the game is so :wub: i went back to Medieval 2

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

In my previous Carthage campaign, defeating African kingdoms was fairly easy, now it's harder since AI African kingdoms can use the larger roster from the Desert Kingdoms DLC. Battles are more challenging, I'm seeing better flanking from the AI and more aggressive moves (such as cavalry charging into my skirmishers and general, then withdrawing to charge again just like a player would).

This. I totally agree with Alwyn and Welsh Dragon.

[Dumanthis]

Rome II vanilla sucked (and Medieval II vanilla is too great either when I take of my nostalgy googles). However new politics updates and stuff are really great. Divide Et Impera in Rome II is the new Stainless Steel however Can't play vanilla, can't play Medieval anymore There is just too much good stuff in Rome II with DeI now. Not to forgot mention proper MPC.

[Welsh Dragon]

Rome II vanilla sucked (and Medieval II vanilla is too great either when I take of my nostalgy googles). However new politics updates and stuff are really great. Divide Et Impera in Rome II is the new Stainless Steel however Can't play vanilla, can't play Medieval anymore There is just too much good stuff in Rome II with DeI now. Not to forgot mention proper MPC.

I'll respectfully disagree on vanilla sucking (my 1700+ hours of Rome 2 vanilla is a rather persuasive argument for me .) Don't get me wrong, I appreciate what the modders have achieved and that for many that's how they prefer to play. Just for me, well, I know what I like.

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

[Mayer]

While I agree that Medieval II is a great game, there seems to be a popular misconception that all Rome II offers is shinier graphics. For example, the combination of new features after Medieval II - such as guerrilla deployment and a true line of sight system - transform the experience of playing (or fighting against) stealthy factions such as the Suebi. The ability to play factions with weaker starting positions and different strengths, including hybrid factions which combine the fighting styles of different cultures, adds to the game's replayability for me. I like the increasing differences between factions with newer patches (such as the different technology trees for different cultures) and the ability to liberate nations or to create client states or satrapies. I enjoy Rome II a lot.

Ambushes have been a main staple of the TW franchise since Rome I, the line of sight system is at best gimmicky and has adverse effects on the AI. Rome IIs factions aren't particularly diverse, the army roster of barbarian factions are really lackluster compared to amazing mods like Europa Barbarorum. Clients/Protectorates and Allies are nothing new either, and they have not become any more valuable in RomeII, in fact the best strategy is to kill your allies before they drag you into unnecessary wars.
All factions late-game play the same, stacks are enough to conquer the world thanks to the broken auto-resolve.

I see them very differently. The comment about telling people not to buy their game if they don't like it sounds like a reference to the controversy over the addition of women leaders and generals. The CA representative told the obvious truth (if we don't like a feature of one of their games, we can change it with a mod or not play) - unlike some who made misleading claims that a 50% rate of female leaders and commanders is normal for Rome II factions generally (some even claimed that Rome has 50% female faction leaders and commanders, even though the actual percentage is zero!). What amazes me about this situation is that many people got angry at a representative of the games company who told us the truth - instead of the people who lied to us.

The truth is that CA has become anti-consumerist as highlighted by the fact that their community manager Ella openly told the community which was riled up by controversial changes to the game that "they should either mod it or stop playing" and the removal of reviews. I am still amazed at the display of arrogance and the belief that they can do anything with complete disregard of the community and think it won't hurt their sales, well bad for them that ToB flopped. Sorry, i always side with the customers over a multi-million dollar company and i am absolutely disgusted with developers making unwanted changes to their released titles, RomeII was marketed as a historical experience in antiquitiy, not feminist fiction. It's irrelevant if some claims are exaggerated, the point of contention is that female generals ruin the immersion of the game and a significant part of the playerbase is upset with their apperance. The only thing which could top CAs behaviour is when they start removing said mods from the workshop which remove said feature, by claiming they are misogynist, Hate-Speech, etc. , etc.

