Will Rome II finally get away from the whole army in a dingy strategy

[Sneaking Viper]

One thing I always have disliked in the Total War series is the fact that you can put your entire army in one ship. Beside the ridiculous idea, it also makes troop transport and invasions way to easy.

I really hope that they would change that to only having 1 or 2 units per ship, so to transport a full army, you need a full fleet.

[weirdoascensor]

Agree. The Inclusion of Joint Naval-Land Battle made abstractions impossible.
Some Opinions from other Naval Threads:

Ah, Yes... I Have to ask aout this contentious issue:
Unit Transport.
Would it revamped in R2TW? What system would you like? I see oared vessels unsuitable for transporting duties...

*Ship readies to board other ship*
*1200 units, 20 elephants and 10 ballistae pour out to board other ship*

The Inclusion of Amphibious Assaults opens up new things to discuss:
-Would the AI do commerce raiding, ala Fall of The Samurai AI (annoying, but challenging) - AI attacks undefended ports, bombard, and run away(maybe landing a small raiding party to wreak more havoc and pillage for gold)
And Also...This leads to the discussion over...
NAVAL TRANSPORTS
You Know What I Mean....
this is tied to the question : "what consists an armada?". and The Fact that now units trained by the legions.
So this hopefully averts "The Carthaginians Stuff Their Elephants with Their Entire Army into a Bireme" Problem...
Next Questions:
Would the transported units be represented in the ships itself - no abstractions possible: if Naval Battles and Land Battles is one and the same, the marines in your ship would be assisted with the unit it transports!
But Oared Vessels arent the best Transport...Landing Craft, yes, very suitable...but not transports...not mentioning Cavalry and Elephant Units...
The most suitable transports would be the more efficient Sailing Ships.

That's actually a good question.

Since they now have amphibious invasions is it going to be 1 boat per 2 legions (regiments)? The maximum number of naval warships was about 10 wasn't it in FOTS? Otherwise it wouldn't be properly represented on the battle map...

That or the transports will be attached with the warships so when the battle appears the legions will be in their own separate transports which you have to protect and escort them to the beach.

It is stated that fleets are commisioned just like Legions, that its not consisted of only one ships; the stack represents the whole fleet.
But i suspect the system for fleets would be less rigid than Legions...maybe ship transfers would be possible?
Well...CA promised us for bigger battles...that includes number of ships in the map at once...
Interesting...That would be a possibility,as fleet system looks represents the whole unit, auxiliary ships included...
Anyway, boarding a ship carrying Battle-Hardened Crack Elite Legionnaires do not sounds like a good idea for the boarding marines...

I think it's fortunate... It feels like a cog setting itself for the first time in 25 years of clumsily grinding against the rest of the machine. And it just suits perfectly with the epoch.

Of course I'm talking about the transport capacity of ships. And it's because, in the first time in the series, they are pushed, no, forced to finally take this seriously. Why you may ask? Think about it again? Aren't we getting true naval landings this time?

So think again, how would it look a naval assault where an entire legion disembarks from a single Bireme? If you can't picture such grotesque scene, it would go something along this lines:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And I don't think CA would risk to pose as that overlooking this. No, this time, my intuition says we will have to form up truly mighty fleets to back up our plans of conquering beyond the sea horizon.

Omnes puppem! Deinde statur, Carthaginem!

At the begging I say it's fortunate. This is because in this precise period war ships and transport ships where the exact same thing, so both historical accuracy, common sense and gameplay can live in a happy, backstabbing free, triumvirate environment on this regard. And at least for me, this has been something specially annoying.

So, unless there's a completely change on this aspect of the game during development or a horrible zombie apocalypse begins (something that even being pure fantasy still feels awfully close this days), there's no other direction for me but towards happiness on board of a mighty Roman Trireme!
I'll see you all on the other side of the sea marines!

True! I guess there will be transportships and ships for battles.

wondering how this is gonna work in open Sea battles.

Also, an Transportship woud be kind of impossible to board.... since there are so many Troops on it. plus the Crew

That was with me?

