[Demo impression] Mackles's Rezzed After Action Report. Roman Victory!
Here's Mackles's report. Awesome stuff. Included are his original AAR and responses to the questions by the forumites.
So, fellow Total War fans - I have returned! From Rezzed! And I bring news! I was there from 10 to 6, and while I didn't spend my entire day playing Total War, I spent a significant portion either playing or chatting to the dev team. And my god, what an experience.
Do not mistake me. I will not be fawning over the game here, merely attempting to describe to you as best I can the things I saw and felt today! So, let's to it!
Roman Victory!
In my final playthrough I was able to land 3 legionary cohorts behind the enemy position and take out their artillery (more on that soon) and some scythed chariots and traps to boot. At the same time, my skirmishers and cavalry cautiously advanced and were able to drive off the enemies ambush units. I then took my 6 Evocati legionary cohorts, elephants and Legatus, and slowly marched them up the left flank of the hill, cleared by my amphibious units. The Egyptian AI was loath to abandon their well prepared position and so I was able to catch it on the hop as it attempted to readjust.
Now, the Egyptian infantry is rubbish. To put this in context, I had some extremely good Roman heavy infantry and the Egyptians had a lot of light units and their own heavy infantry was not the best in the world. However, the strength of the Egyptian army is in disrupting the Romans with their special units. Whenever I attempted to advance directly up the hill, through elephants, scythed chariots, balls of fire and camel charges, I took heavy casualties. While I could still take the hill I was in no shape to take on the reinforcements, so that capture point offers a way out for less confident players. By advancing carefully up the steep left side of the hill and with many of the Egyptian special units taken care of by the amphibious units, I was in much better nick to take on the first army.
Having walked my units up and around the Egyptian flank, I was then able to effectively take on the Egyptian units. They didn't last long against the legions of Rome! With my Auxilliary cavalry causing havoc on the right flank, my velites panicking the remaining elephants and my legionarys cutting a path through the Egyptian infantry, Ptolemy fled. I still had 5 cohorts of Evocati, some cavalry, elephants, my velites and, of course, Julius Caesar with which to take on the reinforcements. They attempted to bulldoze through my line to get to the capture point and I punished them in kind. By the end of the slaughter, I still had my 5 cohorts and 3 elephants, the hilltop and plenty of corpses.
Bloody good stuff!
The Egyptian fleet, which had make short work of my own artillery ships which I used as a distraction to enable the melee troops to get behind the enemy position, proceeded to bug out as I looked upon a vista of fleeing enemies, dead foes and conquered lands. That's a good feeling guys, and you will enjoy it come release day!
Campaign
I thought I'd skim over this section, as the demo version I could play only featured the historical Battle of the Nile. What I saw of the campaign map was limited to what you saw in the Livestream and the guys at CA were either fairly tight-lipped or honestly didn't know about the particular features I asked about.
One thing that popped up though! I wouldn't take this as set in stone, but apparently before you start a campaign you have an option! Yes, options! We all love options I know, but this is one to be pleased about!
According to what I was told, you can select whether or not to limit armies to 20 or 40 units!
If you select 20 then the same system in FotS applies, whereby a reinforcing army can occasionally give you 40 units to commaand. This option has been left in because, for some players, 40 units is simply overwhelming. But for us hardcore ancient commanders then we can have 40 units in every army! Cool beans, no?
Multiplayer
Again, very tight-lipped or kept out of the loop, I was unable to pry anymore juicy facts from CA. Except for one - there will be no return of the FFA MP battles. Two sides to a battle, with up to 4 players per side. No 8 way cluster-*****s!
The Battle
Now, I played the Battle of the Nile several times over and from both sides. I spent most of my time playing as Rome, although when I did play as Egypt it was a decidedly easy affair. Of course, any human on a hill outnumbering the AI is going to have an easy day of it.
The Romans though? That is one tough slog to take the hill!
I will do my best to cover things as and when I remember them! I will also update the thread as I go along, with extra information and answers to your questions.
The capture point - If you take this point, and knock out the first Egyptian army, then this battle is a doddle. Do it fast enough and the reinforcing Egyptians simply won't have time to even get there to contest it. I took my little brother along and he did this on his first go and won the battle. I consider myself above such petty tactics, and consequently had my ass handed to me several times before finally getting it right!
Artillery
Right, I know this is a concern so let me set your mind at ease. In the battle I played the Egyptian army had 3 units or "Ballistae", not the giant ballistae we saw in the E3 demo. When they fired they were not sniper accurate. If they hit, which was at best one shot in 8 or 10, they sent men flying BUT not the entire unit. Each direct hit only managed to kill a handful of men, I think 8 was the most I saw. One shot killed two, although it put around 20 men on their asses!
Charge Animations
When I followed a cohort charging into some Egyptian light infantry with the unit cam I witnessed some very cool charging animations! I won't list every single one I saw (which wasn't many - I had a battle to win!), although one consisted of a legionary jumping into the enemy front line while covering himself, mid-air, with his shield. Needless to say, he smashed his opposite man backwards, and overall the charges feel very weighty and brutal.
