Thoughts and questions after watching carthage video

[avesta]

First of all, I always knew that the combined land+sea battles would eventually come to total war. I had no idea it would be for Rome 2
The graphics looked amazing btw.

Questions. Does the game pause when you look at the tactical overhead battlemap? How is this going to work in multiplayer?
Did anyone notice you could see the ship artillery firing when they looked at the overhead map in the video?

Ships can enter the harbor, so can you pick up and transport troops from the harbor? Can archers fire their arrows from ships?

Unit speed has been mentioned before. It's too fast, but I'm sure there's plenty of time to tweak this.

Next, when the units are charging, their formation is weird. Watch the video at 8:12. The unit does a good job of trying to penetrate, but they all get tangled in and engaged, losing their shape. Maybe they were attempting a click-through charge?
I hope the Warscape engine won't be the downfall of the battles.

[atheniandp]

Criticism? Do I have to call warman and madmansalvo?

[Anna_Gein]

Prepare yourself you might not like it.

First of all, I always knew that the combined land+sea battles would eventually come to total war. I had no idea it would be for Rome 2

Not really. That has been one of CA's main goal with the add of naval battle.
It was so much implied in one of Shogun 2 promotional trailer that I thought at first it would be present in this game.

The graphics looked amazing btw.

Agree.
I hope this repetitive talk of "darker" ambience means the game won't have flashy and plastic appearance in both interface and graphics like Empire and Shogun 2 did.

Questions. Does the game pause when you look at the tactical overhead battlemap? How is this going to work in multiplayer?

I doubt it will automatically do so. But normally we should be able to use this camera in pause mod like the usual camera.

Ships can enter the harbor, so can you pick up and transport troops from the harbor? Can archers fire their arrows from ships?

If it not possible then combine battle would have absolutely no value.
Even now I remain sceptical about a feature we won't use that much. It is the kind of feature that surely is welcome but is certainly not the principal feature of your next game. The same goes for two fancy camera and a rather vague talk of human face (aka eye candy we could show during promotional trailers).

Unit speed has been mentioned before. It's too fast, but I'm sure there's plenty of time to tweak this.

Unit speed was already bad in Empire and Napoleon and was simply terrible in Shogun 2. As much terrible in this last game as was combat speed and causality rate.
Face it it is a design choice (and a poor one).
This won't change before or even after release.

Next, when the units are charging, their formation is weird. Watch the video at 8:12. The unit does a good job of trying to penetrate, but they all get tangled in and engaged, losing their shape. Maybe they were attempting a click-through charge?

For this one you could consider the pre alpha state of the trailer.
I think it will obviously be better at release. But remember how unnatural charge and melee combat in formation are ever since warscape has been used. I also think it won't be like it was in RTW or M2TW.

I hope the Warscape engine won't be the downfall of the battles.

I hope too.
But it seems so far the changement of engine has caused a lot of trouble for CA. Troubles they are not able to completely fix some 4 games after its creation. I suspect to "essence" problem with warscape that won't disappear without warscape.
Take the lack of weight of all soldiers for example. It was not present before and while Shogun 2 improved it it is always present.
By the way it is the campaign game that need focus now.

[ironbrigade]

My thought are the infantry run as fast as Calvary should.