The game is well made with good RPG/Political Sim/RTS/Action/Strategy elements, combined into a pretty neat package :)

I've played it through on Hard(est) difficulty and I enjoyed it.

The characters and the voice acting is very good, atmospheric and sucked me right into the game. 

Playing the game feels alot like playing TW series, with a risk board for world map, and old school CnC tactical battles, the difference being the whole morph into a dragon (wiw a guddam jetpack!) during the RTS battles and assist your troops with bad breath and different spells.

With that said, TW games are better at the Strategy and RTS parts (no games beat them really imo, except maybe CIV/CK II with the strategy part), but Dragon commander has the added layer with RPG parts, where you level up your dragon and units (research points spend on the upgrading) as well as managing the empire through dialogues with your generals and ambassadors. 

All in all, I think the game was very fun and very different from other games I have played before. That it's placed in the divinity universe is a big plus as well, as I love the atmosphere and depth of lore it provides and I hope the story line in Dragon Commander will be connected to their (Larian, self publicing studio) next scheduled release (Original Sin (RPG)). 

[QUOTE="kraken2109"]

Any idea why the videos look like this?

Walincas

Sorry, can't help you with that one :/

It's a wee bit late, but I found the solution to your video problem :)

Apparently it's a windows update causing the clipping of the movie, so this will be relevant for everyone playing Rome TW. 

I will give you a link, to a forum thread at twforum, discussing the issue and the solution - which is uninstalling the troublesome windows update, causing the problem with the movie being clipped, here it is: http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?144819-Opening-video-cuts-off-top-half-of-screen-for-RTW-and-Barbarian-Invasion

Both are good games, but I think Total War is in a different league, when it comes to quality/replayability etc. Also, the tactical battles in Total War is wayyyy more immersive to me, than battles taking place only on the campaign map.

Rome by far.  I think it was the most polished, and the last of the "old versions", before they started adding new stuff and taking away old stuff.

Empire was pretty cool, but a bit too ambitious imo.

mrbojangles25

Yea, Empire would have been so awsome if it's features worked and the world map didn't lag

Floris Mod pack, it touches and improves just about everything in game while still keeping the vanilla flavor. Best mod out there if what you want to do is improve the original game. http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?board=197.0MadCat46

Giving the Floris mod pack a run my self, thanks for the info :)

Any idea why the videos look like this?

kraken2109

Sorry, can't help you with that one :/

I went ahead and purchased Shogun 2. It was really cheap on the Steam sale. I also ended up getting the full Civ V game with DLC. My life is now gone.PonchoTaco

Have fun :)

Guys I'm having issues with Rome.

I put both resolutions in options to 1080p and all the settings to max (since it's a 2004 game) but the bottom bar and icons don't look native res and performance is around 35fps - any ideas?

I also wasn't sure about the widescreen option in settings and clicking it crashes to desktop?

kraken2109

The game can be a little taxing on a computer if you put army size to "huge". As you said, the game is from 2k4 and it's not optimised for multicore processors- which means, it will tax one core of your cpu cores instead of dividing the load. 

To tax your CPU less during battles, you can put the army size in settings to "large" or even "normal". Another thing you could do, is put the "unit detail" on the second best option, as I believe the only difference between very high and high, is wether or not the units will allways be 3d models instead of sprites - even when zoomed all the way out. You probably won't notice a big visual difference (I don't) but the impact on performance is pretty obvious. 

As for the buttom bar and icons not looking native res - on the campaign map, the icons look a little grainy on my computer, the unit cards in the battles appears fine. I don't belive I have any stretching running 1080, and not checking the "widescreen" box - but building icons etc. on vanilla campaign map do look a little "dated".  

Would it be worth getting any mods before I start Rome? Just like graphics ones or something?

kraken2109

I would play a clean updated install of rome and then proceed with mods after that. Almost all the mods change the gameplay some way or another with the addition of improved/changed graphics. 

You can find a list of mods for Rome here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?214-Rome-Total-War-Hosted-Modifications 

[QUOTE="Walincas"]

I liked Rome best overall of the TW games. Rome with the Mod Roma Surrectum (better graphic, enhanced AI/gameplay features) is a very good game today- decent graphics and an awesome (hard) experience. 

Medieval II is a close second, the mods Stainless Steel (enhanced features) and Third Age Total War (Lotro conversion) mods are both very good. 

You should definately get the collection of TW games, try out the vanilla versions, then go and mod them. TW games are very easy to MOD, most decent mods come with their own installer - so you just have to install the mod, like any other game. 

The best site for Total War mods is imo TWcenter.net.

Happy Gaming ;)

Wasdie

I always recommend playing a Total War game with the latest patch and without mods for the first campaign. Many mods expand on features or give you an even larger set of units to work with. This can be very confusing for new players.

Precisely, that's what I meant with trying out the "vanilla" versions (standard game - no mod), and then moving onto the mods to broaden the amount of units/features etc. in the game.