The TWC Emperor Edition Beta Feedback

[karamazovmm]

I play well beyond the `end` game. I played Empire until the year 2007 (I'll admit I was testing there) and very long in older TWs as well. Of course, how long I stick RTW2 out is another story, but if it's as good as it's getting I won't stop until I lose - and it won't be when the game tells me I've lost.

Anyway, this 1t urn per year just shows how badly planned out the game was, especially when the only way they could implement seasons is by a completely unrealistic 1 season per year tack-on. I mean seriously? these are the PROGRAMMERS! they couldn't figure a better way? Anyone worth their salt would've planned it far better than this.

You haven't played m2tw have you?

[Pheidippides]

I've got to say I'm really enjoying my Macedon campaign with the beta about 50 turns in. Rome and the Seleucids are expanding like crazy (I have never seen the Seleucids beat back the eastern empires before this game). The Boii also have a huge empire and are bearing down on my ally, the Ardiaei. Economics do not seem out of whack yet. When I explore more of the western part of the map I'll see how Carthage is doing. New building chains are awesome- really feel like every building chain has pros and cons and it's much easier to manage squalor.

One minor bug- Macedon Temple of Hephaestus, the info box reads 5% industry, 5% industry buildings. Don't know if "industry" and "industry buildings" are different.

Battles seem much more challenging. The AI is throwing a lot of new looks. I like that hoplites can now hold against swords (although they might need a bit of a nerf so they don't hold forever). The one big feature that is crying out for inclusion in the land battles is Guard Mode for skirmishers.

[von stoker]

This is my Pontus campaign, post patch 15, 90 turns in.

All the big boys seem to be doing well. Rome is in a healthy position having pushed the Averni out of Gaul. The Averni haven't gone meekly into the night as they have moved into Iberia and northern Africa. Baktria and Egypt have strong empires while Roxalani have formed a strong Horde of the Steppes confederation. The greek states are allied and have control of Greece and Illyria. The Nervii and Boii still control northern Europe.
So, in this campaign at least, it looks like the playable factions (and especially Rome) are better at forming and maintaining large empires.

[Greasy Dave]

politics and civil war mechanic.
I've only had time to take a game up to 50 turns on VH, parthia, so far. But here's some feedback on politics.
disclaimer - the mechanic is poorly documented, so if I've misunderstood some part of it, sorry - it's not my fault.

The system is intereesting and has huge potential but it needs tightening and some tougher balancing.

Promoting generals or statesmen - it seems to provide a benefit (increased tax rates etc) and also a cost - destabilises the status quo. The principle is good. But the balance is poor. In my 50 turns I had absolutely no need to promote anyone. My economy ran smoothly. My armies ran smoothly. So the benefits of promoting...or the need to promote and destabilise the status quo hasn't existed in my playthrough so far. If there's something I'm missing here, then do let me know.

Second issue about promoting and benefits. When I did promote it didn't actually provide a serious benefit. It cost roughly 4000 gold to promote a general to rank 4. which gave him I think a 16 percent tax bonus. PLace the general in a town earning 1000 gp a year, the general is 50 - he'll be dead before I recoup the promotion cost, so why would I promote him? To counter an opposition statesman's power? No, and that segways nicely into my next point about assasination...

Assasination -too easy to avoid. I don't need to assasinate anyone - statesmen and generals die naturally sometime between 50 to 70 on average - so usually 10 or 15 turns after they've developed enough gravtias to become problematic. Meaning I can wait 10 turns and let him die naturally. Or, totally exploit, I can make him a general and suicide him in a battle.

The way I see it, the decision to go one turn per year, and tieing generals so closely into politics is currently restricting something that has great potential. I could decide to never suicide a general...true, and I guess I'll have to do that. But death by natural causes is pretty regular and has so far kept my political status quo at roughly 50 / 50 without any involvement from myself.

Final balance issue - because Civil war triggers on the imperium level increase- a player has plenty of time to fiddle and change and kill his politicians before he decides to take the region that'll trigger imperium increase. Maybe, this will be harder as I play further into the game and the number of politicians increases...but right now politics has been something I've hardly had to pay attention to. And I only take a look at it at the imperium step.

This is a shame because I think it could be a really interesting and strategic part of the game. I think tightening up the balancing might achieve this. e.g incerase the benefits a player can receive for promoting a statesman/ general and/or tightening up the economy so it's increasingly necessary to have higher promoted generals to keep your tax at a decent level. Increasing the refreshment rates for promoted generals and signifcantly decreasing the refreshment rates for level 1 generals.

This would lead to a player being increasingly pressed into destabilising the political status quo as the game progressed. Meaning it would be more challenging to find a path through the political system, avoid civil war and keep his empire expanding.

