Rome Total War Bad UI Rant

[Toonces]

What I mean, if we're being honest, is that in every TW game, I checked the box for province management, picking balanced, military, etc.  And let the AI deal with that shit.  I just wanted to build armies and fight.

The new TW don't let you do that.  I'm not saying TW:R2 is bad, just that I long for the simpler days.

Nothing to do with Chemguy's sock puppet, but I'm not going to lie, I'm kinda over the new Rome for the old Rome mechanics.   I mean, the gameplay is still solid.

[Cheimison]

Why are you playing that antique?

My laptop can't handle the newer ones, mostly because of the ridiculous amounts of animation in the battles. This is one reason I prefer non-animated units, like Hearts of Iron NATO icons or tabletop simulacrums like Field of Glory.

While I do agree with you OP, there have been 13 years of improvements in the series. 
Rome TW was a bit of an evolutionary leap when it came out, they were experimenting with a lot of things that hadn't been done previously. 

There is a lot of cool stuff in it, but I think the camera issues and deployment/control problems are something that aren't really technology dependent. Hearts of Iron 2 is a real time game that has vastly superior control over how units operate, I know it's a totally different setup but in principle I don't see why you can't set up staged commands and locked formations. The later games have these, and it's not like they're big processing drains or anything. The game had two expansions and seven patches, they could have fixed this stuff at any point along those.

Seriously. Rome TW was made during the time when there is no consensus on great UI. Like how Duke Nukem didn't use the now-common WASD + mouse scheme.

The entire control scheme could be modded on Duke Nukem at the release of the game. I can't see any reason to have a locked camera out of control, or huge UI panels that block everything and contain VERY LITTLE information. Again, Hearts of Iron 2 managed to fit 20x the information into 1/2 the screen space. There's no need for huge fonts and huge windows, especially when 50% of these menus are blank space, not even decorative, just empty parchment! Bad design, dude, and I don't know how someone didn't see that.

...have been seriously considering giving Rome 1 another go.

Aside from the UI it has some really cool features, I like the boardgame-like strategic level and the interesting range of (ahistorical and OP) units that you get, especially as the Seleucids or eastern Romans (whichever fake clan that is).

in every TW game, I checked the box for province management, picking balanced, military, etc.

That's exactly how I don't play games like this! I am very into management and grand strategy, and I exploit the Hell out of the ability to snowball v. the computer by micromanaging everything. That's how you have a million man army by 1600 in EU. The battles are a fun part of the game, but I might prefer RTW if it went to Field of Glory for battles instead of an RTS. Fighting, to me, is secondary to constructing the largest and most advanced army in the world that can crush all opposition. I could easily curb-stomp this game using auto-battle because of the insane amount of 12-stack, super-trained high end units I have by midgame. To accomplish that you have to make sure the right buildings are built in the right cities and that you're always producing the optimal units in any given city.
In the RTS mode I actually curb stomp harder than the auto-battle, and usually kill 90% of the enemy army while taking 1/5th - 1/10th the losses. A bit of good positioning and a full stack of cataphracts, horse archers, silver shield legions and phalanx will break the computer's army just by standing still.

RTW Is still one of my all time favorite games.

Yes, mine, too. That's the reason the UI infuriates me, it could be a vastly less frustrating and tedious game with a few changes like free camera control (at least outside of battle) and a vastly optimized use of screen space.

I'd love to play it again but it's just so damned old.

I often prefer older games because I do not really like graphics - even before my awesome (for then) PC broke, most of the games I was playing were hex counters and static models. I'm way, way more interested in informative text, clean layouts and easily understood visual indicators than I am in anti-aliasing or any of that crap. I wish EU4 had chits instead of animated troops who all look the damn same anyway (unless you're so zoomed in that you can't see anything). Graphics in a strategy game are, IMO, largely useless.

[Gusington]

I enjoyed Rome 2 even while people were screaming for patches upon it's release. I also enjoy managing the provinces. Real men manage their own provinces when they're not shopping for watches or brushing their Uggs.

[Yskonyn]

I like R2 pretty well too. Am I a real man?

[Toonces]

^ Aint nobody got time for that province management BS.   ::)

[Tuna]

I like R2 pretty well too. Am I a real man?

Also really enjoyed R2!

[Sir Slash]

I manage all my RTW 2 provinces just to make sure they don't slip-in a delicatessen on me.

[Gusington]

So it is posted, so it shall be. Real Men Manage Their R2 Provinces.

[mirth]

[Gusington]

I like it. Commander Lazybones von Uggs will not.

[OJsDad]

I like it. Commander Lazybones von Uggs will not.

:DD

[Nefaro]

^ Aint nobody got time for that province management BS.   ::)

I actually enjoy the campaign map stuff in the Total War series. 

Am I a weirdo?

(don't answer that)


Also.. I always thought the original Rome TW was very flawed.  It was a new engine with new changes, at the time, so it was to be expected.  However, those were the days when larger strategy developers didn't put as much extended effort into post-release patches.

[Gusington]

Weirdo...real man...hey whateva

[Cheimison]

I actually enjoy the campaign map stuff in the Total War series. 

Other than the problems with the inferface, that's one of my favorite parts of the game. I have always been more interested in strategy/operational management than tactical stuff. Partly because strategy/operations in the ancient world are much better understood than tactics, anyway. And also because I'm naturally more inclined to logistics and management than I am toward action.

[Sir Slash]

The game definitely had it's odd behavior. I played all three Roman factions campaign to completion and I was always afraid the other 2 factions would gang-up on me, though they never did. So I kept a close eye on them.

While playing as the blue faction I was wondering why he green faction had almost no troops anywhere. My spy finally found their armies, must've been about 8-10 full 20 stack armies, just hanging out in a circle somewhere in like southern Russia. Not moving, or besieging anybody, just hanging out there.  :o