Total War - Rome II: Quo usque pro Roma ibis?

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Alright, I just got my pre-order, practically a birthday present as my birthday was yesterday, and I'm already having a blast!

Question though, I completed the Prologue, but for some reason I didn't get the Quaestor achievement. Did I do something wrong? Is this a bug that'll be fixed soon? Either way, awesome game! I can't wait to play as EVERYBODY!

What about you guys? How far will you go for Rome?

[Bouregard]

I didn't receive it either. Let me guess if you choose Prologue Campaign in the Main Menu, you can only pick the first part, as second and third are locked?

Well, it's a CA game, I would be quite surprised if they managed to make a game without bugs.

Also fun "bug": If you use the maximum preset graphic settings, then the system will render the units with the lowest definition textures. You'll need to activate something via advanced options to fix it.


Enough with the negative stuff. I really like it. Sea battles are perfect. Empire, Napoleon and Shogun II FotS can't reach the level of awesomeness that ramming, free aim siege engines and free for all boarding matches provide.

Also combined naval and land battles are great. Charging a harbor city with your troops straight from the ships while onagers and slingers rain down support fire? Cool.

The formations of your units work really smooth. It takes only a few seconds to switch back and forth between testudo and normal mode.
Also units can turn way more rapidly.

New campaign map was horrible at first. But after 3 hours I'll start to get used to it and the new features are quite good. Still Rome 1 is way better from a UI standpoint, or it's the ~200h of playtime I spend with the first.

Legion standings are a very usefull addition.
Want to move a army from one point of the empire to another? Streets + forced march and you'll reach it in no time.
In hostile terrain and just steamrolling the oposition? Raiding keeps your upkeed down
In hostile terrain massively outnumbered? Defending a lone mountain pass? Dig in and start building fortifications.

Did I mention siege engines? First person control was awesome with the gatling guns in FotS, but making human shish kebab halfway across the map against a tight formation is just plain mean.

Sieges received another major workover. They removed the fear immunity from units in the town center. Now you don't have to butcher 500 peasants just to get a little village.



Still there are some things that I hope either patches or mods will fix:

Graphic is good but not as great as they promised.

Those new stylized unit portraits where already horrible in Shogun II

Battle AI is moronic as usual.

Abilities and rank ups are not explained very clearly. Neither in the tutorial nor the ingame pop ups explain what the attributes do. The manual clears it up thought.

The UI tries to hide important stuff from me.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I tried the Iceni campaign and quickly became frustrated in attacking the Demetae. I had a full army of 20 units and still the battle was apparently massively in the enemies favor.

How can that be when I outnumber them?!

[Derthric]

Pre-ordered it for myself and my brother as his birthday gift. Played every Total War game since Medieval 1. So far its taking me a bit to adjust to this UI, which I am not really a fan of, yet. Also had a problem with my prologue campaign not recognizing that I took the enemy capital. And that was after having to Alt-F4 out several times because it would not let me start the battle or pull up the menu at all. So I gave up and jumped into the campaign.

Kind of annoyed at the bloated list of potential household goodies I have since it feels like this bloated list of cool sounding things all doing one or so meh things. And the faction screen and senate don't really feel built up. Hopefully that's just me needing to adjust to the game. It did take me awhile to adjust to the combat style of Shogun 2 after the tactics of Empire/Napoleon.

[Bouregard]

CA just annonced a new patch for friday by the way. They want to tweak the AI and remove some graphic setting related bugs. No changelog yet but looks promising.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?618063-Regular-updates-inbound!-First-patch-coming-Friday

I had some unusual auto resolve too. As far as I understand it, it will happen when reinforcements are involved. The game seems to weight in favour of initiating troops instead of reinforcement.

[Eldan]

So, for people who have already played it: how varied are units in this one? Because after playing Shogun II through twice, once traditionally and once with a lot of Portuguese assistance, I pretty much had the feeling that I've seen the game now. Sure, the various units had different weapons, but to me, a lot of them felt very much the same (Ashigaru, archers, Samurai, cavalry, siege engines, gunpowder, a few exotics, done).

Is this one any better in that regard? It should be, given how many diverse cultures should be in it.

[dascarletm]

I can tell you this. In shogun 2 I was sick of attacking the same castle over and over again, in RTW2 the different cities are varied. Big improvement.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Playing a Roman campaign and I must say I'm rather frustrated. I've had some successes conquering Magna Graecia and making inroads into Hellas, but now I'm running out of money, no matter how high I set the taxes. To make matters worse, the Ratae blew in from the north and managed to TAKE ROME! I've beaten them back with my two best legions, but Rome is still occupied and that shames me. And I'm constantly having to deal with slave revolts because my public order never seems to be positive. Because my cash is low, I feel like I cant maintain a force large enough to continue conquering.

How do I get more money?

[Jonzac]

Stop and consolidate. If you look at Rome historically, there would often be 20-30 years between major campaigns....for computer games, I would make peace with everyone and focus on internal order for 10-15 turns or so.

Not sure about RTWII but in older versions the constant war would drive up revolts due to war weariness.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Hmm...that's a good point. I should wait to consolidate every once in a while.

