A Ghost Haunts Total War - The Ghost of Rome 2

[@AndysTake]

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[@ramsaysnow9196]

nothing makes up for atillas weakneses,it does not matter what they ad if the basic things are crap

[@nsawatchlistbait289]

Shogun 2/Fall of the Samurai is peak Total War because it has both Rome and Empire's features, and they only kept what worked and left out what didn't

[@alejandrojosespinamendez5668]

you mean Rome 2, right? cause there is another Rome total war

[@nsawatchlistbait289]

@@alejandrojosespinamendez5668 no I'm talking about OG Rome

[@mjc8281]

Totally this Shogun 2 and the Fall, both amazing and to follow it up with Rome 2 was nothing short of shocking, normally AAA titles there is a slow slide but with Total War it was like driving off a cliff. If you would tell me that after Fall I would only ever buy one more Total War I would have been totally stunned, but that's how it played out.

[@JA-lr5ix]

Full stop completely agree

[@JA-lr5ix]

Empire fell flat on it’s face so Rome 2 could eventually piss it’s pants

[@AndysTake]

lmao

[@va_sirberpasir9708]

Once again, somebody missing the points mentioned in the video

[@JA-lr5ix]

@@va_sirberpasir9708 I was more getting at the fact that the wallscape engine that was introduced in Empire led to a lot of the restrictions and issues in Rome to very poor collision To this day, I’m shocked that Napoleon and Shogun too turned out as well as they did using the same engine from Empire

[@mieszczuch]

I was a Total War player since the first Shogun. For me the main (and the worst) difference between classic Total Wars and post-Rome2 ones is this - health bars vs single hit points. This completely changed the dynamics of battles. They used to be (quasi) realistic, now they are arcade-style.

[@KasumiRINA]

So two hit points for ninjas and arcani was more realistic?

[@azarisLP]

I am once again begging people to learn what an "arcade" is.

[@sarstenstahlsarsten6577]

​@@azarisLP You can correct me if I am wrong but isnt arcade also a word for more "casual" games? At least when it comes to racing games you will often hear the term arcade racer for games like NFS where the car behaves less realistic then say forza motorsport

[@azarisLP]

@@sarstenstahlsarsten6577 I know. What on Earth do TW games have to do with racing games?

[@sarstenstahlsarsten6577]

@@azarisLP Dont know it just seems to be a term used for more casual games. What definition would you use?

[@analien4813]

I still wish Attila got the attention it needed.

[@Leo-ok3uj]

I wish they didn’t committed the incredibly dumb decision of making Attila a different game instead of just making it an expansion of Rome 2

[@djmustang000]

I wish they would have fixed and optimized it properly. The choppy performance turns me off from even great mods like Medieval 1212AD.

[@haroldgodwinsonshouldhavew3875]

attila was the best

[@Balovanka_from]

A great game, but for some reason it was quickly abandoned. And Rome 2 was supported for another 6 years.

[@haroldgodwinsonshouldhavew3875]

@@Balovanka_from because you have lots of roman weebs who all they know is muh loriga segmentata and post roman statues with 80 vhs filter

[@-DSet]

I just can't believe they STILL haven't moved on from the warscape engine... I remember complaining about it in 2013(!).

[@SuperTupcu]

Empire was the most phenomenical game in TW history. Province system, army-general recruitment system, naval battles, technology, trade & economy mechanism, population etc. Yet, there were two negative points which has been fixed in Napoleon. Firstly, some porvinces (Turkey, spain, france and persia) were so big. You just need to conquer one city to occupy whole province. Secondly, there were no occupation options.

[@stevenahlberg1542]

The family tree would have been nice to have to

[@armandom.s.1844]

Greatest potential, but catastrophic buggy execution. Provinces are terrible, mod options super limited and also bad designed unit rosters.

[@aleksjamnik5360]

Well other bad stuff like bad stuff like limmited provinces the depth of a med2/rome1 province is lost but the intresting choice off shogun 2 is not there, ai is stupid but combat and diplomacy, speaking of combat battles are not really good napoleon greatly inceasess the enjoyment but still it is not really a comabt good enough to carry a game, another bit fault is glitches altough better now it was a glithcy mess and it still can be another fault is its modding it is the first tw game to kill propper overhauls and finally possibly the worst sieges in any tw game, and this is just off the top of my head

[@lastword8783]

I hate empire. No amount of mods will fix its broken and buggy siege AI where your units get stuck or dont respond or the AI becomes a meme.

