Some new news :D

[HigoChumbo]

For those who are awake, there is a Warhammer 2 stream live right now with actual, proper gameplay at https://www.gamespot.com/

(Gotta say, the T-rex charging in looks great so far).

[HigoChumbo]

Actually, someone was faster than CA themselves and already uploaded the gameplay bits:

[Emperor Arcturus Mengsk]

The problem is not the DLC's which is a fancy way to say what was once called Expansion pack before the internet came along.

The problem is the kind of DLC's. Race packs which add something that was not there at all like the Beastmen and Wood elves is fine.

DLC's that overhaul a placeholder race such as Kislev, Imperial provinces, Border princes, that would be bad.

So far they have avoided doing that mistake for Warhammer and give placeholder Brettonia for free, which is good.

In Attila they filled the map with placeholder germanic, eastern, northern tribes and then sold them as "new" race packs, that was a shameless cash grab.

[Welsh Dragon]

The problem is not the DLC's which is a fancy way to say what was once called Expansion pack before the internet came along.

The problem is the kind of DLC's. Race packs which add something that was not there at all like the Beastmen and Wood elves is fine.

DLC's that overhaul a placeholder race such as Kislev, Imperial provinces, Border princes, that would be bad.

So far they have avoided doing that mistake for Warhammer and give placeholder Brettonia for free, which is good.

In Attila they filled the map with placeholder germanic, eastern, northern tribes and then sold them as "new" race packs, that was a shameless cash grab.

I don't really see the issue myself.

If you want to play as the new upgraded factions, you have the option to buy the DLC. If you don't, you still get the factions fully upgraded in the accompanying patch, without having to pay even a penny more than what you already spent. You benefit from a bigger and better game either way. Pre and post upgrade factions share a name, maybe a basic culture and some units, but apart from that they are often very different. If this overhaul of someone (possibly Norsca) is anything like as major as CA seems to be suggesting, they'll to all intents and purposes be a new race.

So I don't really see why whether or not someone was on the map as an unplayable A.I. faction before would be an issue.

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

[General Maximus]

I could never get on with the original Alexander Campaign for Rome 1. The Brian Blessed narration was fun, but it was all a bit too linear for me and only being able to play Macedon felt really constraining.

I agree completely. The voiceover was amazing, but the campaign itself felt way too linear and restricted for my tastes. The small map didn't help either.

A new Alexander campaign could be quite interesting, if you did have more options of who to play as. If they wanted to do a linear one still, they could take the Napoleon Route. A story driven Macedon campaign playing Alexander (like Napoleon,) and a more traditional sandbox campaign for the other factions (like the "Campaigns of the Coalition.")

This I think could be a great campaign setting, with many possible alternate endings, assuming most if not all factions are made playable.

What if Darius III was deposed early on, and a competent emperor rebuilt the once powerful Persian imperial army? What if it did not rain on day before Battle of Indus, ensuring a victory for King Puru and his chariot-elephant combo against Alexander, ending his streak of victories? What if the giant Nanda Empire, with its near-endless wealth and military power, decided to step out of isolationism and attack the Greeks and/or Persians with an army outnumbering them 20 to 1? What if Greek states rebelled against Macedonian hegemony once Alexander was deep in Levant?

Even if not for a full game, such a campaign as a DLC would be fully justified.

[Epic28]

With an Alexander DLC being speculated I would assume it would be for Rome 2 and not Attila then?

Now I've been away from modern TW titles since Attila was released (I never bought it) so forgive some ignorance here, but is Rome 2 even supported or updated by CA anymore? I was under the impression that title was largely abandoned by the team and there's been no updates regarding patches, bug fixes, modding tools, etc since the Empire edition or whatever it's called was released 3 years ago?

It seems odd to me that CA would create a DLC for a game that is largely incomplete and full of bad design choices, some of which were addressed in the Attila follow up.

Has Rome 2 been touched upon any since Empire edition? Do some of you guys consider vanilla Rome 2 to be a respectable game now? Is Attila not the more in depth and polished title to be releasing new content on (if they are supposedly adding to old titles years later)?

