Would be an OK game, but it is optimised like s**t.

Honestly I'm surprised I haven't written a review sooner but this is the single best historical Total War game ever IF YOU CAN RUN IT. It has severe optimization issues that modern machines can just brute force but if you have a computer from around the time it was released or slightly after you should expect pretty poor framerates. The setting and atmosphere of this game is absolutely fantastic. The factions and cultures are all quite different from eachother, especially with the DLCs. It doesn't start out as your classic empire builder it is very much a survival game at least until Attila the Hun is dealt with.

Age of Charlemagne is considered widely to be the best piece of Total War expansion content ever made, and while I personally haven't played too much of it due to having a hard time understanding it, I can definitely say that it's campaign map is much more optimized. The Last Roman is also a pretty good campaign on a smaller more focused map, set in a very interesting time period and of course if you play as the Roman Expedition you get to play as one of history's greatest giga-chads, Flavius Belisarius.

Overall the game is simply fantastic. It's dark, gritty, difficult, and supremely rewarding and if you are a Total War player who really enjoys cavalry and especially hammer and anvil then you've found your home. I can't recommend this game enough.

one of my favorite total war games. its basically rome 3. just wish they did a better job with the units appearence but the age of charlemage dlc is one of the very best dlc that CA has to offer