The battles have lost their context for me.

[Luminous Smurf]

Sorry for the weird title but i don't have any other way of putting it, the battles don't really mean anything to me now that generals are so generic, in previous titles generals were interesting, they had more than just three traits (traits that can disappear if a 4th one comes along,) there seemed to be more to do and think about on the campaign map, the resources look like one of the cut features Tim Heaton was talking about to reach a metacritic score, as does the political system which frankly is so non-interactive as to make me wonder why it's there instead of a General list, family trees were also of great interest and all these things gave context and flavour to my battles.

There's no connection there with my generals as there used to be, i still remember Carlos the Ugly from Medieval 2, he looked useless but he ended up scourging his way around the middle east, turning into a real bad-ass general, found himself a piece of the true cross and died in a ship-storm on the way back after a lifetime of campaigning, these things just don't seem to happen anymore, the generals die like flies, they don't stand out because they have so few identifiable traits, every battle is just a battle, there's no context to it other than land-grab, there is NOTHING happening of political interest, god i'm disappointed, i know this is a rant and i'm sorry, but i'm fed up.

[caratacus]

Yes, the preview video of RTW2 (which I didn't like at all for its graphic depiction of violence and sex) did imply that the political aspect of Rome in the Game was going to be better developed. I assumed that you would have generals developing their careers, from fighting in a campaign to serving in the Senate and with political support subsequently become Emperor. Or alternatively have generals start a rebellion, win over other generals to their side and become Emperor by force of arms, with the player choosing to side with them and become their military commander or lead their own rebellion. Instead the campaign is very linear without the complexity brought by an interactions of characters rising up the chain of military command and ladder of political influence, which is what Rome was all about.

However this would have meant focusing the Game more upon Rome than any other faction, as the other faction's systems of leadership worked very differently. But there again, this is what the preview video implied as no other characters were shown but Romans, in a video that owed more to the impressions made upon someone in CA by the TV series Spartacus, than the actual game content.

[SirRobin]

However this would have meant focusing the Game more upon Rome than any other faction, as the other faction's systems of leadership worked very differently.

Well, the game is called "Rome" after all. I don't think it would have been out of place to focus on the Romans.

[✠Ikaroqx✠]

Well, the game is called "Rome" after all. I don't think it would have been out of place to focus on the Romans.

Not too heavily though. It'd still be nice to have a decent political system for the other factions, even if it isn't as fleshed out and complex as Rome's.

Lol listen to me, as though the game hasn't been released yet. Ah well, we can dream.

[Emperor Arcturus Mengsk]

The way agents work are making this problem even bigger, I don't mind that they can all assasinate but even if you try to protect the "good" one you spotted and want to develop agents have ridiculous success chances on 80-90% just being level * three. -.-

In one of my campaigns I wanted to keep a general that I started campaigning with at his age 16, and I ended up having him wounded for 4 turns for 10 times in a row. When that large war finally ended he in turn recovered from the multiple assasination attempts, lol.

Aged 43 or something

I remember in other titles that focused on assasination a lot such as Shogun 2, if you wanted to assasinate a high level enemy daimyo ( that could be there from the start of the game till nearly the end of the campaign game if he wasn;t killed in combat!!!)

Anyone remember CAI Takeda Shingen with 10 stars??? High level? That was some scary !!!

You had like 20% chances at the best scenario, that was more realistic than getting 90% from a generic lvl 3 guy >,<

./rant