[Welsh Dragon]

With an Alexander DLC being speculated I would assume it would be for Rome 2 and not Attila then?

Now I've been away from modern TW titles since Attila was released (I never bought it) so forgive some ignorance here, but is Rome 2 even supported or updated by CA anymore? I was under the impression that title was largely abandoned by the team and there's been no updates regarding patches, bug fixes, modding tools, etc since the Empire edition or whatever it's called was released 3 years ago?

It seems odd to me that CA would create a DLC for a game that is largely incomplete and full of bad design choices, some of which were addressed in the Attila follow up.

Has Rome 2 been touched upon any since Empire edition? Do some of you guys consider vanilla Rome 2 to be a respectable game now? Is Attila not the more in depth and polished title to be releasing new content on (if they are supposedly adding to old titles years later)?

To answer your question "Has Rome 2 been touched upon any since Empire edition?"

Short history of Rome 2 patches Emperor Edition onwards.

Emperor Edition was Patch 15 . That was the major overhaul which made big changes to politics, civil war, the building trees etc. For some it probably didn't go far enough, for others it's where the game really started to become very good.

After that we had a hotfix , then Patch 16 which was your more standard technical fixes, useability improvements and balance tweaks, and Patch 16.1 which was the one to add Wrath of Sparta content, as well as make several smaller changes (the major headline of which would probably be making it so transport ships couldn't ram and were weaker, making having an actual navy more important. Can't remember if it was this or 17, but they also made it so only ships with Rams can actually Ram, making naval battles a bit more like a battle, and less like bumper cars.)

Then, when everyone figured Rome 2 had been left behind, in around July 2015, four months after Attila was released, CA surprise everyone with Patch 17 . I classify this as a mini-Emperor Edition, as while it didn't make as many changes as Patch 15, it did make what to me are large changes in two areas.

Firstly, they redid all of the Faction Traits. They got rid of the negative ones (except in cases where they were needed for gameplay, like the animosity between Roman factions in Imperator Augustus.) I get the impression the negative traits were meant to add to faction uniqueness (by giving each a drawback) but they ended not always making sense and giving people less choice in how they wanted to play certain factions. Anyway, those were scrapped, and the positive faction traits were either boosted (to make them more important) or completely replaced, sometimes in very interesting ways. e.g. Germanic Tribes can now always choose to fight at night. The Ambusher factions (Nervii and Lusitani) now have major boosts to Ambush chance meaning they will almost always succeed in Ambushing successfully in Ambush stance in anything but an open plain. Rome has more recruitment slots in every province and march faster on the campaign map, plus House of Cornelia and in IA Mark Anthony now have a 50% discount to Auxiliary upkeep, meaning you can play them quite differently to standard Romans. Easterners have 25% more ammo and Secret Police which increases security against all agent type etc.

Secondly, they made resources more important by giving them global effects. So for example Iron, Horses and Timber effect units recruited anywhere in their owner's Empire, rather than just the province where they had the resource. Upside of this is it's easier to use, the A.I. actually uses those upgrades now, and it makes the regions with them a little more strategically important.

To answer your question "Do some of you guys consider vanilla Rome 2 to be a respectable game now?"

Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I've thought it was a respectable game for quite a while. It's why out of all the Total Wars I've played it more than probably any of them (definitely in the Steam era, not sure before as I played ALOT of Medieval 1, Rome 1 and Medieval 2 back in the day.) But if I had a choice, I'd definitely play Rome 2 with Patch 17 as I think that's the best it's ever been, and a decent game in its own right.

No, they haven't addressed every complaint. But then again, not everyone can even agree on what those issues are. Things like not having a family tree are probably deal breakers for some, and not an issue for others, so a lot of it comes down to personal preference. Also not everyone actually prefers Attila over Rome 2, as much like Warhammer I know quite a few players who have gone to those and then returned to Rome 2, because despite it's flaws it's what they enjoy playing. (And yes, I know some will be playing heavily modded, but not everyone does.)

