Why politics and power is terrible

[eXistenZ]

assassination was already in the game. And purge is not that great of a feature. It is likely it will trigger a civil war/secession. And dealing with the petty pieves of faction or buying their loyalty is way less effort than fighting a secession, especially against your own upgraded armies and generals.

Also, once you purge and defeat a faction, another new one will come along in like 20 turns. So its litteraly a pointless feature, unless you like punishing yourself. . You dont form a one man/party empire like augustus did

[VINC.XXIII]

assassination was already in the game. And purge is not that great of a feature. It is likely it will trigger a civil war/secession. And dealing with the petty pieves of faction or buying their loyalty is way less effort than fighting a secession, especially against your own upgraded armies and generals.

Also, once you purge and defeat a faction, another new one will come along in like 20 turns. So its litteraly a pointless feature, unless you like punishing yourself. . You dont form a one man/party empire like augustus did

Optimistically it could be improved with modding(or not).

Actually I expect a lot from this feature, its very similar to what happened in MTW1, following titles weren't good about seditious provinces(I mean how a group of territories may choose to follow rebels...etc)

Political parties: areas of influence

• Each political party in your empire will control a number of provinces, depending on their influence. The more influence a party has, the more provinces it will control. The exact provinces under the control of each party are automatically assigned by an algorithm that tries to keep all its territories close together.
• In case of a secession or civil war, the new faction that spawns will have the provinces that were included in the areas of influence of the seceding parties.
• The party areas of influence can be seen from the new filter available in the map screen in the campaign UI.

[Theramines]

When the rupture occured, you were able to continue with your actual king, OR to play as the usurper

I loved this feature in Empire where you could choose to remain with the establishment or join the rebels. It would be awesome in Attila, for example, where playing as the WRE you're saddled with a garbage emperor at the start (it's kind of game-breaking in my opinion to send bad characters on suicide missions to get rid of them).

I haven't tried the P&P update yet but it's promising that, at long last, CA might start reversing their strange habit of removing popular features.

[eXistenZ]

Optimistically it could be improved with modding(or not).

Actually I expect a lot from this feature, its very similar to what happened in MTW1, following titles weren't good about seditious provinces(I mean how a group of territories may choose to follow rebels...etc)

I played the beta, and without caring for what the other parties want, my risk of secession was 0% throughout a 170turn campaign. It's a feature you only encounter when you play horrendously bad, or trigger it deliberatly (but like said, only a masochist would do that, as defeating a secession has no benefits)

[VINC.XXIII]

I gave it a try, just wanted to see the areas of influence thing. Haven't looked the files exhaustively , anyway, I feel like a glorious opportunity was missed when it comes to integrate local politic, and eventually have local peoples seceding later during the campaign(too big empire, too much centralized, not enough centralized, weak ruler, whatever).

As Punic I've conquered Magna Graecia, and without surprise, inevitably, the Hannonid family is the party that has influence on this region. I mean...what about a more dynamic system where you could integrate greek cities and local Oscans instead some random Punic family that has zero relation with locals?

Same could be said about other factions...I guess if you play as Seleucid, the "Parthian Families" party would become influencial in territories that have zero historical relations with Parthians?

[Daruwind]

I gave it a try, just wanted to see the areas of influence thing. Haven't looked the files exhaustively , anyway, I feel like a glorious opportunity was missed when it comes to integrate local politic, and eventually have local peoples seceding later during the campaign(too big empire, too much centralized, not enough centralized, weak ruler, whatever).

As Punic I've conquered Magna Graecia, and without surprise, inevitably, the Hannonid family is the party that has influence on this region. I mean...what about a more dynamic system where you could integrate greek cities and local Oscans instead some random Punic family that has zero relation with locals?

Same could be said about other factions...I guess if you play as Seleucid, the "Parthian Families" party would become influencial in territories that have zero historical relations with Parthians?

We already have such system. If public order drops too low to start rebellion. These are basically local political party trying to get secession because they are really unhappy with your geverment.

