This mod compared to Vanilla

**Titan84** · April 07, 2011, 05:13 AM

I only just started playing RTW again after quite a long hiatus and i decided to give vanilla a go before i installed any mods for old times sake.

oh dear... It's horrible just horrible. Everything from the wardogs, screeching women to the non existant challenge posed by the AI. I love the fact that in order to make most units rout it is only necessary to 'touch' them in the flank never mind charge them. I guess i'd forgot how bad it was.

Anyway, comparing this mod to vanilla is like comparing an apple to an orchard! It's a compliment to just how far this mod has gone to improving the vanilla game. I guess we still have to praise vanilla since without that we wouldn't have this mod.

You might wonder what the point of this post is, well consider it a praise thread to the developers of Roma Surrectum II, nice one guys, superb!

Edit:- ooops i just noticed another praise thread below, never mind, you can never get too much praise!

**Ferdiad** · April 07, 2011, 02:39 PM

We need a merge methinks.

**dvk901** · April 07, 2011, 03:39 PM

Indeed.

**apple** · April 08, 2011, 01:58 AM

All this talk about apples makes me worried.

**Titan84** · April 08, 2011, 06:59 AM

haha, yea it was the only thing that came to mind at the time! Maybe i was hungry

**Spartan198** · April 08, 2011, 01:54 PM

Originally Posted by apple

All this talk about apples makes me worried.

**Ferdiad** · April 08, 2011, 04:42 PM

Originally Posted by Spartan198

You monster!!!(Where did you find him?)

**Odovacar** · April 08, 2011, 12:16 PM

Once started Roma Surrectum there is no going back. Ever

**Rex Romanorum** · April 08, 2011, 08:28 PM

i have the same feeling man, but i think that roman ninjas were even worse than screeching women

**Titan84** · April 09, 2011, 03:11 AM

Yea think one of the developers said 'we've got to get ninjas in here somewhere'....

I always found it amusing how the wardogs were like an ancient fire and forget weapon. Also when i played a julii campaign (briefly) before this mod, fighting the gauls was like fighting a bunch of blokes dressed in fancy dress out on a stag do! Those skins are just painful to look at

**Dahoota** · April 09, 2011, 07:58 AM

Originally Posted by Titan84

Yea think one of the developers said 'we've got to get ninjas in here somewhere'....

I always found it amusing how the wardogs were like an ancient fire and forget weapon. Also when i played a julii campaign (briefly) before this mod, fighting the gauls was like fighting a bunch of blokes dressed in fancy dress out on a stag do! Those skins are just painful to look at

Yeah, I hated the way the Barbarians were represented in vanilla. And how stupidly easy they were to beat, at least the Gauls and Iberians anyway. The way the barbarian factions have been done in this mod is one of my favourite things about it (I even played a serious barbarian campaign for the first time

)

Maybe CA got their art direction for the Gauls from Conan comics or something

**Ferdiad** · April 09, 2011, 04:20 PM

Originally Posted by Dahoota

Yeah, I hated the way the Barbarians were represented in vanilla. And how stupidly easy they were to beat, at least the Gauls and Iberians anyway. The way the barbarian factions have been done in this mod is one of my favourite things about it (I even played a serious barbarian campaign for the first time

)

Maybe CA got their art direction for the Gauls from Conan comics or something

No, they wanted them to be asy to beat for the n00b players and look cartoonish and bright to appeal to them even more.

**Titan84** · April 10, 2011, 06:34 AM

That's the problem, they needed to make the game appealing to the casual player. People like us who are looking for a 'deeper' experience are in the minority.

What opinions do you guys have on shogun 2 btw? My current rig won't run it decently so i'm saving it for the future

**♔DARTH LEGO♔** · April 10, 2011, 11:58 AM

....RSII is what RomeTW should a been like from the first place!!!!

CA have definitely got their work cut out for them on RTW2....after being spoiled so much by DVK and the lads i doubt the community would accept anything less than complete perfection in that game.....

