Rome II Total Realism - Beta Feedback and Suggestions

[Babel_fish]

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Hi all, I'm long time fan for the original RTR (first total war mod I ever played ). I have tried out the new mod for a couple of hours and would like to share some of my first impressions of the current beta (1.5240514) with the development team & fellow players. Most of the feedback relate to the campaign map as I've only had a few battles so far.

1) I love the reduced number of units you can recruit per turn & the fact that the barracks buildings add more recruits/turn. This helps to create a slower paced campaign at the start, and I imagine that this should give larger factions an edge particularly early on and help them to expand against single-region factions.

2) Army public order penalty while garrisoned. I think it's an interesting mechanic and I like that you reduced the value from -20 to -12. I also appreciate that agents like the champion can now help to balance the negative public order impact of garrisoned armies. However, what if I only want to assign a general as a governor to a settlement with only his bodyguard? I find it a bit unreasonable that this should still cause -12 public order - the same as a full stack army. Perhaps it is your design choice to encourage more active armies that operate in the field instead of sitting in cities, but I found myself wondering what's the point of smaller armies which are too weak to attack the enemy if they can't be assigned as provincial garrisons to keep the peace? From the point view of role playing, I can imagine this will be a bigger issue as the player empire grows. Is it possible to give public order bonus to single general armies garrisoned in settlements, while generals commanding large armies reduce order when garrisoned?

3) City garrison composition and balance. I like that you've beefed up the settlement garrison, which compensates for having fewer actual armies garrisoning those settlements, but I noticed a few odd situations:
- Macedon have pike-based garrisons (fantastic!), but perhaps a bit too strong. So strong in fact, the city garrison is easily superior than any army I could muster on the field within the first 7-8 turns. I would like to see the number of pike units remain the same with a drop in quality from phalangitai to levy phalangitai with just one or two elite units thrown in for more variety
- Athens appears to have a substantial number of pikes in their city garrison, which seems a bit off to me as I'd prefer only the successor states + Epirus get pikes for garrison.
- Egypt minor settlement garrison seems messed up. At the start of the game, each minor settlement main building only provides 1 thureophoroi. Is this meant to simulate that the Ptolemies are a foreign dynasty? If this is the intention, then it's rather inconsistent as the Seleucids get substantial garrisons from the very beginning. I like that as Egypt you can no longer pump out native units from the start; did you link the recruitment of native units to technology advance? It'd be great to see both the Ptolemies and Seleucids having more limited recruitment capacity of Macedonian/Greek units early on to simulate their initially limited manpower, that is, until you research appropriate technologies to unlock native units to supplement your armies, and eventually military settlement which increase your access to Macedonian-type troops.

4) Naval battles. The changes you implemented are great! The slower but sturdier ships definitely make naval combats more interesting & tactical to play. Although I have noticed that the AI will still attack your navy with transport fleet even when the auto-resolve puts them at a disadvantage ... I'm aware that this is very much a vanilla issue, but perhaps given the even greater disparity in combat value between naval and land transport units in the mod, this could be more accurately reflected in the auto-resolve calculation for naval battles to discourage the AI from suicide their armies against my fleet?

5) Land battle morale system. Only played a couple of battles in minor settlements & I have a few questions:
- I like the visual indicators of moral penalties for units under missile fire. But, do the missile fire morale penalties stack when a unit is under fire from multiple range units? Is there diminishing returns for morale penalties i.e. if under fire by one missile unit gives -10 morale, being fired on by two units only gives -15 instead of -20?
- Flanking morale penalty. I read in the patch notes that you increased this to make keeping your army in formation (and thus your flanks covered) more important. I think this might still need more tweaking. In one of my battles for control of a minor settlement, one of my almost full strength levy phalangitai routed near the enemy town centre just before the final rout of enemy units. The unit was no more than 10-15m away from friendly units and my general, although it was under attack by a levy freemen from the front (and maybe a little bit to the side?) and under some skirmisher fire. I suspect it's routed due to the stacking morale penalties of exposed flank and missile fire, and while I accept that it's a levy unit with naturally low morale, I'm not sure if this is realistic. I wonder does the flanking penalty take into account of the type of unit that is attacking the flank? For example, a shock cavalry is more dangerous to a flanked unit than, say, some basic levy spearmen.

Thank you for reading. Hope my feedback is constructive & keep the patches coming!

[JaM]

thank you for feedback, really appreciate it

2: we have decided to enforce player to be more active. Generals (as armies) are limited in numbers, therefore they are not supposed to be Governors. In the future, we plan to give every garrison one elite unit that will represent local Governor and his bodyguards, yet, we want you to use your armies actively, instead of camping behind gates.

