Historical acuracy needed for sales in rome 2

[ironbrigade]

Historical accuracy does not effect gameplay, it helps sales. There is a audience that ca does not tap into [history buffs] such as http://norbsoftdev.net/. Read there forums they make fun of TW and do not play because of historical inaccuracies.

My opinion is the more accurate to history the better and more sales will come. If rome 2 were not accurate to history [not 100%.but obviously not accurate] I would not buy the game, neither would I buy a fantasy tw or future tw game, I think many are with me in this opinion.

My reasoning is if there are many people such as myself, that would not purchase a game if it were not accurate, why would ca want to make it not as accurate as possible. Those that don't care about historical accuracy as much and play for gameplay alone will buy what they see as a great game [rome 2] anyways. So if the units look realistic and there weapons, armor, cities, cultures, and the units themselves are accurate,they still play because its a great game. Those that do care about accuracy, get a great historical accurate game and more sales all around.

Some say that accuracy is not that important, I herd one example [I would not complain of this but] of who cares if a sandle strap has 3 laces or 2, but what is the difference to them that don't care if its accurate? it does not effect them. If anyone has played mods like total realism, they are better gameplay than vanilla total war. In fact I feel upset half my money could not go to total realism modders instead of CA.

Others will say I want units like flaming pigs, or dogs of war and its ok to throw a few of them in if it adds to gameplay. But why stop there? I think a machine gun a mg42 or even a artillery barrage would be cool, how about a special ability of heroes that can call on aliens to microwave Carthage for me, or a abram tank instead of a battering ram. Who decides when is enough?

If ca creates a historically accurate game, starting point,units,weapons, cultures,cities,etc I think there sales will increase. The good news, I have read in a few articles they plan to do just that, meaning they will not lose those that care, it wont hurt those that do care.

The quote they all say on history being a servant not a master
I am the master of my money, and if ca wants a sale, they should respect the wants of the people who purchase them.

[Anibal at portas]

yes,i agree with you.
your post is very good.
the players that want fantasy in a game based in the history are teenagers,casual players,not know the history and they are person that have low culture.
these teenagers are a bad plague for the serie totalwar.
if these teenager want funny moments that go play with many games as warcraft series or similar style.
but i am a veteran player of totalwar games,i love the strategy since more 30 years and not want a game for candid teenager.
i want a game for adult players and veteran players.
accurate in history and realism and with a excellent AI and other aspect is good.

[hochmeister devin]

If im not mistaken fantasy mods are the most popular... Like thera, lord of the rings, Warhammer, etc. Now having too many historical inaccuracies sucks, having giant historical inaccuracies is ridiculas(1200bce egyptians anyone?), having 100% historical game impossible. Also you may want to be careful what you mention when talking about historical vs unhistorical, because we really dont know if they had flaming pig cohorts, or mass uses of war dogs. Think that was what 2000 years ago, and ghess what happened 73 & 98 years ago. The world wars. Not only that, the fact rome was sacked countless of times, and there been almost constant warfare in europe up intill 1815. happens in wars, look what happened to the libray at alexandria, it got torched and that could have happened to our hypothetical pig cohort records!

yes,i agree with you.
your post is very good.
the players that want fantasy in a game based in the history are teenagers,casual players,not know the history and they are person that have low culture.
these teenagers are a bad plague for the serie totalwar.
if these teenager want funny moments that go play with many games as warcraft series or similar style.
but i am a veteran player of totalwar games,i love the strategy since more 30 years and not want a game for candid teenager.
i want a game for adult players and veteran players.
accurate in history and realism and with a excellent AI and other aspect is good.

I find that extremly offensive Anibal, and your logic is crucially failed, because teenager doesnt mean your an idiot, dont care about history, or just play games for funny moments. Being a teenager has no effect on anything other then your age, just because some teenagers are like that doesnt mean all are. Im a teenager myself, and im a diehard military historical fanatic in my everyday life (you might not expect that from a guy working on 2 fantasy mods, eh?) i could probaly tell you so much about it youd a brick. Im such a historical fanatic my history teachers, and social studies(history teachers for junior high and lower) frequently get annoyed because i know more then them, its been like that since i was 9. Also my best friend and his brother are pretty much the same. So boom 3 examples of teenagers who like historical accuracy, next time you make assumtions about people, stop think is this worth the fact ill look like an utter moron?


P.S. Anibal at portas, i permently ban you from using my mods son i hope you wanted a wheel of time mod, 'cause i wont let ya use it.

