Failed Claims of CA Before the Release

[haukim]

I have managed to isolate the AI not using pikes issue: This only occurs when the AI is on defense and the Pike unit is also the general. This makes some degree of sense, the AI treats its general unit differently and uses it to provide boosts not fight in the main infantry line. I wouldn't even call this a bug to be honest.

[karamazovmm]

strange Im on beta patch 3 still I reproduced it perfectly with 2 foot companions, 1 royal thorax sword 1 hellenic royal guard, off course the pike was the non general and I was macedon attacking

its really weird that I failed to notice this in all those macedon campaigns that I played and now as egypt fighting against most of the hellenic world.

its still a bug.

[smilydude]

I remember CA talking about having larger battle maps to support the new LoS mechanic in previews, but in the end we wound up with the small 2x2km maps that we've always had. Looks like they did have them at one point if you compare the Carthage preview to the actual historical battle.

[Lugo]

@OP: I remember one of the CA Devs say they had 40% more budget in the game. After this fiasco it makes you wonder where it all went (cough cough marketing cough cough).....

Pretty obvious it went to crap like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JReGDeaxaDI

That video has nothing to do with Rome 2, the actual PC game. Someone that has never played a total war title would have no idea what the actual game is from that stupid video.

Also, IMO, I think CA/Sega switched gears to Warhammer around the time they got the license. But that's just speculation on my part...

[Lord of Lost Socks]

Reason for Carthage disappointment. There's a difference between campaign and historical battle Carthage. Historical battle one looks pretty good, but the Campaign one is just bad. Now, I'm not sure if the battle map changes when you improve the city, but if that's so it's a really dumb design choice, because that means Romans will never fight the proper Carthage in the campaign map.

I took pictures for comparison. This is all on Extreme graphics, by the way.

Historical battle:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

See, there we have the awesome port, the statue and it generally looks pretty good and accurate to the marketing campaign.

Campaign battle:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Now would you look at that. The city is much smaller. The port is missing, there is no statue. Not even when I zoomed in, could I get it to appear.

Now, as I said, I'm not sure whether Carthage can be improved, but regardless. It is a pretty dumb design choice, because I doubt the AI will have time to improve it enough before a Roman player comes along at conquers it. Regardless, I thought Rome was meant to burn Carthage down and not build it up.


Here's one source for the 32 000 troops per battle claim: http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/08/...al-war-rome-ii
"Meanwhile, owners of Skynet-like hardware can get even more out of the game. A high-spec machine can enjoy up to 32,000 units on the battlefield during a single real-time encounter. If you’re seeking further glory and are willing to push your PC harder than your legionaries, Jamie casually mentioned you can tweak the preference files to double that number to 64,000."

Now, I've played Napoleon with Darthmod, and I regurarly get 10 000 vs 10 000 battles (that run so smooth it's amazing), but I don't see a way to reach those figures in Rome 2 without modding it in, and I'm not even sure of that. First of all the maps are too small for such a force. Even if you assume a 32 000 troop army in to 80 units that's still 400 per unit, you'd have to have a 160 units at least with max unit size to get 32 000 troops on the battlefield.

[Aodh Mor]

i play the game with 230 men per unit, and it runs pretty smooth, but yes, the battle maps are too small, if they were even 4x4 it would be an enormous improvement, and allow some real maneuvering

[alQamar]

this is Rome 2 rant thread number 559 BUT this time with another approach. Let's collect provingly false advertising for Rome 2 altogether.

I just want to let you know that intentionally false advertising could led to 2 years jail according to laws in Germany. CA did that, and praise they to not have a german headquarter.

"we put more effort on AI than on every other Total War game" - busted
> view Angry Joes review - it was (is) worse than Empires at release

"Extremely scalable experience, with gameplay and graphics performance optimised to match low and high-end hardware alike"
said on Steam Store and they said once in a video, removed meanwhile from their websites. - busted
> only the half of that has become true. Not bad 36 fps on a 600 $ graphics card. Shogun 2 did over 100 fps with maxed out settings!

The german translation they published is even more awkward and more superlative and more promising:
"Gänzlich skalierbare Spielerfahrung mit optimierter Leistung für Ihren PC oder Laptop. Erleben Sie das fantastische Ausmaß von Total War: Rome II, unabhängig von Ihrer Systemkonfiguration."
Translated:
"Completely scalable experience, with optimised performance for your PC or Laptop. Experience the fantastic dimension of Total War: Rome 2, independent from your system configuration"




insane detailed and live graphics - busted > have a look on that screenshots:

- low res fire textures - actually they disappear when doing screenshots, why?
- dirt, reflections and other texture details (compare the helmets)
- HDR
- colors and saturation
- cropped textures (look at the fern)

everything is missing on that game. Once this game had better graphics before release or all videos and pictures have been edited with Adobe After Effects.