Anyway, if sea units now have several ships, it's better! What I want to be over now, and never see again, is those stacks of doom embarked on a single pedal boat. It was inaccurate, unrealistic and annoying. And before anyone says the word abstraction! let me ask you this:

You embark an entire army (around 10k people + supply and animals)on a single small boat. Let's run with "abstraction" for a while.

Your lonely boat of doom is intercepted by another lonely boat of the same class, here the chances are pretty much 50/50. You win, nothing happens.

If you loosed, that single small enemy boat, with probably no more than 50 people on it, somehow managed to burn down and sink an "abstract" fleet capable of carrying 10K, plus equipment and supply? And don't dare to mention "they are civilian ships". Perhaps they were civilian ships, but filled with 10K soldiers, that somehow got raped by less than 50 guys? And how many ships exactly would be needed to transport that many people? They all would get subdued by a small boat?

That's was plain stupid and the proof that there where no such "abstract" fleets, ever, they where all on the same freaking boat.

And thats was just abhorrent.

Now, they can't have that luxury, unless they want clown ships where thousands of troops pop out endlessly. They now can, and should cap the transport capacity of ships in a realistic and practical way.

More Info here.

I think there will be effectively two categories of ships- battle ships and transports. All can hold troops. Transports, however, don't have any ranged weapons like catapults and might be slower. So a lone transport with 100 legionaries on it will still be vulnerable in a one-on-one fight with a battle ship as long as the ship stays away.

However, 5 transports can defeat a battle ship by being able to board and overwhelm the crew. Therefore, a big enough fleet of only transports can survive encounters with small fleets of a few ships. Maybe there will be super fast ships that can ambush a sink a ships in a large convoy of transports, reducing the size of the enemy army trying to land. This would REALLY make strategy for smaller, port nations better, since investing in a fleet would even the playing field against factions with more manpower. You could attack the enemy fleet as it sails to your shores, or perhaps send faster ships to destroy smaller enemy reinforcement fleets or below-strength units returning home. However, large armies on transports won't be vulnerable to a single bireme.

@ Splenyi, your are welcome pal!



Yeah, that was the "idea". In practice, not so much.

The trouble is in my example, if by chance your "escorting fleet" is sunk by a sinlge, small boat, then explain to me how that single, small boat would manage to sink a whole transport fleet filled with troops. Specially true in ancient times where naval combat was often an extension of land combat.

@Bartozer

The number on the unit cards in previous TW games (even the oldies) was the crew, not the number of ships.

@Weirdoascensor

I am pretty sure i've read in one of the preview that the ships recruited in Rome 2 will be in fact a squadron of ships, unlike what was the case in the previous games.

Imagine ships in battlemap with troops in it like the old Rome with troops either in siege towers or those rams. The unit cards will still show the troops but with maybe some ship mark attach on it. Once the ships reach the beach and troops disembark then the ships are no longer in used like abandon ram and siege towers.

The ships that bombards the enemy with ballista/catapults as mention in the preview could mean that the feature naval bombardment as done in FOTS. Maybe they can show actual ships firing on the background outside the red box.

I don't think when CA mention the beach landings we are actually managing on the battle maps both ships and troops but from what I understand from Warscape and previous TW games this as I mention above could be possible.

The ship landing etc on battle map are use the same was as troops uses rams and siege towers in RTW/Med2.

I don't believe we need a separate troops and naval ships anyway. In FOTS I can see the AI sending naval invasion of half stac army with full stack ship. I believe CA had advance the warscape engine to maturity where single ship taking full stack AI army could happen again.

Most of the single ship on campaign map are those attacking ports and trade routes. Makes sense.

I naval battle however I hope that ships carrying troops will be harder to board and maybe have some defence bonus or something.

Mi point exactly. I'm against the invisible ships on the battle map! Those ships that got sunk by a single ship (or any quantity) out of the battle, never having a chance, the auto-destroying of those ships. I dislike it that, precisely that. I'm fine if they still want to "abstract it" on the campaign map by making troops on the sea harder or paying a sum of money at embark (although I still would like to have the transports represented in the campaign map too). But once that fleet is attacked, no more invisible transports.