[@KasumiRINA]

It also had bad performance, units that look like sameface clones after variety in Medieval 2, incredibly slow-walking pawns on campaign map, cavalry that was absolutely useless, generals who quickly died if you tried cycle charging, wonky collisions, still bad pathfinding, with horsemen who somehow ride near a unit of retreating natives without hitting them, and worst of all, AI and sieges. Technically, the systems there were perfect... as long as you didn't try to play battles. Saying that as someone who thinks M2TW is broken too, with siege timers not enough to breach all castle wall so you keep autoresolving, useless pikes that break formation and cavalry that refuses to charge.

[@Haamre]

Rome II was saved by the Divide et Impera mod.

[@mattgardiner614]

It wasn't just Empire that had the annoying AI. I've never played Rome II, but Rome I I did, and I remember my last game as Armenia, whether I agreed to be Egypt's vassal, whether I made peace with them, they would never stop attacking me. That game and Medieval II - I later found out that they were both 'coded' so that you would be attacked by whoever had a border with you. Alliance or no alliance. I hated that. This is just one respect in which Empire and Napoleon were better, in my opinion.

[@pittsburghpirateshat8950]

I think the greatest total war game ever was medieval 2, despite it’s age it’s still heavily played, modded, and discussed today because the unit recruitment pool is probably the best recruitment system in all of total war, on top of the still highly active modding scene because of the game’s modding capabilities. Empire was my first major total war game, I remember coming home from middle school and playing it. Back when I made KZbin videos, I made a lot of them about empire. It got far more hate than it deserved and quite frankly so did Rome 2. F**k Warhammer, that is all. If I had the power, Warhammer would be illegal.

[@KasumiRINA]

Ironically, the thing most modded IS the unrealistic arcadish recruitment system of M2TW.

[@mattgardiner614]

It recently dawned on me that it should theoretically be possible to have units become obsolete in Empire, like they did in Medieval II and Rome. Because it has always been that way in Empire with the artillery. You start the game with sakers. Research canister, upgrade the building and those are replaced with 12 pounders. A couple of upgrades later, 12 pounders replaced by 24's. I can't remember, are Pikemen recruitable initially, or do you just start with one?

[@ilhamarasy3671]

As a modder of medieval 2 I agree if you say that game have many better fiture than any other total war But that fiture never become the best or advance. You know like empire have so many variant of shooting and rome have the best formation animation

[@blayas5239]

I would like an empire2/medieval3 to be made based on the old ones just taking advantage of a modern engine and superior AI.

[@mattgardiner614]

Empire 2. Everything you said, plus decent research into rosters/uniforms, and more provinces for France, Spain and Persia. Plenty else I'd like, but I'd be content with what I listed.

[@DraconimLt]

@@mattgardiner614 I'd add Sweden and maybe Turkey to that list, and I'd say that Portugal needed a 2nd region or at least some walls and a garrison that actually stayed in Lisbon so they didn't get immediately steamrolled.

[@mattgardiner614]

@@DraconimLt You shame me. I should have said Sweden (And Finland) as it's one of my favourite nations to play. Turkey, I also agree. But it would be Crete and Cyprus I would make separate provinces as they had both belonged to Venice at one point, and could be part of that factions victory conditions. A few other changes I would make would be to add wine and gems into the commodities box, at least one other trade zone (Tea in China, perhaps), and a new tech tree to go next to the philosophy one. (Medicine?)

[@heathclark318]

Superior AI.... LOL

[@DraconimLt]

@@mattgardiner614 Finnland as it was in Empire was ok (though maybe it could have had a bit more in it), Sweden and Turkey's issue was they were so big with so much in one region (like France and the others you listed), and when you took the Capital you got it all, would make more sense if you could just capture part of it and hold it. I agree on Crete and Cyprus, though I think the main bit should also be split into about 3 provinces as well.

[@bryanthesmith4441]

One feature I really was hoping for at some point was an option to liberate a faction by giving it back its province to original owner.

[@thadsul]

Apparently, empire for mobile (ported by Feral) will have this feature of liberating conquered provinces as subjects

[@bryanthesmith4441]

@@thadsul thanks for the heads up.

[@bryanthesmith4441]

might try it on my IPad and see if I can run the visuals through my monitor.

[@nsawatchlistbait289]

Rome 2 is the first Partial War with stat simulation taking precedence over tactical gameplay

[@owainevans89]

I still think Rome 2 is a bit lackluster. Feels so arcadelike to me

[@AndysTake]

@@owainevans89 yup… can only play that with DEI these days

[@owainevans89]

@@AndysTake I agree. Mods save these games

[@Z-1991]

I really need a remaster/remake of Empire or Empire 2 in my life.

