Everything Attila has (from Rome 1) that Rome II doesn't
You may remember my thread shortly after the Rome II release entitled 'everything Rome 1 had that Rome 2 doesn't' (http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...Rome-2-doesn-t)
Attila seems to be going a long way to placate the fans by restoring cut features, and I'd like to go through the Rome II cut features list to see just how much of the original Rome (and Barbarian Invasion) is back.
I've quoted the entire feature list, and individually evaluated it.
NOT EVERYTHING ON THIS LIST IS IN ATTILA: if a feature is brought back and improved upon it is in bold. If it is brought back but not embellished, it is underlined. If it is unformatted, it was in RTW, but not Rome II or Attila. Quite a lot of them have been brought back, though there are many still by the wayside.
Here goes:
Revamped:
-family tree and set heir
-politics had more of an impact on the campaign (in my experience you can ignore Rome 2 politics with no adverse effects)
-plagues that made sense (from squalid places) and that occurred more often to liven the campaign map up as did all natural disasters
-historical event messages, and historically timed natural disasters
-all of the post invasion options gave tangible benefits, as opposed to occupy being the only viable option in R2: slaughter gave public order as they were terrified of you and instant money; but destroyed the population size, occupy gave a large population but had potential public order problems, enslave provided long-term money and trade resources so was kind of a half-way house
-all buildings in towns were flammable, and those destroyed had to be repaired on the campaign map
-needed siege weapons for town assaults, gates couldn't be burned down by infantry, bigger walls required better siege engines, ladders had to be constructed
-battle damage e.g. to walls had to be repaired afterwards on the campaign map, or it would remain in future battles
-map areas: sahara desert, tip of Sweden, modern day Belarus, Lithuania and Latvia, more of modern-day Ukraine and Russia
-fertility varying between regions, and the ability to get a good or bad harvest instead of a set income
Revived:
-unique faction intro videos
-fire at will for all units with missiles, including legionaries
-loose formation for all units
-% of each side that were dead displayed by hovering over the balance of power bar [in Attila it gives the raw numbers]
-characters last long enough to become useful before they die
-character portraits aged and there were traits to do with age
-all buildings constructed shown on the battle map
-more period-inspired HUD (not gonna get involved in the row over the unit/building cards though)
-you have the option of a short campaign as any faction which is less of a long-term commitment, and can be completed in a few hours, or 1-2 days. Thus Rome 1 also catered to the casual gamer, addressing more directly than R2 both the casual and the hardcore player
-pikemen that use their pikes, in R2 the AI generally uses its pikemen as swordsmen (though gradually improving with patches)
-banners stayed above routing units so you could track them down and see their numbers and the factors affecting them, routing enemies were also shown on the minimap ('radar map'), so didn't require the chore of searching the battle map and examining the landscape to find them
-it was much harder to 'shatter' units (rout but terrify them so much they cannot be rallied)
-full page displays when needed (settlement details, diplomacy) and not obstructive when not needed (R2's massive tall empty unit cards box)
-more spaced units so you can see the fighting
-smoke trail behind torches and more visible one behind fire arrows
-you could set the exact amount of money offered or demanded in a diplomatic transaction
Partially revived:
-no[n-] crippling attrition when besieging (subjective whether this is a good thing or not, but encouraged you to build lots of siege engines for epic battles)
-more variation in portraits: it was very unlikely you would have two generals with the same face, even though you would have many more generals
-immersive deep traits system with unlimited traits to give detailed characters, all traits came from experience not rpg-levelling
-senate missions, with rewards including money, gladiator games or races, public offices, senate standing, naval and land units
-more trade resources, multiple trade resources per region
-slower paced battles (though patches have made this much better than at R2 release)
-the abilities could have come come from training e.g. formations and attacks, they were not magical stat boosts like +10% attack or remove all fatigue
-scorched earth from armies in hostile territory, devastation shown on map and had public order and income consequences
-marginally bigger units: infantry 160 standard/240 largest,missile 160, cavalry 108 compared to R2's infantry 160 standard/200 largest, missile 120, cavalry 80
-lots of (orangey-yellow) torches carried by troops in night battles to provide light, not one weird bright white spotlight on the unit commander like in R2
-cities with more than one culture's buildings in them
-agents have more distinct roles, less crossover between them (possibly more intuitive but again, that is opinion, not fact)
-mounted units have more impact [too much in Attila], and units look like they have more weight: the men sent flying from cavalry charges flail like men, rather than flying 10 feet like a paper doll
-artillery is (realistically) less accurate
-there are 10 historical battles, compared to the 4 in R2, 3 of those 4 have you playing as the Romans (+1 more historical battle with DLC. You play as Rome.) [Attila Historical battles are lazily constructed, but there are more of them]
-culture-specific music
-you could zoom out much further on the campaign map
Rejected:
-taxation controls for every individual province
-roads of differing sizes and qualities were build-able on the campaign map (after all, what the real Rome was famous for)
-trade happened between settlements within a faction as well as between factions, this internal trade giving the map a more 'living' feel as your empire's commerce circulated
-city view for every settlement
-new engine for the game
-a range boost for missile troops on high ground (R2 has damage boost instead)
-guard mode for all units
-set capital
-permanent forts that looked like a fort on the campaign map, not a ring of spikes
-watchtowers
-towns rioted a few turns before rebellions or revolts, and rebels would be unhappy citizens, not just slaves
-some of the wounded on the winner's side recovering immediately after each battle, and casualties could be dead or wounded, not just always dead
-formations were more cohesive, though patches have brought Rome 2 close
-diplomatic options: give region, map information, attack faction, threatening diplomacy (accept or we will attack)
-building sites on the battle maps of towns in the process of constructing something
-contextual and lengthy pre-battle speeches
-nicknames 'the brave', 'the mad', 'the great' etc.
