Cutting through the marketing spin

[GussieFinkNottle]

Ok first post, here goes
I have been lurking on this forum for about a year and have become increasingly annoyed at some of the marketing speak which is in fact untrue or misconstrued, so made this account to post this
It's not as long as it looks, please at least read the first two sections, they are my main point
This is to show that which is new and that which isn’t
Please CA, stop pretending these are new ground-breaking features

What they are trumpeting as new, but isn’t:
-The struggle to maintain the republic or found an empire
-The unit camera: you could follow a unit with camera zoom and rotation freedom in every game since Rome 1 and Empire,Napoleon and Shogun 2 had not one but 2 unit cameras! One following the unit (Del) and one from a soldier’s first-person perspective (Insert)
-The ‘diplomatic transparency’ explaining decisions made by other factions by showing what opposing factions think of you according to the sum of your positive actions minus the sum of your negative actions: this was in Empire, Napoleon and Shogun 2 fully, and to a degree in Rome 1 with transgression warnings and senate policy and in Medieval 2 with faction disposition.

They say it’s different because it includes actions you make on the campaign map as well as on the diplomacy screen but it is not: In Shogun 2 agent actions are counted towards diplomacy, as well as how you conduct wars, your Daimyo’s traits, and research tech. Back in Rome 1 as said above dislike was explained with transgression warnings, plus remarks on the diplomacy screen like 'your offer is far too generous' and 'we will perhaps make peace when you have learned the value of peace' were are an early form of the AI displaying its diplomatic reasoning
What is actually new:
-The Province/sub-region system
-Edicts
-Army legacy
-Army naming and banner selection
-Battle modes: combined battles (land and naval), Naval assault on cities/port sieges, supply train battles
-Army stances: Raiding the countryside, forced march, recruiting directly to the army (muster mode) and Defensive stance (auto fort + defensive deployables)
-Line of sight
-The political struggle within Roman and Carthaginian senates(too much of a revolution to put only in the evolution box)
-The potential for cultural and economic victories as well as territorial
-New combat result calculator including unit weight, base attack stats as well as AP stats, and shield defence to the front and the left
-Cosmetic stuff like height differences between men within units
-The tactical map
What is an evolution/improvement on what already exists:
-The general’s abilities can be selected from a wider pool
-Events are no longer isolated pop-ups, but help to shape the story of the campaign, and have far reaching and interlinked consequences
-Ambush battles including battle deployables like burning bales,and new ambush AI
-Multiple capture points to win a siege battle
-Forts are automatically built for armies in defensive mode
-The three Roman families are all integrated into one faction and Carthage gets an equivalent. Civil wars are now of greater depth, scale and consequence
-Extra investment in AI
-Battle maps will be more contextual
-Greater visible representation of construction within towns on the campaign map
-Greater variety of siege maps
-More historical figures
-More diplomatic options: defensive alliance and non-aggression pact, as well as development of client state system, making another faction a client state being easier, and no tiny states suicidally refusing to come to terms
-Integration of campaign AI and diplomatic AI
-The ability to delegate control of some of your units to the AI
What is a regression from Shogun 2:
-Limiting the number of armies the player can have to force you to play big battles. This is a clumsy way to go about making battles feel more epic/reduce the % of battles auto-resolved stats on steam:
Maybe do this to the AI factions, and that will help lead to bigger battles but don’t do it to the player as it merely reduces the options they have. If they want big armies they will clump their troops together. There are plenty of uses for small armies, and you don’t want to have to waste one of your precious few new legion slots for a garrison unit. Raiding and skirmishes were common back then, particularly for barbarian factions as were single-cohort garrisons and missions.