[@stephenangell8490]

i've put over 1000 hours with multiple mods into empire hands down my favorite total war despite all the controversy. Empire 2 would be the best thing to happen to me in a decade.

[@Leo-ok3uj]

2 things, 1 fact and 1 opinion 1- To be fair (because of the coded limit of towns in each province) small provinces were also forced to stay small in Empire 2- After more than 1 thousand hours in empire I think that more than France just being one province being a problem, the problem is that the Ai doesn’t knows how to play around the fact that their capital is incredibly important and just abandons it without any worry, if the campaign Ai were at least decent…

[@KasumiRINA]

4:00 I started with Shogun and my biggest disappointment with (the first) Medieval was removal of agents videos. M2TW brought them back with glorious FMVs of guards catching spies (or not), and in Empires they have gentlemen dueling with so much black humor there. I love it! Total War does on thing better than any other strategy game: atmosphere. I wish the little cutscenes are back, having Geisha go on a rampage stabbing enemy agents and faction leaders was probably the only reason I kept being invested in Shogun to actually finish it after conquering half the map. Shogun 2 knew they HAVE to bring little ninja videos back. From what I hear, they got rid of agents altogether in Pharaoh, which is a shame, imagine videos of assassins following Egyptian priests!

[@MedjayofFaiyum]

Rome II tried to be too ambitious at the end of the day, and as a result suffered from the dreaded 'let's remove all the cool features we would put in the game because we can't be bothered to finish it properly and we need to hit sales despite knowing the backlash we'll get'. What Rome II is now, is total war working because when you have a giant map, with lots of factions, its fun. What Empire was exactly the same. BOTH games introduced new mechanics into the series, but they suffer from a streamlined campaign which doesn't do enough to engage you politically. Their battle systems however, changed a lot for what total war would become in the future. What Empire and Rome II did however do - take risks. Empire - naval battles, Rome II - so many new types of battle systems, a big gigantic map covering all the way to India, new cities etc. Plenty of positives to talk about here.

[@RM-cv4tl]

If CA updated this game as much as paradox updates EU4, I think they would probably be doing much better off than they are right now

[@RogueRanks]

The GOAT puts out another great video 😎 Its crazy how underbaked Rome 2 was at release, they definitely put in the effort to revitalize this entire game.

[@AndysTake]

@@RogueRanks the GOAT returns in the comments 🙏

[@comradepripin612]

Empire was one of the best total wars. Change my mind

[@Chtigga]

Let's be honest, Empire: Total War was a really ambitious game for its time but would have needed a few more months in the oven before getting released. Furthermore the AI on land battles was atrocious.

[@TheCompulsiveChicken]

When you started to list the faults of Rome II, I hated it, not because you were criticizing it, but because you were *right*: "Why would you say something so controversial yet so brave/" Ultimately what I think it came down to is that Empire poisoned the well when it came to the battles; the Warscape engine was good for the range-based combat focused on firearms, but it absolutely gutted battle in later games that went back to hand-to-hand battles, with Rome II being the most famous example. But where Empire affected the battles, Rome II, as you pointed out, gutted the campaign system. To this day I still say that Rome II is better because, despite the Warscape, the battles are still great (just not Rome 1 great) and I can deal with the campaign map. Meanwhile, issues with Empire's battles (particularly the siege battles) can stop a campaign in its tracks.

[@Mattyice831]

The only reason I don’t play empire and napoleon as much is the battle AI complete inability to properly keep its army in a effective line infantry formation, and instead constantly shuffle its troops like a headless chicken and rush its cav and general directly into canister shot. It kills the immersion for me. My unbiased take is I think the community is leaning towards wanting a med 3. I would gladly take an empire/ napoleon remaster made under ferral that would fix battle AI, expand the mod tools to allow for map editing. Hopefully they could even add in cut content that didn’t make it to the game. Perfect scenario would be med 3 being cooked up by CA with feral cooking up empire remastered

[@KasumiRINA]

"rush its cav and general directly into canister shot. It kills the immersion for me." you should really ready up on British history.

[@Mattyice831]

@@KasumiRINA horses are prey animals and there is no amount of training that is going to convince a horse to charge head first into a tightly packed formation of bayonets. I don’t think armies were using Cav let alone their general to slam head first into a full strength well organized infantry position. But I could be wrong

[@coa8752]

​@@Mattyice831 you are right many times it was tried and many times it failed, the french lost key battles that way during the 100 years war, because they were overconfident in their armor

[@azarisLP]

Idk who these people are who glorify Empire when almost everything about that game, most seriously the battles, were completely cooked. The scope is way too large for a TW game and is never going to be properly done no matter how much effort CA spend on it. You can't have a TW game spanning the entire globe in an era when gunpowder battles could involve 100,000 soldiers combined. It doesn't work.

