When it comes to historically accurate strategy gaming, the Total War franchise is king. Creatively Assembly's storied PC series has legions of new fans after the excellence of Total War: Shogun 2, and their next game is among the most anticipated sequels for hardcore Total War fans. Total War: Rome II is bigger, more beautiful, and just as awe-inspiring as its predecessors, judging from what we've seen of it so far.

But with so much to know about the game, where do you even begin? We've parsed out the aspects of Rome II that every strategy gamer should know about; by the time you're done reading, you'll be itching to jump back through time into the sandals of a doomed Roman soldier.

The Total War series has always offered a wealth of content that can make other games feel like short vignettes by comparison. But Rome II ups the ante even further, with a 40% budget increase over the previous project, Total War: Shogun 2. That translates to a colossal campaign spanning western Spain to the heart of Africa, portraying a huge range of cultures in the form of 700 different soldier types. It could be years before you've mastered every facet of this immense strategy game.

Another hallmark of the TW franchise is its reverence for famous skirmishes from throughout the course of history. In addition to the sprawling campaign, Rome II will include half-hour one-off missions that recreate historical battles, such as the Battle of Teutoburg Forest that we witnessed. Instead of just dropping the player into the fray with no context, the game weaves an engrossing narrative of betrayal and revenge. In this case, that meant learning how double-crossing by the German warrior Arminius led to the brutal defeat of three legions' worth of Roman soldiers.

Most RTS games are so micro-management intensive that they never give you the opportunity to really admire your army, or watch excitedly as they rush into battle against an equally massive force. Rome II flies in the face of its competitors by making every conflict feel like a scene from a big-budget film, letting you give your units a few orders before zooming in for a clash of grandiose proportions. These moments are made all the more intense by the new unit camera, which swings your perspective to shoulder-level with your charging troops. It guarantees that you'll get a front row seat for every sword evisceration and spear hurl with a single keystroke.

Battles aren't all about up close and personal encounters, mind you. Along with the introduction of the unit camera, there's a new tactical view of the map that pulls your vantage point far enough to see your entire army at a glance. To facilitate your long-term planning and overall strategy, your infantry is represented by colored rectangles, and time slows to give you a moment of respite to decide your army's next move. Essentially, the conflicts in Rome II are as far-removed or in-your-face as you want them to be.

When it comes to the new UI design, clarity is the name of the game. To make it easier to parse out your available units without scouring the entire map, your unit cards at the bottom of the screen are much larger and easier to discern (along with boasting slick new art). As your army of troops expands, these cards will compact themselves, provided you haven't minimized the unit cards altogether. There's also far less clutter in the UI as a whole, given you better intel quicker and letting you take in more of the historical violence.

The level of detail on a per-soldier basis is at an all-time high in Rome II. Instead of functioning like a cluster of like-minded grunts, each unit feels like its composed of unique troops with their own courage or cowardice. This is strengthened by the excellent voice-acting, which lets you hear soldiers cry out to one another as they're besieged by an ambush of tribal German Berserkers. The soldiers' facial animations have also been beefed up considerably, and there's much more variety to the heights, armor designs, and movements of each individual piece in your battalion. It goes a long way towards making the troops in your formations feel more like people instead of frontline fodder.

Alongside their distinguishing features, your units' individuality will also play a part in your plans of attack. That's because your vision of the map is dependant on what your soldiers can actually see with their own eyes, making ambushes and tactical traps a much bigger part of your strategy. Sure, open fields offer plenty of visibility--but when your legions are trudging through a dense terrain (as in the Battle of Teutoburg Forest), its entirely possible that thousands of troops could rush from the trees and obliterate your forces. This new mechanic also encourages you to hide part of your forces behind large hills or buildings, baiting the enemy into thinking that you're in command of a far smaller army than you actually are.

Shogun 2 worked wonders with its graphics engine, with minimum specs that were fairly accessible and a maxed-out settings that could bring the most powerful computer to its figurative knees. Rome II has an improved graphics engine, but the idea is pretty much the same: use as much processing power as your computer can handle. The bare-minimum specs will match Shogun 2's, but the wealth of detail options means that high-end machines will make Rome II look practically life-like. See those burning balls of fiery bramble in the screenshot above? Those are actually casting particle lighting effects on the units they're about to smash into, in real time. Now that's graphics intensive.

Those are the facts we think you should know about Rome II, but there's far more to look forward to. Though there's no release date yet, Rome II is a couple months away from Alpha testing, meaning the finished product can't be far off. Let us know in the comments if you're stoked for the next chapter of Total War, and which features have you the most excited.

And if you're looking for more Total War: Rome II coverage, check out our previous Rome II preview.