I thank all for their comments on RS2, and I have to say I am encouraged by the fact that a good many still want us to keep improving it. I have been looking at Rome2 as time allows me....which hasn't been very much lately because of RL issues, but in general I have to say that Rome2 probably has 'potential'....but it looks too me like it will be a long ways down the road. I think CA is going to have to 'fess up' with a load of tools and guides if they want people here to maintain any interest in the game....patches are good, and they will make the game more playable and stable. However, the 'substance' of the game, I find, is rather amusing. I noticed right off the bat that one of my starting armies as the Romans was called 'Apollinaris', which I assume is a reference to the Legion that was called that during the Imperium, and I could hardly stop myself from laughing. Not only was\is this unhistorical, but it's just ridiculous. It's like somebody at CA said: "Oh, people like it when their armies are named after real legions, so let's just throw that in from the beginning." I guess maybe I'm being too much of a purist, but come on CA, was it too hard to have a realistic reform? Or to improve the way reforms were in RTW without applying names to armies in 272BC?
Oh well, they didn't ask me....and they did what they did. LOL Anyway, I have explored a lot of alternatives lately......such as porting RS2 to M2TW as many have suggested, and to be honest, it would be so much work for so little gain. M2TW is nothing but a hyped up and finished RTW\BI with a bunch of buildings from the wrong time period. And, other mods have their piece of the pie already there (De Bello Mundis...which is a pretty nice mod in itself)....so I don't think I have the time or the heart to work on such a project at this point. I would rather refine and improve RS2 as it is, and make it as enjoyable as it can ever be on the RTW\BI engine.
I will, at some point, do my best to address some of the issues with the Hillforts and city pathing issues. I just plead for a bit of understanding there, because working with these things is a pain in the you know, and basically a 'shot in the dark' when it comes to making changes. There are no good tools or ways to edit battle settlements with 3DSMax, which I do not have, so I have to do it all by hand. Tweak, start the game, look at the result.....tweak, do it all over again. It takes a lot of time. Heck, it took me over 6 months to do what I've done already to RS2 settlements, and that was 6 months of working on that ALONE every day.
But there are other things I want to accomplish as well....
Near the end of our work on patch 2.6, I started doing some testing on a different way to recruit Roman units....in particular, the Legions. And I wanted to incorporate into this an entirely different concept...or highly expanded concept of the 'economic' city vs. the 'fortified' city. It will probably require the removal of most of the extra temples, at least in the Roman campaigns, because in order to 'really' differentiate between military and economic cities, it requires separate building trees, and also, I'd like to implement even different kinds of buildings that can be built in economic or fortified cities. For example, a building that could only be built in a military city for building equipment...ballistas, stone throwers, scorpions. Blacksmith and Forging buildings that are different from the more 'commercial' versions available in economic cities, and offer weapons upgrades because they make swords, spear tips, and armor exclusively. And, I want Military cities to be more and more dependent on economic growth in economic cities so that, as in Rome2, they are supported by them, and don't make a lot of money...if any. (I don't know if that's possible, but it might be.)
Then I want to restrict the recruitment of the Marian and Imperial units to military cities, a system I have been testing for a while, which involves building various 'Roman Fortress' buildings...numbered 1 to 5 or 6....which will allow the recruitment of 3-5 Legions in one city. This will completely replace the AOR system currently used, and allow the player to choose what group of Legions he\she wants available in a given place, as well as restrict where they can be recruited at all. But, to go along with this, I'm trying to figure out how to 'visually inform' the player where these Fortified cities are. Ideally, I'd like to convert the old RTW 'mining' tree so that it is the 'first' building necessary in order to build a Roman Fortress. The reason being that I could use a resource to build a little strat 'Fortress' instead of a mine to show the player where the Military cities are at a glance....located right next to the city. Legion commander ancillaries would then also be available in the cities where particular Legions can be recruited.....a much easier way to do it than the clunky way we've had to it so far.
I also discovered, while testing the above, that there are some major 'flaws' in the RS2 trait system that I was unaware of. So I want to fix this, as well some other flaws that are known which I've already figured out how to fix. In short, what I have always aimed for in RS2 was a way to create 'people'......with good aspects and bad....who are in some cases outstanding, and in other cases near useless (a low percentage of the time), but for the most part just normal people. This was difficult given the RTW trait mechanisms and my knowledge of how they worked. But, with a lot more 'exploration' of this issue, I found a way to create a 'static character' who would have certain qualities and flaws, and then stay that way. He would advance politically, or as an army commander, or as a city administrator. He can learn and advance in other areas.....but the basic substance of his 'character' would remain the same. So for example, if he is 'intelligent', he'll no longer progress to a 'Genius' through the normal RTW trigger system. Rather, he will be assigned, on a random basis, intelligence, of genius, or 'slowness', or generosity, or a hardworking ethic, or whatever. The character will appear in the game, whether through recruitment, coming of age, offered for adoption or marriage, and cycle through a long set of triggers only one time that will 'create his personality'. And that will be it.
I also want to explore ways to make 'Loyalty' a more meaningful system. The BI system of loyalty, which we incorporated into RS2, is flawed as far as I'm concerned because it basically makes no sense. The mechanics of the game allow you to assign loyalty, either plus or minus, for a multitude of traits that often seem to have little to do with why a person would be either loyal or disloyal. For example, why would you give a great commander a loyalty penalty for BEING a great commander? That has nothing to do with why he would be loyal or not. But, if he were a great commander with a hunger for power, or aspirations to rule, or consumed by greed or pride....that could make him disloyal. On the flip side, love of his people, his country, his men or even his leader would inspire him to be loyal and faithful. If you look at history, it wasn't 'greatness' alone that inspired rebellion or disloyalty...rather, it was power and pride and ambition that caused people to betray their leaders. So I want to write a whole new set of traits that will deal specifically with the loyalty alone. (And would love ideas in that area.
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I am also thinking of removing the traits that are associated with the 'Procuratorships'...or regional Governors in RS2, because the traits prevent the transfer of the bonuses, even though you can transfer the ancillaries. It's just too complicated, and I don't like how it works at present. I also want to remove the requirement that a character be in a settlement to be elected a 'Senator'. Being a Senator is a key part of the Roman leadership scheme, and I find that there are just too many times when I can't or don't WANT a character in a settlement.....so he misses out because off doing his duties for me.
Anyway, that's some of the stuff I hope to work on.
Re: To all RS2 fans:
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Are you kidding us DVK? Actually the only dead horse here around is Rome2!
Originally Posted by Diocle
) for a 'crap' game, while I can play RSII for free, I have only to say forever: THANK YOU VERY MUCH DVK & C.!!!