We can talk about mods if you like. Yes, the abiility to create new worlds with Medieval II is brilliant. Yes, it's annoying when people's mods don't work because of patches. Even so, there are impressive mods for Rome II - and I've seen significant improvements in the base game with recent patches. People complained that agents were overpowered (I agree, the first time an army was mass poisoned by a high-level enemy agents, I felt like me army had been the target of an air strike). Agents were nerfed. People complained that transport ships were more powerful than warships. Now, warships (at least for factions whose ships have rams) reliably sink transports. People complained that we had no family tree, the old politics system didn't make sense and that civil wars were arbitrary. Now, we have a family tree, we can see the reasons why a rival party is loyal or not (by hovering over their loyalty score), different political strategies are available (such as not appointing rivals to command roles, or appointing them and promoting them alongside supporters of the ruling faction) and we can see which regions are controlled by which party.

Agents could do everything in the past, now they are almost useless. Transport ships only got a nerf in auto-resolve, foreign armies still travel in their boats in the middle of the sea where they are easy prey and a transport fleet can easily beat a undermanned fleet of warships in manual resolve. The politics are still unimmersive and clumsy, despite all the useless baggage added in. Family trees were the single most demanded feature since release, and it took CA 5 years to finally listen to the demands of the community, not something to be proud of.

As for patches 'to sell DLCs', this doesn't make sense. We get the patch for free whether we buy the DLC or not.

The problem is that we get the patches if we like it or not. Desert doms for example locked the desert factions for everyone including mod-players.

I enjoyed DLCs such as Empire Divided, Desert Kingdoms and Rise of the Republic.

I enjoy not paying for overpriced DLCs and bought Rome II in the bargain bin

The reason I come back to Rome 2 time and again is not the graphics (I couldn't care less about graphics and generally play on fairly low settings anyway, especially on my old computer) but the gameplay. I enjoy many of the changes it brought to the series, such as the region/province system; limited building slots; armies tied to generals; army caps tied to Imperium; Imperium itself; stances etc. They address many of the issues I had with earlier Total Wars, such as every region being an island unto itself; difficulty in managing large empires; being able to build everything everywhere; swarms of small armies; feeling little attachment to armies and units etc. It's the game that, for me, hits the spot.

In short, you prefer a streamlined TW experience with limited settlements, buildings, armies and without any difficulty managing a large empire.

[Welsh Dragon]

Ambushes have been a main staple of the TW franchise since Rome I, the line of sight system is at best gimmicky and has adverse effects on the AI. Rome IIs factions aren't particularly diverse, the army roster of barbarian factions are really lackluster compared to amazing mods like Europa Barbarorum. Clients/Protectorates and Allies are nothing new either, and they have not become any more valuable in RomeII, in fact the best strategy is to kill your allies before they drag you into unnecessary wars.

All factions late-game play the same, stacks are enough to conquer the world thanks to the broken auto-resolve.

Like Alwyn I'm a fan of many of the changes introduced or redesigned in Rome 2. Things like true line of sight don't seem gimmicky to me but add a nice element of realism to the battles, making them both a challenge and a useful tool for player and AI alike. I've had the AI sneak cavalry around behind a ridge to attack my flanks, and hidden units of my own in places that would never be possible with the old system.

I play largely barbarians and don't find their rosters to be "really lacklustre." I expect factions of a similar culture to use similar rosters, while also having their own strengths, weaknesses and unique units. And this is what I get with most factions in Rome 2. Making comparisons to mods also to me seems unfair, given that mod teams are made up of volunteers who do not face many of the limitations that those doing this as a job face. A modder can spend 100 hours on one unit if they want to, because they have that freedom to use their spare time how and as they please. Where as a developer has to meet targets and deal with costs and budget constraints that a modder does not. (Modders face their own restrictions it's true, there are pros and cons to both.)

I don't find that all factions late-game play the same either, as I tend to find the battles play out very differently depending on the factions involved. Perhaps it's because I actually fight most battles manually, and build armies I feel to be realistic rather than doomstacks, so don't have issues with auto-resolve.

The truth is that CA has become anti-consumerist as highlighted by the fact that their community manager Ella openly told the community which was riled up by controversial changes to the game that "they should either mod it or stop playing" and the removal of reviews. I am still amazed at the display of arrogance and the belief that they can do anything with complete disregard of the community and think it won't hurt their sales, well bad for them that ToB flopped. Sorry, i always side with the customers over a multi-million dollar company and i am absolutely disgusted with developers making unwanted changes to their released titles, RomeII was marketed as a historical experience in antiquitiy, not feminist fiction. It's irrelevant if some claims are exaggerated, the point of contention is that female generals ruin the immersion of the game and a significant part of the playerbase is upset with their apperance. The only thing which could top CAs behaviour is when they start removing said mods from the workshop which remove said feature, by claiming they are misogynist, Hate-Speech, etc. , etc.

