Why this game is second most played game on Steam?

[beksibeksi]

It's a Total War game. You have little people fighting little people. What's not to like?

[omzdog]

Because it's a good game.

[ChippyZofSLP]

It's probably because it's a genuinely enjoyable game. The people who like it are too busy playing it to make posts on the twcenter forums.

[Gerleman]

Gosh, just play the game... There is a reason I (and many Rome 2 players in my friends list) have 50+ hours of gameplay already. You are obviously the minority.

[theDaedricPrince]

Because it's a good game.

Thisx1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

[omzdog]

The number of people playing it doesn't indicate how good teh game is.
Plenty of people play CoD.

[Niccolo Machiavelli]

It's probably because the game, despite being heavily buggy and full of flaws is one of the best TW releases thus far.

Shogun 2 was more polished at release, but since it covered a far more homogeneous time period and region, it was far less ambitious.

To be honest, I think the rome setting is one of the least suitable periods for TW games due to being quite unilateral, historically. Compared to R1TW, they really did a good job.

Yes - not improving the AI, removing family trees etc.. are terrible design decisions.

However, being over 50 hours into the game, I haven't even encountered any of the gamebreaking bugs every TW game I've played at release had.

I still remember my first RTW battle - I had a tribal germanic phalanx unit in my army (oh the imbecility to even have such a unit early in the game) and the first thing the AI did was keeping all its units stand still whilst selectively charging it's general into that specific unit.

It's a shame CA seem to be either unable or unwilling to deliver any decent kind of AI (My bet is on unwilling, because they should be able to iterate on mods that have been released for previous titles at the very least), but I've read threads comparing this game to Vanilla RTW 1 or even ETW and TBH, I can't take that 'this release is worse than ETW' crowd seriously anymore.

Yes - the game is bad and obviously geared towards an arcadish console port once next gen consoles have hit, but every other TW game except S2TW was worse at release.

Luckily, there are mods and I'm already having a great time playing them just one week after release.

[Winterspawn]

I like the game, it works very good for me even with a pretty GPU it runs fine while looking better than I could run Shogun 2 on similar settings, I have no bugs except for the game getting me stuck in the diplomacy screen once, and a crash when pressing N to see what the intelligent camera is. The AI is a bit better than in Shogun 2 except for the bug where it charges and retreats all the time but other than that the AI makes intelligent decisions against me. On the campaign map the AI seems to be a bit passive with only a few factions trying to expand which isn't that bad but I just like to see a bit more danger, the AI recruits mostly weak units though I have seen some armies with good units in it. I'm not attacked by small armies or fleets all the time except for when I destroyed a faction and it's desperately trying to retake a settlement. All I need them to do is fix the AI up a bit and balance some things like how fast units rout and how fast they move including different speeds for light, heavy and very heavy infantry as well as the killing rate during a fight. They should also weaken transport fleets like the radious mod does and make them cost money to transform.

Edit: they also need to add the family tree again, fire at will for infantry units. We don't need guard mode because the game seems to have guard mode automatically enabled which is pretty much fine to me since I usually did that anyway.

[krisslanza]

Contrary to what this forum may lead you to believe, it is hardly a good idea of the overall fanbase of Total War. This is just some of the more vocal bits of it, but probably represent barely 5%, and maybe 10% at best of it's playerbase.

Which is to say basically, despite what the hatred spewed all over this forum would lead you to believe - much like the hate spewed all over Shogun 2 on release - it's actually a good game.

A shocker, I know.

[omzdog]

However, being over 50 hours into the game, I haven't even encountered any of the gamebreaking bugs every TW game I've played at release had.

This is how I know you are not an honest man.

[beksibeksi]

uh... it's fun?
omg im a genius

[Ferdiad]

Believe it or not some of us had great experiences so far, I haven't experienced any bugs so far really.

[Da Bomb]

lol mad

[krisslanza]

This is how I know you are not an honest man.

Must be a lot of dishonest posters then. Because, unlike Shogun 2, I didn't encounter a CTD bug within the first 5 minutes of gameplay. Rome 2 has optimization issues, but I have yet to have any kind of game breaking bugs ever. And I have 57 hours in it already.

[omzdog]

any kind of game breaking bugs ever

Well I suppose you could squeeze in the definition of 'game-breaking bug'.
Like would you classify the fact that men throwing torches at a wooden gate that then explodes is a game-breaking bug?
Or do you think that the AI siege mass mob rush for the gate is a game-breaking bug?
Or the fact that AI campaign doesn't defend cities at all.
Only 3 examples of what you might classify as game-breaking.

If not then I'd say you and those many others are being dishonest, but only to yourselves.
If you do, I welcome you to the group of people who have their heads on straight.

[beksibeksi]

lol i don't even try anymore
apparently most people on twcenter don't understand that capture points and no family tree aren't game breaking bugs
lol these clowns think long turn times are game breaking bugs
if yo turn time is under 3 minutes u need to stfu
that isn't a game breaking bug
that's u having a cpu

[krisslanza]

Well I suppose you could squeeze in the definition of 'game-breaking bug'.
Like would you classify the fact that men throwing torches at a wooden gate that then explodes is a game-breaking bug?
Or do you think that the AI siege mass mob rush for the gate is a game-breaking bug?
Or the fact that AI campaign doesn't defend cities at all.
Only 3 examples of what you might classify as game-breaking.

If not then I'd say you and those many others are being dishonest, but only to yourselves.
If you do, I welcome you to the group of people who have their heads on straight.

Not a one of those is 'game-breaking'. Of those three, two of them are personal 'immersive' issues, and in no way 'break' your game. The third isn't breaking your game either, although it does lead to easier campaigns, but it is not preventing you from physically playing - none of them are.

This seems to be a common misconception. A game-breaking bug is not some kind of 'immersion' breaking issue you have with the game, in no way are those three things PHYSICALLY preventing you from playing the game. You instead merely make a conscious choice to NOT play, because it bothers you for some reason that a game, has gameplay elements to it.

[theDaedricPrince]

Well I suppose you could squeeze in the definition of 'game-breaking bug'.
Like would you classify the fact that men throwing torches at a wooden gate that then explodes is a game-breaking bug?
Or do you think that the AI siege mass mob rush for the gate is a game-breaking bug?
Or the fact that AI campaign doesn't defend cities at all.
Only 3 examples of what you might classify as game-breaking.

If not then I'd say you and those many others are being dishonest, but only to yourselves.
If you do, I welcome you to the group of people who have their heads on straight.

Not having any problems with R2 does NOT make you a dishonest man. I also played the game for about 50+ hours and it's pretty amazing. Yes there are some problems, but are they ground-breaking? Nope. Ground-breaking would be something like 10 soldiers in a unit. I can just imagine it..

[Lord of Lost Socks]

I play it. It's like a girl I keep asking out and getting declined every single time...

[Kenios]

Because I'm playing the game everyday. Yes, it's because of evil people like me that such a horrible, terrible game like Rome 2 is pushed up to the most played listing. Feel free to channel your hate at me.