Realm Divide- beyond Rome

[RagingCroppy]

So the impression I am getting from the game so far is that Rome2’s version of the “realm divide” will be the civil war and the rise of the Empire with the player choosing whether to side with the Imperialists or the Republicans.

What I am thinking is will other factions get their own unique realm divide with the player making a similar choice? There could be other civil wars like the Seleucid Empire splitting and the Greco-Bactrian or Parthian factions forming or Upper Egypt splitting from the Ptolemaic Empire.

Maybe Carthage could have a mercenary rebellion. Perhaps the Germans could have a more traditional ream divide with tribes uniting against an upstart tribe (like what they did to Arminius.)

This would certainly help each faction or culture feel unique as they would each have their own internal problems to worry about in addition to the threats from outside.

[♠ Thomas Cochrane ♠]

Yes. I have no idea about how they're going to play this one out, but the tribal nature of the european barbarians is something that I hope they get right. a bit like in shogun 2 (as in the Emperor/Shogun), there should be some kind of leader who is able to be somehow elected to represent the clans (e.g. Vercingetorix etc.). So in this sense the gauls have their own "internal" relations which are separate from the other factions around them. Same with the Greeks, Diadochii, Persians etc etc.

[♠ Thomas Cochrane ♠]

If the above post confuses you, I assume it's because you weren't aware that the greeks, gauls and middle eastern nations will be represented in Rome II by multiple factions

[oppaiO_O]

realm divide.... i honestly dont want it in the game if it's all the world suddenly hates you type of RD but like you said if they are represented by civil war then it might be awesome RD but might not last as long since say a couple of stacks pop up all over your lands but once you defeat them is the civil war over and RD end or does another couple of stacks pop up?? and after a while it'll get boring having to chase down stack of armies all over your lands that pop up immidietly

[rekishiotaku]

As discussed before, perhaps Egypt can get some faction splits, either Greek v Native, or even some succession controversy ie Cleopatra VII Ptolemy XIII (which could be for any dynastic faction).
It could be like EmpireTW where a player can either suppress or go along with a rebellion.

I'm not sure how the Greeks are going to be. If they are all under Macedonia, perhaps Greek states can decide to split off, and you can choose to side with Athens or Sparta, or quell the rebellion.

[emotion_name]

An internal civil war type RD would be a good idea, but it can in no way replace the "whole world" RD. Civil war on its own, to be used as RD mechanic, would be pretty pointless imo. Quirky feature, for sure, but after a few playthroughs the novelty wears off and then what???

They need a revised and improved "whole world" RD, that much cannot be argued. For nothing else its to stop mid to late steam rolling of the map, which had been a curse of TW for ages. Problem with RD as its came in S2TW was whilst it would slow you down initially, once you had beaten RD you were free to steamroll again. FotS teaked it a little, for me the main improvement was being able to keep some allies as standard RD killed any immersion you had when long time, friendly allies turned on you for no reason other than a game mechanic told them to.

I would say if every Faction had a internal RD - for Rome it would be Empire/Republic and for Barbarians could be a power struggle between same cultures, for winner to become like Vercingetorix or something, Greek States could have the same sort of thing as well. This internal RD could "trigger" at mid point of a campaign, early enough to warrant some concern from the player. If he survives/wins the internal power struggle, towards late part of campaign you could have world wide RD trigger.

Worldwide RD could be tweaked so any Factions with diplomatic standing of 400 or more will rarely turn on you allowing the player to retain some of the rpg/immersion from the campaign - you and your friends, shoulder to shoulder against the world sort of thing! If you expand to quickly once RD has triggered, even if its 100 turns later, the resistance should be higher and if ignored the internal/civil war type RD should trigger again. If the internal RD triggers during worldwide RD, any allies you kept during wordlwide RD you will lose standing with as you deal with internal RD - killing your own people, my ally doesnt have his house in order sort of thing - next thing you know they cancel alliance and even though you dealt with internal RD once more, you still now have to face the world and if you expand to quickly again, yep, civil war comes back.

