One simple change to make politics meaningful

[von stoker]

Change the way politics is geared to delaying a Civil War to making it geared towards preventing a Civil War.
Add a slider bar or similar graphic that shows where you are standing re possible Civil War. Green and you are safe and incrementally through to red where Civil War can occur.
At the moment I really don't know where I am regarding Civil War. Is it Gravitas, is it the number of senators??? All I know is it is going to happen at some time no matter what you do so why bother with it.
But if it is preventable, it makes playing politics worthwhile and would add that extra dimension to the game.
If you can see where your standing is, you will do something about it. If you are teetering on Civil war, you will move that popular general to a rural backwater, even if he is your best general. You will do all of those underhanded things to keep Civil war at bay and move the slider into positive territory for you.
CA could add random events which effect the slider, such as one of your senators killing a rival - slider moves a couple of points towards Civil War. Time to scramble to redress the balance before it is too late.
Your action in politics can effect your campaign play such as taking a public order hit for removing that popular general.
The actions you perform in politics would not be automatically performed (marriage-spread rumours-assassinate) but would be attempted similar to agent actions and you should suffer a politics hit if you fail. You could even employ your agents to increase your chance of success.
If Civil War does occur, rather than the AI spamming armies at one location, they could spam an army in each province at the settlement that has the lowest public order.
And the bigger you empire is the harder and more expensive it would be to maintain the balance. This would act as the anti steam-roller factor in the game.
Well that's my two cents.

[Humble Warrior]

In my testing of the sieges i`ve noticed how woefully useless the politics mechanic is. I`m looking at it with fresh eyes after like 4 months. It certainly needs a major overhaul. Also, this black screen in the politics bit with your senate- Surely that`s the worse idea ever. That blackness just literally cuts the player off (like closing someone`s eyes shut) surely they could`ve used a brighter look like marble, cream?

Terribly unaesthetic.

Just look at Shogun 2 to see how much more easier and attractive it is to the eyes.

[Praetorian_BGX]

Terribly unaesthetic.

Just look at Shogun 2 to see how much more easier and attractive it is to the eyes.

Agent/Family member and Research tree are much better designed in Shogun 2. RTW2 looks like cheap amateur job compared to Shogun 2.

Someone obviously thought that Flat UI (simplistic approach / quite popular in Web Design) can be used in Ancient Warfare Video game. In this case just didn't worked.

[riskymonk]

Agent/Family member and Research tree are much better designed in Shogun 2. RTW2 looks like cheap amateur job compared to Shogun 2.

Someone obviously thought that Flat UI (simplistic approach / quite popular in Web Design) can be used in Ancient Warfare Video game. In this case just didn't worked.

It it was designed with consoles in mind. Any other theories are welcome.

[Praetorian_BGX]

It it was designed with consoles in mind. Any other theories are welcome.

You can design for consoles but it doesn't have to be ugly. For me it looks more like its designed for touch-screen support - building icons, technology icons, drag and drop units in battles (left mouse drag and drop ). Whatever the reason - they failed to achieve functionality and they totally missed the design point.

Its not working and its ugly.

[stevehoos]

You can design for consoles but it doesn't have to be ugly. For me it looks more like its designed for touch-screen support - building icons, technology icons, drag and drop units in battles (left mouse drag and drop ). Whatever the reason - they failed to achieve functionality and they totally missed the design point.

Its not working and its ugly.

Very true, another one of many puzzling design choices in the game. For the money spent on this title, it is the worst game for design/functionality I have ever played.

[stevehoos]

You can design for consoles but it doesn't have to be ugly. For me it looks more like its designed for touch-screen support - building icons, technology icons, drag and drop units in battles (left mouse drag and drop ). Whatever the reason - they failed to achieve functionality and they totally missed the design point.

Its not working and its ugly.

Very true, another one of many puzzling design choices in the game. For the money spent on this title, it is the worst game for design/functionality I have ever played. CA is not what it used to be, there is a significant drop in talent.

[Praetorian_BGX]

Very true, another one of many puzzling design choices in the game. For the money spent on this title, it is the worst game for design/functionality I have ever played.

For me, CA managed to deliver almost perfect combination of functionality and design in STW2. I was never interested into Japanese medieval period but user interface really looked nice and clean and kept me interested into game. Theme fits perfectly into period.

On the other side - Rome 2 UI looks like they hired some guy that worked on Mac apps design. Its flat and soulless, instead Ancient Rome atmosphere - im felling like im on Mac store page. Beside that, politics tab is completely useless, lacks functionality, depth, UI, everything.

Shogun 2

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Rome 2

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Humble Warrior]

Very true, Praetorian, makes one wonder what the hell happened between both games. I can only think that some wazak in CA decided what was better and did not listen at all to any objections, succesfully ruining the interface.

[riskymonk]

You can design for consoles but it doesn't have to be ugly. For me it looks more like its designed for touch-screen support - building icons, technology icons, drag and drop units in battles (left mouse drag and drop ). Whatever the reason - they failed to achieve functionality and they totally missed the design point.

Its not working and its ugly.

Id like to believe that because of their greediness but the UI on the battlefield would take up half the touch screen device. So it wouldn't have been a wise decision if they had tablets in mind... then again there are many game and design decisions that were once thought to be wise yet left the players having wtf moments.

Anyone remember capture the flag?

[kamikazee786]

How i wish we CA had the sense to implement something like this, our modders are so talented at creating concepts, i wish CA would have listen to them and changed the game for the better

[iWarsaw]

IT doesn't add anything though it just changes the way the information is displayed. I hate seeing this thing posted everywhere like its the holy grail. It would change nothing about the game. You want information displayed like in Shogun 2.

