This is a collection which we as a group find to be some of the best mods in Rome 2: Total war, keeping up to date and consistently playing often we find these mods to be essential to the "Rome 2 Experience".

We also keep with the lore of the game, and with the fairness of not cheating against the AI, and any realistic mods will be taken into to great consideration.

Furthermore any mods which increase game time such as battle mods and turn time mods must be balanced out evenly, so we will always choose the one which encompasses all aspects of time, and not just the speed.

Mod Essentials:
Radious Total War Mod by Radious
City Sack & Liberation Mod by Dresden
Additional Units Mod - Rome (AUM-ROM) 1.6 - Radious version by Swiss Halberdier
Mithridates Pontic Roster Expansion (MPRE) by Smarmy
AI Food Fix: No More Starving AI by Dresden
M.E.P Unit Pack[/i] by the M.E.P Team
Loose Formation for All Units by Dresden
*Choose a Turns per Year mod (Essential but choice)

Mod Choices:
Four Turns Per Year Hardcore Mod by Dresden
Four Turns Per Year Build and Research Times by Dresden
Two Turns Per Year Build and Research Times by Dresden
R2:TW GEM - Graphic Enhancement Mod by Lucifer Hawk

Now the reasoning behind the mods, unit mods in our opinion don't affect each other and as long as they are balanced we feel that there are no reasons to hold back on how many units you have, the more the merrier and as long as they keep into the lore of the game theres no reason not to include them.

Other mods such as Radious Total War mod are a great addition to balancing and improving the game in campaign and battle modes, the important thing to notice with such mods is that they are great for ensuring the issues presented by the developers are ironed out, Radious is also constantly modding so he is a great choice because you know he keeps up to date.

Several mods by Dresden are great additions to the game such as his City Sack and Liberation mod which allows for all factions to choose all choices in game after a battle, which is more realistic than only barbarians sacking cities or only hellenic factions only liberating factions, what this doesn't do is create variety in game so it takes away the individuality between factions (minor con though).

Loose formation for all units is a great addition and is well presented in game with an icon which fits in with the other UI, BUT here is the big problem we have with the mod (even though its essential) and that is the AI does not go into loose formation when shot at, its still a great mod though and hopefully Dresden will implement some form of system which makes the AI use loose formation.

Finally moving on to the Turns Per Year mods, theres a large variety which is great and just as a warning don't go over the 4 TPY because any more than that and its either not following the seasons or your campaign is going to be ridiculously long, also you will notice that we haven't gone for just the Turns per year but also the continue of research and building.

This is important because to have just the increase in turns it outbalance's the the campaign victory conditions (in 2tpy you get twice the amount of time and in 4tpy you get 4 times the time), also this is another reason to get the units mods because you will find that on vanilla units you will be playing with basic units for quite a while (especially 4tpy), so understand that if you want a competitive campaign use the research and building modifiers.

Finally we come to the Graphic Enhancement Mod which is not essential because it isn't a steam workshop mod (you have to go to other sight), so until it does come on to the steam platform then it will remain as a Choice, but I felt it necessary to mention because its an important mod because the mood is set by the filters (dark, light etc) so for those who feel the game is too light or dark can make those changes.