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I love Rome II, unlike a lot of people, but it's just so cool to play in that time period. But the optimization and Diplomacy are bad, even the best trade deals where you give another state 10,000 denarii and a trade agreement they will deny it! But anyway, this ain't the TW forums so I probably shouldn't delve too far into Rome II.
Wish I could get Attila, but the computer I use can't handle it...
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Rome II?
By the Gods, are you saying that you like games that have 75% of features taken out to please 12 year old kids, with too few features to replace them, every part of the game being broken due to pathetic engine, and utterly lazy and incompetent development with no modding support? Not to mention stupid DLCs which are overpriced and usually don't add anything to the main game, just one extra mini-campaign and copy-paste units? And that they lock out more than half of the game with DLCs?
I loved all TW games until Shogun II. After that CA just went nuts. Rome II is decent, but it is nothing compared to TW series from Shogun 1 (earliest game yet superb AI) to Shogun 2 (last 'proper' TW game, great AI and polish).
This began happening when they hired new staff and seemingly removed the old one, and hired a former EA employee to run their business and development strategy. What else one would expect.
It was Rome II trainwreck that made me realise how great and nice Paradox and their staff are compared to CA. Hopefully that company can redeem itself some day, I spent my teenage years on their games.
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Rome II?
By the Gods, are you saying that you like games that have 75% of features taken out to please 12 year old kids, with too few features to replace them, every part of the game being broken due to pathetic engine, and utterly lazy and incompetent development with no modding support? Not to mention stupid DLCs which are overpriced and usually don't add anything to the main game, just one extra mini-campaign and copy-paste units? And that they lock out more than half of the game with DLCs?
I loved all TW games until Shogun II. After that CA just went nuts. Rome II is decent, but it is nothing compared to TW series from Shogun 1 (earliest game yet superb AI) to Shogun 2 (last 'proper' TW game, great AI and polish).
This began happening when they hired new staff and seemingly removed the old one, and hired a former EA employee to run their business and development strategy. What else one would expect.
It was Rome II trainwreck that made me realise how great and nice Paradox and their staff are compared to CA. Hopefully that company can redeem itself some day, I spent my teenage years on their games.
Rome 2, have not 75% featurres taken out (and even if we would stretch and say, that yes they were removed, what was those features?), and for the love of (mentioned before) it is not to please the 12 year old kids. Where did you get that there is no modding support? There is Steam Workshop, with pretty extensive mods like Divide et Impera?. Factions DLC is entirely optional, and doesn't detriment from anything if you do not own them, and by the time you finish the game with previous factions, you should easily have some leftovers pennies to buy Culture pack.
I think the best TW were Shogun and Medieval (first ones), then I would say next best games are (in any order Rome 2 and Shogun 2, with Attila somewhere also there).
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Well, as a Rome II modder myself and one who actively followed it from the day it was announced to the day when the last patch was released, and having played every TW game in detail (except Attila), I do have a good idea of how bad that game was.
Firstly, that game has a very restricted modding ability. In fact it is not the game's fault entirely, it is the utterly pathetic and deplorable Warscape engine they repeatedly keep using. It is a broken engine that was not developed fully to accommodate all the features of a TW games, and it was meant for gunpowder games above all. This is why FoTS, Empire and Napoleon work so well on it.
You still cannot modify all the sound and graphical effects, only certain aspects. You cannot modify the campaign maps, and custom maps had been a big reason for success of the RTW modding community. It is even worse when the CA-made vanilla map is pathetic and coastlines seem to be made by a 5 year old with a crayon.
Secondly, DeI hasn't been able to change all the things, it is only a 'tweak' with lots of balancing and addition of lots of units and stuff, even if it is a great mod and Rome II becomes decent to play with it. As I said, you cannot have real, full mods like you could in earlier games.
Thirdly, DLC being 'optional' for that game is a big joke and a lie. You absolutely need it if you want full enjoyment, unless you really dislike playing those factions and don't want to have to do anything with them. You know, mods unlocked the factions fully even before they released them as DLCs, and a lot of mods got shut down because they suddenly became 'illegal'. I had enjoyed the same factions without having to pay for them Their DLC policy also ruined the game, because instead of actually working on fixing the mess of a game they created, they kept pouring out DLCs. CA turned into a huge DLC whore with Attila but that's another game.
