Rome Total War II

Just gimme my head hurlers and flaming pigs damnit, i'll make my own fun.

 

What everyone have seemed to miss is the following gem.

I was sad we wouldn't get cities reflecting what buildings are build in them when they announced the static nature of the cities. Then I hoped for nicely made maps with perhaps some elements that would come over from the campaign map and was glad to hear the rumors of persistent damage. Then CA announces this. Seriously? They couldn't be bothered to come up with a sprinkling of cool city maps for the 1 in 3 cities you can besiege? Random nonsense that will most likely be one or two templates repeated ad nauseum?

Them leaving the Rome and Medieval 2 engine with their awesome integration of campaign map cells into battle maps for the shit one they used since Empire keeps on pissing me off.

 

thats dissapointing ...had no real hope for this but amount of bullshit and "cinematikz assplushions" is very dissapointing.

 

Do you really think that the opening cinematic has anything to do with the quality of the gameplay?

If anything I'm disappointed with how popamole the codex is, caring so deeply about opening cinematics.

 

Well there is the DLC stuff and the marketing angle. One of those "wait and see" scenarios, not that I buy games at full price anyway.

 

33% off on Steam UK
A decent price for a game. Hopefully it will not suck very much.

 

You know.

 

Hahahaha, Reminded me of my friend who is repeating "you know" every sentence as well LOL!

 

Still haven't seen a full battle that wasn't in a tutorial/scripted/dev showpiece. Still haven't seen 10+ turns of a campaign in the same vein. One month out. GREAT

 

I mean technically it should be just improved Shogun 2 Ai which is great... however.... I remember when the Shogun 2 was about to come out how they would not shut up about the great AI... This smells very fishy to me, the fact they dont parade their AI the same way as Shogun 2.

 

100% off any decent 0-day site once this shit is cracked...

The above is my form of purchasing any game made by a big dev/pub who I dont trust.

 

From the CA facebook page.

 

Where's the "Buy all DLC" button?
Maybe that will come as a DLC for the launcher?

 

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthread.php/72354-Jack-Answers!

Well I can pretty much say this whole Q&A was a giant fail when the dumbfuck answering thinks Shogun 2 was the most moddable game.

 

Which is kind of weird since Jack Lusted made one of the first good M2TW mods back when. I wouldn't know since I've not followed modding since M2TW but a quick glance at the hosted modifications forums at twcenter seems to indicate otherwise, and from what I remember at the last two releases, modders weren't exactly ecstatic about modding opportunities compared to RTW/M2TW.

 

Jack Lusted did a 180 ever since they started paying him a salary. He is not a modder anymore and he doesn't give a shit about them. He lied just as much about ETW before the release as anybody else. He even helped "sell" it more to the hardcore fanbase by posting all the pre-release AARs and battle demonstrations making us all feel like "hey, our dude is on the inside and having a blast this is gonna be the shit".

Moving on to modding, it's not even a contest between the old games and the newer warscape engine games. People had to beg and plead for files to be unlocked in ETW, and that was after it was already a flop with fans and selling for $10 on Steam(CA promised a PFM[Pack File Manager] at release, they never bothered. Modders made one eventually). Even with that, ETW could hardly be modded at all(campaign map is static, for instance, AI can only get so many tweaks, some units are locked, etc.), not to mention all the confusion associated with various DLC. NTW and STW2 are similar in that their modding scope is very limited.

Just look at Third Age Total War for the scope you can get in MTW2. They made a huge giant ass map of Middle Earth, complete with brand new factions, huge settlements(Minas Tirith is a modeled castle that can be attacked in-game), Ents, movies added in-game, a billion scripts and on and on. It is easily the best LotR game made on any platform, and it is a free mod, for a game you can regularly find for $5.

Anything made on the warscape engine will never be like that, both because of their selfish DLC reasons, and because of how much harder it is to work with. ETW, a game made four years ago(god it is depressing to think about that), their flagship into a new era of Total War, still does not have a working multiplayer campaign and never will. Probably because realistically, they don't even know how to fix their own stupid engine.

I think it's safe to say we'll see more of the same for a mediocre game when RTW2 hits shelves.

 

Jack Lusted is a saleryman who perfectly follows the company line to the letter. Nothing more. Nothing less. One of the people who lost all credibility through the development, release and support of Empire. That really was CA's biggest low so far.

Still, I actually enjoyed Shogun 2 and expect Rome 2 to be in the same vein. Not as good as it can be but as good as it's gonna get.

Still, it is kinda informative. For example we're given this gem.

 

CA is the only company that makes me want to walk through their front doors and headbutt every fucker in sight. I know they can produce something truly spectacular with a slight change in priorities, but they won't, and it fucking winds me up.

 

Well, with one year per turn they can't really add seasons. It sucks, but it's not really that important. OTOH, nobody is asking/hearing/talking anything about the AI.

 

It is.
What if the modders, or the lack of thereof, was the problem here?

there is a difference between moddable (as in the variables the modders have access to mod the game) and difficult to mod (as in the tools need some time to master and you need to know how to create new models etc).

Shogun 2 is the most modable (as in what we can change), the matter is that it's not as easy as before to make modifications (ie changing text files).

As the ex-modder said, and which anybody who dwelled into them knows : ''Less hardcodes (no limit on number of units or factions for example), more data than ever exposed in db''.

Then there's also the models. The Europa Barbarorum 2 team confirmed : modding for Medieval 2 is slower and more tedious than modding for rome 1, simply because the standards for the models and textures are set higher.

Add to that, there are far less people willing to invest time and effort and make a shogun 2 mod.

 

I had no idea there weren't seasons! What the fuck?! So we look at the same bland map the whole time? Even STW2 had seasons. Did they just not want to make extra battle maps? How hard is it to add a wintry skin to an existing map and throw in some snow? For fucks sake.....

 

Battle AI seems about what it was in Shogun 2, it looks out for some threats and sorta flanks(was very hard apparently, which means buffs as well), but nothing too dramatic. In other words, it's not as good as many mods for MTW2.

Concerned a little about how the hoplites looked, they shouldn't have really taken that much damage from some basic Roman troops charging straight into them.

 

They use RNG to determine the season right before a battle. Apparently adding dynamic snow textures and effects on the campaign map is too hard for them. However, they have some pre-determined attrition zones so when you go with your armies through there it will apply the effect. Also, I believe there are some always-winter regions. It would be pretty sad to see Hannibal's army go through the Alps wearing shorts in-game, while they are shown through heavy snow in the cinematic.

Hopefully modders will fix it.