Rome 2 Total War Multiplayer Campaign/2 players or 4 players?

[stradar1]

From what Will stated in another forum it would seem MP Campaigns are staying at 2 players 1v1 and 2 Player Co-op. First off I will still get this game so don't think or troll that im going to say I wont get it lol. Now here is the deal I have been trying to convert many friends to play this game who play other type of war games and such but don't want to get total war because the campaign seems limited to them because it only allows 2 players. Its not a ton of people but its around 15 friend or so who will consider getting this game if they expand the campaign to 4 or even 8 players on the campaign.

Now I think adding more players to the MP campaign would be the right thing to do because it adds more epicness and fun the more players the more fun of course I cant imagine why it wouldn't be. So I for one have friends who will fill the other 3 or so slots if they increase the amount of players for MP Campaigns. I think if CA does not do this I believe in my heart that this is a missed opportunity to bring in more people to this game who love competitive Campaigns with more people.

Now here is a issue most people who don't want or even care about MP Campaigns being expanded to more players. They will say it takes to long or its not possible to make it work or even this its hard to find people to play with for that many players for the MP Campaign. Solution is this building a MP Campaign community and telling your friends if you played MP Campaigns before or even single player Campaigns you know they take a while to finish the point is even in MP campaigns its not about completing it in a few hours its about playing the campaign over time and continuing it till the end. I have completed many MP Campaigns with friends many time and even my brother and I completed many epic Campaigns together with lots of fun.

You have to think of it this way you need to understand it takes time to complete a campaign its not suppose to be a 2 hour affair its a few weeks affair and so on. Plus even with 4 players in a campaign the end game would be epic 4 super powers now are fighting for the rest of the known world in Rome 2 total war would be so grand and so epic.

Now this is a simple way it can work to keep it fun. If a player attacks a AI nations army allow 2 players to play the attacking players army and allow 2 other players to play the defending AI Army simple and easy and fun. Plus if a player does not want to fight the battle he can easily spectate. Another thing is allow all players to do there diplomacy trading building and tech while its another players turn to make things go smoothly and fast. Simple stuff that would make it work great.

But on that note I really!!!! Really!!! want Ca to implement this feature to the MP Campaign real badly!! Been wanting this for years on end.

[Sir Sesshaku]

Ohhh I would love a 4 players campaign. However, I can't think how make it work. I know for instance, that a good way of "making faster" the campaign would be to copy the Civ5 turn system, and allowing all players to play their turns at the same time, when everyone hits next turn, it loads IA movements, and so.
But.
And here's a big but.

How do you make battles on that system?. 2 players will be fighting and 2 players will be bored to death waiting, unless you restrict everything to a 2vs2 campaign where all battles are shared between players, but that has some disadvantages as well, the main one being that you may or may not want to share your troops, or you may or may not play a 2vs2, perhaps a "free will" campaign with alliances and backstabs during the development of the game, how do you make that?.

[stradar1]

Ohhh I would love a 4 players campaign. However, I can't think how make it work. I know for instance, that a good way of "making faster" the campaign would be to copy the Civ5 turn system, and allowing all players to play their turns at the same time, when everyone hits next turn, it loads IA movements, and so.
But.
And here's a big but.

How do you make battles on that system?. 2 players will be fighting and 2 players will be bored to death waiting, unless you restrict everything to a 2vs2 campaign where all battles are shared between players, but that has some disadvantages as well, the main one being that you may or may not want to share your troops, or you may or may not play a 2vs2, perhaps a "free will" campaign with alliances and backstabs during the development of the game, how do you make that?.

I explained this in my post how it would work. If its Co-op 4 players they all work together to win the game. If its free form free for all allowing alliances and and such and 1vs3 or 2v2 either way it would work like this. Battle happens and its only 2 army's solution Player one controls his army of course player 2 chooses to help him if not he spectates the battle player 3 chooses to play AI if not spectate player 4 chooses to play the AI as well if no one chooses the AI then the AI plays the army. Now here is a nice twist as well all 4 players can choose to play player 1's army and they can all work together to defeat the AI army simple stuff.