If you want to see why let's forget the example of the singe boat, let's go with a full fleet against full fleet this time. The battle out and only a single ship survives the engagement. All your army will be alive after that, even if just a single boat survived, and that's stupid...

Think about it for a moment. What if you send your fleet and manage to destroy all the adversary fleet but one ship? It wouldn't matter if you lost all your ships, the invasion would be effectively over once you destroy the army that particular fleet was carrying.

But what would happen with that example in the current games? The whole army still disembarks as if nothing had happened! That's just preposterous.

Fleet carrying troops should have a proportional number of transports on the battle map, and/or some kind of warships should have certain amount of transport capacity.

Let's imagine that for the battle map we are only seeing the escort ships, not the transport ships. Escort ships with only marines and not the legion will be lighter and will be able to intercept any enemy ships long before those hostiles be able to reach the main ships which are transporting the legions. As long as the battle is won even with only 1 ship left the main ships (which we wont see in battle) will still be intact.

I don't think there were separate or special transport ships at during that era. What Roman used was warships like Bireme mostly for escort since they're smaller and lighter and use Triremes for troops transportation. CA can shows those transport ships in naval battle map outside of the red box though but sometimes games can be much more immersive when we can use our imaginations.

The thing is you would like to think that the ten ships that you recruit are the nes that transport the army.

I see them as the ones that escort the army. As long as I win the naval battles then my army should be intact.

The land battle maps where it features beach landing is something different altogether. While it shows ships I believe they're just props. We control the army units which happens to be on ship from the beginning and continue on land as normal. However until Rome II is released or more preview this is just my speculation of course.

Hi!

Well I am not expertise at all, I search information that is all. What you see above is the scheme of the Ecnomo battle. If you see the Roman warships are protecting a group of transport ships. Wind goes to north, to the coast of Sicily. I do not know, but I believe they used oars in troop transport ships because it is very hard to keep a fleet formation so close to the shore depending on a wind that flows towards the coast if transport ships do not have rowers so they can keep the same course their protectors have. In this battle the Carthaginians simulated a retreat of the center of their line to make the front lines of Romans ships to follow them while the flanks of the Carthaginian ships attacked the transports. But the maneouvre failed somehow and the center was defeated by Romans that came back to save the transports and defeat the rest of the Carthaginian ships.

Another thing is that quiqueremes, which were the ship that made the main part of the ships of these two powers, could carry 400-420 men of which 100-120 where soldiers. If a fleet could easily have 50 - 100 ships that would make 5000-10000 soldiers, if we only count the marines. If we count all the crew, that would make 20000-40000, and for sure part of these men were given military use when disembarked.


RECTIFICATION. I have just found another source, a book I had at home that says that Roman Transport ships, mostly for horses transport, were being towed by part of the war ships. So when the Carthaginians aproached the warships cut the links to the tranporst to fight the enemy ships.

Carthaginians had 150.000 men, 40.000 of them could be marines in 350 ships. Romans 140.000 men 300 ships.

I wonder if and how this could be placed in the game

Hi again!

This source says "They were presumably sailing ships, but they had to be towed here in order to keep them in formation". This in page 90.

http://books.google.es/books?id=vtnA...sports&f=false

But in page 93 some moderns schlars believe the had some oars. It seems they kept near the fourth Roman section so they had to have any kind of sailing ability.

It seems that original sources do not speak clearly about the nature of these transport ships. I guess the Romans were not the first to get to this horses transport solution and that many countries had used it before in their naval transport of land forces. It seems that military men were carried in normal warships but the rest of the war material was carried this way as warships were not suitable fot this task. This is not original of me it is also said in that source.

I think it would be nice to see it this way in the game so loosing warships affect to infantry while loosing transports can affect the cavalry and land artillery numbers, and it makes the naval battles more intersting, as going for the transports can be a good target.

[oppaiO_O]

i heard somewhere that one unit will have three ships....

