When you lose your way on the vision thing the resulting game is often not fun to play. I don't see passion reflected in the game design of Rome 2 like I did in every aspect of Shogun 2. I think they've lost their way quite frankly and it remains to be seen whether they ever find their way back again. That's why indie games often feel fresher, less baggage, less design by committee.

That said, the act of creating something is harrowing at best, so my hats off to them for having the balls to toe the line and make stuff. It's damn easy to sit on the side lines and play arm chair quarterback.

If I was in their shoes right now, depending on what the money situation is looking like, I might be inclined to consider a few options:

1. Increase the odds of success by going smaller, CA appears to make a bit of a hash of it when they make big behemoth spanning games (witness Empire and Rome 2). Perhaps even consider putting out two at the same time, if they really do have 300 people working on this, which I find really hard to believe, but if they do, I might split them up and have them work on two different total wars with a closely staggered launch. Sort of a hedge your bets on the next project by doubling your odds.

2. Fix the warscape engine. One of the two fundamental elements of the game platform is broken. Scrap it or fix it.

3. Examine your own past works through the lens of Sid Meier looking for the game play components you've worked out in the past that played well and which just didn't work.

4. Play test your work using NDAs. There's no excuse for not beta testing given the community of free labor available.

5. Figure out the RPG piece of your works, this provides that extra spice, that additional hard to quantify magic that draws people into caring about their generals and agents.

6. Get back to the small details and a bit of a sense of humor. There are small touches in M2 and S2 all over the place that are missing in Rome 2, which is the poorer for it all around.

That's a start anyway, haha