[Feedback] Questions, Critiques and Requests

[Dresden]

Could you give fleets transporting armies increased movement per turn? It took me around 12 turns to sail my siege army from Byzantion to Syracuse when Rome declared war on me. I have nothing to base this off of but that seams excessive.

This is because of what CA did with transports in one of the patches. They have land army movement. We have a bunch of systems in place to try to improve this, but basically without making army movement really high we can't do anything about this Its frustrating.

If you have time, there's no need for an encyclopedia. It's enough if we can find the information about units, and maybe even buildings and their effects, within spoilers in the main thread about Divide et Impera 1.2 so we have some reference to what to recruit, and maybe what to build.

Thats basically an encyclopedia LOL - you want information about all units and buildings...thats what that is. We have around 2000 units and as many/more buildings, so you can imagine how long that would take. Then also we are constantly changing/fixing things with stats, etc.

[hippacrocafish]

Pergamon probably has one of my favorite rosters in the whole game now. Those Phrygian skirmishers, elite melee cavalry, Pergamene Peltasts are awesome. Not to mention that it's a capital instead of a minor city now. Love it.

EDIT: Knossos actually declared war on me. It's a Rome II miracle.

[zoner16]

Just did about 150 turns as Rome. The increased difficulty is really noticeable, but the increased depth even more so

On the campaign, I've actually been recruiting armies of varied quality units, not only because I run into the pop limits whenever I recruit, but also so that future replenishment can go off without a hitch. When I finally took Carthage after a brutal siege assault, I had to actually withdraw the legion involved (my best one), back to Sicily because there weren't enough Romans available in Africa to allow to recover itself (mainly its core troops). I ended up forming an entirely new legion made up of entirely local forces to hold the place down while they were away. This happened more a few more times after that and really adds new layer to the campaign.

It also forces different battle behavior. I'm really careful with my elite units like Triarii and Equites because replenishing/replacing them is far harder and costly. Meanwhile when that legion made of local forces had to make a siege assault much later, I didn't feel nearly as bad when they took around 50-60% losses because their forces were easily replaceable and gave me an excuse to put some proper Roman troops in. This, combined with the supply system, has made the campaign a far more enjoyable part of the game. Army composition and strategy really means something now and I'm so grateful that it does.

The battles themselves have been really interesting. The changes to the way precursors work definitely changes things up, as does the stat rebalancing. It's a shame that these units can't throw their javelins on the charge anymore, but it's the price we pay I guess. I've only gotten two battles that have been the line battles that KAM showed off in the battle changes thread, once against Syracuse and once against an Insubres army that was half garrison troops.

The first one ended up going in a strange direction due to the enemy's hoplites. While the numbers were about even, the hoplite line was shorter because they were packed tighter together. As a result, their skirmish line extended well past their melee line, and I took advantage of this to end the skirmish phase really early by charging my medium cavalry into their skirmishing flanks since the hoplites weren't fast enough to catch me. What happened afterwards was a little weird, as the hoplites attacked my line at an angle, but due to the phalanx formation, several of them didn't turn to face my properly, and ended up fighting only with the corner of their formation that initially made contact with my line. While a "line" definitely existed in some sense, it ended up really jagged because the individual units in the army were facing in various different directions while fighting with my straight line.

The second one played out more traditionally. The enemy outnumbered me by quite a bit, but their lower quality units took a lot of damage during the skirmish phase and I only suffered one temporary break among some of my javelins. When they tried to push against one of my flanks, they ended up losing the man to man engagement, and once that failed, they threw their entire army at me in a line engagement, which I won thanks to unit superiority and a cavalry advantage.

Most of the rest of my battles either ended up being town battles, siege assaults, or something about it (number disparity, odd army composition, reinforcements) prevented the proper line battle from taking place.

Overall, I found everything to be a blast and a definite improvement over 1.1. You guys really have my thanks for putting so much work into making this.


