ROME II - Official Multiplayer discussion.

[markste]

Can we add more than 5 friends in multiplayer.

[UpNSmoke225]

Man the Roman civil wars would be awesome in MP

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[Rigby]

There is several things i would like to see in regards to MP.

1.) MP campaign with like 10-20 players. Could be maybe done with with time limit on a players turn. And maybe auto resolving battles.

2.) Avatar campaign for single players and for clans.

3.) Fog of war in a MP battle(similar to Starcraft2). This is a huge must in MP for me to make this game stand out , i don't want to see my opponents army set up but rather need to scout his army. Units should have a certain LOS.

4.) More balanced MP maps and more maps in general.

[Xantrip]

There's a few things I would like to see for multiplayer that mostly deal with faction balance. First, let's ennumerate the issues that RTW had:

1) Blatantly Outclassed Factions:
Gaul, Spain, Thrace, Dacia, Numidia, Germania mainly, with too. The first four factions just suck, and there's no reason to pick them against a stronger faction. Numidia and Germania have very few playable matchups, and in general are just crappy.

My hope is that in RTW 2, there will be no completely outclassed factions, and everyone will have a role in the game.


2) Rome is too strong as a Generalist Faction:
This is tricky, because Rome is nowhere near the strongest faction in CWB. I will elaborate on this in a later post.


3) Overpowered missile units and horse archers:
Infantry should play a greater role, as it did historically. Right now, Archer units are just too strong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbNI1Rgmedw

These are perhaps the two best players in the game. Look at Zeke's (Seleucid Empire) army. His infantry is 2 Silvershield Legions (and 2 Peasants as arrow fodder), but he has 6 Archers. Is this anything close to historical?

Horse Archers are just broken, that's why CWB and TWPL rules limit them so much.


4) Too many cheese and ahistorical units.
Scythia is garbage without Maidens. Britannia armies usually have 6 Headhurlers but no actual Swordsmen (da ). Let's not even get into Egypt, which should be the Ptolemaic Empire.


5) The 1v1 game is basically cinematic rock/paper/scissors with too many imbalances.
Some matchups like Parthia-Egypt and Greece-Rome are just useless to play because they're so one-sided. There are too few good matchups in Rome. This is compounded by the issue of the Chariot factions, some of which literally have NO bad matchups.

[freakkriek]

1) Blatantly Outclassed Factions:
Gaul, Spain, Thrace, Dacia, Numidia, Germania mainly, with too. The first four factions just suck, and there's no reason to pick them against a stronger faction. Numidia and Germania have very few playable matchups, and in general are just crappy.

2) Rome is too strong as a Generalist Faction:
This is tricky, because Rome is nowhere near the strongest faction in CWB. I will elaborate on this in a later post.

3) Overpowered missile units and horse archers:
Infantry should play a greater role, as it did historically. Right now, Archer units are just too strong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbNI1Rgmedw

4) Too many cheese and ahistorical units.
Scythia is garbage without Maidens. Britannia armies usually have 6 Headhurlers but no actual Swordsmen (da ). Let's not even get into Egypt, which should be the Ptolemaic Empire.

5) The 1v1 game is basically cinematic rock/paper/scissors with too many imbalances.
Some matchups like Parthia-Egypt and Greece-Rome are just useless to play because they're so one-sided. There are too few good matchups in Rome. This is compounded by the issue of the Chariot factions, some of which literally have NO bad matchups.

1) a few are weak granted, but have you ever tried spain?? Those javelins really make it a fun faction, and ooo those bull warriors.... and gaul isn't a weak faction it's just very very very limited in good units, with the swordman and (one of the best) archer units you can go a long way even against romans.

2) Well they eventually did conquerer the mediterrean Sea didn't they? So a powerdifference can't be removed but what I do think is that the pre-Marian units are overpowered, especially since the post marian units aren't that much better. I'd probably make the hastati units cheaper and a little weaker and keep or raise the strength and cost of the post - marian units.

