Rome II

[mikeck]

That would be classic CA. One patches fixes A....next patch fixes B but screws up A.

[Nefaro]

Wow 99 pages. Is this the longest thread in Grogs history? I seem to note since the patches that AI armies don't use their skirmishers especially slingers as much. Instead it seems to have gone back to the old come-strait-at-you tactic even when outnumbered.

Anything's better than having it's army sit still while I annihilate & break it with my slingers alone.  That was terrible.

[tgb]

Without going back and reading 100 pages of the thread, can someone please explain the political game to me?  Not how it works - I get that promoting family members and hindering rivals increases influence in the senate or the tribe, but so what?  What does having more influence actually do?

[Gusington]

It's directly linked to the eruption of civil war later in the game.

[Nefaro]

Without going back and reading 100 pages of the thread, can someone please explain the political game to me?  Not how it works - I get that promoting family members and hindering rivals increases influence in the senate or the tribe, but so what?  What does having more influence actually do?

I'm not really sure, myself.  Doesn't seem to do anything when you have more Influence.  Perhaps if your family's Influence reaches 100%, you take over and become 'Emperor' or something?  Although for some factions, you're already the supreme ruler.  ???

Thus far I've seen no real benefit to raising your Influence.  Much the opposite, due to possible coup attempts if yours gets too high. 

Maybe it's just another unfinished feature.

[Gusington]

When playing Rome it affects the civil war later.

[MengJiao]

Wow 99 pages. Is this the longest thread in Grogs history? I seem to note since the patches that AI armies don't use their skirmishers especially slingers as much. Instead it seems to have gone back to the old come-strait-at-you tactic even when outnumbered.

Anything's better than having it's army sit still while I annihilate & break it with my slingers alone.  That was terrible.

  I haven't seen anything like that, but apparently my playing style is different.  I've seen lots of different kinds of things and I think there is more variation in the game and more going on under the hood than is obvious at any one point.  For example, last night a Roman transport (yes I'm Roman now) rammed an Etruscan ballista ship head on and obliterated it.  Clearly either Roman transports are made of better stuff or the ballista ship already had some hull damage (which it could not repair in hostile waters) or both.

[tgb]

When playing Rome it affects the civil war later.

And f you're not playing Rome?

[MengJiao]

When playing Rome it affects the civil war later.

And f you're not playing Rome?

   Seems to be the same.  I had civil wars as Egypt and Parthia as noble factions tried to curb the power of the ruling group.

[Martok]

So performance issues aside, what's the verdict on Patch 3 so far?  I've had my finger over the "Play" button for the last couple days now... 

[Nefaro]

Wow 99 pages. Is this the longest thread in Grogs history? I seem to note since the patches that AI armies don't use their skirmishers especially slingers as much. Instead it seems to have gone back to the old come-strait-at-you tactic even when outnumbered.

Anything's better than having it's army sit still while I annihilate & break it with my slingers alone.  That was terrible.

  I haven't seen anything like that, but apparently my playing style is different.  I've seen lots of different kinds of things and I think there is more variation in the game and more going on under the hood than is obvious at any one point.  For example, last night a Roman transport (yes I'm Roman now) rammed an Etruscan ballista ship head on and obliterated it.  Clearly either Roman transports are made of better stuff or the ballista ship already had some hull damage (which it could not repair in hostile waters) or both.

Perhaps so.  I often take a more historical approach with my ranged skirmishers in a line in front of the rest of my army.  I then move up & let them fire for awhile if the other side doesn't massively outnumber me in such skirmishers.  I've had numerous battles where they just sit still, despite my skirmisher superiority, and I end up breaking their whole army with my skirmisher fire alone. 

I've even had two battles where the casualties were 650-to-0 and 750-to-20 (rounded off), without any melee forces ever becoming engaged.  All from moving my long-ranged slingers up into range and firing away.  Part of the problem is that slingers and archers are probably too deadly but the AI just doesn't do anything so it just makes the situation worse.   I take that back.  I've seen it do something regarding taking so many ranged casualties.. it rotates fresh units up to take the place of the wounded ones, to stand under the fire once again.  So it makes the situation worse, in this case.

Since nearly all of my battles are in a town or walled city, the AI gets some false sense of security just standing about, when it shouldn't.  Yes, I've even attacked town at equal or worse odds and it does the same.  The rare few field battles I've had, they will eventually get their butts moving forward at you.

[Gusington]

For me Patch 2 really optimized everything graphically very well, the Patch 3 came along and poo pooed in my graphics cocoa puffs. But with some tweaking Patch 3's weirdness can be overcome.

[W8taminute]

I've decided to keep my 'Use system memory' setting on and continue to monitor graphical performance under patch 3.


I've got a general question for you all:  Does hitting the Insert key during battle while a unit is selected allow you to do anything else other than watch the battle from a first person view?  Can you indeed control the unit from this view and turn the tide of battle?

[Gusington]

I've never done that. Is it well done?

[W8taminute]

^It's actually kind of cool.  You feel like you're standing in the middle of a mob of sword armed soldiers viewing the carnage first hand.  But I read somewhere that you can actually influence the unit selected in this view and was wondering if anyone has done it.  I need to double check menu/options/controls/in battle controls again to see if any commands are mapped to the keyboard during this view.