After 120 hours in this game, and numerous hours in other TW games, I can confidently give a thumb down.

This does not mean this is a bad game -- this is a normal game just like any other TW. This review is targeted specifically at the notorious WRE campaign.

The campaign is hard, but in the worst ways you can imagine. You do not face "strong" opponents that make you feel challenged. On the opposite, every single mechanism feels like CA deliberately cheating in the most utterly lazy ways so that you might have a very shoddy delusion of being challenged.

I am a TW veteran, and sure I can cheese the ♥♥♥♥ out of it and still win, regardless difficulty. But that is not what I want from a challenging campaign. The hope is I don't cheat, AI doesn't cheat a lot, but not too ridiculously much. But here AI cheats too ridiculously much.

First off, the public order system is out of control. On top of the difficulty penalties, there's a -9 constant immigration penalty since mid-game that refuses to go away. The way "immigration" is named makes you wonder whether less warring, etc. could help reduce it. Nope. It is just another "difficulty penalty" that does not go away, and is just there to make this pathetic game harder, while not one bit more fun. Following this school of thought, I can make any TW campaign "the hardest" by slamming a -100 flat public order penalty, and then give you 5 different PO buildings that you have to spend tons of money building. This is ridiculous and extremely contrived.

Equally bad is the enemies. All barbarians declare close to the beginning, and they are always on a suicide mission. You'd think they'd stop bothering you after the 5th army they sent is destroyed. Nope. They peace out and before the peace expires they declare war again. They care not at all about their own survival, and there's no logic of any sort. They behave not like nations but AI from 1990s. CA may as well remove all strategic and diplomatic elements and just randomly spawn 5 armies near the border every turn. Won't make a difference.

Oh, wait, that is exactly what they did. The Huns are pillaging Italy and you want to kill them? Too bad because after carefully and perfectly orchestrating a coordinated attack using all the legions and destroying all 7 Hun armies in one turn, instead of being wiped out, they just spawn several new armies near the border a few turns later. Congratulations, now you need to keep 3-4 legions forever on the border so that they can deal with Huns that come from utterly nowhere and cannot be killed. It's like a Tower Defense game, only that you need to spend two hours fighting the exact same enemies every few turns, for 100 turns. It is a complete waste of time.

I can cheese and win. Abandoning settlements at the beginning, wait for siege timer to run out, corner camp, etc. etc. But you-cheat-I-cheat is not the challenge I want. This campaign is extremely disappointing, and I do not suggest anyone to try it.

After 120 hours in this game, and numerous hours in other TW games, I can confidently give a thumb down. This does not mean this is a bad game -- this is a normal game just like any other TW. This review is targeted specifically at the notorious WRE campaign. The campaign is hard, but in the worst ways you can imagine. You do not face "strong" opponents that make you feel challenged. On the opposite, every single mechanism feels like CA deliberately cheating in the most utterly lazy ways so that you might have a very shoddy delusion of being challenged. I am a TW veteran, and sure I can cheese the shit out of it and still win, regardless difficulty. But that is not what I want from a challenging campaign. The hope is I don't cheat, AI doesn't cheat a lot, but not too ridiculously much. But here AI cheats too ridiculously much. First off, the public order system is out of control. On top of the difficulty penalties, there's a -9 constant immigration penalty since mid-game that refuses to go away. The way "immigration" is named makes you wonder whether less warring, etc. could help reduce it. Nope. It is just another "difficulty penalty" that does not go away, and is just there to make this pathetic game harder, while not one bit more fun. Following this school of thought, I can make any TW campaign "the hardest" by slamming a -100 flat public order penalty, and then give you 5 different PO buildings that you have to spend tons of money building. This is ridiculous and extremely contrived. Equally bad is the enemies. All barbarians declare close to the beginning, and they are always on a suicide mission. You'd think they'd stop bothering you after the 5th army they sent is destroyed. Nope. They peace out and before the peace expires they declare war again. They care not at all about their own survival, and there's no logic of any sort. They behave not like nations but AI from 1990s. CA may as well remove all strategic and diplomatic elements and just randomly spawn 5 armies near the border every turn. Won't make a difference. Oh, wait, that is exactly what they did. The Huns are pillaging Italy and you want to kill them? Too bad because after carefully and perfectly orchestrating a coordinated attack using all the legions and destroying all 7 Hun armies in one turn, instead of being wiped out, they just spawn several new armies near the border a few turns later. Congratulations, now you need to keep 3-4 legions forever on the border so that they can deal with Huns that come from utterly nowhere and cannot be killed. It's like a Tower Defense game, only that you need to spend two hours fighting the exact same enemies every few turns, for 100 turns. It is a complete waste of time. I can cheese and win. Abandoning settlements at the beginning, wait for siege timer to run out, corner camp, etc. etc. But you-cheat-I-cheat is not the challenge I want. This campaign is extremely disappointing, and I do not suggest anyone to try it.