Unit Abilities: Dreadful

[caissus]

It was a subject of much debate even before release, and I think it's even more apparent now that we've played just how annoying these "fight harder" buttons are. Does anyone actually enjoy them? Does anyone actually think they add to the strategic gameplay at all? I don't mind certain abilities like the general rally etc, or even archers with flaming arrows, because they serve a purpose: setting stuff on fire. I'm just talking about the abilities like "draco" or "the whip".

I'm not seeing it. I think they're tedious and unnecessary to the gameplay, but I'm forced to use them, otherwise I'm at a disadvantage. Modders out there, do us a favor and mod these out. I for one will be grateful.

[The Black Ghost]

Agreed they are terrible.

I especially hate the 60 second timer abilities. It's just another thing we have to manage which really should be part of the units stats to begin with.

[Jean=A=Luc]

Haven't played the game but they seem pretty bad from what I've seen. It's like CA (or maybe it's SEGA?) is moving away from positioning, flanking, skirmishing, maneuvering to a "click to attack + activate ability" model. Even the capture points seem to be geared towards this kind of gameplay.

It's ok to have some abilities like this as far as they make "some" sense (like rally, warcry...) but things like "magically restore fatigue" leave a really bad taste in my mouth. Also, something like flaming javelins would've been a nice unique ability for some Iberian faction but instead it's fairly common.

[achilles-91]

i agree, there a just to many abilitys, and it's realy stupid like warcraft, and not total war...general and phalanx can have abilitys. and some more units like speerwall and ofc testudo. so just formation abilitys , not those magical.. :S

[BigHairyMelon]

Only one I have a bit of a problem with is the second wind ability, I can kind of reason how some of them might work like war-cry or frenzy but I don't see how people can go from being really tired to being fresh again in an instant. The other barbarian abilities seem all right for me some of them have downsides as well like frenzy. Haven't used any other abilities yet but I understand where OP is coming from.

[Lord of the Isles]

Agree. The one that really got me crying out loud was the button in the lower left: Toggle Cinematic View: This will give a small boost to the combat ability of the selected unit.

It made me think of CA's excuse for flaming pigs etc - that if they could find an obscure ancient source that mentioned something being tried once it was fair game for Rome. So I imagined a little known text by Tacitus, where he muses that the IX Legion fought better when they were being filmed by Stevenus Spielbergius.

[Szlachta]

It reminds me of that terrible C&C that gave every unit a ton of abilities, making micro that much harder. While I like some of them, I wish there was an ability auto button. Microing is not hard, but when you got a naval battle over here, you're skirmishing in three fronts with various cavalry and skirmishers, and every unit has a ton of abilities, it gets a little crazy.

[Jean=A=Luc]

Micro should be primarily about formations and positioning, not clicking on buttons.

[bangell99]

I really hope they get modded out. One of many things wrong with battles currently.