3) Again are you sure?? The reason Parthia kept Rome at bay was it's combined reliance on horse archers and cataphracts. I don't understand why you think archers are that overpowered, even in the Middle Ages archers could decimate a powerfull armoured opponent (knights). just check a few battles in the 100year war between France and England. And not every country has archers with sufficient power to hurt you, as I recall only Gaul, Greek peltast, Egyptian archers, Armenian and Parthian archers could really hurt you by arrow. When you play a campaign no one just recruits archers and conquerer the world, however that is possible with only infantry so i'd say that infantry is still the head motor of the game.

4) true

5) True, but aren't you just comparing the "best" units of each faction since when PVP'ing every player will try to take the most powerfull units. It's however not necessary that every faction is as powerfull as one another that would be just rediculous!! If the Seleucids empire can stay alive (an awesome campaign btw) they have no problem rivalling Rome! And of course some factions are in a clear adventage when battling each other but... so what, you can't just start giving the greek awesome archers or swordmen for balancings sake. So it stands to reason that Rome would have an adventage in those battles, however Carthage and Seleucids are more then qualified to take them down.
And the chariots well....

[Xantrip]

1) a few are weak granted, but have you ever tried spain?? Those javelins really make it a fun faction, and ooo those bull warriors.... and gaul isn't a weak faction it's just very very very limited in good units, with the swordman and (one of the best) archer units you can go a long way even against romans.

More than fun, the idea is to make the factions competitively viable.

2) Well they eventually did conquerer the mediterrean Sea didn't they? So a powerdifference can't be removed but what I do think is that the pre-Marian units are overpowered, especially since the post marian units aren't that much better. I'd probably make the hastati units cheaper and a little weaker and keep or raise the strength and cost of the post - marian units.

Basically, Urban/Praet spam ruins Carthage/Macedon/Greece and makes it so they're only really good for anti-Chariot games, and even then they don't reliably beat Egypt and Pontus.

3) Again are you sure?? The reason Parthia kept Rome at bay was it's combined reliance on horse archers and cataphracts. I don't understand why you think archers are that overpowered, even in the Middle Ages archers could decimate a powerfull armoured opponent (knights). just check a few battles in the 100year war between France and England. And not every country has archers with sufficient power to hurt you, as I recall only Gaul, Greek peltast, Egyptian archers, Armenian and Parthian archers could really hurt you by arrow. When you play a campaign no one just recruits archers and conquerer the world, however that is possible with only infantry so i'd say that infantry is still the head motor of the game.

Real life armies didn't have 3 times the amount of Archers than Infantry. But you just saw a top-level multiplayer match where that was the case.

4) true

5) True, but aren't you just comparing the "best" units of each faction since when PVP'ing every player will try to take the most powerfull units. It's however not necessary that every faction is as powerfull as one another that would be just rediculous!! If the Seleucids empire can stay alive (an awesome campaign btw) they have no problem rivalling Rome! And of course some factions are in a clear adventage when battling each other but... so what, you can't just start giving the greek awesome archers or swordmen for balancings sake. So it stands to reason that Rome would have an adventage in those battles, however Carthage and Seleucids are more then qualified to take them down.
And the chariots well....

I don't care about people using the best units or about perfect balance, I just want those best units to be at least somewhat historical. Instead of "Head Hunting Maidens," why couldn't Creative Assembly have reskinned them and called them something like "Barbarian Elite Cavalry" or "Barbarian Axe Cavalry"?

Let's not even get into Egypt...




My hopes for Rome 2 are that it has more historicity and better balance. If it were up to me, I would either: 1) get rid of cheese units, 2) Make cheese units significantly stronger, but hardcap them at a low number. The second one would add flavor and fun, but it would prevent people from doing things like making Britannia armies that have 6 Head Hurlers but no Swordsmen.