Things is with all this, we're pretty much in uncharted territory. CA has never returned to an older game like this before, so we don't know exactly how it will work. What we do know is CA is definitely making "particularly large Campaign Pack DLC for one of our more recent historical releases." And judging by the concept art, it has to be Rome 2 or Attila (as the figure depicted is definitely not from Shogun 2 or FOTS.)

And whilst yes Attila is the more recent game, and some feel it's "the more in depth and polished title" so there's logic behind it being Attila, Rome 2 has the bigger player base judging by Steam Stats where it is consistently the second most played Total War after Warhammer, and has been for many months (it was even above Warhammer at one point.) So I could see it go either way.

Guess all we can really do is wait and see.

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

This I think could be a great campaign setting, with many possible alternate endings, assuming most if not all factions are made playable.

What if Darius III was deposed early on, and a competent emperor rebuilt the once powerful Persian imperial army? What if it did not rain on day before Battle of Indus, ensuring a victory for King Puru and his chariot-elephant combo against Alexander, ending his streak of victories? What if the giant Nanda Empire, with its near-endless wealth and military power, decided to step out of isolationism and attack the Greeks and/or Persians with an army outnumbering them 20 to 1? What if Greek states rebelled against Macedonian hegemony once Alexander was deep in Levant?

Even if not for a full game, such a campaign as a DLC would be fully justified.

I'm not that knowledgeable about Alexander's Campaigns, but that all sounds very interesting to play, and makes me feel a bit more interested in an Alexander Campaign DLC than when I originally saw it suggested.

Thanks.

All the best,

Welsh Dragon.

[HigoChumbo]

Some extended gameplay and unit cards:

[joedreck]

I hoped for a empire DLC. This Main faction is bad made and boring. Instead make boring faction dlc single campaigns, CA should spend time on that. Also more Story for factions would be great. Also heros should get optical weapons and armors the find.To speculations for next title. Maybe 2nd war. Russia and USA as start factions. German as DLC, but without Tiger tank. This coming later, also as DLC.

[Huberto]

To answer your question "Do some of you guys consider vanilla Rome 2 to be a respectable game now?"

Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I've thought it was a respectable game for quite a while. It's why out of all the Total Wars I've played it more than probably any of them (definitely in the Steam era, not sure before as I played ALOT of Medieval 1, Rome 1 and Medieval 2 back in the day.) But if I had a choice, I'd definitely play Rome 2 with Patch 17 as I think that's the best it's ever been, and a decent game in its own right.

I was watching Legend of Total War's Rome 2 vanilla play through as Junia last night. It's defnitely not to the credit of CA how he can steam roll on highest difficulty with stacks of Hastati, using auto-resolve and spies to sabotage his way to an easy domination. You'd think in 17 patches they could have fixed that. Mods and house rules are an absolute must with this title.

[herne_the _hunter]

I was watching Legend of Total War's Rome 2 vanilla play through as Junia last night. It's defnitely not to the credit of CA how he can steam roll on highest difficulty with stacks of Hastati, using auto-resolve and spies to sabotage his way to an easy domination. You'd think in 17 patches they could have fixed that. Mods and house rules are an absolute must with this title.

Checkout his Rome HATG campaign. Extensive use of autoresolve stacks of just Roarii in the early stages until he makes more conventional armies for real time battles. He's just min maxing the game mechanics that CA have made. Atilla is going to be just as auto resolve happy if you want to?

[Daruwind]

Probably sad news...
https://forums.totalwar.com/discussi...omment_1817659

Just a correction as I see this pop up everywhere lately.

Minor settlements remain at 4 slots.

Small province capitals (Those you currently see in Norsca) go from 4 to 6 slots.
Regular province capitals get an increase from 6 to 8 slots (1/2/3/5/7 secondary slots).
Special province capitals (Altdorf etc) go from 6 to 10 slots (2/4/6/8/9 secondary slots).
Athel Loren locations go from 10 to 12 slots (3/5/7/9/11 secondary slots)

This is for game 2 only and there will be new buildings, legendary and otherwise.

[Commissar Caligula_]

Tis a sad day. I guess modders can just come to the rescue, since it's a dummy effect slot that I think can be applied easily.

