. The vanilla game isn't as good as it could have been, but it certainly isn't as bad as some make it out to be.

DEI makes it one of the best TB strategy campaigns

my nigga your difficulty is set to very hard what the actual fuck did you expect to happen

Die, rome 2 is the best tw game

I absolutely love and hate how much rome is carried by mods. DEI is the only reason I keep playing rome 2 because it changes a lot of things and improves more than whatever the hell CA did.

One thing I noticed is how quick the battles in Rome 2 are compared to 1. Something doesn't go right in Rome 2 you have no time to adjust or think your army just folds immediately. Oh you made the mistake of putting a tier 2 unit in a fight with tier 3 watch as your entire left side just instantly turns to mush. Same with my Attila campaign I played recently. The battles just devolve into auto resolve hard battles because you don't have tier 3 units that can go toe to toe with attila. Level 2 spears get pounded hard by cavalry to the point where 1 unit of cavalry will half health a unit of spears meaning even if you do repel one army the subsequent horde is going to wipe you out because your units are like butter.

Now there have been battles when some roman cohorts have formed squares and maintained cohesion and discipline. But this here is ridiculous.

Bro ur playing on VH wyd

No. Fantasy vs Historical is a valid dichotomy. Rome II is a fantasy game skinned in Ancient Rome. Not a historical simulation like Rome or Med2

rome 2 is tight wtf

Oh man, the countless hours I've put to RTW multiplayer battles back in the day. That was entertaining as hell. Especially team battles - 2x2, 3x3, 4x4. You had, for example, greek hoplites holding the front, egyptian archers supporting and parthian cataphracts as a finisher. Same for your opponents. Every battle started from skirmishes on the side, where you would use horse archers or archer chariots with a support of a light cavalry. The loser of this skirmish would be forced to advance and attack, already putting himself at a slight disadvantage. Then the foot archer skirmish, then then the infantry charge followed by maneuvers of cavalry and chariot units. Everything depended on the way you engaged units. Every good player knew strengths and weaknesses of their units and tried to exploit them to reach victory. Great experience overall.
Rome II can't even compare to the complexity and fun of Rome I. You summed it up pretty good.

i get chain routs and good flanks in rome 2 because i know how to play it

Seems like mad cause bad😮

Does the fact that the
CPU linne was 2 deep so no individual unit was actually surrounded matter?

Just discovered this channel, catching up. Rome 2 has been in my Steam library for nearly 10 years and I've recently been trying to commit to playing it. It just feels off, and like something is missing in the battles. This video so accurately displays why games like Rome, Med 2, and Shogun 2 have such a following even today.

'It doesn't bother the wolf how many the sheep may be', why would you expect inferior troops to beat superior troops just because you have them surrounded.

Rome 2 is a good game, multiplayer battles especially sieges are good, multiplayer campaigns are fun too, the AI sucks but what game AI is any good? the problem i find now is they blocked the chat on the looby/game and then u cant see if the other players understand the rules, it sucks to wait 20 min for a game and then you meet players completly noobs and/or pike, archer, artilhary spam and if there is no chat for new players how can they learn the 124?

I know this is a void point, but Divide et Impera makes Rome 2 really good. Put 200 hours in it the last 3 months. But yes Rome 2 is a bad game.

i know this is a old video but the agrument people use of the praetorian guard bullshit but none of them understand that praetorian guards were never used in armies they were no way near as trained as a legionary

Look how they massacred my boy! Great video. Looking forward to Rome 1 remaster it’ll be better than anything CA could make today.

Despite the flaws I have about as many hours as shogun 2 thanks to mods

but the surrounded praetorians had well fought and were victorius over the socii so why should they rout?

Dude, dont blame the game if it isnt working the way you want
Learn some mechanics from Maximus Decimus Meridius channel

I feel like this video is a good critique of Rome 2. I've spent hours in both and I'll always say the battles were better in Rome 1. The units felt more responsive and actually behaved like individual soldiers in a unit compared to the blobs of Rome 2. However, in your Rome 1 test, I wish instead of spamming un-upgraded Urbans, you would've instead used fewer Urbans but with Gold/Gold upgrades. Gold/Gold Urbans would walk right through Legionary Cohorts like a sports team through a paper banner. You wouldn't even get time to get your gladiators into position to flank before your Legionaries routed to Urbans who would then turn around and kill all your Gladiators. Fewer elite units with G/G upgrades was always the meta in Rome 1. I might try the test myself with G/G upgrades on both teams though that leaves less funds for mid-tier units.

Rome 2 is a game where the enemy army fights forever and only routes whe there's like 3 guys left fighting vs 1000 men. And where javilins and arrows machine gun down everything in sight

The battle can be won with 4 Legionary Cohort (cheaper than Socii and Veterans) and 1 unit of Elephants. Over 3000 funds unspent, likely with room to improve. Or get some better infantry like Veterans with some shock cavalry. When fighting against one of the toughest sword infantry units in the game on the hardest difficulty, it makes sense to use the optimal tools that the game provides. The hardest difficulty should test a player's knowledge of unit counters rather than let them win with a comparatively weak army.

Your explanation for Very Hard being a "true test" is not convincing. Changing the difficulty distorts the stats and is therefore not a good test of the stats. This battle can be easily won on Normal, where the intended balance of the units is at, where the stats of the units are accurately displayed in relation to each other.

I agree with all of your points but 1 : I like the province system. Sure it makes the map less flexible, but also offer it more flavour. And it's not like Shogun 2 cities didn't had High value land (such as stat boosting or gold mines).

It's crazy because I agree with you, yet Rome 2 is my favorite TW game (mods only). I'm ashamed of myself but I just can't put up with the dated graphics of old. I'm 27 too so i grew up with it and should accept it.

Rome 2 (now that mods have fixed it for me), just has that right balance of aesthetics/fun. As I sit here and think of how I can elaborate more, I can't. It's a pretty shit game. No challenge just cheating AI, boring campaign mechanics ect but I still like it. It's just the best modern "historical" title we have I guess. Battles compared to all newer titles are superior aswell which is the main selling point.

I'm still with you though. It's a backstep and CA are jokers for how it released and persists even until this day. I would argue maybe people who like Rome 2 think like me. We see it's flaws and understand it's trash. But it's the best trash we've had in 10 years. It's still the most popular for replays too right gaining 100k+ views. I just wish we had more...

It’s a treat watching pro Rome players do their thing

If you don't like total Rome 2 and you prefer Rome remaster way you then comment. I more like Rome 2 because is better and battle is really more realistic.

You love to complain, don't you. Every. Single. Video.