The kind of people that can track all of those elements across huge empires should probably be running real countries, though, such is the amount of information theyve got to keep in their minds.

The 12 pack whisks players back to 399 BC, plonks them into the sandals of its first politicians, and asks them to guide the nascent city to control all of Italy (and small bits of north Africa) on a shrunk-down version of the standard grand campaign map.

Or, you can crush Rome into the ground and build an empire with one of eight other factions, messing up the primary school education of kids everywhere in the process.

As a brand new republic, playing as Rome gave me fun political crises to chart my way through, but these other early cities have their own fancies and foibles.

Taras, on the other hand, prefers science to religion and players can harness the brainpower of philosophers to boost their research speed.

The Creative Assembly has stuffed their game with a continents worth of playable factions in the years since release, offering some in chunky campaign packs like Rise of the Republic, some (like Greek States Athens and Sparta ) in paid-for culture packs, and a few (like Armenia, Getae, and Massilia) for free.

Romes first few years are rocky, for example, beset on most sides by other cities and tribes that arent keen on an expansionist upstart ruled (in part) by the unwashed masses.

Step into the city rulers sandals 300 years later, though, and Rome is poised to become the European powerhouse it was in real life.

The druid-fancying Insubres, on the other hand, have an easier start but will take longer to convince the rest of the Latin, Greek, and Italic cultures on the peninsula that menhirs and moustaches are the way to go.

Rome II offered an array of challenges and playstyles at launch, and that list has only gotten longer since, allowing for two campaigns to start off satisfyingly different in tone, expectations, and approach.

There are even appreciably different visions of poster boy Rome: the free Imperator Augustus campaign pack splits the empire into three after Julius Caesars death, letting players pick Octavians classic Rome, Lepidus Iberian-centred bit, or Antonys GreeknTurkish portion of the empire.

As with modern British democracy, playing as ancient Rome means balancing the wills of the plebs against the demands of the sneering hereditary elite, and as with modern British democracy, I found it was the latter that had the actual power.

When the plebs kicked off, I could placate them with bread and circuses; when the patricians got upset, they attempted to secede from my imperfect union, spawning army stacks and stealing cities from my growing Roman empire.

These trees produce individual characters over time, each with their own traits, skills, and intrigues.

These intrigues are mini-missions that can be used to curry favour with rival houses, provoke problematic peers, or boost your own skillset through things like marriage, bribery, or humanitarian visits to far-flung provinces.

Playing as Rome, I controlled the scion of house Furia, securing the favour of the two other biggest voting blocs in the Republic in part by showering them with favours.

The new family tree system was a neat way to connect me with the world and ground me as a powerful politician, rather than an omnipotent floating mouse cursor, but the truth was that I didnt really need to engage that much with it.

While I had to smack down a few secessionists in the early game, through either luck or process of elimination I ended up sharing power with two other noble houses who entirely approved of my actions and who made no moves to depose me.

I may not have had the most influence in the Senate giving me slightly smaller bonuses to development but my Republic was totally stable, and my rivals were happy to keep its borders expanding.

Despite its various overhauls, Rome II still starts to slow down significantly in the later stages of a campaign.

The once-careful apportion of skill points to a network of spies, generals, champions, and politicians becomes boring busywork, and the time between turns increases hugely as more of the map is uncovered and AI enemies wage war against each other.

No matter how different and how exciting a factions early- and mid-game is, its end-game still becomes a tiresome exercise in tidying up, generals forced to play genocidal Whack-a-Mole with straggler civilizations and pop-up barbarians appearing in hard-to-reach corners of your empire.

Even in Rise of the Republic, with its diddy-sized Italy-only map, I spent 20 grinding years wiping out Gallic armies in the frozen north of my empire, wasting turn after turn trying to chase Asterix and Obelix around alpine forests.

Rome 2 Mods Not Working