Its top drawer gentleman like these that keep games companies on their toes

**chris10** · April 10, 2011, 12:47 PM

Originally Posted by ♔BayonetFodder♔

....RSII is what RomeTW should a been like from the first place!!!!
CA have definitely got their work cut out for them on RTW2....after being spoiled so much by DVK and the lads i doubt the community would accept anything less than complete perfection in that game.....
Its top drawer gentleman like these that keep games companies on their toes

As much as I agree with some of your statements I would remind everybody to bear some things in mind.

A game developer has to deliver a game to appeal the average/casual player and not just a small minority of hardcore players... After all its a buisness and not a hobby
Game developers have a limited timescale to actually finish a game
The modding community "worldwide"-spoken is pretty much under 5% of all gamers (all platforms) and with that a small minority which does not make any difference in the financial yearly reports of big developers..even if some people try to ignore that fact and come up with truckloads of fancy arguments why modders and mods do good but the reality is that if people would stop modding TW games today it would not make a difference at all for CA or SEGA... finacially spoken.
I know that there will be a bunch of guys disagreeing with this but none of them can come up with some reasonable numbers and calculations to proove the opposite...this is cause its not like that.
Every game out there could be perfect if developers would have unlimited time and ressources. All released games are only a compromise between the available ressources (money,staff), the money greedy publisher,the deadline and the real gamers in the dev-team
Never forget that without a game engine and the game itself there is nothing to mod

**♔DARTH LEGO♔** · April 10, 2011, 12:52 PM

all very true Chris....

without the original there is no mod and i do not forget that and the fact without companies like CA etc taking the risks we wouldnt even be having this conversation all fair play.....

But i do feel we get better after sales service form the community than the the devs./pubs, and thats just wrong.....

**chris10** · April 10, 2011, 01:09 PM

Originally Posted by ♔BayonetFodder♔

But i do feel we get better after sales service form the community than the the devs./pubs, and thats just wrong.....

The thing is...is not up to a developer to make total conversions of his game to extend his lifetime...is it ?

...and modders have as much time as they want to ponder over solutions,changes and this and that...so the results can be very convincing..

While I agree that CAs policy could be far better I as well know that the patching thing for example sometimes comes to an end when it would change the source code that much that it would acutally break the vanilla game ...(Thats the reason they never could patch up EmpireTW battle AI cause the new routines for Napoleon would not have been supported by Empire source code)...
Among the comunity things are seen most times in a very biased form...and yes...in an ignorant form too.
People talk about things...fix this...fix that..patch this..patch that...without the slightest idea if this can be done or would be supported by the original code...sometimes the need to patch something reveals a design error within the engine as it turns out that the error could not be fixed without breaking something else...software for bigger games is so unbelivable complicated...

**Pe Ell** · April 10, 2011, 01:10 PM

RS is what's keeping me playing Rome:TW.
Vanilla was basicly build Urban Cohorts, press attack on the enemy, go make a cup of tea, come back and have victory screen with 0 losses.

I haven't tried Shogun 2 yet, I'm feeling burned out of CA after every release they have made promising better AI and it's still as stupid as ever. I know it will never compare to a human, but having your ally backstab you with a stack of 3 units after having a shared war for 10 year and donating them money is just frustrating. I don't mind the betrayals, they are part of war, but the randomness gets me. Feels like every turn you have a landborder with someone they randomly flip a coin to decide if they'll go to war or not. "This turn... tails, nope. This turn... tails, nope. This turn, heads! War!!!" How is the AI in that regard in Shogun 2?

**ithinkitsdead** · April 10, 2011, 01:58 PM

My honest opinion?
RS2 is THE mod for RTW, epitomizing what the game could do.
RS1, on the other hand, seems like a game the CA would have posted up on a wall in a golden frame with all of its awards.

If you look at it, RS2 is a wonderful mod. It has depth, historical accuracy, and looks fantastic.
BUT, RS1 has just the perfect balance of casual and hardcore dropped into the mix.
It is just right when it comes to mixing fantastic graphics, and terrific gameplay. The only thing it was missing, IMO, was the scripts of RS2.

Like I said, just my opinion. I play RS1/2 between my own modding time. Despite all the games I have to choose from, these two make the game worth while.