I have Rome Total War 2, and it WORKS. My computer can barely run Empire Total War, yet it runs this beautifully. Ish.
Oh man, I played a demo of the original Rome Total War, and it was so awesome, but I never got it because it was so expensive.
Rome Total War IS very awesome. Right now, you could get it for cheap somewhere, almost assuredly. It's a great game, and you can make your own story-line if you like. Such as mine, where Lucius the Cunning sat in Ariminum, as the Faction Leader of the Julii, for almost fifty years, just plotting his assault on Rome and the other two Roman Factions. When the time came, his plan (shameless self-congratulations ahead) was flawless. From the north, three full stack armies of Legionaries, Urban Cohorts, Praetorians, and attendant auxilia, all of silver equipment or experience or both, advanced into the teeth of Rome, defeating the mighty SPQR army at the doorstep to Rome, and Lucius himself laid siege to the ancient city. An army landed in Capua from far off Spain, a mixture of New Legionaries, and Old Style soldiers, Hastati with GOLD experience, Principes, and Triarii, backed by fearsome foreign mercenaries, including a unit of the hilariously rare Mercenary Elephants, and laid siege to the Scipii capital. An army landed between Tarentum and Croton, this one cavalry heavy, with only a reasonable sprinkling of skirmishers.
Besieged on three sides, the other three Roman factions fought tenaciously, defeating the cavalry army by a hairsbreadth on the fields between the two Brutii cities, and inflicting severe losses on the Besiegers of Capua. Rome, having already lost it's large army, having only a half-stack army in it's walls (Like nine units of Generals, and then a good amount of First Legionary Cohorts and Urban Cohorts) nonetheless died fighting to the last. Lucius the Cunning personally slew several of his more distant cousins that day, but at the end of the night, the Julii were the last ones standing on the sacred shores of Rome, and only far off subjugated states survived of the other Roman factions. The Scipii were better off, having Sicily and Carthage to operate out of, whereas the Brutii had been stalled in their war with Greece and Macedon by some cunning territory seizure by my faction, and thus they were trapped between a rock and a hard place.
Good times.