Rome II : Total War

[Airlick]

One thing I want to know. In the first Rome, as well as in Shogun 2, when I was zooming in a battle, I always saw some soldiers fighting the air, not even touching the enemy.. will this be the same in Rome 2?

Watch the vids that we got so far, the soldiers actually interact with each other, it looks absolutely stunning. Feels like I'll be spending half of my time during battles just zooming and watching the troops fight. Never did it before in TW titles.

I'm sure there will still be bugs with soldiers attacking air etc, but it really does seem like there's going to be a massive improvement.

[fakaroonie]

Watch the vids that we got so far, the soldiers actually interact with each other, it looks absolutely stunning. Feels like I'll be spending half of my time during battles just zooming and watching the troops fight. Never did it before in TW titles.

I'm sure there will still be bugs with soldiers attacking air etc, but it really does seem like there's going to be a massive improvement.

I watched vids, like the Teutoburg forest one, and I agree, zoomed in while marching it looks fantastic. But if the fighting is the same, I'm gonna be very disappointed. I suppose it's harder to program a game like that, but still, it would have been worth the investment.

Also, in older interviews they said you can control 40 units at a time, which is a massive army, now I've heard only 20 units. What happened?

[Airlick]

I watched vids, like the Teutoburg forest one, and I agree, zoomed in while marching it looks fantastic. But if the fighting is the same, I'm gonna be very disappointed. I suppose it's harder to program a game like that, but still, it would have been worth the investment.

Also, in older interviews they said you can control 40 units at a time, which is a massive army, now I've heard only 20 units. What happened?

Troops seem to have different idle animations depending on their morale and stamine, also there's a ton of different fighting animations, where soldiers get locked in a fight with each other.

You can see all of this very clearly in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwWrDtkJdTs

You certainly can't have more than 20 units in each army, but perhaps you will be able to control 2 armies simultaneously during the battle. Or maybe they are counting in the fact that you can now control the fleet and the army simultaneously while fighting at the shore. Watch the battle of the Nile video to see what I'm talking about.

[fakaroonie]

They should have included Dacia instead of Parthia as a faction in the release.. we romanians are kinda poor and can barely afford the game, let alone buy additional DLCs also, isn't Parthia the current Iran?
Or they could have included Thracia, homeland of Spartacus, cause who cares about Romania anyway

[Airlick]

They should have included Dacia instead of Parthia as a faction in the release.. we romanians are kinda poor and can barely afford the game, let alone buy additional DLCs also, isn't Parthia the current Iran?
Or they could have included Thracia, homeland of Spartacus, cause who cares about Romania anyway

Dacia has nothing to do with Romania except of geographic location. Just as Parthia has nothing to do with Iran. Dacians and Romanians and Parthians and Iranians are completely different people. Dacians were more like barbarised Greeks.

[SirRobin]

Well, all provinces consist of a number of small cities and a capital, it only makes sense that you don't have to get bogged down in prolonged sieges of every single town. Would be pretty impossible to finish campaigns on higher levels of difficulty.

I would actually love it if garrisons were even smaller than in Shogun 2. It would add another layer of depth to the game, players would actually have to choose which cities they can afford to possibly lose and how to position their armies. In Shogun 2 it was enough to leave 5 units at most and wait for even full armies to come, that's how big garrisons were in bigger cities.

Well a big issue with Shogun 2, for me, was its corridors. All you really needed was two or three armies and two or three fleets and you could just march up the island. While the campaign panoramas give me the impression that those corridors are in Rome 2 too. Hopefully there will be far fewer choke points.

Sieges were what gave other Total War games their length. You couldn't just roll over half the map until mid to late game. I suspect that by making over half the "cities" in the game just need a regular battle, as the Syracuse segment in the Find A Way trailer shows, to capture? That rolling will start that much sooner. CA shouldn't be trying to make sieges less common. They should be making them more interesting. Like the Battle of Alesia. Relief and supply, by land or sea, should be much more of a concern.