There are a few miscellaneous nitpicks/critiques that I do have:

1. Corsican swordsmen were for some reason classified as very heavy melee infantry, despite having stats and general unit behavior in line with medium infantry. It seems like just a mislabelling.
2. Some unit recruitment zones seem off. Greek pikemen were recruitable in southern Italy once I took Taras, but weren't labelled as an AOR unit or as Romanized. Thessalian cavalry had the same thing when I took Syracuse, which also came with Cretan archers (which seem out of place, but at least appeared as either AOR or Romanized). Later, Massalian hoplites showed up as recruitable when I took Genua, despite there being no Greek culture in the province.
3. The "Formation Broken" morale penalty has some odd behavior. When making a siege assault, some of my Libyan infantry climbing up a ladder were taken down to wavering because of it before even reaching the top, which caused them to break around 10 seconds after actually doing so. Later, a unit of Libyan levies suffered the same problem when charging through a gap in the wall to fight some light bow infantry, and while they didn't break, it was still rather strange.
4. Similarly, the "Unprepared for Night Battle penalty" is really hefty, especially for garrison troops. In one town battle, a good chunk of my local forces fought for less than half a minute before breaking due to this penalty, and they were only being attacked by medium spears from the front. There wasn't even any missile fire.
5. In the same battle, I managed to surround the enemy's general unit (a hoplite unit) with two units of Italian Garrisoned Swordsmen, however, the unit didn't suffer any morale penalty for being attacked in the rear, despite fighting on literally every side.
6. It'd be nice if the "Concentrate Fire" button could be taken off cooldown. I find it very useful for trying to minimize friendly fire once the battle has started, and I don't see a reason why it needs a cooldown.

This is really all I can think of at the moment, but they're pretty minor complaints about a great mod. Love the work you guys have put in, and I can't wait to see how it progresses from here.


P.S. As far as encyclopedias go, I always used this one during 1.1: http://www2.honga.net/totalwar/rome2/index.php?v=dei

[Dresden]

Thanks for the detailed feedback. I am glad you had an in depth campaign experience because that is exactly what we are going for here!

1. Probably a mislabel, I will add it to the bug list.
2. These units may be missing AOR flags since we have redone unit cards. There is no longer a culture requirement for recruiting since we have the population system now. Romanized units won't have the flags on them but they should have it in their unit name. The Roman aux barracks will open up AOR units from various locations near the province (from nearby provinces basically).
4. I can't remember where that penalty is, it could be something we need to lower. I will check it out.
3/5. Its not necessarily that they aren't suffering the penalty, it could be its not displaying. We are trying to figure out why the Rome 2 engine will selectively choose what to display in terms of that. But, we are also still working on the flanking/rear morale stuff. Its a WIP so there will be issues especially with hoplite generals I think.
6. Its really powerful mainly is the reason and its a player advantage because the AI doesn't use it.

Thanks again for leaving detailed feedback and reports!

[zoner16]

Happy to help. You modders do so much for these games, it's only right that we pitch in what we can.

One more thing I just thought of. Is it possible to add the ammunition stat to the unit card tooltips of non-missile troops that can throw javelins? It'd be really helpful to know beforehand if a unit is going to throw a couple javelin volleys and then charge in, or kill half your front line from 20 meters away because they're basically a non-skirmishing skirmisher.

[KAM 2150]

They already do since last few patches.

[Geffalrus]

More fun and puttering around as Epirus. Turn 40-something.

Ardiaei full stack comes out of nowhere and clobbers Apollonia. I should have fought the battle and squeezed out a win, but I'm not a huge fan for fighting settlement defense battles without at least a general bodyguard unit present. To add insult to injury, Pyrrhus and his elite veteran army were just across the water in Taras. Taras was the last stop before home for the army that had just wrapped up a successful Sicilian campaign. A single tear rolled down Pyrrhus's face as he watched the telltale orange glow of a conquered city brighten the horizon hours before the sun was due to rise. Needless to say, every - single - Illyrian will be hunted down and butchered for this betrayal.