Except that's not "the truth," that's largely your opinion.

As a consumer myself, I fully support Ella's actions and consider them pro-consumer. I was involved in several of the discussions about female leaders where the out of context Ella quotes people have trotted out come from. A small group of people were insisting on taking every thread down the same old root of abuse, bigotry, sexism and general rules breaking, and had demonstrated no interest in changing the way they were acting to be in keeping with the rules they agreed to abide by, even having been warned. In the face of that, Ella presented them with the options available and enforced the forum rules, as is her job. When we join forums such as Steam (or TWC for that matter) we agree to abide by a set of rules, and it is the moderators role to enforce them. This is what she did, and very well I might add. The only issue I have with Ella's posts was she forgot to mention you could also roll back the game to an earlier patch.

While the inclusion of female leaders has been unpopular with some, this was basically a non-controversy until weeks later when a youtuber, a blogger and a far right website failed in their due diligence to check their facts before publishing and/or intentionally twisted the entire thing (including making patently false claims and misrepresenting a cropped screenshot) to push their own agendas or get website traffic.

As for "removal of reviews" the only reviews I've seen that were actually removed were those that were so blatantly in violation of the Steam Rules that it would have been negligence upon the part of Steam moderators not to remove them. Even today I can easily find reviews that disagree with the female leaders or Ella's comments, but did so while staying within the rules of Steam and so were not removed.

The idea that this feature was unwanted is also inaccurate. Some didn't want it, but others did. I've been part of the Total War community for a very long time, and one of the persistent requests has been female leaders where appropriate. This has been especially true of Rome 2, where figures such as Cleopatra (who stars in one of the earliest trailers,) Queen Teuta (featured in artwork and loading screen,) Boudica and others have long been requested. Now, thanks to these updates, they are present in game as well as the option to create our own famous female leaders, just as we can the male ones. CA's implementation has been in keeping with their overall methods throughout Total War's history, balancing out history, player choice, sandbox gameplay and fun, instead of sticking to strict historical dogma. Even with that in mind, the way they have implemented them is in a way that keeps fairly close to history, with only cultures that were known to have female leaders (Barbarian, Egyptian, Nomadic) having female leaders, while those where their roles were more restricted (Rome, Greece, most Eastern) restricting them to a behind the scenes political role, as well as spawn rates which are heavily weighted in male character's favour in every faction (except Kush) and even in birth rates (which should be 50/50.)

If their inclusion breaks your immersion then that's unfortunate. But others found the lack of female leaders to be equally immersion breaking as well. CA created a compromise, with the way they are handled depending on the culture, and the option to mod them to either remove them or increase them depending on the person's preference.

I respect that you "always side with the customers over a multi-million dollar company" as that is your choice. But that also comes with a great risk, because despite what the old advertising slogan says, the customer is not always right. When customers start making unreasonable demands, start resorting to abusive language and harassment, and especially when some start resorting to rape and death threats (including, but not limited, to some specifically telling Ella to kill herself,) I think you have to start questioning whether “the customer” is right in this case.

When I pick a side, I side with the people who I feel have acted correctly and are in the right. In this case I choose to side with the customers and the people at CA including Ella who have acted properly, over a subset of customers who have acted appallingly. That is my choice.

As for Thrones of Britannia, I don't think we can really call it a flop given we don't know what CA's actual financial goals for an experimental Total War game with a narrow focus and made with a limited budget actually were. They may well have made quite a profit, and it was apparently at least successful enough that they are continuing with the Saga concept judging by their latest What The Teams Are Working On? blog post.

Agents could do everything in the past, now they are almost useless. Transport ships only got a nerf in auto-resolve, foreign armies still travel in their boats in the middle of the sea where they are easy prey and a transport fleet can easily beat a undermanned fleet of warships in manual resolve. The politics are still unimmersive and clumsy, despite all the useless baggage added in. Family trees were the single most demanded feature since release, and it took CA 5 years to finally listen to the demands of the community, not something to be proud of.

