Yes, this is gameplay footage.

[Whore of Spamylon]

http://www.gamespot.com/total-war-rome-ii/videos/carthage-battle-gameplay-walkthrough-total-war-rome-ii-6398557/?tag=Topslot;TotalWarRomeIiExclusive;TotalWarRomeIiGamepl

[largeham]

None of this will matter if the AI is as bad as Empire: TW.

[Whore of Spamylon]

We'll have to wait and see.  I think that Shogun II demonstrated that Creative Assembly learned from their past mistakes in terms of getting too carried away with the game's sense of scale.

As far as Empire is concerned, I didn't find anything wrong with the real time battles (with the exception of the game sometimes crashing when I just got done fighting one), but, when I was playing the British on hard, the Maratha became a global power for reasons beyond anyone's comprehension.

[largeham]

I had a lot of problems in battles, the most obvious being the 'melee bug' (somewhat of a misnomer, it's where the AI can't make a proper line, so keeps moving units forward, eventually running into melee with the player's line).

Also, the Marathas became world powers in almost every game I have played. You could be giving the Persians/Ottomans hundreds of thousands of money (I forget the unit) per turn and every tech under the sun and they will still lose. It is because the Indian provinces are extremely rich. But to nerf them, CA removed their ability to rank fire, making the Marathas pretty boring to play with.

I have heard good things about Shogun 2. Thankfully they got rid of the sheer stupidity that allowed units to reinforce anywhere in the world (reinforce a nearly destroyed unit of Highlanders in the middle of Mexico, sure why not?).

[FirsthandTuna]

Fuuuck. As a strategy game/Roman history fan, this is my ambrosia. And did I hear Patrick Stewart as one of those voice actors? Shut up, I'm going to believe that I did.

Furthermore, I feel Carthage must be destroyed.