Rome II

[Jarhead0331]

I must confess, I ran the prologue and while I did have an overall enjoyable experience, there were some glaring problems. From a technical standpoint, I had to refight certain battles multiple times because after winning and selecting end battle, I was tossed directly back to the main menu.  When going back in to continue the campaign, my progress had not been saved and I had to fight the battle all over again.  This happened at least three or four times.

I've also had some slow down with extreme settings, but only during the siege of Bovarium, which is a large Saminite city.  The battle involved about 4,000 troops fighting in a dense city tile set.

A lack of historical realism never bothered me in any of the other Total War titles.  However, in Rome II, it just feels too hollywood to me.  Troops move and fight way too fast.  These battles should feel like major slug fests, but they never feel that way to me because they are over almost before they even begin.  Moreover, once units make contact, I've seen a number of large mobs just piled together.  The individual Roman units do not maintain any semblance of a line.  Their method in maintaining formation and attacking the individual to their front/right was the hallmark of what made the Roman military machine so successful. I don't see this in any way in the battles.

The strategic AI is noticeably weak.  I was able to win the prologue campaign by moving my main army around the Italian Peninsula to sack the Saminite capital.  All the while, the Saminite armies were wasting time trying to take unimportant Roman settlements while completely ignoring the fact that all of their settlements were being taken one by one.  They never even reacted to the siege of their capital. 

The strategic UI?  What the hell?  Why was it rewritten? I feel no attachment to my settlements when the main detail view just contains little cards representing building upgrades.  Why can I not click on a settlement and instantly see tax income, public order levels and garrisoned unit levels?  Why must I go to another menu to get this information?  Why are military units recruited by generals in the field?

The unit cards suck.  The building upgrade cards suck. The pictures of leaders and generals suck.  There is a lot that I'm disappointed about.

However, I think the majority of what I do not like can and will be modded, and when it is, the game will be everything that I think I hoped it would be.   

[mikeck]

I agree about the battles. Time and time again, TW vanilla brings battles that are over far too quickly. Units move too fast and -as you stated- Romans fail to maintain formation at all.

I sort of like the UI, leader portraits and unit cards. Sort of reminds me of "Hannibal" from matrix. I skipped the prologue campaign so hopeful some of the issues are related to that campaign? Have you played a normal campaign? I hate being on rails so after the first battle, I quit and started a general campaign.

Hoping for a slow battle mod. Otherwise, I'm going to try and find the unit preferences file and I am doubling all hit points and all morale!

[tgb]

I miss the start of the turn popups notifying you of completed units, buildings, and such.

Really? No notification at all now?

[Yskonyn]

Too bad you're dissapointed, Jarhead.
I think it might be a bit too early to comment on the AI of the Samnites in the prologue though. It's a seperate instanced piece of content and for all we know the AI is nerfed quite a bit to make the prologue not too difficult.
The grand campaign will be a much better gauge.

I agree with you about the Strategic UI though. I find it hard to find what I need, but as I said above, probably a question of learning. Still, for the minimalistic aesthetics it has, I would have appreciated a slider to shrink or enlarge the UI. I find it way too big with just nothing really showing and inefficiently taking up screen real estate.

About the units maintaining a line. Have you tried the preset formation buttons? Do they result in better combat disipline perhaps?

About the speed; I am rather happy with it. If it were any slower I would not be able to finish any game! :P
I think its a gameplay vs realism compromise. But for those who do like a slower pacing an option would have been nice, but as you say it'll get modded before long, no doubt. ;)

[Bison]

I miss the start of the turn popups notifying you of completed units, buildings, and such.

Really? No notification at all now?

I've not seen them in the prologue.

[Dolan50]

^^^^^^+100
This is another game I wanted to like because I like the concept and have a huge interest in Roman history,but the game never played or felt right to me and has yet to live up to my expectations.
Hopefully one day the game will mature enough to rekindle my interest in it.