That doesn't stop barbarians nosing around my territories with full stacks that would instantly wipe out my garrisons.

[Seatbelt]

I understood "Come to the aid of Capua" as "Defeat the Samnite army." Which is what I did. About the same time the last Samnite unit routed it informed me that Capua had fallen. I was confused, so I went to bed.

[Derthric]

Hmm...that's a good point. I should wait to consolidate every once in a while.

That doesn't stop barbarians nosing around my territories with full stacks that would instantly wipe out my garrisons.

You said you had Magna Graecia but did you have Italia? First thing I did was take that province and issued Bread and Circuses. Popular order boost and food boost so I could field 4 well stocked legions and at least 1 offensive fleet.

The other thing I did was not hit my army limit max. So if an enemy penetrates my northern border and gets past the 3rd legion there I can summon up another general and legion in Rome as needed.

That being said I stepped away from my campaign due to the long end of turn time brought about because of having so many factions. Will get back to it later.

[thorgrim29]

Yeah, man there are a ton of factions.... I'm liking it so far, playing as the House of Julia (not sure what all that senate political manoeuvring is for yet, but I'll figure it out eventually). I had a bit of a cash problem but I finally beat down the Etruscan league and Syracuse and got rid of my mercenaries so right now I'm consolidating.

So far the best improvement for me is the sea battle, I also really enjoy the province mechanism . Needing generals to move troops around certainly changes things up, but since they really ran with the garrison units idea it just brings a bit of a challenge without making every city defenceless. I'm also glad they brought back walls and completely unconvinced that slingers are worth using.

I do have a few questions:

-What's the difference between subjugating a factions and occupying the city?
-I never managed to get into FP view with siege units, how does that work?
- As I mentioned, is there any use to slingers? Spear throwers have a pretty bad range too, but at least they do some damage
-On a related note, the AI used fire spear throwers against me a few times, how does that work?
- One of my generals was wounded, and replaced by another, will my old general come back to his legion, get a new army, fade away?
-Finally, is it normal that I only have 2 guys from my family? If not, how do I get more?

[Derthric]

I'll answer what I can



-What's the difference between subjugating a factions and occupying the city?

I am assuming this refers to taking a capital. It basically makes the city your client state. You get half their income and they are required to join your wars or risk war with you.

I believe it also counts towards control of a province, but don't hold me to that.


-On a related note, the AI used fire spear throwers against me a few times, how does that work?

In the bar along the bottom with the units abilities, there is an icon of a spear head. Click that and it will let you switch to fire spears. Itwas usually the left most option for me.


- One of my generals was wounded, and replaced by another, will my old general come back to his legion, get a new army, fade away?

He basically gets placed back into the potential pool of commanders, so you could replace the new general. Or give him a new legion.


-Finally, is it normal that I only have 2 guys from my family? If not, how do I get more?

When you assign new generals if you hover over your options it will list info on the potential candidates. Check to see if members of your house show up. Then they can be assigned to a command and appear on the faction screen.

I did lose all my active members from the House of Junia*. A new "statesman" was spawned and sat in the faction screen until I put him into service.

Hope that helps.

*Junia's diplomacy penalty is killer. Its almost impossible to get a trade agreement from anyone.

[thorgrim29]

OK thanks 10 characters

[Corvus]

Played a number of other of the Total War games over the yeras. Picked up Rome II. Sadly my computer is struggling a little with it, but its not surprising given it is old. Just can't afford to upgrade it.

Still muddling my way along, trying to figure it all out. Trying to figure out what buildings to construct in each region and rpovince is tricky given you cant have them all.

Noticed on of the cheeves, This is Total War!. You have to declare war on everyone the moment you meet them and can never make peace ever. Tricky. I'm thinking the Iceni might be the best candidates for doing it. Got no powerful neighbours, are off at the corner of the world so can hunker down and build up a bit, and the racials are useful for trying it.

[Flickerdart]

Considering buying this once it goes on sale (so probably in the winter). My experience with Total War has been limited to Empire, Napoleon, and Shogun 2, of which I like Napoleon the most because cannons are awesome. How does this game differ from those?

[Vitruviansquid]

I'm really missing the unit variety that was in Shogun 2. Yes, Rome 2 has a larger raw count of units, but every unit in Shogun was appreciably different from the others and every clan had a complete roster. Playing Arverni, it feels like I only have 5 units: spearmen, swordsmen, melee cavalry, slingers, and javelins.

[Eldan]

Is there no option to hire local units once you conquer a territory?

[Jonzac]

I'm really missing the unit variety that was in Shogun 2. Yes, Rome 2 has a larger raw count of units, but every unit in Shogun was appreciably different from the others and every clan had a complete roster. Playing Arverni, it feels like I only have 5 units: spearmen, swordsmen, melee cavalry, slingers, and javelins.

I"m assuming your just starting out, but you should have more variety after you upgrade your cities...however, the Arverni are barbarians...Gaul barbarians and as such have MUCH fewer unit types than Rome with a professional army would have.

