al Qamar's Rome 2 classical multiplayer review - RATING 4,9 / 10; updated rating 21.07.2014: 6 / 10
This thread is dedicated for all Rome fans of the classical multiplayer mode. I do not share or rate multiplayer campaign experiences here (according to the threads title)
Please also read the update to this OP.
INTRODUCTION:
I have read dozens of professional Rome 2 reviews now. But none of them reviewed multiplayer curiously.
Neither the classic one nor the campaign multiplayer, while some reviews even said it was unlocked for testing.
Edit 09.09.2013: The British "Guardian" was the first professional reviewer that rated Rome 2 negatively on metacritic.com with a honest review, while others even gave this game miraculous 10/10 scores. Also mentioned multiplayer in a side note.
It is evidence that reviewers had access to each other on chat and could have contacted each other to play.
Here multiplayer clans, also well known ones from Rome 1, announce and present themselve.
I found out that most of them are real clans with long history and Rome 1 experience and not random Steam user groups, just created for Shogun 2 avatar campaign map unlock, gathering.
However I am happy to tell that the Total war petition with over 1200 followers sees nearly all its demands fullfilled and I am allowed officially to confirm this now after this silly (ihmo) review blockade or embargo they called it.
Comment on late reviews / review embargo
If CA fear the press so much, this was a perfect approach to unleash all reviews one day before release frankly no one can be bothered to read all to know if you should still preorder and get the DLC or wait and pay 6 € for Greeks cities DLC later.
What is in the game:
- nearly multicore, hyperthreading support and freaking fast loading times
- classical skilling, no veterans
- no retainer messing around
- no annoying timer while unit setups
- at least 60 seconds timer on deployment if anyone pressed start first. 120 seconds would be fair.
- You are able to customise your money free in multiplayer hosted battles. There are optionally fixed funds. Money cannot be set per player so like we had it last in Medieval 2. But you can set up one funds amount that applies to every player.
- There are ladders again, but too simplified (previously known)
Ladders now only show wins and no losses or W/L ratio.
The "score" introduced with Napoleon is still a miracle to understand how it is calculated.
- There are a lot of game modes!
- more siege equipment
In case of a siege or other battle types according you can choose several more assisting stuff than you could have on Shogun 2 or Rome.
- double stacks can be enabled (40 units per player), if hardware would even handle it.
- great voice performances of units (accents like in Rome 1, soldiers talk in battle. We complaint about the general speech is out, no it is not he will start taunting your opponent after you pressed start but the general speeches are not that epic and long and not more situative.
- there is only one deployment zone for a team, great for clans and teamplayers, this is the biggest improvement over any previous Total War.
- every unit has (some good or senseless) abilities
- line of sight is cool but not that good as in should be.
- tactical view (tab key), but hard to use, cannot attack in that aswell. Just to give quick overview over lines and flanks.
- a lot of units are limited in the number you can field them.
What's not in:
- you cannot change tight / loose formation anymore
- there is no guard / hold position mode anymore. (according to CA all units have a guard mode on, unless you give attack orders so no need for that, some unit still attack, this has confirmed to be a bug)
- no fire at will mode (fixed with patch 3)
- Unlike to Rome 1 and Medieval 2 we cannot setup uneven money for a player or a team! (To balance them)
- you can host games up to 4vs4 but unlike to Rome 1 and Medieval 2 you cannot setup more than 2 teams anymore which is odd. So 2vs2vs2 are not possible even.
- The chat lobby has been improved but is still messed up! The global chat is not working and people online are not showing, so even worse than Shogun 2 and now like Napoleon again
This was Rome 1
This is Rome 2
YOU WANT THIS TO BE FIXED ASWELL? PLEASE HEAD HERE LATER
Chat lobby support thread
This persistent bug is still not solved after 4 years of waiting.
What's also not in:
- no free for all mode (FFA / scored resolution)
Hopefully Prince of Macedon will not get unemployed now seriously with over 100.000 followers. I predict and suggested him months ago! to show more initiative on this matter towards CA and he blocked me on YouTube with. "Take your presumptions elsewhere"
Tomorrow he will see my presumptions and conclusions of his less passion were true. There is no free for all we ALL liked and he refused to raise his voice officially for the community as he got invited for the Rome 2 event.
Bad luck PoM (Prince of Macedon). He is hosting pvp matches now
- no sword / shield upgrades for units only chevron but you can see the impact on the seperate unit tab, which is new for Rome 1 players.
- you cannot change army size in classic multiplayer
- you are not allowed to tab to desktop or go to options menu without auto leaving or closing a hosted battle. (cheat prevention?)
- you cannot hide wardogs!
- you cannot change unit size in classical multiplayer, change in the graphics options do not apply for classic MP
HOW TO OPTIMISE / ENLARGE CHAT LOBBY (a little):
Chat can be enabled by pressing Z or Y or find it at the LEFT TOP corner of the screen (Windows 8 greets you)
The chat lobby is still desperate in several steam regions: How to see more games and chat with more people and clans
Go to Steam > Settings > Downloads > Choose LAN Event (Europe) or (USA) etc according to get access to more players.
SYSTEM PERFORMANCE:
Performance is very optmized for low rigs!
