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

[Sebidee]

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.

When did I say that? I played the hell out of vanilla RTW. I know it's weaknesses. I said the mods weren't massively popular as in every single total war player hasn't played them. The majority I'm guessing.

btw Happy Birthday

Thanks

[Hetairos]

When did I say that? I played the hell out of vanilla RTW. I know it's weaknesses. I said the mods weren't massively popular as in every single total war player hasn't played them. The majority I'm guessing.

Can I ask you when it was the last time you played RTW? I haven't played Shogun II for quiet a while and am already pretty foggy about it. Unfortunately, I highly doubt you will be able to provide an objective and detailed opinion on RTW's features, not to mention on its mods at all.

You just seem to be extremely resistent to anything else outside your own Rome II world. I instead have played RSII, EB, DeI, RTW, ALX, BI and Rome II more than extensively and am pretty much every day playing RTW. Which leads me apparently to some type of expertise on comparing those. Instead of acknowledging you keep on blocking any thought that might be providing a broader and more diverse viewpoint helping to improve Rome II overall. I am not sure what I should think of that.

Also its incredible to read things in between your posts like "RSII was not that popular and thinking that the majority of RTW player have not played it anyways". Approx. 350'000 posts on TWC, 10 years of awesome effort and development and millions of downloads wouldn't count as massively popular in your viewpoint? RSII and all of the awesome mods of that era are the MAJOR reason why RTW, BI and ALX are nowadays bought at all!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Just as a reminder most Rome II mods out there use the previously done work of RSII and EB in their mods (e.g. the best and most advanced mod currently present for Rome II which is DeI). Otherwise you would have been waiting much much much longer to see anything similar like DeI evolving. My educated guess is that if you wouldnt have had RSII, EB and RTR everyone would right now sit and wait much more months or even years to see a mod like DeI or to build up a motivated team to create RTRII following the legacy of RTR for example or to set up a mod like AAW. You should honor the hard work of the veteran modders, their exceptional effort and their extreme generosity to share their work with all of us and not putting us at the beginning and forcing us into endless research, artworking, texturing, etc. over again. Instead you put them into a corner where you try to discredit their hard work for the sake to get rid of competitors to Rome II. IF Rome II was that awesome as you say, there wouldn't be that much of a disappointment about it out there. It is very simple.

You are disappointing me here with looking like aiming to get rid of just natural comparisons with other mods and games when talking about Rome II. I want to hear how you want to improve Rome II if we all listened to your voice in this thread and shut our mouths up. Assuming a perfect utopia of your viewpoint would be praising the release of Rome II, the DLC, the communication and the company itself and not say a word about features we would like to see in game or rise up against rushed releases and corporate business behaviour.

And finally its easy to flip the poll and say is it fair to compare Rome II to a modded Rome: Total War?
- Rome II builds on a complete new engine
- it had a 40% bigger budget than the previous title and god knows how much higher budget it had than RTW
- CA has its own motion cap studio available to develop the title
- they had a huge media campaign at their fingertips in a 100% fully linked world
- they had 10 years of expertise to learn from
- nowadays we have much more powerful and advanced tools for developing games
- they had a fanbase behind their backs which was accumulated over 10 years AND they had a new generation behind their backs
- etc. etc. etc.

And not to mention that at the end it doesnt matter anyways since the comparison with modded unmodded, older, future, to be developed or competitor games (or even games that are in a complete different genre) are totally valid no matter how you twist it. Well, if I want I could compare Rome II to the real life world I am living in, which has apparently even much better graphics and lighting effects than Rome II. Just that this comparison would not be very beneficial for the future of Rome II and discussions about how to improve it in future. BUT I can't think of a better comparison though than comparing it to other games of the same type, its predecessors and their mods

[Sebidee]

Alec. Ceasefire? lets both ditch this thread.

[Fallen851]

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

What is ironic here, is that in your SIG you have links to mods that you made yourself.

I'd say that anyone who plays a lot of TW uses mods. Only casual fans who played RTW II for the summer (and are thus now gone) don't use mods.

A good comparison is WCIII or Half-Life 1, where Counter Strike and DOTA were mods that became more popular than the game itself. Check how many people are poking around the Single Player Forum for Rome I right now. Now look at the mods forum.

[Templar Knight]

Since it seems a mature conversation can't really happen in this thread I'm just going to leave my two cents and be on my merry way.