[@KSzkodaGames]

Im still playing Empire Total War :) because its such a big game to conquer the world, I hope there's a Second game to conquer across the globe

[@MrKurtank]

Nice one, loved the sentence, "carrying the knife in the Senate". lol. Keep up the good work.

[@spartanrh83]

My biggest problem with Empire was the cannon. Artillery sucks in Empire. They fixed it pretty good in Napoleon and Shogun but I feel like Empire would have been a million times better if the cannon actually made a difference. I mean they are basically just distractions.

[@Doc_Tar]

I always liked Empire. It was made to be played as Britian. The naval battles aspect was great. I never understood all the hatred toward this title when there were others much worse Total War games.

[@Archris17]

Of course it was made to be played as Britain! Just look at the prestige, the power, the _drip!_ Protagonist nation if there ever was one, Britain is the main character of the 18th century until the mid-20th :^)

[@stevenahlberg1542]

Empire is awesome

[@manu_spawn]

I'm just gonna drop a little rumor I heard a few years ago. Total War won't keep existing apparently. The team is exhauseted and despise the franchise, plus "War on History" *IS* a thing, and games like these are being seeked and detroyed. So Medieval 3, Empire 2... Total War itself won't ever happen.

[@BittermanAndy]

I loved Empire, for all its undeniable faults, but by god it needs an Empire 2.

[@stevencass8849]

When Empire came out I loved that so much was placed on the map, and you could use your army to pillage the provinces. I always thought that was missing in Rome and Medieval 2. When Rome 2 was announced, I excited because I was thinking of the strategic possibilities for having farms and towns and ports on the map. First time I loaded it up, and no map raiding? Just a terrible experience to take away from players. Among many of Rome 2’s sins.

[@brunswickgaming1815]

Never been this early to an andy’s take video

[@khanousch]

Empire's battle AI was so bad, it could not handle line battle where time was needed to reload, constantly moving and rarely firing. The Bosphorus crossing bug tanked that part of the strategic map as well. Naval battles were okay but the maps were too small to properly align fleets to use the weather gauge and far too micro heavy imo. Still sank many hours into it, enjoyed the government aspects and character development based on player actions. Tried several mods but they all seemed to have the same issues.

[@Alfemus_]

I kind of like Rome 2, but not even close to my favourite Total War titles. Nonetheless I actually liked the separation between a navy and just transport boats. If an army gets caught with just transport boats a small navy could wipe them out. It was a risk that the player (and AI) had to be willing to take.

[@Harry_S._]

Rome I was a gamey simulation. Rome II was a simulationey game. Thats the issue.

[@TimmacTR]

Played full vanilla campaign recently, still amazing

[@gilgoofthegrove5072]

its the mechanics of empire that made it so great to me!

[@lordfreezer9550]

What many people fail to understand is that CA and sega poured so much money into rome 2, not because of the making of this single title but because they built a template with it where you could swap unit models, map and city models and have attila or have warhammer or have troy or thrones of brittania... This is common pratice in film industry where you are planning to make a trilogy and the first movie is the big spender where you build everything from scratch and then the second and third movie are less cost intensive because you reuse the production units from the first one. In gaming the result is a bunch of copies of the same game (rome 2) with different assets... That makes you feel like the franchise is in decadence because this game production model is incompatible with innovation, which a game franchise needs always. The only template breaking ive seen was in warhammer where they had to make magic spells and flying units and it was out of necessity to portray the setting right

[@juanmanuelsteverlynck4253]

I agree!!! They really should make another empire total war! Nothing new, more or less the same but with new graphs

[@charlesmiv3842]

I love the casual Harry Potter quote at 2:09

[@ranierberger8697]

the end of the golden age is atilla with the change of interface and mechanic

[@hocestbellumchannel]

Empire was the worst Total War game I personally played and I've played all historical titles apart from Pharaoh. It had horrible AI, tedius campaigning and horrible UNITS overall. They paid zero attention to the historical accuracy of the soldier models, they haven't implemented basic upgrading unit mechanics in accordance with the period and they abandoned the game in the end. Having said that, the era is extremely interesting and it seems to be very popular with historical-Total War fans and there is no equivalent game that came out to replace it since then. I still play it with mods but the game could have been so much more.