Funny, I find I'm using agents a lot more these days, now they have defined roles and abilities that aren't just copied across all agent types. Great fun!

I routinely slaughter transport fleets with smaller professional navies, at least when playing Romans and Greeks (it's a bit harder to do with the ram-less Barbarians, though not impossible.)

I find politics to be very immersive, especially in combination with the family tree and intrigues. As I have said before on these boards, I've found the more I invest in it, the more I get out of it.

And family tree I find surprisingly enjoyable (as part of the political/intrigue system,) which came as quite a surprise given that I didn't (and still don't) think a family tree was really needed or fit this setting. That they took 5 years is not a fault in my view, given this game was never intended to have a family tree (as demonstrated by some of the drawbacks of the family tree that have been introduced.)

The problem is that we get the patches if we like it or not. Desert doms for example locked the desert factions for everyone including mod-players.

Except we don't have to use patches we don't want. Right Click on Rome 2 in Steam Library > Properties > Betas Tab > Select from the full versions 5 different patches (16, 17, 18, 19 or none = the current patch, Patch 20.) There's also mods, allowing players to tailor the game to their specific desires while using the vanilla game as a base.

I have no problem with CA stopping mods form making factions they've upgrade playable without buying the DLC which paid for the update. The alternative would be to make those mods a form of piracy, which would likely quickly lead to them being banned entirely.

Also you may (though I'm not certain,) still be able to use unlock mods if you roll the game back to a patch prior to the DLC release, in this case Patch 18 or earlier. Haven't tried it myself, but it may be an option.

I enjoy not paying for overpriced DLCs and bought Rome II in the bargain bin

Fair enough. Value is always subjective. I have yet to buy an overpriced Rome 2 DLC (well, maybe Wrath of Sparta could have been a couple of pounds cheaper,) and I bought the game and all the DLC (except Blood & Gore which doesn't interest me) at full or near full price.

In short, you prefer a streamlined TW experience with limited settlements, buildings, armies and without any difficulty managing a large empire.

No, I prefer a Total War experience where I have to make meaningful decisions how to use my limited resources (money, building slots, food, armies etc) over one where I can just do everything. To me there's little strategy in, for example, a building system where every settlement can be a fortress, military recruitment centre, food growing, entertainment, commercial and money generating trading hub, because you can build everything there. Nor do I look back fondly at the endless conga lines of units I could create in earlier games, meaning the loss of units or even entire armies was a minor inconvenience at best. To me it is often not just what you can do in a game, but what you can't do and how you work within those limitations that creates great gameplay and an enjoyable challenge.

Anyway, that's just how I feel on the subject. But I respect you feel differently. Hopefully we can agree to disagree.

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

...

No, I prefer a Total War experience where I have to make meaningful decisions how to use my limited resources (money, building slots, food, armies etc) over one where I can just do everything. To me there's little strategy in, for example, a building system where every settlement can be a fortress, military recruitment centre, food growing, entertainment, commercial and money generating trading hub, because you can build everything there. Nor do I look back fondly at the endless conga lines of units I could create in earlier games, meaning the loss of units or even entire armies was a minor inconvenience at best. To me it is often not just what you can do in a game, but what you can't do and how you work within those limitations that creates great gameplay and an enjoyable challenge.

Anyway, that's just how I feel on the subject. But I respect you feel differently. Hopefully we can agree to disagree.

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

Exactly. Rome II needs more planning than previous titles, where you could simply spawn endless units, which marched in a huge column of two unit armies to your main army 5 - 10 provinces away or where you could simply spawn every building without thinking in every city.

[Welsh Dragon]

Exactly. Rome II needs more planning than previous titles, where you could simply spawn endless units, which marched in a huge column of two unit armies to your main army 5 - 10 provinces away or where you could simply spawn every building without thinking in every city.

It's one of the reasons I find it rather baffling when people keep insisting Rome 2 is "dumbed down" compared to older games. I mean yes, some areas are simplified (not necessarily a bad thing,) but in others you have to put a lot more thought into your actions than you ever did before... Or at least that's how I find it anyway.