[Vitruviansquid]

What I mean is, a lot of the units are basically upgraded versions of other units that obsoletize the unit they replace. For instance, there is no compelling reason to get levy freemen once you have access to spear warriors, and no reason to get the spear warriors once you can get spear nobles. Neither are you going to use any unit in the spear family differently than another unit in the spear family. The only unit redundancy I can think of in shogun 2 is that you won't need light horse after you get yari cavalry.

[Jonzac]

True, but that is historical, although I'm sure you COULD get the spear levies if you wanted to...and sometimes it is good to do so as a cheap arrow sponge of a unit.

[Vitruviansquid]

I see historicity get thrown around a lot as an explanation for why a game is less fun than I think it could've been, but I don't think it should be a free pass, least of all for Creative Assembly, who've often prioritized fun mechanics over history or realism in the past. Like with the Shogun 2 units, where it'd have been more historical to have all 3 of the melee samurai units merged into a blanket "spear samurai" type, have all the monk units have identical stats as their samurai counterparts, and probably do away with katana cavalry as well.

In any case, if a game about ancient world warfare is destined to be boring, it would be very strange that they chose to set their game in the ancient world in the first place.

[Emmerask]

The two main problems I have with the game atm are:

1) coop multiplayer does not work at all, desyncs everywhere, during combat even just mundane stuff like getting a trade request during the other factions turn time will desync the game (both in lan and internet).

2) the ai is terrible both in the way they assemble their armies lots of skirmishers not much front line troops and how he just stands there idle when being destroyed by ballista or just bowman its really sad.

The rest looks pretty good though and is fun ^^

Hopefully the modding community can address both the ai and number of different units concern... at least the old rome game had AMAZING mods!

[Guancyto]

I haven't played the game (but am looking at it with some measure of interest), but do the earlier units perhaps fill the role of Hastati vs. Principes or Early Legionary vs. Legionary and Praetorian vs. Urban in the first Rome: TW?

That is to say, is straightforwardly better, but requires a higher tech level and is thus harder to replenish effectively while on campaign? I remember the old RTW campaigns where Principes were difficult to retrain and Hastati were easy (every city and its dog had a militia barracks or could build one, but city barracks were rare), so despite the numerical superiority of the Principes the the Hastati did most of the fighting.

Or do they just become totally irrelevant except for the initial cost

[Vitruviansquid]

Unit replenishment is fast, free, and automatic. I don't think having the proper recruitment building in the province accelerates the replenishment process, and it certainly isn't necessary.

[Corvus]

The way buildings work is poorly explained I've found, and takes a bit of time trying to work it out. Each building has a number of bonuses it gives, but it doesn't really explain too well where it all goes.

Food is a nation wide resource. Other bonuses like public order, increases to production etc are province wide. Bonuses to recruited units only happen in the region they are built, though they are spread around numerous buildings.

So it looks like to build the best units you have to make the provice capitals specialised into raising units. It doesnt hurt that you get larger in built morale bonuses raising units in the capital than in the towns as well. The towns can look after the commerce, agricutlure, industry etc. Though again it is probably best to specialise at a province level as well, prodominatly favouring one form of resource overall.

Though I could be wrong.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Is there no option to hire local units once you conquer a territory?
There is. They're available as mercenaries. If your army's in a territory that belongs to you, you can recruit both regular troops and mercenaries. If you're in territory held by another faction, only mercenaries are available until you conquer that area.

As for the Hastati/Triarii to Legionary/Cohort, that's actually done via a technology upgrade you can research. These upgrades are free as far as I can tell, but they take a number of turns to complete and build upon one another. Once you research the tech, you can begin recruiting modern Roman legionaries instead of Hastati, etc. I don't know if this automatically converts your existing armies, I haven't researched it as a Roman player myself yet.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

I tell ya I look away from the forums and you guys get this thread started without me! :smallwink:

I pre-ordered this months ago because I've been with the TW series since Rome 1. And despite the flaws (graphic instabilities, square-peg-round-hole stupid AI and weird little bugs everywhichway) I want to say this is the best Total War yet!

Just came off a magnificent run with the Iceni (quit Rome campaign due to crippling bug :smallmad:). I basically took the starting army and somehow squeaked out some Heroic Victories against the two factions on the west coast, and then the Brigantes. Caledonia was so impressed they joined my Confederacy immediately. Now if only those Hibernirians didn't all have the Plague I'd be set.

[Vitruviansquid]

Ok. So.

Unless this game is lousy with hidden stats, it seems like spear units no longer have an intrinsic advantage against cavalry. Instead, different spear units have different activated abilities to give them an advantage against cavalry, such as going into phalanx mode.. The key differentiation between spear and sword now seems to be that spear consistently has higher armor penetration damage while sword has higher normal damage values.

[Emmerask]

Luckily the first mods are out which make the game a ton better... but still a long way to go to make it actually challenging.

[Derthric]

So Lilybaeum rebelled against Carthage. I just made Syracuse a Client state, time to seize Magna Graecia without fighting Carthage, which I do not want to do yet. So I march my most powerful legion down, combine it with my most powerful navy. Set spies to start poisoning the rebel army, etc. I reach the city and.......can't do diddly. Carthage is blockading the city with 1 single little ship. And that means I cannot attack the city at all. Basically there is a queue and I'm at the back of it behind the little old lady counting out a 50 dollar tab in pennies. And whats worse is a Blockade does not count as a Siege so there is no timer on it! Which means it will probably sit there forever. Stupid Carthage.

