[DBT85]

Meh, not Rome again.

It's the game people have been clamouring for a sequel to since they did M2TW and people realised they would go back and redo a timeline.

Rome was an incredible game and I cannot wait to play Rome 2.

[Kabouter]

All looks and sounds fantastic, will definitely buy it. Rome I felt was always their best setting, even if it wasn't the best game in the franchise. Glad to see them return to it, though I do hope they go for something new for the next Total War after this.

[Calavera520]

love the idea of units gaining individual experience and traits from battle to battle. any game that can recreate the level of attachment that players had with soldiers in x-com, is fine by me. it's a great game mechanic in strategy titles.

[Augustus]

Brilliant! Really long time coming, this looks fantastic.

[Twinduct]

Ahhh yeah. Looking forward to this. Which reminds me, I need to play me some shogun some more :<

[davidsaurus]

Everything sounds fantastic. Couldn't be more excited. All I can ask for is that they rewrite the Multiplayer netcode so that it intelligently doesn't fucking desync in every game ever resulting in an uncontinuable campaign. So depressing, and the only thing that would stop me from buying this as me & a friend LOVE playing co-op Shogun 2.

[Jensen]

The new features sound great, it sounds like Creative Assembly are appropriately making a big effort to make the campaign have a greater sense of scale when it comes to managing armies and the battles using them.

[Songbird]

Rome was the first TW game I played and might be my favourite in the series. Hope the music is as good as in the original. Also, soldiers reacting to events on the battle sounds promising, did facial expressions change in Empire/Shogun 2?

[dc89]

Looks awesome, PC's will melt running this max.

Shame I don't really have e time for these kind of games anymore where I can just sit and happily sink hours into it. Rome was one of my favorite PC games back in the day.

[AlimNassor]

Romance of the three kingdoms not good enough?

I want to play as Han China. Y'know they were Asias version of Rome? At Han Chinas peak they were as powerful and large as Rome at it's peak. It would be interesting to play as them since they focused a lot of Calvary and archery.

[SpacePirate Ridley]

Everything we know about Rome II: SEGA and Creative Assembly have lifted the lid on Rome II: Total War, showing an impressive 15 minute demo revolving around Roman efforts to reduce Carthage to rubble. The headline new features are a redesigned graphics engine, a greater sense of scale and a stylish new cinematic unit camera. During the presentation, Creative Assembly walked us through plenty of details about what Rome II intends to offer when it's released in late 2013, and lead designer James Russell spoke about the game's intentions. The details in full: Shogun 2 was set in narrow geographical areas, with limited sets of units - a comparatively small scale to what's being intended with Rome II. It was designed with a focus on game systems, such as engine polishing and improvements to unit pathing. With that in place, Rome II is going big - it's bigger than Rome 1 in geographical scale. The game's key design vision is in taking players from a macro to micro scale, such as jumping from a campaign map to a single unit. Despite that focus, Rome II is still attempting to make its macro scale bigger - we're guessing the senate will play a large part of that, but Creative Assembly won't say just yet. As you rise through the ranks, your success will attract less-than-favourable responses from some of your friends. You will almost definitely get betrayed. There's "more human-level drama on the campaign map" in Rome II. The bigger campaign map has "hundreds" of regions to move your units around, but the game buckets them into provinces to make management easier. The idea is to have you thinking about armies and legions rather than fiddling around with individual units. Ultimately, the game will allow you to decide whether to favour the republic or become Rome's dictator. The game's cameras have been redesigned. You can now lock the camera to single units. In this mode it functions like a sort of documentary cam, shaking while the unit walks – it's "a soldier's eye view" according to Creative Assembly. The demonstration takes place with a scenario set during the Third Punic War, which took place during 149BC to 146BC. The scenario here is the Siege of Carthage. Rome II: Total War features a new graphics engine, which features particle and deferred lighting. The game can now combine naval and land battles into the same conflict, including naval invasions: in this demo a Roman ship lands on the coast of Carthage. Naval units now have more than one ship per unit. Though expected, we see catapults and ballistae being put to good use. The demo has a big focus on Roman siege towers, and the snap-to unit camera takes the view of the game inside the siege tower itself. Conflicts take place over much bigger environments - much of Carthage has been recreated in the demo. To accommodate this extra scale, the game now features a top-down tactical map. There are multiple ways to capture cities. Walls can be reduced to rubble after they've sustained enough damage, for instance. It's designed to create cat-and-mouse gameplay: "You're not just sitting in the plaza once the walls are breached trying to defend that one area" There's a real oomph when units engage, with walls of shields colliding. The new graphics engine can show some impressive fidelity for a game of this scale. We can clearly see that Cathage's walls have graffiti. Buildings crumble in the background as Carthage deploys its war elephants and the demo ends. The unit camera has been designed so the game feels like it's "almost Saving Private Ryan at the beaches". Each unit has its own facial animations, and leaders bark out a stream of orders throughout. each confrontation. Units react to things, such as their colleagues being slaughtered - the idea is that these aren't idenikit clone armies anymore. http://www.videogamer.com/pc/rome_ii..._detailed.html

This is just insane.
And I love the live action trailer.
I hope theres lot of stories in the campaign that makes the characters feel alive, not just avatars or names on the screens.

[rakhir]

This looks stunning, I can't wait to see the inevitable Medieval sequel in this engine.

I prefer those ages since my country is on the map then. :)

[EatChildren]

Dat theme. Dat music. Unf unf unf.

