rome 2

[delra]

Let's start EB3...

[Alkimachos]

Let's start EB3...

[Stath's]

It may be just me but... eh?

@1: I think it's an interesting idea that there's a shift from separate units to legions. However I do hope that it leaves room to train separate units like alae and cohorts and dispatch them to other places on the campaign map.

@2: I'm fairly sure that characters get traits too. It's just that legions get them too so that they gain a history and track record that can affect them in battles.

@3: Are they? I thought that they were talking in general terms and gave away very little info about specific factions and cultures.

Well, i don't really see the reason for "eh"..

1) I don't like the idea because i want full control of any unit and to be fully able to make an army as i want it. Full control is the key for me here.

2) I wanted characters to have as many traits as possible. If they will give traits to legions, i don't trust them to do as much job as i would like so we can have a very interesting variety of traits. I believe there is a certain amount they can give, because they don't care so much as the EB team, for example. And if they split traits in half, i get two half parts and i won't find it satisfactory.

3) I read somewhere about the separate tech trees. As far as the "only about Rome" issue is concerned, i thought about that after the video with the Real Faces of Rome and hearing the interviews. I am afraid the game will be mainly about Rome and not equal towards the other factions.

If we don't agree, we don't agree, no matter. But (as far as the "eh" is concerned) the fears are quite understandable, aren't they? (i tend to give more attention that is needed to certain words,i am a bit weird, i take that)

And to answer to Petroniu, i have thought about all the (bad for me) elements Rome 2 could have, and ,upon hearing all these today, i just wanted to discuss them.

I don't see any wrong in this. I think it's more natural than to celebrate about "the new Rome 2" without caring about how it would be like, and just be satisfied that we will have it finally.

It makes waiting more interesting that way

[Petroniu]

Oh, no no, I wasn't talking about you, no way, I was talking about the new Rome 2 TW forum, it has developed into a real mess and it just spoils the excitement of the announcement. I am ok with your worries and I shared my opinions about them in a post above the one you thought is blaming you. Sorry for the confusion. I edited that post so that people don't get me wrong any further.

[Stath's]

Confusion happens a lot

I saw the forums there since the announcement was made and i agree with you. That's why i prefered this thread to talk about Rome 2.

Any place where too many people can say their opinions, turns into a circle of insanity

[Rasic]

Well, i don't really see the reason for "eh"..

1) I don't like the idea because i want full control of any unit and to be fully able to make an army as i want it. Full control is the key for me here.

2) I wanted characters to have as many traits as possible. If they will give traits to legions, i don't trust them to do as much job as i would like so we can have a very interesting variety of traits. I believe there is a certain amount they can give, because they don't care so much as the EB team, for example. And if they split traits in half, i get two half parts and i won't find it satisfactory.

3) I read somewhere about the separate tech trees. As far as the "only about Rome" issue is concerned, i thought about that after the video with the Real Faces of Rome and hearing the interviews. I am afraid the game will be mainly about Rome and not equal towards the other factions.

If we don't agree, we don't agree, no matter. But (as far as the "eh" is concerned) the fears are quite understandable, aren't they? (i tend to give more attention that is needed to certain words,i am a bit weird, i take that)

And to answer to Petroniu, i have thought about all the (bad for me) elements Rome 2 could have, and ,upon hearing all these today, i just wanted to discuss them.

I don't see any wrong in this. I think it's more natural than to celebrate about "the new Rome 2" without caring about how it would be like, and just be satisfied that we will have it finally.

It makes waiting more interesting that way

I think what they're getting at is you can recruit a legion by simply clicking a button, but you will still probably be able to make individual units and attach them or detach them as you see fit. It probably plays into the experience and traits that the legions will get. There could also be historical unit structure with correct amounts of people, in the interview he says tens of thousands on the battlemap with the new engine so lets just say 10,000 split into 2 armies 5000 each, that's roughly the size of a roman legion (according to a quick google search).

I don't think they are going to cut character traits also, that is a working and functional feature with shogun and I don't see why they would cut it. If anything it would be expanded. I believe the army traits are separate from the general so you can change commanders but the legion's name/rank isn't going to change.

They've said they will all be playable at the start, compared to the original when very few of the factions were playable at start and also they would have their own systems comparable to what rome had. The other factions I doubt will get the level of treatment but likely will get some treatment as a base for modders to expand on as they see fit.