Better balance is a bit harder. Maybe I'm wrong about faction battles being If it were up to me, my goals would be that:
1) Every faction is playable in multiplayer. They don't have to be top-tier, but at least playable.
2) Archers have their strengths toned down, or CA develops some way to stop Archer spam.
3) More balanced, playable maps.

and the most controversial:

4) I know that its very, VERY hard to balance every faction against every other. Maybe that's a good thing. But I think it IS a problem that there are too few playable 1v1 matchups in Rome Total War.

I think that adding viable Barbarian factions, slight nerfs to the Chariot factions, and slight buffs to might be just what we need to fix this.

There's a few more I'll add later.

[Emperork]

One thing i really hope they implement is the ability to for allies to fight as AI. I don't understand why in shogun if i get a trade agreement or ally with my cousin i can no longer control the enemy armies. Just because it is good short term for us to ally or trade doesn't mean we don't want to fight the battles and make the game more difficult for each other.

[Raftor]

One thing i really hope they implement is the ability to for allies to fight as AI. I don't understand why in shogun if i get a trade agreement or ally with my cousin i can no longer control the enemy armies. Just because it is good short term for us to ally or trade doesn't mean we don't want to fight the battles and make the game more difficult for each other.

Yes I agree with you the point of mp campaign is to have fun and it is more challenging to replace AI

[Xantrip]

Oh, and one more thing that goes along with my frustration with unrealistic army compositions.

So we all know that its pretty ridiculous that Britannia takes armies with massed Head Hurlers and zero Swordsmen. How its pretty ridiculous that Scythian armies contain massed female axe-wielding amazons. Let's not even get into "Egypt," which historically didn't even exist at this time.

But one more issue I have: how even at lower money counts, games feature hordes of elite infantry (Urban Legions, Sacred Bands, Royal/Bronze/Silver Phalanxes, Pharaoh's Guards, etc) going at it.

This is because there's no place for lesser infantry. This is because Missile units are the dominant, most cost-effective force in RTW, and they eliminate lower-quality Infantry from contention because they will just end up as arrow fodder.

That's not realistic, of course. Carthaginian infantry were NOT comprised solely of Sacred Bands. Roman armies may have been more uniform, but Romans didn't just have massive hordes of elite infantry to throw around.


Again, my biggest hopes for Rome 2 are fun, historicity, and better balance, in that order. There are a few things CA can do to achieve the latter two goals, as well as making a fun game.

1) Keep elite units, perhaps make them even stronger, but hardcap them at a low number. What this will do is make them powerful and meaningful, but prevent players from spamming them.

2) Find some way to stop Archer spam. In RTW, Archers are just too cost-effective, and they're too strong, to the point that everyone is pretty much required to take the max allotted contingent of Archers under whatever ruleset they're playing. But the problem is that if CA drastically increases Archer pricing, it may make missile units disappear entirely. I think that the solution here may be to either softcap or hardcap archers, or to change the math behind how they work.

3) Get rid of blatantly ahistorical things. On one hand, some liberties are cool: we know Roman soldiers didn't wear segmented armor in RTW's timeframe, but we'll accept it. But its harder to accept things like Britannia's Headhurler Hordes.

4) Make it so no faction is useless. A lot of the Barb factions in the game, if they got some buffs, could roll with dudes like Rome and Seleucids. It would add a lot of interesting, fun matchups to the game. Of course, CA would have to differentiate the Barb factions effectively, or run the risk of creating a lot of similar factions like what happened in Barb Invasion. But eh, its for the best!

[Diglytron]

I indeed hope the balance will return. Not sure how mp battles will be equal expecially with the strong Romans.

[Xantrip]

I indeed hope the balance will return. Not sure how mp battles will be equal expecially with the strong Romans.

I hope they don't make Rome even stronger...Rome is already the strongest faction bar none in high money games. At low money, the only things that can challenge Rome are the Cataphract and Chariot factions, which basically rely on that one-trick pony to fight the Romans.

I don't mind Rome being strong, after all, its the name of the game! However, I would like to see less matchups that Rome autowins. In history, Hannibal gave the Romans a run for their money, he didn't lose every single fight!