[Orlandu84]

When I first heard the rumor for Rome II, I was merely happy to hear that the franchise would continue. Looking at the OP and RPS's article, I am psyched! Legions! I want to command multiple legions on one map! When I say legions, I mean a collection of 6,000 Roman infantry with auxiliaries. If Creative Assembly gives me that with a decent UI, I will be ecstactic.

Random thought: if Creative Assembly truly goes big with this game and their engine, could they go big with a modern day total war? I.e. if their engine allows them 20,000 ancient military units, could they be ready for WWII battles some day later for their franchise?

[More Fun To Compute]

Meh, not Rome again.

Yeah not much happened in the Roman empire. No good material there worth revisiting.

[Ledsen]

When I first heard the rumor for Rome II, I was merely happy to hear that the franchise would continue. Looking at the OP and RPS's article, I am psyched! Legions! I want to command multiple legions on one map! When I say legions, I mean a collection of 6,000 Roman infantry with auxiliaries. If Creative Assembly gives me that with a decent UI, I will be ecstactic. Random thought: if Creative Assembly truly goes big with this game and their engine, could they go big with a modern day total war? I.e. if their engine allows them 20,000 ancient military units, could they be ready for WWII battles some day later for their franchise?

I think TW fits formation-based combat best, I don't know how they would do WWII.

[Reuenthal]

This sounds seriously awesome.

[smiggyRT]

Finally! Took me about 4/5 years in one campaign to actually take the entire map, can't wait for this.

[Llyranor]

Nice! Shogun 2 was my first foray into Total War (since they've actually implemented proper campaign co-op), and it was amazing. Day1!

My rig had enough trouble running Shogun 2 during the bigger battles (fast-forward would freeze my screen). I guess it's time to upgrade!

That being said, I'm skeptical re: how able they are to handle larger battles via legions and OOB's. Their AI isn't their selling point.

[Arcteryx]

Looks absolutely stunning. Definitely going to need a new PC for it though :(

[Feature]

They need a living city, with actual civilians in it when you attack. Always took away the feeling of attacking a city when you're invading a ghost town.

Also, I wish I could command a single guy third/first person mode.

[Semblance]

Ohhhhh God, yes. Will probably have to get a new card to go along with this, no way my 570 will max it out.

2013 is such a monster year for games.

[GarthVaderUK]

Lead Battle Designer Interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBq_04CF0qc

Lead Designer Interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tycIeIDUbw

[Furoba]

Guess I'll need a new gaming pc by 2013. :(

[Dennis]

Hardest difficulty or don't bother.

[Semblance]

Hardest difficulty or don't bother.

Only way to play, homie.

[Leonsito]

YES ! Best Total War is Rome imo, can't wait for this.

[universalmind]

Can we have China: Total War now?

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[IblisGinjo]

Looks like a better camera angle overall. I did not like the camera angles in the other Total War games, I couldn't get a good feel of the battle, hopefully that is changed now.

[More Fun To Compute]

Looks like a better camera angle overall. I did not like the camera angles in the other Total War games, I couldn't get a good feel of the battle, hopefully that is changed now.

Yeah, a lot of people played with a free look debug camera that you had to edit config files to use.

[Phantast2k]

Bye gaf

[guit3457]

Sim City V -- Total War: Rome II

2013....best year ever.

[Kinyou]

Bye gaf

Yeah, about to do the same

[Martian]

Hopefully this will be the gane that brings me back to the Total War series.
I dont know what it is, but since Empire I have stopped liking the series.
I played medieval 2 and Rome to death, but with the later 2(3) games, its been kind of meh-ish. I dont k ow what it is, perhaps its the plain-nes I love about those two, but empire, napoleon and shogun 2 just dont cut it for me

Hopefully this will be the game that brings me back. Not hyped yet, definetely interested.

[Metalmurphy]

Day zero. Probably 2 copies as well as my brother loves it but he never bothers to actually buy the damn games.

[More Fun To Compute]

I like the idea of each soldier having their own weight which is used for combat. It doesn't feel right in Total War games when you do a cav charge and infantry always stops them dead like they hit a wall. And in Rome you must have the elephants charging into battle.

[Taffer]

I can remake my Rome screenshot folder which I recently noticed is missing, piles of burnt (elephant) corpses at the gate is always good. I'm hoping the name generator comes up with "Arses of Media" again, and I will be checking the console for more Father Ted references.

[Ghizz]

Shogun was a pretty big step up graphics-wise, if they improve the AI = GOTY!

[demolitio]

The day has finally arrive where we don't have to live off of rumors anymore. What a glorious day it is...

For the glory of Rome!

[Randdalf]

I want Total War: World II, except the campaign map is styled like Dad's Army's opening credits.

[Brazil]

Finally.

Hopefully WWI/II are next.

[Xian]

Modsupport please. I want, I need, a new Third Age!

[RedSwirl]

Bye gaf

So when's the time to start this? I've played a TW game before but Rome has been sitting on my backlog for a while.

[Senator Soufflé]

Incredibly hyped even though all the new announcements mean little to me since I let the computer do all battles for me anyway. I just loved the time era, that and conquering the map with massive hordes of Nubians.

[Son1x]

Modsupport please. I want, I need, a new Third Age!

This. The reason why RTW/M2TW > ETW/NTW. Theres a limit to modding when you can't touch regions at all.

[FeD.nL]

Can't Wait!

[cubicle47b]

Fuck yes! Fuck yes! Fuck yes!

edit: They need to keep the Triarii shout.

[Sblargh]

Holy fuck, this sounds ambitious.

[Nickiepoo]

Nice.

Loving the detail of the grafitti. The romans were always freaking tagging up their buildings.

[DTKT]

Awesome.

I hope they don't go too "ambitious" and make another Empire TW. :|