Expeditions: Rome - the final Expeditions game from Logic Artists

[Rieser]

Fucking romances. This is all the romance you need.

Spoiler

 

[EvilWolf]

Fucking romances. This is all the romance you need.

Spoiler

I need my Greek/Egyptian waifu! Although I salute your taste, fellow agalmatophile.

 

[Tyranicon]

After spending some more time on it, I actually think my (low) expectations have been exceeded. Overall, the game is very functional, the battle system is solid (if lacking maybe some bells and whistles) and the skill tree is interesting (at least it's not % bonuses to everything). The VO is not needed, but tolerable, and from a technical standpoint I haven't run into any issues (some pathfinding bugs were the only thing I've noticed).

There are some weird design choices, but overall I think I might pick up the full game when it drops. It's not the second coming of the incline, but what is these days?

Edit: Also you can save in combat. Make of that what you will.

 

[CaesarCzech]

Game is actually decent hopefully there will be some modability, if we can mod in so all classes have all skills and class weapons, and mod in starting with all persuation methods it would be good, i dont foresee being able to mod in stats unfortunately but the persuations methods should be simple since you can learn second persuation method later in game so it should be simply changing value, and as for class weapons and skills if UI supports scrolling to the side it should be possible as well.

 

[CaesarCzech]

Watch Twitch streamer to unlock customization options for the legion! Off to a nice start I see...

That's nothing. For Conquistador, devs locked a companion (a cool one might I add) behind preordering. Which is bullshit since it wasn't some heavily advertised game and I just wasn't aware of it at the time of release as to preorder.

They could've at least allowed for it to be purchased for whatever sum post-release, but they said that it would somehow betray those that did preorder.

well i still have the pirate file for the companion somewhere lol

 

[CaesarCzech]

T_Portrait_Praetorian_Female_07_Medium.png

Spoiler

The left one, If i want porn i look at porn. Through if Cleopatra tries to seduce me and manipulate me while dressed in Hijab i wont be complaining just because its the Hijab that is ahistorical.

 

[CaesarCzech]

Looking at some demo footage, some nice incline present
Codex is back!
You can't have a given name as a female character. The box is grayed out and has a tool tip explaining that Roman women don't have given names. You can set a nickname though.
Family is chosen from a list. Given names and nicknames have an option for random select. Every game that lets you name a PC should have a random name function, especially when the setting will have a particular pattern for names.
Portraits and character appearance are linked.
Female character is repeatedly dismissed.
Caesar appears early on, but he's a young soldier and just a random NPC who helps in the first fight. edit: Looking it up, he was present here historically.

Spoiler

Caesar gets killed in ambush when he is talking about wanting to join your group, Seems kinda meanspirited way to kill him when you dont want to add him to companions because of diversity.

 

[CaesarCzech]

Watch Twitch streamer to unlock customization options for the legion! Off to a nice start I see...

That's nothing. For Conquistador, devs locked a companion (a cool one might I add) behind preordering. Which is bullshit since it wasn't some heavily advertised game and I just wasn't aware of it at the time of release as to preorder.

They could've at least allowed for it to be purchased for whatever sum post-release, but they said that it would somehow betray those that did preorder.

Yeah....that will always be a black mark for me.

What's worse is their reaction to the criticism which, to boil it down, was "IT'S JUST COSMETIC".

This was a lie because:

A - Having another party member meant another guard, or hunter, or whatever for camping purposes (which was always advantageous)

B - In Mexico, having this supposedly "JUST COSMETIC" person in your party gave you a free pass on one of the most dangerous moments in the game (The temple of Gold specifically). Without him it's almost a guarantee that you lose either a party member or a valuable treasure (and a shitton of morale for it).

Then, to add insult to injury, they released a patch that was specifically designed to remove the character if you added him in via console.

Yeah....not a good moment for the devs.

lol i actually still got that pirated file for preorders somewhere if somebody wants it PM me.

 

[S.H.O.D.A.N.]

I think the thing that will make or break the game are the new legion mechanics, which I haven't gotten to yet. Do you get control of a legion in the demo, or is that something they're saving for the full game?