[Caesar15]

Ohhh I would love a 4 players campaign. However, I can't think how make it work. I know for instance, that a good way of "making faster" the campaign would be to copy the Civ5 turn system, and allowing all players to play their turns at the same time, when everyone hits next turn, it loads IA movements, and so.
But.
And here's a big but.

How do you make battles on that system?. 2 players will be fighting and 2 players will be bored to death waiting, unless you restrict everything to a 2vs2 campaign where all battles are shared between players, but that has some disadvantages as well, the main one being that you may or may not want to share your troops, or you may or may not play a 2vs2, perhaps a "free will" campaign with alliances and backstabs during the development of the game, how do you make that?.

The others get to spectate or maybe control half of an army, hmmm...

[caissus]

As many players as possible.

[Serkelet]

A 4 players coop would be a terrible idea. 2 players coop right now, althought fun as hell in Shogun 2, it becomes terribly easy from middle game to end. Just imagine a 4 players coop; that would border boredom since 4 playable factions working together would be a free passage to steamroll the map with ease. Unless you find a miraculous way to make them all fit in one or two factions only...

A 2v2, in the other hand, would provide a high level challenge (the one that is always to face another player and not a dumb AI), similar to that of 1 on 1, but adding the team working element of the coop campaign, and removing even more AI influence from the map, making it focus way more on the clash of the four players empires. It wouldn't even be too hard to code, since CA would just need to combine the 1v1 feature that allows your enemies to control every single enemy army your team faces, be it their property or AI property, with the coop element of sharing troops with your mate, providing a fun as hell campaign where 2 players will be battling against other 2 players every single battle, and where most of the armies would face, mostly in end game (or early game if they choose to be very close to each other, but it doesn't matter, you get the point), would be player made armies, raised by their faction, their economy and their unit rooster choice.

It's hard to believe CA hasn't considered such a feature that would certainly make the game several times funnier than multiplayer is in Shogun 2 right now, and certainly would promote the Total War series to a new level (as opposed to their Arena project, which, as good as it may be, it's not a new level on mp market, but certainly a step back, since it's an already extremely overused setup), it would lure friends of fans of the saga into buying the game for the sake of playing all together, just as every 4 players coop game has achieved to date (like L4D or Borderlands, just to name two franchises) and it would expand highly the replayability for a lot of people. Hell, I can safely say that around 70% of the 900 hours I spent playing Shogun 2 have been in multiplayer campaigns, which are the only thing I play right now, and I have friends who don't play Total War games that would buy Rome 2 just to play together with my friend and me!

Just pure stubborness or coding lazyness separates Total War from expanding this feature to 4 players or more. CA, I hope the surprise you talked about when mentioning MP campaign a time ago was that you are doing exactly this, the 4 player campaign; if not, I invite wholeheartedly to reconsider it, please!

[stradar1]

A 4 players coop would be a terrible idea. 2 players coop right now, althought fun as hell in Shogun 2, it becomes terribly easy from middle game to end. Just imagine a 4 players coop; that would border boredom since 4 playable factions working together would be a free passage to steamroll the map with ease. Unless you find a miraculous way to make them all fit in one or two factions only...

A 2v2, in the other hand, would provide a high level challenge (the one that is always to face another player and not a dumb AI), similar to that of 1 on 1, but adding the team working element of the coop campaign, and removing even more AI influence from the map, making it focus way more on the clash of the four players empires. It wouldn't even be too hard to code, since CA would just need to combine the 1v1 feature that allows your enemies to control every single enemy army your team faces, be it their property or AI property, with the coop element of sharing troops with your mate, providing a fun as hell campaign where 2 players will be battling against other 2 players every single battle, and where most of the armies would face, mostly in end game (or early game if they choose to be very close to each other, but it doesn't matter, you get the point), would be player made armies, raised by their faction, their economy and their unit rooster choice.

