`A soldier will react when a fellow soldier suffers a fatal wound`.

[Humble Warrior]

I was packing away the box and manual of RTW2 when I decided to reread the manual again. What`s the maunal, yea, I know.

I came across this, page 15:

The Human scale of Battle:
... We`ve increased the already vast scale of battles, but, more significantly, focused on portraying battle at a human level.

While you command thousands of men, each one is an individual, brought to life through their interactions with their comrades. A soldier will flinch when under fire and react when a fellow soldier suffers a fatal wound...`

I thought about it...

1. Have the scale of battle been increased from previous total wars? I`ve managed 10000 troops with stutter, but I managed this before with Shogun 2, can we get more without Mods?

2. I`ve seen a soldier react from being hit, that`s true, but they did that in previous Total wars.

3. Has anyone ever seen a soldier react to another soldier being killed? I haven`t.



I haven`t seen anything at all that brought us closer to battles than any other Total War game, in fact, Shogun 2 with it`s true 1st Person view (RTW2`s view is actually 3rd person) bought me more into the battle than RTW2.

Who writes this rubbish? Or was this all cut by the `superior CA one`after the time the manual was printed?

[SirRobin]

They react. By indifference.


Highly trained legionnaires.

[Greve Af Göteborg]

The scale has actually been reduced from Fall of the Samurai (Vanilla version of course).

[Dwarven Berserker]

Well, I've heard some legionaries say "of course it hurts, you idiot" and "may your next life be even more painful then this one" in response to their comrades screaming in agony. Also, I've heard one say "By vulcans hammer, I really well liked that helmed" in response to getting hit by an arrow.

I had a lot of time to listen to these dialogues actually, since the AI thinks it's a good idea to siege a castle by standing in front of the gate in testudo, without throwing torches at it. Spoiler warning: It didn't work. I've seen entire armies get annihilated, 3 cohorts at a time, and only because of the archery towers. Only when the AI runs out of legionairies they use their skirmishers to burn down the gate... and rush in... with skirmishers.

My civil war involved 12 full stacks of high-quality infantry, and I daresay at least two thirds of them died that way....

[razr19]

Well, I've heard some legionaries say "of course it hurts, you idiot" and "may your next life be even more painful then this one" in response to their comrades screaming in agony. Also, I've heard one say "By vulcans hammer, I really well liked that helmed" in response to getting hit by an arrow.

I had a lot of time to listen to these dialogues actually, since the AI thinks it's a good idea to siege a castle by standing in front of the gate in testudo, without throwing torches at it. Spoiler warning: It didn't work. I've seen entire armies get annihilated, 3 cohorts at a time, and only because of the archery towers. Only when the AI runs out of legionairies they use their skirmishers to burn down the gate... and rush in... with skirmishers.

My civil war involved 12 full stacks of high-quality infantry, and I daresay at least two thirds of them died that way....

And I daresay that is cheating.

[Dwarven Berserker]

And I daresay that is cheating.

Well, the only alternative I had would be to sally out and die. I always had enough men to defend my settlements (well, with the help of boiling oil, which you might as well consider cheating as well ), but sallying out would have been suicide.

Anyways, I think the seige AI might need some work. Or mental help. Or both.

[=Vastator=]

Anyways, I think the seige AI might need some work. Or mental help. Or both.

Considering its current state, only an exorcism could help.

[iWarsaw]

I thought I saw it happen once. A guy got shot in the chest by an arrow, and the guy in front turned around to look. I think he was looking at the guy dying... it could of just been a random standing still animation, but I think he did look to see the guy get killed.

[Mixxer5]

Considering its current state, only an exorcism could help.

I think that good ol burning at stake would do.

[daelin4]

Ah, but they did not say they will react TO a soldier suffering from fatal wounds.

That's honestly the kind of response I expect. Deniability is one of the most intimate bedfellows for business.

[RedGuard]

the only thing i want to hear my legionaires say is :"Vitellus goddamn it stop bumping up against me i can't ing move," or something to that effect when they start blobbing and then vitellus being the stupid little boot he is will actually separate. As it is right now it reminds me of the description of the battle of cannae when the romans were so crammed together they couldn't lift thier shields.

[Broly]

i havent seen that or anything else really my soldiers tent to force run at each other throw spears with shields held high then keep running once they are clashed together then eventually some 1 runs away thats about all i see really, And that usually lasts 20seconds if that.

I usually have to pause the game or slow mo to see any battle animations at all other then running at each other even though the front lines have already smashed.... :\

[DeVrie]

Battles would have to be much slower affairs for the player to be able to zoom in, ponder each individual soldier's life stories and watch them react to things happening around them. As they are now, I really dont feel like zooming in to that big writhing mess of clumped people to even try and make out individuals. I can barely make out individual regiments in there.

[Langer Kerl]

Seen nothing like facial animations so far. Only noticed soliders tend to open and close their mouths in an awkward clapping fashion.


