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Thread: Hader's Thoughts...On Rome II. What are yours?

  1. #1
    Omnipotent-Q's Avatar All Powerful Q
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    Default Hader's Thoughts...On Rome II. What are yours?


    I started Total War games with the original Rome Total War, and played the crap out of it, as well as delving more into modding with it than I would any other game up to now. Rome Total War got me very much into Roman history, to the point where I took a year of Latin and Roman & Greek Civilization classes in university just for the hell of it. Admittedly, this is probably true for many of you. However, one real difference is that I did not purchase Rome II at release. The main reasons being I could not afford to dish out the cash for it at release, and at the time I did not think I would have the time to play it much at all. I knew I definitely wanted to at some point though – it being the sequel to one of my favorite games of all time. So, why write this? Put simply, to explain my perspective in hopes that it will help provide insight on why there are diverging views on Rome II and how people’s experience can vary.

    So, Rome II gets released, and other than what I see on the front page announcements at the time, I didn't really follow it much. I didn't know many specific details, but I heard plenty about how buggy it was and how many people were displeased with it. I won't say any of it is unjustified, but at the time I wasn't into the game in any way so didn't read into it much and thus just didn't care much either.

    The sale rolls around (March I believe? I hardly remember now.) though and I decide it might not be on sale like this for a much longer, so I may as well purchase it. Remember now that I don't really have much knowledge of what bugs and other issues that most people complained about, only a few broader issues that were hard to not hear about at some point – mainly AI and naval battle problems. But the point is, I'm now going into this game that I have heard plenty of bad things about, but with no real knowledge of the specifics, nor of what any recent patches have maybe been fixed. I tell you all this because it's important to know how I am first experiencing this game compared to how many others did right after launch. Take care not to overlook the importance of that.

    I pretty much jumped right into the campaign – didn't read up on any sort of guide or manual or anything. One thing I failed to understand enough at first though was exactly how the political system and starting faction/family attributes worked, so my first campaign was doomed because of it. I didn't really get how bad diplomacy would be starting as Rome, House Junia, with their political aversion effect. I thought it would only affect the Roman houses and their political game, not actual diplomacy between all other factions. I didn't notice the connection between this effect of Junia and diplomacy until it was a bit too late.



    The bad diplomacy of the Junia makes things tricky playing as Rome

    The campaign started off well enough though. I acquired the Italian peninsula with some difficulty but nothing impossible. And that was quite fun. I just messed around with battles and new campaign features during this time, thinking I might eventually restart the campaign once I knew the inner workings a bit better and could get off to a better start. I stuck with this first play through though since it went quite well.

    But of course, I spoke too soon, and right after conquering Italy I found myself at war with literally everyone with any sort of border to me: all bordering barbarian tribes in the North, half of Greece, Illyrian factions, Massailia, and Carthage. Of course all associated client states and a few random alliances with farther off factions joined in the war as well.

    I couldn't understand why they were all just straight up declaring war on me. I noticed the negative relation and assumed the aversion was just for being Roman, not specifically Junia. Most declared war when there were barely any negative relations in the first place. So maybe there was some bad luck there too.

    While I was holding on to Italy well enough, I was at war with too many factions at once to do any sort of offensive campaign. What with how easy it is for armies to cross water, I couldn't let my legions leave the peninsula without leaving it too defenseless. I was stuck in a perpetual defensive war, killing all armies thrown at me, but taking just enough losses for my forces not able to strike back. It became old fast, with just more and more people declaring war on me there was no end in sight and it wasn't fun anymore. I nearly rage quit the game entirely at this point because of this, figuring it was just still as broken as I had heard it was at launch. However, after a few days break I gave it one more shot, taking care not to be Junia, and chose Julia instead, pretty much for the sole reason of no negative diplomatic issues from the start.



    With armies able to instantly turn into fleets, attacking other factions rather than defending the Italian peninsula can sometimes be a luxury

    With the Julia, things got noticeably better. Italy was a bit more trouble to conquer this time, and things actually never heated up early on between me and Carthage, so I never took Sicily early on. I reached a point where I had Italy firmly under control, public order good and my legions supplied and ready, with no enemies except one minor Gallic tribe in the Alps pestering my border (and easily repelled with two otherwise bored legions).

