ROME II - Official Multiplayer discussion.

[Armatus]

Isn't it obvious?
The satisfaction of the campaign map is to conquer lands and expand your empire and watch it come along, its something that is achieved in long-term after many turns, what point there is if I just hop into someone's empire, have a few battles, and then log-off?

Isn't that why we all play? I fail to see how it's any different than someone choosing to play the solo-campaign.

It doesn't mean that everyone will screw things up, but its quite possible and I can see it being a very common problem.

Well, if you had noticed I provided a very reasonable solution to this, but as you insist on making it an issue all I can say is that this wouldn't be something new to total war, let alone gaming, things like that are part of the nature of playing with others. The best thing you can do (as we do now) is get to know the people you play with. I've experienced many many droppers in custom battles presumably not always due to connectivity issues, and even a few in hotseat campaigns (which is to be expected considering how long they can last) and it does not prevent me from having fun.

[katsusand]

Isn't that why we all play? I fail to see how it's any different than someone choosing to play the solo-campaign.

How?
When playing the solo-campaign, your progress stays with you, you are shaping your own empire.
In the MP mode you are suggesting, your efforts to grow your economy, deal with diplomacy, and build your empire are wasted, since your are logging off in a few hours. Basically, its just short term enjoyment like I said.

Well, if you had noticed I provided a very reasonable solution to this, but as you insist on making it an issue all I can say is that this wouldn't be something new to total war, let alone gaming, things like that are part of the nature of playing with others. The best thing you can do (as we do now) is get to know the people you play with. I've experienced many many droppers in custom battles presumably not always due to connectivity issues, and even a few in hotseat campaigns (which is to be expected considering how long they can last) and it does not prevent me from having fun.

Your solution is password protected servers, which will only apply for a number of servers.
And you shouldn't compare this with a custom battle, the idea of a persistent server means when someone ruins a faction, like messing with their finance, it will stay like that forever until the game is finished (which takes a long time)

[atheniandp]

Were all historic leaders lucky enough to inherit or assume control of an economically stable and well administered state? The emergence of a good player would equate countless examples of historic reforms and distinguish "the Greats" from those who faded into history.

I prefer a game that makes the player resourceful and innovative. We don't really get that with multiplayer battles because they're more or less balanced for fair gameplay. Okay, fine, cool. Battles are quick and there's a definite eSports type compatibility. But multiplayer campaigns are a different beast altogether. A different demographic would be playing them. I don't see why CA should make the campaign aracadey and forcefully balanced just because it would be multiplayer.

[Armatus]

Good point on inheritance. Though I understand his concern about "playing through" it is a legitimate one for a real time campaign.

And I would ask could the game can be saved?

I definitely like the eSports competition of custom battles, but this would be my dream for a campaign.

[Durnaug]

When you or your opponent quits the game (for whatever reason) the game does not stop for the other players as the AI will fill in until another live player joins the server to fill that AI spot.

Think of the grand strategy Sins of a Solar Empire multiplayer co-op games - you can save the co-op game position. It is really clever.

[Armatus]

Never played it how is the game hosted?

[alQamar]

thank you very much for merging the multiplayer poll to this thread!

[Durnaug]

Never played it how is the game hosted?

Uses a system called Ironclad online, so third party hosted? I have never tried setting up a game via hamachi. Anyway, the game is grand strategy but real time so not exactly pertinent to RTWII. But the co-op game save feature is extremely useful and appreciated. We've been playing an uber campaign for weeks now with lots of solar systems. However you can imagine RTW campaign co-op games were you can both join in the same RTW battle but each takes turns to implement campaign decisions.

[Armatus]

delete

[Armatus]

Battle for Middle Earth II: Rise of the Witch King (2006)

War of the Ring mode (multiplayer campaign) explained,

[BM309K58SMERCH]

Most important is Free-for-All.
"Hey everybody! That guy is using elephants! Let's eliminate him first!"

[atheniandp]

Players should be able to pit the same faction against each other. I've only played RTW online to any extent and in that game you cannot fight a battle with two people controlling the same faction in both custom and multiplayer battles.

