A province is made up of multiple regions allowing for a greater variety of battles than just sieges of the Region Capitals as in previous Total War games. The large campaign map is divided into provinces and regions. Transport ships are automatically spawned when an Army moves into the water from the campaign map which can be exploited tactically to surprise the enemy.

Naval Battles are more about boarding and ramming, which is aided by strength of numbers rather than type of ship. Coastal Battles now involve combined land and naval forces which can do amphibious landings, a first for the series. However it sorely lacks a naval battle tutorial which does seem necessary given the supportive role naval combat seems to have been relegated to. There is a 2-5 hour prologue campaign to get you up to speed with the mechanics of the game. While this may seem less than what Rome: Total War had, Rome and Carthage allow you to choose a ruling family house from 3 influential dynasties which can change your approach to the game and acts as a faction in itself. While the Game launched with only 8 factions and 4 DLC factions of which one is free, developer The Creative Assembly (CA) plans to release more factions later on with some of them being free for all. The game has expanded in scope to cover a vast area of the ancient world covering most of Europe and the Middle East.

The game seems to have quite a few teething issues at launch and a promised weekly patch schedule might end up making it truly shine in a few weeks or months. The game requires a significant time investment to be truly appreciated, and as seems to be the case, to be truly optimised. This saying is a pretty apt description of what your expected playtime with Total War: Rome II will be like.

Rome 2 army traditions