HIGH PRESET:
AMD X3 2.8 GHz / AMD HD5770 = 40 fps
Intel i7-2600K 4.6 GHz / 670 GTX FTW = 66 fps
EVERYTHING ON (MORE THAN ULTRA PRESET):
Intel i7-2600K 4.6 GHz / 670 GTX FTW = 33 fps
share and refer more results here
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FINAL MULTIPLAYER REVIEW (also posted on metacritics)
My score 4,9 / 10 because the many flaws that will possibly not be all patched.
REPOST from metacritics.com:
Hello everyone,
after I noticed that we have a very biased official reviews from magazines (one rated 100 %, multiplayer 9 / 10) without dropping even a line on multiplayer, and most comments here (on metacritics) let down a certain part of the game, I felt the need to write my own review here:
The classical multiplayer I've waited for is a completely desaster at the moment.
If you are a player that loved Rome 1 multiplayer, the still active community and their clans and their world wide hosted tournaments, you instantly wish to rename this Rome 2 into
"Total Unplayable: Rome 2".
But there are GOOD things to tell aswell, and I may start with them:
PROS:
- Rome 1 fans wished to get rid of avatar, retainers and skilling units - there are pro and cons of these. I am with the conservative party here
- The new deployment is great for clans and teamplayers as you have only one big deployment zone.
- very good multicore support, and hyperthreading support and freaking fast loading times
refer: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...4#post13205394
- Classical skilling of veterans, no messing and 60 secs hurry to pick your army anymore.
- A lot of new game modes
http://imageshack.us/f/850/zg8d.jpg/
- you can pick a map location to host a game on the whole campaign map. This may sound new but it was there in Rome 1 aswell but hidden. Now it is easier to make maps, you can even "favorite" your locations. The map preview are now detailed and replaced the fancy pictures of Shogun 2.
- if your computer can handle it you can set double amount of stack, so 40 units stack per player instead of 20. Currently the performance is that bad that you cannot use it on ultra / extreme preset
GTX Titan does 44 fps on maxed out settings
- The units are sorted by their means and strengh however in the game
- The alternate attack mode is back again. Pressing ALT key you can force a unit to attack in melee (swords) even cav with pikes, slingers and archers
- CA spend the chat some great new features like cut & paste (stating or explaining rulesets like CWB or others are not a pain anymore), also better blocking features, reziseable windows, and is for some reason disabled by default. You need to press the Z / Y key to enable or hide it.
- you can pick one of three general presets which all have pro / cons in special abilities. In a team match, well applied together they are decisive.
- all units are very responsive on command, especially when in fight, you can withdraw them much better than in all other TW games
- many taunts on enemies and accents
MIXED:
- Assault / siege weapons are on a seperate unit tab ingame. Cost time and micro.
- We have a variety of units, though the unit cards are not easy to learn and recognize.
- all units have special abilities which makes fun but also there may be lack of sense on some of the abilities
- no sword / shield skilling anymore only chevrons / but compared to Rome 1 you can see the impact of skilling on a seperate unit stats tab.
- CA stated there is no mulitmonitor support, but with some tweaks, I've seen it working. So no support seems to be they do not support it on issues, but basically it works.
NEGATIVE:
- new tactical map (tab key) and unit grouping modes but units do not keep formation like in Rome 1 when advancing. This is a basic warscape issue, that won't be solved.
- Eventough you can pick a free location for the battle, you cannot enlarge the terrain thumbnails and they are very dark, low res. You cannot see much details of the terrain / esp. hills and obstacles.
- I am not a fan of ladders, as I am oldschool player and better stick to tourneys, but the ladders are really too plain now.
- no "free for all mode (FFA)" anymore - poor Prince of Macedon
- no unit or avatar customisation anymore, not even colors or skins
- only basic MLAA antialiasing
- no DX 11 tesselation support anymore
- no HDR light support anymore
- the chat lobby and common chat is still not working globally like in Rome 1. You cannot see players online in the global window, rooms are limited to 100 players, and rooms are limited to your setup download region in Steam preferences. So only "local" chat partners. No community this way!
- the performance of the game is a -3 / 10 bummer: while a AMD X3 with a 5870 runs with 40 FPS avg. on high settings, a i7-4770K with a GTX Titan does only have 44 fps on maxed out settings. Both running at 1920x1080
- the game is lagging even on high framerates (about 40) and occasionally you get FPS drops to 9 or 10 with no clear reason. The FPS are not very stable going up and down all the time.
- The included "forest" benchmark is not intense enough to give you a good feeling if the graphics settings are choosen well or too high.
- The pilae trails are HORRIBLE. Romans throwing them alltogether and it looks like lasers from certain point of views. They throw them while running not stopping like Rome 1 for that, which was more realistic, trails just pop up over their head. Silly!
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addtional (did not fit into metacritics)
- currently a lot of desyncs, game drops while hosting and and stuff. I though we would have been freed of that after changing from Gamespy to Steam ://
- games lag on hig FPS. Game slows down a lot like slo mo.
- only a few hosted games (fixed now)
- the shown hosted games seem to be regional aswell, as I was able to see a game hosted in USA, because one of the player in was on my friends list, but when went offline the game dissappeared. Have not reproduced this tough.
- you cannot hide wardogs at all
- you cannot change unit size in classical multiplayer, change in the graphics options do not apply for classic MP
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Originally Posted by Lord-Fisher
