Give a reason why you prefer Rome I over Rome II

[SKSlave]

Hello folks

I, like many others, am excited to play Rome I again but with a nice new coat of paint and optimised for modern systems. I have played Rome I since it was released 17 years ago, and when I argue it is better than Rome II, I am often accused of wearing nostalgia goggles. My answer to this is - how can I be nostalgic for a game I still regularly play?

I don't think Rome II is a bad game, as I know many enjoy it. However, I do argue it has several very badly designed mechanics. My main gripes are, firstly, the characters system, with characters being tied to armies and therefore smaller forces not being possible to have. This makes garrisoning a total chore if not impossible and swapping units between armies needlessly complex. A degree of freedom has been stripped from the player. My second gripe is the province system, which I hated on release and still hate to this day. It was meant to replace the "cookie-cutter" cities of earlier TW games but all it has done is give rise to cookie-cutter provinces, which either have military or economic buildings. Shared culture is a disastrous feature - why would Tarentum grow unhappy and revolt because some Carthaginians built a temple in Lilybaeum? Why would Rome suffer an unhappiness penalty because the Etruscans have been defeated and occupied to the north? It's just silliness.

Interested to hear what folk here have to say on this topic. Why do you think Rome I is the better game, or do you disagree with that?

Regards
SKSlave

[Barkhorn1x]

Here are 4 reasons why RTW2 is not great:
- "Blob" cities - WTF?
- Flawed pila mechanics
- Flawed phalanx mechanics
- Awful UI that looks like 1990's office décor instead of ancient history (related = awful unit cards)

[King_of_Spoons64]

The movement order sound effects.

[Boicote]

- Traits and ancillaries. They are more diverse in Rome 1 and they make more sense (ex. If a character visits a city with an academy, he will learn from it).
- I hate the character’s skills in Rome 2 (actually, they were introduced in Shogun 2). I don’t like this RPG element because if fells “gamey” and not realistic at all. In Rome 1, the player makes political decisions only; In Rome 2 the player is also God because he/she also makes decisions about the skill of his/her characters.
- City view!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- The UI
- The music

[Vardano]

There are many things really, I will mention one - city building is monotonous and boring. Basically in Rome 2 first level city with walls is as good as a fourth level city, wall artilleries do not make much of difference. In Rome 1 city walls made fundamental difference and changed your strategy of what type of armies you build to attack or defend cities, it was big part of fun. Same goes for building slots, they are limited and every city is just clone type.

[Steward Denethor II]

I never played Rome 2, but from what I have seen the army system is inferior. In Rome 1 you build the units from cities (or hire them as mercenaries) then you merge them together to form armies. You do with the units what you want. In Rome 2 you just recruit a general and he does all the recruiting. The men always stay with him and there is an army limit. You can't split up your army, which really limits your possibilities sometimes.

[Leonardo]

I never played Rome 2, but from what I have seen the army system is inferior.

You can count yourself lucky for not playing R2TW, because some features (conducting diplomancy with money, the family tree?, the nostalgalic atomsphere in RTW was no longer present in R2TW among other things) was removed in R2TW.

On top of that CA also manage to mess up the time frame e.g one season is one year (Winter 270BC will after one turn be Summer 269BC or the opposite) in-game and that's the most annoying thing I notice, which was basically my reason to stop playing R2TW.

[Barkhorn1x]

...that's the most annoying thing I notice, which was basically my reason to stop playing R2TW.

You're right and, reading through this thread reminded of stuff about R2TW that annoyed me and I forgot about.

And 99% of everything I've seen/read about RTW Remastered has got me very excited as this is the W10 64 bit/multi-core supported/high rez RTW version I've always wanted.

[Steward Denethor II]

You can count yourself lucky for not playing R2TW, because some features (conducting diplomancy with money, the family tree?, the nostalgalic atomsphere in RTW was no longer present in R2TW among other things) was removed in R2TW.

On top of that CA also manage to mess up the time frame e.g one season is one year (Winter 270BC will after one turn be Summer 269BC or the opposite) in-game and that's the most annoying thing I notice, which was basically my reason to stop playing R2TW.

Yeah, I remember there was so much hype for Rome 2 here. I remember thinking "What if it is a disappointment?" so I didn't preorder, was glad I did not. I figured it might be like Empires release, seems it was actually worse.

I prefer the RTW way of building buildings than the post Empire method of limited building slots.

