Total War: Rome
 

I know most people here don't give a shit.

And I know those that do have already played (and moved on from) Total War: Rome TWO.

I have a Mac,so all I got is the original, which is fine with me because it's a ****ing great game.

I did some modding to make the AI play better and make some gameplay changes like slowing down city growth and stuff.

I'm kind of a history nerd so rather than conquer the entire map, I like to play to the "50 provinces and conquer Rome" mark. I like to take a screenshot of my empire, just to see what my empire would look like in a history textbook.

I finished my first full campaign today as Macedon.

Great work, man.

Did you enjoy the game?

Whoops, thought you were talking about Rome 2.

My bad.

Yeah, with the modded info I'm using, the game is a lot slower and more deliberate. With fatigue turned off, the AI presents a decent challenge without having to give them the ridiculous bonuses that come with turning up the difficulty. You don't have to blitz and you don't have to finish off every last faction, they'll actually leave you alone if you build right. With things like slower city growth, you can actually enslave, setup frontier boundaries, and build a more realistic empire.

For example, as got close to the mid-game, I wiped out the Brutii and pushed into Italy so that I wouldn't have to face a post-Marian Rome. I crushed the Julii and forced them west, leaving them with the territories that they had taken from the Gauls, west of Massilia. They didn't attack me again for the rest of the game. I knocked the Scipii out of Italy and Sicily and left them with their African holdings.

They sieged me on Sicily once in the next 100 years. I fought 3 or 4 battles with them very late in the game because as you can see, I conquered Carthage to make it an even 50 provinces and win the game.

However, contrast that with the fact that I established a northern frontier by conquering Thracia in the first 5 years of the campaign. I was STILL getting sieged at Campus Getae by Dacians AND Scythians when I got my 50th province.

In other words, I subdued several "civilized" factions like the Greeks and Romans but was constantly besieged in my hinterlands by "barbarians".

My next campaign I'll be playing as the Gauls. I got REALLY comfortable with phalanx warfare in this campaign and started rolling. I had an especially easy time with the Romans. I kept the pressure on them and they just couldn't adjust.

I had some crazy stuff with Egypt and Pontus though. I ended up having to hole up in Halicarnassus and Pergamum and force the Pontics to fall on my pikes. Finally drained their economy to the point they couldn't afford troops but it took almost 25 years.

Sounds ****ing epic. Sounds like mods made the AI way more realistic. That's been an issue for me at times when playing the Total War games, but it's usually just minor shit that I can turn a blind eye on or find a way to justify the silly AI antics in my head. :)

Actually, the mods are more to enhance the overall campaign and balance a few things here and there, like swapping 2 starting provinces for Greece and Macedon so they actually have a chance to resist the Romans and tweaking Britannia so they don't blitzkrieg across Europe in every single campaign without fail.

What ultimately makes the AI more realistic (outside of a tiny formation file mod) is to TURN OFF FATIGUE. Yeah, it's sounds so ridiculously simple it's stupid. The AI simply doesn't know how to manage fatigue so by the time armies engage, the AI is already exhausted so they get their asses kicked. You have to make sure YOU don't abuse it (because now you can sprint anywhere without penalty) but the AI is just so much better with fatigue off.

Oh my, was I high last night.

LMAO

It's a fun, FUN game.

But Jesus Christ, that's the message board equivalent of eating an entire bag of Cheetos and then wondering where all the yellow powder on my fingers came from...

I hope you somehow remember to write down the notes of how you would solve all the universe's problems when you're higher than a mother****er. That would be fantastic reading. :D

Rome 2 is laughably garbage, doesn't hold a candle to the original. Total War has become the Madden franchise for PC ROFL

Rome 2 is garbage?

LMAO

This (and a couple other things) are in the humble bundle weekly sale this week.

Came here to post exactly this.

https://www.humblebundle.com/weekly

I think I'm gonna pick up Total War: Napoleon next.