Is it fair to compare modded Rome 1 to unmodded Rome 2?

[Aenima]

Edit: Reading the comments i find the effort of trying to justify comparing Rome 1 moded with Rome II desperate, some people are even praising Rome II without realizing it. Claiming certain Rome 1 features that only existed in mods where added to Rome II.

It is really simple, you compare Vanilla Rome 1 with Vanilla Rome 2. Because if you don't how can you even bring yourself to flame CA?

It's not desperate. Just saying "you can't compare the two!" and leaving it at that is desperate, if anything. I haven't seen many good arguments put forward of why it "can't" be done, nor what's wrong with the arguments I put forward.

And also, as myself and others have said, we also compare vanilla with vanilla. It's not like we forget vanilla RTW exists.

[Didz]

Of course it's fair. Mods implement improvements to the game which players desire to enhance their enjoyment. Therefore, as a game designer you ought to aiming to incorporate all of these features into any sequel of that game title. If you don't then basically you are setting yourself up to fail. So, at the very least a sequel game ought to be as good as it's modded prequel, and having achieved that you can begin to build on the bonus features.

[Causeless]

Of course it's fair. Mods implement improvements to the game which players desire to enhance their enjoyment. Therefore, as a game designer you ought to aiming to incorporate all of these features into any sequel of that game title. If you don't then basically you are setting yourself up to fail. So, at the very least a sequel game ought to be as good as it's modded prequel, and having achieved that you can begin to build on the bonus features.

Game design doesn't work that way. You can't just tack feature, after feature, after feature on. If you do, the game just becomes a tumour of disconnected ideas, and any player is likely to get overwhelmed by this huge mass of features which don't work well together.

The thought the the developer MUST include all ideas from mods beforehand is just preposterous. The only reason these features existed in previous games is because the general play style worked together with it. However, Rome 2 has differences in mechanics that either nullify the need to have features included or work as a substitute for them. Even so, if you were to grab all the features from every Rome 1 mod and stick them into it's own mod, it'd be hideous and unplayable. Same goes for if you collected all those features and put them into Rome 2.

[Didz]

Game design doesn't work that way. You can't just tack feature, after feature, after feature on. If you do, the game just becomes a tumour of disconnected ideas, and any player is likely to get overwhelmed by this huge mass of features which don't work well together.

The thought the the developer MUST include all ideas from mods beforehand is just preposterous. The only reason these features existed in previous games is because the general play style worked together with it. However, Rome 2 has differences in mechanics that either nullify the need to have features included or work as a substitute for them. Even so, if you were to grab all the features from every Rome 1 mod and stick them into it's own mod, it'd be hideous and unplayable. Same goes for if you collected all those features and put them into Rome 2.

Nonsense, it's basic product development and the same theory applies to any product or service being sold in a market place.

The designers have to monitor the feedback from their customers and introduce the desired improvements into their products. If they don't then they will eventually lose their market, which is basically what's happening with the Totalwar series.

Popular Mods are part of Totalwars product quality loop, as they highlight features that their customer base dislike in the original design, and features they would like to see added. If CA's designers simply ignore this feedback then not only do they risk releasing another failed game, but they are effectively giving their loyal customer base the finger. e.g. 'We don't give a damn what you want, this is what we are giving you. So up yours.'

For example, we have mods available that greatly improve AI behavior in several CA games. Therefore, why would we be unfair to expect that CA's designers study the way these mods work and introduce these improvements into their next title. When an amateur modder can produce a challenging AI using exactly the same engine as CA's professional programmers is it really unfair to expect some improvement in the next release?

Likewise, there are enough mods on these forums already that are dedicated to removing un-historic units from the Totalwar games that by now I would have expected CA to have noted the fact that not all their customers want these fantasy units in the game. So, why isn't the ability to switch them off a standard part of the campaign configuration, instead of forcing us to fiddle around in unit configuration tables.

Simple things like that let your customers know that you are listening and responding to their feedback.

Instead we get Rome 2, which is just a compilation of dumb ideas wrapped up in the same failing code, and is actually farther from customer expectations than Shogun 2. Rome 2 is currently the first Totalwar title that I refuse to pay for, because it's so far from what I want in a strategy game that it's not worth the £28 package cost.

