So it turned out last week that Creative Assembly were going to renege on their promise of a Total War: Rome 2 patch every Friday for a few weeks after launch and opted instead to release an optional beta patch.
The beta patch that they let users opt in to last weeks was leading up to the patch’s full release which came on the 17th of this month, three days ago if you’re too lazy to look that up.
Patch 2 contains some much needed refinements and optimisations for the single-player campaign, making both frame-rates and turn-times significantly faster. You’ll also find it easier to keep your people fed and happy as food and squalor generated by buildings has also been balanced.
The crashes mentioned in our Total War: Rome 2 review have also been cut in regularity, but don’t expect them to go anywhere any time soon. As with all Total War games Rome 2 will have quite a ways to go before it’s ever bug free (which it will likely never be).
Overall this second patch just makes Rome 2 feel like a more of a finished product than it did at launch. Your research button now has a number by it to tell you how many turns until your current research is done. Small changes that make a big difference. You can’t get tons of housework done between turns anymore, thoug,h because of the aforementioned quicker turn times thanks to the added option of only viewing the turns of enemies you can see.
Battles are more manageable now without losing realism as the morale damage done by losing small numbers of troops has been lowered. No longer will you watch helplessly as 140 heavily armed men run for their lives because twenty of their friends died! Now soldiers act like soldiers in the face of danger instead of delicate wee flowers.
Speaking of your soldiers, they now charge a little slower. That may seem like a bad thing but it adds to a sense of realism quite well. These are human males coated in metal, in some cases carrying shields as tall as themselves and hefting big sticks with sharp ends about. It’s tough to run when you’re wearing the equivalent of triple your own body weight. Soldiers are also more likely not to break formation upon coming into contact with the enemy and will huddle together protectively rather than becoming strewn across the battlefield in a tangled mess.
There’s plenty more changes you may not even notice so go and check out the full patch notes.