It would be nice to have such dynamic parties but probably too complex. Even if the local factions were same for all playable factions, based on a few provincies with similar culture background, religion,history...you will soon run into problems with slow change of culture, religion, owners (after 200 turns after many cultural religion conversion and owners, what minor faction would appear? Based on default options as rebels? Based on last owner and his cultural/relegion views?) and most importantly having 20+ small political factions in really big empire? You will be Heagemon among dozens of super small factions? Why would you care about them? Rebellion of such faction (1-2 provincies) will be quickly crushed with iron fist of legions (as are current rebellions). Why would emperor even bother with these small parties in sense of global politics? Empire building means slow culture, religion change up to point of uniformity....which is corresponding with a few bigger factions in politics as only these bigger players could influence global scale as full scale secessions/civil wars. These smaller factions would be important either in the very beginning when empire is small or will fall into oblivion as "local" party without global reach.

So I understand why we have this not perfect system of a few political factions. But definitely your point is also valid and would be great if they implemented much more complex political system. Something like in paradox´s games where you can meddle with geverment of your vassals (kings, princes, whatever is under your jurisdiction). That would probably require much more robust system for goverment, offices, family tree for statements, for your vassals or local feudals, province geverment management....and so on..

EDIT: I could imagine dynamic system when after aquiring new province with different religion, culture, historical background these will be represented in senate as super small faction, falling under sphere of influence of some bigger political faction one. (maybe add ability to win over their loaylty up to point of merging with your faction) In case of successful culture, religion conversion after many turns this small faction will merge into the bigger one. But even with such system you will sooner or later run into problems as political faction A (house Julia) absorbed smaller completely different minor political faction B (Bactria nobles). Like look at Etruscan at the beginning. Not Roman...after 100+ turns they are Romans in comparisson to...Bactria And If I conquer Bactria, in another 200 turns they would also be romans in comparisson with still pagan hippies in British Isle.

[VINC.XXIII]

EDIT: I could imagine dynamic system when after aquiring new province with different religion, culture, historical background these will be represented in senate as super small faction, falling under sphere of influence of some bigger political faction one. (maybe add ability to win over their loaylty up to point of merging with your faction) In case of successful culture, religion conversion after many turns this small faction will merge into the bigger one. But even with such system you will sooner or later run into problems as political faction A (house Julia) absorbed smaller completely different minor political faction B (Bactria nobles). Like look at Etruscan at the beginning. Not Roman...after 100+ turns they are Roman in comparisson to...Bactria

Yes ofc parties would depend from the campaign/map/time-frame/faction...etc and I wasn't suggesting to add small villages as political parties for an imperial campaign.

The fact is we have 3 focused maps(CiG, Hannibal, WOS), where us modders are free to use those maps, without bothering about "what if" longterm questions. Just focusing on a small part of the world played on a short time-span(in comparison to large scale campaigns like what GC covers from Punic Wars to Imperial times).

[ashbery76]

Are you including Medieval Total War I civil wars? T

Yes I played it back in the day and never had a civil war once,ie not a relevant mechanic.This political mechanic is.

[eXistenZ]

Just some quotes from the reviews:

In another universe, Creative Assembly released Empire Divided in 2014 and it was a huge improvement. Maybe even enough to make everyone forget about the fairly disastrous Rome 2 launch. Three years later, it just seems like it’s playing catch up. If you’re in desperate need of a historical strategy romp, you could do a lot worse than Empire Divided, and it’s the best piece of Rome DLC by quite a large margin, but barely a turn went by without me wishing I was bullying Elves or fighting the hordes of Chaos instead.

While Rome II has gotten better over the years, many issues remain.

Total War: Rome 2 Empire Divided adds little that feels substantially new

If you really want to play a dark, plague-ridden Total War, try the excellent Attila instead.

[Welsh Dragon]

Just some quotes from the reviews:

Here's some more:

Empire Divided is a fun change of pace from the standard Rome II fare. It has decent replay value and a ton of flavor for history buffs or just people interested in history that encourages the player to do some research to understand this interesting historical period. I learned a good deal about this period from both the game and the supplemental research it inspired me to engage in.

The focus on the mid-to-late game works well and will make for some of the largest and most interesting strategic campaigns in the Total War franchise.

I can keenly recall my relentless conquest of Greece, and how I held off the Sassanids, Armenians and Parthians with only a stack of brave Germanic warriors and the stalwart walls of Nicomedia.

...as my borders expanded and more cities were conquered, I started to spend as much time fine-tuning my dominion as I did beating up pesky Romans. Willingly. That’s… unusual. The problem with most of the historical Total Wars is that empire management simply doesn’t offer interesting choices. Cash flow problems and limited slots necessitate prioritising the construction of specific buildings, but it’s always obvious what they should be. Empire Divided makes things less clear-cut.