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

[Abdülmecid I]

I don't think the current system requires much thinking, as, apart from certain exceptions about military buildings, the player just spams the same buildings (aiming at public order and economy) again and again and again, and, by then, it's like usual routine. Meanwhile, the assumption that in pre-Empire games, the player was free to build everything is, at best, a gross and misleading over-simplification, because the more fragile financial structure and the notorious building "queue'' meant that huge metropolis were out of question for the early and middle game, at least. Therefore, correctly prioritising your development strategy required the same amount of burned brain cells as the modern and rather absurd dilemma of building either an odeon or a foundry. God forbid you build both of them!

After all, although I recognize that the old system was far from flawless, my main problem concerns how irrational freedom-limiting the present approach is. The imposed limitations serve as a regular reminder, together with levelled generals and Skype diplomacy, that I play a disappointingly sloppy simulation. Nowadays, consumer demands are usually dismissed as ungrateful entitlement, but, personally, I would expect from a professional studio, with great experience and whose products are sold quite expensively, to come up with a more sophisticated solution than lazily and cheaply castrating the game. I understand the fact that every company values immensely its time and budget, but hoping that they will reform the TW economy or introduce a workforce mechanic is not extraordinary, in my opinion, especially considering that Creative Assembly reports millions of net profit on an annual basis. Looks like the only real trilemma involves management policy about cost, time and quality, and even there, the loser and victors seem evident. In any case, the artificial intelligence is unsurprisingly incapable of handling the new limitations with comical results.

Sometimes, its treasury collapses, but the more obvious consequences usually appear in the military sector, as the absence of any barracks (for the sake of temples or markets) means that, even in late game, hordes of cheap militias will be preferred, at the expense of an actually decent army, somewhat able to stand its ground against elite units. Right now, I am playing Fall of the Samurai (probably the most overrated game of Total War history) and, in turn 300, my imperial infantry and artillery casually slaughter thousands of spear levies with zero casualties, as the latter bravely but foolishly charge in front of repeating rifles, generously paid by a million-strong fiscal system, founded upon exactly 44 prefectures, 44 financial districts, 44 factories and 44 police stations.

Wow, such enjoyable, much tactical ingenuity, very Rubicon dilemma, wow.

[Daruwind]

generously paid by a million-strong fiscal system, founded upon exactly 44 prefectures, 44 financial districts, 44 factories and 44 police stations.

Wow, such enjoyable, much tactical ingenuity, very Rubicon dilemma, wow.

This is issue of bad balancing of buildings. There is clearly 1-2 right way how to setup the regions. That´s the issue. Such bad balancing will always ruin the system no matter if with limited slots or unlimited. Do you remember R2 launch building effects? Squalor and food demands going through roof? Lot of people was calling to make more easier system as those penalties were too high however I love that period as it was forcing people to think about every possible building.

[Welsh Dragon]

Once again I find myself marveling at how we can all be playing the same game, yet playing it so very differently and having such different experiences. I don't tend to build the same buildings over and over again. I build what I feel like, or what I happen to need right now, or what I think fits the particular settlement due to trade goods (Aegyptus gets a lot of farms,) history (a Library in Alexandria, a Colosseum in Rome etc,) or because that's the way this particular campaign has developed (a frontier town that has extra military buildings added for the better garrison evolves into a major recruitment centre ones the lines have moved on.)

Is it the most efficient way to build? Heck no. But is it the one I find most enjoyable? You betcha!

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

[The Wandering Storyteller]

Deleted post

[Abdülmecid I]

To be sincere, I'm not going to adjust my views for the sake of the sensitivity of either the community or the developpers. It is my firm belief, recently reinforced from my experience of playing simultaneously Medieval II and Napoleon/Tom Cruise campaigns, that the campaign aspect of post-Empire Total War games is frustratingly shallow and uninspired. Everyone should be allowed to voice his opinion, as long it is done in a respectful manner, regardless of how easily his audience may be offended. As a general observation, which is not addressed specifically to Storyteller, I think that the employment of personal arguments, aiming more at morally judging negativity, are partially responsible for the poisoning of the atmosphere and the creation of divisive hostility, from which the community so much suffers. In any case, the accusation of Creative Assembly abandoning Total War Center because of the harsh criticism, is not only a bit bizarre (employees are not really free to avoid performing their job, in case they may feel uncomfortable), but also completely contradicted by facts. Let's not forget that the marketing representatives left Total War Center almost immediately after the announcement of Warhammer I and the release of Atilla, the latter being a product that was ironically received in a surprisingly positive way here, in the den of Beelzebub, in comparison to the social media and reddit. After all, the PR guys are also essentially absent from the official fora, which have been reduced in a state of unprecedented decline (not even the most obscene material is not moderated, while the site structure is totally bugged), despite criticism being immediately censored, through instant bans and thread removals.