Napoleon Totalwar only just scraped into my steam library because I managed to get it cheap at £14, and to be honest it was hardly worth that price as it was such a disappointment I rarely bother playing it. If CA don't start listening to their customer base then this franchise will die. In fact, all it would take is another game company to take their concept and do it properly, and it would be dead instantly.

[Causeless]

Nonsense, it's basic product development and the same theory applies to any product or service being sold in a market place.

The designers have to monitor the feedback from their customers and introduce the desired improvements into their products. If they don't then they will eventually lose their market, which is basically what's happening with the Totalwar series.

Popular Mods are part of Totalwars product quality loop, as they highlight features that their customer base dislike in the original design, and features they would like to see added. If CA's designers simply ignore this feedback then not only do they risk releasing another failed game, but they are effectively giving their loyal customer base the finger. e.g. 'We don't give a damn what you want, this is what we are giving you. So up yours.'

CA don't make games for Total War centre. They make it for all Total War players. But here's the thing - despite this, they DO listen to the community. A frequent complaint is realism, and now Rome 2 is one of the most realistic Total War games to date - there aren't fantasy units like head-hurlers or screeching women. However now people on the main Total War forums complain about this! CA are trying to cater to all groups including the realism freaks, the casual Total War players (who can still adore the series as much as anyone else), or just new players. That's why the unit roster is realistic, while the abilities aren't. It's a compromise solution.

Oh, and almost forgot! Rome 2 sold fantastically well, and right now is consistently staying at around the 20th spot on Steam's popular games by current players list. That's what, more than half a year after release, and it's doing great. They aren't losing their market, it's growing.

For example, we have mods available that greatly improve AI behavior in several CA games. Therefore, why would we be unfair to expect that CA's designers study the way these mods work and introduce these improvements into their next title. When an amateur modder can produce a challenging AI using exactly the same engine as CA's professional programmers is it really unfair to expect some improvement in the next release?

All the modders do is slightly change and tweak and priority tables of the AI. They don't recode their own AI, at least not in the recent games that I'm aware of. The modders build on CA's work, not overhaul it, and AI is the same.

Likewise, there are enough mods on these forums already that are dedicated to removing un-historic units from the Totalwar games that by now I would have expected CA to have noted the fact that not all their customers want these fantasy units in the game.

Here's the keyword: "not all their customers". Face it, the realism freaks and a minority of Total War players, and over on the official forums there is a thread arguing for the inclusion of more fantasy units. Even so, Total War games have gotten more realistic! The battles in Rome 1 were ultra fast, with arcadey fake units, and not even a distinction between hoplite and pike phalanx! We've come far, even if you want more.

So, why isn't the ability to switch them off a standard part of the campaign configuration, instead of forcing us to fiddle around in unit configuration tables.

Because that requires that CA balance the game twice. They need to balance the game without these units, and with the units, and ensure that the pricing is all ok and that the unit rosters are big and that any unique traits of the faction can be represented by both fantasy and non-fantasy units. Then they need to make sure that with fantasy units enabled, the game doesn't become a boring homogeneous mess where each units has 2 variants of fantasy and non-fantasy, and there's no point in choosing one other the other.

Rome 2 is just 1 game, and is balanced that way. The fact that you consider that we can configure the units to our tastes a downside, just because CA didn't make the unit rosters the exact way you wanted them, pretty ignorant of what non-realism-freaks would want.

Simple things like that let your customers know that you are listening and responding to their feedback.

Instead we get Rome 2, which is just a compilation of dumb ideas wrapped up in the same failing code, and is actually farther from customer expectations than Shogun 2. Rome 2 is currently the first Totalwar title that I refuse to pay for, because it's so far from what I want in a strategy game that it's not worth the £28 package cost.

Napoleon Totalwar only just scraped into my steam library because I managed to get it cheap at £14, and to be honest it was hardly worth that price as it was such a disappointment I rarely bother playing it. If CA don't start listening to their customer base then this franchise will die. In fact, all it would take is another game company to take their concept and do it properly, and it would be dead instantly.

Napoleon Total War was absolutely adored by some players. Anyways, CA do listen to their community - they run modding summits, and as a direct result of that music modding is now in. That's called "listening". Some much wanted features like multiplayer campaigns have come into Total War over the last few years, and CA frequently release free DLC. Once the unit pull-through exploit was found, a CA member replied to it and within a few days a hotfix patch was out to fix it. If that isn't listening to the community, I don't know what it.