Large garrisons will hopefully slow down rolling but if the numbers we've seen in pics are any indication?



They are no where near large enough to make much of a difference. Having cities so easily captured isn't going to make me think more about which ones I can lose. Its going to make me do the same thing I do in Shogun 2. Restrict access to my backfield. Hopefully CA will have more creative ways than just waiting for cultural assimilation to slow us down this time.

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I dont know, its not like you are fighting these garrisons in an open field... from what I have seen these "new" type of settlements are more of a combination of a normal battle and a siege, where the defenders have control of an urban area and a capture point. The thing is that you can upgrade these cities so when you get in the battle you will see the settlement being bigger than it was at the beggining but it would never reach the final point of a capital region city settlement. That makes me wonder if maybe... just maybe we can have walls in these minor settlements. (only reffering to low tier walls)

You can see an assault on a non provincial capital in the Find A Way trailer.



Starts about 1:42. No siege involved at all. Its just a regular battle. I have not heard any mention of the non-provincial capitals ever getting walls.

[Deleted]

They've actually said that they want more choke points. Most areas will only have one or two routes in and out. It's a bit of a trick to get the AI to do more sensible things by limiting their potential routes (no room for random stacks of 3 units wandering around), but it does work.

[Tierbook]

i bet it would be awesome to be there watching Hannibal cross the alps

[SirRobin]

They've actually said that they want more choke points. Most areas will only have one or two routes in and out. It's a bit of a trick to get the AI to do more sensible things by limiting their potential routes (no room for random stacks of 3 units wandering around), but it does work.

Not recalling where now, but didn't they say in one of the interviews that the corridors were a side affect of the panorama and it wasn't that way in the campaign game? That and the corridors in the prologue were just part of the prologue.

Personally I go with what my eyes see, and it looks like the corridors from Shogun 2 to me. But I certainly wouldn't mind being wrong.

[Deleted]

I'm gonna buy the game for sure.

[SirRobin]

Trade map is up.

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Total_War_ROME:_Trade_Routes

[fakaroonie]

Trade map is up.

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Total_War_ROME:_Trade_Routes

So trade will be micro manageable? Would be cool if you could intercept enemy trades and loot them :P maybe in Rome 3

[SirRobin]

So trade will be micro manageable? Would be cool if you could intercept enemy trades and loot them :P maybe in Rome 3

Don't think so. I suspect that map was just showing off the campaign map.

More answers from Jack.

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...d-with-part-3!

[theturn]

Don't think so. I suspect that map was just showing off the campaign map.

More answers from Jack.

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...d-with-part-3!

We saw flaming balls of fire being used in the Teutoberg forest video, are they available in the actual game and what other kinds of deployables are there?

Yes, and there are also barricades, spike traps, stakes, caltrops and more.

I'm wondering how we will be able to use those

[serenka]

I'm wondering how we will be able to use those

thinking maybe like siege equipment, can make a unit pick it up and then drop it. the balls of fire in the egypt battle video is kinda cool though.

[Northy]

Just noticed in this video at about 7:30 they show some amazing German berserkers. Didn't know about it and it made my wiener tingle a little with happiness.

[Chrysia]

I'm wondering how we will be able to use those

The balls of fire will probably be similar to the flaming pigs of Rome I.

[serenka]

Just noticed in this video at about 7:30 they show some amazing German berserkers. Didn't know about it and it made my wiener tingle a little with happiness.

quick question, im part way through that video (amazing by the way!) but i really don't like the new unit cards! where does it say how many men are left in a unit? you have to mouse over each one?

[Airlick]

I'm wondering how we will be able to use those

Certainly just like we could do with deployables in previous titles, some units will be able to use them during deploying phase.

[Northy]

quick question, im part way through that video (amazing by the way!) but i really don't like the new unit cards! where does it say how many men are left in a unit? you have to mouse over each one?

That vid is alpha I thought.