You get to fight one battle, which involves picking the commanding centurion from your pre-selected roster, followed by four battle phases. At the beginning of each phase, you get to pick one of three random stratagems that affect manpower on both sides, attack, defence and so on.

Whether this actually works well as a game mechanic down the line depends on context we don't have. Could be a nice risk/reward minigame, could be we'll all be spamming the auto resolve button.

Some general thoughts:

- Once again, the commander of a major miliary force is expected to slum it with the plebs, scavenge for gear and buy their own bandages. I hated this crap in Pathfinder, I hate it here even more.
- I get what they were going for with the female character, but she's obviously a romantic plant, so they can't execute the idea properly.
- Why is my elderly Greek tutor and a random ex-gladiator following me into battle? Or at all actually, in case of the gladiator. This shit isn't hard to write...
- I like that shields play an important part in combat, even if the mechanics are highly abstracted.
- I don't like shields not providing cover for friendlies directly behind the shield bearer.
- Cover and ranged targeting in general seems pretty eh. Could do with better visual clarity.

 

[deuxhero]

Looking at some demo footage, some nice incline present
Codex is back!
You can't have a given name as a female character. The box is grayed out and has a tool tip explaining that Roman women don't have given names. You can set a nickname though.
Family is chosen from a list. Given names and nicknames have an option for random select. Every game that lets you name a PC should have a random name function, especially when the setting will have a particular pattern for names.
Portraits and character appearance are linked.
Female character is repeatedly dismissed.
Caesar appears early on, but he's a young soldier and just a random NPC who helps in the first fight. edit: Looking it up, he was present here historically.

Spoiler

Caesar gets killed in ambush when he is talking about wanting to join your group, Seems kinda meanspirited way to kill him when you dont want to add him to companions because of diversity.

I think the point is to clearly tell the player "You're in alt history now!" by doing that to the one figure everyone will recognize.

 

[Alienman]

I had fun with it. I'm not a Rome buff, I mean I like the setting but I don't know what is made up and what is not - language, roles, titles etc. I understand it's frustrating if you know your Rome shit and realize half of the game is just made up. Thought the combat was fine, a bit hairy at times too, since damage seem to be high overall. So no pila sponges. Lots of different skills to pick and choose from, depending on weapon or having no weapon. Kinda like that. The talent tree looked interesting from what I saw. I made my main guy a second-row-dude with a long spear that buffs his comrades.

Graphics look great and detailed, and ran really smooth for me. The avatar pictures are top notch when you are talking to characters. They look really alive. So it's a bit jarring when you talk to a no-name NPC and get this black generic outline for a character. One thing I don't get in the dialogue system is why are choices locked in depending what you picked in the beginning? I would prefer if I could mix and match depending on situation. Maybe sometimes I want to think through something logical, and sometimes I want to go full authoritarian. Oh well, maybe it will change or be expanded upon later in the game.

The demo seem really linear, and I assume it's because it is a tutorial. When you are on the map to make movements you are really zoomed out for some reason. It's hard to make out details. And I'm just on a normal HD screen, so it must be even tinier for someone that plays on higher resolution. The army combat, while looking cool, I had no real idea what was going on. Maybe you get used to it after a while, but I saw random icons, and numbers popping up with no idea what it meant. I defended at one point, another I attacked, apparently I had some kind of skirmish but couldn't tell if it went well for my guys or not, except at the end when it told me I won.

Not to forget but the voice over seems good!

Will probably buy.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

they could have warned me that I was going to play patrician senator propaganda

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I had fun with it. I'm not a Rome buff, I mean I like the setting but I don't know what is made up and what is not - language, roles, titles etc. I understand it's frustrating if you know your Rome shit and realize half of the game is just made up. Thought the combat was fine, a bit hairy at times too, since damage seem to be high overall. So no pila sponges. Lots of different skills to pick and choose from, depending on weapon or having no weapon. Kinda like that. The talent tree looked interesting from what I saw. I made my main guy a second-row-dude with a long spear that buffs his comrades.