So basically:
Make it so factions without Catas or Chars (or Scythia) can compete against Rome. Perhaps change the Cata/Char factions around a bit so they don't have such an advantage against the Romans.

Or don't change them, since it may promote faction homogeneity. And I agree that too much homogeneity would be bad for the game, but if it meant that we could see Rome in more playable matchups, its probably worth looking into. Who doesn't want an epic match of Rome against the Barbarian Hordes?

[alQamar]

unluckily Rome won with discipline and better morale aswell better tactics and weapons against barbarian hordes please refer boudica last battle on youtube.

imho we do not need a rebalance of Rome 1 factions. if you want to play multiplayer you can use rulesets and custom money (if they make available it again) and if you play campaign it should help that roman units cost much more than barbarian ones in Rome 1.

i agree with Xantrip that all factions that do not have special units like catas, headhurlers or elephants should have at least a special unit that can compete a little bit with romans, and with use of superiour tactics you will make them route finally.

that would be EPIC

[Xantrip]

unluckily Rome won with discipline and better morale aswell better tactics and weapons against barbarian hordes please refer boudica last battle on youtube.

imho we do not need a rebalance of Rome 1 factions. if you want to play multiplayer you can use rulesets and custom money (if they make available it again) and if you play campaign it should help that roman units cost much more than barbarian ones in Rome 1.

i agree with Xantrip that all factions that do not have special units like catas, headhurlers or elephants should have at least a special unit that can compete a little bit with romans, and with use of superiour tactics you will make them route finally.

that would be EPIC

Yeah, we don't need a full rebalance of Rome 1's multiplayer factions. But I think there is definitely room for safe, conservative things that Creative Assembly can do in order to make the game more fun, historical, and balanced.

Honestly, just simple buffs to the weak Barb factions, as well as replacing Egypt with the historically accurate Ptolemaic Empire, should be fine.

I still like my suggestion of powerful but unit-count hardcapped elite units though. Think about it this way: what feels more epic and historical: one immensely Sacred Band unit standing at the vanguard of your infantry and inspiring nearby troops? Or your entire infantry composed of Sacred Bands because the Roundshields and Poenis are bad, ala Rome 1? When there are too many Sacred Bands, Praetorians, Bronzeshields, etc, the whole idea of "elite unit" loses its sense of meaningfulness.

[Argon Viper]

Hello, I'm new to the forums, although I've played all of the Total War games since Medieval starting in 2001 and done MP in all of them. Anyways, I figured I'd put up my wishlist of features.

1. Avatar. I really liked the avatar system of Shogun 2 and I hope they keep and even expand it in Rome 2. Mostly I'd like to see a deeper level of specialization (do you prefer commanding archers or infantry?) and a wider list of possible traits. Also, I'd like to see automatic traits beyond the build-able ones. Did you win your last three battles with decisive cavalry charges? Great, your general now has a trait that improves your cavalry even further. Something like that could make it really cool

2. Avatar (again). I'd be curious to see how they handle this, since in Shogun it was really easy. All factions used basically the same units, so you never really had to choose. In Rome 2, will your avatar be a mercenary general, for hire by any faction? If so, you could end up gaining a lot of traits that don't help you with certain factions (I'm a great cavalry commander, but crap, I'm commanding Greeks and their hoplites...). Or is your general locked to a faction? If so, I'm going to need to be allowed a lot more than two avatars =P

3. Unit Customization. I liked the veteran system of Shogun, being able to take veteran units from battle to battle and keep improving them. I'd like to see more of that, can I upgrade the armor for my veteran units? Maybe gain money for victories that you can use to add features to your units. Even something like buying them better shoes to improve their stamina could be really cool.

4. Matchmaking system. Again, a good feature from Shogun, I'd like them to keep it. Being a zero star general and finding yourself matched against a ten star is pretty demoralizing.