The flaw of Shogun 2 modding isn't that you can't backport new features into this older game, what an absurd expectation and criterion for modification.


I prefer the feature set of Shogun 2 because it's far less restrictive with what it has. I don't how often I can repeat this. You can gut the game and transplant alot of new ideas into it and it's far more amenable to a total conversion. You cannot do the same for Rome 2. No amount of semantic arguing will change this. You can't say that Rome 2 is more mod-friendly whilst also acknowledging that it contains more hardcoded features than any other game. It's got nothing to do with whether I personally dislike how Rome 2 functions. If I cannot mod significant parts of the game and most of what I can mod is superficial at best, the net result is no total conversion mods, regardless of the time and effort it takes to create one.

Shogun 2 isn't less restrictive in terms of hard-coded features, you just prefer the feature set. People are making a LOTR, Medieval, and Star Wars mods right now, which practically proves that Rome 2 is moddable. The only true restrictions that exist that aren't in Shogun 2 is map modding, and perhaps city building slots... could you please tell me what these hard-coded features are?

"No amount of semantic arguing will change this."

So stop semantically arguing, and give me some examples. I can't exactly argue my points by doing much other than "no it isn't", because you've supplied no facts about what is more moddable.

[High Fist]

Interesting thread. Indeed, it's probably not fair to compare a modded Rome 1 to vanilla Rome II, but is it fair to compare vanilla Rome 1 to vanilla Rome II? I sure as hell don't think so. If a player asked himself, "would I rather play Rome 1 or Rome 2?" he'd most likely pick Rome II. But if he asked himself "would I rather play Roma Surrectum or Rome II?" he'd be much more likely not to go for no.2. Thus, the comparison is probably much more viable. Maybe.

2.) Because EB is the the modification that equals the bible of historic research.

I think you might wanna reword that.

My point was that we are getting new things like beach landing battles (cooooool) and in the same time we are without general speeches, have probably plasma torches for iron gates and so on.

*Whispers* beach landing battles never happened in antiquity...

"Oh shite, there's an army on that beach! Should we disembark and charge them?"
"Eh, no, we'll just sail a few miles up the coast and land there."

[Daruwind]

*Whispers* beach landing battles never happened in antiquity...

"Oh shite, there's an army on that beach! Should we disembark and charge them?"
"Eh, no, we'll just sail a few miles up the coast and land there."

True point. BUT as I said before the implementation of new features can be not so perfect especially in first time (I can forgive/live with it). Current beach landing is not historical but would you prefer that your biiiiiiig army just a mile from beach cannot reinforce land units in city attack?

EDIT: And of course current beach landing is without doubts cinematic. Another question is if historical accuracy at all cost is better or not. I just prefer game-wise ala Gladiator movie style. It´s game!

[High Fist]

@Daruwind, Yeah I know, it's there because it's cool and cinematic - I remember watching the Carthage battle near two years ago and thinking "Wow, that's damn cool". They even said they were going for that "Saving Private Ryan" feel.

It's interesting, regularly in movies or games they sacrifice historical accuracy for "badassery". Like for movies they hire historical advisers to put in the credits, but they don't really listen to anything those advisers say. Which is why I whispered it in the first place.

But anyway, the off topic police is patrollin', so I best leave this for another discussion.

[Octavius Vatco]

It is fair because CA should have put into consideration that the mods represent the ideals of the fans...... they could have build on the ideas in all those mods....

[Darios]

It is fair because CA should have put into consideration that the mods represent the ideals of the fans...... they could have build on the ideas in all those mods....

You gotta be kidding me. TWC represents a minor (but extremely passionate) fringe group of TW fans. I have tons of friends who have spent years playing RTW but have no idea that mods even exist for the games. They play the vanilla version and they're happy. Ignorance is bliss eh? I even have a friend who tried EB long ago and uninstalled it in disgust telling me that "Dude, I love history, but this is ridiculous. If I wanna learn history then I'll I read a book, I open up RTW if I wanna play a game."

Mods only represent what the hardcore history/fantasy/whatever fan wants to see in his Total War game. I have worked on a Dark Ages mod for M2 because it's a period of history that I'm fascinated about, it doesn't change the fact that I love vanilla M2TW. They're just both their own special things.

Sad as it might be for us TWC people, something like EB would never sell well with the masses. I think that R2 did a great job of keeping gameplay simple enough for the masses to enjoy as well as implementing enough features from mods to show that they do listen to their hardcore fans who want to see more historical accuracy in games.