I also object to a company only being motivated by praise. I genuinely cannot understand your reasoning, considering that the conflict of interests between the consumer and the merchant, in what concerns the ratio of quality/cost. Why would a company be persuaded to dedicate more resources to improving its goods, if the buyers are already satisfied? To mention a few recent examples, when the community obediently acquiesced to naval warfare and animations being removed from Warhammer, under the pressure of reddit vote-brigade and the excuse of having to accommodate too many monsters of various sizes and colours, it was later compensated with the complete absence of these two features in a game, where everybody looks like a stereotypical Dynasty Warrior figure. On the contrary, we should always remember that when Rome II was laughed at for being comically broken and unfinished, Creative Assembly quickly made the Nomad DLC free for one week. When Beasts of War failed commercially, new content was instantly added and, last but not least, the Adidas-wearing Slavs were released, in a response to a remarkably vigorous campaign of Eastern Europeans against the DLC-obsession with obscure Celtic and Germanic tribes.

Is it the most efficient way to build? Heck no. But is it the one I find most enjoyable? You betcha!

Right, but you're now moving the goalposts. Your first argument was that the new system added strategic depth, while you now claim that what you mainly use it for role-playing purposes, to the detriment of efficiency. That's not the same and, for me, is not anyhow linked to the fact that free construction is now prohibited by an arbitrary and invisible barrier. The issue of the artificial intelligence being absolutely incapable of handling the imposed restrictions remains quite serious. I love role-playing, too, but when the enemy insists on spamming useless militia, detecting enjoyability becomes a herculean task, which is why I conclude that the limited slots "solution" is lazy, inappropriate (and yet profitable) for a professional studio and overall crucially undermines the quality of the game, whose price remains as high as ever.

[Welsh Dragon]

Right, but you're now moving the goalposts. Your first argument was that the new system added strategic depth, while you now claim that what you mainly use it for role-playing purposes, to the detriment of efficiency. That's not the same and, for me, is not anyhow linked to the fact that free construction is now prohibited by an arbitrary and invisible barrier.

I'm not moving any goalposts, I'm just discussing different aspects of this as and when they come to me. And it struck me reading some of the recent posts that those, such as yourself (and a few others I have had sometimes heated discussions about various aspects of Total War and Rome 2 in particular in the past) who are generally critical of the newer games (and specifically game mechanics such as the building system or politics,) are also those that from their posts seem to me to fall at least in part under the category of the min-maxer player. Players who find the most efficient way to do something in a game and stick to that, in an elegantly mathematical fashion. Which is not intended as criticism, as there's different ways to play a game and if that's how you enjoy playing it I'm all for it. Just a recognition that maybe that's part of why our experiences and views are so different, even though we have both played Total War games for a long time.

Where as some of the most vocal supporters of the newer games and Rome 2 in particular, for example myself, Alwyn and Storyteller, are also writers and storytellers, which is perhaps reflected in the way that we play and why we find we enjoy the way the newer games handle buildings and such. We play the games not just for the gameplay but the stories they can create, and may take other factors into consideration when choosing how to build a settlement than what is the perfect build.

That doesn't change my view that I personally find more strategic depth and enjoyment in the system used in say Rome 2 (where there are limited building slots and careful thought has to be put into how you develop each province because you cannot build everything,) than that used in Medieval 2 (where the limitation is created by the building queue and money, careful thought has to be put into what order to build things, but sooner or later every settlement can have everything.) Referring back to your earlier post, it is your description of the Rome 2 system as "apart from certain exceptions about military buildings, the player just spams the same buildings (aiming at public order and economy) again and again and again" that is to me "at best, a gross and misleading over-simplification." And to me the Med 2 system is just as arbitrary as the "invisible barrier" you feel the Rome 2 system introduces, because with the build queue you basically have to believe that the entire settlement is working on one building at a time. So for me, personally, the Rome 2 system is the better one. You feel differently and that's fair enough, because we're never going to all agree on everything.

