I have all the total war games, and they're always fun for awhile, but the campaigns always end up feeling like a serious grind. I'll wait for some reviews to see if that has changed. You're not wrong to feel hyped though, game looks awesome.

A lot of reviews are in. A lot of great ones, a few outliers in the good area. Joystiq's is particularly... well awful. He basically knocks it down for not being casual friendly. So tired of people reviewing games with that thought. Especially a GRAND STRATEGY GAME. Sit down guy, go play something else.

One issue though: sounds like the battle AI hasn't really improved. But this is old hat for TW fans. Some mod will come along and improve things so I'll be patient for that.

Everything else sounds great. The battles sound dynamic and like a real spectacle and I think a lot of the strategy tweaks, especially to cities and the regional capitals, sound very interesting.

Total War is totally casual friendly though.

Is it really? I think it's not that bad but I think this will be less so. I think Shogun II was very casual friendly because it was paired down but this blows the scale out again, like Empire did.

Either way, it's not a complaint to make in a review, and this Joystiq reviewer made it, so apparently at least this guy thinks its not casual friendly. If you read the review it's like all positive then he talks about how it isn't casual friendly and the score ends up 3.5 for some reason.

Total War generally looks far more intimidating and complex than it actually is. There's not a whole lot you can do about people who just assume anything with a map is going to be too complicated for them.

MAD HYPE YO

Cant wait to crank this fucker up. My graphics card has been waiting quietly for this.

Also fuck joystiq, those guys are a bunch of snobby ass hats.

Totally agree, which is what makes it so weird to apparently dock the game for and point out in a review. Good thing this guy didn't review Crusader Kings II.

The main problems mentioned in the reviews seem to be Battle AI and the long loading times between turns. While it's irritating that these issues may not be 'fixed', it also matches my expectations for a Total War game and I doubt it will effect my enjoyment of the game negatively.

I don't buy too much into analysing review scores. While I have mentioned that I'm hyped for this game, I know that Total War is for me and that I'll likely enjoy this. However on other forums, all analysis of game scores descends into is either: THIS REVIEWER SUCKS, the game will be great! OR OH NO, the game will now suck!!

I love that 7 - 8 on most review sites is seen as a 'bad' score.

The main problems mentioned in the reviews seem to be Battle AI and the long loading times between turns. While it's irritating that these issues may not be 'fixed', it also matches my expectations for a Total War game and I doubt it will effect my enjoyment of the game negatively.

I don't buy too much into analysing review scores. While I have mentioned that I'm hyped for this game, I know that Total War is for me and that I'll likely enjoy this. However on other forums, all analysis of game scores descends into is either: THIS REVIEWER SUCKS, the game will be great! OR OH NO, the game will now suck!!

I love that 7 - 8 on most review sites is seen as a 'bad' score.

@captain_insano said:

I still want to play this when I can get a PC for it, (either this year or next year). Though when I read the early reviews, it felt like deja vu to me. Eurogamer and Joystiq both gave it a 7 and I'm not saying that's a bad score, but I had a bedtime dream where Rome II's metacritic score was a 72 and in the dream I was scared Rome II was gonna be the biggest disappointment of 2013. Of course the thought that my dream could see the future of this game's press scores is dubunked with it having an 85 metacritic score now, but man it felt surreal when I saw the Eurogamer review first. No matter how it does in the press, I still want Rome II.

I agree but really, you have to question a reviewer when they go into a genre known and liked by fans for its complexity and they say "it's too nuanced and takes too long to learn". Not that it can't be an issue but it sounds like it just takes a while to learn the game and that's not something to knock it for, I think all fans of it would say that's a great thing. They are reviewing the game for an audience that won't play it and doesn't care.

It doesn't bother me but it's worth a laugh and I'll scratch my head trying to figure out why you would possibly do something like that in a review.

@artisanbreads: You're right. In a bit of a build up to Rome II I decided to get Europa Universalis IV (which came with Crusader Kings II). 10 hours of gameplay in EUIV and I only have a vague sense of what I'm doing (my Polish Commonwealth is going okay, I think). While I think EUIV doesn't explain itself very well either, I am not taking that as a huge negative on the game. It is incredibly deep, detailed and difficult to access, but it doesn't pretend to be any different. I wouldn't 'subtract' from a review score simply because a game has a lot of depth.

