Rome II : Total War

[Deleted]

I was surprised that people find this game awful, but probably because they are comparing Rome 2 to Shogun 2, (havent played the Shogun 2 games). I'm comparing Rome 2 to Rome 1 and it's an improvement, albeit could use some smoothening of the rough parts.

Well, I haven't played it enough to make a final judgment, but from what I've experienced, seen and gathered Rome 2 is a clear downgrade from Rome 1 mechanic wise (ignoring all the bugs, glitches, poor optimization, AI problems, etc). Too many silly mechanics like defend the flag on a fucking field battle.

[Sy]

Rome 2 is a clear downgrade from Rome 1 mechanic wise (ignoring all the bugs, glitches, poor optimization, AI problems, etc).

i don't think that's fair, objectively (as far as that's possible, of course). i, too, am greatly disappointed by many things in the game and just shake my head in disbelieve about some mechanics, but compared to rome 1 there is so much more, so much more depth.

i'll give some examples, just off the top of my head:

• there were no actual naval battles in rome 1, let alone port/landing battles. at all. only autoresolve 'battles' between ships, which came in these three units: weak, medium and strong.
  regardless of what problems the naval battles in rome 2 have (of which there certainly are many), in rome 1 there were none of these battles at all.
• in rome 1, a single ship could transport 20 land units. even if a fleet was transporting 10 infantry and 10 archers, none of those would ever take part in a naval 'battle'. if, after such a battle, a transporting fleet had at least one ship with one man remaining, the entire transported army would still be on that ship without having lost a single soldier.
  the changes regarding this are, to me, one of the best new things in rome 2, and were sorely needed since at least empire.
• vanilla rome 1 had no culture or religion system, at all.
• rome 1 had no food or supply system, at all.
• there was no garrison system in rome 1, at all. i really dislike the current "one general for every army", but in rome 1 a city could just be taken without any battle if there were no units inside (which cost full upkeep), even if was a metropolis with an epic stone wall.
• the squalor "system" in rome 1 worked like this: big city, much squalor. small city, little squalor. that's it.
• in rome 1, you had to send a diplomacy agent to where ever you wanted to conduct diplomacy, every time, without exception. these agents also had upkeep cost.
• in rome 1, every single city of a faction could build every single building, or just all of them in one city. aside from money (of which there was a huge abundance) and time, there was no decision making regarding construction. you would simply build everything you wanted, with only minor decisions regarding the order.
  the only, minor, exception were the religious shrines, of which every faction had up to 3 (i think), with one usually just being plain better than the other two.
• missile infantry in rome 1 was completely useless. there was no reason to ever use any units aside from heavy infantry and cavalry. in fact, an army made of nothing but heavy cavalry would beat pretty much every other army with minimal or no losses.
  and let's not even talk about elephants.
• while i'm not happy with the faction's unit composition in rome 2, most factions in rome 1 didn't have any good late game units. oh, also, you could only play rome itself when first starting a campaign.

again, those are just off the top of my head, and things that are for the most part just objectively better, rather than what i personally like or dislike. and those are from the state that rome 1 is in now, 9 years and many patches after it's release.

you are entitled to hold whatever opinion you wish, of course, but saying that rome 1 is mechanically better than rome 2 when "ignoring all the bugs, glitches, poor optimization, AI problems, etc" really is just a little silly :P

Too many silly mechanics like defend the flag on a fucking field battle.

i've actually read that those were already removed in the patch on friday. not sure if it's true, but i personally at least didn't have any since playing the prologue (which i think was on wednesday).

[fakaroonie]

Units charging in the last spot of where the enemy once was. I guess this was intended since it's not yet fixed? Or... am I in the 2% problem pool?

[serenka]

has anyone else tried out replays yet? want to know if the problem affects every replay, or just some.