    It was then I felt better about this campaign, and took a little more care with diplomacy for it. I quickly got a trade agreement with Athens and Massalia, and Syracuse even approached me with a trade agreement and a small sum of money. Eventually, the Gallic Confederation was born and declared war on me on top of their ongoing war against Massalia. Massalia over the next decade upgraded our treaty to a full alliance, giving me leave to keep a legion outside the town to help defend. Now that, I liked. It was nice to have an ally, with a mutual enemy, that I for once felt obligated to help since they were very unlikely to betray me. Diplomacy actually got me somewhere and I had fun with that, on top of it being an ideal situation where it made perfect sense we would be allies.

    Now this was really the only war I had going on, and I was getting restless, wanting to just do something for the sake of doing it. Defending Massalia was easy; I learned after a few sieges from the Gauls how siege AI definitely wasn't the most intelligent. My legion along with a sizeable Massalian garrison and army, made a good defensive force that didn't need to exploit the stupidity of the AI to win. It was just a fearsome force in its own right.

    Up until this point though, I hadn't really been able to experience the derp of a naval battle. There were a few small fleet skirmishes from garrison fleets in a few sieges in Italy, but otherwise nothing substantial. So, to do something interesting, I declared war on Carthage. I did not have Sicily and wanted it, and would settle for at least a foothold in Spain on top of that before a peace treaty. I got to experience my first naval battles here against Carthage and its satrapies. Yes, they were full of derp. I don't need to explain how or why if you are reading this. I was quite disappointed with how naval battles played out here. Not enough to rage quit but enough to make the war annoying each time a naval battle did show up. I was careful in my planning though, and made sure I just avoided letting my navies get caught in too many fights and my armies from needing to sail all the time. I got Corsica and Sardina easy enough, and a foothold on Sicily.

    Things took a quick turn for the worse though, when I took a gamble sending my legion defending Massalia towards Spain to try and attack Carthage there. Massalia fell to the Gauls when I left. I was actually quite pissed, since our alliance had been very fruitful up to that point. The legion went back and took Massallia, and I just decided to govern it myself so I had more influence of Latin culture going towards Gaul. This caused my forces to be delayed and stretched thinner however, and Carthage was still strong enough for offensive strikes. I soon found myself on the defensive when a series of unfortunate events screwed over my farms and food supply, causing my armies to desert at a pretty bad pace. I couldn't go on the offensive at all here, and defensively was barely going well.



    Scenic Massalia (Marseille) fought over for seemingly the hundredth time

    It was then that Athens came to save the day. They actually offered to join the war against Carthage, in exchange for a fairly small amount of money and a trade agreement. While a good offer indeed, I was reluctant to accept, not knowing the extent they would go to actually help. Worst case, they barely helped and I got screwed over, but they wouldn't gain any territory. The other side of that coin is they help a lot, and while appreciated, I don't want to give up parts of Africa and Iberia to them.

    I accepted, fairly reluctantly, hoping I could just bounce back from my food shortages and beat them to most territories. As I feared though, they were quite quick in sailing over to beat up Carthage, and they brought Sparta, 3 military alliance allies and 1 client state to the fight with them. I won't bore you with the details of this large scale war that ensued, but Athens and Sparta ended up with Carthage itself, two thirds of Sicily, and all of Libya. They got there very quickly, and I decided to throw my lot into taking Spain with all my force before they got there. That part of my plan worked, Carthage was eventually destroyed and I had all of Spain and parts of Africa to show for it, but now these Greek factions had a lot of Africa as well. And their alliance expanded to include Egypt as well.

    Now this whole time Gaul was being held off by one legion, still in Massalia, and a second smaller one going back and forth into the forests raiding and occasionally sieging towns. Once my legions could leave Iberia though, Gaul was soon overwhelmed. Fighting the cultural aversion was the most challenging part, the fighting was easy otherwise, but mainly due to Gaul also having trouble with the Germans to the east.

