Rome II Praise Thread (2)

[KamenLily]

Thank you, Welsh Dragon!!

Can't wait for tonight to play a bit more. The bit that played last night was really fun.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Only some days more and i ihave update my mods and i can play.^^ How are your campaigns?

[Welsh Dragon]

Thank you, Welsh Dragon!!

Can't wait for tonight to play a bit more. The bit that played last night was really fun.

You're welcome. Hope you are having fun.

Only some days more and i ihave update my mods and i can play.^^ How are your campaigns?

Well I'm up to Turn 79 of my Masaesyli/Numidia campaign. (Hard/Hard, Vanilla.)



Confederated on turn 3 with the other Desert Nomads so quickly founded Numidia. Picked off Carthage's client states by joining other people's wars, but have left Carthage alone as they've been a good trade partner. Just finished a brutal war with Lusitani which cost me many fine horsemen (lightly armoured horse skirmishers and a faction where virtually every unit has javelins don't mix!)

Really enjoying the Numidia playstyle of very fast and agile cavalry combined with light infantry for a hit and run style of gameplay. They really are a "glass cannon" faction, which is quite different from the sort of factions I usually play. Can do a lot of damage quickly, but if they get caught up in a drawn out fight it hurts!

Also quite impressed by the AI, which seems to be building some big empires and doing a bit better at pursuing war. Sparta, Macedon, Epirus, Seleucids, and Kush are making quite the powerblock of interconnected yet shifting Alliances in the East, and I imagine sooner or later I'm going to have to face them. But for now I'm planning to finish conquering Iberia, and then move into Gaul.

All in all, great fun.

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

You sound to have much fun.

[Alwyn]

That looks like a great Masaesyli/Numidia campaign, Welsh Dragon! I see what you mean about taking on the Lusitani - I'm finding it challenging to fight them as Carthage, even though my Carthaginians tend to be well-armoured. Hearing your report makes me want to try the Masaesyli. It's good to see AI factions forming empires, too, so that the later campaign will be more challenging - I wonder how your Numidians would get on against Sparta and Kush, for example. (I'm surprised that Massilia did so well against Rome - perhaps Rome was caught in between Massilia and Carthage?).

I've enjoyed the first few turns with Kush. Wow, they have some very cheap units (slave infantry and slingers, in particular). Aksum fell easily, but then Egypt declared war. The queen of Kush led her two armies north to take Diospolis from Egypt. This seems like a useful city to take (because of the iron resource) and to defend (because of the bridge north of the city.) Now I need to decide whether to remain in Diospolis, since this seems like a good defensive position, or to continue north and hope to take more Egyptian regions.

Meanwhile, my Carthaginian campaign was mildly affected by the 'diplomacy bug' which has been reported when we load pre-patch 19 save games. Additional diplomatic events suddenly appear in our faction's diplomatic relations with others, such as diplomatic marriages which didn't occur in the actual campaign. Fortunately, it's not 'campaign-breaking', because my Carthage can continue her previous strategy - securing the eastern border by treaties with the Seleucids, helping to defend Libya from attacks from Syracuse and Rome and sending several armies on the offensive against the Celtiberian Confederation in Iberia.

The formation of the Celtiberian Confederation reminds me of a feature of Rome II which I enjoy. When factions know that they can't win a war with the player (and sometimes when an army survives the loss of their last city), I like it when they do their best to survive, by seeking allies, becoming a client state of your enemy or forming a confederation. In my Carthage campaign, the Lusitani have allied with Rome and formed a confederation.

[Welsh Dragon]

That looks like a great Masaesyli/Numidia campaign, Welsh Dragon! I see what you mean about taking on the Lusitani - I'm finding it challenging to fight them as Carthage, even though my Carthaginians tend to be well-armoured. Hearing your report makes me want to try the Masaesyli. It's good to see AI factions forming empires, too, so that the later campaign will be more challenging - I wonder how your Numidians would get on against Sparta and Kush, for example. (I'm surprised that Massilia did so well against Rome - perhaps Rome was caught in between Massilia and Carthage?).