First step: retake Apollonia. Here I ran into something a little weird. All throughout the fighting in the minor settlement battlefield, my pikes became really, REALLY derpy. No matter how I dragged them, oriented them, or ordered them, they never faced the right way. Constantly they would form up, do an about face, and presumably moon the enemy while setting up the phalanx. And this wasn't just in tight alleyways. Wide open plazas. Gigantic lawns. No matter where my pikes went, something messed their formation all to hell and only their multiple chevrons allowed them to carry the day. I've played a lot of Rome 2, and this is the first time I've seen this sort of behavior. Is it possible that some of the KAM changes are interacting.......poorly......with the no doubt huge hurdle of navigating a settlement battlefield? Has anyone else had a harder time than usual getting their phalanx to face the right way - and - hold the formation while marching? I swear, one unit formed a phalanx in the shape of a triangle. And this all without enemy unit interference.

With Apollonia retaken, the next step was to recoup my losses. Here was the 3rd and final horrible shock. My population of nobles and warriors was virtually gone. Instead of a few hundred nobles and a couple thousand warriors, I now had 20 of the 1st and a hundred of the 2nd. That's a huge - HUGE - blow to my military. Thankfully I have Macedon with a decent population, but still, Apollonia was the heart of my military population.

So a few questions:

1) Is that working as intended? An enemy conquers your territory (and has a different culture/population) and even if you reconquer, your military population is virtually gone in that region? - All buildings were intact, so it was an occupy, not a Raze.

2) How long will it take that population to regrow? Not specifically, but on average, how quickly do military populations recover when reduced to 0?

3) It kind of makes me wish for some political technology or Edict that I could use to rapidly boost the top 2 population classes. Something representing a relaxation of the standards to enter that part of society.

4) Does disbanding units put them back into the population pool?

[Dresden]

Quick answers before I sleep -
Disbanding puts population back but it takes 1 turn to show up.

Yes, if an enemy takes your region you lose the population if its a different culture. Its the trade off for having the population system work the way it does in terms of expansion. If you get hit and lose a city, it hurts.

[AugustusRoman]

Dresden thanks for answering.
I understand that game engine is not giving you much of a choice.
About 1 - 4 feedback

1. ok
2. About PO penalties I do not have problem with that, I just never research or build lvl 3 or 4 cities or farms. I just add 1 - 2 building with extra PO and raise a bit the taxes. But is it kind boring doing it with every faction. However it is really efficient!
3. Yes exactly what i mean!
4. ok

[Vardano]

1. Is it possible to make Historical Messages fonts bigger? I play on my tv with 1080 resolution and bearly can see it.
2. Can you make Hayasdan spear legioners to be recruited from 2nd class people instead of 1st class? Historically only elite units were recruited from Nakaharars.

[HuoShan]

1. Is it possible to make Historical Messages fonts bigger? I play on my tv with 1080 resolution ant bearly can see it.
2. Can you make Hayasdan spear legioners to be recruited from 2nd class people insteaf of 1st class? Historically only elite units were recruited from Nakaharars.

The same as me！How can make the fonts bigger？

[Dresden]

I will look into it. It may be that way due to the length of text but they never were hard to read for me

[rbt]

That population system is really something interesting to play with. What about new edicts with population mechanics? For example to populate new province after conquer etc.

[RollingWave]

A pretty simple request

More followers options for agents.

[whitegamebox]

The political system of Seleucid empire was Tribal Confederation. Really?
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=842902449
Probably there will be more like this.
So check about this.

[FlashHeart07]

Already reported

[Magas of Cyrene]

Some impressions from my Bactrian campaign:

Early game is rather difficult - after a few retries I've taken out Daha and after that concentrated on my economy. I really like the new building chains, they bring a lot of variety to the game.