About 75% of the features being cut off, it is true. And while it isn't 75% when you compare it to other games on that pathetic engine, it is nothing when compared to what TW series had gained over time, especially with RTW and Medieval 2. The trade system is bad, the map is just jammed corridors with oversized cities. Talking of cities, sieges are simply broken, and when they failed to fix them they resorted to stupid and cheap tactics like turning 90% of the in-game cities into unwalled villages, even those that were historically famous for walls. And even then the AI rarely acts like it is not broken. Naval battles....sigh....they were broken from design and were never fixed, strange how ETW/NTW/S2TW naval battles worked perfectly. You cannot change your capital, you don't have a family tree, you don't have generals that matter, or those that have more than three traits. Even diplomacy has less features than RTW (a game famous for having lots of options but a non-working diplomacy until modded). You cannot even decide how much someone has to pay, as if they forgot to put in edit mode in that part. You cannot sell territories. I could go on but I have posted a lot of threads about this in TWC forums since this game came out, you can check there.
The game is really for casuals, and to me they are all 12 year old stupid arcade kids who play CoD all day. That's completely reflected in how they developed this game. It was completely inconsistent - one part of the development seemed to be really detailed but abandoned in unfinished state for release, the other part seems to be developed in a hurry but made to work. How would you explain that there are cutscenes for death scenes of minor generals, but no intros, no assassination/sabotage ones? The minimalistic, ugly UI doesn't help either. And don't even let me begin about the unit cards, even my 3 year old cousin could draw with crayons better than that. Only the UI mods (especially Bullgod's mod) saved me.
And all this is when you discount bugs like ships sailing through land and glitches that occur in every single area of the game. And the huge list of broken promises and one the best examples of false advertising I've seen in this decade. Rome II, in a true sense, was a train wreck. CA themselves have turned into money-whores since then.
Shogun 1 and Medieval 1 are the best indeed. My second favourite would be anything from Shogun 2, RTW, Medieval II and Napoleon.
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*facepalm* I don't even want to respond to some of your less than acurate statements.
About modding, yes indeed it is more limited in some aspects when it comes to the previous games, but also there are some new possibilites which you couldn't even think before. Mitch, Spartan_Warrior and many others pushed modding boundries, and showed what it is possible to do and what is not.
RTW and MTW 2 already had features cut from previous games, and don't even start with pointing out MTW 2, which for me is the lowest point in the series (right with Empire) because how atrocious vanilla is. I reinstalled recently RTW and MTW 2 and they have broken sieges as well, and even in some aspects more than patched now RTW 2. I like the change that some settlements are un-walled. It provides new dynamic into battles. Yes, some cities could have walls (similiar to what Attila did, that not only minor settlements level 4 get walls, but also "wonders" can grant wall into selected settlements), but over-all I prefer it this way.
Trade system is now (as in Warscape, and Rome 2 as well) miles better than what was previously in RTW/MTW2. Especially the terrible merchants system in mtw2, which resulted in enemy merchants swarming from all over the world, because they felt blood in the pool. What was previously internal trade which you didn't had any influence at all (beside herp-derp spam buildings which +increase in tradeable goods) is now simulated by Commerce Wealth. I don't see jammed corridors in RTW 2. They are more of in the territory of STW 2.
Naval Battles - they work for me, yes they are not perfect. In fact I am not a big fan of naval battles in any TW, and saying that STW 2 battles were perfect is... questionable. NTW/ETW were best, but probably due to the fact, that it is the era of the sail, ship of the lines, and famous naval battles.
Diplomacy, yes, there maybe less options (didn't count), but now at least it makes sense. No more "Please do not attack, accept or we will attack" bullshit, AI asking for truce, paying 10k denarii, and attacking in the same turn, because herp derp. And no, mods didn't save or improve diplomacy. In EB, my ally Seleucids even though they were pressed from many directions, decided to attack with smaller force my fortified border town, because diplomacez. I like diplomacy in RTW2,STW2 and Attila. Yes, the omission of the typing amount denarii you want in RTW 2 is stupid. (Attila have it, at least)
And no, the game is no more for the casuals than the previous games. Maybe it is slightly easier to get into, because of the better explained principles and so on. Easy to get into, but to master it takes time etc. As you were reading TWC, you would see especially at the release game, whining of the so many "hardcore" strategy gamers, that couldn't figure many aspects of this so called casualized game. "Economy is impossible - yet I posted 22k income province without slave and +% tax whoring" "PO is impossible to manage, all the time there are rebellions, yet I had no such problem etc.".
