Announcement : The Rome 2 Total Realism Team would like to introduce itself to you!

[stevehoos]

Here we go:

1. Complete family tree, with women (yes they do exist outside of agents CA) cant play this game without this. It's just plane boring.

2. All settlements can grow and have a chance to become huge cities over time; also with incremental wall upgrades. All settlements would have walls. Things like sieges and plagues would prevent many settlements from becoming big.

3. All armies would have to buy a transport ship to be able to go out to sea. No more free ships.

4. No burning down gates in 10 seconds with match sticks.

5. Actual faction leaders for each faction instead of some generic nobody.

6. Populations of cities listed, related to city upgrades.

7. Generals would acquire traits resembling the buildings and cultural influences of certain regions or cities.

8. No more ability to chose general traits, Where is the fun in that?

9. Limited recruiting of advanced units; something similar to what RR had for Stainless Steel 6.4

10. Some sort of script running to remind you of important historical events in the time. Immersion is a killer in this game. Also new building icons.

11. The size of the battle maps are too small, need to be replaced to have bigger battles.

12. Re skins of units across the board, too bland and generic. Perhaps new units for all playable factions.

13. Visual armor upgrades, this is a difficult thing I know.

14. No more spy women, that is stupid.

15. The ability to give and demand regions for diplomatic purposes.

16. All the best combinations of what people can do in the future to be able to fix (Radious mod etc.) the abject mess that is the entire battle and siege AI. This includes reworking all units, weak walls, and over powered scorpion towers to name a few.

17. All 4 seasons.

18. No more army caps, should be based on income.

What do you think?

[General Maximus]

Here we go:

1. Complete family tree, with women (yes they do exist outside of agents CA) cant play this game without this. It's just plane boring.

2. All settlements can grow and have a chance to become huge cities over time; also with incremental wall upgrades. All settlements would have walls. Things like sieges and plagues would prevent many settlements from becoming big.

3. All armies would have to buy a transport ship to be able to go out to sea. No more free ships.

4. No burning down gates in 10 seconds with match sticks.

5. Actual faction leaders for each faction instead of some generic nobody.

6. Populations of cities listed, related to city upgrades.

7. Generals would acquire traits resembling the buildings and cultural influences of certain regions or cities.

8. No more ability to chose general traits, Where is the fun in that?

9. Limited recruiting of advanced units; something similar to what RR had for Stainless Steel 6.4

10. Some sort of script running to remind you of important historical events in the time. Immersion is a killer in this game. Also new building icons.

11. The size of the battle maps are too small, need to be replaced to have bigger battles.

12. Re skins of units across the board, too bland and generic. Perhaps new units for all playable factions.

13. Visual armor upgrades, this is a difficult thing I know.

14. No more spy women, that is stupid.

15. The ability to give and demand regions for diplomatic purposes.

16. All the best combinations of what people can do in the future to be able to fix (Radious mod etc.) the abject mess that is the entire battle and siege AI. This includes reworking all units, weak walls, and over powered scorpion towers to name a few.

17. All 4 seasons.

18. No more army caps, should be based on income.

What do you think?

I agree with all of them, though it might be impossible to implement the campaign changes due to the pathetic limitations of engine and the half-arsed work by CA (who chose to implement no seasons) and many more things that modders are unable to change.

[Biggus Splenus]

1, 2 (to the extent you want), 3, 8, 13, 15, 18 (a limit must exist, no matter how high or low, there must be one) are impossible.

[Hieronymos]

Excellent! Congratulations!
I've been a fan ever since your first RTR release; and was later a betatester for Desaix's Naval Mod (RTR-submod that later merged into the MetroNaval Mod). God knows there's a ton of work ahead to create any kind of historical versimillitude for R2. And what an engine to play with! Sure beats the creaky RTW engine.

Question: Is the campaign map moddable? (..seems that RTR2 depends on it)

[Finn]

Hehe, I remember playing the Metro Naval mod way back when.
As far as the campaign map being moddable......it should be, once CA release modding tools, which hopefully will be sooner rather than later.

[CvanI]

Very best of luck guys!

[Selea]

I thought myself of making a complete overhaul because this game desperately need a good one that finally balances all units (taking in consideration historical parameters; for example it's impossible to watch Cataphracts massacred by Gaul cavalry, as it is impossible to watch Oathsworn decimate Praetorian Guards and I wonder what CA were thinking when they beta tested this mess). There are many overhauls around but before they even begin balancing the game properly they start adding unit packs and everything becomes even more of a mess than it was before. Balancing isn't fun as creating new unit packs.

Either if I had the thought I neither started myself to do it because alone it's a thing that's impossible to do properly, you need a team. The work on balancing and testing is too much for a single individual to be done correctly.

So I hope the best of luck for you and please, balance the game correctly before adding new units, elsewhere you will just make the error that every other overhaul around presently does.

Again, good luck to you in your endevour because a balanced Rome II is seriously needed and I don't think CA will ever do it.

[Magnar]

@Selea, adding new units can be apart of a unit rebalance especially when you are replacing a factions roster rather than just adding new units.

[Selea]

@Magnar:

Till you haven't balanced the whole so you know what you can modify how can you replace something for something else? It's like placing a palace on the sand, how can it stand? The first gut of wind will bring it down.