Individual units have other functions outside big campaign armies. Off the top of my head: for keeping order, for bolstering frontier defences and town garrisons, to move across the map to join another army/legion that needs it more, as mentioned above for raiding, for dealing with rebellions and brigands, for catching the fleeing remnants of defeated enemy armies e.g. by breaking the cavalry away from the army, for racing ahead of the main body of an army to commence a siege, and trap the garrison units before they can flee/to start building siege equipment

Stop defending it by banging on about campaign ‘dynamism’ or saying ‘Caesar doesn’t care about his little unit of archers’ (yes he does and so do total war gamers, especially if it’s an experienced unit) as this comes across as disingenuous since it seems to be a short cut to help the new legion system. Legions often detached units, and factions without standing armies (e.g. Arverni, Suebi) did so even more. I accept that at this stage it is final for Rome 2 but how about in future making units belong to one army/legion,yes, but have to be within a certain number of regions/amount of movement points of that army rather than always in it, alternatively each legion has an area of the map assigned to it within which all units belong to that legion,and the legion is managed by selecting the general, who represents the headquarters, to enable players to have flexibility with their armies
Features brought back:
-Mercenaries
-Squalor (see screenshots of building bonuses: they include reduced squalor) + food supply
-Natural disasters
-Ancient wonders
-Traits (though seemingly limited to three?)
-Slaves and slave rebellions
-Visible indicators of province resources and animal unit mercenaries available on campaign map
Lost features from several games ago which have not returned (at least not until patches/dlc):
-City view
-Percentages of each army dead displayed when mouse hovered over balance of power bar
-Some of the wounded recovering after each battle
-Visible improvement in equipment if unit is upgraded
-Armour cleanness deterioration over the course of a battle (Med2)
-Individual province taxation
-Trade between towns within a faction, not just between factions

CA has added a lot more than they have taken away, and there are plenty of new features, which is why I find it so weird that they would pretend some that aren't are new

[GussieFinkNottle]

Delete this post

[♞Rogue General♞]

Valid points. But you should probably get rid of the in the title. Makes you sound angry.

*Edit: This part puzzles me.

Lost features from several games ago which have not returned (at least not until patches/dlc):
-Some of the wounded recovering after each battle
-Visible improvement in equipment if unit is upgraded
-Armour cleanness deterioration over the course of a battle (Med2)
-Individual province taxation
-Trade between towns within a faction, not just between factions

Source?

[GussieFinkNottle]

how do I do that? And I am a little peeved

[random_samurai]

You have to have a certain number of posts before certain forum features become available. Silly, I know.

[Kenios]

It's prudent to actually wait for the game to be released before declaring what is and what is not "new". Are you somehow more knowledgeable about how the retail game looks like than the rest of us? Maybe a time machine hidden in the pocket?

[GussieFinkNottle]

It's prudent to actually wait for the game to be released before declaring what is and what is not "new". Are you somehow more knowledgeable about how the retail game looks like than the rest of us? Maybe a time machine hidden in the pocket?

I think it's fair to say they've released enough info, videos and screenshots to be reasonably confident about what the 'new' features entail

[Tenerife_Boy]

Defensive stance (auto fort + defensive deployables)

This was already in Rome 1

-Line of sight

What do you mean ??

[GussieFinkNottle]

This was already in Rome 1

Forts had to be constructed for money, there were no army stances, and no defensive deployables. A significant amount of new stuff

What do you mean ??

Now you can use line of sight e.g. hide troops behind a hill/round a corner

[Tenerife_Boy]

hide troops behind a hill/round a corner

Hidding troops is not a new feature.... :S explain better

ANd concerning about forts, yeah they were constructed spending money, so you mean there will be no need to spend money and they are free ????

[GrudgeNL]

Hidding troops is not a new feature.... :S explain better

Giantbomb.com has the best explanation regarding line of sight.

Rome II will feature dynamic line-of-sight which limits the player's view of the map to that of their units. Units will have varying levels of sight; for example, heavily armored cavalry units will have poor visibility due to their cumbersome helmets, or enemy units could hide behind the crest of a hill. According to The Creative Assembly, this can have a profound impact on gameplay, increasing the need for scouts and encouraging better awareness of one's flanks. Further increasing the importance of terrain, the geography of a battle map is persistent throughout the campaign, so a player that is familiar with a certain mountain pass, for example, can use that knowledge to their advantage for setting ambushes or hiding units.

source: http://www.giantbomb.com/total-war-rome-ii/3030-38867/

[Lord Dakier]

I'm just fed up of people moaning. If these issues are really so bad, don't buy the game.

[Swiss Army Cheese]

I'm just fed up of people moaning. If these issues are really so bad, don't buy the game.

And I am fed up with people the complain about complainers.
Haven't you heard that if you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything at all? The OP clearly had at least a few nice things to say, so that gives him the right to moan.