Battles? I found the old RTW engine far better for battles than Warscape, although I don't know if Rome 2 was cleaned up a lot. Heard it was abysmal on release.

[FEARLESS]

I never played Rome 2, but from what I have seen the army system is inferior. In Rome 1 you build the units from cities (or hire them as mercenaries) then you merge them together to form armies. You do with the units what you want. In Rome 2 you just recruit a general and he does all the recruiting. The men always stay with him and there is an army limit. You can't split up your army, which really limits your possibilities sometimes.

Totally agree with this comment! It’s Rome remastered that has brought me back to this forum. Look forward to building watch towers as well! It will be interesting to see what the modders can do with enhancing the units, buildings and terrain if possible.

[Kraut]

- City view!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This. I can not wait for the city vew with improved graphics :-)

[gaunty14]

RTW has more depth and character because of traits. I actually become attached to generals because they develop as characters based on what they do on the campaign/battle map (more so with MTW2 because of Chivalry and dread).

[argenti]

Awful UI that looks like 1990's office décor instead of ancient history (related = awful unit cards)

heck what a terrible image you brought back to my mind.
The office furniture of the 90s
but I liked the unit cards it was a good idea put on a bad interface.

[Abdülmecid I]

Besides the trait system, the army limits and the building slots that have already been mentioned, I prefer Rome I to Rome II for the following main reasons:

1. Skype (or maybe Zoom in our pandemic era) diplomacy. I get why many people found the old system a chore, but I think it was much more realistic. Establishing diplomatic relations was not a simple process and embassy interception was actually a very efficient method of preventing your enemies from forming hostile coalitions. Chatting with a bald guy resembling a 2nd rate actor from a sword & sandal movie, who spouts random tough phrases through a small window, seems stupid.

2. Automatic replenishment. Logistics basically play no role in Rome II. You can attack whatever region you want, without bothering to establish a link between the expedition and your empire. Praetorians can casually replenish in recently annexed Lusitania in a matter of a few turns. Back in Barbarian Invasion, there was a long line of reinforcements, stretching from Mesopotamia Gaul, full of heavy Sogdian infantry and elephants. Also, you no more care about your soldiers. As long as the casualties do not surpass an an arbitrarily imposed percentage, everything will be fine. In Rome I, even if you annihilated your enemy, your invasion would eventually come to a halt, due to battle casualties and garrisoning, unless strong reinforcements were constantly being sent to the front.

3. Distance from capital. It was a great mechanic, affecting your income and public order in the most isolated settlements. It nicely simulated the challenges the larger empires faced. Expansion became more difficult and less profitable, which eventually led to the stabilisation of the frontier, even if the enemy was technically much weaker. In my current campaign as Persia against the Alans and the Byzantines, I am actually bleeding money, despite my outstanding victories, because of the enormous expenses and moderate profits. It doesn't matter much, because my treasury was already immense, but that problem lies with the broken economy not the distance from capital feature. In newer games, they try to implement late-game challenges through very sloppy methods, like Realm Divide, the unintentionally hilarious civil wars of Rome II and Attila the Cockroach with his ''Lazarus-was-an-amateur-at-resurrection'' Huns.

[Barkhorn1x]

Besides the trait system, the army limits and the building slots that have already been mentioned, I prefer Rome I to Rome II for the following main reasons:
~Edited for space.~

Well put!

[Leonardo]

You're right and, reading through this thread reminded of stuff about R2TW that annoyed me and I forgot about.

And 99% of everything I've seen/read about RTW Remastered has got me very excited as this is the W10 64 bit/multi-core supported/high rez RTW version I've always wanted.

I was so annoyed I actually uninstalled R2TW and haven't re-install it since that day I remove it from my computer.

[Jurand of Cracow]

After having played a dozen games with ATW-Great Campaign and ATW-AoC (and earlier in R2TW) I’ve come up with the dominant strategy which makes the game really boring (not to mention un-historical).

