Rome II

[Sir Slash]

The Seleucids are fun. They play totally different from the other factions in that you start with large empire and everybody's trying to take it away from you. The eastern satraps are bound to revolt against you and the temptation is to send everything east to kick their asses but the real threat is closer. There's about a 50/50 chance Egypt will declare war on you right away and some form of united Greek states in Asia Minor will attack you or an ally shortly thereafter. You've got to be looking in all directions. It reminded me of playing the Ottoman Empire in ETW. But if you can get your economy going and stabilize the universal hatred everybody has of you, you can begin to turn it around. Once she gets it going, Seleucia can advance in multiple directions at once and payback those ungrateful Persians.

[Gusington]

^Sounds quite sexy.

About the AI, I see a lot more competent behavior on the campaign map. To be totally fair, I have seen it act quite ridiculous in the tactical battles. But not all the time.

[Sir Slash]

Agree Gus. When you don't have enemies at both ends of the map, and you give your allies a War Target, they usually do head for where you tell them and sometimes do quite well on their on without a target. And fortunately no totally unpredictable behavior like M2TW did.

[sandman2575]

At the risk of opening a can of worms --

Are any of you using mods to improve combat?  I really dislike how battles seem to last about 5 minutes. And the unit blobbing is just not pleasant to behold.

There are a few mods over at TWC that look interesting --

CloseCombat -- Not an 'overhaul' mod, just addresses combat --
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?618795

And then there are several overhaul mods.  The one that seems most intriguing to me, in terms of creating a more realistic combat experience, is the Divide et Impera mod:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?2024-Divide-et-Impera-%28DeI%29

I'm tempted to try Divide et Impera, although I worry it changes the base game too drastically, and may make the game too hard.  The "Lines of Battle" and "STIM" mods are other possibilities.

Anyone using any of these?


(...Man, I always promise myself I'm not going to go mod crazy...and then this happens... every time...)

[Gusington]

It's hard for it not to happen with the Steam workshop making it so easy. I love the DEI mod, just be warned that patches can make it unplayable, like any other mod.

[sandman2575]

Cool to hear you use DEI, Gus.  Any thoughts on how it changes the battles? I'm really looking for something that allows for at least semi-realistic battlefield tactics, rather than the standard vanilla TW 'rush and blob' approach that wraps up battles in 5 minutes with 90% casualties inflicted on the loser. 

[undercovergeek]

if its just combat you want fixing, god knows how many pages back there is a good mod - a guy took out some of the combat animations that stops people blobbing or wondering off alone into a mob of enemy

[Sir Slash]

Radious just updated his mod yesterday and removed the Forced March option for all factions. He said the AI wasn't handling it well, just walking into ambushes using it. I'm not sure I agree with this completely and judging by the response he's gotten, he may have to put it back in. Still a great mod though.

[Labbug]

When Radious removed the forced march option I had an army in forced march mode in a saved game.  When l loaded the game I could not get it out of the forced march mode.  That was not pleasing.

[mikeck]

Ah hah!!!! Same thing!! I couldn't figure out what happened. Maybe check the Radious forums. Luckily, I only had one army in forced march. I boarded a ship and unboarded it and it was fine. May also have to dissolve  the army and start over???

Hope not. Let me know if there is a work around.

[mikeck]

When Radious removed the forced march option I had an army in forced march mode in a saved game.  When l loaded the game I could not get it out of the forced march mode.  That was not pleasing.

Try uninstalling the mod....start your game....take the army out of forced march and then reinstall the mod.

Not sure why he got rid of it. Mid game I stopped using the full radious mod and went to using all parts except the battle mod...that way I could use the realistic legion tactics mod. Thought that had screwed the game up and I couldn't force march. Didn't realize it was intentional until I read your post

[Labbug]

When Radious removed the forced march option I had an army in forced march mode in a saved game.  When l loaded the game I could not get it out of the forced march mode.  That was not pleasing.

Try uninstalling the mod....start your game....take the army out of forced march and then reinstall the mod.

Not sure why he got rid of it. Mid game I stopped using the full radious mod and went to using all parts except the battle mod...that way I could use the realistic legion tactics mod. Thought that had screwed the game up and I couldn't force march. Didn't realize it was intentional until I read your post

Thanks.  I will see what I can do.

[mikeck]

Steam forum says radius updated mod to allow removal From forced march so make sure your updated. Not sure I like this move. May go back to DEI

[Gusington]

I really enjoyed DEI but it was at least a month ago that I tried it...had to stop it when patch 9 came out.

[mikeck]

I really enjoyed DEI but it was at least a month ago that I tried it...had to stop it when patch 9 came out.

Same here...