[cudomix]

Medieval 2 was decent at start, but it was made by Aussies on modified Rome engine, it is still my favorite Total War title, especially with total conversion mods (i just got addicted again to Call of Warhammer). CA probably didn't test the game on wide range of hardware, which was criminally stupid by them, because they just destroyed a really good game's reputation by shitty launch (same thing was with Empire, it is actually a great game now with all fixes and couple mods),

[Sy]

Units charging in the last spot of where the enemy once was. I guess this was intended since it's not yet fixed? Or... am I in the 2% problem pool?

i assume you are talking about a unit actually charging past the one it was supposed to attack, kind of missing it? and not just about hidden units and the like?^^

"this was intended since it's not yet fixed" makes no sense though. if fixing every possible bug in a program within one week was easily doable, then we wouldn't have the problem of unfinished games coming out. not to mention that there are tons of issues that need fixing in this game, with of course only a very small amount already fixed by the first, quick patch.

has anyone else tried out replays yet? want to know if the problem affects every replay, or just some.

i don't really use replays, but i'll test when i do another battle. might not be until tomorrow, though.

CA probably didn't test the game on wide range of hardware, which was criminally stupid by them, because they just destroyed a really good game's reputation by shitty launch

more likely is that the publisher didn't want to spend any more money on finishing the game, and rather wanted to bring it out in it's current state. sadly, that is rather common. and sadly, even though the consumers obviously complain a lot about it, it rarely seems to affect if they actually spend money on a game, so bringing out unfinished games apparently is seen as more profitable than actually making good, polished ones, by many publishers.

obviously they'd still prefer the game to be perfect, but if they have to chose between spending more time and money on finishing it, rather than just dealing with complaints and fixing it over time, they often decide to do the later, even if they're fully aware of the unfinished nature.

same thing was with Empire, it is actually a great game now with all fixes and couple mods

i agree it's good, but even now it still has a few terrible issues (fort defences, anyone?).

[Axi]

They'll fix it all, eventually.

That said, every big game that comes out these days is just another reminder of how the standards of the industry have regressed from 10 years or so ago.

Every big game that I half consider giving a go ends up with some kind of farcical launch, FFXIV was the worst of all, SimCity, now this.

I used to be quite an avid gamer, but now given the direction things have been taken in, barely play at all, hate the idea of rewarding incompetence with money. I'll trust Rockstar with GTA5 because with the exception of GTA4 being worse in many ways than San Andreas (lessons it looks like they have learned now), every one of those has been epic and a work of art. Everything else I either pass on or wait until they can be had for next to nothing on steam.

[Flame6]

They'll fix it all, eventually.

That said, every big game that comes out these days is just another reminder of how the standards of the industry have regressed from 10 years or so ago.

Every big game that I half consider giving a go ends up with some kind of farcical launch, FFXIV was the worst of all, SimCity, now this.

I used to be quite an avid gamer, but now given the direction things have been taken in, barely play at all, hate the idea of rewarding incompetence with money. I'll trust Rockstar with GTA5 because with the exception of GTA4 being worse in many ways than San Andreas (lessons it looks like they have learned now), every one of those has been epic and a work of art. Everything else I either pass on or wait until they can be had for next to nothing on steam.

This is easy to fix. Just plan to purchase all your titles 6 months after launch. You only give them half the reward because you're buying it on sale six months later.

[SirRobin]

Publishers pushing out unfinished games, and devs letting them, is a bit of a catch 22. If the game does meet sales goals, then the publisher is encouraged to do it again. If the game doesn't meet sales goals then the publisher, and dev, blames just about anything except them pushing the game out unfinished. There just isn't any accurate way to count how many sales they didn't get because friends and reviewers told potential customers about how unfinished the game is.

[Sy]

They'll fix it all, eventually.

all? no^^

but most and/or the important stuff, one would hope.

and a lot will also be fixed and changed by different mods over the years.

There just isn't any accurate way to count how many sales they didn't get because friends and reviewers told potential customers about how unfinished the game is.

you can be sure they are still trying to calculate it as accurately as possible. that's what marketing researchers are for, and why good ones will be paid a lot of money.

[Underverse]

Hey guys do you know if the unit upgrade buildings only apply to units in that province or are they empire-wide? Like armorer and training fields

[SirRobin]

Hey guys do you know if the unit upgrade buildings only apply to units in that province or are they empire-wide? Like armorer and training fields

Only in that province. New units that is. Old ones, in the province, will get the little yellow up arrow and can be upgraded, for a price.