Features of R2TW and ATW that enable this strategy:
· Limited number of armies per faction (depends on imperium level) – the number of armies a faction fights against depends on the number of factions it is at war with but not their strengths (ie one faction with 20+ provinces is much weaker than 3 factions with 3 provinces each).
· No manpower limits (like in M2TW units’ refill rates, DeI mod for R2TW alleviates the problems) – if your army is destroyed, you just set up a new one: the speed depends on the recruitment slots, which are usually not a serious barrier.
· Cheap units in comparison to the economy: most of the armies are 20-units armies. This is better in the AoC DLC, but still, the result is the same.
· Automatic refill of the battle loses (if not enemy territory) – if you inflict losses on an enemy, he will come again in full numbers soon.
· High movement ranges: long moves per turn possible what enables “catching” of enemy armies (I mean attacking twice: one attack may be avoided, but the second has to be fought to death).
· Close-to-perfect knowledge of the enemy: where it’s positioned, how strong it is (only sometimes restricted by armies hiding or by having not enough agents) – also enable catching of the enemy armies.
· Auto-resolve skewed to benefit the numerical superiority: even a small advantage in numbers produce effects when one army is wiped entirely, and the winner suffers very small losses.

Implementation of the strategy:
· You get several full-stacks (2+) and tries to initiate the battles with higher numbers (2-1, 3-1,3-2 or more). The AI will flee but can do it only once. You get your army group on it again (what's enabled by the movement ranges), then autoresolve. The result should be the total annihilation of the enemy army(ies) with very low loses on your side - you can continue sniping immediately.
· If the AI has more armies than you, you need to do it patiently – snipe one army, then another one, then you dominate.
· It is sometimes employed also by the AI: it's not bad at positioning several of its armies around your army and attacking you. So the essential issue is to keep your armies together so that the AI cannot snipe by itself (and also to enable sniping by yourself). Perfect knowledge on the map enables it.
· After you’ve annihilated the AI in one province you go to another one and do the same. It’s really a war of annihilation. To prevent AI from spawning again you’ve got to “raze” settlements in the ATW or take them in the AoC.
· The result: playing the battles by yourself is really a worse option. Autoresolve is better plus battles with higher numbers are boring. You've got always lower loses and you can continue sniping. The composition of the armies (units), the quality of the leaders - matter much less.

Summary:
With unlimited manpower and automatically replenishing armies what you need to beat the AI is to wipe completely his armies. It doesn't make any sense just to win a battle - the AI would replenish and come back soon. You really need to wipe the armies. You can do it with the numerical superiority (ie more armies to attack 2-1 or 3-2) and then attack two times in one turn, preferably on the autoresolve (otherwise they flee, now wiping). What follows, the superior tactics is "sniping the armies": you make a battle group of 2 full stacks and take enemy armies one-by-one. You also take and raze the AI settlements quickly as a follow up (especially as the WRE - you need to raze constantly the neighboring settlements, letting the AI to spend money on rebuilding them, and then razing them again).

The interplay between a few elements (1. relatively low prices for the units, both recruitment and upkeep; 2. no-limit of recruits (as it was in the M2TW, 3. automatic replenishment) makes it the superior tactics. Otherwise you face a constant flow of enemy armies. Thus for the ATW to be playable a mod would have to introduce a kind of strong mechanism counteracting this mechanics. How to do it, I don’t know.

Age of Charlemagne is slightly better, I admit. First: lower movement ranges combined with some terrain features (loses in the mountain passes, much slower movement there). Second: less money from the buildings. Third: no razing (unless you're Asturia). However, all this doesn't prevent this strategy to be effective and superior, to my mind. Interestingly, I've seen the AI in the AoC also using this tactics: kept 2-3 armies together and then attacked together in two-phased attack, wiping my armies.

In the Warscape mechanism (I mean: R2TW/ATW/ToB) you need to plan at the beginning what the final benefits of the buildings in the province will be. This makes it possible to decide on the other building you're starting building.

I've made a spreadsheet in the past - it was for Attila when I was playing WRE. I've tried to balance all the effects and see how the Tetris should look like. Maybe it'd be useful for somebody. I've used it for instance to produce this opinion.

Anyway, this is way different from the Medieval 2 engine where you're free to build pretty everything in a settlement (well, depending on the castle/city difference, of course) once a proper size was reached. In that case you wouldn't play Tetris, you'd answer to the current needs. IMO, it was much superior system - also combined the the fact you're not able to build everything at the same moment - just one building at a time.