    I had the hang of things by now, and definitely felt good about how diplomacy was going. I wasn't getting screwed over for any reason; other factions seemed to fear and respect me now and didn't make stupid decisions at random. The great Greek alliance was a growing threat to me though and our relations slowly soured after the defeat of Carthage became but a distant memory to us all.

    I eventually conquered Gaul completely. Then moved on to Britannia, which was conquered 100% by none other than Gaius Marius. I intended him to force the civil war and become first emperor (sorry Caesar). I was slowly using agents to incite revolts in the Greeks' African holdings, then taking them one by one as they revolted. The Germans were annoying, but I was able to hold them at bay. One town in particular kept attacking repeatedly, and this is really the only place the horrible siege AI came into my favor, winning many defensive siege battles I was horribly outnumbered in. Sometimes I had a full legion there to actually defend it, but you can't stop the AI from being completely stupid each time. The defense was always too easy because of this, and while entertaining because it was so stupid, being devoid of challenge was making it get old fast as well.

    The civil war eventually broke out, with a province just in Illyria revolting with the senate loyalists, but most of my legions were all back near Italy to help stop them. I lost only a half of my Illyrian holdings for it, and soon regained them and made another minor faction in the area a client state. They actually did quite well killing Germans for me, so I let them stay a client state for a very long time.



    Civil War...no problem!

    Soon after all this went down, I had conquered Germania, and now had only to really move on to Greece, the one growing super alliance that could actually threaten me. Well, they might have been a threat at one point, but post-civil war not so much since I was swimming in cash after upgrading my economy in all my provinces except the border near Germania. My legions were all veterans, except for a few freshly recruited ones. Gaius Marius was Emperor and a 10 star general. Things were going well...too well.

    And that's when I slowly got more and more bored with how easy it was. Diplomacy was still actually quite good, realistic at least, in that everyone realized how damn powerful I was and didn't want to be on my bad side. People were asking each turn to end my war with them for money, or for me to give them some of my vast wealth and become a client state for it. Flattering as it was, it isn't fun when everyone, especially everyone in the one super alliance that could even pose a slight challenge to me now, is begging me to not hurt them. I lost interest slowly...and my campaign still sits there, with me halfway conquering this Greek alliance and Africa nearly all mine.

    So, why write all this? Why bother with the details? Because, despite the abrupt end of my campaign due to boredom, the time I did play it a lot was quite fun. Naval battles were derp, don't get me wrong, and siege AI was horrible too, but other than that, I found very little else that I didn't enjoy to at least a small degree. Diplomacy, while not perfect, felt more engaging when it wasn't just threats and war being tossed about. I liked actually negotiating something that made sense given the situation, and having the AI pay heed to that and factor that into their decision when negotiating with me. I don't remember any faction declaring war on me at a stupid time, in a stupid way, or doing anything else that you might have expected in old TW games from diplomacy. Perhaps I just got really lucky, and the AI is only this smart 1% of all campaigns, but regardless, diplomacy was actually an enjoyable aspect for once.

    Naval and siege battles aside, battles were also quite fun. The AI wasn't perfect either of course, but just good enough to force me to really pay attention to what I was doing, and allowing better tactics to win me those battles against overwhelming odds. I liked how global food supply helped with army replenishment, giving me reason to really pay attention to farms and food. The new way settlements are laid out, in regions of multiple small towns and one larger main town, I also really liked. It made city building a little more fun, allowing you to specialize areas or towns for some sort of production. While the building tree could use a little more depth, the way it is implemented felt well done.



    Battles are fun in Rome II. Sieges are hit and miss.

    I liked that piracy was now a passive stat affecting your controlled areas of the sea, instead of having random pirates spawn near a port and blockade it with one ship and totally screw your income. I like the different stances armies and navies could take, allowing more strategy that affected battles take place on the campaign map. I liked agents enough, they didn't feel as fun to use most of the time, too easy even with higher level agents, but aside from enemy agents being annoying sometimes, it wasn't so bad.