It's hard to believe CA hasn't considered such a feature that would certainly make the game several times funnier than multiplayer is in Shogun 2 right now, and certainly would promote the Total War series to a new level (as opposed to their Arena project, which, as good as it may be, it's not a new level on mp market, but certainly a step back, since it's an already extremely overused setup), it would lure friends of fans of the saga into buying the game for the sake of playing all together, just as every 4 players coop game has achieved to date (like L4D or Borderlands, just to name two franchises) and it would expand highly the replayability for a lot of people. Hell, I can safely say that around 70% of the 900 hours I spent playing Shogun 2 have been in multiplayer campaigns, which are the only thing I play right now, and I have friends who don't play Total War games that would buy Rome 2 just to play together with my friend and me!

Just pure stubborness or coding lazyness separates Total War from expanding this feature to 4 players or more. CA, I hope the surprise you talked about when mentioning MP campaign a time ago was that you are doing exactly this, the 4 player campaign; if not, I invite wholeheartedly to reconsider it, please!

What you say I totally wholeheartedly Agree with you on this.........This is something that needs to be expanded on I rarely play single player Campaigns anymore since MP campaigns were introduced into the game. But one thing I do disagree with is 4 player Co-op would totally work and also can be fun to play and will and can work because the map is going to be pretty big in Shogun 2 total war 4 players wouldn't of worked.

[HigoChumbo]

As many players as they can get.

But they just can't do it with the current turn-based system. I hope they try slow-paced (maybe pausable for single player) real time some time in the future.

The only similar multiplayer game that comes to my mind is Heroes of Might and Magic (any of them), and i tell you... as good as it is in single player... is absolutelly tedious in Multiplayer, you literally have to wait while the rest play their turns, which is awful. They could reduce the wait by making an extra stage (like 1) empire management (all at the same time) 2) army movement (1 player at a time) 3) combat), but still you would have the problem of the battles.


If they were an adventurous company (which they aren't. I don't think there is any adventurous imaginative company nowdays willing to explore new -risky- ground) they could try some kind of cooperative game, in which all the players (with no limit of player) fought in the same faction but you could split the job, or even make a chain of command (from using a single soldier in a rpg-like game -equipment etc-, through commanding a flank or a group, be one of the generals commanding one of the minor armies, be the head of the military to finally be the absolute rule of the nation) (don't meant that 1 player starts like the first and raises to become the later, i mean that there would be a lot of players and each would do one role, and you could raise or be demoted depending on your performance -or te decissions of your superiors-)

[stradar1]

But they just can't do it with the current turn-based system.

Of course they can and is possible don't see how you think its not possible of course there are always people who think things are impossible. It really is not that hard to do past posts proves it would be just fine with the current system and just as fun.

[roarer]

Of course they can and is possible don't see how you think its not possible of course there are always people who think things are impossible. It really is not that hard to do past posts proves it would be just fine with the current system and just as fun.

I do not htink there are enough evidence now to say that is is impossible , nor to support that it is fine with the current system. What people think before trying out the actual product is complete different from what they think after they tried the product.

I think if a 2 player MP campaign will just likely to give a more marketable product while a 4- player one should be experiment based to try new ideas. I mean, they just have different goals.... I prefer CA to invest resource for the future to make better MP campaign experience in the future ^^

[stradar1]

I do not htink there are enough evidence now to say that is is impossible , nor to support that it is fine with the current system. What people think before trying out the actual product is complete different from what they think after they tried the product.

I think if a 2 player MP campaign will just likely to give a more marketable product while a 4- player one should be experiment based to try new ideas. I mean, they just have different goals.... I prefer CA to invest resource for the future to make better MP campaign experience in the future ^^

Meh......

[Serkelet]

As many players as they can get.

But they just can't do it with the current turn-based system. I hope they try slow-paced (maybe pausable for single player) real time some time in the future.

The only similar multiplayer game that comes to my mind is Heroes of Might and Magic (any of them), and i tell you... as good as it is in single player... is absolutelly tedious in Multiplayer, you literally have to wait while the rest play their turns, which is awful. They could reduce the wait by making an extra stage (like 1) empire management (all at the same time) 2) army movement (1 player at a time) 3) combat), but still you would have the problem of the battles.


