That Caesar, he did get up to some japes. He created political triumvirates, aggravated the stoic Cato, got up to all sorts with Cleopatra, and generally behaved like a proper scamp. On top of that was all the conquering that he did, and it's for this reason that he's the titular star of Total War: Rome 2's first campaign expansion, Caesar in Gaul.

The expansion will focus in greater detail on Gaul and south Brittania, with this smaller area balanced by a shorter timeframe. Inspired by Caesar s war diaries from the era, players will be able to play as the Gallic Arverni, the Germanic Suebi, the Belgic Nervii and Rome.

Here's the feature list:


"New campaign map: The expanded map of Gaul and southern Britannia brings 18 provinces to conquer, fully detailed with resources, settlements, capitals, and new environmental effects.
"Greater focus on characters: Play through the campaign with faction-leading avatars such as Caesar and Vercingetorix.
"24 turns per year & seasons: A shorter campaign timespan (58-51BC) means each in-game year is split into more turns. As the calendar changes, so do the seasons, bringing seasonal gameplay effects and stunning visual alterations.
"New mid-game challenge mechanics: Caesar in Gaul replaces ROME II s civil war with different, conflict-appropriate mechanics. As barbarian players progress, they ll begin to feel the mailed fist of Rome as heavy intervention forces are sent to Gaul. Likewise, Roman players will see the tribes rebelling and forming alliances.
"Compact, focussed multiplayer campaign: With a tighter geographic scope and faction-roster, 2-player campaigns are more focussed and less time-consuming than the full ROME II campaign.
"New historical battle: Surrounded and outnumbered, take on the role of Caesar as he fights the last desperate, decisive engagement of the Gallic War: the battle of Alesia.
"New Total War: ROME II playable factions: Alongside the factions playable in Caesar in Gaul, several playable factions are also unlocked in the full ROME II campaign: the Nervii, the Boii and the Galatians.
"New units: A raft of new battlefield units is unlocked for the Boii, the Galatians, the Nervii and the Gallic tribes, plus new auxiliary and mercenary units."


Total War: Rome 2 - Caesar in Gaul is due out December 12th, for 9.99 / $14.99 / 14.99.

These kids with their hip new terms. Creative Assembly have announced that Total War: Rome 2 will be "coming to SteamOS". Which is a fairly torturous way of saying that Total War: Rome 2 will be coming to Linux. Which it will, because SteamOS is running Linux.

The reason for specifically name-checking Steam's upcoming OS is because CA seem keen to tout the game's move to conquer the living room, with planned support for Big Picture mode and the Steam Controller. After all, as Ceasar himself once said, "I came, I saw, I lounged lazily in my pants, eating crisps and moving tiny generals around a campaign map."

"We’ve always wanted the Total War franchise to be enjoyed by living room gamers, but the limitations of traditional hardware made our style of game play impossible," announces Creative Assembly's Rob Bartholomew on the Steam Universe group page. "Last month, when Valve invited us to test out the new Steam Controller and unveiled their plans for SteamOS - we were impressed. We believe it will provide us with the control fidelity and platform we need to make a living room experience for ROME II that could be a more compelling experience than playing with keyboard and mouse."

With the necessary tribute to Valve paid, Bartholomew goes on to talk in more general terms about the Linux release. "ROME II will be launching on Linux early next year, with full Steam Controller and Big Picture support to be added as soon as Valve gets us a controller dev kit."

This weekend, Rome 2 is available at a 25% discount, reducing it down to £22.50/$45. It's a good deal for the game that, despite bugs and AI problems, impressed Tom Senior through its scale and spectacle.

Earlier this week, we detailed the planned fixes and features of the free Company of Heroes 2 update, Turning Point. Now, Relic have announced Victory at Stalingrad, a DLC pack that will launch alongside the update, bringing new co-op and solo challenges, and three AI battles. Set in the Winter of 1942, it covers the Soviet counter-attack battles of Operations Uranus and Little Saturn. And yes, I've only highlighted those names in a crass attempt to encourage comment thread jokes.

"Take command of the Red Army in a series of scenarios, challenges and battles based on this historic victory. Your strategic decisions will lead the Soviets from the jaws of defeat to a crushing victory." Oh no! Not the crashing jaws of victory defeat!

Here's Relic's list of DLC content, which presumably is what these defeat jaws are victory crushing:


Co-Op Scenario: Kalach Pincer
70 kilometers west of Stalingrad, Soviet forces must move rapidly to secure key locations and resources about the town of Kalach before mounting the final attack on the vital bridge across the River Don.
Solo Challenge: Tatsinskaya Raid
The Red Army's 24th Tank Corps is headed deep into enemy territory to take the German airfield at Tatsinskaya and destroy the aircraft that keeps trapped German forces supplied in Stalingrad.
Solo Challenge: Bridge Defense
Forced to wait for air units to be ready, the Red Army has had to delay Operation Uranus at the last minute. Irregular and Partisan forces have already moved to secure a key bridge across the Don River and must now hold out against determined German attacks.
AI Battle: Winter Storm
The Wehrmacht has launched Operation Winter Storm in an attempt to relieve their Sixth Army in Stalingrad. Soviet forces must block this attack to prevent the fascists from escaping the city.
AI Battle: Stalingrad Resistance
The Soviets defend the blown out Stalingrad inch by inch, all the while looking to the skies as the German Luftwaffe drops bombs on any target they can find.
AI Battle: Stalingrad Encirclement
Months of bloody close-quarter fighting have led to a decisive turning point for control of Stalingrad. Most of the German 6th Army has been left cut off and surrounded in the city. The Red Army must repulse a breakout attempt by the exhausted German forces.