Anyone else encounter this?

[Leecros]

Unfortunately i'll probably give Rome II:Total War a pass. Unless i get it on sale or i get it for my father who's just recently getting into the Total War games. I bought him Medieval 2 for the holidays last year.

I really feel that Creative Assembly is falling into the trap of sequelitis, or remakeitis as the case may be. I was afraid that they may end up doing something like this back when they released Shogun II and expected their next game to be Rome II. Now i'm half-expecting their next game after Rome II to be Medieval III. The Total War series has just become so dry and redundant to me that i don't feel the drive to pay full-price for their games anymore and it's really too bad since it's one of my favorite series'.

It's not just that they're remaking games that follow the same periods of time though, they also have a primary focus: Europe. Where's China? Where's India? How about Ancient Egypt? There are plenty of important and interesting things that happened outside of Europe that they haven't even touched on. Okay, yeah India was in Empire: Total War, but that was also (In my humble opinion) one of the weakest games in the series.

I could see them building an interesting and unique system for in China based around the Mandate of Heaven and the Chinese Feudal System and the Dynastic rulership that existed. They could make it a fun and interesting experience that's just completely different and unique from the other total war games.

They could even go into more modern things like the World Wars. This has it's own challenges both inside the game mechanics and outside. They would be competing with the already saturated market of modern wargames. They would also have to figure out how to do flight and simulate the shift away from symmetrical 'pitched' warfare to asymmetrical warfare. It would likely require a complete revamp of their combat system, but the point is that it'd be a unique game in the series.

Unfortunately it's looking like just a normal day in the office for Creative Assembly. I'm really afraid that eventually the Total War series is just going to become stale and fade into obscurity.:smallfrown:

[Kudaku]

Just tried it out and the idea/core gameplay of the game is as solid as all the others, but this game feels... Unfinished. Lots and lots of information presented that's never actually explained - the tutorial asks me to rank my general but never actually explains the options... What is the difference between Authority and Cunning?

Looking at the metacritic user ratings, it kind of looks like CA is having a "Sim City" Lite moment.

[Seatbelt]

It's not just that they're remaking games that follow the same periods of time though, they also have a primary focus: Europe. Where's China? Where's India? How about Ancient Egypt? There are plenty of important and interesting things that happened outside of Europe that they haven't even touched on. Okay, yeah India was in Empire: Total War, but that was also (In my humble opinion) one of the weakest games in the series.

I could see them building an interesting and unique system for in China based around the Mandate of Heaven and the Chinese Feudal System and the Dynastic rulership that existed. They could make it a fun and interesting experience that's just completely different and unique from the other total war games.

Because I have literally no interest in those time periods or eras. I'm aware of India and China and Japan as they move about and function in the world today and through-out history. But only because it's relevant to what I want to do for a living and not because I find them interesting or engaging.

That's just my personal taste though. I don't speak for all gamers.



They could even go into more modern things like the World Wars. This has it's own challenges both inside the game mechanics and outside. They would be competing with the already saturated market of modern wargames. They would also have to figure out how to do flight and simulate the shift away from symmetrical 'pitched' warfare to asymmetrical warfare. It would likely require a complete revamp of their combat system, but the point is that it'd be a unique game in the series.


This would be sweet though. I'd play this. There are games like Total War. But they're all a little to intense for me. I like my grand stragegy games to be about this level of intensity. Complex enoygh that I haven't mastered any of the systems. But simple and intuitive enough that I understood how they all worked after 2-3 turns.

[t209]

Because I have literally no interest in those time periods or eras. I'm aware of India and China and Japan as they move about and function in the world today and through-out history. But only because it's relevant to what I want to do for a living and not because I find them interesting or engaging.
That's just my personal taste though. I don't speak for all gamers.

China sounds fine though but Paradox might be better since they are good at making maps out of various periods of time (Anyone want to make Cao Cao won the Three Kingdoms war).
Just please make a sequel to Warhammer: Dark Omens. I want some german guys to shoot at demons, orcs, and evil dudes.

[Cikomyr]

China sounds fine though but Paradox might be better since they are good at making maps out of various periods of time (Anyone want to make Cao Cao won the Three Kingdoms war).
Just please make a sequel to Warhammer: Dark Omens. I want some german guys to shoot at demons, orcs, and evil dudes.

Three Kingdom : Total War would be AWESOME

[Leecros]

(Anyone want to make Cao Cao won the Three Kingdoms war).

I...think i'll have a pass on having Cao Cao win...Reading Romance of the Three Kingdoms, even ignoring all the dramatization and romanticizing, one discovers that there really wasn't a 'good' side or a right side; Arguably there wasn't even a lesser of three evils in there. All of the Rulers of the Three Kingdoms had their issues and by the end they were basically begging for Jin Dynasty to conquer them.

I'd rather take one of the minor lords have raise them in power. That's what i prefer to do in Total War anyways.:smalltongue:



Three Kingdom : Total War would be AWESOME

Don't you mean.... Total War: Three Kingdoms?

