Rome 2, anyone tried it yet?

[Andy3536]

I have, have to say i'm a little disapointed.
There are many game mechanics from previous games that wrorked that have been taken out.

Just a comment on graphical problems though, if anyone is getting poor graphics (worse that the settings selected anyway)
The game ignores what your settings are set to and does an auto detect before a battle, if it doesn't think you system will run the following battle to a good frame rate the game will drop the quality without any infoormation or input from the user.
Aparently checking the tick box in the graphics to 'alow unlimitic graphics memory' should force the game to run and what you've selected?? Not sure on that but i read it on the internets

So, lets start with the good.

The Campain map is stunning.

Troops are now attatched to Generals. It's a bit of a change from previous games but i quite like this new feature. It does effect the garrisons a bit but i'll add to that later.

That's the good over with (no, really )

The bad...
No Guard mode. People that have played previous game will know this feature. It basicly means your troops will stay in formation and they won't go chasing troops if they start to flee.
The troops in the game now as a result behave like they would if you hand't set it, downside is your Roman legionaries famed for disipline and fighting in formation, no longer fight in formation.
This has a serious effect on the game mechanics and something i'm struggling to get my head around it.

Phalanxes, similar problem to above really. The Phalanx should be a tight formation of spear or pike armed troops with locked shields and always fight in formation. But sadly, they fight similar to the other troops. As soon as battle begins the formation breaks up as the front ranks push on independat of the unit and forgetting they're supposed to be part of a Phalanx.

Game does run way to fast, the big battles can be done in well under 10 min. A combination of many things, troop movements are too fast, they're moral means they break too quickly aswell as casualties seeming to happen much faster (may be related to not fighting in formation?? Just guessing on that though)

Capture the flag, watch this! It can really catch you out. battles can be over when hardly any bloods been spilt if you neglect the appearace of a 'flag'
Doesn't appear in all the open battles but i've been reading on the forums it's a big problem. In Seige battles of large towns they have multiple capture points. It means if you want to keep the city you have to try and defend may areas of no value and i thinks it's led to 'tactics' being compromised.

Pilum armed troops (or similar) no longer have a fire at will option. This means your Roman legionary will only throw his pilum when you tell him to attack. They will no longer throw the pilum when defending.



There are some other niggles that arn't big issues but i'll mention them any way.

1 turn a year? I'm not a fan. There's already a mod that changes this though.

The little movement control that was above the radar for the units ovement is now gone. Not a big deal but why take it out?

Locking units into a group no longer locks there formation, you can still lock the formation but it's another ease of use thing they've done away with.

Little extras for legions giving them skills? I can live with it but what was wrong with just getting better with experience?
At the moment aswell skill/experience doesn't seem to be effected by casualties like in previous games. If you replace half a unit then the new guys should bring the experience down shouldnt they?

Some of the provinces seem to have a happiness problem, you'll seem to be forever in a cycle of having to put down revolt after revolt.
The happiness is also locked for a province not the individual towns, so the buildings in Ariminum will effect the happiness of people in Rome.
Happened to me when i took Corsica (sorry can't remember the ingame name at the moment) 2 turns ofter the uprising was defeated another one appeared. and then another.

The ramming/boarding control button is bugged, you need to make sure the icon over the ship is right as it won't nessesarily correspond to what hte button says.


Sorry i never intended this to be so long, if anyone has got this far well done ;-)
Hope this sounds like a fan of the series making thought out comments and not a rant looking at the one sided good/bad points....

There are some mods beginning to creep though improving the game, and despite all it's short comings i've still found myself sinking many hours into it.


If anyones interested there are some links to mods you might want to think about
Turns per year
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...turns-per-year

Battle mod, slows down the battle a give troops better morale so they don't break way too early.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...ous-Battle-Mod
compilation of this modders work for R2
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-Total-War-Mod

Kill reduction
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...e-Reduction%29

There's plenty of other mods available there aswell.

[Andy3536]

There's been a bit of a cock up with the DLC codes for the greek states DLC for pre-oder resulting in me being sent 2.
If anyone didn't pre-oder and wants a greek states code then post here and i'll PM the code. First come first serve.

[Marenghi]

Just a comment on graphical problems though, if anyone is getting poor graphics (worse that the settings selected anyway)
The game ignores what your settings are set to and does an auto detect before a battle, if it doesn't think you system will run the following battle to a good frame rate the game will drop the quality without any infoormation or input from the user.
Aparently checking the tick box in the graphics to 'alow unlimitic graphics memory' should force the game to run and what you've selected?? Not sure on that but i read it on the internets

the game will only ignore the settings you've selected if your system cannot cope with the memory requirements so if your gpu hasn't got enough memory then it'll auto scale.

<snip>

pretty much agree with all of that. i was a fool to think CA/Sega would do things differently this time around, the game isn't even finished. do you get that feeling playing it aswell?

i think it's great CA appears to be trying to do what they can to fix the numerous issues but i have a feeling that's all it will be, fixes and then the DLC.