    That's essentially the point. I liked Rome II, despite its most obvious bugs; even those didn't feel game breaking at all to me. I worked around them, more or less. While I raged a bit at first, I eventually just went into those stupid moments of naval battles and siege battles and tried to have fun with what I knew was going to be a derpfest. May have taken away from a more challenging, realistic campaign experience, but it was still fun.

    So in the end, I enjoyed it, and while I can understand how people were frustrated earlier in its lifetime, I think Rome II as I played it recently is actually pretty good, or at least getting pretty close. Hopefully my perspective on my first experience is refreshing or eye opening or...something. Whatever it is to you reading this, what I hope you take away is the knowledge that regardless of Rome II's shortcomings, however significant, does not always mean fun can't be found in one form or another. It's understandable to be frustrated with some things that need obvious work, but the line between constructive criticism and whining is pretty thin. And it all boils down to a matter of perspective. So tread carefully.


    Last edited by Omnipotent-Q; June 22, 2014 at 03:11 AM.

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  2. #2
    Biarchus
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    Default Re: Hader's Thoughts...On Rome II. What are yours?

    In one thing i agree with you, and that is that the Campaign AI looks smarter. I even am seing a lionheart campaign of the Seleucids and it looks promising.
    But there are just things that i don't like. They have taken many features that were on the older Total War games that really made the game unique. Like taking those cool cinematics whend something happened; i know is nitpicking, but little things like this make the game better, and now i thing only that death cinematic is still around on the game.

    Also they did not made a complex an interesting diplomacy that they have promisse us, instead is what there is now. And even in the older Rome there was actual senate diplomacy or something like that and this one as that boring family tree, if you can even call it a family tree.

  3. #3

    Default Re: Hader's Thoughts...On Rome II. What are yours?

    I think that all the time iverted on good graphics its been not used for develope diplomacy And other features more importants of the game, they've doné a fast selling game without any kind of deep for me , And the worst is the 13 paths they've ned to fix all game's bugs

  4. #4

    Default Re: Hader's Thoughts...On Rome II. What are yours?

    I for one would apreciate Rome II if they used some other coloring/shaders for the game, i like how the coloring in Shogun II and M2TW was done, vibrant/robust & disctinctive colors. Rome II is more of a moshpit with colors being bland and booring. This applies to the weathers coloring aswell, Aztecs mod somewhat fixes this but he can only do so much, so the game in my mind is far from the splendid looks of Shogun II & M2TW.

  5. #5
    Garensterz's Avatar Senator
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    Default Re: Hader's Thoughts...On Rome II. What are yours?

    We are not talking about bugs anymore. It's the lack of features, depth, and realism if you compare it to Rome 1.



  6. #6

    Default Re: Hader's Thoughts...On Rome II. What are yours?

    I got the game on release but didnt judge it there and waited, i got all kinds of mods wich improved the most anoying aspects like way too fast battles, and i got to a point where i had a pretty similar experience like you (op). I had some fun but the game was ither way too easy or stupidly difficult on very high difficulty and therefore got boring very fast.

    How can u say a game is worth so much money if it gets boring on every playthrough including the first?

    I remember my first game of shogun II with darthmod and how i was thinking: damn, that game was so tense and epic, i gotta do it again.
    And thats kind of what i expect from a strategy game.

    Hell, iam in the middle of a very tense Ottomo campaign with total realism mod atm and i will come back to shogun2 for a long time to come.
    i am still waiting for something to make rome II more of a challange.

    I really whish they would have taken the money that went into visual developement and spent it on AI.
    how great of a game could emerge if TW would have better AI, just think about it.

    greetings

  7. #7

    Default Re: Hader's Thoughts...On Rome II. What are yours?

    Let me put into perspective, putting aside the bugs.

    1. UI design flaws, what with the huge unit cards?
    2. Diplomacy, political intrigue, gone.
    3. Family Tree, gone.
    4. Technology Tree, gone.
    5. etc., gone.
    6. Stupid cities that grow and take most of the map, done.
    7. Dumb down archadish game, done.

