Rome II

[Bison]

It's the 35 GB HD requirement that is going to crush the Steam servers.  Frankly I'm surprised they don't allow the download starting now to spread out the bandwidth across the world that will be sucked up once this baby goes live next week.

[Bison]

It's what they say at the official forums:

STEAM PRELOAD:
It has been confirmed that Steam will allow preloading of Rome 2. However specifics have not been released on when and what time the preload will start.

Any information you see on preloading is not confirmed until you see it from an official CA source.

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthread.php/66829-Official-news-on-the-release-date-Steam-preload-info-and-the-Collector-s-Edition?s=cca0bafce8831f6d829a46ad4b447b4f

[Gusington]

Thanks for posting that. My guess is that they will start preloading Monday.

[Sir Slash]

And we'll hear about it first... right here of course. A Grog Pre-Rogitive.

[RooksBailey]

Latest vid:

It would be cool if the History Channel did another Ancient Battles series using the R2 engine!

[jejo68]

I'm feeling positive too. After 8 tries, if you count FOTS as stand-alone, they've got to have this thing working like it should. I am sure they'll be problems but they have to know they can't un-load a bunch of crap on us and get away with it. I don't think. Of course I picked Tampa Bay to win the Superbowl last year.

Why not ? it has worked beautifully in the last games they have made. People scream and shout about how awfull they are at release but still rush out to preorder on their Next title.
I will be watching this game for the Next few month but im not holding my breath anymore. been to burned by their shitty AI in the past to trust anything from them now

[Gusington]

You clearly haven't played Shogun 2.

[LongBlade]

Latest vid:

It would be cool if the History Channel did another Ancient Battles series using the R2 engine!

Very nice. Thanks!

[Sir Slash]

Damn! This is gonna be one long week. :-\

[MengJiao]

You clearly haven't played Shogun 2.

  But let's face it.  Shogun2 was a shock.  I can recall playing the demo very skeptically and then realizing that the bad days of
Empire total war were long gone.  FOTS was even better.  I'm really glad they went to Rome 272 BC (really the Isthmus of Western Europe plus the Med and Asia Minor and the Arabian Peninsula and the Western Steppe plus some Tiaga).  It is really ambitious in a good way, but well focused in time and space, plus they can expand from that (as they did with Shogun2) into earlier and later time periods.

[mikeck]

You clearly haven't played Shogun 2.

  But let's face it.  Shogun2 was a shock.  I can recall playing the demo very skeptically and then realizing that the bad days of
Empire total war were long gone.  FOTS was even better.  I'm really glad they went to Rome 272 BC (really the Isthmus of Western Europe plus the Med and Asia Minor and the Arabian Peninsula and the Western Steppe plus some Tiaga).  It is really ambitious in a good way, but well focused in time and space, plus they can expand from that (as they did with Shogun2) into earlier and later time periods.

It's actually not much of a shock when you look at how improved the AI was in Napoleon versus empires,  and then how much more improved the AI was in shogun.

In fact the AI has been getting better in every DLC and version since empires total war. Napoleon was better than Empires, Shogun 2 was better Then Napoleon and fall of the samura Even had some improvements.  To me that indicates programmers who have gotten better and better at producing good AI.  In the end  though it's a total wargame the AI is not going to come out and completely stomp you on the battlefield just not gonna happen they are just very enjoyable and fun games if you take them for what they are...games

[MengJiao]

You clearly haven't played Shogun 2.

  But let's face it.  Shogun2 was a shock.  I can recall playing the demo very skeptically and then realizing that the bad days of
Empire total war were long gone.  FOTS was even better.  I'm really glad they went to Rome 272 BC (really the Isthmus of Western Europe plus the Med and Asia Minor and the Arabian Peninsula and the Western Steppe plus some Tiaga).  It is really ambitious in a good way, but well focused in time and space, plus they can expand from that (as they did with Shogun2) into earlier and later time periods.

It's actually not much of a shock when you look at how improved the AI was in Napoleon versus empires,  and then how much more improved the AI was in shogun.

In fact the AI has been getting better in every DLC and version since empires total war. Napoleon was better than Empires, Shogun 2 was better Then Napoleon and fall of the samura Even had some improvements.  To me that indicates programmers who have gotten better and better at producing good AI.  In the end  though it's a total wargame the AI is not going to come out and completely stomp you on the battlefield just not gonna happen they are just very enjoyable and fun games if you take them for what they are...games

I agree.  I've never been much bothered by the AI.  I spend a lot of time in these games wandering the battlefields at the lowest camera levels and not controlling my forces very well so the AI doesn't have to be brilliant to give me a good fight.

I think my dislike of Empire and Napoleon was purely a matter of not liking their atmosphere...hard to define, but for the most part those games lacked the life that Medieval Total War 2 (or more precisely its various mods) had in my experience.  As soon as I started Shogun2's demo, I felt the old charm had returned.

[Gusington]

I also did not like the atmosphere of ETW or NTW when compared to earlier games or Shogun 2. Like Meng said it was hard to put my finger on why.

[Sir Slash]

Got my activation keys from Green Man. Says the download will be available Aug. 28 at 00:01 UTC. Can't download yet. Has anybody else got their keys and what does UTC stand for? ???

[Tpek]

Got my activation keys from Green Man. Says the download will be available Aug. 28 at 00:01 UTC. Can't download yet. Has anybody else got their keys and what does UTC stand for? ???

Pretty much it's like GMT only different :P
The current time in England.