[Andy3536]

pretty much agree with all of that. i was a fool to think CA/Sega would do things differently this time around, the game isn't even finished. do you get that feeling playing it aswell?

Unfortunatly yes. The original release date was shceduled for October, i think that should have stuck to that tbh.

i think it's great CA appears to be trying to do what they can to fix the numerous issues but i have a feeling that's all it will be, fixes and then the DLC.

Yeah they are clearly trying to fix it, but my biggest annoyance with this game are the battle mechanics changes. The game was obviously designed that way and isn't a bug.
Units moving too fast, units breaking to easily, massive battles lasting 5 min, no guarde mode, no fire at will for melee units, cut down UI in battle when the shogun 2 UI was near perfection.
They are not bugs, they were designed like that. I can't for the life of me understand why. I just hope either CA will see the mess and fix it or more likely modders come up with good mods for the game.
It's probably my favorite ever series so it's sad to see them dumb it down so much.

[ninja2000]

oh damn, I was really looking to this but am completed turned off now. Looks like I will stick with shogun 2

[chuckskull]

I've got it and yeah it's another one of the TW series that'll be a really good game in about 6 months after you've spent 3-4 hours adding mods.

Some of the design choices are mind boggling agreed and the strategic AI has gone backwards, which I didn't think was possible. It's far to much of a pacifist, I've yet to have a single faction declare war on me even on the hardest difficulties and superior forces will often just run away on the campaign map. Last night I was trying to rush the enemies last city and rushed a stack in unscouted, to land in the middle of 4 full stacks and 2 damaged ones(bigger than my whole military at this point), defending a walled city. Click next turn unable to attack them that turn or retreat and expect that stack to get wiped. They didn't even try; massive overmatch, their last city, great defences and the AI decides the best thing to do would be have all 6 armies get in transports and sail out to sea to get killed by attrition. They could of wiped my main force and retaken all their lost ground and then some with what they had. All it had to to do was go on the offensive and I would of been in deep poo. Most galling, this was on Very Hard. Getting an actual fight between 2 armies is shockingly rare the AI will just run and leave it's lands to burn even when they could fight and win.

The only war I've had that didn't involve just using city garrisons as speedbumps was the civil war, but that was only because the game gave them so many soldiers they couldn't help but conquer a few cities. Even then with Europe lost to me, as they descend on the Alps with nothing between them and Rome, with me already coming to terms with the fact that the freshly conquered Alexandria is going to be my capital for a while, the AI decides the best course of action is to declare war on 4 uninvolved Spanish factions and makes an abrupt right turn and marches off to fight them mid civil war, with a clear path to Rome and my nearest force being in Eqypt. Seriously, sometimes it feels like a lot of effort went into making the AI this bad. When given a selection of reasonable choices it will shout potato and mess itself.

[Andy3536]

I still have the greek states DLC code if anyone is interested?

[chuckskull]

Been playing another VH campaign with Radious full mod(which is coming along nicely and going from his Shogun 2 mods will keep getting developed), 40 stacks and 12 turns per year. Much better. Still need the missing features from Shogun 2 added back in, I'm really missing those movement buttons with the bigger armies, but it's a lot more fun. Civil war this time was a bitter fight for Italy, held Rome by the skin of my teeth, the other cities changed hands a good few times, took over ten thousand slaves, before I had to start just putting them to the sword for sake of public order. CAI is much better in general, someone even declared war on me.

[Dentles]

In this instance, the title is pretty much self-explanatory.
Personally, I vacillated over whether or not to pre-order this game ever since a release date was set for it (even though I never buy games or consoles at release) out of sheer excitement over the prospect of an expanded and improved version of one of my all-time favourite strategy games. Imagine my surprise to discover that, instead of the wall-to-wall praise I had anticipated for this game, many user review sites were filled with scathing criticisms, detailing lengthy lists of all the shortcomings and flaws concerning the game's lacklustre gameplay.

I remember back when Shogun 2 came out it received a similarly cold reception from many people, but these seemed to be more about the technical issues with the game, as opposed to the actual gameplay. So, back to the original question, is this game genuinely unplayable without serious updates, or are people overreacting over minor flaws and blowing them out of all proportion?

EDIT:
Apologies for posting a separate thread on this topic - I wasn't aware this one already existed (I thought it was strange no-one was talking about this game )

[Goobley]

IMHO, No it doesn't suck, it's not the incredible thing we were waiting for but through a few more patches and after 6 months of the modder's hard work I expect it to become my favourite TW game (I own all of them since Rome I). CA's patches increased my average battle time from <5mins to about 15mins using 20 stack armies, using a mod like close combat significantly improves unit cohesion and all in all I'm certainly happy with the way it's going.