But the CA's taken the complaints of casual players seriously and removed a great deal of features that were making their lives difficult - including the variety of the buildings. Now it's easy, isn't? Just a few spaces to be filled.
(recently the same happened to the estates in the Thrones of Britannia - they're simply irrelevant, even on Legendary. The reason was - as I followed the discussion on Steam - that people complained that on Legendary they cannot cope with public order)

I think there are a number of features that are in Medieval 2 which are sorely missed in Attila:

1. The descriptions and pictures for buildings and units should be brought back into the game, like they were in Medieval 2. This was one of the main features that added immersion and brought the history to life. I want to read about the history of the period. I want to know lots about the units and the cultures in the game and I don't want it to be relegated to that slow encyclopedia which I never use. Put it back into the game with big and beautiful pictures and lots of text. Some great mods really show the way in this regard, especially EBII and Broken Crescent.

2. The music in the campaign is far too spartan and bland, and what little there is consists of screeching noises and unpleasant sounds. This makes the world feel rather dead and lifeless. Strong, beautiful and picturesque music makes a huge difference in the game - one only has to look at some of the mods such as Broken Crescent and others to see that. The music can really convey the spirit of the game; sometimes I have been known to play games just so I can hear the music I like.

3. The chivalry/dread mechanic. This is one of my favourite features in the game. I love the traits my generals could get. In Broken Crescent, my faction leader is called "Warlord of Terror" and has a maximum dread rating, having crushed a large number of enemies in a rather brutal fashion. Conversely, some of my generals are very chivalrous, and are ideal for nurturing growing settlements and helping them to grow by building farms, etc. This all adds greatly to immersion. I don't feel I get to know the characters in Attila at all.

4. The ability to move individual units around. I get that the restricted number of generals/armies was introduced as a way to stop the AI from stack spamming. It is a good thing to some extent, but I feel it does restrict the player. I want to be able to garrison my towns the way I want. Perhaps it would be better to have this rule apply to the AI only. A related point is that cities are too often left undefended. It's possible to play whole campaigns where you simply descend on a weakly held or undefended settlement with a full stack and auto resolve. I felt like there was more battle in the earlier games.

5. The recruitment pool. Completely agree that this was a core feature. In games like Broken Crescent and EB II you really have to conserve your men, because it's not easy to get more. Elite units are valuable. If they are destroyed, you should have a hard time to replace them.

Other than that, I do think Attila does have a lot of good features that improve the game - I particularly like the bigger zone of control for armies and the map routes which mean you can't just walk around enemy armies but must deal with them head on. I also love the fertility levels for provinces and the way diplomacy works, as well as the sacking and razing options for settlements. I like the sanitation system too and the buildings that you can make for that. The improvements listed above though would make the game much more immersive and help to make it the strongest TW game of all.

Voted other, because the one thing that the post ETW games have over the earlier ones is the replenishment system. Especially if you have lots of region-specific units and mercenaries (which adds a lot of flavour) it becomes a great annoyance to ship them back for "retraining" or to not even be able to replenish them at all (cf. mercenaries in Rome I).

I would like to see 40 unit armies or at least a S2TW type of "control large army".

Ha, this is interesting: it's exactly what I don't like in the new TW games:
- you don't need to care about the loses in battles (unless you allow to get your units destroyed) because they'll replenish automatically;
- I don't think a non-power gamers is able to control simultaneously so many units. 20 is enough. What I've seen in the youtube videos was that they always put the same type units in groups and send them to battle. "On right flank 2 units of cavalry, go around, charge; in the center 6 units of spearmen hold, 4 units of slingers behind" etc. If you divide everything by 2, the outcome is 1 cavalry around, 3 spearmen in the center, 2 slingers behind. The same outcome.

Not mentioned here but related to the number of units:
- I love the system that you can detach units without a general. In my games - also because in the SSHIP the traits triggers fire if you're an underdog - I usually leave a couple of units behind to fight always in a (reasonable) disadvantage. In the DeI/MKTW I cannot do it.
- in RTW/M2TW I play battles with limited numbers of troops: 6 agains 8, 12 against 14, etc. In R2TW/ATW/ToB its always 20 vs. 20. Apart from the initial phase of the game, it never make sense to have armies of less than max 20 units. And then you make those sniping-army-groups destroying the AI armies (and the AI is doing the same, like here:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Barkhorn1x]

And then you make those sniping-army-groups destroying the AI armies (and the AI is doing the same, like here:

OMG, that screenshot.

It's like the Eastern Front in WWII it's so crowded.
Not historical at all.
And not very fun.

[GussieFinkNottle]

At risk of blowing my own trumpet, here's a list I made way back when on just this subject:

https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...Rome-2-doesn-t

[Sana Kan]

The HUEG cities on the campaign map were always a turn off for me. That and the units being tied to the armies as the guys already said