Rome's downfall was really a combination of factors. Being attacked from Massilia in the north and Carthage in the south had quite an effect, especially once Syracuse was destroyed (up to that point they'd been repeatedly hitting the city of Carthage in force, keeping Carthage's armies busy the whole time.) At one point Rome was even completely cut off from the rest of the Roman settlements, because all the regions surrounding it had been taken by Carthage, Massilia and even Etruscan League who launched an amphibious attack! I think my own actions probably also had a strong impact, as without the desert tribes attacking Carthage's forces they could focus on their northern enemies.

As for the future, Sparta probably shouldn't be too bad. I found hoplite armies weren't actually too bad to fight against, because my horse skirmishers can run rings round them hitting them with lots of javelins. Kush on the other hand are a totally untested quantity for me, as I've never fought against them so will be interesting to see how that goes. But that's part of the fun of new factions!

I've enjoyed the first few turns with Kush. Wow, they have some very cheap units (slave infantry and slingers, in particular). Aksum fell easily, but then Egypt declared war. The queen of Kush led her two armies north to take Diospolis from Egypt. This seems like a useful city to take (because of the iron resource) and to defend (because of the bridge north of the city.) Now I need to decide whether to remain in Diospolis, since this seems like a good defensive position, or to continue north and hope to take more Egyptian regions.

Kush early campaign swarm is definitely sounding like a viable strategy.

Meanwhile, my Carthaginian campaign was mildly affected by the 'diplomacy bug' which has been reported when we load pre-patch 19 save games. Additional diplomatic events suddenly appear in our faction's diplomatic relations with others, such as diplomatic marriages which didn't occur in the actual campaign. Fortunately, it's not 'campaign-breaking', because my Carthage can continue her previous strategy - securing the eastern border by treaties with the Seleucids, helping to defend Libya from attacks from Syracuse and Rome and sending several armies on the offensive against the Celtiberian Confederation in Iberia.

Diplomacy bug shouldn't hurt my Nervii campaign for the AAR too much I think, but will be interesting to see what happens.

The formation of the Celtiberian Confederation reminds me of a feature of Rome II which I enjoy. When factions know that they can't win a war with the player (and sometimes when an army survives the loss of their last city), I like it when they do their best to survive, by seeking allies, becoming a client state of your enemy or forming a confederation. In my Carthage campaign, the Lusitani have allied with Rome and formed a confederation.

Funny you mention that. I just had a tribe offer to pay me to let them become my satrapy, as they're being hard pressed by the Gauls... unfortunately for them, I have my eyes set on their settlement. But yes, that's one of the features I like about Rome 2 as well. The AI can be stubborn, but it can also sometimes do exactly what a player would do.

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

[herne_the _hunter]

As for Numidia on hard I think I haven't used enough cavalry (just 4 units of jav cav) in my armies as those slaves and slave slingers are so cheap to use. Rushed for Lol after building up a full stack though I think i'll try and attack immediately on the first turn next time I try this.
Loving the dilemas for each faction as I think that is a very nice touch. Which also explains why they weren't unlocked for the other campaigns.

Kush is a blast haven't haven't tried Nabatea and Saba yet. All in all I think this is one of the best culture packs for Rome 2

[Frunk]

This is an officially sanctioned thread, and was created to replace the old Praise Thread. It is for Praise-related discussion ONLY. Not even constructive criticism will be allowed in this thread and will be deleted as off-topic, with repeat offenders to be penalised.

I have updated the OP and thread title to better reflect this.

[Welsh Dragon]

For anyone interested I've set up a new thread on the "Rome II Strategy & Tactics" forum to discuss the four new factions and what tactics and strategies people are finding works (or doesn't) with them. Everybody is welcome, and I'll hopefully be getting the ball rolling with a few Masaesyli tips shortly.

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

[KamenLily]

I wish I could have more time to play. Since the weekend that I left my Kush campaign untouched.