[saxdude]

I want to be able to reenact game of thrones in R2TW, so the last 2 options.

[JackDionne]

Updated

Total War: Rome II Avatar campaign (AC)/Classic battle, lessons learned from Shogun II

Some observations I would like to point out for the next Avatar Campaign (for Rome II).

Allow a focus group to exist with Active players of the Avatar Campaign with separate forum just for Avatar Campaign.

• Beta test it.
• Allow resetting of specialty units.
• Plug Pullers get a loss credit to them.
• Debug camera, everybody gets it or nobody gets it.
• Do not allow people to inspect their opponent’s win/loss record prior to a battle. People become intimidated if you won a lot of games; they see this and leave rather then play it out; wasting a lot of time.
• Allow variety of Generals for classic battles, i.e. Melee, Bow, and Leadership depending on cultural traits.
• As gamers we should also discuss realism mode for AC, when a veteran unit losses all its men should it be gone?
• When modifying stats on units for balance, adjust one thing at a time, not like what you did with the Loan Swords in Shogun II.
• Keep the Avatar Campaigns separate, the same way you did with Fall of the Samurai. Example: Rome II, Rise of Rome and Fall of Rome all three should be separate.
• Allow one Avatar for each faction if possible. This didn’t matter so much for Shogun II as all the clans basically have the same unit types.
• The skill tree should be kept simple like in Shogun II. More is not always better.
• Allow General to stay the same cost even when you have points to spend in the skill tree in the same way you do with veteran units unspent experience points.
• Insert speed stats for all units on the unit card.
• Create a pdf doc for downloading explaining all the moral penalties and bonuses. This would help a lot of the new players understand why their men break and route away.
• The Plumbatarii or Plumbata is thrown underhand see thread http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=380904 please have the animation portrait it.
• Allow everybody to gain clan tokens, some people for whatever reason are not comfortable joining a clan.
• If a request cannot be done by the community (Avatar Campaign aficionados) just tell us it can’t so we can move on to more productive discussion.

[Armatus]

Has CA ever truly engaged in an actual fanbased Beta test? I'm not talking about the times they invited elite members of the community over, I mean something like what a lot of other titles do via the net.

[alQamar]

dont think so, but it would help us all a lot and finally also get an idea about and form what we are buying instead of buying a pig in a poke, something that comes up on well planned marketing actions and hypes. in case of single player they have not done many wrong you know what i am talking about. anyway i am not sure if they have enough employees or volunteers to sort out all the feedback. just think about the "ideas competion" on totalwar.com that grew so massive. i personally wouldnt read through too long.

[Fallenempire]

I want the ability to set up tournaments ingame with as many brackets as you want with the people you want in your tournament. If you want to do a eight bracket tournament and only have 12 people the game should find the other 6 people, like matchmaking. Thats all

[Durnaug]

Battle for Middle Earth II: Rise of the Witch King (2006)

War of the Ring mode (multiplayer campaign) explained,

Thanks for posting. Very interesting indeed! I did a bit of digging around and apparently there is no co-op campaign mode.

I never understood why Tolkien Enterprises or whomever never licensed out the RTW or warscape engines to make an LoTR strategy game. Developers always want to start from scratch - it should not be a mantra but a rational design decision.

[Armatus]

Yeah it's been so long since I played WOTR mode and BFME for that mater I can barely remember.

What I liked was the feel of the campaign world map, I imagine a Total War style campaign map used in a similar fashion would be incredible.

[alQamar]

today i tried to figure out how many people actively play Shogun 2 in multiplayer.

if you look on the global steam stats only 0,9 % of all players won more than 200 mp battles. 29% played at least one victorious game. only 15% played more than 10 mp games.

if i assume Shogun 2 has been sold 600.000 times, read somewhen ETW was so far most sold with half million, that are 5400 active players for MP worldwide.
if we also see that daily about 7000-9000 people are playing same time on steam this sounds realistic, even it is hard to figure out that because of time zones.