3: yes, City garrisons will be improved, its one of areas that need major rework in the (near) future, especially for Greek, Hellenic and eastern factions.

4: i'm afraid that is completely hard-coded. CA changed something with HatG DLC that made AI more aggressive with transport fleets even if auto-resolve shows they have no chance to win.. Only option is to report this as a bug to CA support thread and have them to fix it. ( i did already several weeks ago, but maybe its time to refresh their memory of it )

5: Missile morale penalties don't stack, but larger penalty overrides smaller. I know its not how it should be, but it is not possible to change it as game is coded that way.. I have just adjusted the morale penalties based on impact those weapons have, so heavy javelins cause more morale drop than arrows or stones. (but of course there are also other effects that add, not just morale)
Flanking morale penalty is a tricky beast, especially in cities.. i don't know what exactly is happening, but sometimes units in the city report being attacked in the rear even if they fight enemy frontally and there is not a single enemy entity straggled in their back. i'm afraid this is another bug CA needs to fix, only thing i can do is to reduce the morale penalty down. I'm even considering adopting approach i used in ER, where there was one morale penalty for being engaged (same for flank, front and rear) while all the difference would be made by amount of resent casualties taken - being attacked in rear even now means unit's defense is 0, while attacked in flank reduced defense to 50%. Maybe this could fix the issue, anyway who knows what CA fixes in next patch so i don't want to jump a shark unnecessarily..

[AngryTitusPullo]

I like that as Egypt you can no longer pump out native units from the start; did you link the recruitment of native units to technology advance? It'd be great to see both the Ptolemies and Seleucids having more limited recruitment capacity of Macedonian/Greek units early on to simulate their initially limited manpower, that is, until you research appropriate technologies to unlock native units to supplement your armies, and eventually military settlement which increase your access to Macedonian-type troops.

Basically yes though as of this moment there's no limit in numbers of Macedonian/Greek units for Ptolemies (and Seleucids). The native units can be unlock by tech.

[necronox]

Some of this might have been covered before, but here is a few things i picked up with custom battles, and some others are purely comments and suggestions (i have not read the patch notes or any notes or posts about future tweaks, so do excuse if it what i mentioned here has been covered there.)

1) morale is out of whack, i was just testing the efficency of slingers. when their general routed for nearly no reason after sustaining only a single volley from legionnaires (getting about 20-30 death). which seems a little weak.

2) i'm not sure if this was a one of glitch or part of you mod, but in the same custom battle as above, my legionnaires glitched between fighting (slingers who charged me) and hiding behind their shields because they where being fired at by slingers. it seemed strange as the animations for one did not line up, it would instantly switch from "raise shields" to "braced shield" immediately, then back again, i tried the same thing without any mods to see if this was part of the mod, i did not manage to replicate it, which is possible it was just a one off.

3)just a bit of a history nit picking, but i'm a bit sick and tired of seeing lorica segmentata everywhere with post-reform units, so will you guys be changing this? and also while on topic, and this is from my experience with DeI, having different language names for various units are fun and all, but then you have an issue with people not being able to easily recognize each unit or not knowing what the unit is. so, if you do use name, including some sort of abbreviation or other inside description/title/name would be great.

4)Will you add more formations to various units? such as shield wall (and or screen) to units such as hoplites? (i do believe romans used the shield wall as well, not sure tho. anyone? but adding more formations would be a nice addition to the game personally thinking, especially with different things, i've experimented and having a triangle (or wedge) with infantry works out pretty good:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

5) fire at will with romans? i personally think it's a strange and a little funny way of doing things, i have also noticed the unit in question sometimes glitchs between throwing their pilum fighting or bracing for charge. (see 2, same issue)

6) i find the public order a bit harsh, i personally think only buildings like docks, farms, trade centres and recruitment grounds should create squalor, while others such as government buildings shouldn't.

7) lower recruitement points is a great idea. =) no bad things on that part, adds a nice twist. and i think a post on page one had a great idea, making a levy army would be excellent.

8) Camera too high, one thing i really enjoyed with mods like DeI is the camera height (editing a single value inside the camera table) to something lower, 1 is a good value if i remember correctly as the always-over-head get a little annoying when you try and see things close up or try and get "inside" the fighting. also, i've never ventured into that, but cane the height for the over-head camera height editeble (or whatever the name is for the camera angle after pressing insert)

9) some units have names and text description missing, such as a hastati in rome.

