Creative Assembly is taking another look at Rome 2 and has announced three updates that will make significant changes to the game mechanics and polish up the graphics.
Total War: Rome 2is a game with two faces. Some fans saw the titleas Creative Assembly’s first major failure. After all, there were countless bugs at launch, and overall, the Total War formula was greatly simplified here.
Others recognizedthe potential of the presentation and its accessibility,and still appreciate the game for these qualities today. It’s no coincidence that Rome 2 is still played surprisingly often, even 13 years after its release.
The latter, in particular, is the reason why Creative Assemblynow wants to give the aging strategy game a rather extensive makeover.As part of their major restoration project for historical titles, Rome 2 is set to be the first game to undergo a fundamental overhaul.
In the livestream from April 30 it was explained in more detail what this means for Rome 2.
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How Rome 2 is being brought into the present
Three major updates are set to ensure that Rome 2 becomes a better game and can keep up with modern standards. Collectively, these updates are known as the Pantheon Updates, as each has been assigned to a god from the Roman pantheon.
The Mars Update
The first major update focuses on the real-time battles in Rome 2. It includes several improvements designed to make the battles more strategic than before.
- Armor:A new formula is being introduced to determine how armor absorbs damage. This is intended to lead to a slightly more predictable and linear gameplay experience. Until now, how well armor protected units was also dependent on chance; that is set to change. At the same time, armor-piercing damage no longer bypasses the entire armor value. Overall, this makes units with armor more resilient.
- Morale and Exhaustion:However, to prevent battles from being unnecessarily prolonged as a result, stamina and morale have also been reworked. With skillful flanking maneuvers, it is now easier to break a unit’s morale. Exhaustion also has a greater impact on the effectiveness of units.
- Charge:Units with spears can now prevent a cavalry unit from charging entirely. In addition, the bonus that gives infantry with good charge defense an advantage has been revised.
- Mass:The mass of a unit should be more noticeable. Overall, this is intended to give units more weight and impact.
- Formation:Different units are now arranged differently. Units with high discipline stand in neat rows, while more disorganized troops are in a chaotic jumble. This is intended to help distinguish units more easily visually.
- AI:The AI is now designed to make better decisions when deploying its army before a battle.
The Venus Update
The second update focuses on the presentation of Rome 2 and aims to make the game more modern, but also more immersive.
- HUD:The user interface has been updated and is now designed to create a more atmospheric feel with a texture inspired by Roman villas.
- Lighting:Lighting on the world map and in battles has been reworked and improved.
- Textures: The textures have been spruced up, especially on the world map. This applies to both the continent and the sea. Damage to shields in battle has also been improved.
The Jupiter Update
The third major update will then make significant changes to the game mechanics on the campaign map. The main goal here is to prevent you from snowballing as drastically as before during a campaign. But the gameplay should also feel a bit more relaxed and intuitive.
- Global Bonuses:Many bonuses can no longer stack indefinitely, so that certain systems don’t become redundant over the course of a campaign.
- Buildings:After the update, the game no longer distinguishes between main and secondary settlements. You can build all building chains in every city. Overall, we’ve reworked the effects of buildings, how strongly they impact the game, and how extensive the building tree actually is.
- Empire:The Empire value no longer limits how many armies you can raise. Instead, your available military buildings can increase this limit. This should allow you to better control the effectiveness of your military through buildings.
- Tech Tree:The research tree will no longer contain so many small buffs for units; instead, entire buildings or new unit types will be unlocked here.
When is all this coming?
There is no specific release date yet for any of the three updates. However, they will all be tested in a beta first. The Mars beta will be the first to launch, followed by Venus, and finally Jupiter. Once everything is working, the Pantheon update will be released to all players. We therefore expect it to take a few more months before the changes take effect.
By the way, there will still be a version of Rome 2 that corresponds to the current game. This is primarily so that not all mods have to be completely adapted to the new version.