In my opinion, it is entirely fair to compare a modded rome 1 to a vanilla rome 2. As both games are in the same series of games and the fact that Rome 2 is the sequel to Rome 1 it is not only fair to compare the two, in both vanilla, modded, or any combination of the two forms, it is also natural to do so. I'm sure there are many, including myself, that hoped that CA would look to some of the big Rome 1 mods for inspiration on what kind of features, graphical, audio, and gameplay design decisions they should take with Rome 2. Now whether or not that is a realistic hope is an entirely different story. If Rome 2 is being compared to a game that is outside of the total war series of games, and especially if the game it is being compared to is outside of the strategy genera, then the comparison leaps into the land of unfair. For better or worse Rome 1 and Rome 2 are bound together, so comparisons between the two in their different forms are fair.

[EmperorJulian]

I wanted to chime in here briefly, as my perspective is very much in the minority. You see, I never played Rome Total Realism or any other other major overhauls that came out for RTW over the years. Other than patches and bug fixers, my experience of the original Rome: Total War has always been in the vanilla vein and as such my opinion has never been coloured by such enhancements. Indeed, when I look back at how much better Rome 1 was compared to its successor, I'm not looking through Rose Colored Lenses tinted with the hues of a million man hours of modification. I'm simply comparing one stock product to another - and thereafter finding the successor to be lacking in almost every possible way. I care nothing for graphical improvements, I care nothing for voice acting, I care nothing for streamlining or flashy presentation. Just about everything CA chose to improve are things that have little to no value to me. Whereas what was taken out did much to diminish the experience - I know many have fumed over the lack of the Family Tree, but I still miss City View myself and despite the eye candy there can be no doubt that the Rome 2 campaign map is far less detailed than what we had ten years ago. And of course this doesn't even take into account Warscape's many limitations - like the total inability of units to engage each other as a cohesive whole. I frankly don't care how much Rome 2 sold or how often Brian Blessed turned up to hawk its value - its an inferior product not worthy of my time or effort. There really can't be a bigger tragedy for this series than that.

[PointOfViewGun]

there can be no doubt that the Rome 2 campaign map is far less detailed than what we had ten years ago.

Well, there should be no doubt that this statement is utterly wrong and this is where your opinion stops becoming an opinion and start becoming grossly incorrect.

[EmperorJulian]

Well, there should be no doubt that this statement is utterly wrong and this is where your opinion stops becoming an opinion and start becoming grossly incorrect.

It's very likely you and I have a very different idea of what "detailed" means. For me the graphical enhancements, clouds, water effects, seasons and etc are utterly meaningless and contribute nothing to the detail of the map itself, nor am I impressed with the graphical additions to the growth of cities as they were present before if in a more rudimentary form. No longer do resources show up on the map with tool tips to identify them, no longer are roads able to be upgraded from a non-existent state, no longer do we see damage inflicted upon the terrain by marauding armies, no longer does farm construction alter the appearance of the terrain. And even the presence of famous battle markers no longer convey the same amount of information they did back in 2004. Those small details mean a lot to me, even if they mean nothing to someone else. And as I said, I am in now way impressed by eye candy - which I'm sure puts me in the minority even moreso.

[PointOfViewGun]

It's very likely you and I have a very different idea of what "detailed" means. For me the graphical enhancements, clouds, water effects, seasons and etc are utterly meaningless and contribute nothing to the detail of the map itself, nor am I impressed with the graphical additions to the growth of cities as they were present before if in a more rudimentary form. No longer do resources show up on the map with tool tips to identify them, no longer are roads able to be upgraded from a non-existent state, no longer do we see damage inflicted upon the terrain by marauding armies, no longer does farm construction alter the appearance of the terrain. And even the presence of famous battle markers no longer convey the same amount of information they did back in 2004. Those small details mean a lot to me, even if they mean nothing to someone else. And as I said, I am in now way impressed by eye candy - which I'm sure puts me in the minority even moreso.

I view detail as conveyance of information. Clouds don't do that. I'm talking about whether a piece of information is visible on the map or not.
Farm construction does alter the campaign map. That's something both games have.
Army damage on terrain is indeed not in Rome II.
Road improvements do show up in Rome II.
Rome II shows the buildings that are built in the province more than Rome I does.
There are still famous battle markers with information of the battle in Rome II.
You have to be more specific about what's exactly missing.
Just because Rome II misses a few things, while having some others that Rome I didn't have, doesn't justify you saying that Rome II's campaign map is far less detailed.