[SturmChurro]

Please refrain from discussing other members.

[Tenerife_Boy]

My answer is no, because I think every TW game needs a year or so to be "stable and playable & full supported for modders"...A year is no reached still and I see many people blaming on CA.

Ok I blame because I want better hoplite shields (bigger and well gripped) as the picture previews shown us, wich I see is a false Marketing ¬¬ BUT I know, the game is too in a "baby fase" and hope CA provide us better tools or so to improve the game in battles and in campaign.

[PlPs]

No, it's not fair.

Rome 1 wasn't that great at all.

[Hetairos]

I consider this discussion to become a dead end. Everything has been said, what was needed to say. I don't see any kind of acknowledgement from the so to speak "Anti"-RTW/RSII/Shogun II fraction that others might be free to have their opinion or may have their good and valid points as well. On the contrary it became all but trying to force ones opinion over others. This is not how a real debate looks like and can only lead to endless fighting, frustration, more deleted messages and finally to the closure of the thread. I wish everyone good fun with Rome II as it is and all others who are looking for more depth and improvements patience and persistency in calling for those missing features.

Cheers

[Lionheart11]

I consider this discussion to become a dead end. Everything has been said, what was needed to say. I don't see any kind of acknowledgement from the so to speak "Anti"-RTW/RSII/Shogun II fraction that others might be free to have their opinion or may have their good and valid points as well. On the contrary it became all but trying to force ones opinion over others. This is not how a real debate looks like and can only lead to endless fighting, frustration, more deleted messages and finally to the closure of the thread. I wish everyone good fun with Rome II as it is and all others who are looking for more depth and improvements patience and persistency in calling for those missing features.



Cheers

I agree, dead thread, loaded questions, argumentative post. If this was a anti Rome 2 poll or moderation was fair this thread would have died a few pages ago.

Maybe i should start a Rome 2 vs Shougun 2 poll.

[Modestus]

Why should I compare RTW2 to RTW1 if I am playing RSII, is there a UN directive some international agreement that prevents the comparison with RSII ? Of course I can compare them if I want.

If I prefer the grass in Fable 3 to the grass in RTW2 I can make that comparison there is nothing intrinsically unfair about that its just a comparison, likewise if I compare the UI in RSII to the UI in RTW2 there is nothing intrinsically unfair about that either in fact trying to disallow that comparison is really what is unfair.

[Sebidee]

Saying that CA should have taken features from the mods if frankly ridiculous. The mods were only make for small part of the TW community, many of which would not have been acceptable for the general market, also it is not as if the mods were massively popular. CA would not have had any reason to belief that they were so popular since they had no monetary value, I seriously doubt too that they trawled through all of the forums to find this kind of stuff out.

[Mackles]

Saying that CA should have taken features from the mods if frankly ridiculous. The mods were only make for small part of the TW community, many of which would not have been acceptable for the general market, also it is not as if the mods were massively popular. CA would not have had any reason to belief that they were so popular since they had no monetary value, I seriously doubt too that they trawled through all of the forums to find this kind of stuff out.

At the Mod Summit we had a talk from CraigCA talking about how at CA they do value the modding community and can appreciate the positive impact a strong and vibrant modding scene can have on the opinion of their players. As he pointed out at the time, this is obviously something that is very difficult to actually put into figures and use as evidence when, for example, they go to talk to SEGA about investing more time and support in creating new tools. The Community team do spend a fair amount of time trawling through forums already to highlight mods on their social feeds now and again, and all of those on the Workshop do have figures available which could be of some use. Regardless of this point, we can see how rather than stick to their creative design of RTW the team here have drawn on some areas of RTW mods, such as highlighting the distinction between pikemen and hoplites (something not everyone can grasp first time around) and embracing an all around more accurate portrayal of soldiers from the period.

As far as comparing Rome II to any other Total War game, modded or not, I think as on overall package perhaps that might not be the best way forward. However, I'm of the opinion that it is certainly fair - indeed, eminently desirable - to assess where various features and designs are now relative to where they began, and how these could perhaps inform design in large expansions or further on down the series. From a player standpoint this makes sense as they can then provide information on what they liked and what they didn't, which could also be of some use when the designers want to see what was popular.

[Hetairos]

Saying that CA should have taken features from the mods if frankly ridiculous.