[@KasumiRINA]

I feel that the era starts a bit too late, and skipping pike & musket era played them bad, but Creative Assembly WANTED to sell to American market (hence, including America in Medieval 2), so they didn't bother with 1600s, jumping straight into 1700.

[@mixelplik]

I am in the same camp. I hated Empire, and its game-breaking bug: there was a bridge where the AI units gathered (Bosporus?) and it slowed the turns down to a crawl.

[@Panagiotis1709]

Fall of the samurai and Napoleon were PEAK.

[@PimpinLlama420]

I think streamlining these games like Rome 2 also did a lot of damage. Detail is so important in empire building and adds soul to the game like earlier titles.

[@ThomasHector-xv3pn]

Also one of my main grips with the recent total war is the insane amount of graphical effects and quality that pushes up your graphic card to the limit on the campaign map, making the game even more inacessible and niche, Tsardoms have a nice map and it's not demanding, i prefer the rome remastered style of map or medieval 2 with better textures than the mess of the recent games.

[@76Boomer]

Empire is the best non-historical total war.

[@casthelion416]

It's time for CA to make a new engine, start developing a new way of playing total war. Get some past systems back, take some inspiration from paradox and refine total war. Rome was a shake up from shogun and medieval, Rome II then changed a lot after shogun 2. Time for medieval 3 to shake it all up again, in a good way. Hope CA takes their time to make that new engine and think really hard on how to make a late 20's total war. Fit for the current age.

[@stoicambulation]

ACW 3.5 for Empire Total War is the best American Civil War game out there.

[@petterfr1987]

This is a video av the past, but what happens in the future is the real question

[@AndysTake]

no arguments there

[@tillercaesar-kq4ou]

Empire multiplayer was really fun and tactical

[@jamesfrizzell251]

I personally play empire more than most (not all) other total wars. I know the AI is bad but I loved the size/scale and microability of the campaign. It may not be a great total war, but I don't think it bad at all either. I don't understand the empire hate.

[@rogueraven1333]

As some one who has been playing since medieval 1, I agree. I can not have fun in Rome 2 because of the loss of features even though the units and battle maps look great. Especially the ugly campaign map with giant cities with no pop system, a hobbled build system, and everything you mentioned. I still play rome 1 (og not remastered), medieval 2, and empire all the time. Warhammer is ok but still suffers from the features of Rome 2. Reducing its replayablity and my enjoyment.

[@miceliusbeverus6447]

Good job to let us reconsider those aspects... Anyway, I believe Empire is quite cool actually. Crazy AI is pretty much fine, because it can suprise a player who is so much better anyway... Just I believe for a challenge one shouldn't muster grenadiers, cause AI has no idea how to use them, and can easily be exploited. Also, while navy battles look great on paper, in reality they feel artificial to me, and also AI is horribly.. stiff there. Other than that, Empire has many cool vibes, I believe. As for Rome, surely many of its restrictions are annoying if you think of it... But as long as a game is generally interesting and hard enough, I try to find a justification for even weird choices, to enhance my immersion... Shogun TWs have generally always been my favourite ones, anyways. Cheers!

[@Tijn1672]

I just can't wait anymore for Total war Empire mobile

[@thisguy7083]

Empire shows us the change period in CA. The old devs who created rte, mtw etc. and the new devs (and management) who have created the crap since

[@jamiegladwin]

for the most part, I always felt the changes were made to to hide the dumb AI

[@acolytes-of-cthulhu]

i like rome 2 mostly but what i hated the most was the naval battle

[@j.m.salazar9964]

You mean the bumper boat simulations?

[@danielrullmann5131]

they fit the time period and i love them

[@acolytes-of-cthulhu]

@@danielrullmann5131 sure they fit the time period i'll give you that but atleast for me the ai were bad

[@reactionarymike4331]

Playing battles in Rome 2 still makes me angry when playing battles

[@alexandrufieraru3372]

Rome 2 campaign was difficult and interesting only for the first 30-50 turns. Somewhere down the line, you just stomp without much resistance from the AI, unlike shogun 2 where the difficult part starts in late game

[@Jaeger_89]

Bugs and dumb AI aside, Empire was by far one of the greatest Total War games of all time. I hope the next Empire (or WWI title) contains the many mechanics Empire got right...

[@tyler71717]

It's an interesting argument by saying CA did good by not removing good features. This should be expected, the bare minimum no?

[@KickassPig]

Good take Andy

[@MildPsychedelic]

I just wish they would update Atilla for modern systems, like they did with Rome 2's enhanced edition

[@Mikko088]

Have Total War graphics even went anywhere but down hill after Attila or do Attila mods cloud my judgement on this?