[Sebidee]

The last time I played RTW was shortly before the release of Rome 2 and Alec it is very unfair to say that I am "extremely resistent to anything else outside your own Rome II world." I can say the exact same thing about you and your RTW world. See how easy it is to flip statements like that? My advice would be not to make them at all.

Here is another thing, you say:

Instead of acknowledging you keep on blocking any thought that might be providing a broader and more diverse viewpoint helping to improve Rome II overall.

Well, I can flip that too. You and several others seem to spend a lot of time in this subforum not only being incredibly negative about a game that people want to enjoy with the forum, but chasing out anyone who has something positive to say. Are you then not damaging the community here and Rome 2 over all?

You say "broader and more diverse viewpoint" yet there only seems to be one viewpoint which you will tolerate, absolute and unquestioned superiority of RTW. Am I not then being more broad and diverse by posing the opposite?

I'm pretty disappointed with you're carry on. I thought you favoured actual discussion.

[SturmChurro]

I have had to clean this thread. Keep this thread on-topic and I will say it one more time.

Please refrain from discussing other members.

[Causeless]

I'd just like to say to anyone still reading: stop the whole "you can't talk because you probably haven't even played RTW" bull. Firstly, it doesn't matter who delivers an argument; all that matters is the validity of it. Secondly, it's incredibly insulting and just a way to accuse other of ignorance... I mean, I've played loads and loads of RTW. I had it on a PC using CDs, and I remember it had something like 3 or 4 discs. I remember how amazing it was once how when you defeated the greek city states, you got to play as them, revealing a huge entire other portion to the game. It was "that game", and I'm sure all of you have experienced the "that game" feeling too! And heel, last time I started up the game was earlier today

Anyways, honestly, I feel as if most (not all!) people who say RTW was better in all ways are actually the ones guilty of not playing it, or at least not recently. People on the forums praising Rome 1's realistic battles are the most painful, considering that battles in Rome 1 were over in about half the time of a Rome 2 battle!

[Hetairos]

Yes, agree. Heated discussion, everyone had their points, it was hard on the limits at the end the balance won. Poll = approx. 50% vs 50%.

So ceasefire and move on to modding and playing the game

Cheers

[Tullaris]

When I think of Rome I, I see a game made by gaming enthousiasts. They poured their vision and creativity in that game. Sure it had it's flaws. But it was the first of it's kind. A new engine.

Rome II however is a corporate gloated mess. Shiny graphics, loads of factions and content, most of them unlocked through DLC, and sadly no strategic depth what so ever. You see, a veteran gamer like myself, needs immersion and plausability, sure, but most of all I need a challenge. For a game like Rome II to be challenging it needs to be designed well, which it isn't. Which is why you can't lose in Rome II.

[GoTW Kubee]

They are both TW games, so yes, it is fair to compare the design behind both of them.

[Philadelphos]

When I think of Rome I, I see a game made by gaming enthousiasts. They poured their vision and creativity in that game. Sure it had it's flaws. But it was the first of it's kind. A new engine.

Rome II however is a corporate gloated mess. Shiny graphics, loads of factions and content, most of them unlocked through DLC, and sadly no strategic depth what so ever. You see, a veteran gamer like myself, needs immersion and plausability, sure, but most of all I need a challenge. For a game like Rome II to be challenging it needs to be designed well, which it isn't. Which is why you can't lose in Rome II.

Vision and creativity against corporate money! Add also the heartblood of the modders and it sounds indeed pretty unfair. Poor Goliath!

[eXistenZ]

I had a read through that reddit list of "things rome 1 had and rome 2 doesnt" someone once posted. A prime example of how framing and phrasing something can have very disproportionate effects. And the use of rephrasing just to make it seems larger (like mentioning capital mechanics 3 times in a different way), and offcours the occasional flat out lie. Along with the stuff that hasnt been in the games for years, but suddenly is Rome 2's fault (like moving the capital, or city view)

One of the most striking examples was "rome 1 had units of 240 men". It had one unit of 240 men, which nobody ever used...

[Modestus]

city view

Hmm city view you reminded me of something, odd there is no city view considering there are meant to be specific locations in RTW2, for another thread I think.

Edited because it made no sense to even me.

[eXistenZ]

Hmm city view you reminded me of something, odd is it not that there is no city view considering there are meant to be specific locations in RTW2, for another thread I think.

There hasnt been city view in 4 games. So not that odd.

[Karnil Vark Khaitan]

There hasnt been city view in 4 games. So not that odd.

Wait was there city veiw in med 2?