I really don't like that they inverted their title. It doesn't roll off the tongue as easily as it used to somehow.

They should have just kept it X:Total War

[Archpaladin Zousha]

So how does a civil war in a faction like Rome or Carthage work? I keep seeing the whole -3 senators thing for decisions I make on promoting family members to generalship, but have no idea what it all means. The tutorial never touches on it.

[Scurvy Cur]

So, for people who have already played it: how varied are units in this one? Because after playing Shogun II through twice, once traditionally and once with a lot of Portuguese assistance, I pretty much had the feeling that I've seen the game now. Sure, the various units had different weapons, but to me, a lot of them felt very much the same (Ashigaru, archers, Samurai, cavalry, siege engines, gunpowder, a few exotics, done).

Is this one any better in that regard? It should be, given how many diverse cultures should be in it.

It is, at least in how differently each of the factions play. In Shogun 2, my armies looked quite similar regardless of which faction I played, excepting the Oda and the Uesgi (wherein ashigeru and warrior monks made much more significant parts of my armies respectively). In Rome 2, my Greek armies work differently than my roman ones or my barbarian ones or my Parthian ones, etc. because the presence or lack of certain classes of units will mandate different tactics.

There is also somewhat better interplay between different units depending on armaments. For example, ranged skirmish units tend to come in three flavors: slingers, archers, and javelinmen. Javelin armed troops are good at inflicting casualties on slow-moving heavy infantry due to their good armor penetration. Archers are absolutely devastating against lightly armored infantry units, particularly ones with poor shields or no shields, due to their good damage and range. And slingers, with the best range of the bunch, excel at out skirmishing other skirmishers, but don't really have the damage to inflict heavy casualties on heavy units.

[Seatbelt]

Is the AI still crap? What happens if I turn it up to hard? How does that adjust the AI? Still crap?

[Leecros]

Is the AI still crap? What happens if I turn it up to hard? How does that adjust the AI? Still crap?

I've not played Rome II, but in my experiences with the Total War games is that all turning up the difficulty does is increase how much the AI gets for free. It's typically a challenge through just zerging the player.

[Cikomyr]

Actually, just watch Angry Joe's review (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_QK-lcW8a8)of the thing to see what he's talking about.

He litteraly ****s on the game, but praise its potential.

[Talderas]

It is, at least in how differently each of the factions play. In Shogun 2, my armies looked quite similar regardless of which faction I played, excepting the Oda and the Uesgi (wherein ashigeru and warrior monks made much more significant parts of my armies respectively).

Woah. Woah. Wait a minute. You had things besides ashigaru in your Oda armies?

[Cikomyr]

Woah. Woah. Wait a minute. You had things besides ashigaru in your Oda armies?

It's not a bad idea to have, at times, specific core of monks or samurai to hold certain chokepoints in your battle while your use your ashigaru to win.

[Talderas]

It's not a bad idea to have, at times, specific core of monks or samurai to hold certain chokepoints in your battle while your use your ashigaru to win.

A judicial application of we have reserves (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WeHaveReserves) makes that a rather moot point. Oda has an economic advantage with the ashigaru boost and as with all Total War games, once you gain a distinct economic advantage you've won the game.

[Scurvy Cur]

Woah. Woah. Wait a minute. You had things besides ashigaru in your Oda armies?

Yes. 2-4 units of spear cavalry are an asset for chasing down those uppity enemy samurai to kill any engaging in a shameful display and fleeing the battle.

Also useful for intercepting enemy cavalry in the rare occurance that they successfully flank the peasants. Though if there were Ashigeru horse, I would be tempted to use those.

[Talderas]

Yes. 2-4 units of spear cavalry are an asset for chasing down those uppity enemy samurai to kill any engaging in a shameful display and fleeing the battle.

The general is well used towards chasing down samurai exhibiting a shamefur dispray.


Also useful for intercepting enemy cavalry in the rare occurance that they successfully flank the peasants. Though if there were Ashigeru horse, I would be tempted to use those.

Letting enemy cavalry behind your lines is bad no matter what units you're using.

Anyway, I tend to use my reserves and just auto-resolve battles.

[Janwin]

I reach the city and.......can't do diddly. Carthage is blockading the city with 1 single little ship. And that means I cannot attack the city at all. Basically there is a queue and I'm at the back of it behind the little old lady counting out a 50 dollar tab in pennies. And whats worse is a Blockade does not count as a Siege so there is no timer on it! Which means it will probably sit there forever. Stupid Carthage.

Anyone else encounter this?

Yup. When I was trying to take the last town in Italia from the Etruscan League some Greek city state decided they didn't like them either and blockaded the town. They kept this up for a number of turns, which annoyed me considerably, so I moved a large legion and fleet around the south of Italy, declared war, and wiped out their civilization for their impudence.

[Scurvy Cur]

The general is well used towards chasing down samurai exhibiting a shamefur dispray.



Letting enemy cavalry behind your lines is bad no matter what units you're using.

Anyway, I tend to use my reserves and just auto-resolve battles.