[@mahakleung6992]

You make an interesting point.

[@FlannelsFireGaming]

My problem was that I always thought Napoleon came after R2.

[@killertwinkieCHL]

god i miss the old total war

[@sgtreid7659]

I loved Empire TW, but it had two flaws. 1) all the battles and AIs were the same (totally different from Rome1 and Warhammer) and 2) it was buggy. Whatever comes next, I hope the factions are wildly different and not a Rome2.

[@slaviksaylor7526]

Rome 2 was the dawnfall of total war. After I started Rome 2 I was trying to separate units from the main army. When I could not do that I thought that it is a glitch. I reinstalled the game several times, then I have googled what the hell is going on and I was shocked. I did not understand, why in the world CA have take one of the main features from the game. After that I have found out that I dont need sheeps to travel of the sea... this was so dum. But a bit later I was attacked by the land army on the sea. Oh, man. My feelings... my havy ships, my artilery ships againts transport, againts boats.... autoresolve shows crushing defeat! How? How in the world boat can defeat havy ship??? After that I've uninstall the game. Empire has many problems, but it was way better then Roam 2.

[@johnst3313]

Can you review the mod which ported RTW to Medieval 2? It’s fun to have RTW run on the M2 engine. Melkor recently did a video on it

[@nsawatchlistbait289]

Somebody needs to make a Rome era mod for Shogun 2's Old World Overhaul mod

[@KA-jm2cz]

Rome two is so good that you don't even have to play it! Or want to

[@ljtibbs765]

Empire is personally my favorite TW game. I had no idea people had a problem with it. Though I will admit siege ai is utter poop.

[@anthonyklanke1397]

Empire could have been the best. With darthmod, it's pretty close 👍

[@FlannelsFireGaming]

Couldn't get passed the poor useability and that it wouldn't keep the troops rendered in from a distance. This computer is meant to handle the best games, but I just couldnt figure it out even after modding it to the most used mods

[@oreganoregan5947]

Divide et Impera makes Rome 2 fantastic. However it is a bit hardcore

[@Vileurple]

Agent videos 🥲

[@bofpwet9500]

If empire had a fonctionning AI like any released game should have it would easily be the best total war ever for me, but it's medieval 2, shogun 2 close second. I feel like i got scam so hard with warhammer123, it was like 400$ so far and it's not even fun to play.

[@FlannelsFireGaming]

Pharaoh is so flipping BAD

[@ryanwade6052]

I loved Empire!!

[@MichaelThomas-p6q]

I think empire created the messy engine with the way battles work and the provinces, and then rome 2 just ruined total war. I have always blamed rome 2 as the cause of the mess that is warhammer and troy and old pharaoh. however, empire with it’s bug and engine paved the way for rome 2, many of the changes in rome 2 being the result of things not working in empire.

[@Vonstab]

Empire was a mess of a game that did not know what it wanted to be and suffered accordingly. It's representation of 18th Century European warfare was downright atrocious to the point were I wondered if the devs had even read the most basic research regarding the period or many of the nations included in the game. The one good thing I can say is that without the tragedy that was Empire we would not have gotten the glory that is Shogun 2. While Rome 2 did include systemic changes that would change the series and launched in a state that in technical terms was probably even worse than Empires it was still a better designed game in many ways. It had a much better sense of what it wanted to be and the devs had done some serious work in terms of historical research. My greatest complaint about Rome 2 is that it for want of a better word lacked a soul. The player had become too disconnected from their Empire and the new system with generals and armies was too abstract and the generals died too quickly for me to care about them. Attila on the other hand was able to fix a lot of the problems with Rome 2 and it definitely had a soul. Unfortunately it was let down by the poor optimisation and by the subject being more niche than Rome 2. To this day I think that Empire Divided should have been an Attila DLC.

[@SquidMonke4]

Empire is fun too me.

[@KasumiRINA]

What was wrong in historical representation in Empires? I heard it being talked about as one of more historically accurate ones. I legitimately don't know anything about 18th century apart from Karl XII catching idiot ball in Poltava and dooming everyone in the region forever.

[@SquidMonke4]

@@KasumiRINA the tech is a bit off but you gotta be a real sweaty nerd to notice it

[@mattgardiner614]

@@KasumiRINA For one, uniforms were quite bad, and even the wrong colour in some cases. Saxony in green uniforms instead of white. Dragoons in helmets instead of tricornes... The timeframe was too big. They should have made it mid 18th century (1740-65 for example) rather than the whole century.

