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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Re: Hader's Thoughts...On Rome II. What are yours?
Originally Posted by DarrenTotalWar
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Progeny of the retired Great Acutulus (If you know who he is you have been at TWC too long) and wooer of fine wombs to spawn 21 curial whining snotslingers and be an absentee daddy to them
Longest Serving Staff Member of TWC under 3 Imperators** 1st Speaker of the House ** Original RTR Team Member (until 3.2) ** Knight of Saint John ** RNJ, Successors, & Punic Total War Team Member
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
Re: Hader's Thoughts...On Rome II. What are yours?
Originally Posted by Garensterz
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
Re: Hader's Thoughts...On Rome II. What are yours?
Originally Posted by Blueinstinct
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.
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?