Unit cards, I prefer the stylized ones over the generic rendered ones, and R2 unit cards are perfect in what are they doing. I easily can distinguish units, in same category, and can tell them apart. But this is up to personal preference - so I will not dive deeply into this one.
UI is not bad, but it could be better, agree.
And glitches and bugs - yes at the release there were bugs. But most of them are removed and patched out, while some previous games, like MTW2/RTW have still many, and compared to them RTW2 is incredibly stable game. I don't recall in the last 150 hours or more any CTD. While in MTW2/RTW they are sad reality.
And yes, the amount of DLC is increased, but It is far-fetched to say that CA is DLC-whoring. They even posted patch 17 beta now, almost 2 years after the release of the game, maybe thanks to the DLC's?
I played many strategy games, from relatively easy and simple, to the complex ones, and saying that RTW2 is only for casuals and 12 year olds is stupid.
About modding, yes indeed it is more limited in some aspects when it comes to the previous games, but also there are some new possibilites which you couldn't even think before. Mitch, Spartan_Warrior and many others pushed modding boundries, and showed what it is possible to do and what is not.
RTW and MTW 2 already had features cut from previous games, and don't even start with pointing out MTW 2, which for me is the lowest point in the series (right with Empire) because how atrocious vanilla is. I reinstalled recently RTW and MTW 2 and they have broken sieges as well, and even in some aspects more than patched now RTW 2. I like the change that some settlements are un-walled. It provides new dynamic into battles. Yes, some cities could have walls (similiar to what Attila did, that not only minor settlements level 4 get walls, but also "wonders" can grant wall into selected settlements), but over-all I prefer it this way.
Trade system is now (as in Warscape, and Rome 2 as well) miles better than what was previously in RTW/MTW2. Especially the terrible merchants system in mtw2, which resulted in enemy merchants swarming from all over the world, because they felt blood in the pool. What was previously internal trade which you didn't had any influence at all (beside herp-derp spam buildings which +increase in tradeable goods) is now simulated by Commerce Wealth. I don't see jammed corridors in RTW 2. They are more of in the territory of STW 2.
Naval Battles - they work for me, yes they are not perfect. In fact I am not a big fan of naval battles in any TW, and saying that STW 2 battles were perfect is... questionable. NTW/ETW were best, but probably due to the fact, that it is the era of the sail, ship of the lines, and famous naval battles.
Diplomacy, yes, there maybe less options (didn't count), but now at least it makes sense. No more "Please do not attack, accept or we will attack" bullshit, AI asking for truce, paying 10k denarii, and attacking in the same turn, because herp derp. And no, mods didn't save or improve diplomacy. In EB, my ally Seleucids even though they were pressed from many directions, decided to attack with smaller force my fortified border town, because diplomacez. I like diplomacy in RTW2,STW2 and Attila. Yes, the omission of the typing amount denarii you want in RTW 2 is stupid. (Attila have it, at least)
And no, the game is no more for the casuals than the previous games. Maybe it is slightly easier to get into, because of the better explained principles and so on. Easy to get into, but to master it takes time etc. As you were reading TWC, you would see especially at the release game, whining of the so many "hardcore" strategy gamers, that couldn't figure many aspects of this so called casualized game. "Economy is impossible - yet I posted 22k income province without slave and +% tax whoring" "PO is impossible to manage, all the time there are rebellions, yet I had no such problem etc.".
Unit cards, I prefer the stylized ones over the generic rendered ones, and R2 unit cards are perfect in what are they doing. I easily can distinguish units, in same category, and can tell them apart. But this is up to personal preference - so I will not dive deeply into this one.
UI is not bad, but it could be better, agree.
And glitches and bugs - yes at the release there were bugs. But most of them are removed and patched out, while some previous games, like MTW2/RTW have still many, and compared to them RTW2 is incredibly stable game. I don't recall in the last 150 hours or more any CTD. While in MTW2/RTW they are sad reality.
And yes, the amount of DLC is increased, but It is far-fetched to say that CA is DLC-whoring. They even posted patch 17 beta now, almost 2 years after the release of the game, maybe thanks to the DLC's?
