Total War: Rome II is a strategy video game developed by Creative Assembly and published by Sega.

However, it proved a commercial success, surpassing all other games in the Total War series in both sales and number of concurrent players on its release day.

[5][6][7] In September 2014, an Emperor Edition was released, which added macOS support and addressed many of the technical problems in the game, as well as overhauled AI battles and upgraded certain visual elements.

Like its predecessor, Rome II blends turn-based grand strategy and civilization management with real-time tactical battles.

The Warscape engine powers the game's visuals and new unit cameras allow players to focus on individual soldiers on the real-time battlefield, which may contain thousands of combatants at the same time.

Creative Assembly has stated that it wished to bring out the more human side of war, with soldiers reacting as their comrades get killed around them, and officers inspiring men with heroic speeches.

In certain cases, a player may attempt to take all power for himself to become emperor or king, which requires a civil war—another part of the game completely redesigned.

Players can still determine the composition of individual cohorts, even though they will be building entire legions at a time, unlike in previous Total War titles where all units had to be created separately.

Their purpose is to prevent players or the AI from slipping an invasion force right past a huge enemy fleet.

However, control of an entire province allows a player to pass edicts at a provincial level, which provide bonuses such as increased public happiness or military production.

Playable factions from the Classical era include the Roman Republic, Carthage, Ptolemaic Egypt, the Seleucid Empire, Parthia, the Iceni, the Arverni, the Suebi, and Macedon.

Since its original release, Total War: Rome II has been re-released numerous times in physical special editions bundled with a selection of thematically connected DLC packs.

[28][29] According to The Bookseller website, Pan MacMillan and Thomas Dunne Books purchased the rights from The Creative Assembly in 2012 to publish a series of novels based on Total War: Rome II.

[33] PC Gamer scored the game 85%, praising the cinematic scale of the battles and attention to detail, calling them "stunning" and "the most marvellous moments of the fifty plus hours I've played so far".

[42] Edge similarly praised the visuals and battles while noting bugs on release, stating that "even as it topples, it's glorious to look at, and to live through.

"[34] Daniel Starkey of GameSpot enjoyed the variety of units and what it called "spectacular sound design and great attention to visual detail".

[37] Justin Clouse of The Escapist also enjoyed the unit and visual variety, stating "to its credit, Rome II does an excellent job of giving all the factions a unique feel", in what it called "impactful variations".

[40] Paul Dean of Eurogamer enjoyed the new additions to the gameplay systems while also felt "stagnation" detracted from others, concluding that "for all that the game may have promised, it isn't such a big step forward for the series.

[36] Mike Suskle of GamesRadar, however, called it "a worthy continuation of the franchise and an overdue update to one of the greatest strategy games of all time".

[45] The update integrated all prior fixes while adding improvements to the AI battles, political system, building chains, and visuals.

[46] Softpedia, for example, gave Emperor Edition a 90, saying that it "shows how much the title from The Creative Assembly has evolved since it was originally delivered and the way the entire experience has been updated based on the needs of the community and the cool ideas of the development team.

[48][49] In a negative review by Rich Stanton for The Guardian, he reports having to re-download the full game following problems with his own review copy, noting that his "PC runs Shogun II at ultra settings without any issues but Rome II on medium makes it "choke like a dog", and judging by the developer's own forum many others are having the same issues.

"[41] On the official forums, an "anonymous developer" from another studio posted his own complaints, including numerous bugs and poorly implemented features such as "capture the flag" style battles, feeling that the game had "comprehensively failed" to be tested and blaming the publisher Sega for its state on release.

[54] Simpson would later go on to state, in a second public announcement about new and upcoming fixes, about asking for further player input while also "hoping we can fundamentally treat our releases differently in the future.