God DAMMIT. >:(

So as most of you probably know by now, Total War: Rome 2's release date has been revealed for September. As such, the game's gone up for pre-order, and the pre-order bonus has been revealed.

Specifically: the Greeks. A full 3 factions worth of them (Sparta, Athens, and Epirus). They are free if you pre-order, but supposedly will be available as paid DLC as well.

..... Gosh darn it CA, you psychically figured out my weak spot from Rome 1- and by extension Rome 2. :( (Especially since Rome 2's only going to have 8 playable factions without DLC. 9 if you include the free day-one Pontus DLC they are promising. So there will be 12 factions if you pre-order)

I almost never pre-order games- I do everything I can to avoid doing so more often than not due to my bad first experience with pre-ordering (Specifically, homeworld 2). But its gonna be almost impossible for me to resist this now... :P

As long as they at least pull another Shogun 2 in terms of quality, it'll be fine... >_>

Thoughts? It does seem overall that Sega's gonna be really aggressive with the DLC on this one. Take it how you will. <_<

That's a surprising decision, to have basically the third-most major faction in the game (by my arbitrary reckoning be either paid DLC or a preorder bonus. Probably enough to make me preorder, considering my high likelihood of purchasing at full price regardless, even though I really didn't like the Greeks in the original. Too many hoplites, not enough variety.

They still would have got me if they'd made it the Seleucids, however. I think that based on what I've seen on the Total War Forums, a lot of people shared my enjoyment of how OP the Seleucids were in R:TW and regret they weren't included here. I guess that makes them a prime choice for the first DLC that everyone has to pay for.

Wait until one day before the release, at that point you can figure out how good that game is (and I am 100% positive that the game is going to be good) and then pre-order it if you still want.

i think i may not pre-order just to put a tick in disaproving of this business method that CA is following

I think it's pretty bullshit. And where are the Seleukids, one of the three biggest successor kingdoms of Alexander? Such a huge faction they leave out which I'm pretty sure would end up as dlc as well.

At first I thought I'm okay with them not playable in campaigns, but then when i read that the dlc was for single player campaign AND custom battles, all my excitement for the game instantly went away. I would rather wait a while longer for the gold edition with all dlcs packed in. The whole retail and dlc climate in the gaming industry nowadays is absolutely unbelievable shitty for the developers and the consumers.

You are joking right?

@themangalist: u mean the hellenistic reign of the diadochi after alexander? seleucid elephant cataphracts and 4 horse chariots ftw!

Yes. At least CA didn't make the Ptolemaic Egyptians a few thousand years more ancient this time around.

@themangalist: thats why there are mods like Roma Surrectum 2. but CA isnt f**ing making their games mod friendly anymore

I hoping they'll in time let me buy one of those factions; as I'm only interested in playing as Sparta.

All the factions will be in our campaigns/co-op campaigns, but only a few are Playable. I have no interest in playing Athens or Epirus(?) so I'm fine with just picking the game up as a base game on Day 1 in tune with my new I do not Pre-order video games stance.

As tempting as that pre-order is, I'd say skip it, even though the pre-order is 25% off on Steam. Pre-ordering games in general is really bad. If anything, get the Free-Day One Pontus DLC to get one more faction while saving money. Also, you get somewhat of a greek taste because Pontus is a Hellenistic Kingdom.

@mocbucket62: Yes, I think there'll be plenty of gameplay in the base game alone; which makes it safe to not pre-order if you're not into that anymore after all the weirdness with Aliens and SimCity. The DLC will hopefully be on sale at some point not far out in time, and anyone can get it from Day 1 if they really want it.

Total War: Rome had like 15+ playable factions but a lot of them played very similarly and had mirrored unit pools for most part.

Really? Damn, that's not cool at all. The mod community for Total War did so much for the franchise, especially back during the original R:TW days with the realism mods and more historical conversions for the campaign. It's really upsetting that CA is turning their backs on the modding community like that.

Hm, can't it be that the game is becoming more complex and perhaps not as easy to make modifiable without a significant budget devoted to it? I don't make mods so I wouldn't know what it takes from the developers to make it accessible.

CA's games have basically been unmoddable since Empire: Total War. The only "mods" are really ai and "hacked" numbers mods, no total conversions. That's why the whole modding scene is still in Medieval 2 Total War.

