HOW ROME2 NAVAL BATTLE WILL BE FAR BETTER THAN SHOGUN2

[RGA]

Naval battle speed will surely be increased, otherwise in combined battle, two fleets will be still approaching each other when the battle on land is already over. That, though not very realistic, will greatly improve the gameplay. No longer is the acceleration button needed.

[DarthShizNit]

Simple: Ramming is bitchin. Therefor, it all rome 2 naval battles will be bitchin.

[Knight of Heaven]

At anycase, i enjoyed naval battles for shogun 2 quite alot, i just hope the BAI is a bit better then it is on shogun 2. I loved to rank up generals as admirals in my naivies on shogun 2 Cant wait to control quiquiremes and Triremes and what not in roman times.
did you all see the egyptian flag ship raming that roman ship and broke it in two. I realy enjoyed that

Im waiting eargly for the battle of Actium it will be épic if they made it as historical battle. I mean why would they not make it? they must.

[jtfjtfjtf]

Ramming and flame throwers instead of cannons.

[jsully16]

Navies are incredibly annoying because maintaining yours is a pain in the ass and the enemy always has WAY more than you no matter what you do. I've had campaigns where I try to assert my naval dominance over my military dominance and still get swarmed.

The most annoying thing ever in past Total War games was how enemy ships could sail around yours and attack your ports despite you taking measures to defend them. I had that almost ruin a campaign for me before because I had my best navy defending the route to my richest port but then their navies sailed right around them and I couldn't catch up, went bankrupt in the few turns it took for me to break the blockade and most my cities were ready to revolt. Annoying as hell when you've taken proper measures to ensure that exact thing doesn't happen, and it still does.

Looks like that will no longer be an issue with naval regions coming into play. Thank you for that, CA. In terms of navy battles, though, they'll probably still suck. Naval battles in general are just boring to me, no TW game has seen an interesting naval component, and so I'll likely build strong ships but resort mostly to auto-resolving. Unless the navies are really helpful in unison with legions as well, then I might just have to get into navies.

[Ichon]

What I want to know is what happens if a fleet of 10 ships (1 unit transported per ship according to CA) gets into a naval/land battle and lands 8 units as reinforcements and wins the battle at sea but loses 4 ships during that fight... now 6 ships but did 2 land units sinks on the lost ships or how is that figured? Second what happens to the extra land units now- they are stranded without another ship or they can build their own but 1 turn delay before allowed to reboard?

[torongill]

Ichon, as far as I can see once you put your land your marines the ships themselves are incapable of operating. The ships are equipment in a way.
Furthermore, I highly doubt that it would be a good idea to use transport ships for naval action, they're supposed to be slow. In other words, like the NTW merchants, but with weaker hull and no cannons

[AngryTitusPullo]

The actual combined naval and land battle trumps everything good about Shogun 2 ones for me. The ability not just to fight with other ships but to land marines to support land armies is a feature that I believe has been planned since ETW and hopefully they get it right this time for Rome II to bring a great closure to warscape engine.

[DarrenTotalWar]

I think Ramming in itself will breed tactical decisions and gameplay. If your ships have stamina that would also be awesome, Rowers got tired in real life, and their oars broke quite often. An option to take in the oars on a side while your sliding past other ships to break their oars would be really cool. Would like to see this.

[weirdoascensor]

What interesting is: Transported Units now can Supplement shipborne Marines...Check the Video...The Ship Infocard shows what unit that is transported, so I assume they can fight at sea as well... In S2TW, whoever boards first usually win...but it wouldnt be the case in R2TW as Troops inside can overpower the boarders...

However, I kinda wondering, Do Elephants can fight in a Boarding Action?

And oh, What kind of ship would be shown as transports in-battle? In the video I just see normal galleys...or...hmm...

[Destraex]

Don't think we will see much of what I suggested above.

[Keyser]

What interesting is: Transported Units now can Supplement shipborne Marines...Check the Video...The Ship Infocard shows what unit that is transported, so I assume they can fight at sea as well... In S2TW, whoever boards first usually win...but it wouldnt be the case in R2TW as Troops inside can overpower the boarders...

However, I kinda wondering, Do Elephants can fight in a Boarding Action?

And oh, What kind of ship would be shown as transports in-battle? In the video I just see normal galleys...or...hmm...

I think the units cards show the marines complement rather than transported units.

[d4g4n]

Only played 1 naval battle in Shogun 2. Really only remember I thought it sucked big time. Never build a navy of significance afterwards, let alone on that I faught battles with myself.

But the ramming part + the option to get your ships to the coast and join battle, well that seems like some big +++

[Keyser]

Shogun 2 naval battles had some nice points to them, like all the ship types having their uses and remaining interesting until the late game.

The number of different tactics available, of specialised ships etc.

The main disapointment was with the AI after FOTS, the naval AI became totally passive. It remained there attempting nothing before you close and then fleeing to the map corners... That killed any fun in the naval battles.
There was also how the ship moved (unrealistically) and how the boarding and bow-fire worked. That's what made the battles a bit boring. The largest ships lacked punch too, pretty much because of the problems regarding boarding and archers fire.

[torongill]

What interesting is: Transported Units now can Supplement shipborne Marines...Check the Video...The Ship Infocard shows what unit that is transported, so I assume they can fight at sea as well... In S2TW, whoever boards first usually win...but it wouldnt be the case in R2TW as Troops inside can overpower the boarders...

However, I kinda wondering, Do Elephants can fight in a Boarding Action?