As I saw the first trailer, I knew these ones are edited but no one of my friends believed me, but believing they had +40% larger budget, and the graphics in Shogun 2 were already outstanding. Their opinion was understandable. Nothing else too add.

This is what we see on Steam and their previous ads and what we actually get:


Steam:


REALITY (maxed out settings):






Sorry CA, I love your company and games, but for my taste - this time you definitely went to far for Rome 2.

If you would be headquartered in Germany, be assured the "allmighty" german customer organisation would readily sent you a non-disclosure agreement, in order to change all the advertising for your product plus an offical regret for the things, otherwise, if you would have not agreed on this agreement the responsible would have been sued with a very clear judgement as above. Be aware Valve (Steam) has already been sued two times by them for violating rights in their terms of use, and soon (lawsuit is going on) we will certainly be able to resale our games on Steam, as things going good currently. The basic changes have been introduced already by them (a marketplace, trading etc.) so they seem to expect too loose. The german highest court at least made a clear statement Valve is not following the current law as applicable.

I am not out for war with you, but what you are doing with your newly created marketing department is far from any good and law.

Now TWC fans, how far will you go for Rome? More samples? Please submit them. But stay civil please.

[Mixxer5]

As I said, the simple fact is those in game shots were done lower graphics levels. It's a false claim against CA.

Amongst the myriad false claims by the "hate parrots".

It is not a lie if the intent was to have them in the game. The question is whether they can fulfill the promise.

Excuse me, but what kind of pc should one have to play the game with all details, looking like on trailers? On my pc it looks worse than Medieval (or at least it did- I hadn't played since I bought it). But every time someone complains about graphic answer is "buy better pc"- no matter how good machine actually is. Is there some list of elite computers that can actually show R2 in same condition as devs did?

[SirRobin]

The difference in those screenshots seem to be down to photoshopping (contrast, flames) and high-res textures and advanced shader effects.

Leaving the photoshopping aside, I think the interesting thing is the shader effects, lighting and textures. Why did they scale all those back? Why not leave it in the "ultra" settings? Yes, it will bring people's computers to their knees, but that's why it's called ultra anyway, right?

I won't complain that my old computer can't run the game in super-detail mode, but it would be nice to know that I could if I upgraded my hardware. I just don't get it..

[alQamar]

this perfectly fits with my new thread, shall we merge it Suketh?

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-go-for-Rome-2

[Rasic]

I have nothing really to add, other than you've taken probably the best comparison screen shot I've seen so far. Just look at how much they doctored it even the helmets don't shine like that GEM mod or no.

[alQamar]

The difference in those screenshots seem to be down to photoshopping (contrast, flames) and high-res textures and advanced shader effects.

Leaving the photoshopping aside, I think the interesting thing is the shader effects, lighting and textures. Why did they scale all those back? Why not leave it in the "ultra" settings? Yes, it will bring people's computers to their knees, but that's why it's called ultra anyway, right?

I won't complain that my old computer can't run the game in super-detail mode, but it would be nice to know that I could if I upgraded my hardware. I just don't get it..

This question has been asked on totalwar.com. After a little personal intervention I was lucky to get a answer from CA staff, which was excusing but also escaping.

[Metallistic]

Reason for Carthage disappointment. There's a difference between campaign and historical battle Carthage. Historical battle one looks pretty good, but the Campaign one is just bad. Now, I'm not sure if the battle map changes when you improve the city, but if that's so it's a really dumb design choice, because that means Romans will never fight the proper Carthage in the campaign map.

I took pictures for comparison. This is all on Extreme graphics, by the way.

Historical battle:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

See, there we have the awesome port, the statue and it generally looks pretty good and accurate to the marketing campaign.

Campaign battle:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Get your facts straight before posting misleading comments. The first city is fully upgraded, the second one is far far from it... Cities change their appearance based on what you build and how much the city has developed.... You know, like ALL THE PREVIOUS TW GAMES?

I agree that there has been a lot of false advertisement, but that does not excuse anyone to make false claims up.

[alQamar]

The difference in those screenshots seem to be down to photoshopping (contrast, flames) and high-res textures and advanced shader effects.

Leaving the photoshopping aside, I think the interesting thing is the shader effects, lighting and textures. Why did they scale all those back? Why not leave it in the "ultra" settings? Yes, it will bring people's computers to their knees, but that's why it's called ultra anyway, right?

