Total War: Rome II. Games full of bugs that players loved anyway
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The fact that I still remember perfectly well the storm that swept through our portal after reviewed Total War: Rome II with a rating of 9.5 out of 10, is a good indication of what opinion players had about this strategy game just after its premiere. At the time of its debut, Creative Assembly's production was just barely playable. And it wasn't only because of the bugs, although these also played a huge role here – the developers completely ignored optimization, which in a game with demanding system requirements effectively prevented many people from playing.
This was compounded by numerous shortcomings in the code. This mainly concerned the in-game artificial intelligence, which sucked big time – both on the strategic map and on the battlefield. Players who, after the previous installments of the Total War series, had been preparing for long hours of building empires against all odds were utterly disappointed by Rome II, where they had to work hard to make the computer-controlled factions any kind of challenge. Wars were fast, and diplomacy was conducted in an idiotic way, which in turn made the satisfaction evaporate after a few hours of fun.
Fortunately, the developers didn't remain deaf to players' complaints, rolled up their sleeves, and began working on solving the problems. And suddenly it turned out that somewhere out there, under a thick layer of bugs and failures, there is a game as good as its predecessors (which was sensed by many from the very beginning). Fans had to wait a little longer before the game became completely playable, but in the end, Rome II proved to be really decent and to this day attracts a lot of people.
The Total War games have been popular for years after their releases. To this day, several hundred people a day play the first Rome or Napoleon on Steam. The most popular of the series is Warhammer II, the second most popular is the latest Three Kingdoms, and the third is Rome II. At the time of writing this, more than four thousand people are playing them. Interestingly, Thrones of Britannia is somewhere adrift.
