How many people here can say they have beaten Total War: Rome II on the hardest difficulty? How many people could say the same thing, but say they did it in 16 turns?
I personally have beaten the game on the hardest difficulty multiple times, but never in so little turns; but someone has done it and I would like to introduce the forum post of Genius the Restoration, a man who was able to Speed Run the Greeks to victory in little to no time.
Although this looks pretty fun and really puts your skills to the test, I really am disheartened that people can think the game would be this easy. And I am hoping something more will come to Rome II.
I don’t want Rome to be too easy or too hard–or more importantly, all about the battles.
Despite what some people think, the administrative side to Rome (building roads, mines, units) is the part I enjoy. A recent post from some of the devs suggest that they will be removing this feature from the game, or “dumbing it down,” making it easier to let the computer take it on and manage so that you as the player can just keep on jumping into the real time battles. Gamespot highlights some of the changes that will be made tweaked in the new game, and I am interested to see the result, but at the same time dreading some of the decisions that will really reflect how the game turns out.
Also to consider in this is the success and failure of the last few Total War games–mainly Shogun 2. I have never played it, but I hear that a lot of the elements that made the game complex have been removed, and that worries me. I like complex systems, which take some figuring out and time to plan a strategy; if I really wanted to play something super simple with limited options, I would play a different game.
What I want people to get out of this is that I think Rome II will be an awesome game, but I am skeptical about the turnout of some of the decisions made by the company, and am really hoping to see some of the campaign map before the launch to better gauge how the game will play.
On a side note, does anyone know of some other people who have done similar things such as speed runs? If so, please leave a comment, and would you try something like that–if you would, what faction would you be? Personally I would be the Brutii, but I would probably need a few more turns in order to gain the popularity in order to take on Rome.
