History YMMV / ExpeditionsRome

* BrokenBase: Regarding this installment's handling of the series' trademark PoliticallyCorrectHistory. Unlike the "our history, but with gender equality" approach of the previous two games, this one goes all-in on acknowledging historical Roman sexism with a female PC. While she can do all the things a male PC can gameplaywise, in story terms, she is often denied the same opportunities and must find workarounds via men who vouch for her. A VocalMinority feels this is unnecessary and you should only be able to play a male character. Some find the chosen solution a fair compromise of historicity and inclusivity, while actually providing significant ReplayValue and making your choice of gender meaningful. Others see a case of GoldenMeanFallacy and wonder what was wrong with the previous approach, pointing out that a female PC is denied most of the stuff enjoyable about Roman culture, like the ability to hold political office, while still engaging in blatantly unhistorical actions such as commanding the Roman legions with flimsy justifications. Meanwhile some female player specifically enjoy the plotline about suceeding in spite of these limitations, that the game offers a female main character. Story romance choices are also hit by this, with male protagonists having access to a [[AGodAmI glamorous]], [[TheVamp vampy]] and [[HistoricalBeautyUpgrade beautiful]] take on Cleopatra, who proves to be a powerful political ally, while female protagonists get Cato, who is perceived as somewhat plain and has a minimal amount of content, with many wishing they would have gotten the game's WorthyOpponent {{Hunk}} depiction of Vercingetorix instead, or Cleopatra as a bisexual option, since she does approve of female characters trying to flirt with her and a PC of either gender is meant to be a replacement for Julius Caesar, who historically "romanced" her. That said it is clear the "romance" between the PC and Cleopatra is more one of convenience rather than actual love. Cleopatra simply wants a powerful Roman Consort to stabilize her reign, something a female PC simply cannot offer her.

* BrokenBase: Regarding this installment's handling of the series' trademark PoliticallyCorrectHistory. Unlike the "our history, but with gender equality" approach of the previous two games, this one goes all-in on acknowledging historical Roman sexism with a female PC. While she can do all the things a male PC can gameplaywise, in story terms, she is often denied the same opportunities and must find workarounds via men who vouch for her. A VocalMinority feels this is unnecessary and you should only be able to play a male character. Some find the chosen solution a fair compromise of historicity and inclusivity, while actually providing significant ReplayValue and making your choice of gender meaningful. Others see a case of GoldenMeanFallacy and wonder what was wrong with the previous approach, pointing out that a female PC is denied most of the stuff enjoyable about Roman culture, like the ability to hold political office, while still engaging in blatantly unhistorical actions such as commanding the Roman legions with flimsy justifications. Story romance choices are also hit by this, with male protagonists having access to a [[AGodAmI glamorous]], [[TheVamp vampy]] and [[HistoricalBeautyUpgrade beautiful]] take on Cleopatra, who proves to be a powerful political ally, while female protagonists get Cato, who is perceived as somewhat plain and has a minimal amount of content, with many wishing they would have gotten the game's WorthyOpponent {{Hunk}} depiction of Vercingetorix instead, or Cleopatra as a bisexual option, since she does approve of female characters trying to flirt with her and a PC of either gender is meant to be a replacement for Julius Caesar, who historically "romanced" her.

** You will amass a gigantic amount of crafting materials, but annoyingly the game will consider these materials to be "new" items with it's notification being stuck until you scroll through all the "new" materials. It really should only consider the crafting recipes for this notification.

* IdiotPlot: There's a subplot, if you play a female character, that no one in your legion during act 1 knew you were female, other than the people your directly speak to. This may come to players surprised as its never really mentioned except when your player finally makes her gender public. Where it runs into a bit of logic is how that even happened, when your character may have not worn a helmet for a while, and goes around with armor that has clearly molded breasts in the cuirass. And that's without counting how many people are in to the secret, including some of your enemies (many who recognize the player as a woman from a distance).

* CaptainObviousReveal:
** That [[spoiler:Julius Calidus is actually a woman is obvious. Even her crossdressing portrait looks female, and she makes no effort to hide her voice. It's to the point that even the devs make fun of this [[https://community.expeditionsseries.com/index/dev-diaries/devdiary-16-sieges-r23 in their own promotional materials]].]]

** The MarathonLevel siege missions have people split, mostly for their sheer length and the fact that they usually can be made much easier by bringing certainly tactical items, without actually telling you ''which'' until you have reached the moment where you'd need them and it's already too late to switch loadouts.

** In crafting there's no filters at all beyond splitting armour, weapons & tactical items. There's no filter for what class you want to craft for, or the types of weapons for if you wanted to stick to a specific regional theme, or strength. At least it doesn't make each of the three tiers of an item it's own entry.

** In crafting there's no filters at all beyond splitting armour, weapons & tactical items, when filters for what class you're crafting for, the types of weapons (if you wanted to stick to a specific regional theme) or strength would be useful.

** The UI while not terrible, is still a bit unwieldy in the sections dedicated to your camp upgrades. Instead of a simple set of icons on the screen when in or near the camp for each of the special buildings, inventory etc, there's only three, and click on buttons within those to get to where you want to go. It's also not possible to directly handle upgrading or replacing a weapon with a crafted one from the character inventory page, which can make it a pain when you unlock the 2nd or 3rd tier of weapons and want to upgrade or replace every character's weapons.

** Legion Battles, due to being very RNG-dependent, mechanically opaque, and largely automatized. They have also been criticized as a shallow way of handling mass combat and having a pretty binary win/loss setup where if you keep your legions fully manned they'll win almost every battle in the game, and will usually only lose to the one enemy army that you leave for last, which gets reinforced by the losers on the other battles. This one got enough criticism to have the devs promising a complete rework.

** Certain RandomEncounters while traversing the world map. Specifically, encounters which guarantee at least one party member getting injured. If you have a quest or story mission which requires the entire main party to be present, and you got such an event on the way there, have fun travelling all the way back to your main camp to have them medically treated, because companions injured beyond "lightly" cannot enter quest locations. And there is nothing preventing the same event from triggering again once your party is healed and you are on your way to the mission again. To make matters worse, such random events can even trigger while you are in base camp in order to recover.