Mate, you start to sound extremely ridiculous and discrediting yourself. I'd suggest to just let it go.

First of all, who said that exact sentence? You started to use random generalizations for your arguements. Secondly, to be able to port RSII content into Rome II you need the following:

- Add a Battle Map Editor
- Add a Campaign Map Editor
- Enable UI Coding (not only reskins)
- Unlock the UI Limitations for Buildings and Traits
- Unlock the UI Limitations for Descriptions and Texts
- Unlock or De-Hardcode the Database
- Add a Population System
- Add a Family Tree
- Add Roads
- Enable Intro / Cutscene Modding
- Enable Sound Effects and Voice Modding
- Remove Torching Down Gates and Improve the Siege AI
- Add Diplomacy Option: Trade Region
- Release a Scripting Doc
- Add the Senate
- Fix Night Lighting
- Add Dynamic Weather to the Battle Maps
- Add Dynamic Day & Night Cycle to the Battle Maps
- Improve the Battle AI

NO SINGLE point of this list was added by RSII. RSII is just a modification, not a game. RSII used the freedom of the RTW engine and the existing RTW features to mod it to perfection. RSII did NOTHING else than providing content to the available framework.

The mods were only make for small part of the TW community, many of which would not have been acceptable for the general market, also it is not as if the mods were massively popular.

First of all nobody said that RSII was meant for the market, its just a mod. Furthermore another total discredit of yours to allow yourself to say those mods were not popular anyways and only a small part of the community played them, since you never played RSII, RTR, EB nor seem to ever have tried RTW: How could you ever judge on anything you don't even know. RSII 2.5 has right now on Modd.DB about 125,348 downloads right now (10 years after the release of RTW!!!). And take into consideration that Modd.DB is not even the primary download plattform of RSII. Not to mention about all the millions downloads of RSII 1.0 to 2.6 before. The Roma Surrectum forum has

304,784

posts. RSII is even nowadays being developed: Screenshots

CA would not have had any reason to belief that they were so popular since they had no monetary value, I seriously doubt too that they trawled through all of the forums to find this kind of stuff out.

This was taken a bit out of context I think and comes from the modding summit if I remember correctly, but: Thats the biggest nonsense and discredit of its own community to even allow oneself to say: "We do not have any evidence that mods generate profit". Even it is a simple fact-statement (its not a lie or something) it is extremely unsensible to even say it out loud. There are all the thousand modders out there putting up millions of hours into modding of their products who do not want to hear this and I do not even need an evidence for it or hard facts... it is fairly clear that modding does add value to games.

btw Happy Birthday

[Causeless]

alecwermuth, you keep posting that list of things to port RSII. Yes, we know!

Here's why it's not convincing, let's turn the argument up-side down.

What are all the things we need in Rome 1, to be able to back-port, for example, Rome 2 Total Realism over? (and yes I chose that mod because I work on it )

We need:

- Naval battles
- Province system
- Edicts
- More UI modification freedom
- Variation between men in units
- Dismounting cav units
- Blah blah blah I can list another 20 things here

NO SINGLE point of this list was added by R2TR. R2TR is just a modification, not a game. R2TR used the freedom of the TW:R2 engine and the existing TW:R2 features to mod it to perfection. R2TR did NOTHING else than providing content to the available framework.

While I agree that I've love many things in your list to be in Rome 2, especially modding tools, it's unfortunately weak as an actual argument.

Also:

This was taken a bit out of context I think and comes from the modding summit if I remember correctly, but: Thats the biggest nonsense and discredit of its own community to even allow oneself to say: "We do not have any evidence that mods generate profit". Even it is a simple fact-statement (its not a lie or something) it is extremely unsensible to even say it out loud. There are all the thousand modders out there putting up millions of hours into modding of their products who do not want to hear this and I do not even need an evidence for it or hard facts... it is fairly clear that modding does add value to games.

Hang on, don't you complain that CA isn't transparent enough? That you are sickened by their marketing responses and lack of honest responses at times?

Here they gave an honest fact. A true fact, hell - there's no solid evidence. And note, they said that mods don't give any guaranteed proven PROFIT - they didn't say that modding doesn't add VALUE to the games. 2 different concepts. Despite this, they make modding summits and try their best to convince SEGA to give them funding to create such modding tools. Honestly, from my point of view, it looks like you don't care about CA being transparent or whatever. You just want them to say exactly what you want to hear.