I have strange story of personal relations with Rome II. It's one of my favorite Total War games now but I was able to finally play and complete all its 7 campaigns for the first time only in this year. Prior that it was Shogun 2 which imperessed me the most by its atmosphere and how it was well crafted. But when I finally was able to dive deep into Rome II, it completely blew my mind and I must say that both those games impressed me equilly. So, Rome II is the second game of "newer" generation of Total War games (with Shogun 2 being the first one), and second game which had "Total War" title in in first part of its name respectively. It continues to develop ideas which began in some past titles and takes them even further. One of most important changes is that since Rome II each army must be led by general and amount of generals you can recruite is limited. Along with automatic garrisons in town and cities this actually eliminates some routines and makes overall gameplay experience better. Moreover, besides of military victory there are also econonic and cultural ones. However, achieving military one is still one of easiest things because you still will need to conequer a lot to get two other ones. Diplomacy had big rework in Rome II and here it finally functions. So, alliances can actually be held for an entire playtrough and client states will not necessary revolt against you. Also I really enjoyed of how political system of your own faction functions here. So, there are many different, minor or not, changes which makes Rome II just more advanced game than its predcessor. I would say that even the main theme here which you hear in main menu reminds me of OST from some high budget hollywood movie about Ancient Rome, while main menu of first game reminded me of some historical series OST. And that being said, Rome II is just really epic game with huge scale and I can recommend it to anyone who is into historical setting. Unlike Shogun 2 all factions here often belong to different cultures and this really impacts your experience. So, playing for Rome and playing for Egypt or Greek States will give you more different vibes than playing for different Japanese clans, of course. Upon its launch Rome II indeed had many problems but with years Creative Assembley actually fixed most of them and now its one of the best Total War historical titles. You can see that even via SteamCharts, as its most played historiral Total War today. If you will get all the DLC, you will have 7 campaigns in total and plenty of factions to play, so replayability is already huge even without any mods. But I still highly advice to check unofficial fixes packs in modding section here on Steam, as some of them are crucial o fix crashes. You also might try mod for better faction AI on strategic map because other factions might be too passive in some campaigns. But keep in mind that Rome II might not utilize all the cores of modern CPUs, unfortunately. So, concluding this review I must say that even despite some minses described above, playing Rome II was one of most smooth expeiences I ever had in Total War series.

by far one of the best total war games out there, less micro managing resources of the new ones, large variety of units, land and sea battles, lots of campaigns

750+ hours on Rome II i have over 2500 hours in TOTAL WAR........ i play everything from WOW - PubG - Planet Zoo - Runescape and many more... total war is an endless pit of rage, fun, and complete chaos..

i would Say both Rome games, Shogun and the warhammer games are 100% the best of total war but. once you get one you will have the full set. you will want to play every total war game that comes out and you will love them in their own way!