- #ROME TOTAL WAR 2 EMPIRE DIVIDED FULL#
- #ROME TOTAL WAR 2 EMPIRE DIVIDED SERIES#
- #ROME TOTAL WAR 2 EMPIRE DIVIDED FREE#
In the end, you can pretty much ignore bandits and cut your losses when they steal your income. You can build new city structures to combat banditry, but they aren’t all that effective for the amount of work and research they require (the civil tech tree is now basically all about unlocking buildings, which could be interesting but who has the time?). The added mechanic of banditry is also a bit of a write-off. There’s no way I’m not reloading from the last turn to veto those shenanigans. This is a lot more tolerable, until your secession immunity runs out while you’re chasing the last rebel army around the same hill turn after turn (another annoying Total War quirk) and you’ve almost got your revenge when another chunk of your empire secedes. Instead of random patches of your empire being annoyingly taken away, secession takes away a regional chunk. In this DLC, civil war has been toned down to secession. Yes, it’s designed to keep us playing, because winning a Total War campaign has always had the anticlimactic feel of “Oh no, what am I doing with my life? I haven’t eaten in days!” But the civil war event has the opposite effect of making you punch through your monitor and never playing again. In the original release, you would spend hours building your empire and then, suddenly, every other province belongs to your overpowered enemy. Rome II also always struggled with civil war mechanics. You rotate the camera back and forth, trying to get the city name out of the way, but there’s just a one pixel spot where you click and… nope, you clicked to attack by land, and your army is taking the eight-turn path around the sea instead of crossing it in one. Things such as an overly sensitive cursor when attempting to blockade a port. Total War also has a habit of always doing the same annoying things, over and over, game after game, and these add up to your overall feeling of frustration. But in the end, it isn’t these aspects that will have you playing for hours or days or weeks without sleep (please, someone help me – my wife left me a month in.), it’s just the fact that you’re playing good old addicting Total War. Plus, the added tech trees for Generals lends to much more satisfying careers with units growing nearly invincible should they survive long enough. The consequence is positive: an atmospheric feel for a distinct period of History. To make it worse, the higher you upgrade, the more it costs to get rid of them, and Christians also cause disorder if there are other cults around.
#ROME TOTAL WAR 2 EMPIRE DIVIDED FREE#
Cults are free for you to build and upgrade, but fill your whole empire with level 4 Christians and you will find yourself starving from their food penalty. Again, going along with history, I tried to salvage the empire with the use of Christianity, and that’s when I had a pleasantly unpleasant surprise. Cults improve sanitation, which helps you combat problems with plague in a thematically consistent way. The addition of cults is also impactful in this aspect.
#ROME TOTAL WAR 2 EMPIRE DIVIDED SERIES#
Since Total War is about history but your choices are free, it means the series needs to tell history through mechanics, and this DLC does a nice job of it.Įmpire Divided adds in little snippets of “choices matter” mechanics, giving a legendary feel to your main character while adding to the mystic religious atmosphere of these uncertain times. Aurelian rules with an iron fist, and that means, yes, steamrolling your enemies (a little too easily, but whoever complained about winning?). Here’s where the mechanics of the game come in. No, not the Romans in Palmyra under Queen Zenobia, and not the Gallic Romans, but the Romans led by the guy who actually put Rome back on track: Aurelian. On my first playthrough of Empire Divided, I decided to stay faithful to History and choose the Romans. If you’re a history buff, that sort of thing will draw you in. In my experience playing Wrath of Sparta for example, other than the Greek font found on the map and the more (annoying) island-hopping style of combat, what I noticed most was my advisor telling me historical facts about cities I clicked on. The extra history is the reason you might want to pick up Total War DLCs. Come for the history, stay for the addiction. Empire Divided focuses on a chaotic third century, when the empire was at war with itself. Rome II has had a multitude of DLC’s itself, and justifiably so – the empire spanned a continent or three over the course of a millennium or two.
#ROME TOTAL WAR 2 EMPIRE DIVIDED FULL#
There’s enough content in its DLCs to equate the value of a full release, but for a lower price. If you’ve played one Total War you’ve played them all, right? Well, not exactly.