The free politics overhaul shows promise.

Personally, I'm in it for the new units, and there are a few, ranging from the awesome cataphractarii heavy cav to more subtle variants on existing units, and some neat visual differences for the splintered Roman factions to reflect their diverging cultures.

I also enjoy the new dilemmas and story excerpts that communicate some of the history of the time—a welcome addition...

Total War Rome II Empire Divided Empire is a good DLC who brings some fresh elements to an old-looking game. It's focusing on one of the most interesting periods of the Roman Empire (the reign of Aurelian).

Total War fans are still unlikely to be disappointed.

By the way, some of these are from the exact same reviews as you posted... it's amazing what you can do when you only quote part of a review.

Personally, I don't tend to give much weight to reviews. I may skim them, just to check there aren't any glaring issues like not running on my OS, but generally I'd much rather make up my own mind, than subscribe to somebody else's. It's just my way. But if people do want to use reviews to help them form their own opinion, might I suggest reading the whole thing, not just the edited highlights.

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

[Daruwind]

Total War Rome II Empire Divided Empire is a good DLC who brings some fresh elements to an old-looking game. It's focusing on one of the most interesting periods of the Roman Empire (the reign of Aurelian). We can regret the lack of new content in politics after the free update. Total War fans are still unlikely to be disappointed. But to many other players, this DLC will feel dispensable.

Empire Divided is a fun change of pace from the standard Rome II fare. It has decent replay value and a ton of flavor for history buffs or just people interested in history that encourages the player to do some research to understand this interesting historical period.

..to me it sounds like solid DLC 7/10. No revolution, but what are we expecting after 6 months of development for older game? For me it´s nice break before Mortal Empires gets Norsca/30th RoR or before we get Tomb Kings. Probably for Christmas...so Empire Divided is exactly that. Break from WH and return to my old friend R2. I watched like 10+ hours of early access campaigns footage and found it enough for myself. CA still making changes....last noticed the textures for Roman Levies are better now, so I will wait with final judgement after actual release. :-)

[eXistenZ]

I quoted from either the the conclusion or the the opening paraghraphe (the most important parts). And yes, there were some positive aspects in them, but like I said before (and as these reviews say), its a wasted opportunity.


I also don't understand why one guy says "the free politics overhaul shows promise". Doesnt he understand that what he played his the best his gonna get? if there is gonna be some promise in it (and I showed in my opening post way there actually isnt any), it will have to come from modders.


The ratings for this dlc vary around 7 (http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/to...empire-divided). The ratings for WH2 are around 85+. Pretty clear whats been handled by the A-team, and whats been done by the trainees

[Daruwind]

I quoted from either the the conclusion or the the opening paraghraphe (the most important parts). And yes, there were some positive aspects in them, but like I said before (and as these reviews say), its a wasted opportunity.


I also don't understand why one guy says "the free politics overhaul shows promise". Doesnt he understand that what he played his the best his gonna get? if there is gonna be some promise in it (and I showed in my opening post way there actually isnt any), it will have to come from modders.


The ratings for this dlc vary around 7 (http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/to...empire-divided). The ratings for WH2 are around 85+. Pretty clear whats been handled by the A-team, and whats been done by the trainees

And what are the negative aspects? Politics update is free, game is not worse by any means. If mods are concers you can stay on patch 17 while Dresden already updated DeI to it and has plans to expand on the update..you can read his own words http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...r-amp-Politics Seems he is excited for new toys to play with and have some future plans as well. And it sounds like people have plans for new campaign map.

EDIT: so don´t try to argue with broken mods. I have already problem with old mods at patch 17. This DLC/patch won´t break things any harder. Majority of important mods for me is working just fine or with minor adjustment...but if yours went nuclear, that´s pity..

This DLC can actually bring back some old modders or new ones. It means more attention to Rome 2. CA stated if this DLC / Saga game are success we might see more of them sooner then later.. so either we *MIGHT* get more fixes or even more cookies in long run. (Here comes my dream for Alexander / Diadochy wars and new campaign map...and Attila´s optimalization ).

Well check lower scores for other DLCs, as if that could be any lead...Once more, they had 6 months for development, new team, old code....good luck trying to crack older things without breaking anything while historical fans were begging for detail,info and release. (Hi Huberto)..