5. Unit Selection. It was a little annoying in Shogun 2 not to have the full range of unit options. I like the idea of keeping some left to earn as the game went on, but in the start when you have nothing but Ashigaru and one type of Samurai, the guy who has unlocked even one other Samurai type has a huge advantage on you.

6. Retainers. Again, great system, I'd like to see more retainers in the avatar conquest map instead of unlocking so many units. Another cool thing could be to unlock certain types of upgrades for your units as you go across the conquest maps (maybe Liguria opens up the possibility to buy better spears for your men).

7. Terrain. While a Roman army is certainly going to be superior to just about anything else in the game (let's face it, the legion was awesome), I'd like to see a greater influence of terrain. Commanding a Germanic army against Rome would suck, but it should be a lot easier if you choose a densely wooded or snowy map. Same with the Numidians in the desert. That would put the factions on a little bit more equal footing, even if it would make the map selection process a bit more contentious.

Anyways, that's my two cents. A lot of the comments and discussion seem to have some really good ideas, let's hope CA is listening. Let me know what you think of what I've put down.

[Diglytron]

Good list. I agree with most of the points. I expecially agree with point seven. I always wanted this to be in the MP. FOTS had it already quite a bit . I could eaven win battles with smart use of forrests, rivers and houses with my force of samurais against an army of gun-carrying soldiers. That's how its supose to be, making it challeging for all.

3. Unit Customization. I liked the veteran system of Shogun, being able to take veteran units from battle to battle and keep improving them. I'd like to see more of that, can I upgrade the armor for my veteran units? Maybe gain money for victories that you can use to add features to your units. Even something like buying them better shoes to improve their stamina could be really cool.

This indeed. I really liked that. It should be better worked out tough since I really diddn't understand it in Shogun

Oh, and welcome to the forums

[Argon Viper]

Thanks, I was hoping that the units would retain some historically accurate balance (let's face it, the legions were ridiculously powerful), but that formations would degrade on certain terrain. For example, the old Roman tactic of retreating to broken terrain to defeat the phalanx, or the Germanic tactic of drawing the Romans into the woods to turn a formation fight into a melee. All of that would allow a balancing of the factions in multiplayer beyond what plain unit stats would imply.

Also, allowing unit stats to change based on the formation (phalanx troops having a higher defense value in formation than out of formation, for example) would go a long way toward evening the field and improving the historical accuracy.

I also liked the division of defense values (I recall reading about that a long time ago in Medieval 2) where an attack on the forward quarter allowed defense with the skill, shield, and armor, an attack on the left used only the shield and armor, on the right used only the skill and armor, and the rear used only the armor. Having just one value for "defense skill" and one for "armor" doesn't strike me as allowing enough nuance in the direction of the attack.

As far as the unit customization, I was hoping a screen sort of like the one from Knights of the Old Republic http://gamersrevenue.com/blog/wp-con.../equipment.png could be used to equip a unit. Something like one of those boxes for the shoes, one for the armor, one for the weapon, one for the pack, etc. You could even integrate the veterancy upgrade screen into it as well so you'd have all of your upgrade options at your fingertips just by double clicking on the unit. Hopefully that would be a bit more intuitive because I'll agree that the system in Shogun 2 took a while to figure out.

[Rijul.J.Ballal]

I want it all I want it all !!!

[Rijul.J.Ballal]

or a balanced combination of all that they have made so far

[alQamar]

Hi guys i am doing a repost

The whole Totalwar Petition in detail / multiplayer community feature request

we finally managed to refine our petition, make it more easier to understand for everyone aswell as delivering more information about why we want to change the status quo.

[Argon Viper]

Speaking of the unit upgrade screen, one thing that would be nice would be if the help text on the upgrade buttons would tell you how much it would increase a stat by. You had to actually use up the upgrade point to figure out how much the attack upgrade would increase the attack of different units. I'd much prefer to see beforehand how much difference I'm going to make in the various skills.

Also, a "balanced" option would be very nice; instead of just upgrading attack or defense or morale, it would upgrade all of the stats to a lesser degree.