I won't complain that my old computer can't run the game in super-detail mode, but it would be nice to know that I could if I upgraded my hardware. I just don't get it..

Same as Shogun 2 the ultra settings preset does not include ALL features the game has at maximum level, so comparing the preset CA did is useless. Also the extreme preset does not enable all features for Rome 2. Still with "beyond extreme" so everything turned on, on a capable rig, we see amazing differences in quality that just can be summarized in one word: LIE.

[alQamar]

Get your facts straight before posting misleading comments. The first city is fully upgraded, the second one is far far from it... Cities change their appearance based on what you build and how much the city has developed.... You know, like ALL THE PREVIOUS TW GAMES?

I agree that there has been a lot of false advertisement, but that does not excuse anyone to make false claims up.

Yes I agree, there are a lot of rumours around the game. We should stick to the truth and reality as much as possible, otherwise we would rampage the credibility of this thread at all.

[smilydude]

Reason for Carthage disappointment. There's a difference between campaign and historical battle Carthage. Historical battle one looks pretty good, but the Campaign one is just bad. Now, I'm not sure if the battle map changes when you improve the city, but if that's so it's a really dumb design choice, because that means Romans will never fight the proper Carthage in the campaign map.



Now would you look at that. The city is much smaller. The port is missing, there is no statue. Not even when I zoomed in, could I get it to appear.

Now, as I said, I'm not sure whether Carthage can be improved, but regardless. It is a pretty dumb design choice, because I doubt the AI will have time to improve it enough before a Roman player comes along at conquers it. Regardless, I thought Rome was meant to burn Carthage down and not build it up.


Here's one source for the 32 000 troops per battle claim: http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/08/...al-war-rome-ii
"Meanwhile, owners of Skynet-like hardware can get even more out of the game. A high-spec machine can enjoy up to 32,000 units on the battlefield during a single real-time encounter. If you’re seeking further glory and are willing to push your PC harder than your legionaries, Jamie casually mentioned you can tweak the preference files to double that number to 64,000."

Now, I've played Napoleon with Darthmod, and I regurarly get 10 000 vs 10 000 battles (that run so smooth it's amazing), but I don't see a way to reach those figures in Rome 2 without modding it in, and I'm not even sure of that. First of all the maps are too small for such a force. Even if you assume a 32 000 troop army in to 80 units that's still 400 per unit, you'd have to have a 160 units at least with max unit size to get 32 000 troops on the battlefield.

Even the historical battle is a shadow of what we were shown.
Max settings with GEM, but I'm more concerned about how scaled down it is. Less troops, miniature map compared to the one in the preview. Just compare the beach in my picture to the beach in the preview. Less siege towers, less everything. It was gutted.

[=Vastator=]

From http://www.vg247.com/2012/10/17/tota...dence_returns/

So in technical terms, we’re aiming at the high-end, we want to grab every gigaflop, or megaflop or whatever that your graphics card produces. We will utilise that to make it look as absolutely incredible as possible.

This is really laughable. Rome II is a crazy CPU intensive game, many graphical tasks are made by CPU, and not by the "gigaflops of graphics card"(unit&building details, shadows are CPU intensive), and the GPU usage is around 50% and even lower when zooming in melee.

[Lord of Lost Socks]

Get your facts straight before posting misleading comments. The first city is fully upgraded, the second one is far far from it... Cities change their appearance based on what you build and how much the city has developed.... You know, like ALL THE PREVIOUS TW GAMES?

I agree that there has been a lot of false advertisement, but that does not excuse anyone to make false claims up.

So in other words I'll have to wait for Carthage to build their city if I ever want to fight in it properly. Would be like attacking Kyoto in Shogun 2 that's a small stronghold.

[Humble Warrior]

I was lucky to get a answer from CA staff[/URL], which was excusing but also escaping.

Standard avoidance answer. Stalin would be proud. Of course, push any harder and you`ll be `purged`.

Seriously, reading over that site they are just as bad (worse even) than when I was a titled member in the Empire days.

And to think Craig said I could go back. Hahha. Yea, just to get rebanned for standing my ground on important issues. What a joke. Glad I refused.

[Kraut]

I just want to let you know that intentionally false advertising could led to 2 years jail according to laws in Germany.

And why exactly should they care? To my best knowledge, CA is located in UK, where German laws do not apply (since our grandfathers messed up the whole Operation-Sea-Lion-thingy badly).
To the same degree, they could care about some Sharia law ruling out the depiction of naked men.