"If you don't like it, don't buy it" is a lousy argument to present, since after all if you haven't bought the product yet, then how would you know whether you like it or not?

[Lord Dakier]

And I am fed up with people the complain about complainers.
Haven't you heard that if you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything at all? The OP clearly had at least a few nice things to say, so that gives him the right to moan.

"If you don't like it, don't buy it" is a lousy argument to present, since after all if you haven't bought the product yet, then how would you know whether you like it or not?

You wait till it's released, read some review's and ask a friend. The same way it was done before the mass internet barrages we see today.

The level of complaints become more petty each day. It's almost harder to find someone who has something good to say.

[Darth_Revan]

You wait till it's released, read some review's and ask a friend. The same way it was done before the mass internet barrages we see today.

The same could be said for those that are sucking CA and Rome 2 hard before they even get to play the game and refuse to realize the obvious parts of the game that have been simplified or removed.

[Sir Winston Churchill]

I'm just fed up of people moaning. If these issues are really so bad, don't buy the game.

I'm just fed up of people moaning about moaning. If the moaning is really so bad, don't view the forums.

[Ariovist]

I'm just fed up of people moaning about moaning. If the moaning is really so bad, don't view the forums.

Very good answer.
I can't understand why the usual people with the "all is wonderful" attitude reading the "negative" threads and even making posts there too?
When you so fed up with the people who are not so happy about certain game decissions from CA, why do you even read them?

[Queen Annes Revenge]

Very good answer.
I can't understand why the usual people with the "all is wonderful" attitude reading the "negative" threads and even making posts there too?
When you so fed up with the people who are not so happy about certain game decissions from CA, why do you even read them?

My issue is mainly that people are moaning based on unfounded assumptions and jumping to wild conclusions having not played the freaking game. Some people raise concerns and want to discuss it, like in the OP, which is good.

Others make statistically absurd and biased polls, use results to demand that everyone accept their personal feelings as popular opinion or speculation as fact, and respond to disagreement with either "OMFG CA ARE MAKING AN ARCADE GAME FOR KIDS" or "THE POLL SHOWS IT'S WHAT THE COMMUNITY WANTS SO I'M RIGHT". There are also people that refuse to accept that some historical edges must be trimmed because, well, it's a video game where you can micromanage 50 cities at once and zoom out to a bird's eye view of a classical era battle (why doesn't anyone complain about that bit of unrealisim?). It's a waste of everyone's time that visits here to look for info.

[Dan113112]

My issue is mainly that people are moaning based on unfounded assumptions and jumping to wild conclusions having not played the freaking game. Some people raise concerns and want to discuss it, like in the OP, which is good.

Others make statistically absurd and biased polls, use results to demand that everyone accept their personal feelings as popular opinion or speculation as fact, and respond to disagreement with either "OMFG CA ARE MAKING AN ARCADE GAME FOR KIDS" or "THE POLL SHOWS IT'S WHAT THE COMMUNITY WANTS SO I'M RIGHT". There are also people that refuse to accept that some historical edges must be trimmed because, well, it's a video game where you can micromanage 50 cities at once and zoom out to a bird's eye view of a classical era battle (why doesn't anyone complain about that bit of unrealisim?). It's a waste of everyone's time that visits here to look for info.

Agreed.

[GussieFinkNottle]

My issue is mainly that people are moaning based on unfounded assumptions and jumping to wild conclusions having not played the freaking game. Some people raise concerns and want to discuss it, like in the OP, which is good.

Others make statistically absurd and biased polls, use results to demand that everyone accept their personal feelings as popular opinion or speculation as fact, and respond to disagreement with either "OMFG CA ARE MAKING AN ARCADE GAME FOR KIDS" or "THE POLL SHOWS IT'S WHAT THE COMMUNITY WANTS SO I'M RIGHT". There are also people that refuse to accept that some historical edges must be trimmed because, well, it's a video game where you can micromanage 50 cities at once and zoom out to a bird's eye view of a classical era battle (why doesn't anyone complain about that bit of unrealisim?). It's a waste of everyone's time that visits here to look for info.

That is why I make a point of trying to be scrupulously fair, differentiating between fact and opinion, and acknowledging/weighing the arguments and strengths of the opposing opinion