Spear cavalry are, at least from what I've seen, faster. And don't have to stop giving the peasants a "stand your ground" bonus to chase after fleeing enemies.

Plus, autoresolve just takes out an aspect of the game that I like.

[Emmerask]

Actually, just watch Angry Joe's review (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_QK-lcW8a8)of the thing to see what he's talking about.

He litteraly ****s on the game, but praise its potential.

I actually think its too high a score currently.
Lets say the someday finished product will be a 10/10...

-3 for the AI (its the most important thing there is for total war the rest could just be boxes for all I care... but its a complete and utter disgrace both in battles as in the campaign map)

-1 for coop multiplayer not working (desync everywhere)

-1 for the senate stuff which seems pre alpha

-1 for all the removed features (general speeches, assassin videos??? etc)

thats a current 4/10 from me :smalltongue:

[Flickerdart]

Plus, autoresolve just takes out an aspect of the game that I like.
Autoresolve gets around the frankly atrocious loading times for battles. After the quick load times in Napoleon, I have no idea why it takes so long there.

How are load times in Rome 2, anyway?

[thorgrim29]

The load times are decent, but the AI turns take minimum 5 minutes, there are a stupidly high number of factions in this game

[Cikomyr]

The load times are decent, but the AI turns take minimum 5 minutes, there are a stupidly high number of factions in this game

This isn't exactly a bad thing. It's just the game has clear problems processing them

[thorgrim29]

It actually doesn't take it more time then in Medieval 2 and probably less then in Shogun 2. And I think it's a bad thing because it means that after you've got your empire running you're always against 2 or 3 city factions because the AI apparently doesn't believe in conquest

[SmartAlec]

New patch (http://forums.totalwar.com/showthread.php/90964-Patch-2-BETA-What-do-you-think-about-patch-2-beta/page18?) is currently available to beta-test on Steam. Opinions of early beta testers seem overall positive.

Patch notes:
Technical and Performance Issues


Campaign performance optimisations.
Campaign AI round time improvements (greatest effect during early game).
A new "Limited" option has been added to the "Show AI Player Moves" settings in Single Player an Multiplayer Campaign modes, this enables the player to see all movement of enemy factions, all movement within the players regions, and all movement within sea that the player has ports in during the AI turns.
Improved AI recruitment decisions in Campaign modes. Further improvements planned for subsequent patches.
Pathfinding optimisation on the Campaign Map.
Fix for "Level of Detail" distances scaling incorrectly when the "Field of View" is changed which reduces the chance of the "Intelligent Zoom" [N] key, causing "zombie like” low quality textures on unit faces in battles.
A new warning message has been added to loading screen to inform the player when graphics memory is running low, and the game is downgrading the players graphics settings. This can be overriden, allowing the game to use system memory for graphics (VRAM) by ticking the "Unlimited video memory" option in the graphics menu.
Increased the frame rate and reduced frame stuttering in battles on certain GPUs.
Improved compatibility for graphics cards with multiple GPUs.
Added earlier Multiplayer Campaign resyncronisation detection, upon loading save games which allows resyncronisation in more cases.
More conservative out-of-the-box graphics settings and resolution for DirectX 10 and 11 on Mobile GPUs
Improved the processing speed of the default deployment placement, reducing battle loading times on some battle maps.
Fixed battle crash bug caused by the default deployment placement.
Crash fix for when the player placed the mouse over a garrison force of a region in Campaign mode.
Fix for crash loading save games that were created on the "settlement captured" screen in Campaign modes.
Fix for a crash when holding the [SHIFT] and [CTRL] keys down, and selecting a unit card, when no unit cards where previously selected in Campaign and Battle modes.
Fix for crash caused by forming a Confederation in Campaign modes.
Some desyncronisations have been fixed in multiplayer city / port assault battles.
Crash fix for when multiple AI reinforcements arrive in a single player siege battle in Campaign mode.
Fix for crash when selecting Custom Battle mode after fighting several different Multiplayer battles.
Fix for a crash in 4v4 custom or multiplayer battles caused by the battle AI.
Fix for crash when cancelling a game request for a password protected game whilst in a Multiplayer battle lobby.
Fix some crashes in multiplayer campaign mode, when one player quit the game, it would cause the other player to crash.
Fixed a Multiplayer crash which happened when a client joined a lobby and was being allocated to the wrong slot.
Fix for a very rare crash when launching a new campaign.
Fixed rare battlefield loading lockup.
Fix for a rare crash caused by animal handlers in battles.
Fix for crash that happens when AI unit triggers raise banner special ability when no human units are selected in battles.