[Maklodes]

What I wonder is why this wasn't included as soon as naval action became part of TW (Original Medieval Total War, or did the original Shogun Total War include it?). CA must not have just neglected to put in a limit -- they must have considered the idea and rejected it (being familiar with the concept, of course, from pretty much every prior strategy game to consider naval transport, such as the original Sid Meier's Civilization from 1991). My inclination, of course, would be to include limits on transportation of units by ship, and not allow the transport of 1500 men in a single bireme, but it would be interesting to heard from CA's designers why they decided not to implement that feature in previous TW games, and whether their reasoning has changed.

[MrOuija]

Should be easier now if the legion concept is brought over to the naval side. If instead of recruiting individual ships you now can recruit fleets then the problem is solved. This would really help the AI as it wouldn't be able to send out its army or navy in drips and drabs anymore and would instead have to transport entire armies just like the player does.

[AngryTitusPullo]

What I wonder is why this wasn't included as soon as naval action became part of TW (Original Medieval Total War, or did the original Shogun Total War include it?). CA must not have just neglected to put in a limit -- they must have considered the idea and rejected it (being familiar with the concept, of course, from pretty much every prior strategy game to consider naval transport, such as the original Sid Meier's Civilization from 1991). My inclination, of course, would be to include limits on transportation of units by ship, and not allow the transport of 1500 men in a single bireme, but it would be interesting to heard from CA's designers why they decided not to implement that feature in previous TW games, and whether their reasoning has changed.

Prior to ETW which feature actual naval battles a single ship/unit card in Rome and Med2 represents a fleet.

I forgot where I actually read this but IIRC it was explain by the developer. I might be wrong but that's what usually explained before.

With ETW and so on this is my own interpretation.

Originally Posted by LestaT
Let's imagine that for the battle map we are only seeing the escort ships, not the transport ships. Escort ships with only marines and not the legion will be lighter and will be able to intercept any enemy ships long before those hostiles be able to reach the main ships which are transporting the legions. As long as the battle is won even with only 1 ship left the main ships (which we wont see in battle) will still be intact.

I don't think there were separate or special transport ships at during that era. What Roman used was warships like Bireme mostly for escort since they're smaller and lighter and use Triremes for troops transportation. CA can shows those transport ships in naval battle map outside of the red box though but sometimes games can be much more immersive when we can use our imaginations.

The thing is you would like to think that the ten ships that you recruit are the nes that transport the army.

I see them as the ones that escort the army. As long as I win the naval battles then my army should be intact.

The land battle maps where it features beach landing is something different altogether. While it shows ships I believe they're just props. We control the army units which happens to be on ship from the beginning and continue on land as normal. However until Rome II is released or more preview this is just my speculation of course.

[jyu123229]

Prior to ETW which feature actual naval battles a single ship/unit card in Rome and Med2 represents a fleet.

I forgot where I actually read this but IIRC it was explain by the developer. I might be wrong but that's what usually explained before.

With ETW and so on this is my own interpretation.

But there's a very big problem in that theory. If each ship slot counts as an entire fleet, why does the upkeep of an entire bireme fleet equal that of around 1 unit of triarii or phalanx pikemen? how would an entire fleet that can transport upwards to 4,800 men cost the same upkeep as 240 men? the developer's claim that it represented fleets was pulled straight out of their ass.

[krisslanza]

But there's a very big problem in that theory. If each ship slot counts as an entire fleet, why does the upkeep of an entire bireme fleet equal that of around 1 unit of triarii or phalanx pikemen? how would an entire fleet that can transport upwards to 4,800 men cost the same upkeep as 240 men? the developer's claim that it represented fleets was pulled straight out of their ass.

Because the ships represented an escort fleet - the army built their own ships and the escorts basically escort them around. It's handwaved basically. You're not supposed to be scrutinizing it.

[AngryTitusPullo]

But there's a very big problem in that theory. If each ship slot counts as an entire fleet, why does the upkeep of an entire bireme fleet equal that of around 1 unit of triarii or phalanx pikemen? how would an entire fleet that can transport upwards to 4,800 men cost the same upkeep as 240 men? the developer's claim that it represented fleets was pulled straight out of their ass.

