Overall
If you like historical strategy games, Rome II is still worth playing. It’s not perfect, but the scale of the map and the battles make it very enjoyable. I’ve spent a good amount of time playing Rome II, and overall it’s a really fun strategy game if you enjoy history and large battles. It takes a little time to learn, but once you get into it, it’s easy to sink hours into building an empire and fighting wars across the ancient world.

I will also say that I do not care for the DEI mod. ONLY because the battles become a little too exhausting to get through and I am not a huge fan of ALL the details it adds which take an incredible amount of time to dig through and see what the best things are. By no means is it bad, and it adds a ton of content and playability but I personally use the Radious Mods. Again the mods are a personal preference and I am a little more casual when it comes to Total War games. This being said the mod support is unreal and amazing, which is a huge pro to the game, but below is my review based on how I play and the Mods I choose.

Pros
1. Huge map and lots of factions
You can play as Rome, Greek states, Carthage, and many others. Each faction feels a bit different, and the campaign map is massive, which makes conquering territory satisfying. I like to play the beginning as it is the most fun, by about the halfway point you will just be spamming units to take territory.

2. Big battles are awesome
Watching thousands of soldiers clash is one of the best parts of the game. Flanking enemies with cavalry or holding a line of infantry just feels great when it works. Counter to this it is easy to get lost with so many units to control but once you get used to it, then it is one of the best features of the game.

3. Lots of replay value
Because there are so many factions and ways to expand your empire, you can start new campaigns and have a different experience each time.

Cons
1. AI can be frustrating
Enemy armies sometimes make strange decisions, both in battles and on the campaign map. It can make the game feel easier than it should be. Enemies will blob up pretty bad, or attempt mass flanking and ruin your formation and the battle will turn into a sloppy mess. But hey I guess that is real life.

2. Some technical issues
The game had still has occasional bugs or performance hiccups depending on your system. For instance the game has a tendency to freeze in loading screens. Through Reddit I found if you open up your task manager, go to details, and set affinity to 10 or less as opposed to the standard 15 the freezing stops.

3. Politics system isn’t very exciting
There’s an internal politics feature, but it often feels like something you manage just to avoid penalties rather than something that adds fun strategy. 90% of the time it can be forgotten.

in the past 60 hours of my life I spent 33.4 hours playing this game. Time well spent.

I've been playing this game steadily since 2013 (whew... time flies!) and, as a long-time TW fan whose first game was Rome: Total War, I love this game and it's possibly my favorite in the entire series. No I have not modded the ever-living sh** out of this game with major overhauls; it doesn't need it. The hatred and vitriol that Rome II suffered in its early years was one borne out of historical revisionism and blind nostalgia by members of the community who convinced themselves that R:TW, and its follow-up Med2:TW, were Paradox-esque games brimming with deep complexity. That is a lie.

Even during the supposed "golden age" of Total War that was Rome and Medieval II, an experienced strategy game player, like myself, saw the significant shortcomings in these games. Why? Because compared to other strategy games of the era, Total War's strategic layer was a simplistic and shallow system designed to serve up real-time battles.

Diplomacy in RTW and M2TW was downright hollow if not completely broken. The AI was often mindless often declaring war on you out of nowhere despite being a good neighbor. Let's face it, anyone who played TW between 2004 - 2012 could tell you (if they were being honest with themselves) is that CA has never made a strategic AI that held its own similar to other strategy games like Civilization. Even the beloved Shogun II (FOTS notwithstanding) has the same erratic AI that would just as likely declare war on you one turn after agreeing to trade with them.

Why am I saying all this? Because Rome II is the first game in the series that finally made the strategy-side of the TW formula worth playing. The world map is populated by dozens of minor and major factions all of which can be negotiated with, traded with, propped up, undermined, or outright betrayed. Depending on your playstyle you can use diplomacy to secure yourself from aggression or help open up avenues for future aggression of your own (such as allying yourself with a weaker faction which will draw you into a war against a rival).

The strategy map was the largest in the series (at least until the advent of Warhammer's Immortal Empires crossover) filled with dozens of major and minor settlements with a then-novel capital/province system, which — for anyone who appreciates historical authenticity — which emulates the urban/rural divide that emerged as ancient era cities became thriving metropolises. Settlement also vary in 'flavor' to better represent their historical importance as agricultural, maritime, commercial, and industrial centers.

Gameplay variety is fantastic for a historical TW game especially for its era. You can play the game like a typical TW game and just paint the map your faction's color, but Rome II also innovated multiple ways of winning without outright conquest. You can win the game purely by making shrewd alliances and helping your allies expand.

I just finished a campaign as Massilia which played out completely different than most of my other campaigns; I found myself focusing more on my economic development whereas with most other starts I lean heavily on researching better military tech. By the end of this campaign I was rolling in cash and was able to cultivate an alliance with Rome and Athens with tons of cash.

And that's what makes Rome II so special. Every campaign plays out so differently. It's a true sandbox strategy game. Some games I'll see smaller factions like Sparta or Pergamon or Pontos emerge as major regional empires, other times still I see Macedon, Egypt, or some Gallic faction become a powerhouse. Campaigns play out differently and navigating it with arms or diplomacy keeps campaigns interesting.

However, therein lies one of Rome II's biggest downsides: campaigns take way too long even when you try to be as expedient as possible. The developers set the threshold for victory way too high, dragging out campaigns for way too many hours even when your success is all but guaranteed.

That said it's still a fun romp and this is a game that will keep you busy for hundreds if not thousands of hours, especially if you're a completionist like me. I'm still slowly chipping away at this game's achievements a decade after release. Please send help 😱

11/10 game - can't wait to play again.