[Daruwind]

Tis a sad day. I guess modders can just come to the rescue, since it's a dummy effect slot that I think can be applied easily.

Nope. What CA is doing, it´s implementation of mods which increase number of slots in Capitols. Nobody can touch smaller settlements as they are hardcoded to 4 slots.

[T-Duke]

How can the new slot system be just for game 2 if we know the two campaigns map could be merged eventually?

[Welsh Dragon]

How can the new slot system be just for game 2 if we know the two campaigns map could be merged eventually?

I think the maps aren't exactly being merged. Rather they're making a new map for the Combined Campaign, using many of the assets (think that's the word) from the Warhammer 1 and Warhammer 2 maps.

So the new building slot totals will be for the Vortex and Combined Campaigns, but not the Warhammer 1 Grand Campaign.

As for why, I don't think it's so much lacking the technical ability as it is game balance and time limitations. The game has probably been balanced for the original number of building slots, and building options. You add a bunch of new slots and buildings, you've probably got to do a lot of testing to balance it out. And seeing as they're already needing to test Warhammer 2 and the Combined Campaign, retrofitting Warhammer 1's campaign is probably going to be a low priority. Though if the changes in Vortex and Combined are popular enough, I wouldn't rule out them going back and redoing the Warhammer 1 campaign building slots at some point.

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

[Leri_weill]

I think the maps aren't exactly being merged. Rather they're making a new map for the Combined Campaign, using many of the assets (think that's the word) from the Warhammer 1 and Warhammer 2 maps.

So the new building slot totals will be for the Vortex and Combined Campaigns, but not the Warhammer 1 Grand Campaign.

As for why, I don't think it's so much lacking the technical ability as it is game balance and time limitations. The game has probably been balanced for the original number of building slots, and building options. You add a bunch of new slots and buildings, you've probably got to do a lot of testing to balance it out. And seeing as they're already needing to test Warhammer 2 and the Combined Campaign, retrofitting Warhammer 1's campaign is probably going to be a low priority. Though if the changes in Vortex and Combined are popular enough, I wouldn't rule out them going back and redoing the Warhammer 1 campaign building slots at some point.

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

Yeah I've been playing with Crynsos' mod and the additional building slots submod, and the AI seems to be doing much better. Or at least it doesn't do as bad as before :p
I'm also looking forward to seeing what new unique buildings CA have in mind for us.

[Daruwind]

Yeah I've been playing with Crynsos' mod and the additional building slots submod, and the AI seems to be doing much better. Or at least it doesn't do as bad as before :p
I'm also looking forward to seeing what new unique buildings CA have in mind for us.

Because AI dont´t understand system limitation quite well. For example if you tie production of all unit with main building, it allows AI to field quite good armies. Human can easily specialize province for military/economy... but AI not

[Leri_weill]

Let's all go here : https://www.twitch.tv/totalwarofficial to get even more newer news about Warhammer : Total War II

[Daruwind]

Campaign flyover - Ulthuan + Lustria nothing more
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PtX_tJdBU4

1:10 - Two Elven fleets - different models. One looks quite "transporty" while second quite "warlikely"
1:54 - 3 fleets with red horse symbol banners off the shores of Chrace, norsca?
2:04 - two land armies in Nagarythe's Anlec..banner of Hag Graef?
2:41 - detailed look at one ship - elven Dragon ship?
2:47 - ship with skull at the front and zikkurat like structure at the top end.. undead - floating necropolis?
3:00 - Luthor Harkon's Vampire Coast shown , just after that we see an empire port city at 3:07
3:40 - roque tree kin army, anotther beast like one at4:38
3:47 - Dwarves ....Mine of Bearded Skull? , near Turtle Island (because it´s said to be there by narrator ) , later flyover from Teclis to Lizards there is orcish settlement ad 4:14 and another at 4:27
4:44 - Mazdamundi and south of him red-white stripped banned with golden face - pizzaro´s lost legion, Swamp Town / Port Reaver settlement (dogs of war)
4:45 - top right chaos? banner in Skeggi?