Balancing a game is a very difficult process because it is like approaching a painting. You cannot proceed in steps doing first a thing, finishing it and then passing to another because elsewhere you will much probably mistake the prospective or make pieces that are clearly not tied one to the other; you have to work in lapses working on the whole and adding a layer over another one (going more and more to the particulars) till everything is perfect.

If you begin to modify in pieces you just make more of a mess than before, and adding/replacing units just does this. If for example you replace and unit but the unit you replace isn't balanced to begin with, how can you really "replace" it? You will just create another unbalanced unit. Same for adding entire rosters because the rosters in this game are all unbalanced to begin with. How can you replace something that you don't know how can be replaced correctly?

But naturally you can have your opinion on how to approach balancing, but in all these years I've never seen an overhaul that balanced a game doing it in pieces or adding/replacing parts until the whole was not correct and you did already know what you could add/replace and in which way.

Don't mistake yourself: I've done it personally to just modify a piece here and there, as in my mod Better Cavalry, it's only that I know it is anyway a mess and not balanced (actually it will make the balance worse on the whole) because it can never be given the approach. But this is the most I am willing to do since making a complete and good overhaul is a very difficult process that requires a lot of time and most of all a team working together. You will never be able to do it alone correctly for many motives, starting from a correct testing. So I don't either start and am just content to make some little change depending on what I want to achieve in that particular circumstance for my campaign (if then others in the same situation like it, good).

[Injato]

Awesome!!!
Glad to see you guys over here, bringin a better rome experience to us

[Master Necromancer]

Soooooooooooo, any sneak previews?

[TuCoT]

This is a great announcement! TWRII really needs an overhaul. It has good ideas and possibilities due to it's engine but has many flaws and inaccuracies too.

When the time has come, I can help with unit cards and mapping maybe (this depends on CA, first we need their tools!).

[GM207]

Are we there yet?

[Veikeiing]

This very well might be the Second Coming... I've been a huge fan of RTR for a long time, and am ecstatic, and somewhat surprised, to hear that you're are going to try and recover the possible gem hiding under CA's myriad of feces; of different flavors and behaviors. Regardless, best of luck, happy trails, and I think I can say the entire community waits with anticipation for your revival of this currently sad title.

Good Luck, god speed,

Veikeiing

[Heinz Guderian]

i am willing to change my name to Tony84 if you guys let me beta test for you

[Turkeys!]

i am willing to change my name to Tony84 if you guys let me beta test for you

I love you

[AngryTitusPullo]

i am willing to change my name to Tony84 if you guys let me beta test for you

We'll make you the mod leader if you do so.

out of interest will RTR have 2 or 3 Roman military reforms?, I loved EBs Roman and other factions military reforms.

At this moment we are concentrating more on battle experience and experimenting with campaign progression. Total overhaul of vanilla will still be a long way to go.

This is a great announcement! TWRII really needs an overhaul. It has good ideas and possibilities due to it's engine but has many flaws and inaccuracies too.

When the time has come, I can help with unit cards and mapping maybe (this depends on CA, first we need their tools!).

At the rate CA is releasing patches and possible DLC/expansion which most if not all the time needs total rework a total overhaul is best to start when the game is basically done (when CA announce China Total War or something). However if CA release Assembly Kit for Rome II sooner which allows changes to the map to be possible then this can start soon.

In any case we are hoping for a release soon. However it's best to know that R2TR 1.0 for example will probably b as the same level as RTR 1.0 or RTR 2.0 and do not expect something as advance as RTR 6 or RTR VII very soon.

[Hieronymos]

So it's not yet possible to mod the world map?

@Shigawire: AI isn't yet coded--like a human--to scrap obsolete units in aup it an army, and replace them with cutting edge ones.
Until resolved, this makes the army cap somewhat meaningless. And a further way to handicap an already hamstrung AI.

Some sort of army cap is needed..as mods that up it end up with minor factions with tons of 1-2 unit micro armies--the same sort of nonsense that doomed AI strategic effectiveness in RTW.

R2TW was released as an advanced Beta..and is still so full of holes that it'll be six months before it's polished and stable.
The naval system in particular is pretty wonky...Ground units becoming instant quinquiremes, that can go head to head with the toughest naval units..then magically transform back into infantry units..

One thing I'd especially like to see modded in RTR-R2 is something similar to the RTR1.9 ZOR/AOR system. CA has made a stab at it with their "culture" concept(s), and the need to culturally transform city structures like barracks before they can be used. But the time frame inherent in the CA system is ludicrously short. Capture a city at the far end of the world with tier4 barracks, and voila! in 5 or so turns you too can churn out Praetorian Guards.

Another concept that would be especially welcome in RTR-R2 would be some way of reflecting logistics in terms of troop concentrations. As in J.Caesar Gallic campaign, where he'd disperse the army during the winters--and concentrate it in the Spring& summers when the roads would open. By the late Republic Marian Reforms, the legions were capable of 40-50 miles per day--independant of their baggage trains &artillery.

Time to get off the soapbox...

[Balbor]

out of interest will RTR have 2 or 3 Roman military reforms?, I loved EBs Roman and other factions military reforms.

[LordVarius]

What about making the mod compatible with http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...re-Description ?