[Underverse]

Only in that province. New units that is. Old ones, in the province, will get the little yellow up arrow and can be upgraded, for a price.

Does that work for the training fields too? Like if I wanted to train some archers in athens and then move them to syracuse for the 20% damage bonus

[SirRobin]

Does that work for the training fields too? Like if I wanted to train some archers in athens and then move them to syracuse for the 20% damage bonus

Have not tried the training field yet but the upgrades for weapons, armor, and horses, work that way.

[Durandro]

Publishers pushing out unfinished games, and devs letting them, is a bit of a catch 22. If the game does meet sales goals, then the publisher is encouraged to do it again. If the game doesn't meet sales goals then the publisher, and dev, blames just about anything except them pushing the game out unfinished. There just isn't any accurate way to count how many sales they didn't get because friends and reviewers told potential customers about how unfinished the game is.

I'm sick of this as well.

Worse still is when a game is pushed out before even core elements are finished - so it can't even be fixed via patching! A buggy game is one thing, but an unfinished game is so much worse.

Rome 2 just seems to be 'buggy' - its entirely fixable. There's nothing in the game that can't be solved. Bar the UI, that would need a lot of work - but I can work my way around the UI for the most part.

Things that need fixing:

1/ Graphical bugs.
2/ Load times.
3/ Campaign and Battle AI.
4/ Balance issues (namely, all units either need to do less damage or have more health so battles last longer).
5/ Squalor/supply scaling.
6/ Requiring Generals for every army (you should be able to build non-movable armies in cities, and heck the game even says "an army needs a General to move" yet won't ever let you have an army without one!).
7/ Replays.

[Sy]

Does that work for the training fields too? Like if I wanted to train some archers in athens and then move them to syracuse for the 20% damage bonus

from what i can tell so far, training fields actually do not do what their tooltips say at all, but simply increase experience of recruited units of that type. so for example, instead of my archers having 10% more missile damage, they simply have two copper experience levels right away.

...which really sucks. and it also means you can not "retrain" any units which already have that amount of experience or more from battles. yet another thing that makes me go "the heck is up with that?!" -.-^^

the upgrade buildings that do seem to work fine (for macedon, anyway) are the armor- and weaponsmith, as well as the horse-farm thingy that improves cavalry speed. those all count as equipment. even though weaponsmith improves melee attack skill instead of weapon damage. the heck is up with that?!

oh, and the ship hulls work fine too, although it doesn't seem possible to upgrade the crew on those ships with whatever their unit type on land can have (the heck is up with that?!).

[serenka]

i odnt even understand naval battles, all that happens is one or 2 of my ships get boarded while the rest throw javelins at the enemies, it working fine so far. ive got no idea how to board or ram the enemy ships.

[Sy]

Things that need fixing:

1/ Graphical bugs.
2/ Load times.
3/ Campaign and Battle AI.
4/ Balance issues (namely, all units either need to do less damage or have more health so battles last longer).
5/ Squalor/supply scaling.
6/ Requiring Generals for every army (you should be able to build non-movable armies in cities, and heck the game even says "an army needs a General to move" yet won't ever let you have an army without one!).
7/ Replays.

8/ tons of other bugs that range from celtic transport ships one-hitting warships with their (non-existent) ram, over armies being duplicated or disappearing, to diplomacy reliability rating seemingly not being affected if breaking a treaty with someone is made through offering it as gift to one of their enemies.

[SirRobin]

Well Joe ain't happy.



Agree with his verdict that Rome 2 is a five at launch and maybe a six after patch. Looked like he was borderline in tears at a couple of points too. Wonder if the guy from the AI vid clips still has a job?

[Sy]

Wonder if the guy from the AI vid clips still has a job?

i know it sounds stereotypical, but it's pretty much always a matter of greedy (or let's say "profit-orientated") publishers, rather then incompetent devs. just because the devs try their best to hide and downplay the problems the game has for obvious marketing reasons, doesn't mean they aren't aware of them, nor that they wouldn't have wanted more time to polish the game. but that usually isn't their call to make. if it was, we would most certainly see much fewer potentially great games that are released in a poor and unfinished state.