[AngryTitusPullo]

If im not mistaken fantasy mods are the most popular... Like thera, lord of the rings, Warhammer, etc. Now having too many historical inaccuracies sucks, having giant historical inaccuracies is ridiculas(1200bce egyptians anyone?), having 100% historical game impossible. Also you may want to be careful what you mention when talking about historical vs unhistorical, because we really dont know if they had flaming pig cohorts, or mass uses of war dogs. Think that was what 2000 years ago, and ghess what happened 73 & 98 years ago. The world wars. Not only that, the fact rome was sacked countless of times, and there been almost constant warfare in europe up intill 1815. happens in wars, look what happened to the libray at alexandria, it got torched and that could have happened to our hypothetical pig cohort records!

The thing is there are some many other unit variety that can be use which the documents didn't get burn at Alexandria so CA does not have to use hypothetical pig cohorts. If it was recorded (which still exist) these poor bacons were used in sieges than make it a some sort of siege mechanism. Like clicking on towers which fire arrows in FOTS, click on some building panel which will release these poor animals on fire. It can be done if people can't get enough of just eating these pigs, they need to have them in their games also.

[Karnil Vark Khaitan]

the players that want fantasy in a game based in the history are teenagers,casual players,not know the history and they are person that have low culture.
these teenagers are a bad plague for the serie totalwar.

Oh Take A chill pill!!
But yeah im offended, and who cares that there is a group of random people, who dont like playimg total war games?

[Durnaug]

yes,i agree with you.
your post is very good.
the players that want fantasy in a game based in the history are teenagers,casual players,not know the history and they are person that have low culture.
these teenagers are a bad plague for the serie totalwar.
if these teenager want funny moments that go play with many games as warcraft series or similar style.
but i am a veteran player of totalwar games,i love the strategy since more 30 years and not want a game for candid teenager.
i want a game for adult players and veteran players.
accurate in history and realism and with a excellent AI and other aspect is good.

I first started playing RTW vanilla as an ignorant adult. I hadn't a clue about the hellenistic empires so, for example, I did not question the presence of the "Mummy Returns" Egyptian units (lol).

I was vaguely familiar with the contours of the Roman Empire map but not how the Romans ended up with that empire. I knew a bit about Casear's conquest of Gaul but essentially I was ignorant of all the other powers Rome went onto challenge.

Mere faction descriptions alone opened up vast historical vistas for me. For example I remember thinking "The diadokees??? How do I say that and what are they? Omg, Alexander's generals!!! Wow" and thus I ran off and gorged myself on knowledge about the sucessor kingdoms. And slowly as I played the game, I recreated the RTW map in my own mind: a map of the kingdoms of the ancient world. It felt bloody empowering.

Playing at the battlefield level had the same effect, "aha so that is what a gaddamn phalanx is supposed to look like". At the time I was an ignorant techie working at a London museum and suddenly I found myself being able to converse with some of the curatorial staff. Well, sort of one sentence interjections during IT Training...

Me: "Oh you must be referring to Ptolemy"

Curator: "Who was Puh Tolemy? Oh, Tolemy!"

Me: "Yeh, um that guy aswell...now click the save button to save your object record"

Then I found out about the RTW mods and what a real Hoplite phalanx looked like; what a real Ptolemaic army looked like; that Spartans should not have 2 hit points *unlessIchangetheEBstathahahahaahhahaha* and the list goes on.

Finally, I have no idea what my point is...oh yes, that there will be many knowledgeable teenagers playing RTW2 and just as many ignorant adults.

PS my memory is all mangled now - I have learned so much via the mods like EB, XGM and RSII that it is hard to judge the details of what I learned from the vanilla game.

[Zimmy]

yes i am a dumb teenager
i know nothing about history
i don't study it every day
no i don't
i totally don't have books on charlemagne.
i am a dumb teenager

[Anibal at portas]

a strategy game is to think and acquire culture and not to go casual candid and funny moments.
and if you are a candid teenager,in my opinion in the market there are many games made for you,to spend funny times.
I'm fed up of these children because the series is more arcade increasing and tends to historical aberrations.

[Nimuro]

a strategy game is to think and acquire culture and not to go casual candid and funny moments.
and if you are a candid teenager,in my opinion in the market there are many games made for you,to spend funny times.

and unit names in latin and greek and a strict looking middle aged lady with a cane who will punish me for incorrect pronounciation

[Zimmy]

a strategy game is to think and acquire culture and not to go casual candid and funny moments.
and if you are a candid teenager,in my opinion in the market there are many games made for you,to spend funny times.
I'm fed up of these children because the series is more arcade increasing and tends to historical aberrations.

