Different agents and technologies are implemented for different factions. Each ethnic group has a unique play-style.Ī tribe of British barbarians looks and feels different from a disciplined Roman legion. Lead unit designer Jack Lusted stated that instead of the "rebel nation" used to represent minor states in the original Rome: Total War, Rome II features a large number of smaller, individual nations and city-states represented by their own factions. The Creative Assembly tried to ensure the uniqueness of different cultures and fighting forces. Rome II features more sophisticated portrayals of each culture and civilization of the period, which in its predecessor had been portrayed anachronistically. Creative Assembly has stated that it wished to bring out the more human side of war, with soldiers reacting as their comrades get killed around them, and officers inspiring men with heroic speeches. The Warscape engine powers the game's visuals and new unit cameras allow players to focus on individual soldiers on the real-time battlefield, which may contain thousands of combatants at the same time. Like its predecessor, Rome II blends turn-based grand strategy and civilization management with real-time tactical battles. However, the player also has the option to play further, as there are no timed victory conditions. The grand single-player campaign begins in 272 BC and lasts for 300 years. Historical accuracy is not an element for which Rome 2 phalanx gameplay scores points.Total War: Rome II is set in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Near East in the Classical antiquity period. It looks more like infantry jousting than phalanx warfare. But what do we see in the video? Men with huge shields (apparently useless) being skewered by enemies a whole spear’s length away from them. At the same time you try to jab your spear over the top of the shields. You get shield-to-shield with the enemy and try to push them back. Having some knowledge of ancient warfare, we know how a phalanx works. Perhaps we set our hopes too high, but we were looking forward to near-perfection.
#Total war rome 2 gameplay series#
Total War is a series based on historical eras after all. We had expected Rome 2 to be their most historically accurate game to date. There is one thing which really bugged us about the phalanx gameplay shown above. Not-so-good Things About Rome 2 Phalanx Gameplay Clearly a lot of work has gone into developing the mechanics for Rome 2 phalanx and cavalry gameplay.ģ. It is made clear that horses are heavier than men. You can see the horses pushing the enemy infantry back. In Rome 2 things look different for phalanx gameplay. What do we mean by weight? When cavalry charges infantry in previous games they become a blur of pixels, men fly into the air and the unit count drops. It looks like the units in Rome 2 have a lot more weight to them than in previous Total War games.
Our favourite part? Each time the cavalry impacted with the phalanx. Ignoring the poor video quality, you can see some good features of Rome 2 phalanx gameplay in the above youtube clip. Good Things About Rome 2 Phalanx Gameplay (Don’t worry I’ll put the original Rome 2 phalanx gameplay video at the bottom of this article). If the Creative Assembly are trying to show us how great Rome 2 phalanx gameplay will be, why have they made it look like the graphics are awful?
We watched it in HD video and it was still blurry. What we found most disappointing about the video was the bad quality. Having watched the original video, we can tell the above is an extract from it. Here is our take on Rome 2 phalanx gameplay. Find the Total War Youtube channel by following this link. Creative Assembly, Rome 2 Total War’s developers, recently released a video of phalanx warfare via their series Rally Point.