[@JA-lr5ix]

Empire was a failure because it just doesn’t work Rome II also didn’t work at launch but was at the beginning of the era of “release now, fix later” I think Empire structurally is better but is obviously built on spaghetti code that was refined for Napoleon and Shogun 2/FOTS Rome 2 has never interested me. I find it boring and the health bars just really reduced my enjoyment. hell, even Attila isn’t a good game imo bc it just doesn’t run well. I bought it to play Age of Charlemange but it runs awfully.

[@katadromeasgr]

People still dont get what people want. They still absolutely dont. Run back and load RTW1 and remember what you genuinely wanted. What you may ask? More of the GOOD stuff we couldnt get enough of... Bigger armies. More traits. More command, more influence, more buildings, more walls, more unit types, more animations. That. Is. It. I never wanted fifty different annoying trees of skills. Never wanted a complicated diplomacy. Never wanted amazing graphics that lag. Never wanted units moving like bots. Never wanted dlcs. TW games need to return to SIMPLISTIC. I know, impossible but... If you see the animations in RTW, they are legitimately... bad, in terms of realism. But no one cares as they are absolutely blissfully FLUID. It is a GAME, it is a BATTLE, there is TIME, you need fluidity.... you need the narrow passages to defend with spikes and smile. THESE are the things everyone loves. I could not care less if the walls crumble x or y way during a siege or if the trees look like 2004s. Or the GROTESQUE RTWR ui.... or the cities style from RTW2 forward. I. Do not. Care. Keep it simple ffs....

[@KasumiRINA]

Total war had DLCs since VERY first Shogun. Mongol invasion. Factions were locked in Medieval 1 and Rome 1 BECAUSE devs wanted to sell DLCs just couldn't figure out how so just released two big expansions for RTW. Medieval combined 4 smaller DLC packs into 1, Kingdoms. Also it's weird how you said players never wanted amazing graphics that lag in commentary to video about Empires, which focused on exactly that. But Total War ALWAYS was about being best looking games and they always needed a beefy CPU to run. Because of so much on the screen.

[@katadromeasgr]

@KasumiRINA you are missing the point, again. A successful game doesn't need the best graphics, it needs just the right ones to not overload the user. But the point is, a successful game has to be FUN. Has to have easy exploits, fun ones, the player has to open it and spend hours and repeat again and again. Look at AOM. The retold version has updated graphics, aha. And? So? What captures the user is the music, stories, simplicity of interface, all a user wants is more custom maps, more units, more buildings, etc. Nobody gives a flying sh*t about graphics. TW should do the same. I don't want to zoom in the minimap, I don't care if I see clouds floating. The RTW minimap is absolutely perfect. Why? It is what it is SUPPOSED to be. Simple. Units flow and move fast. Why? It is SUPPOSED to be like that to help me load battle after battle. The trait system is perfect and only needs MORE of it. Why? Because it is SUPPOSED to be like that, simple, yet captivating, pushing me to discover new traits when I throw my general into battles or keep him inside the city with very simple mechanics. TW franchise needs to go BACK, not forward. Naval battles for example... sure, great. But try doing naval battles every turn in TW. You will be tired. RTW had figured it all out, game was a hit in 2004... it is a hit today. RTW2? nope. Shogun2? Nope. Medieval2? Nope and I'll tell you why. Because in MTW2 they switched the units to a very slow pace + animation and lost points there.

[@danielrullmann5131]

@@katadromeasgr valid opinion but definitely not what "people" want

[@katadromeasgr]

@@danielrullmann5131 and what do people want? Genuinely asking.

[@danielrullmann5131]

@@katadromeasgr although not a fan of current total wars myself the success of the warhammer trilogy is very telling. it feels like newer fans are fine with the current state of things and just the small core fangroup from before empire still dreams of a paradox/total war fusion gameplay model

[@GodofToast]

Yes, Rome 2 is a terrible game. What you fail to recognise is that mods do not fix it

[@andrelourenco3752]

I love Rome 2, better than Empire ( land battles suck) and better than Attila (unit balanced broken) Siege battles are very good

[@K4R007]

Captaincy is so important for tactics and immersion, same with populations. The “newer games” feel like you are just pressing the end-turn button to get to the next battle. It doesn’t feel like you are building a kingdom or an empire anymore. Campaigns become stale and repetitive very quickly.

[@kektuss]

Rome 2 and Attila weren’t that bad … at least compared to what would come after.