Gameplay Improvements


Reduced infantry run speed, charge speed and acceleration in battles.
The low level casualty moral penalties have been significantly reduced in battles.
Improved balancing for Food and Squalor in Campaign Mode.
Campaign AI is more likely to make a stand when defending its final settlement, but may still seek out another home, if they fear losing the final battle.
Encampments battles are no longer incorrectly merged with Coastal battles, which lead to forts floating in the air when a friendly navy reinforced an army in the Fortification stance.
Improved ship movement speeds in battles.
Shock cavalry run speed and charge speed have been increased in battles.
Increased flanking morale penalties.
Added icons to indicate activity in the Technology and Faction screens during a campaign.
Fix for the boarding/ramming button which showed the incorrect state in certain circumstances in battles.
Fix for a bug that sometimes made it impossible to exchange units between a transported land force and another land force on the Campaign map.
Fix for armies on the sea getting stuck in patrol stance in Campaign modes.
Fixed splitting an embedded army from a navy which sometimes caused the player to get stuck in the Prologue Campaign.
Some missions in single player and multiplayer Campaign have been fixed and now execute correctly.
When a settlement is captured via a siege battle, with a friendly naval fleet blockading its port, the ownership of the port is now changed correctly to the friendly navy fleet on capture.
Fix for AI taking inappropriate sized siege equipment into battle when the user changed the settlement wall height, via the map selection settings, in Custom Battle mode.
Fix for defending armies under AI control grouping together at the edge of their deployment zone, during Ambush battles when the player choses to wait before attacking them.
Improved AI and scripting in the Raphia Historical Battle.
Fixed a bug preventing the player from progressing in The Invasion of Samnium prologue chapter, if they had spent all of their funds before being instructed to recruit a General (and therefore having no funds to do so).
The Attribute increases for an agent accompanying an army now activate its associated effects on the general of that army in Campaign modes.
Improved AI collision detection with Deployables in battle.
In Multiplayer Campaign mode, one player can no longer cancel recruitment during the other players turn.
The order of events leading up to the Battle of Bovianum in the prologue have been re-scripted. The player now gets multiple turns to construct siege equipment.
Fixed issues with not enough time being given for certain advisor lines to play in different languages in the prologue.
Fix for units floating in the air while climbing siege towers in battle, when the tower is placed on a slope.
Attacking siege ladders will no longer clip through the gate house in the siege on Bovianum battle during The Invasion of Samnium chapter in Prologue Campaign.
The victory screen in Multiplayer Campaign mode now shows the correct title for both players.
The Basilica of Vulcan religious building now applies the correct bonus to recruitment cost reduction in Campaign Mode.
Added level indicators to the Sanctuary of Austro & Sanctuary of Fraujaz shrines in Campaign mode and the Encyclopaedia.
Fix for settlement expansion trapping / blocking units movement on the campaign map in very rare cases.
Improved the terrain in a small Barbarian city battle map.
Minor bug fixes for Roman and Barbarian siege battle maps.
During battles, players are no longer able to un-pause the game while in the options menus.

Usability improvements


In Campaign mode, exempting a province from tax will no longer incorrectly adjust the food number in the province info panel left side of the screen.
Improved multiplayer lobby discovery, reducing the chance of finding *multiplayer lobbies with the wrong battle type.
Removed the red tint from the sky in battles.
Fix for "Rome Wasn't Built in a Day" achievement failing to unlock when its requirements were met in some situations.
The "Quaestor" achievement should now unlock correctly, when completing the Prologue campaign
Fixed the inability to select the previous faction, when an army is automatically loaded due to a battle type change during battle setup.
Improved the clarity of stats displayed for Slaves Economic Effect when placing the mouse over "Slaves" in the Province Details panel on the Campaign map.
Fix for rare cases of broken save games in Campaign mode.
Fix for Campaign mode bug, where a hostile agent and the players' ship became stuck in the same position, with neither one able to move.
Fix for very rare agent pathfinding issue, which caused the game progression to become impossible in Campaign modes.
Removed the ability to loading the wrong type of units into a battle from a saved army pre-set in Custom Battle mode.
In Multiplayer battle setup, unit restrictions related to "Battle type" are no longer desynchronised between the host and client, so only the correct units can be chosen.
Defending armies in an Ambush Battle can no longer load an army containing *Fixed Artillery and other Siege Equipment.
Fixed the tooltip displayed when placing the mouse over the garrison in enemy settlements, while the settlement is under siege.
The Public Order "Change per turn" stat is now displayed as the sum of all of its "Contributing Factors" on the Province Info panel in Campaign mode.
Right-clicking on the Aggressive, Balanced and Protective stance buttons when Autoresolving a battle in campaign mode will now take the player to the Encyclopedia, where these stances are explained in more detail.
More detailed descriptions added to the tooltips for the "Occupy, Loot and Raze" buttons after successfully capturing a settlement on the Campaign map.
Improved icons for Province Effects in Campaign mode.
Fixed an error with uploading stats when a multiplayer battle was ended prematurely.
The "Force March" movement effect on the campaign map (looks like a whirlwind) are now correctly removed from the screen when the AI move their army.
Correction to the Assault Hexeres unit card in the Parthia faction during battles, which had no colour mask and appeared black.
The buttons to change pages in the Leaderboards menu have been fixed, so more players can be seen on the Leaderboards.
The Provinces list in Campaign mode can now be scrolled with the mouse wheel.
Units in a recruitment queue, in a province with its capital under siege, now have an "infinity sign" icon to indicate that the "turns to recruit" is infinite while the siege is maintained in Campaign mode.
In the "Controls" menu under the "Settings" option in the main menu, when the player modifies the keyboard controls, and saves them, the new name for these controls is now replaces the "Classic Total War" name.
Added a tooltip to say "Left-click to remove unit from recruitment queue" for units that are queued for hire in Campaign mode.
Added a tooltip to make ruined buildings more obvious in Campaign mode.
Added tooltips to "Weather" and "Time of Day" settings in the Custom Battle menu.
Fixes and corrections for text in the encyclopaedia have been made.
Minor text and grammar corrections in Campaign Modes.
Fix for some German text not fitting into the available text space in the campaign mode user interface.
Improved text formatting in the Objectives panel in Campaign mode.
Added some localisation text fixes for French, Italian, German, Spanish, Czech, Russian, Polish and Turkish.
Fixed some missing text on the Diplomacy screen in Campaign modes.
Added white outline to Armoured Legionaries unit cards in battle.