10) will you be making the colours of clothes more 'normal'? and being more diverse in colours especially with peasant units, possible having more pale colours such as off-white and greys instead of bright blues, reds and yellows?

one more that's quite minor, certain loading screen seemed pixelated or badly renditioned with high-res gameplay such as the main screen (just after loading), this along with some icons and such. or maybe it's just me....?

[JaM]

1) What unit type was that General? if cavalry, then i don't think its that bad, losing 20-30 men out of 80 practically in few seconds counts as quite a big morale shock.
2) this might have something to do with fire at will animation... i will try some tests with another approach how to enable it.
3) yes, Segmented armor will be a bit rarer, plan is to give it only to Legionary cohorts, while Evocati Cohorts will use mail. it was a munition grade armor after all..
4) Shield wall will definitely not be used with Hoplites as the way its done is just wrong. Romans never used formations like this during republican era, Scutum was unsuitable for shield wall due to convex shape.
5) I dont like how vanilla pilum throw works.. only few are thrown, while remaining stay. In reality, Legionaries would want to release all javelins before closing with swords. they didnt wanted to have javelin in their hands while fighting in close combat. as mentioned before, fire at will animation is not perfect, and requires some improvements which i hope we will manage in the future.
6) squalor and food will be reworked in the future, especially food, which will be replaced by manpower.
9) those units are placeholder, right now unused in campaign mode. originally they were Camilian variants, but after HaTG came out, we had to take them out as they were not working with what CA did to some buildings..
10) yes, but its not a top priority for now.

[H0CHM31573R]

8) Camera too high, one thing i really enjoyed with mods like DeI is the camera height (editing a single value inside the camera table) to something lower, 1 is a good value if i remember correctly as the always-over-head get a little annoying when you try and see things close up or try and get "inside" the fighting. also, i've never ventured into that, but cane the height for the over-head camera height editeble (or whatever the name is for the camera angle after pressing insert)

Regarding the camera, there is a much better option than editing the DB. If you activate the Debug camera mode you'll be able to move it freely almost anywhere in the battlefield.

Here's a quick guide(which I shamelessly copied and pasted):

1. Click the start icon.

2. Type in %appdata% in the search bar.

3. Select the folder "Roaming"

4. Now select the folder "The Creative Assembly"

5. Then click the folder "Rome 2"

6. Now select the folder "Scripts"

7. Open the Preferences.Script.txt file and go to the line "default_camera_type 0; # default_battle_camera <card32>, default battle camera: 0-totalwar 1-rts 2-debug #"

8. Make it "default_camera_type 2" and save.

[necronox]

JaM,

the general type was Arvenii spear nobles.


MMm, i always thought romans used other formations outside of the famous 'testudo' (which was really only used in sieges and similar situation contrary to hollywood), just an after thought, having both attack and defensive testudo's would be nice.

Regarding the camera, there is a much better option than editing the DB. If you activate the Debug camera mode you'll be able to move it freely almost anywhere in the battlefield.

True (i knew that - comes in handy when doing videos or such), however i don't like the how the debug camera handles. or maybe's it just a placebo effect. either way, i would much prefer having 'normal' camera. but changing the DB files is almost as easy....

[JaM]

still, losing 20-30 men out of 160, means they lost 13-19% of men. which means, this hit activated either recent_casualties_penalty_10 (-20 to morale) or recent_casualties_penalty_15(-30 to morale), so this effect alone is not the culprit, as Spear Nobles have morale 70. Yet, if they had both flanks unprotected (-30) and they were engaged from front (-10) they would end up with sudden 0 morale, which is enough to break them, yet, not enough to end up shattered, so they would come back.


regarding fast switching between ready and shield up animation fragments, i could theoretically remove shield up animation fragments from swords and spear fragments.. that should cure it, but as result, no such unit would try to move shield up against incoming projectiles (which is purely eyecandy, as damage taken depends on unit stats anyway)

this should also remove that strange animation of units having shield up even against projectiles coming from behind..


also, seems like removing "reloading" animations from javelins makes them a bit more responsive instead of taking a long time to finally decide to throw their javelins..