    You see, this is some other game that should not be part of the TOTAL WAR franchise. The best standard to make this game was there, and it is called Total War Shogun 2. Everyone was expecting something like that and receive something totally different.
    Last edited by miguel11; June 22, 2014 at 07:10 AM.

  8. #8

    Default Re: Hader's Thoughts...On Rome II. What are yours?

    Interesting article, but here are my problems with the game:

    - terrible UI : with 40 unit armies it take 40% of your screen view, the lil` icons who tell you wich unit is firing, routing fighting are mushed up into 1 idiotic in the middle making it difficult to manage and dumb unit cards
    - Diplomacy has no reason behind it, it`s just horrible, factions instantly declare war, don`t trade ,a ask for huge sums of money for no dayum reason.
    - Battle AI is improved but still terrible, siege AI no words, just bleh , campaign AI completely toast
    - No family tree
    - No political system in Rome, seriously ...
    - Unit formations are gone and the rest have such an idiotic design I just cant understand the thoughts in the dev`s head.
    - Battles look just horrible, even with those fancy animations who are so damn fast.All you see is unit making elaborate kill moves with 40 kg`s of armor on them breaking formations and sliding into pre-stances before they execute them.
    - City representation in this game is just stupid, Huge ancient cities are now villages with no walls.I think those guys were smocking too much pot when they made this game.
    - Those huge cities that you saw in the pre-alpha are now gone, cities look like damn parks now. with some buildings sprinkled here and there.
    - also the awsome graphics in the pre-alpha are gone,the textures are low res and pop-up later, no SMAA wich with the low res textures gives you a headache when you play it more, the smoke textures are just gone , you have to zoom in if you want to see a building on fire.
    - Horrific performance issues
    - also some weapons lack the animations for them
    - extremely dumbed down city management it`s almost gone, what you have 6 building slots and you do the same thing since turn 1.
    - The upgrades for your generals are a moron`s design, also you only get 2 traits/character and the rest is replaced by a god damn moronic system of zeal,authority and cuning
    - also the music is preety weak,I heard some play in the previews that are not in the game... why ?

    You lack the freedom in the game, it`s all forced down your throat this blitzkrieg type of gameplay so that you won`t see all the bullcrap design of the game.
    Also the "DLC" (wich is cut content already on the disc since day 1 execpt those mini-expansions) is just insulting, greek city states is the worst one, also the blood pack ( we have to pay for a graphics feature YAY! and people are ok with this O_O).And the "free-lc" they still rub in your face is just cut factions from the game that are already there and they act like it`s this HUUUGE favor to the players, but in reality there were supposed to be there since launch.

    It takes really "good"skills to make a game more complicated by dumbing it down so much.

    I can`t see Rome 2 as a Total War title, because it has nothing to do with strategy, accurate historical representation and immersion like the previous titles.I`ts just an arcade game.It represent every gross part of the gaming industry today, all the lies and false advertisments, the dlc bullcrap it gives you a sense of guild when you buy it and support their ideas and business plans.

    Remember that the last large scaled competent game they made was Medieval 2 in 2006, since then there was no good total war game ( Shogun 2 was a small scaled game and still had some questionable design features, and some bullcrap dlc but it was fun up to some point) Empire, Napoleon and the worst of them all Rome 2 are forgetable and completely failures and it doesn`t look like CA gives a crap about the series and the community, now CA is in with the big boys like EA,SEGA, ACtivision etc.Once the kins of strategy games are now the clowns of the industry.Shame on you CA, seriously shame on you.Never have I ever felt so guilty for buying something.

    I think that the next tw title is their last chance to make something good, people are already giving up on the franchise and for the hype of the next game it won`t work anymore I guarantee it, I want a new total war tittle because I really want one that is good, but at the same time I dislike the idea since I know what this company is capable of.

    I`m sorry about my grammar mistakes.
    Last edited by Pseudolivius; June 30, 2014 at 03:16 PM.