I played many strategy games, from relatively easy and simple, to the complex ones, and saying that RTW2 is only for casuals and 12 year olds is stupid.
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Rome II?
To their credit, they eventually fixed it up a lot after the bumpy release. I have to admit I shelved it right after I bought it and then picked it up again much later
I play TW mainly because of the looks and the smell of blood and gunpowder, knowing my soldiers bleed for the glory of the empire in the bigger picture. I always play grand campaign and always play ALL the battles.
I liked Empire mainly because I'm a fan of naval warfare in the Age of Sail.
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To their credit, they eventually fixed it up a lot after the bumpy release. I have to admit I shelved it right after I bought it and then picked it up again much later
I play TW mainly because of the looks and the smell of blood and gunpowder, knowing my soldiers bleed for the glory of the empire in the bigger picture. I always play grand campaign and always play ALL the battles.
I liked Empire mainly because I'm a fan of naval warfare in the Age of Sail.
Well, each to his own I guess. I reinstalled Rome II when they announced Emperor Edition and so far it is more playable than what it was. Still, it is a really bad game for hardcore fans like me who've played since the first game.
Empire is a decent game even if it is gravely lacking, especially with Darthmod. Mainly due to the fact that it sticks true to the TW series. I started playing EU3 because I was denied to buy Empire when it came out.
Rome II?
By the Gods, are you saying that you like games that have 75% of features taken out to please 12 year old kids, with too few features to replace them, every part of the game being broken due to pathetic engine, and utterly lazy and incompetent development with no modding support? Not to mention stupid DLCs which are overpriced and usually don't add anything to the main game, just one extra mini-campaign and copy-paste units? And that they lock out more than half of the game with DLCs?
I loved all TW games until Shogun II. After that CA just went nuts. Rome II is decent, but it is nothing compared to TW series from Shogun 1 (earliest game yet superb AI) to Shogun 2 (last 'proper' TW game, great AI and polish).
This began happening when they hired new staff and seemingly removed the old one, and hired a former EA employee to run their business and development strategy. What else one would expect.
It was Rome II trainwreck that made me realise how great and nice Paradox and their staff are compared to CA. Hopefully that company can redeem itself some day, I spent my teenage years on their games.
Hey, hey, hey, hey HEY. In defence of 12 year olds (I'm not one of them), they do not interest themselves in TW games.
Considering I'm not too distant from that age, I will stand up in defence against this perceived ignorance of members of this age group which,frustratingly so, is not completely true.Just saying...
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R2 Emperor Edition is an absolutely fine game.Rome II?
By the Gods, are you saying that you like games that have 75% of features taken out to please 12 year old kids, with too few features to replace them, every part of the game being broken due to pathetic engine, and utterly lazy and incompetent development with no modding support? Not to mention stupid DLCs which are overpriced and usually don't add anything to the main game, just one extra mini-campaign and copy-paste units? And that they lock out more than half of the game with DLCs?
I loved all TW games until Shogun II. After that CA just went nuts. Rome II is decent, but it is nothing compared to TW series from Shogun 1 (earliest game yet superb AI) to Shogun 2 (last 'proper' TW game, great AI and polish).
This began happening when they hired new staff and seemingly removed the old one, and hired a former EA employee to run their business and development strategy. What else one would expect.
It was Rome II trainwreck that made me realise how great and nice Paradox and their staff are compared to CA. Hopefully that company can redeem itself some day, I spent my teenage years on their games.
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It's about as entertaining as pulling teeth. Svea Rike III had a greater fun factor than it does.
Total war can be fun... if you enjoy trashing the AI for eons on end.
Civ, ehh, I find it fun for what it is. Isn't this thread kind of old though?
Civ, ehh, I find it fun for what it is. Isn't this thread kind of old though?
I've played Total War games since Medieval 1 and have hundreds of hours in various titles I'm sorry, but after you figure out how things work there's just no real skill involved.
