Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)When I first got this installed and running on my middle-of-the-road system I was expecting it to be a chugging, slow mess. I was happily surprised to find that except for battles against larger cities or against thousands of foes, it runs just fine. I have yet to have a crash, something which in thisday and age of "shove it out the door broken and patch it later" game releases is to be commended.
The graphics are beautiful but are not the amazing leap forward like occurred from Medieval 1 to Rome. Think of it more as putting an extra coat of shiny polish on your car. The effects of firing flaming arrows and the pageantry of heraldric colors on the knights and other troops are beautiful to watch. The little movies showing events like weddings and your assassins' antics are often genuinely hilarious (until you've seen them all 100 times). But all that is also just eye candy, there's very little NEW here that wasn't in Rome. Also, the medieval setting has now been done to death in this game's predecessor and other games in the last few years and I'm praying that the next title WON'T be a remake of the original Shogun but will move the series squarely into the gunpowder age, culminating with Napoleon. Enough with the primitive and medieval weapons and tactics.
The AI has been improved marginally, but I am still attacked for ridiculously random reasons no matter the difficulty level I play on. As England I had developed into one of the largest powers on the map and Portugal inexplicably attacked me without provocation despite our neutral relations (not "poor" or "abysmal", mind you) and trade rights. Needless to say they were immediately squashed, but why would they even bother? This is not intelligent AI, it's just annoying AI. Alliances seem to be equally meaningless when they are made with the human and are difficult to achieve unless the AI brings it to you. I have yet to ever form one when I initiate the offer even when it would be a massive advantage to the comp.
Battle AI is more clever at using its archers as harassment and has no hesitation in squashing yours if you leave them unguarded. When outnumbered it does tend to sit there passively as one other reviewer wrote. I have nearly obliterated an entire force with archers while they just sat there in the corner before the general turned tail and withdrew.
Overall, it's a small step forward and the Rome engine is certainly beautiful to watch in action. The Total War series still is unparalleled in strategic enjoyment on both levels but the next offering in the series needs to be groundbreaking in both time period and AI complexity.
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Product Description:
Take complete control of your kingdom like never before and grow it into a continents-spanning empire through diplomacy, trade, espionage, and war! Join the Crusades as a Christian or Muslim empire and battle over the fate of the Holy Land. Raise mighty armies to crush your neighbors and conquer all of Europe and even the Americas to become the greatest power of the Middle Ages.
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