Upkeep/unit cost/building cost is for game balancing.

[The dead one]

i heard somewhere that one unit will have three ships....

This is correct. one unit will include several ships.

[a tw player]

Indeed, the fleet has always been just the "battle fleet" in TW games; transport vessels are just not represented.

[Sneaking Viper]

Why don't they just take a page out of Paradox's book, 2 units per ship (even that is considered much) that would allow, a 20 unit strong army to sail in a 10 unit strong navy. To say that it is the battle fleet that is shown is wrong, because if that was the case, then why would admirals in Shogun 2 remove the amount of troops you could have in the fleet? That is like saying, you can have a full army, but if you want Nelson as admiral you have to leave the cannons behind?!?

[SonOfCrusader76]

One thing I always have disliked in the Total War series is the fact that you can put your entire army in one ship. Beside the ridiculous idea, it also makes troop transport and invasions way to easy.

I really hope that they would change that to only having 1 or 2 units per ship, so to transport a full army, you need a full fleet.

I agree. In fact, I want to see at least a rudimentary supply/logistics system introduced as well - jamming an entire force on one boat doesn't really cut it.

[Hrobatos]

well a nice solution would to instead of single ship to make multiple ship, and to also present this on map too, as a model of few ships, like a fleet

so you boy fleet, send this small feelt around the seas, and you can also put army onto this fleet...

[Lord Baal]

1) We already discussed this on a previous thread, two actually, one made by me and another made by some one else. But I felt just like you about this Sneaking Vipe, I dislike the canned ham armies.

2) Guys I think you all need to look upon this:

Q. In previous Total War games a single ship has been able to carry whole armies. Why was this and will it change for Rome 2?
A. In previous Total War games this has always been an abstraction. It has never been the case that we are saying all those troops are being held on that one ship. The army has always been thought of as on its own transport fleet which we did not represent, with the actual fleet representing the escort.

For Rome 2 there are a few changes coming to how armies will be moved around on the sea, some of which we won’t talk about for a while, but we will be representing transports this time round.

From this thread.

[Durnaug]

I always imagined the RTW ships as a fleet, not a single ship. Or is that how EB presents it?

The developers should be careful not to make troop transport a chore by creating a "Scipio Simulation" which "recreates the logistical challenges that only a Scipio can handle".

[DarthRuanek]

I always imagined the RTW ships as a fleet, not a single ship. Or is that how EB presents it?

The developers should be careful not to make troop transport a chore by creating a "Scipio Simulation" which "recreates the logistical challenges that only a Scipio can handle".

EB did that. RTW didn't, technically, but I thought of it that way. It was all autoresolved anyway.

[krisslanza]

EB did that. RTW didn't, technically, but I thought of it that way. It was all autoresolved anyway.

Actually as Jack said, RTW already did that - each "ship" was meant to represent a fleet, but you just built a 'single' ship and the army would make its own ships to be carried along by its escort. It was all assumed, as there wasn't any actual naval combat they didn't really need to place a limit on it.

[Sneaking Viper]

Actually as Jack said, RTW already did that - each "ship" was meant to represent a fleet, but you just built a 'single' ship and the army would make its own ships to be carried along by its escort. It was all assumed, as there wasn't any actual naval combat they didn't really need to place a limit on it.

Yeah I know they did that in RTW and M2TW, however in Empire -> it has been single ships, so you have a full army in a sloop or a bow Kobaya, which is a bit like the clown car of the sea's.

And taking the sloops speed into account (since it is not hindered as being "convoy support") you could invade Ireland from Newfoundland in 2 turns.

[krisslanza]

Yeah I know they did that in RTW and M2TW, however in Empire -> it has been single ships, so you have a full army in a sloop or a bow Kobaya, which is a bit like the clown car of the sea's.

And taking the sloops speed into account (since it is not hindered as being "convoy support") you could invade Ireland from Newfoundland in 2 turns.

I think by that point they just didn't want to rework the mechanic. Seems they'll change it up though in R2TW, since you do have naval invasions now.