As a side note, I was talking to one of the Battle AI designers and he was telling me how they had done a lot of work on incorporating the system of mass into the combat. I definitely saw this at play, with those charges really pushing men backwards, combat animations doing the same and cavalry charges having some real penetrating power.
And the cavalry....
Felt very fluid, not ridiculously responsive but also not clunky. One thing I noticed, I ordered one cavalry unit to charge into the back of some archers. The side of the unit did bump into some other Egyptian infantry before they got to the archers, but instead of the whole unit stopping to attack the infantry instead, the main part of the unit followed it's orders and continued on for some good old fashioned archer slaughter!
Naval Combat
The navies! As the Romans, I rather abandoned any attempt to take control of the water! However, from the times I did attempt a futile resistance, I got a sense of the epic nature of the naval combat in Rome 2! The boarding mechanic feels very fluid, ramming as well. You saw some of it in the Livestream, but nothing compares to ordering your men to ram and board the enemy ship, then realising that their artillery has just set the middle of your ship on fire and men are jumping over the sides!
The landing mechanic was also very smooth. If you have a ship selected you can mouse over the shore and see some ghostly halos indicating places you can beach your ships and disembark. Your men will then leap over the sides before forming up. The melee unit had two ships, so when I lost one ship to ramming on the way in only 80 men were available to land!
Unit Abilities
I saw plenty of abilities on offer, from various units. The old "Kill Elephants" ability is back, in case they run amok (which they do with distressing regularity).
I saw the "Attacking Testudo" ability for legionary cohorts, where they enter a slightly closer formation with shield overhead and to the front. The unit can still march relatively quickly like this, although you do become every artilleryman's dream target.
There was one ability, called something to do with whips, which increased a units attack and morale for a small time.
Pike phalanx ability, for pike phalanxes, obviously...
Group Functions and Formations
Now this was a feature that, while I didn't actually use it, I did spend a while having a look at and reading through the available information. If you want to group units, you now have four options. You can:
- Group Selection
Simply group units to quickly select a bunch for orders
-Group Formation
Group units so that when you move them they maintain the formation you have placed the entire group in.
- Group AI Attack
Group a bunch of units and left them loose on an enemy unit or army you select. The units will continue to attack these enemies until ordered otherwise.
-Group AI Defend
Group a bunch of units and give them a location to defend. The units will continue to defend this location until you issue more orders to them.
Also, if you select a bunch of units, there are various formations you can put your army into! I can't list them all, as I can't remember, but some of them included:
- Triple Acies
The classic Roman manipular legion formation
- Double Acies
A two-lined version of the above
- Single Line/Double Line
Single/Double lines of units
- Column
Forms your men up in a column with archers at the front, melee troops in the center and cavalry to the rear
- River defense
Forms your men up into a line, with infantry to the front and center, with archers and light troops on the flanks and any cavalry in a reserve to the rear
Unit cards
I found the unit cards to both be very nice looking and very user friendly! Believe me when I say it is not at all difficult to quickly work out who is who and what is going on, simply at a glance. The only little issue I have with them is the green bar representing unit health rather than a number, although time may help me over this!
Combat Speed
From what I saw today, the combat speed would appear to be toned down from Shogun 2. Once again, let me stress that the Egyptian infantry were utterly out-classed by the Roman legionary cohorts, so that definitely impacts on how long the big melee sections take. If you look after your men well until you get in close then the Eygptian's don't stand a chance.
Unit's don't generally rout too early, although if you put your men in a bad place and they feel out-matched then they will run. It's not quite a return to the die-to-the-last-man MTWII, but it felt much better than Shogun 2!
As for unit movement speed, it wasn't too slow and wasn't too fast! It takes a good long while to get your men up that hill, and if you run them up it then they will be very-tired/exhausted before the fighting starts!
As an aside, I noticed a little animation of a unit that was very tired, where the men were leaning over the shields, coughing and shaking their heads! I would have like more time to check it out, but rather unfortunately there were more elephants on the way!
1. Mmm good question. I did make a point at looking at this as closely as I could. The invisible wall from RTW is gone. As I said, the Egyptian infantry is not the best while the Roman's is! The Roman infantry can push through some of the pikes in the charge, although other men were impaled or stopped dead. Generally though, I wasn't allowing any one unit to take a phalanx on head to head, so I was able to flank and roll up the pike line. Once they lose that frontal advantage those low-quality pikemen are dead!Question from forum members:
1. how did the phalanx work? I mean I know the Egyptian infantry is rubbish, so they obviously weren't the best out there, but I mean in terms of the formation itself functioning.
2. So I guess a follow-up question is needed then...would that make reinforcement from other armies impossible?(sorry haven't played FOTS)
The best approximation I can give you is a refinement on the Yari spear wall from Shogun 2. I feel there is still plenty of work being done on this aspect though!
2. I have no idea, but I assume that 40 is the max you can control, so that would be like any other TW where the AI takes over.
1. The combat speed felt good! Possibly a touch too fast for my own liking, but nowhere near as fast as Shogun 2. Remember, there was a massive difference in the quality of infantry, so that was definitely a big factor in how long melee's lasted. Although, when the elephants got involved then those things take A LOT of killing! I used the unit cam on a elephant charge ...... wow!1. How was the combat speed?