-more building freedom, with the ability to construct as many buildings as you liked in towns (up to about 30) and not limited to 5 in Rome itself, or 3 or 4 in minor settlements
-normal buildings such as markets that would have been easily and regularly constructed don't require R2's protracted research, so you are less constricted in your building options
-more detailed breakdown of income with lots more factors in income per settlement
-graphs displaying progress of all factions in general terms as well as financial, military, territory, population and production.
-more detailed breakdown of public order with more factors for both positive and negative
-casualties actually mattered as you couldn't just stand in your territory for a turn or two to replenish them for free (and replenishment is much faster now than in NTW or S2 - this one is up for debate as to whether it is a good thing, but it is a fact that you couldn't heal your armies as quickly or at no cost in Rome 1)
-unit experience decreased when fresh recruits were used to refill it, making casualties matter even more
-retrain was available in every town with the relevant barracks
-If units are completely surrounded with no hope of escape, they fight to the death and cannot rout
-music composed by Jeff van Dyck (matter of opinion as to whether he is better, but he did win awards, including a Bafta)
-music that reacts quickly and dramatically to events on the battlefield for immersion and 'hollywood' drama, as opposed to sometimes imperceptibly changing track on the OST
-tunnelling under town walls to bring them down (sap points)
-wall sizes were not automatically changed with settlement sizes: they were built independently, so large cities could have meagre defences, and smaller ones (if maxed out) could get decent ones e.g. stone walls. This led to more diversity and different challenges between cities
-much easier unit merging (click and drag) to refill units, balance casualties or balance experience
-general can be seen ordering the units about with every command you give: signalling with his sword for movements and rearing up to order a charge. Rallying also caused him to rear his horse. (In R2 he only signals when moving his own unit, and then only sometimes)
-no limits on armies
-military forces not glued to generals, and captains could be promoted from the ranks to become generals if they served well
-not broken up into piecemeal dlc
-pirates as actual naval forces that can be fought not percentage penalties on income (an Illyrian pirate queen is one of the R2 loading screens, and fighting pirates was the main occupation of the Roman navy - where are the pirates?)
-no automatic transports, so navies more useful
-bigger bonuses from traits and retainers ( unlike '5% better melee attack')
-more land battles (as opposed to settlement battles)
-civil war actually against the other families not generic 'senate loyalists', especially inappropriate if the player wants to preserve the republic
-ongoing cutscene to show senators' reaction to you
-brigands appeared on the map on rich trade routes
-primary and secondary weapons for cavalry
-units stayed closer together when routing, not turning into weird massive long single-file lines, and chasing routing units was not a micromanagement-fest
-population (and the ability to do migration tactics by recruiting units and disbanding them elsewhere)
-a more dynamic base for modding: it will be much harder to change core game mechanics with R2
-units could disengage without massive casualties or men 'locked into' time-consuming combat animations that ensured they would be caught and killed
-a video showing you the death of the general on either side, and a video showing wall and gate breaches
-horses try to leap over spears and shields when charging
-more populated cities have related problems, like squalor, and related benefits, like a large recruitment pool, unlike R2 where settlement size and squalor are not linked, only specific buildings
-elephants have more dramatic animations and fling men into the air with tusks and trunk
-there is more room for tactics: usually you can manoeuvre with infantry and skirmishers and deploy cavalry in flanking attacks, and battles progress in stages. In R2, once one line breaks somewhere, the whole battle line routs quickly and there is little room for tactics (admittedly this one is quite subjective, feel free to dispute if this is not your experience)
-videos for capturing a wonder
-much less distorted map projection
-distance to capital
-the year and faction displayed when loading a campaign
-units visibly pushed siege engines to the walls, as opposed to just walking behind them while they magically move forwards
-save battle replay saved exactly what happened (patches are improving this, but it is not yet fully fixed in Rome 2)
-culture-specific advisers
-campaign map animations for natural disasters: volcanoes erupted, floodwater could be seen on the map, and the ground convulsed in earthquakes
-far longer unit and building descriptions, with historical information
-you could have multiple generals within one army
-trade to every settlement, not just the capital, isolated settlements could still trade
-disciplined troops such as Romans would form columns, stepping aside to allow other units to move or rout through them, so the cohesion of your formation was not disrupted when this unit crossover happened
The things that have been removed in Rome II that were in Barbarian Invasion:
-religion
-horde mechanics
The things that have been removed in Rome II that were in Medieval 2:
-diplomatic options e.g. marriages
-agent videos
-armour cleanness deteriorated over the course of a battle, troops did not start out filthy
-armour and weapon upgrades visibly changed the appearance of units' equipment
-prisoner count displayed on in-battle HUD, not just victory screen
-recruitment cool-down, limited pool of units to recruit from, as though reflecting a trained reserve
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Originally Posted by Remo
Apologies for anyone who's message i may miss or not be able to answer