I don't know how much CA have weighted the scales concerning the dice roll about CW triggering when your imperium level increases - but I never liked that aspect of the previous politics mechanic. Politics is more fun and interesting if it is something that the player has to negotiate himself without game mechanics weighting in favour of a rebellion. IF there's a civil war, it's feels more satisfying to me as a player, if my bad decisions caused it. IF there's no CW, then I efel doubly satisfied.

Something else I read somewhere, but I've not had a civil war yet so I can't check - but, what happens if the opposition have no generals. Does that mean they won't get any armies when the civil war erupts - my understanding of the current mechanic is that the rebel armies consist of the armies of the opposition generals?

[von stoker]

Interesting point that last one. Possibly all current opposition family members will spawn the map with an army wherever they are. If you have all opposition members as statesmen then they would all become opposition generals and spawn at the capital.
Hope Jack Lusted or someone at CA could expand on this point.

[Sp4]

I play well beyond the `end` game. I played Empire until the year 2007 (I'll admit I was testing there) and very long in older TWs as well. Of course, how long I stick RTW2 out is another story, but if it's as good as it's getting I won't stop until I lose - and it won't be when the game tells me I've lost.

Anyway, this 1t urn per year just shows how badly planned out the game was, especially when the only way they could implement seasons is by a completely unrealistic 1 season per year tack-on. I mean seriously? these are the PROGRAMMERS! they couldn't figure a better way? Anyone worth their salt would've planned it far better than this.

I don't really understand the whole turn per year rage but I guess to each their own.

1tpy is actually the way the game works, the way the game has been made and the way all the technologies, build times and what not have been conceived. Adding more turns per year (2tpy is pretty silly already) makes the game quite ridiculous. It lasts too long, you will have researched all the techs and you will be running around with Roman imperial legions in 150BC (ohgod the historical accuracy) although you can probably run around with those legions in 150BC in the vanilla game, if you research nothing but military stuff.

The political minigame becomes silly very fast with longer lasting campaigns and generals that are around twice, thrice and four times (Christ, I've even seen 12tpy mods) as long which is certainly going to be fun with new civil wars all the time.

If you think 1tpy is silly though, M2 had uh.. 0.5tpy? Yes, 1 turn was 2 years in M2.

[Zwirbaum]

I don't really understand the whole turn per year rage but I guess to each their own.

1tpy is actually the way the game works, the way the game has been made and the way all the technologies, build times and what not have been conceived. Adding more turns per year (2tpy is pretty silly already) makes the game quite ridiculous. It lasts too long, you will have researched all the techs and you will be running around with Roman imperial legions in 150BC (ohgod the historical accuracy) although you can probably run around with those legions in 150BC in the vanilla game, if you research nothing but military stuff.

The political minigame becomes silly very fast with longer lasting campaigns and generals that are around twice, thrice and four times (Christ, I've even seen 12tpy mods) as long which is certainly going to be fun with new civil wars all the time.

If you think 1tpy is silly though, M2 had uh.. 0.5tpy? Yes, 1 turn was 2 years in M2.

To be exactly I think it was 2,5 years per turn. (Or 1.5)

[Greasy Dave]

I don't really understand the whole turn per year rage but I guess to each their own.

The political minigame becomes silly very fast with longer lasting campaigns and generals that are around twice, thrice and four times (Christ, I've even seen 12tpy mods) as long which is certainly going to be fun with new civil wars all the time.

While I agree with your general sentiment and I'm indifferent to 1PTY or 4TPY - I don't agree with your point on it's affect on politics. I've been finding that Generals and statesmen who die of natural causes in quite quick cycles compared to the length of the whole game, actually detract from the challenge of politics. Have a look at my post a few posts up. I have yet to go deeper into a beta campaign than 50-60 turns, so I can't speak about the game's full scope, but up until turn 50, politics has been a self-resolving mechanic because the senior and influential politicians keep dying. Every time the political status quo becomes inbalanced, it quickly rights itself without any input from me as the major gravitas players die and are replaced by juniors. This is tied directly to the length of their lives and the 1 TPY

[cherryfunk]

This is a shame because I think it could be a really interesting and strategic part of the game. I think tightening up the balancing might achieve this. e.g incerase the benefits a player can receive for promoting a statesman/ general and/or tightening up the economy so it's increasingly necessary to have higher promoted generals to keep your tax at a decent level. Increasing the refreshment rates for promoted generals and signifcantly decreasing the refreshment rates for level 1 generals.

Is it possible to secure different types of promotion? i.e. one that focused on combat and another that focuses on governing? That might also add some depth to the system...