Edit: also on the subject of characters the live action video leads me to believe they've seen the relative success of crusader kings 2 and are going for more of a deeper character management. Possibly positions in government and an intrigue style system, for example I plot to kill one of my general for X reason and he decides to rebel with his legion (based on the legions opinion of him) or something similar.

[Razor]

Well, i don't really see the reason for "eh"..

1) I don't like the idea because i want full control of any unit and to be fully able to make an army as i want it. Full control is the key for me here.

2) I wanted characters to have as many traits as possible. If they will give traits to legions, i don't trust them to do as much job as i would like so we can have a very interesting variety of traits. I believe there is a certain amount they can give, because they don't care so much as the EB team, for example. And if they split traits in half, i get two half parts and i won't find it satisfactory.

3) I read somewhere about the separate tech trees. As far as the "only about Rome" issue is concerned, i thought about that after the video with the Real Faces of Rome and hearing the interviews. I am afraid the game will be mainly about Rome and not equal towards the other factions.

If we don't agree, we don't agree, no matter. But (as far as the "eh" is concerned) the fears are quite understandable, aren't they? (i tend to give more attention that is needed to certain words,i am a bit weird, i take that)

And to answer to Petroniu, i have thought about all the (bad for me) elements Rome 2 could have, and ,upon hearing all these today, i just wanted to discuss them.

I don't see any wrong in this. I think it's more natural than to celebrate about "the new Rome 2" without caring about how it would be like, and just be satisfied that we will have it finally.

It makes waiting more interesting that way

"Eh" is just a way to express that I don't understand why you think these things. Nothing particular

@1: Perhaps this legion thing is also to help the AI a bit to actually send legions toward you when you play a non-Roman faction instead of an army of skirmishers and light infantry a number of cavalry units and only a number of legionary units.

@2: Traits don't get split between a character and a legion. It's just that there will be one set of traits for characters and a separate and additional set of traits for legions. Characters die and their traits get lost but army units will keep their traits (unless they get destroyed or disbanded I would think).

@3: I'm not so sure. Of course the Roman faction will be important, but CA has already recreated the city of Carthage. And there will be more. And he map will expand farther eastward. That makes me think that they will delve into faction's histories much much more than they've done in RTW.

But I understand the fears . I can imagine it would be horrible to find out that R2TW isn't the R2TW you've been anticipating.

[Jose150]

I think the minimum requirements for Rome 2 will be a nasa computer and the recommended requirements a alien computer

[Casual Tactician]

Interesting (positive) new features:

- combination of naval and land battles
- map will extend further east compared to Rome1 (following the EB-team's lead here)
- larger battle-map cities with multiple capture points
- being able to zoom-out very much during battles (= "eagle-perspective")
- tech-trees for the individual factions


New features I'm unsure/worried about:

- more cities, but less provinces (as I understand it)
- seemingly the focus on graphical display; CA didn't, yet (to be fair), mention a real enhancement of the C"AI" and B"AI", a more complex strategic/tactical gameplay, and such...
- having Carthage as a kind of custom-battle-map may hint at the non-modability of Rome2
- non-modability of Rome2 in general
- bad unit/faction-balance as in most vanilla CA games
- a focus on the Rome faction (together with less modability a possible BIG draw-back)

And these statements of CA sound a little threatening if one is somewhat paranoid (as I am ):

CA: "Everyone goes through school and knows what a Roman soldier looks like: red cloak, helmet with a crest on it. It just occupies a special place in your imagination. Film and TV has dealt with Rome, the world has been fascinated with Rome since Rome fell. Historically it's an incredibly fascinating period and a period in which individuals changed the world." - source

Perhaps they're talking about schools that use films and TV-infotainment to teach history?? Oh dear... that spoken by the developers of an historical strategy game.

CA: "We want to push that emotional interaction between them and have them behave in a more life-like way, so when my buddy gets hit by an arrow, I react to that. It's about really making that, the combat, feel real and visceral and human.

(...)

"From the perspective of the battles, we want the battles in Rome 2 to be the most awe-inspiring sight you've ever seen in a video game," Russell says.

"I think we can achieve that by showing this human-level drama and really pushing the whole spectrum and drilling down into life-like, individual, man-level behaviour and making those guys feel more human and real, and going right up and having this incredible scale.

