Hello, I find several problems in the current Beta version, also I have some suggestions for additional improvement of the game.
Raindrop effect on the camera.
There used to be a screen effect of drops on the camera simulating the rain hitting the glass for some reason this disappeared but I look into the code and it seems is on, but is not rendered in the game.
The effect was present in pre-Emperor Edition. When raining this effect was very nice but after some patching, the distortion effect broke and was left unfixed. The effect is still present in Attila for reference.
Water shader problem
Water Reflections on rivers
The new reflections in the game are great and one of the biggest requested fixes for the game from 2014 today, but for some reason, the reflections in the rivers don't render anymore, here are some examples.
Examples
The lack of buildings reflection and other objects
The trees also are no longer rendered
In And older Rome II version pre-EE patch reflections used to work.
Attila Example.
Rome II Example
There is a glitch rendering the unit flags UI reflection on the water.
When you hide the UI and the reflections disappear
Weather and Rain problems.
Rain texture problem when raining there is a texture on objects but there is an issue with it. The texture is very huge low res and blurry and the speed when moving is very fast and the result is like a glitch The problem is that the texture does not scale properly but stretch. In the first image, you can see the texture and the image below image from Attila with no issues.
Rome 2 texture problem
Attila hi-res texture and much slower animation
Aditional example from Attila, texture resolution is easily visible on the collum and the ship detail on the image below.
There is a glitch in fog weather with the god rays
Night Battles
The particles during night battles are very dim and dark also desaturated and look grayer then yellow
The night battle particles in Attila have some kind of a mask and the particles are brighter.
There is a problem with the lack of lighting for some units. Here is an example of the praetorian guard, there is no light and a torch.
Bugs and glitches
there is a problem with the shadow when you move the camera back
Campaign Map
Campaign map glitches
Beaches and rivers are broken right now
There is a strange glitch with the beaches and lakes in the game, like a low poly polygonal squares, the rivers on the Nile delta for example disappeared.
This is how used to be before the update
In previews version, there used to be more grass around the Nile delta.
Seasons
With the latest patch, the seasons in the game became less pronounced, especially the autumn and the overall lighting in the campaign map became much darker. This makes some of the readability of the units harder. Because of the darker texture and flatter lighting overall detail is lost for example some bumps on the map are very difficult to see and the color of the trees is close to the grass and they blend and also the tree shadows are bearly visible that make the overall picture flat.
Spring
Patch 17
The overall picture is brighter and the shadows of the trees are more visible. Details like hills are easily visible. Every element blend, the CIties look 3d dimensional and the trees also. The normal map is highlighted, creating a lot of variation and detail in the map.
Ancestral Beta.
The overall images are much darker and flatter, the detail from above like hills and shadow is nearly gone. The trees now blend with the grass and this is not good. The cities on the map look like gray spots without the lighting that make them 3d in the previews patch. They don't cast shadow and don't have bright spots and looks much worse and defused also desaturated. They look like they are not from the environment but stamped on. The normal map dot reflects any lighting and the map looks much flatter and with less detail.
Summer.
Patch 17
The summer in patch 17 is very vibrant and hotter looking, the threes cast visible shadows to make them much more third dimensional and are clearly visible also they are with a different colder tone than the grass. This third-dimensional look is very visible on the cities as well with more highs on the different structures. The ground is much warmer.
Ancestral Beta.
The overall image looks good but again detail is lost and ist very visible on trees and cities, whit this much flatter defuse image the sense of 3d space is lost. The illusion of summer is not the same as before.
Autumn
Patch 17
The Autumn in the game looks pretty good, whit warmer overall tone, with yellow and orange lives from the trees. The forests look diverse with yellows and orange and red tone. creating the illusion of autumn.
Ancestral Beta.
The Autumn in the ancestral update looks like anything else but Autumn. The trees are brown flat and the lives that fall on the ground for some reason are white. There is some kind of blue fog and the image is very darker. The overall image must be much more colorful brighter and warmer.
Here is screenshot before the emperor edition not only the colors are more vivid but there are farms that give additional flavor on the map.