However, you can often hear soldiers of a certain unit commenting on the battle, which is actually quite a nice flavor. I usually hear them complain about artillery or archers because I have time zooming in and listening to the enemy while my men shoot them from the distance.

[IlluminatiRex]

Since I'm using Lines of Battle and that mod that makes armor more armor like, I have had lots of time to listen to soliders and watch them.

As pointed out by Dwarven Beserker, they do say things like that. As well, I have obsereved men screaming in pain, yelling, talking, etc...

Ever since in Napoleon: Total War when I heard a British Line Infantry unit go "Sarge, am I going to die?" and "SARGE! NOOOO!" (and the occasional F bomb ) I have dreamed of the day Total War would have soldiers hold little conversations and have facial animations. And well, that dream came true.

I espeically like how some things are said entirely based upon what the unit is doing, standing there, attacking, using siege equipment, routing, etc... It's quite neat.

[Humble Warrior]

Since I'm using Lines of Battle and that mod that makes armor more armor like, I have had lots of time to listen to soliders and watch them.

As pointed out by Dwarven Beserker, they do say things like that. As well, I have obsereved men screaming in pain, yelling, talking, etc...

Ever since in Napoleon: Total War when I heard a British Line Infantry unit go "Sarge, am I going to die?" and "SARGE! NOOOO!" (and the occasional F bomb ) I have dreamed of the day Total War would have soldiers hold little conversations and have facial animations. And well, that dream came true.

I espeically like how some things are said entirely based upon what the unit is doing, standing there, attacking, using siege equipment, routing, etc... It's quite neat.

Mouths opening and closing, while neat, is not facial animations... oh wait. technically it is, just like technically with CA everything is what they said, but not what the customer expected.

CA plays the very crafty game of saying things knowing people will take the common meaning from it, then not producing what they KNOW everyone expected. for instant, if people think a painted picture of the game is the actual graphics to come, they`ll never post up to say, "Oh no, those aren`t the ingame graphics!` They just let the person spend a whole year going crazy expecting some impossible thing.

In fact, looking over all the propaganda blurb and the way CA were going on before release; the AI was going to be something from Skynet with sentient understanding, the graphics was going to be like a Rembrandt painting and soldiers would have so much personal emotion you`d spot one writing war and peace and acting Shakespeare in a quiet corner of the battlefield!

But actually, it wasn`t going to be much better than pong!

[Steph]

For having edited a lot the voices of the units in my NTW mod:
1) Voices "reacting" to action is not new to Rome. It was there for ETW/NTW
2) There are some voices for SOME events (like "they are flanking us"), but also a lot of random voices (like the "Sarge, am I going to die?"
3) Some voices are poorly translated (French sentences are sometimes ridiculous)
4) Even in Englisht, the voices is not always adapted to the situation (like "draw sword" to charge for a lancer unit)
5) The system is screwed by mods: add a mod that adds a unit, and when you select a unit it can say "artillery" even if it's infantry.
...

[DramaBelli]

1.Not increased but (even if unit multiplier string is removed) via pfm I was able to to reach 240/160 men for infatry/units and I can quitely manage 16000 men on the field. the fact is that I can do the same with shogun 2 (of course accepting sometimes lower framerates) and with antialiasing enabled and my gpu forced to work at full. With Rome II gpu close to remain cold and same numbers but in comparison to settings used shogun 2 win. Anyway I want be optimist about this point, c'mon CA, it's time to mantain some promises.

2.Confirmed and totally agree. I only add that in shogun 2 soldiers reaction it's sometimes much better and close to be human, in comparison to what they promised we can feel some delusion (even if this is not the real problem of the game).

3. I saw it, yes. And if the forum could work properly I could post here the pics I made called "Death of a friend". You can find it in the thread "Radious units pack 1" some comments below the main post. It figures a legionary killed by a cavalryman and his fellow looks with rage at the horseman. It's rare indeed, but it happens!

[The Bold Burgundian]

You're acting as if this is the first time a game developer has been overzealous about the features their upcoming game will have. This man would like a word with you.

[♠ Thomas Cochrane ♠]

I don't know that you people are talking about. Rome 2 feels WAY more lifelike than any previous game.

- The simple feature of shields being raised to block projectiles is one of the most immersive battle mechanics I've seen to date.

- Men knock over tents in cities, but then they climb over the rubble, not just walk through it.

- The transitions from one animation to another are far better than previous games.

- Fighting animations far surpass anything even shogun could do (e.g. a horse kicking a man standing behind him while the rider seems preoccupied in front of him)

- Fire actually causes lighting effects when fire arrows stick into shields (and trees) and remain alight for a while.

- And the big one: projectiles getting stuck in people, trees, shields, ships, walls etc. and bouncing crazily off sometimes.

Stop bloody whinging about a game with some problems (that are clearly being fixed gradually), which is CLEARLY better than the previous installments.

Edit: and before the children amongst you ask: no I do not work for CA.