Metacritics:
Hannibal - 69 +/-
Ceasar - 63
Wrath - no article Steam score is mixed

[eXistenZ]

you do realise that using mods =/= using DeI right? I (and I know a lot of people who also do this, or just look at the collections on the steam workshop) use a selfmade collection of minor and major mods. Not all of those will be updated. So your hard worked collection is rendered useless now. You said yourself some of your mods were broken at patch 17. Imagine mods 2.5years later, how many more will be broken.

All the other negative aspects are mentioned in the OP, so Im not gonna expand on that. There havent been any fixes, so I don't know why you say "there might be more in the future"


And ceasar in Gaul was a pretty average expansion, no argument there. it doesnt give an excuse for this one to be of equally poor quality, even more because its CA's first historical release in years

[Daruwind]

I´m not even using DeI. My statement was, many mods stopped working a long time ago so I patched my own mod collection many times and from quick look it looks like no big problems for when DLC will be live. I have already tried beta for a few hours. So I really don´t see the big troubles with mods you are speaking about. I´m always concern more with new possible things than with old precisely because they are old...this DLC will probably bring back some modders to update already old stuff or create new one. My view is simply completely opposite to yours.

If this DLC is success then I see no reason why CA cannot do more with bigger budget next time. That is simple logic. Year ago there were no plans for this DLC yet now CA tries it. Empires Divided and Saga game *MIGHT* brings us more content before next tentpole historical game. If you don´t understand this logic I have sadly no idea how to explain it more to you... CA saw demand, they decided to try DLC, if success , then we might see more things/deeper things even for Rome 2 again. (Shogun 2 is older, Attila has less playerbase...so another DLCs either for Rome 2 again or Thrones of Brittania)

You should decide if these older DLCs were average quality or poor ones..cannot be both at the same time. I simply don´t see it as worse to them so I will try this DLC. I read all things that should be fixed in Rome 2 and well they decided to fix Politics as one big down. So it is move in right direction in any case. If that is enough, that is question for everyone...but i would keep in mind that they had limited budget, limited time, new team, old game.

[herne_the _hunter]

Let us all rejoice in death of the online encyclopedia. A happy thought to welceome in the comming of the new dlc and all those that will follow it with any luck.

I'm hoping for more roleplaying elements for Rome 2 in a future dlc rather than just a straight forward new campaign dlc

[Hannibal_Scipius]

Honestly, in my opinion, "Politics and power" isn't exactly terrible, although it seems to me, that CA insists to update this game, to convince the players to purchase the DLC. And guess what? By purchaching all DLC's, you end up spending more money on them than with the game itself. It's a fact that they did a great job with Emperor edition, not only because the campaign itself, but they've improved the game so much comparing to the release and the updates that followed. If we speak about DLCs, I find "Age of Charlemagne" for Attila way better and worthy of the price. I've played it for a short time, on one of my friend's computer (since mine doesn't run the game decently), but I've really enjoyed it.
I'm looking forward to the new game that's about to be released next year (Thrones of Brittania), and hopefully I'll have a new and decent PC by then. Let's see if CA is going to learn from the mistakes in the past.
I can play RTW 1 without mods and I still have lots of fun, the same cannot be said about Rome 2. That being said, the game is boring without mods, which stopped working because of the patches. Now, I wait for the modders to update their respective mods.


Sorry if there's something I said and you didn't understand, my English isn't that good!

[eXistenZ]

I´m not even using DeI. My statement was, many mods stopped working a long time ago so I patched my own mod collection many times and from quick look it looks like no big problems for when DLC will be live. I have already tried beta for a few hours. So I really don´t see the big troubles with mods you are speaking about. I´m always concern more with new possible things than with old precisely because they are old...this DLC will probably bring back some modders to update already old stuff or create new one. My view is simply completely opposite to yours.

If this DLC is success then I see no reason why CA cannot do more with bigger budget next time. That is simple logic. Year ago there were no plans for this DLC yet now CA tries it. Empires Divided and Saga game *MIGHT* brings us more content before next tentpole historical game. If you don´t understand this logic I have sadly no idea how to explain it more to you... CA saw demand, they decided to try DLC, if success , then we might see more things/deeper things even for Rome 2 again. (Shogun 2 is older, Attila has less playerbase...so another DLCs either for Rome 2 again or Thrones of Brittania)

You should decide if these older DLCs were average quality or poor ones..cannot be both at the same time. I simply don´t see it as worse to them so I will try this DLC. I read all things that should be fixed in Rome 2 and well they decided to fix Politics as one big down. So it is move in right direction in any case. If that is enough, that is question for everyone...but i would keep in mind that they had limited budget, limited time, new team, old game.