"We want it to be breathtakingly spectacular. I think we're getting there." - source

Other major developers changed some of their brands/games to be (even) more console-like and "accessible" (ie. idiotproof) to casual gamers and eg. 12-16 year-old, male mini-machos. I just hope CA isn't following that trend of the current main-stream developers. Though it's their right to do so, as after all they are a business and no mod-team.

But the recent popularity of the DayZ-mod for ArmA II shows that initial inaccessibility combined with a good gameplay can also be very popular.



PS:

I'll surely not buy, or even pre-order, Rome2 based on a stupid hype or reviews by un-journalistic, "imbedded" gaming websites. I'll wait till it's been out for 2-3 months, then view some threads here at the TWC (and some good gaming blogs)... and then perhaps (but more likely not) buy it - to play it along-side the far better, more realistic, faction-unbiast, finer detailed and historically more valuable EBII!


EDIT:

I think the minimum requirements for Rome 2 will be a nasa computer and the recommended requirements a alien computer

Perhaps it will also be released for the new Playstation or Xbox, then you could buy one of them instead.

[Solar]

- more cities, but less provinces (as I understand it)

Actually, I understand it's the opposite. More regions, less cities. Each province is composed of several regions, each with different productions, but only one capital city, resulting in less sieges and more field battles. Same idea present in ETW/NTW/S2TW, only instead of buildings scattered around, they're actually conquerable regions.

- having Carthage as a kind of custom-battle-map may hint at the non-modability of Rome2

How so...?

- non-modability of Rome2 in general
- bad unit/faction-balance as in most vanilla CA games
- a focus on the Rome faction (together with less modability a possible BIG draw-back)

What in any of the previews gave you those impressions? I can't find anything pointing to any of that.

[nein]

empire killed my trust in CA and any further interest in their TW games

-crippling technical issues (campaign map lag and lolcrashes)
-awful copy protection that on the people who actually bought it
-crap new interface
-crippled modding capability

I want them to prove me wrong... but I just don't trust these people anymore

[skcbl]

The only thing that really appeals to me is the simultaneous land and naval battles. And potentially better integration in that aspect.

But since EB1 came out I haven't been impressed with the Vanilla Total War games.

[Casual Tactician]

Same idea present in ETW/NTW/S2TW, only instead of buildings scattered around, they're actually conquerable regions.

I might be wrong, as I'am mostly guessing here. But Rome2 can't really be compared with the Shogun/Medieval (= era 1), Rome1/M2-engine (era 2) or the later ETW/NTW-S2TW-engine (era 3)... it will be a new TW engine as after every two "full" TW-games (ie. era 4).

Actually, I understand it's the opposite. More regions, less cities. Each province is composed of several regions, each with different productions, but only one capital city, resulting in less sieges and more field battles.

[German:] Auf der Strategiekarte soll‘s diesmal zudem deutlich mehr einzelne Provinzen und damit Städte geben als im ersten Rome. Damit der Verwaltungsaufwand nicht aus dem Ruder läuft, fasst Rome 2 mehrere Metropolen zu Provinzen zusammen, für die sich unter anderem ein gemeinsamer Steuersatz festlegen lässt. Bauprojekte hingegen lassen sich auch weiterhin für jede Stadt einzeln anordnen – wer die volle Kontrolle will, darf sich also weiterhin um jedes Detail selbst kümmern. - source

Brief translation:
- there are supposed to be more individual provinces and thus cities on the strat-map compared to Rome1
- in Rome2 several metropolis are lumped together in one province (for which eg. a common tax can be set)
- though constructinon is separatly planned for each town [of the province]

How so...?

It shows that CA has developed custom battle-maps, which are (as seen for the previed Carthage) designed for a specific period of time. It's just a hunch yet, but I assume - given the experiences with the modability of TW-engines/games after M2, and the tendency towards DLCs (or Add-ons) in the gaming business - that Rome2 will not be easily modable when it comes to battl-map settlements... If I'm proven wrong, I'd be the happiest person on this planet though...!

What in any of the previews gave you those impressions? I can't find anything pointing to any of that.

The first two points are projections into the future, based on past TW-experiences (not anyhow refuted by the initial presentation of Rome2, I may add).

