Yes, worth buying.
At $24.99. It has been as low as $4.99.
- Story and characters: 60 reviews raised it, mostly praise
- Gameplay: 31 reviews raised it, mostly praise
- Graphics: 24 reviews raised it, mostly praise
- Crashes: 42 reviews raised it, mostly criticism
- Bugs: 21 reviews raised it, mostly criticism
- Difficulty: 8 reviews raised it, mostly criticism
Based on 38k player reviews · updated 3 days ago
What players think
The recurring themes across 300 analysed reviews: what players praise, what divides them, and what to know.
Campaign mechanics are fine, while the characters were downgraded and barely matter now, the government-side of things is more interesting.
If you're just a Total War fan though, and/or want gunpowder gameplay, just get Napoleon or better yet Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai (though a DLC, you can play it without the base Shogun 2).
The graphics and animations are top-notch for 2009 (and even better with mods), and the naval battles are still incredibly beautiful today (something even current pirate games can't achieve).
Theme by theme
Every theme is scored by what reviewers actually said about it, not just whether they recommended the game.
Ranked by how many sampled reviews mention each topic. A topic sits in a column by what reviewers said about that topic; the percentage beside it is how many of them recommended the game anyway. One more theme was raised by fewer than 6 sampled reviews and is not shown.
Should you buy it now?
Crit’s read on the price, from Steam price history.
Currently $24.99. The lowest we've tracked is $4.99.
The data behind the verdict
For the players who want the receipts.
We’ll surface hours-played once playtime ingestion ships.
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