Winter
Patch 17
The winter here is brighter and objects again are more visible
Ancestral Beta
I actually like the darker lighting for the winter season but again a little bit contrast will make the objects better visible. The winter overall looks good and need a little tweaking.
Deserts
Patch 17
The desert here looks very warm and hot place as should be, there is a glow and very contrast light in it with the heat distortion combine looks very unhospitable and hot place.
Ancestral Beta
In the Ancestral Beta, the desert looks very cold and green compared to the previews version. No longer there is high contrast or glow, the orange color is gone for more desaturated dull tone. The previews atmosphere depicts a dessert better.
The Farms are missing.
There used to be farms around cities and roads, strangely they disappeared from the map. they are in Attila and any other TW game to date. They represent the countryside around cities.
The cities don't look like are part of the environment
Patch 17
Here the cities look like a part of the environment and the cast shadow
Ancestral beta
The cities right now look like they are stamped on the map, they are white and don't have many highs also doesn't look to cast shadows like before. Also, the roads look like only a white line before they have a yellow-orange outline outside the main road suttle but make like the road transition very slightly to grass.
Early version and EE
The cities used to be very bright and colorful with varied land around them with multiple textures blending.
Ancestral beta
The cities now look flat, the texture around them is very similar with no diversity and overall very dark. The shadows of the trees look not so long. There needs to be more variety in the textures like different tones of green and yellow.
Fog on campaign map
The fog is very strong and bluish, I think the tone of the fog must be season specific, more bluish in the winter, little bit green during spring, with warmer summer tone and saturated yellow-orange tint during autumn also the strength of the fog must be lowered
Vegetation Alpha bug
A glitch with the vegetation alpha it's very noticeable when is raining, "The bug is a light radius that follows you while moving around, it removes shadows from units and lights up foliage. Thought this would be an important bug to fix as many appreciate to see the closeup fights!"
Fog during Battles
There is strong blue fog when the rain is light and there are no wet surfaces when it happens.
The sandstorms sand textures are bearly visible in Rome II
The sandstorm flying cloud texture is not as visible as it in Attila, you can see the comparison below
In Rome II we have more like a regular fog. Before there was a pronounced cloud texture but with the patches was almost removed.
In Attila, we not only have fog but a sand cloud texture
The fog during the spring is very blue and saturated and compare to the other 3 seasons have very low distance.
Other seasons don't have this very saturated blue ting
In Attila, the spring fog is also desaturated and the draw distance is even smaller making the fog more realistic.
This was the case before the EE update.
The effect is present in the city also.
The other seasons are not affected
Ceaser is missing when selected as general on custom battle
Features
The film grain currently is a bit too strong, the size of the grain can be lowered.
Dust when units walking and running.
This feature was present in past Total War titles but in Rome II it was removed. In deserts or dry land when soldiers or cavalry run they didn't bring up the dust. This feature must make his return to Rome II after I saw it in Attila.
Armies number bar information
This is a great feature in Attila and needs to go to Rome II as well.
Highlighting units as triangles when holding space, currently, this is done by pressing the action button in the middle of the screen and the highlight is circle not triangles showing the soldiers direction. When dragging ships in Rome there is no circle around the ship like in Attila but a 3d model and different art direction to the rest of the game
When holding alt in Attila there are circles in the same UI style.
Unit strength number replenishment bar instead of a green cross will be much better, you can clearly see how much your army will be replenished next turn, this is much better information.
Particles
Particles in Rome 2 originally were near the quality of the previews games and Attila but something happened after the game launch. In this post, the town down the projectiles but I think this was a wrong decision. First, this have gameplay design behind it with a purpose of readability when you play with top distance camera. Second, this can be added as a toggled option in the menu. In the screenshot can be seen also a dust from an impact on the shields. This was in the game in Vanilla but was removed with the patches.
Better particle system.
Attila has similar particle system to the siege of Carthage video for Rome II.
Rome 2 particles system is very basic with low-resolution particles with lower quality even then Shogun 2. I hope CA will introduce the particle system from Attila to Rome II in the future. Also, the particle visible range is very limited please make the range of the particles similar to shogun and Attila on the extreme setting and the range of LOD in general.
Sogun 2 particles detail and distance compared to Rome II