Victory at Stalingrad will launch 12th of November, and be priced at $9.99.

Relic have announced that they're reaching a Turning Point. Confusingly in this case, it's a Company of Heroes 2 update, and not a new commitment to make nice games about not ordering tiny men to angrily shoot each other. As well as more multiplayer maps, this update also puts the tools of battle in the hands of the soldiers, by giving the community a World Builder tool that will let them create and share their own battlefields.

The two new Relic-made maps are called Rails & Metal and Lazur Factory, the latter of which has received the trailer treatment.



Four new multiplayer commanders are also being made available, two of which were designed by community members. In addition, Theatre of War is being updated with new features, including public chat and co-op battles.

Company of Heroes 2's Turning Point update is due out on November 12th. You can find more details on the update's micro-site.

Even before Total War: Rome II launched, its developer promised downloadable content in both paid and free forms. With the Nomadic Tribes Culture Pack, Creative Assembly will hit both those promises.

The new pack includes three playable factions with a nomadic feel: the Roxolani, the Massagetae, and the Royal Scythians. The DLC also includes new buildings, building chains, and technology trees, as well as new units, both unique and available for mercenary use. Even better: if you download the DLC pack by Oct. 29, you can skip the normal £5.99/$7.99 fee and get the pack for free.

Total War: Rome II didn't exactly launch smoothly. Login issues and game-crashing bugs hampered what we thought was an otherwise superb strategy game. One can surmise that Creative Assembly is offering this DLC for free for a week as a way to thank fans for sticking through those launch issues.

Check out the trailer for the Nomadic Tribes Culture Pack below.



And above this one.

Total War: Rome 2's latest patch has a couple of welcome surprises, in addition to the usual bug fixes and the like. Surprise the first is support for Valve's handy Steam Workshop, making it easier to find and install the game's burgeoning assortment of mods. Surprise the second? Well it's a brand new faction, the Seleucid Empire, who were apparently quite good at city building and engineering. Also, one would presume, killing.

You can read up on that new faction here, if you like, but you're probably more interested in these patch notes, which comprehensively detail the many changes and additions in Total War: Rome 2's newest update.

Video games produced in Russia and Eastern Europe are nothing new, what with the Stalker series and Metro: Last Light. For the first time, though, we could start seeing video games produced in part by the Russian government to teach players specifically about the glorious history of the Russian military.

“The main thing we expect from the producers of video games is the realistic and historically truthful representation of events,” said Arseny Mironov, aid to Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky, according to Hollywood Reporter. Company of Heroes 2 has taken a lot of flak from angry Russians for its fictional-but-not-totally-made-up depiction of the Red Army fighting and dying on the Eastern Front. Despite the controversy, the game is popular among Russian gamers.

"A video game has to have not only an entertainment value, but it also has to teach and be conducive to patriotic education," Mironov continued. The Russian Military History Society is in currently developing the first government-funded game, which will follow the beginnings of Russian air power during World War 1. The government has not announced which local developer might be taking on that project.

Government-funded games are not a new concept, of course. Here in the United States we’ve got everything from Moonbase Alpha to America’s Army funded by the government to get young people interested in the kinds of adventures they could theoretically possibly probably never have if they decide to take a job with the government.

Things got decidedly more dystopian, however, when the culture ministry talked about their options for banning video games that “discredit the Russian soldier” and "distort historic facts." For Mironov, a "negative image of the Russian warrior" should not be allowed. At least for right now, though, all they’re doing is talking.

Thanks, Hollywood Reporter.

The thing about games is that sometimes they lock up when loading into battle with DirectX 9, or report the wrong per-frame time in the Graphics Benchmark frame rate display. Honestly, I don't know why we put up with them. Actually, wait, it's because they're brilliant. Even better, they can be fixed. Total War: Rome 2's third patch, announced last week, is now live, and offers technical and performance fixes, along with balance changes, and improvements to usability and the general game.

Creative Assembly's latest press release highlights the important changes:

"Technical optimisations include Campaign performance improvements on some hardware configurations, fixes for UI flickering in SLI setups, and a significant multiplayer campaign-speed boost. There are many new gameplay improvements, such as alterations to the victory point system, and chiefly a reduction in the circumstances in which victory points appear in battles. For example, when the player is attacked while occupying a minor settlement (though not a provincial capital), a new Sally Forth button is available on the pre-battle panel, which enables the player’s army to fight the attackers in an open field battle without victory points."

You can see the full change list over at the Total War Wiki. Next up is the numerically accurate Patch 4, which continues down the path of technical optimisation and game balance tweaks. That update is due to enter public beta soon.

Even now, from the comfort of 2013, it seems callous to make pithy comments about World War 2. Maybe I should play it safe by sticking rigidly to the facts. Fact 1: Germany was one of the founding members of World War 2. Fact 2: Some would say that they played such a key role, that the war disbanded soon after they left in 1945. Fact 3: They are the focus of Company of Heroes 2: Case Blue, a DLC pack for the Theatre of War mode.



Set in June 1942, Case Blue is a series of challenges and scenarios that follow the titular offensive on the Caucasus region. The DLC pack offers one co-op scenario, two singleplayer challenges, and two AI battles - set on the two maps that were yesterday added as part of a free update to the game.

Case Blue is free to pre-orderers and Collectors Edition owners. For everybody else, it is now available for £7/$10.