Its not a perfect solution, and apologies for lots of text, but i do think its a better system than RD currently offers, and i think its better than just a small scale, internal RD.

[Anna_Gein]

Please cast to oblivion the damn idea of Realm Divide.

Put effort on diplomacy and real internal politic with real civil war.

[krisslanza]

Please cast to oblivion the damn idea of Realm Divide.

Put effort on diplomacy and real internal politic with real civil war.

Honestly unless diplomacy gets a huge, massive change - and really, even then - a Realm Divide mechanic is the only real way to make anything past the mid or late game even a challenge. It's really easy for the player to just outplay the AI and make the remainder of the game a curbstomp. Especially if you simply ally everyone and only pick off weak factions until you win the game.

[Anna_Gein]

Honestly unless diplomacy gets a huge, massive change - and really, even then - a Realm Divide mechanic is the only real way to make anything past the mid or late game even a challenge. It's really easy for the player to just outplay the AI and make the remainder of the game a curbstomp. Especially if you simply ally everyone and only pick off weak factions until you win the game.

But that is what I want and what I am convince TW need to evolve to. Massive improvement of campaign gaemeplay.

RD is superficial difficulty. Because you may be able to steamroll the whole map it let most faction declare war on you so you are forced to effectively steamroll the whole map.

You see what Total War need is .... less total war. War should be made more difficult to support with far less stack in late game.
Instead more campaign feature linked to internal politic should add more to the gameplay. With court intrigue, social change, trade rivality ...

Great empire should suffer civil turmoil simply because it would have more characters and because more culture would be conquered. And so they would be more likely to suffer civil war.
It would make late game harder for the player. Native uprising would also prevent an AI faction to effectively steamroll a good part of the map. Keeping the player able to fight different culture.

[CptAustus]

But that is what I want and what I am convince TW need to evolve to. Massive improvement of campaign gaemeplay.

RD is superficial difficulty. Because you may be able to steamroll the whole map it let most faction declare war on you so you are forced to effectively steamroll the whole map.

You see what Total War need is .... less total war. War should be made more difficult to support with far less stack in late game.
Instead more campaign feature linked to internal politic should add more to the gameplay. With court intrigue, social change, trade rivality ...

Great empire should suffer civil turmoil simply because it would have more characters and because more culture would be conquered. And so they would be more likely to suffer civil war.
It would make late game harder for the player. Native uprising would also prevent an AI faction to effectively steamroll a good part of the map. Keeping the player able to fight different culture.

I agree and disagree. The past few games have the perfect amount of battles in my opinion (maybe the AI should have more of a back up plan, because its so easy to steamroll after winning one battle). However, I do agree maintaining a big faction should be hard, not just a matter of making most towns economic-based.

[krisslanza]

But that is what I want and what I am convince TW need to evolve to. Massive improvement of campaign gaemeplay.

RD is superficial difficulty. Because you may be able to steamroll the whole map it let most faction declare war on you so you are forced to effectively steamroll the whole map.

You see what Total War need is .... less total war. War should be made more difficult to support with far less stack in late game.
Instead more campaign feature linked to internal politic should add more to the gameplay. With court intrigue, social change, trade rivality ...

Great empire should suffer civil turmoil simply because it would have more characters and because more culture would be conquered. And so they would be more likely to suffer civil war.
It would make late game harder for the player. Native uprising would also prevent an AI faction to effectively steamroll a good part of the map. Keeping the player able to fight different culture.

The thing is Total War is about, well, TOTAL WAR. It is not a game meant to be about political maneuvering and trade mechanics. Those are for Paradox games, which let you do many different things to "win".

Total War is about winning the game by stomping everyone under your boot.

[Aurelius Silvanus Tacitus]

I would want to see diferent types of government,each with it's own bonuses and penalties and revolutions/civil wars with more than 2 sides and also a variety of political decisions (ex:a magistrate should be named(promote general or name someone else) or elected and if so by whom). Also we would need an expanded and more efficient diplomacy (like an option to force a country to change it's form of government). I would want to see more "internal" Total War not a RD.