  9. #9
    DarrenTotalWar's Avatar Video/Podcast Creator
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    Default Re: Hader's Thoughts...On Rome II. What are yours?

    The game to me is a 6/10. Nice article, I agree with almost all of it, first few months were frustrating, but after the major bugs were ironed out you just have an average TW game, and loving TW games, it's still fun to play.

    Check out my latest video: Unit Expansion Mods

  10. #10
    2-D Ron's Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Re: Hader's Thoughts...On Rome II. What are yours?

    Quote Originally Posted by DarrenTotalWar View Post
    The game to me is a 6/10. Nice article, I agree with almost all of it, first few months were frustrating, but after the major bugs were ironed out you just have an average TW game, and loving TW games, it's still fun to play.

    I found Caesar in Gaul more entertaining than the Main Campaign.

    Using the Tech Tree to portray the triumvirate between Crassus, Pompeii and Caesar was an excellent idea and to bring greater emphasis into the use of recruiting local barbarians that were cheaper, better in certain aspects (Especially the Heavy Horses) rather than relying on the Cohorts from the mainland.
    I think these features gave real depth and feel to the game.
    It got harder the further you expanded which is what I loved about it; no late game steamrolling boredom.
    I played it in Legendary and it was actually solid to beat when all the remaining tribes declared war on you, combining their efforts against you; it was trenched out, no advance, every gain led to loss.
    City Battles REALLY played a strong roll in this game, they served as Strongholds when the Ai stack spam you.
    Plus the Attrition was a , hold them out, invest, recruit during winter and push forward in Spring.

    If Hannibal at the Gate and the Main Campaign had all or most of these features, the game would be allot more exciting; and not this buggy bore fest, later game.
    Last edited by 2-D Ron; June 22, 2014 at 09:18 AM.

  11. #11

    Default Re: Hader's Thoughts...On Rome II. What are yours?

    When I started playing the Grand Campaign as Rome. All my legions were on the Western front fighting and pushing into Northern Gaul and into the edge of the eastern front near the Germanic border of the German tribes.
    I took Iberia as my first objective, in order to fight on two fronts.
    Then I knock out Carthage and Libya too.
    And it was after pushing my legions up north that I realized that I was stretch thin and that I was allowed only a LEGION cap of 12 LEGIONS.
    "12 LEGIONS ONLY" WTF!!!!
    So most of my conquered lands were left unprotected against Briton. But they had to cross the sea in order to attack.
    So as an insurance policy, I left two Full Legions to protect Northern Provinces that lay across Briton.
    And the rest of my LEGIONS Were sent to fight in Germany.
    So yeah, I was stretch thin.
    And then came the infamous patch 10 that cause my game to crash and after that I gave up and uninstalled.

  12. #12

    Default Re: Hader's Thoughts...On Rome II. What are yours?

    Good article and I may try it again when I have a better CPU to run it to yet the full R2 experience, but I still believe that RTW modded has a lot more fun awaiting players.

  13. #13
    ToonTotalWar's Avatar Indefinitely Banned
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    Default Re: Hader's Thoughts...On Rome II. What are yours?

    Graphically the game is beautiful and having this many patches to fix a lot of stuff that remains broken like Siege AI is still a complete joke! I appreciate that the developer is trying to fix things with patches etc..

    For me I am disappointed with the game and have not even played a campaign game for over two months now and I find mods are the only thing that saves this game in its current state.

    I really hope that CA pull there finger out and sort out the basic problems that still remain in game and fix them pronto.

  14. #14

    Default Re: Hader's Thoughts...On Rome II. What are yours?

    agree with it all, though the one thing i miss from the previous rome, above all else: family building. i hate being able to pick my generals upgrades, it felt too..."gamey"...less like i was a ruler dealing with my generals. i miss having a stupid cousin who enjoys whoring and drinking all the time, only to have him thrust upon the battlefield at a dire hour. several times, through natual mechanics, my stupid drunk cousin has saved rome. not because he leveled up through a screen, but because when the damn barbarians came, he was the only one home. he held it, he earned his upgrades. he was still a drunk idiot, but a drunk idiot thats proved himself. if i want a drunk idiot in rome 2, i gotta make a drunk idiot. wheres the fun in that.