Fed up with these children? I study history and am well versed in it but still, I think it's laughable people want their soldiers to go to the bathroom every few turns or need to eat. Sometimes history is fun in a game but sometimes it goes too far.

[Anibal at portas]

Fed up with these children? I study history and am well versed in it but still, I think it's laughable people want their soldiers to go to the bathroom every few turns or need to eat. Sometimes history is fun in a game but sometimes it goes too far.

you are versed in the history of SnowWhite and 7 Dwarfs,because if you defend the teenager thesis of the historical aberrations as flaming pigs,war dog and other aberrations in a strategy game based in the history your idea of ​​a good strategy game is the typical casual player and adolescent.

[Zimmy]

you are versed in the history of SnowWhite and 7 Dwarfs,because if you defend the teenager thesis of the historical aberrations as flaming pigs,war dog and other aberrations in a strategy game based in the history your idea of ​​a good strategy game is the typical casual player and adolescent.

It's funny because flaming pigs were actually used. I'm sorry if I don't want roman poo littering the ground because thats what happened in history.

[Manuel I Komnenos]

Fed up with these children? I study history and am well versed in it but still, I think it's laughable people want their soldiers to go to the bathroom every few turns or need to eat. Sometimes history is fun in a game but sometimes it goes too far.

I've yet to see someone ask something like that. When you sell a game which deals with a historical period, as CA itself declares (and is not about Middle Earth or Warhammer) you've got to present it as accurate as it gets, in a reasonable way of course. Now, when the player starts playing, he should be able to do whatever he wants, such as conquer the world with a small barbarian faction.

The rest will remember it's a video game.

What does that mean? When you buy a game about Middle Earth, you expect that Mordor will field masses of orcs, not humans. When a game claims that it has to do with a certain world/conflict/time-frame, it should remain true to that.

[BeastG33]

What does that mean? When you buy a game about Middle Earth, you expect that Mordor will field masses of orcs, not humans. When a game claims that it has to do with a certain world/conflict/time-frame, it should remain true to that.

It means, first and foremost, that Rome 2 is a game, not a historical documentary, not a teaching tool, not something that should feel shame or be relentlessly criticized if it happens to contain some historical inaccuracies.

Don't give me exaggerated examples as an argument for historical accuracy here. I'm not suggesting that I'd be cool with Creative Assembly arming the Romans with AK-47s or giving us pink pajama Parthians again; all I mean is that if a decision has to be made between historical realism and gameplay, CA will and rightfully should make the gameplay decision at the expense of a little historical accuracy.

This is the balance that must be struck in all video games. In most first person shooters, you don't die or become incapacitated from single shots to the torso even though you almost certainly would IRL. In sports games, developers will often allow for some small instances of clipping to ensure animations and gameplay work smoothly since current controls do not allow for the exact precision and limb movement we have IRL.

I believe Rome 2 will be more historically accurate and true to the time period than the original Rome. I think CA should strive to make the game as authentic as they can. I also believe that there will be some things in the game that may not be 100% historically accurate, but will be there for fun and to add variety and spice to the gameplay. There is nothing wrong with this, in my opinion, because as I originally said, it's a video game.

[Hanomean]

They do want to make it historically accurate, just not at the cost of gameplay. Personally I think historical accuracy or not doesn't really affect sales, marketing does.

[Zimmy]

I personally don't care if the game had flying elephants as long as it isn't boring i would gladly buy it.

[SonOfCrusader76]

I personally don't care if the game had flying elephants as long as it isn't boring i would gladly buy it.

No, that would be entering the realm of complete fantasy - that has no place in TW.

[Zimmy]

No, that would be entering the realm of complete fantasy - that has no place in TW.

Ahahaha i wasn't being literal dear god. I'm versed in history but still. I don't need my units eating every turn or dieing. or having a turn devoted to bathroom break for them.

[MacCarthy]

No, that would be entering the realm of complete fantasy - that has no place in TW.

For real, Lord of the Rings or Warhammer have no place in TW. No one would ever want to play with elves and dwarves.

[SonOfCrusader76]

Historical accuracy on a broad level, yes - but when you start getting down to microscopic details, I just think that's a bit OCD.