[Greasy Dave]

Is it possible to secure different types of promotion? i.e. one that focused on combat and another that focuses on governing? That might also add some depth to the system...

From what I've seen it hasn't. Each promotion came with a stock of three bonuses...improved tax collection, higher troop refreshment rates and something else, I can't remember (possibly increased unit recruitment slots in the province?). The player didn't seem to have to choose the bonus. But like I said, documentation about the mechanic is almost non-existent, so I could be completely wrong.

[maexim]

I don't really understand the whole turn per year rage but I guess to each their own.

1tpy is actually the way the game works, the way the game has been made and the way all the technologies, build times and what not have been conceived. Adding more turns per year (2tpy is pretty silly already) makes the game quite ridiculous. It lasts too long, you will have researched all the techs and you will be running around with Roman imperial legions in 150BC (ohgod the historical accuracy) although you can probably run around with those legions in 150BC in the vanilla game, if you research nothing but military stuff.

The political minigame becomes silly very fast with longer lasting campaigns and generals that are around twice, thrice and four times (Christ, I've even seen 12tpy mods) as long which is certainly going to be fun with new civil wars all the time.

If you think 1tpy is silly though, M2 had uh.. 0.5tpy? Yes, 1 turn was 2 years in M2.

For the tech, there is a mod who divide it by 4 for improving it, so a tech which needs 10 turns in vanilla will take 20 in 2tpy and 40 in 4tpy

[Sp4]

For the tech, there is a mod who divide it by 4 for improving it, so a tech which needs 10 turns in vanilla will take 20 in 2tpy and 40 in 4tpy

Awesome, so you will achieve exactly the same in 4x the amount of time? Let's reduce movement range of units too while we're at it. Slow mo campaigns are the new thing!

[Toho]

I honestly believe there should be families instead of generals in this game.
basically you recruit some generic general from X family which has all the traits and bonuses a general from that family can have.

this way generals are basically immortal and the gravitas/influence that they command would become more challenging to maintain.

[maexim]

Awesome, so you will achieve exactly the same in 4x the amount of time? Let's reduce movement range of units too while we're at it. Slow mo campaigns are the new thing!

Yeah also for the reinforcment of soldiers and a lot of others things like effect of the seasons, check the Dresden mods.

[IlluminatiRex]

I've played a couple naval battles in my campaign, while they are better than before, they do need work.

That being said, the fact my regular navy was able to easily defeat transports (without arty) was a beautiful sight. No more can transports be used as an end all, be all unit for the navy. My battle against a regular navy was fun, but a little derpy, especially as naval units start actually engaging (some not moving or doing what I said). But like I said, it does feel a lot better, ESPECIALLY in regards to the transports.

[Invincible]

I am really enjoying the beta and think adding in more building choices was a very important decision. I dont know how it was in the last patches because I stopped playing RTW2 but the time between turns is so much shorter which is really important for me. The political system can be easily exploited but if you just dont then there is no problem. I hope the full release will have 4 turns per year so the characters have more turns to develop skills and become a factor in the political system and the seasons make more sense. If not, I will use a mod for that. Giving bonusses to the startable factions is a good idea so superpowers of the history can become superpowers in the game. In my Roman campaign in turn 82 (or so) I got a strange crash while building buildings in my provinces right after my turn began. Suddenly RTW2 stopped working and I got thrown back to desktop. Aside from that I have no complaints and finally enjoy playing RTW2!

[Zeb77]

I've played a couple naval battles in my campaign, while they are better than before, they do need work.

That being said, the fact my regular navy was able to easily defeat transports (without arty) was a beautiful sight. No more can transports be used as an end all, be all unit for the navy. My battle against a regular navy was fun, but a little derpy, especially as naval units start actually engaging (some not moving or doing what I said). But like I said, it does feel a lot better, ESPECIALLY in regards to the transports.

Coming across the same issue with units occasionally not responding to orders. Little frustrating to lose a good ship because it's sat dead in the water. But generally would agree that the changes have made naval battles more enjoyable than they were previously, or at least much less frustrating.

[EternalSilence]

This is my Pontus campaign, post patch 15, 90 turns in.

All the big boys seem to be doing well. Rome is in a healthy position having pushed the Averni out of Gaul. The Averni haven't gone meekly into the night as they have moved into Iberia and northern Africa. Baktria and Egypt have strong empires while Roxalani have formed a strong Horde of the Steppes confederation. The greek states are allied and have control of Greece and Illyria. The Nervii and Boii still control northern Europe.
So, in this campaign at least, it looks like the playable factions (and especially Rome) are better at forming and maintaining large empires.