That said, one thing I do agree with you on is that there's no need for these discussions to become personal, and we should all be able to discuss the things we like and dislike about these games without it turning into a slanging match. I also think we owe it to ourselves and others to take into consideration other people when we express our views. The way we write something can have just as much of an effect upon the reader as what we actually say. After all there's little point in taking the time to explain our views if all the other person is going to remember is we called them an idiot.

In the end, we're all Total War fans, and I think we can all get along with each other and enjoy the games we each enjoy, while respecting that for others it's different games or mechanics they prefer.

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

[Alwyn]

It is my firm belief, recently reinforced from my experience of playing simultaneously Medieval II and Napoleon/Tom Cruise campaigns, that the campaign aspect of post-Empire Total War games is frustratingly shallow and uninspired.

It's interesting to read your experience, this shows how much the experiences and views of players vary. In my experience, the campaign aspect of Rome II is satisfyingly, challenging and enjoyable - particularly since the recent updates. I noticed that you compared Medieval II to Fall of the Samurai. I haven't played Fall of the Samurai. I'm comparing older games to Rome II. You gave the example of a Fall of the Samurai campaign in which you build the same buildings everywhere. That does sound uninspired. You could do that in Rome II (there are certainly some buildings which I prefer to others) but it would be an odd choice. Rome II rewards players who specialise regions and provinces according to the changing needs of your nation.

Whether or not Welsh Dragon thinks that Rome II's campaign map has strategic depth, I think it does. I don't see limited numbers of building slots as an "arbitrary" barrier - it reflects the fact that our cities evolve and grow over the 300+ year time period of the Grand Campaign, and that if a nation puts a very high proportion of its resources into building barracks and training soldiers everywhere, it will have less resources for everything else - a nation's income and resources are not unlimited. It's not an "invisible" barrier, either - it's clear how many slots I have.

I like the way that the regions in a province share the effects of buildings and that food is automatically shared across the player's nation. One province may be focused on culture, research and military recruitment, while importing food from provinces specialising in farming - just as Rome itself did historically, importing much of the city's food. I enjoy strategic decisions such as needing to decide how quickly to convert a hardy frontier province to a peaceful area focused on the economy, farming, culture/religion and research. Convert it too quickly and the enemy might break through and capture it easily. Convert it too slowly and my nation will lack sufficient funds to maintain its forces or will fall behind in research.

Instead of the simple 'military or civilian' building choice in minor cities in some earlier games (like Empire), in Rome II provinces occupy different places on a spectrum between military and civilian production. I like that. I also like the way that the top-tier buildings have a significant food cost, so the player tends to need to think about which provinces will have the top-level barracks. Most of my provinces can recruit standard units, but specialised and elite units only come from a few places, at least for most of the time in my campaigns - and the player needs to choose where these top-level recruitment centres will be.

You claim that in newer games the AI relies on "hordes of cheap militias" in the late campaign and that the AI is "absolutely incapable of handling the imposed restrictions". You gave the example of how, in Fall of the Samurial "in turn 300, my imperial infantry and artillery casually slaughter thousands of spear levies with zero casualties". My experience with Rome II is different, particularly since the recent updates. In a recent campaign as Carthage, Rome invaded north Africa with high-tier legionary units (including First Cohorts) while I was still only able to recruit mid-tier units. The AI was developing its research and buildings faster and more efficiently than I was! That doesn't always happen, but in my experience it's normal to see AI factions using high-tier units in the late campaign. A small, poor nation might use cheap militias because that's all they can afford or if they have a poor roster (although that's less of an issue with the recent DLC), but larger nations can and do use their better units.

Where as some of the most vocal supporters of the newer games and Rome 2 in particular, for example myself, Alwyn and Storyteller, are also writers and storytellers, which is perhaps reflected in the way that we play and why we find we enjoy the way the newer games handle buildings and such. We play the games not just for the gameplay but the stories they can create, and may take other factors into consideration when choosing how to build a settlement than what is the perfect build.

