Playing the Brutii, civil war started. I control Asia Minor and all of Greece and Macedon, meaning my income is significantly higher than the other two Roman factions. Indeed, by the start of the civil war I had 800,000 denarii in my treasury and with that I recruited entire legions in Larissa due to it's incredibly high population.

My first act was to besiege and capture Capua with the stack I had in a fort nearby. With the fall of Capua, the road to Rome was guaranteed (aside from the fact the Julii were starting to invade the eastern side of the peninsula). I took some time to prepare for the coming battle against the Senate, strengthening my troops and recruiting two units of onagers. Then, I attacked.

I was met with a Senate force consisting of several generals and one Praetorian cohort, the rest were pre-Marian units. The battle was won mainly by the cavalry units I had, routing nearly every infantry unit and killing all generals, the Praetorians were an absolute [censored] to destroy however (I did buff them in the EDU file).

With the destruction of the Senate's main army and most of their generals rotting in the sunny Italian countryside, I marched to Rome. I was repelled two times (mainly because of the Praetorians) and only captured it when the garrison was 6 men strong. Now I find myself in a dire situation, the Scipii have blockaded Capua and sent two stacks towards Rome. The reinforcements from Greece are coming to take over the rest of Italy but Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily have to be invaded as well in order to stage a naval invasion of the Scipii's territory in Africa, after that the Julii will be easily brought down.

[censored] epic, GIVE ME BACK MY LEGION

Here is another http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=OxilvLpCT7U&feature=endscreen of the same battle.

There is also the Rome 2 Watch Rally Point for more Rome 2 TW videos.

That looked nice, but it was very underwhelming at the same time. "Germania will be free"? That doesn't make any sense.

It make sense to me because http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germania#History was the only faction/nation in the west the Romans didn't occupied except for the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celts#Celtic_Christianity.

It does not make sense, because Germania wasn't a faction/nation, but a name made up by the Romans for all the tribes in that general area that fell outside their direct sphere of influence. The Germanic tribes themselves didn't have a concept of 'Germania', but instead thought of themselves as Chatti, Cherusci, Cimbri or whatever tribal alliance they belonged to. The alliance that fought against Varus and Germanicus was an alliance of convenience, made up of tribes that in all likelihood felt that they didn't have a whole lot in common, besides a common enemy in the Romans, and that would just as gladly fight each other if the Romans weren't around.

I only use the term faction/nation from the Imperial Campaign in Rome TW because it was convenient.

That battle looked very much like the one in the movie Centurion.

Personally, I just can't get excited for the newer Total Wars. I did get Empire, but as a Christmas present back in 2011, and didn't expect much. It's okay, but for a long time I was a big fan of the original Medieval. Didn't play it much when it first came out, didn't even have any idea what was going on half the time! Once Rome came out, I really got into that, then Medieval 2 arrived...which went very badly for me (Christmas present that was bust...the discs were damaged). I never really got into it, and then I got Medieval Total War Gold Edition, which lasted me a few years (until the curse of the Nvidia 8*** series struck - I have it back now, with a Geforce GT 240). However, Medieval 2 gained my love with Stainless Steel and Byg's Grim Reality (and now I mod for it...only played part of one campaign, darn it!). The newer games lack the moddability that Medieval 2 and Rome had (Medieval 1 to a lesser extent, but you could - as a very good example - add new regions, which no one has figured out with Empire after all these years, just an extra town is all).

I never gave a damn about Empire, Napoleon, or Shogun 1 and 2. So I know what you mean about the most recent games, but surely you are psyched for Rome 2?

Not really. I don't get psyched for games much these days. The only games I'm psyched for are the Lost Alpha and Half Life 3 (when the former comes out, and *if* the latter comes out). Basically, if it lacks the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, cat characters you can play as, scary post-apocalyptic zones, or a scientist wielding a crowbar...

I will psych extra hard to make up for your deficiencies.

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Total_War:_Rome_II_-_Parthia_Faction

I'm a bit surprised... That means at least one of the 2 factions I wanted for the last 2 slots aren't in or playable. But I guess a lot of people wanted this.

The Parthians are not a surprise, they basically had to be in there.

What were the two factions you were hoping for?

Scythia and Egypt

But I don't mind Parthia. As long as they aren't a bunch of pink pajamas with wickerbasket shields like in RTW.

These Persian/Iranian infantry look really cool in this Osprey book on Alexander I got for 2 dollars.

I love Osprey drawings.

I would not be surprised if Egypt was the final faction.

Really looking forward to Rome 2. Shogun 2 was a good game, but feudal japan is an uninteresting period imo. Rome 2 will be amazing

Also the last faction is obviously Egypt. I like that were getting thought out and unique factions this time, even if there are only 8 of them. Big improvement over shogun 2, where all the factions were pretty much the same

Liked Rome, loved Medieval II, loved Empire, liked Napoleon sorta, barely tolerated Shogun 2. Judging by the trend I will hate Rome 2. It's fortunate I discovered Paradox Interactive when I did or I would be lamenting that fact.

I somewhat gets exited but I know what you mean. Oh man what struggle I had with my Nvidia 8500 GT card and I did some adjustment to my graphics card, which actually let me play it a few minutes before there were another CTD for no reason.

When Medieval 2 came out I was really disappointed because almost everything was not what I expected, so I just drop it somewhere in my bookshelf for 1½ years before I pick it up again. But I still can't get my self into the game like I did in the previous games.

How did you get Medieval TW to work anyway? Are you using some sort of an emulator? I'm just curious what I need to do before I can play it again and sometimes I want to play it, but I don't want to have the same problems I had before.

That's true but have you discover http://www.darkcreations.org/forums/gallery/image/3593-shogun2ted-gui/ yet. Have you ever tried EasyEsf before (sorry no link http://www.twcenter.net/forums/index.php seems to be down atm)?

Well, the Nvidia 8*** and 9*** series are notorious for screwing up Medieval 1 beyond all recognition, so they are a definite no-go. I'm currently using an Nvidia Geforce GT240, which doesn't absolutely trash the battle map. Certain Nvidia 8*** cards allow some playability on the battlemap, but the cursor and the 3D environment/units do not align properly, so you have to use a combination of clicking on unit cards and the radar map for unit movement/combat, and formations to change the rank depth. Otherwise, you can't do very much at all. It certainly worked like it for me for a while (never actually played under those circumstances, it was too tedious), but then after a later reinstall the battlemap screen just flickered wildly. I only discovered my current card's tolerance of the game by accident, since on the .org people were posting about possible fixes for Shogun 1, and that they might be applicable to Medieval 1 (I didn't even need the fixes).

As for the campaign map, there should be topics on the .org about that - on most newer graphics cards, the main issue was that certain graphical elements on the in-game scrolls were being stretched and screwed up, causing CTD on the campaign map. It was discovered by accident that one mod modified the up and down arrows in the scrolls slightly, and fixed the issue for most by replacing the relevant texture files in vanilla MTW with the ones from the mod.

http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?103656-NEW-Fix-for-CTD-when-starting-campaign-%28Nvidia-High-End-Cards%29-10

So excited

Yes, I can't wait for Rome 2. Sinking plenty of hours into Medieval II at the moment.

I concur they sure did.

Thanks for the link which is now included in the OP.

New faction http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Total_War:_Rome_II_-_Egyptian_Faction

Yay!

And then there's http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Factions (symbol in the 9th slot)

Well, no real surprise there with Egypt. I'm happy with the factions announced so far.