I want to confirm this.
This is imo the best feature of the new patch. That big factions(Rome, egypt, seleucid, macedon, averni...), actually become big and can maintain strong armies and expand their empire.
This was a HUGE let down, before patch15 when big factions , were kicked out of the campaign by some meaning less small faction (armenia, ...)

In my Rome campaign, the Averne has conquered alsmost all of western europe, and just kicked out Carthage out of Carthago. The Celtic federation is the boss in Spain. And I'm trying to kill some factions (doarsi) that have like 3 provinces.

This is without a single CAI mod. So its all because of patch 15.
I'm verry pleased. Played every Total War game when it was released. And i've not forgotten the bad state of this Rome 2 game on release. It was a disgrace!

But the new patch IMPROVES A LOT!
So plz keep those good patches coming and keep fine tweaking the big faction.
It becomes more fun, when you have the endgame that you'll be fighting some big factions (macedon, Egypt, Seleucid, ...) and not some small faction with some meaningless armie.

[hippacrocafish]

The changes to politics alone have improved my enjoyment by a large degree. Battles feel just right, somewhere right between the hour-long slogs that you get with a lot of mods and the "Arcade" style of the combat pre-patch. Horses still seem a little too fast and javelins probably do slightly too much damage, but it's overall much much better.

The only bug I've found so far is that the Seleucids speak Roman lines.

[AnthoniusII]

AI Siege:
Opponets:
A full Legion (20 units)
4 Celtish armies :
2 Full armies with total 6 artilery units.
1 2 units naval unit
1 Small (3 units) army that started the assault.

Again game places ladders in two diferent sides of the city (possitive).
I place 4 units to defend the landing zone because the baval units comming straight to the city port (possitive).
The 1st full stack army runs to help the 1st small one because i sallied out to delay their placing of ladder on my walls (possitive).
While their artilery is slower than their troops i sent my cavalry to hit them from rear to eliminate the threat but AI spoted my units and sent its own cavalry against mine (possitive).
While the 2nd full army arives in battlefield it does NOT use the other side ladders but it also runs where the other 2 armies fight (negative).
Evidence:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

That alone could be not so "damm" but what follows it is!
The entire number of the 3 armies try to use only one ladder that reach walls and the 2nd comes up and down trying to find a path to move!
Evidence:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

What follows is something that i have not deside if I had to laugh or cry with this game's AI performance.
AI artilery is in place and launches a huge barrage on a small section of the wall (possitive).
When walls colapse AI leads it armies to that gap (possitive) and I am ussing al my units to seal that gap (remember though that AI did not use the other two ladders to force me split my units). At this point AI simply did not sent any unit (cavalry maybe?) to torch an other gate to enter the city!!!!!!!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

At some point the remaining forces of mine rout and flee!!!!!!!!
All i have in city is my general and the artilery crew!
The gap on the walls in UNDEFENDED BUT....

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

On my huge surpise NO ONE enters the city!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All AI did was to sent its artilery in the other side of the city.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

AI sent a general in to the gap 1 minute before time expires and only when all the infantry units of all its armies were dead by the two undefended towers near the wall gap!

Now I can understand why CA AI developers refused so hard to give legionaires defensive fire!
Now i can understand why CA gave AI HUGE numbers of artilery but still AI dies before walls because it has NOT the AI level of Rome I AI that used siege equipment in 2-3 sides of a city with multiple rams, siege towers and ladders and more realisticaly TUNNELS!!!!
And I do not speak for modded Rome 1!!!!!!!!!!!!
CA i post these results of my today defensive battle only because the patch 15 is in betta stage!
You still have time to fix this AI that ruins the fun!!!!!!!!
Instead of filling the AI armies with huge artilery that never HAD, give AI the pathfinding to use multiple siege primitive equipment!
No need to errase torches! Torches are good for sending cavalry to bring down gates!!!!!
But instead of 24 catapults AI should use 2-3 rams, 2 sets of ladders and 2 siege towers and be able to attack in the entire wall front!!!!!
Each AI army must have its own siege equipment placed (the armies) from the battle start like in Rome 1 in to its own front/side!!!
Its NOT too late to fix this in patch 15!
Please provide us with realistic battles that will offer us fun no matter if we lose or win!!!!!!!!!

More feedback:
Siege: Player defender.
Two cases:
I both cases one cavalry unit sallies out to delay ladders reach the walls.
1st case:
Gate looks open but its closed:
Evidence:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

2nd case gates look open and they are open but AI does not use them to force an entrance in to city.

There is a pathfinding trouble and when a gate is pone often remains open or closes without the visual effects it should have.

Again i can not understand why Rebels must have ONLY 1 ladder in their disposal.