[Leecros]

-3 for the AI (its the most important thing there is for total war the rest could just be boxes for all I care... but its a complete and utter disgrace both in battles as in the campaign map)

The AI in all of the total war games has been atrocious. Creative Development relies more on giving the AI more stuff as the difficulty increases than actually improving the skill at which the AI can actually work against you(*). Noting that i've not played either Napoleon(I disliked Empire and the general time period at that) or Rome II; The AI has only marginally improved over all of the iterations of the series.


*Admittedly most games do this nowadays...

[Flickerdart]

Noting that i've not played either Napoleon(I disliked Empire and the general time period at that)
Napoleon blows Empire clean out of the water, but the AI isn't exactly top shelf. My favourite part is when it charges its cavalry straight at your guns, which usually results in dead cavalry long before it reaches them (except in cases where they break through and totally wreck the guns, but this payoff is not so common that it makes sense to attempt).

[Leecros]

Napoleon blows Empire clean out of the water, but the AI isn't exactly top shelf. My favourite part is when it charges its cavalry straight at your guns, which usually results in dead cavalry long before it reaches them (except in cases where they break through and totally wreck the guns, but this payoff is not so common that it makes sense to attempt).

That might be, but i still don't prefer that particular time period. It's a bit too modern for my liking. It was less about Empire being a terrible game and more about Empire making me realize that it's too modern for my tastes in battle. :P

[Emmerask]

The AI in all of the total war games has been atrocious. Creative Development relies more on giving the AI more stuff as the difficulty increases than actually improving the skill at which the AI can actually work against you(*). Noting that i've not played either Napoleon(I disliked Empire and the general time period at that) or Rome II; The AI has only marginally improved over all of the iterations of the series.


*Admittedly most games do this nowadays...

I agree, however what I just dont understand is...
there are some REALLY good ai mods out there for the older total wars both for battles and for the campaign map, why does CA not just look at what the modders did and use it for high difficulties?

Yes you have to tweek things here and there for the capture point system (which I HATE) and the naval units but you would have a baseline that is actually challenging...

[Leecros]

I agree, however what I just dont understand is...
there are some REALLY good ai mods out there for the older total wars both for battles and for the campaign map, why does CA not just look at what the modders did and use it for high difficulties?

Because it would require them to admit that somebody else did something better than they did. They would either have to take it and give credit to the modder, or steal it and hope the modder doesn't find out(he/she would). Either way it would end with a bunch of bad feels or giving credit to someone for doing better than them. It's a pride thing.


the capture point system (which I HATE)

I don't necessarily disagree with the capture point system. There's always been capture points in the Total War games. Even if it was just a big one in the center of the city, but i think it could be implemented better. It should be less of; Suddenly: Win the battle! and more along the lines of causing a morale penalty for losing it. That way taking the capture points isn't necessarily a guarantee win, but neither is it a guarantee loss either.

[Cikomyr]

I don't necessarily disagree with the capture point system. There's always been capture points in the Total War games. Even if it was just a big one in the center of the city, but i think it could be implemented better. It should be less of; Suddenly: Win the battle! and more along the lines of causing a morale penalty for losing it. That way taking the capture points isn't necessarily a guarantee win, but neither is it a guarantee loss either.

Capturing a citadel/town by getting at the middle made at least some sense. But having a random point in the middle of the battlefield represent something? Pu-leaze.

If they want to have an "Arcade" mode where there are these capture points and the game is played at its current (ludicrous/stupid) speed for more streamlined gameplay of the masses, LET THEM. But don't force that playstyle one the long-time (or, in my case, short-time) fans of the franchise who want to have remotely realistic battles.

[brutii]

So far it's 3 for 3, so I think it's a consistent AI bug.

If the enemy is attacking your walled city with a single army that contains a ballista/scorpion, it will simply sit outside of your walls until the timer runs out. Haven't been able to test it with reinforcements on either side or with different siege engines, that may change the AI behaviour. Non-walled cities pose no problem for the AI, they'll just march right in.

Also, I seem to be finding the Greek Cities to be the strongest (or at least the easiest) faction, although they might just complement my playstyle the best. Romans are the closest in terms of battle-style and army composition, but their position on the map makes it basically impossible for me to attack anything southwards without massive losses (due to Carthage and its client states murdering me by backdooring cities with their navies), which really blocks you from completing some tasty provinces.