That's true. It doesn't mean that we'd intentionally make our faction weak or make terrible choices (unless we were writing a story which required that). There are games, and styles of play, where it's all about powergaming and if you make a mistake, it's game over. That's not fun for me - I prefer games, like Rome II, which offer different ways to win, where you can lose a battle occasionally and still survive, where you can experiment with different strategies and which offer opportunities for role-playing.

Sometimes, role-playing can lead to discovering advantages of different ways of playing - which might strengthen your faction rather than make it weaker. For instance, if you're used to conquering every other faction, but you decided that your faction would consider it dishonourable to attack a specific nation, then you might find how useful it is to have an ally and trading partner. Playing as Pergamon, I decided to turn the small nation of Cappadocia (which I would previously have conquered) into a client state, just to see what would happen. Cappadocia sent an army south against our common enemy (Egypt). Their army captured city after city with assistance from one of my armies (although the assistance wasn't really needed, the AI was capturing cities effectively even though Cappadocia's roster is one of the weaker ones).

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

I agree with Alwyns post, especially in the need to make choices how you specialise your provinces. The AI in campaign and battle has improved much since RotR too. Weak AI rosters can be filled with balanced unit mods without bloating them.

[Alwyn]

I agree with Alwyns post, especially in the need to make choices how you specialise your provinces. The AI in campaign and battle has improved much since RotR too. Weak AI rosters can be filled with balanced unit mods without bloating them.

You make a good point about the improved campaign and battle AI. I'm seeing more aggressive AI behaviour on the campaign map. This makes choices about specialising provinces more critical, as provinces close to the border are more likely to be attacked.

[Mwulf]

I'm currently trying to get back in to Rome 2, but my biggest problems with the game now are the same as my biggest problems with the game at launch--unit collision mechanics are broken, and the UI is an obtuse, inefficient mess. Part of me wants to go back to the older games, but TBH I just can't get into Rome or Medieval 2 as much these days (almost exclusively due to WASD camera movement) so I'll probably end up going back to Shogun 2 (best in the series) if I can't figure out how to fix collision mechanics. Surely there must be a mod or something by now?

I did also buy Warhammer 2 this week, but I kinda doubt I'll stick with it too long, even though it has a workable UI and solid unit collision... I just have zero interest in the setting/lore aspects. Maybe it'll grow on me?

[Bran Mac Born]

Well all you guys could be playing WARS OF THE GODS- ANCIENT WARS

[Ygraine]

There's a lot of text that some users have written here, but after reading it all it boils down to some players simply setting their bar lower than others. Ie. they don't expect as much complexity or too many layers from their game. Which is fine, as long as those players don't claim that it has more "depth" than for example a modded game where you have population, a supply system etcetera.

So one can conclude that "arcade" players (let's call them that for simplicity) like the vanilla game more, while someone who is more interested in complexity like what the Paradox-games offer won't be satisfied with what the vanilla game has and will instead be drawn to mods that attempt to rectify that which is lacking (like for example DeI).

[Welsh Dragon]

There's a lot of text that some users have written here, but after reading it all it boils down to some players simply setting their bar lower than others. Ie. they don't expect as much complexity or too many layers from their game. Which is fine, as long as those players don't claim that it has more "depth" than for example a modded game where you have population, a supply system etcetera.

So one can conclude that "arcade" players (let's call them that for simplicity) like the vanilla game more, while someone who is more interested in complexity like what the Paradox-games offer won't be satisfied with what the vanilla game has and will instead be drawn to mods that attempt to rectify that which is lacking (like for example DeI).

While I get what you're saying, I also think it isn't quite as clear cut as your use of "setting the bar lower," "depth" and "arcade players" would suggest. There's a big difference between depth "which adds to the enjoyment of the game" and depth "that's complexity for complexity's sake." Which is which largely comes down to the individual, and given that enjoyment is itself subjective, it makes it very difficult to plot depth as some kind of linear measure where one person can "set the bar lower" than another.

I respect what modders have achieved and that mod users enjoy playing the game their way. But it doesn't mean they have higher standards than us vanilla players, just that they have a different set of opinions as to what makes a game good.

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.