MMm, i always thought romans used other formations outside of the famous 'testudo' (which was really only used in sieges and similar situation contrary to hollywood), just an after thought, having both attack and defensive testudo's would be nice.

i failed to see the point of defensive testudo... it looks exactly the same, unit is just unable to move and has no additional bonuses over attack testudo.. practically, you can have same thing with enabling attack testudo and not move the unit forward... as i said, formations in Rome 2 are just bad. Shield wall is completely wrong and unsuitable to represent hoplite close order formation as it doesnt allow them to charge like this. It is wrong for Roman units due to convex shields as well. i would give them shield screen if it didnt had limited with, but whats the point enabling it, when your unit will suddenly end up with both flanks open just to get surrounded by attacked enemy?
It's a shame but CA just did very poor job portraying formations in this game, and i'm afraid game gets better without them than with them active which speaks for itself.. It is not the first TW game with such problem, just look what they did to Empire and fire drills...

[L0n3w0lf9k]

i failed to see the point of defensive testudo... it looks exactly the same, unit is just unable to move and has no additional bonuses over attack testudo.. practically, you can have same thing with enabling attack testudo and not move the unit forward... as i said, formations in Rome 2 are just bad. Shield wall is completely wrong and unsuitable to represent hoplite close order formation as it doesnt allow them to charge like this. It is wrong for Roman units due to convex shields as well. i would give them shield screen if it didnt had limited with, but whats the point enabling it, when your unit will suddenly end up with both flanks open just to get surrounded by attacked enemy?
It's a shame but CA just did very poor job portraying formations in this game, and i'm afraid game gets better without them than with them active which speaks for itself.. It is not the first TW game with such problem, just look what they did to Empire and fire drills...

As I agree with your point "CA did a very poor job portraying formations", I don't agree at the way you put it.

For exemple the hoplite formation is correct by not letting your men run at the enemy. The first time in history that we know of the hoplites charging the enemy running was at Marathon. And it was such a violent push it soon routed the Persians. But in formation the hoplites would walk up to the enemy and engage them with little to no momento. So I kinda get why CA did it this way.

About the testudos in the mod you could make them differ. The defensive testudo a formation that is defensive, more misslie block rate less attack more defense. The attacking testudo on the other hand not much more missile block chance not much less attack, not much more defense. Where you trade mobility for defensive ability.

And lastly about the romans, you can portray good fixed formations. Like the shield screen. vamp it's defense output, lower attack maybe vamp it's morale bonus. It will only get flanked if you let it.

There's no doubt that there are many formations and aspects regarding this missing and/or wrong but those ones you said are not complete fails. As modder to modder, mod it. Make it different and/or make it useful =)

Again my mod is still my favorite mod to play. The battles have a good lenght specially when it's civilized vs civilized and victory rellies much on tactics. But I hope to see this mod thrive and get those battles better than mine. Updating is a pain in the butt xD

So I ask this team to make the best you can for the sake of all Rome II players. Something good is baking here, I can smell it =P

Cheers

[Babel_fish]

Thank you JaM & LestaT for answering my questions. Glad my feedback was of some value to you. Keep up the good work & I can't wait to see R2TR reaching its full potential!

[JaM]

For exemple the hoplite formation is correct by not letting your men run at the enemy. The first time in history that we know of the hoplites charging the enemy running was at Marathon. And it was such a violent push it soon routed the Persians. But in formation the hoplites would walk up to the enemy and engage them with little to no momento. So I kinda get why CA did it this way.

not really. Shield wall formation is not to simulate Hoplites but Barbarian shield wall. it completely fails to simulate hoplite type of formation which was much more dynamic and was capable of charges, while shield wall as it is made here, is not. It is one of the worst formations in the game, even though, others formations are quite close (being bad) Instead, Hoplites got more mass, more rigid formation, so they are harder to push back. Their charge is quite effective form of attack (on contrary to common belief, it was their main form of action), while they are naturally strong in defense.

About the testudos in the mod you could make them differ. The defensive testudo a formation that is defensive, more misslie block rate less attack more defense. The attacking testudo on the other hand not much more missile block chance not much less attack, not much more defense. Where you trade mobility for defensive ability.

not sure how could this differ like this, considering Scutum will be still held the same, therefore amount of block chance wont change.. it is identically looking formation, where only difference is that defensive testudo cannot move... giving it artificial bonuses doesn't seem right, as it would encourage player and AI to use it, just to get some hidden bonuses while entire unit would be formed in formation that doesn't make sense from tactical perspective... if defensive testudo was formed without changing the width of unit, i would not remove it, but as it is now, it is superfluous.

Many people forget one thing - This game is about Republican and early Imperial Era, At this point of time, Romans used convex Scutum, which was unsuitable for any form of close formation with locked shields.. Convex shape at the other side, gave every legionary slightly better protection on flanks comparing to flat shields. Roman type of close combat was quite different than many think, it was revolving around giving enough of space for legionary to fight the enemy, they were not cramped together. Things changed with move towards oval shields, which were commonly locked into shield walls, anyway once you do this, you practically give all initiative to your enemy, which was something Republican and early Imperial Legions would want to prevent.

if you want to read more about this, i would suggest checking this web: http://romanarmy.info/site_map.html - it contains tons of useful info, based on which i tried to model Roman combat system.