It's clear there was very little QA for this game, lots of people reckon that sega pushed it out the door, whatever the reason, the community has become paying beta testers and most of the bugs are getting fixed (although the warscape engine has some inherent issues with sieges (it wasn't designed for them)). I reckon that it'll be a very solid game and IMO 90% of the people main gripes at release have been fixed - yes it took month, but it doesn't seem all that long, the game is improving all the time. However it's far from perfect so unless you want it now I'd be inclined to wait for a sale

[Marenghi]

http://forums.hexus.net/pc/294753-ro...tried-yet.html

my thoughts are in there

[jim]

I've just merged the threads, but here's my opinion:

Yes, the game has a lot of flaws. Hopefully many of those will be patched out - some already have. I will say that the battles are a joke, because every single one seems to descend into anarchic blobbing (i.e. you charge at the enemy, or they charge at you, and everyone ends up in a massive melee, then you win) and the lack of an aggressive AI, plus the lack of any significant factions means that there's never really a challenge on the campaign map (most factions only have one or two cities, and don't really expand in any significant manner, so wars are very quick and limited - and you can always pick when to start the war, because they won't)

But, that's not the point. As I said, those are all flaws that I suspect could be patched. There's something much bigger that's wrong with this game, somehow. I really, really don't find it fun. I've started three campaigns now, and got bored with all 3 very quickly (total playtime is currently 14 hours).

The UI is absolutely horrible, for starters. They've crammed the tech trees onto tiny little windows, so you can't see what's going on. The tech choices don't seem to make any difference either (what's 3% melee attack bonus when you're making mincemeat of the opposing forces anyway?). The only reason I build buildings are to create more food, and keep public order up. So I just build the same three everywhere. None of that seems to make much difference. The public order system is also a joke. It's ridiculously easy to keep it up, even in a newly captured city, and even if you do have a rebellion, it's going to be pathetically weak and make gung-ho attacks against a far superior force. I guess they could patch this, but the system as a whole seems quite central so I don't think it will go. Finally, every damn unit has some pointless "special ability" that is a complete no-brainer. Would you like your melee units to fight well in melee? Yes? You'd better click a little button, because they wouldn't think to fight better in melee themselves. Would you like your slingers to reload quickly? Yes? You'd better click a little button again. Would you like your cavalry to charge well? Yes? Little button. If it's hero units or whatever, then cool. But not every damn unit. Just wastes time and detracts from the big battle, although since that's a big blob that might be a good thing.

I think ultimately, there are two problems here. Firstly, everyone demanded unique factions that felt genuinely different to play - as opposed to the copy-paste feel of Shogun 2. Problem is, I think all the time they spent polishing Shogun 2 has been spent on creating art assets, appropriate tactics, sounds, buildings, tech trees and so on. They've bitten off more than they can chew. Fully researching, coding and testing all of that stuff is impossible.

Secondly, the game is colossal. Now, in Empire, they just said "deal with it". If you owned North America, India, part of Western Europe etc, you had so many cities that it was more like flicking through a phonebook than playing a game at times. In Rome 2, they've clearly realised that and decided to simplify things. Now personally, I would have preferred that they simplified the UI somehow - made it easer to see which regions needed improvements, and so on. Instead, they've made it feel a bit like Civ. City management, for me, is now way too over-simplified. I think I might be swimming against the tide with this one a little bit, as a lot of people like the new regions stuff. In previous games, I had a real sense of one city being an economic powerhouse, one being my military centre, and each having a unique personality. Now they all feel pretty insignificant.

In summary, I think it's rubbish and I hate it. This from someone who spent around 600 hours on the last three games.

[Andy3536]

I reckon that it'll be a very solid game and IMO 90% of the people main gripes at release have been fixed - yes it took month, but it doesn't seem all that long

I would take a bit of an issue with that. People's main gripes seem to be mostly fixed?
The hoplite Phalanx is still completly broken
Pilum troops do not throw pilums in defence
There's no guard mode?
Units still route way too quickly
Can't disengage troops and cavalry without them getting slaughtered, and they still mostly ignore commands
No walls round the towns? Syracuse famouse for it's giant walls is a tiny hamlet....
No family trees
There's still an awfull lot of people complaining of frame rate and stuttering problems. (including me, terrible frame rates that lowering the quality just doesn't shake off)
The AI makes some awfull choices, raising armys they can't feed and then starve to death etc.
AI in seige battles still isn't fixed, they simply don't attack the towns.
Flamming javelins, yes really.
Bronze gates burn like a shell suit after throwing a torch on it
Diplomacy is completly broken, friendly client states will still refuse trade???

Patches have largly been trying to address performace and balance issues. The attempts at fixing the AI havn't worked so far.
But a large proportion of the games gripes are actually with the way the game is designed to be, not just graphical and balance issues.
For example, it appears they have designed Hoplites Phalanx formation to actually be more of a shield wall. Telling them to attack anything breaks thier formation and they charge.
Hoplites all walked into battle in Phalanx formation, that's what gave them thier strength. There is simply no evedence of Hoplites fighting outside of this formation. Yet you can't and it appears that's 'design choice' for them to be more like a barbarian spear band.
To say this game is a massive let down is an understatment. They have even gone back on things they got right with Rome 1 9 years ago.
It might be worth a look in 6 months when modders have been able to put plenty of time in, but at the moment it's not very good.
Really disapointing following what was probably one of Creative assemblys most polished games in Shogun 2.