Total War: Rome 2 is out now; here’s our Total War: Rome 2 review.
Being able to watch a place grow is a privilege not readily open to human beings, what with their measly lifespans. I never heard the steel factories of my adopted hometown of Sheffield hammering at full pelt, for instance, nor saw their workers go about raising funds to build a university for their children (true story).
Total War: Rome 2 players are unconstrained by the temporal concerns of the mortals they survey, however. They can watch their hamlets become towns become cities become Romes and Carthages and Troys. Creative Assembly offer a glimpse into that process below.
What’s initially flabbergasting is the physical space one city can eventually eat up, given time and resources:
Go here for an embiggened version.
Slowly, that city fills up with the aesthetic trappings of a major cultural and commercial centre in 3000BC – a dramatic aquaduct, a high-capacity amphitheatre fit to accommodate the most lavish festival, and those bits that stick out into the sea so people can get on and off ships and that.
See our Tim’s Rome 2 preview for a more in-depth look at its “dinky animated map” – and maybe watch this campaign map video from Creative Assembly on the subject. I’m looking forward to returning to the odd dichotomy of meaty decision-making and strangely lethargic ambience the series has excelled at since the first Rome. It’s the waves, I think, and those Mediterranean guitar vibes – they send me to sleep.
What are you most looking forward to in Rome 2?