You've pointed out a minor few things that were broken in previous iterations and removed (AI spamming you asking to trade a poor province with one of your still-crap but definitely better provinces etc.) but here are IMO the main weaknesses, talking specifically about Rome 2:
--rant begins--
Battle AI:
Ok, here's my go-to strategy to win just about every battle, get ready. Tune out if you don't want your game to be ruined by my awesome strategy: Form a solid line and flank the s*** out of the enemy. Don't worry, the AI will pile all their non-ranged troops into your center while you move everybody else around and hurl javelins, horseflesh and even infantry into his exposed backside. Don't worry, if you wait for a few minutes all enemy units will be Exhausted because they are 'fighting' even though they are at the back of a huge blob with maybe 1-2 men actually in combat. And the AI will never break off even one such 'engaged' unit to deal with your archers standing 5 metres behind firing arrows into their backs.
But hey, at least enemy generals no longer suicidally charge into your wall of pikes. Oh wait, that was patched out a few weeks after release, despite existing in every friggin' game before that. Or did a mod do that?
Diplomacy / campaign AI:
First thing: alliances are useless. I've never seen alliance deter an attack; the series lives up to its name: Total War. It's rare to find any nation not in at least 2-3 wars unless they are on the edge of the map. So usually your allies will be off fighting elsewhere and not help you. But if they do, they take any cities they siege for themselves. So now if you like non-bordergore maps you will be measuring up your ally for attack. In that regard client states / satrapies are also bad since they can only help themselves.
+ The AI is still horrendously exploitable. Want to go to war against nation X? nation X is at war against nation Y: go to nation Y and 'offer to join war' for 1000 denarii. Free money for something you would do anyway. Ally calling me into war? Demand 3000 denarii to do so. Then do not actually help in the war. Can the AI be forced to cancel alliance in a war? Yes, in theory, but AI only really does any diplomacy when reduced to 1 province or so (are they regions now? 1 city anyway), so it won't matter at that point.
Removed / simplified things:
Casual vs hardcore gamers aside, I strongly believe many things were removed because AI couldn't handle them well in previous games. e.g. off the top of my head:
- Army limits. Because AI cannot handle multiple armies and just made 1-unit stacks. And then moved those individually, greatly slowing down the game. Can still be seen by: AI making armies of just generals, thankfully limited numbers.
- Family trees: AI couldn't really use them in Shogun 2 because, especially in manual battles vs humans, they will suicide their generals aka family members 99% of the time. IIRC their families also died off in previous games for some reason. And before you say 'it's because Rome's a Republic!' there are non-republic nations in the game too.
- Walls: AI will walk into boiling oil / make everyone exhausted cramming up on 1-2 ladders and lose stupendously even with 5-1 odds on. Partially because they were crap in bringing siege equipment (so now you build it free, yay!) Now most settlements have no walls - yay! You still de facto fight siege battles, you simply lose the penalties for climbing ladders onto wars. + as a human you just hold them at a chokepoint when defending and let archery towers kill them in a battle outnumbered 5-1 against you. Admittedly this is only plausible when playing with a mod that increases garrison size, IIRC vanilla garrisons are too small.
- Loyalty: IIRC AI was crap at giving not-disloyal generals priority. Now we just have civil wars that cut the country on unpredictable lines.
- Naval landings: yeah, armies get free boats. I believe only in a late version of a DarthMod mod for Empire did AI actually do naval landings at all without free boats.
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TL;DR: The game has no real difficulty. If you play battles manually and are aware of the concept of flanking, you can win every time with few casualties. There's no diplomatic intricacy, just win the battles and win the game. Yeah, they improved some of the broken things from previous games, but they also removed some of the core staples of Total War games that many liked (and after realising this, returned them in Atilla as a standalone game!!)
IMO the battles are the only real fun thing, broken as they are. The campaign for me is just there to give a little personality to my armies, with the mid-game already becoming a grind as you auto-resolve against all your enemies. Did I mention AI has a hardcoded free income? If you thought merc-spam in EU4 was bad...
Rome 2 was the first game I tried to play unmodded since Rome 1, and will be the last. I'm still getting some enjoyment out of it with Divide et Impera mod + nerfing my own tactics / army composition to be more 'historical' in nature. And now that mod has introduced population (i.e. manpower) mechanics, so I might start up a new game once they've ironed out the kinks.
Very few people know this, but Paradox, Firaxis and CA actually together form the Strategy Games Cabal, that is secretly in control of all governements and dictate world events to make them interesting enough to warrant video games at some point in the future.
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.......I've seen the AI do naval invasions in unmodded Empire: Total War.
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Certain nations in Empire are hardcoded to do them, ex: maratha is hardcoded to invade europe if they beat the mughals