[@mixelplik]

Rome 2 had the worst release of all the total war titles - and Creative Assembly was deceptive in advertising it too. After Rome 2, I never trusted CA again. It took years for modders to make R2 playable.

[@GodofToast]

They’re all the same

[@Mr_D_The_1st]

Napooleon is betther than both.

[@-hms34]

Would be perfect if they dev one year more with better Ai and other stuff...

[@azarisLP]

The problem with Rome 2 isn't the battles, the army system, or the economy system. It's that it's just... boring. Ugly faces, ugly voices, pointless random events that don't contribute anything, no historical events or characters to get you immersed into the period, no challenge because the economy immediately snowballs after you conquer a few provinces, and a campaign design that only works if you play as Rome because the only wincon is to conquer the entire world. And no, adding some overhaul mod that adds a zillion different units and buildings with two pages of effects stapled on them while the AI pulls deathstacks out of its ass doesn't fix anything. The solution is to trash everything that Rome 2 / Attila / ToB were based on and and move to the 3K model going forward.

[@KasumiRINA]

All big strategy games get boring after a while, it's either you snowball so hard playing becomes a chore of micromanaging cities and units, or you don't and it's a hellscape when you can barely defend. Historical in cases like playing Byzantines on Kyivan Rus' before Mongol invasion but once you overcome the hard part, there's no reason to continue. Civilization has exact same issue. But it mixes things up with win conditions that aren't just paint the map.

[@azarisLP]

@@KasumiRINA But good TW games either have an anti-snowballing mechanic or an end-game crisis that throws a challenge at you. Rome 2 has neither.

[@mixelplik]

@@azarisLP Boring is right. And the subtle pro-woman anti-men messages in the little unit cards. 1/4 of the armies fielded by women generals? And the agents were horrible.

[@KasumiRINA]

@@azarisLP oh but that's the WORSE! When you took over half of Japan in Shogun or most of Mediterranean and dead factions kept respawning with full stacks in the middle of your kingdom (so you don't have armies nearby), and it just became a game of endless whack-a-mole.

[@KasumiRINA]

@@mixelplik you had women warriors in Rome 1 but they weren't as OP as Shogun 1's Geishas... You should stop hiring so many women generals if you don't like them, there are also no women generals in Greece in RTW2 despite Artemisia of Caria, Cynane and Caeria existing in history? Also how "pro-women messages" suddenly "anti-men"? Pretty sure these games still have too much men in them and not enough princesses or historical queens. So touch grass.

[@SomeIdiotLUL]

i remember playing med2 10 yrs later , the game play is better. but outdated..... never played empire looks too choppy like its missing fight animations

[@noldorwarrior7791]

Its all bias and personal preference Here. I like Rome 2 better for the setting. But i had to wait years because it sucked in the beginning. I always choose from Medieval times to all the way back as a setting of choice.

[@freshfresh5205]

Rome2 is horrible especially for functional battlefield graphics(unless you want to zoom right in) . I like some things like the legion system, but hate the limited generals mechanic. It’s a real shame a lot of things are so gamey. Ever since rome2 total war games have been all about campaign map abstraction, the more abstract camapign mechanics the better they like it for some reason. Like its a magic card game or something. Rather than a historical battle simulation system with the campaign map for context.

[@monkeyddizze]

Let‘s be real Empire as a base game is unplayable. It‘s a buggy clownfiesta CA never even tryed to fix

[@vortigernsaga]

Yeeeaaaah no. It was shit. It took a heap of mods to work and it still wasn't playable. A bland, empty, broken piece of work.

[@jtoegi]

Hot Take both Empire and Rome 2 are mid. Total War Attila is the last great historical game

[@SquidMonke4]

They can be pretty mid tho i liked empire. Attila’s battles are a lil laggy and dull for me

[@mixelplik]

Opinions matter. Yours is an opinion. My opinion is that MTW2 is the best - not graphically the best but had the best tactical options. Cavalry in Rome 2 (even modded) are a joke.

[@KasumiRINA]

@@mixelplik Cavalry and archers being OP in Medieval 2 isn't having the best tactical options, just the ones we like. Everyone plays it like we're roleplaying as Alexander, hammer and anvil tactics, commander charging and sometimes reenacting Agincourt. Variety of tactics in M2TW is bad because pikes, gunpowder units and infantry kind of suck so you rely on cav.

[@ingenerdnr8998]

И империя, и самураи и Рим, каждый по своему уникален... Периодически играю, да и мэдэвил 2...

[@blebcat]

As cool as Empire is, it has always been broken and never received post-launch bugfixing it should have.