[von stoker]

and here was I thinking this thread was about the politics system, not the UI

[PeonKing]

and here was I thinking this thread was about the politics system, not the UI

You pretty much hit the nail on the head. I posted a thread a few weeks ago about the Politics system asking how people handle it, because it seems that the best course of action is to actively ignore it. Seriously, I'm not being tongue in cheek, or trying to insult the game, that is literally your best option. If I ever get a dilemma that requires me to spent any of my income, I always choose to lose gravitas, let the family member get adopted, or whatever. I never use any money on the politics system, which makes me lose influence. Which ends up giving me an early Civil war in the Capital. That means the rebels are weaker because I'm probably not maxed out in imperium, and it happens in the Capital, where I will purposely make it easy to assault by only building buildings that provide no garrison units. That makes it predictable and weak. If I was to actually participate and try to keep the politics in the middle, I'm not guaranteeing that the Civil War will happen in the Capital or conversely in the most unhappy settlement (as what happens when your in power) since I'm likely hovering around 50% control. You also lose money doing that, since your spending money to maintain influence. The Civil War will automatically take place upon hitting Max Imperium, which means your Empire is probably pretty huge, your going to face the maximum strength rebellion you can and you won't be able to predict if it's going to happen in an unhappy province (which could very well be your military production province, where you're going to face the steepest garrison oppositions due to military buildings, not to mention you would lose control of that for a time) or in your Capital. The smartest decision strategically is to purposely lose control of your political body so you can coax them into a civil war, and just kill your opponents.

That's not me trying to insult the game, that's really the conclusion I've came to, I made my other thread to see if anyone else has a better idea, which the only thing I could see is maintaining control and letting a weak unhappy settlement revolt, but you're still wasting money doing that. I've never had a campaign where my Capital is actually important, so I'm okay with losing it for a few turns.

If you could prevent Civil War, and it actually consisted of your own armies rebelling, then yeah, you would probably want to pay attention to that. Even if I wanted to pay attention to it now, I can't predict the exact turn it's going to happen in, I don't even know what actually makes the Civil War happen, a dooms day bar would make a lot of sense.

[riskymonk]

[QUOTE=kamikazee786;1397
How i wish we CA had the sense to implement something like this, our modders are so talented at creating concepts, i wish CA would have listen to them and changed the game for the better [/QUOTE]

Gaming programmers and designers aren't necessarily fans of the game or series they are working on. Modders are fans so this sort of thing is only inevitable. Jobs in the gaming industry are tough so if you were a mad fifa fan and there was an open vacancy at Treyarch but not EA, then you would have no choice but to go for the vacancy at Treyarch in the hopes that one day there'll be an open vacancy at EA. By then you'll have the experience to work in the gaming industry.

Have you you ever gone to a job interview and lied just to tell the interviewer everything he wanted to hear?

[super_newbie_pro]

How i wish we CA had the sense to implement something like this, our modders are so talented at creating concepts, i wish CA would have listen to them and changed the game for the better

OUAAAA !!!! I Want !!!

[BunnyPoopCereal]

OUAAAA !!!! I Want !!!

Yeah where did you find this!? Could easily become one of the most popular mods

[Humble Warrior]

Yeah where did you find this!? Could easily become one of the most popular mods

I believe it`s just a mock up of what someone felt CA should have done. It`s not a Mod. However, i`m sure CA took this months ago and were considering using it. I wonder what happened about that?

But yes, THIS is the interface politics screen we should have had. I don`t understand what CA was smoking when they used that horrible black screen. It`s off putting and wants you to leave it as quick as possible which is just as well since politics does almost literally nothing at all.

[Epic]

I totally agree with PeonKing.

As it stands right now, paying attention to politics is useless. The game doesn't give you that immersion of being a true Roman Republic when playing as Rome. Before release I was under the impression that when civil war kicked in, a province would rebel and than your armies will start to choose sides depending on what faction they supported. This would have made the game more challenging, as you could have half your legions convert to the side no matter where their stationed. Your empire would cripple and you would have to move your remaining armies to strategically important areas, as you won't be able to defend every city/town at once. I know for a fact that in Medieval 2 generals would rebel with their armies if they had low loyalty. How hard would it had been to add something like that to this game.

Instead we got magically armies popping up out of no where. In my latest roman campaign, I delayed the civil war all the way to the last imperium just to see if it would be more challenging. But nope, 14 legions popped up out of no where. 2-3 tried to take some settlements but failed, since I already had legions stationed near my least happy settlement. 9 of the legions just stayed put. After a few turns they starved out, and I was able to wipe them clean with only 2 legions of my own. Great fun it was!!!

[PeonKing]

I totally agree with PeonKing.

As it stands right now, paying attention to politics is useless. The game doesn't give you that immersion of being a true Roman Republic when playing as Rome. Before release I was under the impression that when civil war kicked in, a province would rebel and than your armies will start to choose sides depending on what faction they supported. This would have made the game more challenging, as you could have half your legions convert to the side no matter where their stationed. Your empire would cripple and you would have to move your remaining armies to strategically important areas, as you won't be able to defend every city/town at once. I know for a fact that in Medieval 2 generals would rebel with their armies if they had low loyalty. How hard would it had been to add something like that to this game.

Instead we got magically armies popping up out of no where. In my latest roman campaign, I delayed the civil war all the way to the last imperium just to see if it would be more challenging. But nope, 14 legions popped up out of no where. 2-3 tried to take some settlements but failed, since I already had legions stationed near my least happy settlement. 9 of the legions just stayed put. After a few turns they starved out, and I was able to wipe them clean with only 2 legions of my own. Great fun it was!!!

Yeah that's the other weird thing. Generals could betray you due to low loyalty in Shogun 2 as well, yet this game, which actually has a Civil War within your own faction, you can't actually be betrayed by your own armies, ever. Very odd...