The third point (= focus on the Rome faction)...? Which other faction was singled out and mentioned in any detail? As said earlier:

CA: "Everyone goes through school and knows what a Roman soldier looks like: red cloak, helmet with a crest on it. It just occupies a special place in your imagination. Film and TV has dealt with Rome, the world has been fascinated with Rome since Rome fell. Historically it's an incredibly fascinating period and a period in which individuals changed the world." - source

Perhaps they're talking about schools that use films and TV-infotainment to teach history?? Oh dear... that spoken by the developers of an historical strategy game.

[Risasi]

Details from all posters on details mentioned here...

Yeah but...will it, be. Fun?


---
I started gaming in circa 1982. On a VIC-20 of all things. Moved to Atari, then ported my stuff to my C-64 via Shotgun-II. I've wasted way too much money and time since then.

About seven years ago I swore off vidiot gaming and went back to the basics. Of all things playing chess and board games like Civilization. Well I got bit by the bug, I bought Starcraft 2, then found out about Shogun 2 and geeked out about it. I remembered how fun it was when I played through Shogun's campaign all those years ago. I got ticked off with Blizzard, and after much haranguing I gave my copy to a friend (what a pain). I never played Shogun 2 much. It just wasn't fun for me. That's because I pulled out my copy of RTW, and then dug up a copy of M2TW via Amazon. I'm having far more fun checking out all the mods I missed because I was working like a banshee these last ten years.

So again, will R2TW be FUN?

For me I don't think so. Steam, patches and DLC ruined it for me. I do not have the patience to wait seven hour just to install. So in my eyes I am afraid any new titles are just going to look like some cheap whore in a pretty dress and wearing waaay too much make-up. Yeah the eye candy is nice, Yeah it might be a fun night out, but oh brother the morning after. And having Steam installed on my computer just gives me that icky feeling inside like I got tainted by some nasty disease.

I'm still playing RTRVII, RnJ, Stainless Steel. I've tinkered with 1648 and am waiting for the english translation. I'm waiting for NessJ to finish his Colonialism mod, and likewise EBII. I have content to last me for years...maybe even, a lifetime. To each his own, but R2 does not interest me.

[Señor Foliage]

I'm glad the EB team is so dedicated to modding I quite frankly believe that I will get a better experience out of EBII than R2TW.

Frankly i'll have to admit that I throughly enjoy CA's vanilla games they are extremely playable compared to other strategy games and I milk them for all they are worth before downloading the great mods made by people here.

What I'm concerned about is the lack of mocromanagement they announced in Rome 2 and how vaguely they described it. The thing that sets Total War apart from other strategy game is the in-depthness of battles and if they take that out of battles it will become probably the most boring experience ever.

If anyone could clarify how they are taking out micromanagement that would be great.

[Future Filmmaker]

Now this gives a release date for the EBII team to try to beat!

I like the new and fresh ideas and i think that we should fully support the R2TW game. I think it's better to have more epicness as the CA focusing now, than have a game like Europa Universalis with tones of details to rule your empire.

It worth to give a chance imo on this wonderful new ideas...

That's exactly the kind of attitude we don't want to have in Total War.

Paradox games should not be the only historical RTS game. We don't need to transform this into a battle-focused game while neglecting the fascinating governance of a nation. It doesn't have to be EU-like, but I would like to have a hand in laws and more cause and effect type of things with governing which give more RPG elements to it. This is the age of republics, oligarchies, and tribal nations as much as it is kingdoms and the differences should be taken into account more than just traits and bonuses. The Empire map was a travesty not just because of a lack of regions, but the utter lack of flexible management. Seriously, the people who aren't interested in that aspect need to just use the auto-manage feature.

[Bernardius]

I am looking forward to this game, but not as much as I am to EBII. Let's face it, the EB team has earned my confidence much more than the CA team. I will buy it though. I will probably buy a new computer to play it. I will play it too much. And by the time I am bored with it and disgusted at its historical inaccuracies -- hopefully by then EBII will be released in beta.

Exactly my opinion!

But hopefully we, get surprised, i mean they did medieval and rome quite well, especially ai wise, lets wait and see!

[Solar]

I might be wrong, as I'am mostly guessing here. But Rome2 can't really be compared with the Shogun/Medieval (= era 1), Rome1/M2-engine (era 2) or the later ETW/NTW-S2TW-engine (era 3)... it will be a new TW engine as after every two "full" TW-games (ie. era 4).

