A valuable addition to your Total War collection. Glorious battles, decent naval system, politics, half-decent diplomacy and everything in-between.

However for a AAA game I find it hard to digest the fact that the in-game help (hints, tips and whatnot) is so little and inefficient that one has to scavenge the forums -- or "fora" since we are dealing with ancient Rome in this game -- to find important information for terminology, such as zeal, gravitas, authority, or crucial city management information, e.g. building options, effects, strategies, and so on.

The positive thing is that once you get the grip of all these game mechanics you don't really need a guiding-hand. However, the learning curve is noticably steep and in the beginning you will take ALL the wrong decisions, if you decide to not google things up.

A valuable addition to your Total War collection. Glorious battles, decent naval system, politics, half-decent diplomacy and everything in-between. However for a AAA game I find it hard to digest the fact that the in-game help (hints, tips and whatnot) is so little and inefficient that one has to scavenge the forums -- or "fora" since we are dealing with ancient Rome in this game -- to find important information for terminology, such as zeal, gravitas, authority, or crucial city management information, e.g. building options, effects, strategies, and so on. The positive thing is that once you get the grip of all these game mechanics you don't really need a guiding-hand. However, the learning curve is noticably steep and in the beginning you will take ALL the wrong decisions, if you decide to not google things up.