@funkydupe:

I'm pretty sure CA hardcoded everything after Medieval 2. It would probably be more efficient for the devs to do that? I don't really know either. But then, for a long time the community thought it was impossible to create new buildings for Medieval 2 so...

I kind of like how CA simplifies the unit rosters. Roma Surrectum 2 is a bunch of Latin and Greek I don't understand, and all units are grey and really hard to tell apart from afar for the historical accuracy. I prefer mods like SPQR: Total War which finds a balance between fun and historical accuracy. Though I don't like Ramses-era Egyptians I still like Peloponnesian War Spartans :P

After Dave left Giant Bomb I'm guessing none of the crew are interested in this. How depressing is that!

@funkydupe said:

We still have drew.

@funkydupe: I've said this a few times, and the people paying attention to this conversation have probably seen me say it before, but I really hated the way Dave QLed those games. He made them look incoherent. I'm not saying Vinny will be interested this time around, because he probably won't, but he's the one guy on the squad, including Dave, who I believe would actually put enough time into learning the game's mechanics to present them in a way that would attract newcomers to the franchise.

It's a shame, because I really don't think that Total War is any more complicated than Civilization, and yet the crew seem to put it more on the level of the Paradox games.

@themangalist: i wonder if CA will ever make changing in equipment, structures and other various things during the timeline of the game like how Roma Surrectum 2 did with pre marian and post marian legions. because i don't see corinthian helmets fitting well later in the game

plus, i find historical accuracy more fun over the hollywood flair that most people seem to be attracted to

@universalize: neh. I can see them doing sets of early/late unit rosters but then that is highly unlikely too.

haha, I love Corinthian helmets, I'd hate to do without them :P

I think I'm going to play as one of the barbarian factions first; sounds cool to fight versus the elite, well-equipped Roman forces with only an axe and a bad attitude :D

@funkydupe said:

Playing as the barbs was my favorite way to play Rome. TREMBLE BEFORE THE MIGHTY SAXON EMPIRE.

Well, I have loved every Total War game since the original Shogun. So it may not be a surprise that I shall set aside my dislike of 'pre-order bonus' nonsense to get those factions.

Interestingly enough: Rome 2 is £45 on Steam, yet only £30 on amazon with the same 'bonuses'. Guess where I'm ordering from?

@hewitt said:

This sounds almost exactly like my situation with the series, which I also love deeply, except for one thing... does Steam do refunds? Because I pulled the trigger way too fast on that purchase...

Remember this song? Composed for the first Rome game. :)

It's a pity. Shogun 2 deserved to be in GB's top ten that year.

f yeah Jeff Van Dyck ftw! the guy should totally do soundtracks for historical military movies

I can play and excel at Civilization, I can play hundred hour campaigns of CKII, but I can't wrap my mind around Rome: Total War. I have made many good faith attempts. Whether you think I'm obtuse or not, I think R:TW is just a game that is hard to access.

I'm afraid the only exposure Rome 2 will get on Giant Bomb is on Professional Wednesdays where the Gamespot guys, who have been working their asses off to cover this game, will show it off. Let's hope Gamespot's crew can convince Giant Bomb to provide a quick look and even more coverage.

If you want an easy, short campaign for Rome, you can just click on the short campaign option where you need to hold at least 15 settlements and destroy a specific list of factions. If you pick the House of Julii, you just need to destroy the Gauls by conquering all their settlements and conquer a few other settlements from the rebels or other factions such as Carthage or the Greeks. Hope this helps you get into Rome if you haven't selected the short campaign option before.

@haltiamreptar: That's interesting to hear. I suppose my viewpoint might be distorted because I was tutorialized in the basic systems by Medieval Total War before it, but I really don't think that game was any less complicated. If anything its mechanics were more obscure.

What part of the game was it you found inaccessible, the campaign map or the battles?

I loved Medieval, Rome, Medieval II and Empire so I preordered Shogun II (I have only ever preordered Shogun II and XCOM EU) figuring there was no way that I wouldn't like... I really didn't like it. I played about 15 hours of it and uninstalled it. I've sunk about 300 hours into Empire and easily another 300 between Rome and Medieval and I couldn't stand to play Shogun II. It was soooooo boooorrriiiiinnnnggggggg.

So, my point is, fuck preorders.

@giantstalker:

Contact Steam support. I've heard of people getting refunds for pre-orders prior to the game's release.