As far as anyone can tell, it's still Warscape engine, with a few refinements and changes. CA has already stated they have revised the two-game-per-engine plan, and will be sticking with warscape for a while.

On the "more cities" aspect:

So for instance on the campaign map, what we want to do with regions is have what we’re calling a province system, where you’ve got a province that’s made up of several different regions, and what that means is that you still capture small chunks of territory. So there’s still a lot of strategic depth, you’re not head-shotting great big regions, which means that we can still have hundreds of regions in the map, so it’s really big. We’re having a province system where for several regions, maybe three or four regions, you’re only managing one province. It means that you get the strategic depth in terms of capturing territories and moving armies around.
(...)
There’s one management node for several regions(...)I think that the point is about strategy game play is that it’s about interesting decisions, and we want to make the decisions more interesting. We don’t want to give you more of them for you to necessarily have to repeat and repeat and repeat. But it also has other consequences, because it means you can capture territory without always having to fight a siege battle, so you get a greater variety of battle types, and a greater variety of battle environments as well, because you’re not always trying to head-shot the city.
(...)
So I think that makes the gameplay deeper and more interesting and also it reduces the micro-management. So the aim there is to have fewer and more significant battles, and we’re doing a number of different things to encourage that and make that work.

So, from what we can gather, less cities (thus less sieges), but more regions (grouped together in provinces)

It shows that CA has developed custom battle-maps, which are (as seen for the previed Carthage) designed for a specific period of time. It's just a hunch yet, but I assume - given the experiences with the modability of TW-engines/games after M2, and the tendency towards DLCs (or Add-ons) in the gaming business - that Rome2 will not be easily modable when it comes to battl-map settlements... If I'm proven wrong, I'd be the happiest person on this planet though...!

They've just released a S2TW battle map editor, for chrissakes! For the first time ever in the history of the franchise, there's a tool specifically made for that! And why on earth do you think having *less* developed, cookie-cutter cities lead to better modding ability? The logic escapes me.

The first two points are projections into the future, based on past TW-experiences (not anyhow refuted by the initial presentation of Rome2, I may add).
The third point (= focus on the Rome faction)...? Which other faction was singled out and mentioned in any detail? As said earlier:

So, again, you're being needlessly pessimistic on the first two points. Not a single word was said about balance or mods, and you're stating it'll be both unbalanced and unmoddable (which is ironic, since all other games have had game-balancing mods). On the third point; it's the first announcement for a game called "Rome". A single-page announcement aimed at the wide public. What did you expect?

Sorry if I'm coming through as antagonistic, but your criticizing of a game about which we know basically nothing about is quite absurd, in my opinion. I'm hoping the game will be great, and yes, I'm worried they might mess up a few things, as they've messed them up in the past, but still... we need more information before we start going hysterical.

[Gromit]

I'm not sure this is really the place to get into a full discussion of Rome II, but one thing that seems like a big positive to me personally (and something that was debated on this forum fairly recently) are the comments that they want to focus on having truly "decisive" battles and have the destruction of an army actually mean something. Previously, the AI would just raise endless armies so that you had to eliminate every last one of their cities to avoid fighting endless fullstacks (although admittedly Medieval II somewhat avoided this problem through the city-castle mechanic, so that the loss of a few key castles would destroy a nation's military production capability).

Making military units much harder to train and have campaigns hinge on the result of one or two major campaigns rather then endless fights agains AI hordes seems like a major plus, unless they fail to improve the battle AI, in which case the AI really needs the endless stack spams.

[Lugh Lamhfada]

Maybe im just too cynical but I cant imagine it being in depth or historically accurate beyond a superficial gloss. The devs will not have the time or budget to make a game to the standard of EB or other mods(in terms of content and accuracy). I wont buy it, at least not at first not since the Empire total war debacle. Im not paying 60 euro for nice packaging only to be dissappointed by a hastily made game. At least RTW1 was made on a relatively tiny budget using music and voice overs from dev family members recorded in their heating closet, and has to be admired for what it was ten years ago. RTW2 IS being made for and marketed to an audience that expects something along the lines of "Gladiator" and "Rome" or "300" etc.

If it looks like a good game il wait until it drops in price and buy it, until that time EB1 and EB2 when its released will keep me happy along with other exellent mods out there.