The new economy is much improved, it takes a while to get a steady income, which I like. But the problem with Bactria is that the surrounding enemies aren't aggressive at all. There's a bunch of Seleucid satrapies, but they don't attack at all. Only worthy opponent I've encountered was Parthia, but they quickly become yet another Seleucid satrapy. And after that point they've mellowed down completely, allowing me to build my armies, which I then promptly used to attack and destroy Haraiva, Parthava, most of Parthia and Zranka with little to no resistance encountered.

After that it was a simple steamroll as the satrapies (or Seleucids themselves) didn't have any real armies left, which is rather disappointing. I've lost interest after that - I was playing at very hard/normal difficulty. In 1.1 Bactria was more challenging, with pretty much constant Saka Rauka and Parthian attacks. This time around they were pretty much done after I've destroyed their primary armies. Takshashila was quickly destroyed, I was hoping they'd give me some challenge.

A few other impressions:

- I love Bactrian roster, it's currently the best Hellenic one, with lots of variety and reduced bloat; I sincerely hope other Greek rosters will receive a similar overhaul!

- I like population system, but as your empire grows it becomes much less of a worry and can be safely ignored altogether, which is rather disappointing.

- Combat AI seems much better, as it's attempting flanking maneuvers much more often, sometimes even pulling it off! Great stuff.

- Great new campaign map.

- Emergent factions bring a lot of flavour to the game.

- Game was very stable after following your instructions, only had a handful of crashes.

- Pike infantry overhaul made them behave pretty much perfect, great work KAM!

- At first I didn't like the new hoplites, but they're pretty damn good, only a lot less flexible (which is it as it should be). My only criticism is that they're a bit "shy" when attacking and have to be told to attack repeatedly.

- I've seen a lot of factions confederate, which is great.

- Political promotions happened maybe 3 times during my campaign, which seemed a bit too low.

- I love the unique cities, hopefully even more will be added in the future. If more of them had unique units tied to them, even better.

- Only Total War game which seems to have a satisfying mid-endgame seemed to be Attila, which remained interesting throughout. Partly because of the Hunnic threat, partly because opposing factions don't just roll over, making for a satisfying game. Not sure how would one recreate that in Rome II, however. Perhaps some more economical boni for the AI midgame? Once you've built your economy they just cannot seem to match you and quickly fold.

- Overall it's a pretty damn good, polished experience. My only problem is that the game seems to have become easier and there's still a problem of player beginning to steamroll the opposition mid-game, which is boring.

I'll be trying Epirus with hardcore mod now and post some further feedback. For now I can only say that Epirus' roster is a bit bloated with similar units (various pike infantry without much difference).

[Geffalrus]

@Dresden

Cool. Was not sure if that was even possible. Time to recruit warriors from other regions and resettle them in Epirus to rebuild the population. My noble population is pretty forked, however. Gonna take some time for that to regrow. Losing your home region hurts.

That's fine if it's a modification limitation.

[Don_Diego]

@Dresden

Cool. Was not sure if that was even possible. Time to recruit warriors from other regions and resettle them in Epirus to rebuild the population. My noble population is pretty forked, however. Gonna take some time for that to regrow. Losing your home region hurts.

That's fine if it's a modification limitation.

That is cool, i didn't know that either! Reminds me of playing Roma 1/ Roma Surrectum and hiring mobs to resettle!

[Jake Armitage]

[QUOTE=Commodore;15222462]
- Overall it's a pretty damn good, polished experience. My only problem is that the game seems to have become easier and there's still a problem of player beginning to steamroll the opposition mid-game, which is boring.
[QUOTE]

I agree.
Besides the fact that 1.2 is awesome, i play adapting army upkeep, the more i grow, the more i rise that.
But tou have to exit the game, edit tabs and then reload.

Maybe improving imperium level should lower more overall economy.
Also giving less positive diplomacy points would be better from my point of view