Shogun 2 VS Rome 2

[Konfuzfanten]

This is at launch/Vanilla, AI campaign.


S2:
- Streamlined city building, but it was mostly to remove overcomplicated micromanaging so you could focus on the battles. Gave you the info and ways to fully control your cities.
- Low unit variety, one of the major complaints at launch and ofc the OP ashigaru units. You were more or less always fighting the same 5 units (ashigaru spear/bow, katana/bow samurai and then a few katana cavalry)
- Expanded/working diplomacy.
- Massive upgrade to campaign map AI, very hard, was for the first time in TW history actually hard.
- Smaller/streamlined campaign map, removing the micromanaging of an empire of +60 cities, so you could focus on the battles. You had around 20 clanes at max as the AI turns took maybe 30-60 sec.
- 4 season pr year turns: your characters could last for an entire AI campaign.
- New characters skill tree, making noticeable individual characters that you cared about.
- Battles: a bit too fast for my taste, but still slow enough for a battle to develop and battle lines would be clearly drawn, a need to flank or you would break the enemy.
- Top fluff polish aka the pretty japanese art on the loading screens, quotes, music, intro, background made of parchment paper and the like.

Rome 2:
- Streamlined city building further. IMO its too streamlined now, it feels restrictive rather then freeing me from micromanaging. Also i lack a lot of info about the individual city.
- High unit variety, Rome units still OP and still too cheap.
- Diplomacy not working again, like the TW games of old.
- A step back for the campaign map AI, stupid unit movement, not exploiting glaring weakness, you can let your boarder more or less stand open. Al right its still better then all other TW games, except S2.
- Massive campaign map, back to "micromanaging" +60 cities and having +40 enemy/AI fractions taking mins for the AI to complete its turn.
- 1 year pr turn, back to individual characters being a dime a dozen also lacks the skill tree from Shogun 2.
- Battles a way too fast, a battleline wont develop, but more likely bog down into a street brawl.
- New province feature, something new and interesting, but lacks a proper way to micromanage the individual city, like taking care of pop unrest - feels more restrictive than liberating.
- A distinct lack of fluff polish, loading screens(no roma art), below standard quotes (re-used), meh music, meh intro, background not on parchment paper.

Right now im not a happy customer, the game feels like it took all the mistakes from Empire and disregard the progress they made in Shogun 2.

[Jonesy_lmao]

I honestly wish they had kept the building system from Shogun II in it, otherwise it's better I think. Things like battle lengths, unit sizes, turns per year etc etc can be modded.