If they were an adventurous company (which they aren't. I don't think there is any adventurous imaginative company nowdays willing to explore new -risky- ground) they could try some kind of cooperative game, in which all the players (with no limit of player) fought in the same faction but you could split the job, or even make a chain of command (from using a single soldier in a rpg-like game -equipment etc-, through commanding a flank or a group, be one of the generals commanding one of the minor armies, be the head of the military to finally be the absolute rule of the nation) (don't meant that 1 player starts like the first and raises to become the later, i mean that there would be a lot of players and each would do one role, and you could raise or be demoted depending on your performance -or te decissions of your superiors-)

There are many ways to shorten the turns, at least the ones that come after the first. In Shogun 2 you already can manage building, recruitment, ship repairing and characters level up skill management while it's the other player's turn, leaving for yours armies, fleets and agents movement, diplomacy and family management. As I exposed previously, battles wouldn't be a problem, since the 4 players would fight together every single one.

CA could expand this further and allow you to do even more things while it's not your turn. A good example would be inner politics and family affairs, which will be a way richer concept in Rome 2, surely entertaining and something that makes you spend your time on it. Something not as good as a idea, but that can be doable, would be allowing diplomacy while it's not your turn. That part is tricky, and probably it would also require that the first player manages diplomacy first... or not, depending on the priorities of the developers. An alternative to these, CA could allow team based turns; that is that each team plays its turn simultaneously, moving their armies at the same time, for example. We could take that to the extreme and make all the players turns simultaneous (obviously slowing down the characters movement on the map, and taking away the fast moving, so players would be able to react and intercept), which would end as soon as all the movement points are spent and each player clicks on "end turn".

It's perfectly doable, and it's something Total War urgently needs. It just takes will and a bit of investment. No need for adventuring to real time campaign map (although something like that would be awesome).

[Meerv]

i absoluetly agree with serkelet here. battles would be doable like in shogun 2 coop, spliiting the army, while the other team gets control of the enemy army, splitting it up between both players aswell.

[Enferfeu]

Honestly, the only reason why I even considered a lower number is fear that the campaign could be unstable. However, if they are able to implement it, why not go with a truly massive, epic, glorious 8 player campaign? Sure it would take FOREVER to play through, but I would think that would only increase the stakes. Perhaps you can only play a turn a day but that would make the game all the more satisfying. Each turn would have to be carefully planned out and during each battle you would fight your absolute hardest to win for the glory of your empire. If they can make a stable 8 player campaign it stands to reason they will also be able to make a stable 7,6,5,4,3, or 2 player campaign, so those who would rather play it that way would still be able to enjoy it with as many people as they desire.
Merely the thought of this (even if that thought never comes into fruition completely) makes me so excited for this game. Can't wait for it guys!

[stradar1]

The campaign should be fine with 4 players at least.

[Rikx]

I hope you can play with 2-6 players, instead of fixed values of 2,4, etc.

In terms of how to make it work they could just enhance the current system of spectating or sharing units, but this time allowing players to spectate the battle at leisure. So if the player wants to stay on the campaign map for a few minutes to finish up his turn while other people are battling then he can do that. Then he can join in the battle to spectate how its going or to participate in it (whether by having units shared with him or by taking over as the AI).

[emotion_name]

I saw Wills post, and it does interpret as MPC is just the same old S2TW style, rehashed and tacked on for R2TW, at least where players are concerned.

At a push, with the smaller setting, 1v1 MPC in S2TW was understandable, but R2TW should have been when CA really pushed this game mode. There are hundreds of threads regarding MPC (i know coz i posted on most ), so CA must have seen them - and then they come out with "Arenas", where they ask for our opinions and ideas regarding a MP game!