And after playing that, I'll be quite surprised if Rome is overly difficult to access, especially by comparison.

@artisanbreads: You're right. In a bit of a build up to Rome II I decided to get Europa Universalis IV (which came with Crusader Kings II). 10 hours of gameplay in EUIV and I only have a vague sense of what I'm doing (my Polish Commonwealth is going okay, I think). While I think EUIV doesn't explain itself very well either, I am not taking that as a huge negative on the game. It is incredibly deep, detailed and difficult to access, but it doesn't pretend to be any different. I wouldn't 'subtract' from a review score simply because a game has a lot of depth.

And after playing that, I'll be quite surprised if Rome is overly difficult to access, especially by comparison.

Ive probably put over 1000 hours in rome total war and its mods. Im currently playing through a campaign on RTW and having a great time. I wish I had a pc to play the new game on.

Yeah for sure, TW is on the low end of the "grad strategy" spectrum, since half the game is really the real time battles.

As I said before, I hate to see how this guy would review Crusader Kings II. I don't have a EUIV knowledge but that's probably just as complex I'd assume. And good for both, they are successful and the fans love that level of depth. It just can't really be seen as a negative, even if in the case of those two games I'd say they could definitely teach better. I don't think TW could have the depth to really make that something you'd knock it for.

Less than one hour to go!

hyped , this is the game i uprgaded my pc for , since shogun 2 nearly melted my pc last summer , super duper hyped lets GOOOOOO

Also , anybody know what the deal is with the greek states culture pack , its slated for a tba release date in steam as a seperate thing, is this just the actual purchasable dlc for non preorder peopel ? , or do i fkn have to wait x weeks to play some epirus ?

Just getting mine all unpacked and set up.

I likely won't actually play til later tonight after dinner, the gym and when my wife goes to sleep.

I think going to bed around 2 or 3 and getting up at 6 will be fine today though.

stupidworknotlettingmeplaythisgame*grmbl*

So I played for an hour. I had a very poor framerate and some truly awful textures. Based on my specs I should be able to run it fairly high but I'm not. Anyone else encountering some issues like this?

Yep, it manages to run worse than shogun 2, while looking like a piece of shit. 3d model - sprite transitions are especially noticable, and i can't find a way to improve them, not even in Preferences.script.

@2headedninja: I hear this bullshit all the time, rts can work on consoles, just need to redesign the control scheme

Sure, thats why there is this huge library of complex strategy games on consoles. From what I heard StarCraft 2 and Company of Heroes are awesome on the PS3 :) ... As I said: This is no "bah consoles are dumb"-thing ... It's just that everyone that has played any resonable complex stategy game should realize that it is near impossible to do that stuff on a controller. Even Civilization had to be knocked down quite a bit in complexity and that was an TSG.

Sweet jesus my GTX 670 got pushed to the bloody limit.... able to run on 'Extreme' pretty well but the moment I turn on Depth Of Field or whatever that fancy foliage tool they have on my frame rate tanks.

Been playing this for about 2 hours and the GUI just seems so shit to me, it takes up too much screen space and is just hard to navigate. I thought the GUI in Shogun 2 was great, this seems like a step back.

I still need to "finish" Empire and Napoleon and Shogun 2, really. Shit.

I agree i'm undecided on the UI. It's kind of annoying how all the information i want is hidden in tool tips. I don't know if this is some kind of silly way to appear like a more casual game to be less intimidating to new players or something. If that's the case it doesn't work, since without that information at a glance the game becomes harder.

Well i'm off to search in the settings if there's some way to reduce tooltip delay.

Also I've gotten caught out like 3 times so far in the prologue where i'm forced into scripted events that i'm unable to complete for a variety of reasons effectively breaking the game and forcing me to reload a turn or so earlier.

and now hard crashes.

Maybe ill play this later...

I've been a staunch defender of the game so far though my game did crash/lock up during the prologue and I went straight into the campaign. No problems there yet other than me being terrible at naval battles.