[MengJiao]

A word of warning, however.  You may not want to bother sieging cities because the sieging army will take casualties every turn, and start getting hit with constant plague outbreaks that reduce your manpower even more.  While that's fine, there was one thing CA overlooked in implementing siege attrition:  The defenders in the city have no attrition at all!

There is a tech for grain storage in the second tier of the siege tree that reduces attrition rates by like 60%.

My point is this:  What's the use of laying siege to a city if the only people who will be starving are the besiegers themselves?  It's pretty ridiculous.  Just who is besieging who now?  ::)

The defenders should suffer of course, but supplying a beseiging army has been a classic problem since there were armies and seiges.

[MengJiao]

I miss the start of the turn popups notifying you of completed units, buildings, and such.

Really? No notification at all now?

  They appeared in my Pontus campaign.  I got used to not looking at them in FOTS so it was nice to see them and allthemoreso since I have little idea how the flow of a campaign goes in this game.  Which I have to say I have found far more intriguing than I expected.  There is a wonderful slightly creepy flavour to the whole thing -- well to Pontus anyway.  And Yeah, I clobbered the Cappadocians, which was a relief after suffering repeated humiliations in the Samnite tutorial campaign.  It's such a satisfying culture shock to go from running a Japanese clan in the 19th century to prowling the mountains of Asia Minor.

[MengJiao]

^^^^^^+100
This is another game I wanted to like because I like the concept and have a huge interest in Roman history,but the game never played or felt right to me and has yet to live up to my expectations.
Hopefully one day the game will mature enough to rekindle my interest in it.

  Well, I was a little put off at first by the fantastically annoying tutorial campaign, but then I tried some custom sea battles.  They were just awesome.  The physics seemed very intuitive and very entertaining.  My favorite sea fight moment was when I (as a Roman) caught a big Carthegnian Ship (probably a Hexereme --ack!) with a flaming ballista blaster quadrareme:  I got off some shots into the oarsmen then switched to ramming.  Rang up ramming spead and KA-BOOM: slapped that big boy to the bottom of the Tyrrenian Sea.  After that I was sure it was an awesome game, though I was still annoyed by a lot of the strategic interface stuff -- until my hitherto Hellenophilic Pontic admiral had a change of heart.  He sent a message that he liked Eastern People after all.  "The women are great!" he exclaimed, and he gained +1 on negotiating with Easterners.
That was just so hilariously twisted that I invaded Cappadocia right away and signed up the Bythnians and Trabizoidians to come along.
I'm playing on Easy so that probably made it easy for the Admiral to find his way to a new accomodation with his lot in the Black Sea.

[MengJiao]

I think I am about 3/4 of the way through the Prologue. Rome II has that same certain something...an elegance...that Shogun II has. Hard to describe it more than that. It makes me interested in the subject matter and definitely makes me want to play one more turn.

No crashes, no stutters. Maybe I will bump my graphics up to Ultra...my rig is almost two years old but is pretty beefy.

Still thinking Rome for my first real campaign. Anyone start a real campaign yet? This time out, unlike when Rome I was released, I think every faction holds some interest for me.

  I assumed (before I played the Tutorial campaign) that I would have Rome for a first real Campaign, but after enduring all that snarky supercilioius narrative from the Senate's representative (need I say more?  I need hardly add given my incredible mastery of sanctimonious messages to puzzled assistant pontifs, that I was the only man for the job, if I may say so myself, but let me add in passing that in the future I hope that someone will presume to inform me of my excellent health once I have recovered.  Will there be anything else?).  After that I wanted to be anywhere but Rome.  I looked with some care at all the choices.  Carthago seemed like an overally attractive choice since I knew all I wanted to do was burn Rome to the Ground -- possibly an irrational vendetta.  In the End Pontus seemed to have many advantages:  a long way from Rome, eastern but with good Greek connections and in a pretty good location with its back to a sea where it was the main seapower.  Lots of trading possibilities etc. Thousands of cubits from Rome.