[Anna_Gein]

The thing is Total War is about, well, TOTAL WAR. It is not a game meant to be about political maneuvering and trade mechanics. Those are for Paradox games, which let you do many different things to "win".

Total War is about winning the game by stomping everyone under your boot.

So what ?

There is a need to prevent the player from steamrolling the map in a game where the only goal is to steamroll the whole map ?
Or it might be interesting to add more to the gameplay ?

You know feature not directly linked to war could improve it by adding more sense and more possibility.
For example trade road allow you to raid the trade fleet of your enemy. More diplomacy option allow you to not only declare war on a faction but also to ask to a neutral faction to join your current war.

Yes the game is centre around war but imagine that your population is composed of different class. These class would serve in your army in different unit. Now after two long century of war your middle class who composed your infantry is severely hurt and the situation of your upper class is even worst forcing you to use foreign mercenary to field a decent cavalry. You would then find yourself in the same situation of Rome during the Jugurthian wars. And the solution might be to trigger the Marian Reform. That would be better than a script when I got my first huge city.

Instead of a simple script why not have a complete feature for civil war and politic rivalry ?

Yes the game is about to "stomp everyone under your boot" but it could be possible to do so without having to steamroll the whole campaign.

[Tim_Ward]

Realm Divide was fine for Shogun 2 but there should not be an equivalent feature in Rome 2. Well, I say fine.... Realm Divide was tolerable in Shogun 2 because of the limited nature of the scenario, but it could have been implemented a lot better. But it should not be in Rome 2, which is a much broader setting - scripted events like realm divide and the silly depiction of the civil war in the original Rome are counter to the alt-history spirit of the Total War series.

As for the campaign being too easy past a certain point. There are far better ways to keep the end game challenging; the game should be balanced so that holding together a large empire is hard.

[RagingCroppy]

Realm Divide was fine for Shogun 2 but there should not be an equivalent feature in Rome 2. Well, I say fine.... Realm Divide was tolerable in Shogun 2 because of the limited nature of the scenario, but it could have been implemented a lot better. But it should not be in Rome 2, which is a much broader setting - scripted events like realm divide and the silly depiction of the civil war in the original Rome are counter to the alt-history spirit of the Total War series.

As for the campaign being too easy past a certain point. There are far better ways to keep the end game challenging; the game should be balanced so that holding together a large empire is hard.

Well it would't necessarily be "scripted" it could be caused by certain issues depending on the choices that the player makes throughout the game.

For example, a player is playing as the Ptolemies. He has already encountered a few random events dealing with the clash between Greek and Egyptian cultures.

Then he gets an event where he can chose to either use native troops to boost his army numbers or to rely on more expensive mercenaries. Obviously he should choose the natives right? Not if there are consequences, making the Egyptians fight builds their confidence and leads to more unrest among the native populace.

Then a full on rebellion breaks out and the player is given a final choice, which side of this Civil War will he join. He can try to preserve his established Empire or fight it and probably lose most of his lands and foreign relations in the process.

Having a Civil War replace realm divide is much more realistic. It provides a big late game challenge but does not result in every faction hating you for no reason. That is not to say that a lot of your neighbors will not attack you, after all if you saw an empire tearing itself apart from the inside wouldn't you want a piece of the pie?

[rekishiotaku]

Well it would't necessarily be "scripted" it could be caused by certain issues depending on the choices that the player makes throughout the game.

For example, a player is playing as the Ptolemies. He has already encountered a few random events dealing with the clash between Greek and Egyptian cultures.

Then he gets an event where he can chose to either use native troops to boost his army numbers or to rely on more expensive mercenaries. Obviously he should choose the natives right? Not if there are consequences, making the Egyptians fight builds their confidence and leads to more unrest among the native populace.

Then a full on rebellion breaks out and the player is given a final choice, which side of this Civil War will he join. He can try to preserve his established Empire or fight it and probably lose most of his lands and foreign relations in the process.