I left it having a sizable empire in the south-east of the map. And it's a bloodbath out there. Egypt which has allied with the Nabateans and expanded North becoming big finally fell, becoming nothing but a faint fragment of memories in the desert dust.
And yes, once things started to look complicated for them I rushed to put all the nails in their coffin. From my capitol advanced with two armies conquering their capital without resistance. And in the North, everyone was trying to get their cities. I ended with only one.
Now there's a few of sizable empires, including me. Gonna try to get the province of the reborn Seleucids. And in the west the Suebi seems to be the next common enemy. So, maybe we gonna still get along for a while.

Pretty fun times!

[Welsh Dragon]

A new What The Teams Are Working On has gone up, and it has an interesting piece of news for Rome 2.

HISTORICAL NEW CONTENT TEAM – CAMPAIGN NEXT:

With the successful release of Desert Kingdoms and Empire Divided, ROME II has come a long way, but there’s more action and free content to come yet. One big win has been the reduction of players who have problems with mods crashing their game, by creating roll back builds for those who want to use older mods, and the new mod filter for those that want to play new content without forgetting old mods may still be enabled and might cause issues.
We’ve also looked at all of the fan feedback from Empire Divided through to Desert Kingdoms and feel we have a good understanding of things we need to address in the next content release for ROME II. We plan to line this up with the next campaign pack that we feel will be a fresh take on campaign packs for ROME II as well as a very exciting feature for the Free-LC that will release alongside it.

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

[Daruwind]

Olala! Sometimes it feels so good to be right. So looks like ED+DK are successfully enough to get us another Campaign pack! With more fixes and FLCs! So here comes my Alexander or Diadochi Wars?

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Both interesting Scenarios.

[LestaT]

Olala! Sometimes it feels so good to be right. So looks like ED+DK are successfully enough to get us another Campaign pack! With more fixes and FLCs! So here comes my Alexander or Diadochi Wars?

I want more Romans! Claudius Invasion of Britain!

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

If it is Diadochi Wars it should get a new campaign map including North India.

[Irishmafia2020]

I am so glad to see a thread like this - after years of brutal complaints and hatred, RTW 2 deserves some real appreciation. I am amazed that CA is producing new content for a six year old game - to me these latest packs and DLC rosters are really impressive. I am discovering new features regularly - the new government system and statesman missions - female family members! I haven't played in a couple of months as I've been playing the mortal empires campaign on Warhammer, but when I came back to Rome I was genuinely surprised at the added depth and new features. I have played the DEI mod for years, and those modders are magicians at this game, but I still assumed that the limits of playing RTW 2 were being reached. I was wrong, and I only wish that some of my older favorite total war titles had gotten a little extra love (thinking of Empire - an underrated game). I hope that this new content expands the lifespan of this game and generates enough money that CA continues to revisit some of their older titles on occasion. I would love to see a support/DLC that goes 5+ years on these new games that are being released. I admit that too much DLC is a mixed bag, for obvious reasons, but at the moment I am actually excited to see what the new pack is for RTW2!

[herne_the _hunter]

Steam tells me I've played Rome 2 for 83.375 days or 2001 hours since launch (that's spilt between vannilla, mostly some light mods and a tiny amount of total overhual mods) I'm sure if it wasn't for the other games I play I should be upto 3000 hours by now. Onwards and upwards and there's still factions I haven't played yet

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Would it be good if the ThroB recruitment system was patched in, or would it cause too much trouble?

So here our conversation will not be disrupted.

My answer was:

Well the ThroB recruitment fits more in medieval world with vasalls, where vasalls replace the free men, and it makes no sense in a 1turn per year scenario.

[Theramines]

Good idea, Marcus_Iunius.

I guess a recruitment system is not really necessary with the PoR mod. However, it doesn't apply to the AI, so I'd like to have some kind of universal recruitment limits. You see, Rome 2 is so much better than 6 months ago and it's quite exciting to see the changes and new ideas CA is introducing. I'd love for them to tackle some kind of manpower system that also affects the AI.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Hmm, unitcaps would be the easiest way, i think. If i remember right, there were some at the beginning. But it is not easy to make a man power system for the AI, because it must handle it.