Rome II

[MengJiao]

But do you have a choice? If I want my Illyrians to remain a blight, can they? When I played as the Iceni you can bet your sweet bippy I planted groves and shrines and such in every civilized city I took...I did not adapt more modern religion.

See?  See?  The moral choices Rome II forces on you?  I'm cracking under the mental strain and all I'm doing is eating oatmeal cookies at work.
The DLC does include some Balkanized Celts -- they at least have Sword Oafs or something.  You can bet those guys don't even get up in the morning without 20 minutes of ritual postures.  Before breakfast.  I'll buy them a temple.  I'll join the PTA.  We will conquer the world.

[Gusington]

HA Sword Oafs!! haha

[MengJiao]

HA Sword Oafs!! haha

Mental strain!  I'm in a sig line!  Must eat more cookies.

[Gusington]

Breathe deeply. Peruse Steam. That may alleviate the stress. Or make it truly excruciating and torturous.

[MengJiao]

HA Sword Oafs!! haha

I gave up on the Ardei and took up the Gatae (who are the fourth of the Illyrian factions in the DLC apparently).  These were barbarians I could understand and after many barbaric battles I have most of the Balkans and am about to wipe out Sparta, Athens and Macedon (they all still have fleets somewhere and agents that are making my barbaric life hard).

[Gusington]

Why'd you give up?

Started my Carthagianian campaign in Hannibal at the Gates yesterday...it's a bit disappointing that the win conditions are not more customizable...makes the new campaigns very similar to the grand campaign.

[MengJiao]

Why'd you give up?

Started my Carthagianian campaign in Hannibal at the Gates yesterday...it's a bit disappointing that the win conditions are not more customizable...makes the new campaigns very similar to the grand campaign.

With the Ardei, I ended up getting into too many wars and I had no allies.  Income would have been okay, but my loses were too big.

With the Getae, I stayed out of trouble and had plenty of allies and knocked out small barbarians who had no allies.  I also worked more on tactics than I have lately -- which was neat.  I had to use plenty of minor shifts: dismounting cavalry; setting up archers not to run away; drawing the enemy into killing grounds.

[Gusington]

So you stopped with the Ardei because of loneliness?

[MengJiao]

So you stopped with the Ardei because of loneliness?

  Loneliness, bad diplomacy, weird slingers etc.  I just didn't understand that tribe.  Now the Getae -- hell, Ovid even wrote some poems in Getic, right?  So there you are.

[Gusington]

I dunno...did he?

[MengJiao]

I dunno...did he?

  I think he did.  He was exiled to Getae-land by Augustus for excessive thoughts of and about Julia (August's daughter, IIRC).

[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.

See, I liked this game all along.

[Gusington]

How do you say rolling thunder of destruction in Punic? Because that's what I am in my current campaign. I have consolidated Iberia and am now rolling east...for Rome!! Get ready bitches.

[MengJiao]

Wouldn't that be thousands of Rutilii?  :-X
It was a rather funny scene! On the one hand he wasn't doing anything to relieve his boat of the blocking by the enemy, but if the AI tried to board one of the other boats to engage in mele, but instead made all the soldiers jump into the water I can see where this will prove enraging for a lot of battles to come. :)

strangely and even more seriously, Mr. Rutilius the Poet only has one surviving work -- a nostalgic travelogue of a journey down from Gaul along the no-longer pagan coast of Italy.

But hmmm...boarding in FOTS required an order to the ship, probably a melee order to the melee troops on a ship in Rome II doesn't get them to do the right thing.  The real Romans had to work out mechanisms on their ships to get that all to work.  Perhaps his Corvus was fouled.  Perhaps he had disregarded the sacred chickens during the pre-battle aurguries.

We can only imagine the furor if Mister Rutilius had read the reviews of the game in which his ilustrious ancestor Rutilius appears to have been captured by the Samnites.  Shamefrool Dispray!  Who has not kept the wax images of past ancestors polished?  Who got the direction of his nostalgic jouneys backward?  For surely as a former Perfect of Rome he was traveling (back in time as it were) back to his estates in Gaul, was he not?  Did not the average pagan excell in rhetorical questions?  I ask you?

Well, let me answer myself then: I understand the impulse to denounce CA for allegedly spending 4 million on maketing and making some odd cinematic representations that don't resemble the game, but I say, just as well.   The game is no more and no less than your basic improved Total War and I'm glad it is about Rome and all the moreso since there are rumors the next Total War will be something like Fantasy Universe Total War -- How will the unwise wish then that they had polished up their ancestors more properly!  Fantasy is no substitute for proper pagan piety!

Okay.  So I'm a fanboi.  Give me a Rutilius or two and I'm in for a few hundred bucks.  If it costs less, so much the better.

[Yskonyn]

Consider me a fanboi too. I freakin' love Rome 2!