2. Did you feel like Units died off too fast or routed too soon?
3. Any word if this was for the purpose of the demo?
2. Some legionary cohorts did break off before I hoped they would, but then they had been pumelled by artillery, archers and an elephant charge in the flank! Generally, units ran when I thought they would. The Egyptian infantry ran pretty quickly once I closed with them, but like I said, the quality of their men was questionable!
3. Confirmed, no demo before release.
1. From a full on downhill chariot charge, the infantry probably lost 20 to 30, although the big thing was that their formation was broken up and their morale took a hit. Also, don't mix your cavalry up with scythed chariots! It doesn't end well! So long as you can stop the chariots though, they die really fast, just like RTW!Question 1: (Covered)
Did you notice how many men died in a unit when taking a charge from chariots, elephants and ballista's? (Ballista's can't charge but you know what i mean
Question 2:
How was the overall pace of battle? How long did a individual scrap last between two units, did they die rapidly and did they get cowardly and route easily? How does it compare to Shogun 2? Kinda a bundle of questions rapped into one but I think you know what I'm basically asking here
Artillery, I mentioned in the second post!
An elephant charge is a serious matter. Those gits were probably the most dangerous unit the Egyptians had, and they brought loads! The charge itself won't kill too many people (except the poor sods who get trampled) but it will knock a large number of men down. And if they decide to stick around? Any unit on it's own is dead! They will rout fast, unsurprisingly!
I must note though! The velites were a god-send! They can panic elehpants very quickly and I was able to slaughter a unit of scythed chariots when they charged my velites on level ground. Don't waste your javelinmen!
I saw plenty of Roman standard bearers! I didn't spend so much time looking at the Egyptian's as I did slaughtering them, but I think I spied a few different guys holding flags! As for the other factions? I only saw two up close!You know if there will be standard bearers for all factions???
Oh god, the Naval combat! THE NAVAL COMBAT! I almost wish I had a sea battle so that I wouldn't have to worry about some pesky land battle! The naval stuff is something that has to be experienced first hand, in all it's epic glory!
It was just awesome HWM! I paused the battle at the start just so I could turn the camera around and look at the Pyramids in the distance. It still has some things that need tightening up or working on, but dear lord this is on track to be GOTY!
1) How damaging and efficient were archer projectiles? Did archers feel overpowered or underpowered? And did you notice any new mechanics concerning archer projectiles?I didn't really notice too many of my men dying under archer fire, which is actually a big thing in of itself after Shogun 2! Of course, my men were heavily armoured for the most part and their shields were usually held up to the front. I can't say I really noticed it too much, unless it was affecting morale. In fairness, I had more pressing concerns, such as ballistae, elephants, chariots and burning hay balls!Ohhh...building on that, if you don't mind...what of the "arrows stuck in shields thing"? How did that look/work? And what of javelines!?
I do have to say though, while the archers may not have been effective against heavily armoured infantry, my velites were really useful against elephants and chariots. If you set them up in time to receive an elephant charge, you should be able to panic them quite easily. I consistently managed this with the two units I had. Also, when the Scythed chariots attempted to charge them on level ground (not downhill) they were able to slaughter the chariot teams just before they hit! Downhill, with the additional speed, might have been a different story!
As for sticking in shields, I didn't get as much time as I would have liked to get down and watch what was going on, although I did see the odd javelins and arrows sticking in people or equipment! It is there, although I think it disappears quickly, in order not to break your computer!
I can't say that I noticed that the phalanx units were all that great. They weren't very proactive, which is what is you expect from a phalanx. To be fair though, whenever I engaged them I did my best to hit them from as many sides at once and flank them with elephants or cavalry, so they never lasted long enough. Also, the Egyptians only had 3 phalanx units (in the first army) and these were spread out, so I wasn't fighting a full phalanx army in an unbroken line.One question. You did mention the great difference in quality between Roman infantry and Egyptian. But did you notice anything on how effective the phalanx and their pikes were? Even if they were low quality phalanx units.
Also very interesting that you noticed that Egypt had the advantage and strength in disrupting the enemy with exotic and diverse troops and tactics while the Romans just had to reach the enemy and butcher them man to man.
I charged my elephants directly into a fresh phalanx - not a good idea! I lost some to the pikes, more to archers, although a few did crash through and devastate their formation. Basically, Rome 2 in general and especially when there are elephants gives off a sense of utter carnage!
1. I spent a lot of time trying to kill elephants, although I couldn't spend the entire time close up. However, while I didn't see the pick up and throw animation I did see plenty of head (and therefore tusk) shaking which sent men flying! And, when playing as Egypt, I used the unit cam on my elephants as they charged into some legionary's! I definitely saw one more dude get knocked back and then stepped on!1. Did you notice if any of the elephants picked up people with their trunks or actually stepped on people?
2. Did you notice any 2 on 1 or 3 on 1 unit individual action?
2. I can't say I did, and I think it was confirmed that the actual animations would still be 1v1, although the stats under the hood would calculate for multiple attackers. And some of those animations were brutal!
Originally Posted by Hibernicus II
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