  15. #15
    Obi Wan Asterix's Avatar IN MEDIO STAT VIRTUS
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    Default Re: Hader's Thoughts...On Rome II. What are yours?

    Hader yea well-aged vintage wordsmith you!

    I feel akin to your experience, although I haven't managed to power up Rome 2 since January or February, only certain mods (Dresden's especially) do it for me, but the constant patching breaks my campaigns there... Rome 2 has made me look more forward to EB2 in fact.

    But unlike CA's other games, with Napoleon getting rendered as very playable by the Lordz and their mods, Medieval still churning out mods... Empire, well.... and Shogun 2 being such a delicious, replayable game, I find Rome 2 like a canvas without a soul.

    You, however, have done the expressing for me sir.

    Thank you, and some of that old rep with which we used to light each other's farts on TWC over the years to good-old Hader!
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  16. #16
    LestaT's Avatar Artifex
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    Default Re: Hader's Thoughts...On Rome II. What are yours?

    Great article Hader. I myself have found Rome II vanilla entertaining. The only fault I can find is that it's not RTW 2.0 but then if I want to play RTW then I'll play RTW, not expecting Rome II to be RTW.
    Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth. - Marcus Aurelius


  17. #17

    Default Re: Hader's Thoughts...On Rome II. What are yours?

    Started with Rome 1 Hader?

    Medieval 1 with XL mod or BKB Super mod is the most fun experience I've ever had with a Total War game

    too bad so much of that atmosphere and soul has been sucked out of the series by lazy, greedy devs

  18. #18

    Default Re: Hader's Thoughts...On Rome II. What are yours?

    Quote Originally Posted by Garensterz View Post
    We are not talking about bugs anymore. It's the lack of features, depth, and realism if you compare it to Rome 1.
    Not sure who you were referring to but as for me, the coloring of the game is not a bug, its a design choice, so i am staying within the borders of this posts discussion

  19. #19

    Default Re: Hader's Thoughts...On Rome II. What are yours?

    Quote Originally Posted by Blueinstinct View Post
    I got the game on release but didnt judge it there and waited, i got all kinds of mods wich improved the most anoying aspects like way too fast battles, and i got to a point where i had a pretty similar experience like you (op). I had some fun but the game was ither way too easy or stupidly difficult on very high difficulty and therefore got boring very fast.

    How can u say a game is worth so much money if it gets boring on every playthrough including the first?

    I remember my first game of shogun II with darthmod and how i was thinking: damn, that game was so tense and epic, i gotta do it again.
    And thats kind of what i expect from a strategy game.
    Because every tw game got boring at one point.
    If you have a giant empire close to completing the game you have more settlements than any ai faction, that means you have more money, that means you have more troops, that means you have the numerical advantage in battles, that means battles are easy.
    This was in every single game, you had the realm divide in shogun,but that always felt artificial to me, and still after the initial shock and a few battles it was easy again.

    And that is how it should be.
    In the article hader describes an roman empire, that had conquered gaul, britania, spain, germania at this point they shouldn't have problems anymore and if you had such an
    empire in rome 1 you also wouldn't have a problem in the campaign.

    This is just how it is after a certain point in a tw you know you have won, that you can break any alliance at will, but you dont do it for rp reasons.

  20. #20

    Default Re: Hader's Thoughts...On Rome II. What are yours?

    I think that the game needs more intensity. How? First, more diplomatic options, such as " declare war on" without involvement, or "make peace with", regions' trade. Rome was in fact the arbiter of international relations, then some faction could ask to intercede with his enemies. Also more intensity of political life;the election of the consuls who were the supreme magistrates of republican Rome, the election of popular assemblies, legislative proposals ecc. We should ask the permission of the senate to declare war, then control it becomes very important, more missions assigned by the senate ecc. What do you think?

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