I will offer my ideas here, again - upto 8 person MPC should be included, is possible and wouldnt take years to finish nor die if someone drops out (most of these issues were countered with hotseats on M2TW and Kingdoms, and same sort of workarounds apply). Host is admin, who has ability to change factions from human to AI (should someone drop out, voila, the AI takes over and everyone else still gets to play), and you shouldnt need every player online for everyturn.

Basically, i can take my turn and if next guy isnt online, the save file uploads to Steam Cloud and when he does sign in he gets a notification. He then simply downloads file, plays his turn and if next player isnt on the process repeats. What about battles though i hear you cry? Well, that can work the same way, if i attack another human who isnt online, the game saves at the pre battle screen and then when both players are on it can be fought.

Every player sets there own password on first turn of a campaign, this is password used to access save files left for you etc so no-one can cheat/mess around with your faction while your offline, and the admin can also set how long files are left before turn is skipped (say its set at 48hrs, next player doesnt sign in, when the next person after them does Steam alerts them its now there turn, and allows there password to "skip turn" of faction waiting. Since its Steam, a record can be kept of when the files were downloaded, by who and so on to avoid arguments/fallouts etc.

It can be done, i refuse to believe in this day and age the tech or interest isnt there for this to be anything other than monumental, yet it seems CA dithers and fails to realise they are on the cusp of what could be TW greatest ever game mode.

Oh, and finally, coz its a point lots of haters like to bring up but isnt really a valid one imo - if you think a large player MPC will take to long to complete then DONT PLAY one, i happen to know of a lot of people who crave one, infact a few of my mates only bought S2TW and expansions for MPC and dont play anyother game modes, surely they aren't the only ones?

[total relism]

From what Will stated in another forum it would seem MP Campaigns are staying at 2 players 1v1 and 2 Player Co-op. First off I will still get this game so don't think or troll that im going to say I wont get it lol. Now here is the deal I have been trying to convert many friends to play this game who play other type of war games and such but don't want to get total war because the campaign seems limited to them because it only allows 2 players. Its not a ton of people but its around 15 friend or so who will consider getting this game if they expand the campaign to 4 or even 8 players on the campaign.

Now I think adding more players to the MP campaign would be the right thing to do because it adds more epicness and fun the more players the more fun of course I cant imagine why it wouldn't be. So I for one have friends who will fill the other 3 or so slots if they increase the amount of players for MP Campaigns. I think if CA does not do this I believe in my heart that this is a missed opportunity to bring in more people to this game who love competitive Campaigns with more people.

Now here is a issue most people who don't want or even care about MP Campaigns being expanded to more players. They will say it takes to long or its not possible to make it work or even this its hard to find people to play with for that many players for the MP Campaign. Solution is this building a MP Campaign community and telling your friends if you played MP Campaigns before or even single player Campaigns you know they take a while to finish the point is even in MP campaigns its not about completing it in a few hours its about playing the campaign over time and continuing it till the end. I have completed many MP Campaigns with friends many time and even my brother and I completed many epic Campaigns together with lots of fun.

You have to think of it this way you need to understand it takes time to complete a campaign its not suppose to be a 2 hour affair its a few weeks affair and so on. Plus even with 4 players in a campaign the end game would be epic 4 super powers now are fighting for the rest of the known world in Rome 2 total war would be so grand and so epic.

Now this is a simple way it can work to keep it fun. If a player attacks a AI nations army allow 2 players to play the attacking players army and allow 2 other players to play the defending AI Army simple and easy and fun. Plus if a player does not want to fight the battle he can easily spectate. Another thing is allow all players to do there diplomacy trading building and tech while its another players turn to make things go smoothly and fast. Simple stuff that would make it work great.

But on that note I really!!!! Really!!! want Ca to implement this feature to the MP Campaign real badly!! Been wanting this for years on end.

I would love 4 player, buit seems it should be easy to do as well, but ca of course knows best and they would tell us not many would like it.

[Lord Dakier]

This is really pointless.

I simply want to see as many players as the game supports.

[andrew2788]

I hope they do more than 2 because my friends Eric, Jeremy and I want to make a barbarian federation