[Sheogorath1706]

Is it possible you guys could make arrows look and act more like they were in shogun 2. They don't look like arrows at the moment , they look more like stones being fired out of a bow and they hit like a wet tissue unless you use fire arrows.

[L0n3w0lf9k]

Mate here you go on my hoplite information: http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/marathon.htm

"Such was the opinion of the barbarians; but the Athenians in close array fell upon them, and fought in a manner worthy of being recorded. They were the first of the Greeks, so far as I know, who introduced the custom of charging the enemy at a run, and they were likewise the first who dared to look upon the Persian garb, and to face men clad in that fashion. Until this time the very name of the Persians had been a terror to the Greeks to hear."

About the formation... Yes it is not right the hoplite spears should be on the shoulders striking from above the shield much more commonly than bellow. The shield wall on barbarians is also ok. If you order a charge they'll leave formation. It's correct in my eyes. Such as the hoplites. If you charge you leave formation. Makes sense to me. Now you can make it possible to regain formation once you charge and are combat. It doesn't fix the issue. But it should make it better.

About the Roman way of combat. On my battle mod I actually did do as follows:

Attacking testudo:
+Melee defense
+Missile block chance
-Melee Attack

Defensive Testudo:
++Missile Block Chance.
++Melee defense.
-- Melee Attack.

And I changed the formation looks to shield screen. So it's not a testudo. Unit still can't move and I wish all men would raise shields. But well... Better than what it was. I think it has a small vs infantry bonus as well.

Yes and you are right when it comes to hastati and pricipes fighting. They are much more relliant on tactics than unit formations themselves. They were more individual. But from the Marian's reforms on you must contenplate the more unified kind of combat, am I right? It might have been in 120 BC that they actually happened but I had them happening in 200 BC or earlier
I'm not an expert on Roman fighting styles. I know enough I think. I've read and watches some documentaries of a few battles.

It would be cool however that you guys could make rank rotation visible with the new modding tools, and make for example the defensive testudo working without a locked rank and depth. which sucks. I'd love if you guys could make the hoplites fight as real hoplites as well. I think you did it in rome I !

[Babel_fish]

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4) Naval battles. The changes you implemented are great! The slower but sturdier ships definitely make naval combats more interesting & tactical to play. Although I have noticed that the AI will still attack your navy with transport fleet even when the auto-resolve puts them at a disadvantage ... I'm aware that this is very much a vanilla issue, but perhaps given the even greater disparity in combat value between naval and land transport units in the mod, this could be more accurately reflected in the auto-resolve calculation for naval battles to discourage the AI from suicide their armies against my fleet?

According to the new Getae/Battle of Pydna patch note, there's been a 'Fix for Campaign AI sometimes overestimating strength of transport ships.' Perhaps my prayer has been answered...

[JaM]

According to the new Getae/Battle of Pydna patch note, there's been a 'Fix for Campaign AI sometimes overestimating strength of transport ships.' Perhaps my prayer has been answered...

and it is exactly why i didn't wanted to dig into fixing it as i knew they would have to do something about this very soon...

[La Tene]

and it is exactly why i didn't wanted to dig into fixing it as i knew they would have to do something about this very soon...

See, CA is listening, IE: creeping these boards

I would like to suggest the fortify stance requires a bit less move points but produces a bit less melee defense for troops. This way, I might be able to push a bit deeper in to enemy territory but without abusing the positive effects of the stance. Copying a good move on the part of another mod is really just - a good move Though, DeI's very large campaign movement ranges makes the stance OP'd in my opinion...

Might I suggest, 40%?

[Causeless]

IMO the forts shouldn't give an attack/defense bonus. Troops don't magically get better at attack from staying in a fort. I'd think the advantage should be more like some resistance to fatigue (as the troops have had time to rest and forage for food), or a morale bonus.

[JaM]

i'm thinking about giving all soldiers in the fort bonus to their ammo (easier to replenish than in the field), and of course some morale boost..

[Sheogorath1706]

One thing I would love to see come from this mod is a larger map with tons more cities and a better map like i previous RTR's. Do you think CA will release a map editor anytime soon? Has their been anything said?

[JaM]

so far they didnt said anything, but we all hope they will release it some day, as they did for Shogun 2...