Having a Civil War replace realm divide is much more realistic. It provides a big late game challenge but does not result in every faction hating you for no reason. That is not to say that a lot of your neighbors will not attack you, after all if you saw an empire tearing itself apart from the inside wouldn't you want a piece of the pie?

I really hope there is something like that, it was one of the cooler things about Empire, and its also one of the things I like about Victoria II.


It would also be nice to get help from your neighbors in that situation. Or to be able to support one faction or another as another faction.

Like a pop-up "x faction has requested your help in a civil war."
a) Support x faction
b) Support the rebels
c) Do nothing

Each would effect the relations with the winning faction.

[Aurelius Silvanus Tacitus]

Yes and as Col. Tartleton said and also and you should get the possibility to choose how your state will be run:
-you could give slaves the option to buy their freedom
-if you have a monarch will he be hereditary or chosen from the army or government.
-you could have different ways to vote, by wealth, "universal",secret or public.
-also a country when is in civil war if an other country attacks it without the support of one of the waring factions then all sides should temporarily unite against the invader.
-in some cases you could choose if you would want to "adopt foreign ways" ( for example if you would adopt roman military doctrines you could get better infantry).
-also I would want the option of a non-aggression pact and the AI when is allied to me to be more helpful, maybe even help my side in a civil war

[Tim_Ward]

Well it would't necessarily be "scripted" it could be caused by certain issues depending on the choices that the player makes throughout the game.

For example, a player is playing as the Ptolemies. He has already encountered a few random events dealing with the clash between Greek and Egyptian cultures.

Then he gets an event where he can chose to either use native troops to boost his army numbers or to rely on more expensive mercenaries. Obviously he should choose the natives right? Not if there are consequences, making the Egyptians fight builds their confidence and leads to more unrest among the native populace.

Then a full on rebellion breaks out and the player is given a final choice, which side of this Civil War will he join. He can try to preserve his established Empire or fight it and probably lose most of his lands and foreign relations in the process.

Having a Civil War replace realm divide is much more realistic. It provides a big late game challenge but does not result in every faction hating you for no reason. That is not to say that a lot of your neighbors will not attack you, after all if you saw an empire tearing itself apart from the inside wouldn't you want a piece of the pie?

If it's not inevitable then it's a lot less objectionable.

[Col. Tartleton]

There should be a government revolutionary system like in Empire.

Military Class Rebellion - Monarchy
Patrician Class Rebellion - Republic
Plebian Class Rebellion - Democracy
Servile Class Rebellion - Anarchy

The Military has the power to make a new Autocratic government. This is how you become Emperor Caesar and use your authority to lord over the nobles and commoners.
The Patricians have the power to make a Republican government. This is how you normally restore the Republic where the nobles manage to take control of the military and commoners.
The Plebians will seek a Democratic government. This is the alternate way to restore a "Republic" although this one has overthrown the noble and military factions.
The Servile groups don't establish new governments, they just cause chaos and potentially destroy your faction. You don't want these to happen regardless.

This system should be available for every faction. The same classes exist in some form in every society and these governments would be possible in any system. Germanics for example would have their sacred kings, their elders, and their freemen and run the risk of a thrall rebellion. Carthage and the Phoenicians had almost identical systems to the Romans and Greeks.

So long as all four classes can be kept in their place your society will function well.

[Col. Tartleton]

It would certainly be nice to have to deal with more politics. I mean it's like in 1990 when Kuwait was invaded Osama Bin Laden offered to unleash Al Qaeda and the Mujaheddin against Saddam on behalf of the House of Saud but the Saudis knew that they didn't want a full blown Jihad on their border when they weren't exactly on good terms with the radicals. So they reached out to the United States and co. for help and while that was a good solution to Iraqi expansion that just exacerbated tensions between the Arab Monarchy and the Islamist groups because they were snubbed and worse, snubbed in favor of infidels.

If you're trying to decide between hiring some foreign mercenaries, enlisting your own people, enlisting vassal people, or calling upon allies for troops you're going to have to balance the pros and cons of each. There are no solutions in geopolitics only trade offs.