

There’s distinct variation in how each of these factions plays: in their unique units, their starting position, their rivals, their objectives, and even the time they existed. The Creative Assembly has stuffed their game with a continent’s worth of playable factions in the years since release, offering some in chunky campaign packs like Rise of the Republic, some (like Greek States Athens and Sparta) in paid-for culture packs, and a few (like Armenia, Getae, and Massilia) for free.
TOTAL WAR ROME II EMPEROR EDITION FACTIONS UPDATE
These varying factions are new additions to Rome II, but they’re certainly not the only update the game has received since its launch in 2013. Taras, on the other hand, prefers science to religion and players can harness the brainpower of philosophers to boost their research speed. The Samnites live in the bit around modern-day Naples, and can magic up an army at the drop of a toga thanks to their religiousness. As a brand new republic, playing as Rome gave me fun political crises to chart my way through, but these other early cities have their own fancies and foibles. Or, you can crush Rome into the ground and build an empire with one of eight other factions, messing up the primary school education of kids everywhere in the process. Winning the game is dependent on control of the entire region. The £12 pack whisks players back to 399 BC, plonks them into the sandals of its first politicians, and asks them to guide the nascent city to control all of Italy (and small bits of north Africa) on a shrunk-down version of the standard grand campaign map. It’s this early phase in Rome’s existence that’s the setting for The Creative Assembly’s new Total War: Rome II DLC, Rise of the Republic.

Update Night is a fortnightly column in which Rich McCormick revisits games to find out whether they've been changed for better or worse.īack before Rome became the big boss of the Mediterranean civilizations, it was just one of many cities on the Italian peninsula, distinguished primarily by being founded by a murderer with a taste for dog milk.
