Rome 2 's comparison to other TW games

**Tullaris** · October 21, 2013, 08:38 AM

Lately I have noticed that in a lot of threads and posts on this forum people compare Rome 2 mostly to Rome 1 and Medieval 2. These games are both over eight years old and by now we have had three games in between. Why bother with the comparison? It's core game mechanics like battle and campaign AI, the economic system and faction dynamics (both internal and external (diplomacy)) that we should be discussing. These three aspects (AI, economics and factions) in were all done better by Rome 2's true predecessor: Shogun 2.

For me Shogun 2 (plus FOTS) is the best game in the series and if anything Rome 2 should be compared to it. If Rome had been a reskinned copy of Shogun 2 on a map of Europe it would have been a succes.Some people have skipped Shogun 2 because they think the setting is uninteresting or there is not enough unit variation in between factions. But honestly its greatly varied and most importantly offers a genuine challenge, which is what I want from my TW games.In the weeks prior to Rome 2's release, I had been playing a FOTS campaign single player and a Shogun 2 main campaign in coop multiplayer. From playing a truely good game I went into the mess that is Rome 2.

Is it that people that currently think Rome 2 is a great game have perhaps skipped Shogun 2? Is there a connection between those that have played Shogun 2 and those that are dissappointed by the game?

**Holger Danske** · October 21, 2013, 09:47 AM

Tbh I don't really think so. I can see the dissapointment in those that liked S2 (FOTS) and expected Rome II to be the magic "40%" bigger, and better were disappointed. As for me my disappointment started well before release date as it became apperent what kind of game CA was actually selling.

**Yerevan** · October 21, 2013, 11:35 AM

FOTS has been an amazing experience for me who usually prefers ancient era warfare. And shogun was a really good game too. But there's something that I already missed with those two games it's the character's narrative thing.

S2 had a family tree and some nice specialisation feature for generals, but there was just one little detail that destroyed it all, which was auto-resolve and the suicidal tendancies of AI generals in battle.
I never could fight a historical 4 stars AI general because they always died in auto-resolved AI vs AI battles. And when they were fighting me, if ever they were too siege one of my fort, their defeat always meant automatic death of the general, because most of the time, after its troops had died on my walls, they would dimount and be executed on top of their soldiers's corpses. And in field battle they would choose to jump on my pike units.
At least, R2TW's AI is much more successfull in preserving its general. It's a pity you can't feel any conection to them.
I really love to have vivid general characters in my empire AND in my ennemies too !

However FOTS generals knew how to preserve themselves vs the player, but it was the same with auto-solve battles. Besides the problem was the campaign's timeframe which was too short to see a nice family tree evolution.
But FOTS had something else which I liked : you were not feeling this player vs the whole world thing like in S2.S2 was perfectly balanced and fun, but the campaigns were really uni-dimensional. You couldn't feel that your faction was just one among many nations, each with an autonomous existence and a distinct purpose.
The world was divided in two factions : yours and the AI factions (thx to realm divide amongst other things). They were all the same faction, just with a different color.This is something I really liked in M2TW : the perfect simulation of a complex world with many distinct nations, religions, political systems.
But, this might be very personnal tastes :-) and you're absolutely right : CA should have kept many of S2/FOTS features.

**AlexCouceiro** · October 21, 2013, 01:54 PM

Fall of the Samurai is for me the best game of the series.

Comparing it to Shogun 2, the first good thing is that Realm Divide makes sense, although diplomacy may be almost automatic since there´s almost nothing really to be negotiated (that's a shortcoming). Another great thing is that the map is huge and troops movement is very restricted. That makes it possible to have fewer and more strategic battles, especially if you consider winter seasons will last for 6 turns. In Shogun 2, if a faction declares war on you, that means the next turn there will be two full stacks right next to your capital, for sure.

There are some other considerations worth mentioning. In Fall of the Samurai, the player only needs to conquer 25 settlements, and there's plenty of time for it: 312 turns. In Shogun 2 long campaign, you need to conquer 40 regions in 220 turns, which turns the game into an unrealistic frenetic pace. Also, in FoTS you can manage to build armies to both attack the enemy and, most importantly, the economy will permit you to stack troops inside settlements as well, making a fine balance for game-play between attacking and defending. In short, you will not be like a headless chicken, as in Shogun 2, running back and forth to take and protect settlements at the same time.

Moreover, generals will live through the entire campaign, most of the time, and will become very important for you. Since FOTS is not about fighting full stacks each and every turn and insanely conquering a whole bunch of provinces, as is the case in Shogun 2, I set the campaign difficulty to Hard, instead of Normal. This is good not only because the campaign becomes more of a challenge, in a so called natural fashion, but also because the loyalty system (generals defecting) becomes more relevant.

If FOTS were more complex in the Diplomacy field, and if it received a well rewarding political system, it would have been an almost perfect game. The AI is not bad as well, but it could also be improved, especially the BAI.

**Tullaris** · October 22, 2013, 03:50 AM

I agree character development was lacking in Shogun 2 / FOTS. But its not like its there in Rome 2. Everyone dies too quickly.

**Jonoleth Irenicus** · October 22, 2013, 04:02 AM

Why do people still talk about RTW and MTW and MTW 2 ?

Because they were great games, they had lasting power, they drew you in, you wanted to play more, you were engaged, enthralled, interested ... etc. etc. etc.

RTW 2 just hasn't managed to create that sort of game play experience for many who enjoyed the earlier installments.