Rome II

[Gusington]

That is good news. Has patching slowed down though? Because integrating mods with the patches can be a pain.

[Sir Slash]

Another patch is on it's way. Steam installed something when I went there this am but no news of another patch, it was about 200MB so.... Anyway Radious always keeps his mods up to the current patch and supports his mods long after they're posted. I always wanted to try his Shogun 2 mods but already had Darth installed. I'm gonna wait a few days and then try his Rome 2 mod out. I'm a real sucker for new units. Though I'm not looking forward to the Naked German units. Nor will I be looking at them from behind if you get my drift.

[Grim.Reaper]

Patch info....

Hi everyone,

We're delighted to share with you news of the next free content drop for Total War: ROME II, which is available today in an automatic update. The Seleucid Empire is now a playable faction in single-player campaign and multiplayer games.

Renowned for their civil engineering and city-building feats, the kings of the vast Seleucid Empire rely on expert cavalry regiments to enforce and expand their borders. This content update includes new unique Seleucid units, building and technology trees, Campaign Objectives and the Paradise of Daphne; a unique new wonder. For more details on this faction, please visit this link.

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Total_War:_Rome_II_-_Seleucid_Faction

We're also releasing Patch 5 today, which delivers a huge number of fixes, tweaks and upgrades to the ROME II experience.

This patch contains a large number of improvements across pretty much every part of the game. Among these are a number of optimisations to Campaign Map performance, which improve framerates with the fog-of-war and when there are many armies, navies and agents on-screen. We've also sped up end-turn times in situations where the player has multiple allies.

There have been further improvements to diplomacy as well. The campaign AI now encourages factions to form allegiances based on personality, perceived threat and the existing balance of relationships the faction holds. Players can also see relationship information by hovering the cursor over factions on the map in the diplomacy screen.

We've also reduced the chance of AI armies standing close to the player in Forced March mode – thereby reducing their chances of being ambushed – and any garrison of armed citizenry will now reinforce friendly armies in battle outside their settlement.

Finally, we've added tooltips to Agent Actions, which reveal their normal and critical success and failure chances. This gives you a much clearer picture of the potential outcomes.

As always, please note that some changes take much longer to effect than others – particularly gameplay and battle AI changes – so don't worry if the improvement you're looking for isn't here yet. Chances are we're working on it!

You can see full patch notes here on the official Total War Wiki: http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Total_War_ROME_II:_Patch_5

We also updated you yesterday with news from Creative Director Mike Simpson on the patching process in general and our plans for the future. In case you missed it, you can read that post here.

As well as this free content and patch, we're also delighted to announce Steam Workshop and Mod Manager support for Total War: ROME II, making the sharing and loading of user mods a breeze.

http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse?appid=214950&browsesort=trend

We've been working closely with some key names on the modding scene to offer original Workshop content from day one, such as the incredibly talented Radious, who has crafted some of the finest mods available for Total War.

That's not all for modding support, though – we're consulting closely with the community and are looking to host another Mod Summit soon to gather opinions on what we can do next for Total War: ROME II to further unlock its modding potential.

Enjoy,

[Martok]

Thanks for the info, Grim.Reaper!  I know the Seleucids were another faction lots of folks wanted to play, so this should make quite a few people happy. 

[Gusington]

GIGGITY

This will bring me back sooner, I should probably start a new campaign eh?

Now all that is left is tbe choice: Seleucids or Iceni?

[Sir Slash]

That's great news Reaper. Looks like I'll be going back to Rome again and maybe head east and try out the Seleucids. The mods workshop is a real innovation and I'm glad Steam supports it.

[Gusington]

Please post when you start a Seleucids campaign!

[W8taminute]

Awesome news Grim.Reaper!  Thanks for sharing.  I know what I'll be doing early this evening.   ;)

[Nefaro]

Hrmm.. I may be firing up a fresh game of Rome 2 this weekend.  On my new rig, even.  If it doesn't run spectacularly on that one, I'll just shoot myself.  :)

[tgb]

Perfect timing, since I just installed a new video card and PSU this afternoon so I can play this beast.

[Bison]

Perfect timing, since I just installed a new video card and PSU this afternoon so I can play this beast.

Awesome.  What kind of gpu did you pick up?

[Bison]

Hrmm.. I may be firing up a fresh game of Rome 2 this weekend.  On my new rig, even.  If it doesn't run spectacularly on that one, I'll just shoot myself.  :)

If I remember your new specs correctly Nef, you should have no issues running Rome 2 maxed out.  I do and I think we have fairly similar builds.  There is some lagging, but that's do more to the optimizations or lack thereof.

[Gusington]

I am hoping the patches have remedied most of the optimization problems.

[Nefaro]

I am hoping the patches have remedied most of the optimization problems.

Last I checked, there was improvement and that was the patch before this last one.  Hopefully it hasn't regressed.  ;)

[tgb]

Perfect timing, since I just installed a new video card and PSU this afternoon so I can play this beast.

Awesome.  What kind of gpu did you pick up?

A Geforce 650 ti.  I spoke prematurely, since my computer won't boot with this in the slot.  I may be having motherboard problems.