And oh, What kind of ship would be shown as transports in-battle? In the video I just see normal galleys...or...hmm...

These are organic crews if you ask me, not transported land units. If they were transported land units, they would've been the same size(160) as the normal land legionary cohort, not 120. Even more so, the info card suggests this is a boarding ship unit - "assault quadreme"
They are called "legionary cohort" because this is what they will look like if they disembark to participate in a land battle. But they are the crew of the ships, not a transported unit.
Don't forget there are supposed to be close to 200 naval units, which judging from the fact that there are a limited ship models* suggests that we will see many units that use the same ship type, but have different equipment and crew. Evidence in case:
The egyptian ships are practically all penteres(5-rower like the quinquereme). The difference is that they are "missile pentere"(archers) and "artillery pentere"(onagers). Judging from the Roman ships, there will be an "assault pentere" units as well and possibly artillery penteres with balistas.

We have also seen from earlier screens that there will be ships with multiple artillery engines, so my guess is we will see three different types of units using the same type of ship:

Missile with two sub-types: archers and javelinmen
Assault(boarding type) with a single heavy infantry type
Artillery with three sub-types: onager, balista, scorpion

In fact I can envision that recruitment may include the following method - recruit ship type, choose crew type and sub-types. This will simplify the recruitment screen, which in NTW was becoming quite congested, but it's just my idea, not a confirmed feature, so don't accept it as such.

* - there are only so many ship types in the Mediterranean - Bireme, Liburnian ship(light raider), Trireme/Triere, Quadreme, Pentere/Quinquereme, Hexareme, Heptere, Octere, Decere and then just the unique giant ships of the eastern Med, which I don't think we'll see. Of these the Bireme, the Liburnian, the Trireme/Triere can be only assault type(ramming and boarding) and the quadreme will have at best two types(assault and missile).
The Pentere can be three types, the Hexareme and the other big ships as well.

[Adreno]

im still wanting to know a few things

can land units do boarding actions from their transport ships? and if yes does their attackskill differ from on the land (as i wouldnt want to see them overpower smaller units of marines)

can marines disembark on to the land? and if yes does their attackskill differ from being on the water

is it possible to just attack a city with a navy, sail into their port, disembark marines and they are then able to capture the city? (i would absolutely love this, ofcourse it should be hard though depending on the defending army)

do transported land units change from navy to land as soon as you disembark them? is it possible to re-embark them?

will transport ships be much more vulnerable to ramming and siege weapons?

[SamueleD]

Naval things in general will be better because of the limited number of navies and the sea regions, which will help a lot in avoiding things like 1 half-sunken ship destroying your hole economy because for some reason it can blockade an entire port, or 1743575929245367 enemy navies composed of 1 ship that you have to hunt down the seven seas or it will cause you major problems like destroying your ports raiding your trade routes etc.
As for naval combat, if they get around solving the horrible path finding issues from Shogun 2, it will be better simply because we'll have more mechanics, like ramming, and more types of crews (varying types of melee troops for boarding, varying types of archers, varying types of arty, all on varying types of ships). Basically we'll get more variety of pretty much everything, which will make for less repetitive battles.
I went a bit more in detail about how ships and crews might work for optimal variability a couple of days ago, here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...ork-on-Rome-II
Also the fact that you can mix land and sea battles and attack and conquer cities with navies will make it more interesting.

can land units do boarding actions from their transport ships? and if yes does their attackskill differ from on the land (as i wouldnt want to see them overpower smaller units of marines)

Nice idea, but how do we handle cavalry and elephants (and wardogs)?


P.S.: all caps title for anything besides breaking news is in bad taste.

[Adreno]

Nice idea, but how do we handle cavalry and elephants (and wardogs)?

well they should ofcourse be excluded of boarding actions, best would probably be to give them another shipmodel, would look kinda stupid to see a transport ship with 20 elephants standing on its deck.. hell just think of disembarking those like normal legionaries do.. theyd have to do it different to make it look good regardless

[SamueleD]

well they should ofcourse be excluded of boarding actions, best would probably be to give them another shipmodel, would look kinda stupid to see a transport ship with 20 elephants standing on its deck.. hell just think of disembarking those like normal legionaries do.. theyd have to do it different to make it look good regardless

I think that to avoid this kind of awkwardness they will keep doing what they have done until now: transport ships won't be in naval battles, if you win the battle they are sunk, if you attack an army on transport ships without a navy to protect it it will be destroyed. But if they do put the transport ships in battle cavalry, chariots etc. will probably be dismounted and not particularly good. However I do wonder how they will handle disembarking such troops, if they do this.

Edit: I really wish CA would answer such questions, we know armies will build their own transport ships and be able to cross water without using a navy, we now that land and sea battles will be mixed, we know that you can disembark men from military ships, but we have no idea how the whole transport thing is gonna work in such situations! What happens if I use an army that is on its transport ships alone to attack a city? What happens in a sea battle when you have an army on transport and a fleet protecting them? What happens if an army on transports alone gets attacked by a navy? Can a navy attack an army on the coast, without an army to help it, and can an army attack a fleet near the coast, without a navy to help it? Are transport ships gonna be in battle? If so, how is cavalry and mounted troops in general going to be handled? It's just confusing right now!

[torongill]

OP, could you please edit the thread title to be a question to CA? We need to start pestering the staff to answer our questions and bump the thread daily, otherwise it will sink under the flood of capture point and "first thing as X faction" threads.

We need to persevere and hope and pray someone will answer.