Even when not talking about mods (mods were only two lines in the OP), the politics update itself is poor (how about one political event repeated ten times, cause in CA's logic thats as good as ten different ones apparently), and the dlc looks little more than a reskin with some minor alterations, that doesnt change anything profoundly and the only gameplay alterations are in the dlc it seems.


Yes I understand that a good dlc/vikings sale MIGHT encourage CA to do more like this (by far a guarantee). But if this is the best they can do (and it isnt, just look at WH ratings), the question is whether its worth it. The reviews say the same.

[Welsh Dragon]

I quoted from either the the conclusion or the the opening paraghraphe (the most important parts). And yes, there were some positive aspects in them, but like I said before (and as these reviews say), its a wasted opportunity.

As were some of mine. In one case we've even quoted from the exact same opening paragraph. (Bold equals eXistenZ, Italics equals Welsh Dragon.)

Total War: Rome 2 Empire Divided adds little that feels substantially new. (Though) the free politics overhaul shows promise.

http://www.pcgamer.com/total-war-rom...tantially-new/

Which reinforces my point. You, possibly subconsciously, have chosen the negative parts. I've consciously chosen the positive parts. But to get an understanding of what the review is actually saying you need to look at the whole thing.

(One of the most famous examples of this is the film Titan A.E., promoted with the words of a famous reviewer "This Is Star Wars" but not the rest of the sentence where the reviewer heavily criticised the film... can't find the exact quote but I think the phrase "watered down" was in there.)

I also don't understand why one guy says "the free politics overhaul shows promise". Doesnt he understand that what he played his the best his gonna get? if there is gonna be some promise in it (and I showed in my opening post way there actually isnt any), it will have to come from modders.

I think his use of promise is explained by this part of the final paragraph (which happens to be a positive part of another paragraph where you quoted the negative final line.)

The package is improved by the free politics overhaul that now works in any Rome 2 campaign. This does a much better job of showing which political parties have influence in your empire, and where. Naturally you can undermine opponents and promote useful allies, but I need to dig in more to find out how nefarious you can get, and how much effect the new system really has across campaigns. It certainly feels a lot fresher than Empire Divided.

I think he basically means "I like the new politics, but haven't had a chance to really go into detail with it enough to know exactly how good it is."

The ratings for this dlc vary around 7 (http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/to...empire-divided). The ratings for WH2 are around 85+. Pretty clear whats been handled by the A-team, and whats been done by the trainees

I really hope that's a typo, as it's actually averaging around a 70 not a 7. Which for a DLC for a 4 year old game made on a budget is in my view a pretty good score.

Warhammer 2 happens to be a much bigger project, with a much larger budget, probably more people assigned etc. I don't think comparing a completely new game retailing at £39.99 to a DLC for a four year old game that's retailing at just over a quarter of the price, is fair to be honest. It's also Warhammer, which for some seems to instantly make it better. (I mean seriously, almost the entire first paragraph of RPS's review is about how Fantasy is better, and he spends much of review comparing it to Warhammer. And later he's going on about how they should take ideas from Paradox... Kinda makes me wonder if he's actually reviewing this game/DLC.)

I also think you're doing a massive disservice to the team that have made this DLC and update by calling them "trainees." Each team will likely have a mixture of very experienced heads, people who have been doing this for a while, and some new faces. Whether or not the end product is good or not is really up to the individual, but calling those that made something you don't like "trainees" is a bit much in my view.

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

[Nikron]

P&P isn't a bad update at all, it's just a bit too late to make it an interesting added feature(s). We've been playing Rome II for more than 4 years so there's no way P&P will deliver a refreshing experience.

Sure, we'll start new campaigns to try the new features out but after a few turns 99% of the reasons to continue playing will the the mods or overhauls like DEI rather than a small "experience boost" like P&P.

Same goes to Empire Divided. Besides the first few turns when we get familiar with everything new, it will feel just like the dozens of campaigns we've done with Rome and nothing else.

This DLC was meant to keep us occupied for max 6 months until Thrones of Britannia, so that tells you that even their goal wasn't to amaze anyone, except of killing boredom while waiting for historical content.