[Sir Slash]

OK. So the AI just handed me my butt as Juli/Rome after about 8 turns on the "Hard" difficulity level. Probably as much from my mistakes as AI brilliance( I hope). Re- started as Pontus on "Normal" and doing a little better. As Rome, I had my fleet blockade an enemy port and they raised some troops and then attacked my fleet with all their forces- garrison and newly raised troops- and my fleet could not withdraw( I don't know why) and was overwhelmed. So an enemy force coming at you on land, may suddenly morph into a fleet and destroy your navy. And then turn back into an army. Maybe morph into a fleet and by-pass your army and then turn back into a army and attack your cities behind you? And I suppose I can do the same thing. Lots to think about here.

[Yskonyn]

Yes, land based armies can embark in transport ships instantly whenever they have access to the sea.
This means missile troops can use transports as light missile boats and melee troops can use their boats as rams and boarding 'pods'.

The Navy is a different story though. They need to be raised like armies, but on sea and generally involve the heavier ships with dedicated armament.

[MengJiao]

there seems to be an awful lot of dog piling on the game over what seems to be some of the most trivial things. Ill admit, if it doesnt work on your system then thats a bastard and i feel for those guys, but as Martok rightly prophesised theres so much 'its a scam', 'its worse than Colonial Marines', 'we've been lied to', 'its worse than Empire' out there.

Some of it is hilarious 'the Alpha Carthage battle looked amazing and now we have THIS'!!!!!! for pages and pages before 1 guy posted a picture of his battle and said 'it looks pretty spot on to me' and then they all disappear into the wings muttering to themselves whilst looking for the next complaint.

  Yes, I read the Alpha Carthage thread.  Very strange.  I've just read one very negative review and a few mildly positive reviews so the game does generate quite a range of responses.  There are plenty of valid criticisms of the game and apparently there are some annoying and/or buggy things that can happen, but the game is just so big and multifacetted that it overwhelms the player for good or bad.  So yes, in a sense it is just too big and complex, but from another angle that bigness and complexity can be seen as good in itself -- the immersive atmosphere is if anything all too thick, but again, from another angle, that's the whole point.  Even stranger, I (who certainly have always put a big emphasis on the relevence of history to all things) find I don't particularly care how historical things are, I'm caught up in the complexity of the setting.  It's more than just convincing and immersive, it's intriguing.  One criticism of the game I saw was that it offered no interesting choices -- and yet everything the reviewer said implied if anything an over-abundance of interesting choices -- which is a better situation by far than one finds in most games, ie a few interesting choices.  The real problem may be that CA has outdone itself and made a game that is just too interesting, too full of possibilities.  The world of FOTS -- which now seems simple and homogenous -- is gone and a whole ancient world billows into view -- rich, confusing and immersive.

[Gusington]

Meng your take on the creeping darkness of the world really resonates with me...it's why I loved Barbarian Invasion too.

JH I think a lot of the things you mentioned may be linked to the Prologue. The one that stands out to me is the use of formations. I selected a line formation for one battle and my troops stuck to it, fought as a line, not as a blob.

Very intrigued by the factions and the atmosphere, more than I thought I would be. It helps that I haven't had any tech  issues yet. Curious as to what is up with the AI behavior that some have described too. I haven't seen enough of the strategic AI to judge yet.

[Kushan]

One criticism of the game I saw was that it offered no interesting choices -- and yet everything the reviewer said implied if anything an over-abundance of interesting choices

My impression from reading reviews and watching a few lets play videos last night, isn't that there isn't any interesting decisions, it that those decisions are few and far between at times. Given the streamlining that CA seems to have done, it seems there isn't that much to manage. Most of the reviews I've read hit them pretty hard on not having enough to do, and with the AI turn time supposedly taking 2-5 minutes mid to late game (Think I heard it mentioned there was 100+ factions), there seemed to be just a lot of waiting around.