Graphics look great and detailed, and ran really smooth for me. The avatar pictures are top notch when you are talking to characters. They look really alive. So it's a bit jarring when you talk to a no-name NPC and get this black generic outline for a character. One thing I don't get in the dialogue system is why are choices locked in depending what you picked in the beginning? I would prefer if I could mix and match depending on situation. Maybe sometimes I want to think through something logical, and sometimes I want to go full authoritarian. Oh well, maybe it will change or be expanded upon later in the game.

The demo seem really linear, and I assume it's because it is a tutorial. When you are on the map to make movements you are really zoomed out for some reason. It's hard to make out details. And I'm just on a normal HD screen, so it must be even tinier for someone that plays on higher resolution. The army combat, while looking cool, I had no real idea what was going on. Maybe you get used to it after a while, but I saw random icons, and numbers popping up with no idea what it meant. I defended at one point, another I attacked, apparently I had some kind of skirmish but couldn't tell if it went well for my guys or not, except at the end when it told me I won.

Not to forget but the voice over seems good!

Will probably buy.

Can the player wear pants or is it all natural air conditioning down there?

 

[Alienman]

Can the player wear pants or is it all natural air conditioning down there?

You can

 

[CaesarCzech]

I had fun with it. I'm not a Rome buff, I mean I like the setting but I don't know what is made up and what is not - language, roles, titles etc. I understand it's frustrating if you know your Rome shit and realize half of the game is just made up. Thought the combat was fine, a bit hairy at times too, since damage seem to be high overall. So no pila sponges. Lots of different skills to pick and choose from, depending on weapon or having no weapon. Kinda like that. The talent tree looked interesting from what I saw. I made my main guy a second-row-dude with a long spear that buffs his comrades.

Graphics look great and detailed, and ran really smooth for me. The avatar pictures are top notch when you are talking to characters. They look really alive. So it's a bit jarring when you talk to a no-name NPC and get this black generic outline for a character. One thing I don't get in the dialogue system is why are choices locked in depending what you picked in the beginning? I would prefer if I could mix and match depending on situation. Maybe sometimes I want to think through something logical, and sometimes I want to go full authoritarian. Oh well, maybe it will change or be expanded upon later in the game.

The demo seem really linear, and I assume it's because it is a tutorial. When you are on the map to make movements you are really zoomed out for some reason. It's hard to make out details. And I'm just on a normal HD screen, so it must be even tinier for someone that plays on higher resolution. The army combat, while looking cool, I had no real idea what was going on. Maybe you get used to it after a while, but I saw random icons, and numbers popping up with no idea what it meant. I defended at one point, another I attacked, apparently I had some kind of skirmish but couldn't tell if it went well for my guys or not, except at the end when it told me I won.

Not to forget but the voice over seems good!

Will probably buy.

For whats its worth it it should be relatively simple to cheat it if we can find the adress of where the 0 or 1 depending on if you picked it in creation, is located.

 

[baud]

Can the player wear pants or is it all natural air conditioning down there?

You can

hey, romans considered pants to be something for barbarians.

 

[Alienman]

Can the player wear pants or is it all natural air conditioning down there?

You can

hey, romans considered pants to be something for barbarians.

Some armor seems to come with pants.

 

[S.H.O.D.A.N.]

I imagine northern legions could have started adopting trousers early on, but the game takes place in the Mediterranean. There were no practical considerations at play and plenty of good reasons to not adopt enemy cultural norms.

 

[Tyranicon]

I'm more in roman fanboy territory than actual historian with sources, but roman soldiers in colder climates are known to have worn trousers called Braccae. Fuck if I know when or where or how this was adopted, or how widespread it was.

 

[ColaWerewolf]

I'm more in roman fanboy territory than actual historian with sources, but roman soldiers in colder climates are known to have worn trousers called Braccae. Fuck if I know when or where or how this was adopted, or how widespread it was.

>Braccae is the Latin term for "trousers", and in this context is today used to refer to a style of trousers made from wool. According to the Romans, this style of clothing originated from the Gauls.
>originated from the Gauls

Well well well how the turn tables

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Braccae

Probably where we get breeches from.

 

[Tacgnol]

I'm more in roman fanboy territory than actual historian with sources, but roman soldiers in colder climates are known to have worn trousers called Braccae. Fuck if I know when or where or how this was adopted, or how widespread it was.

>Braccae is the Latin term for "trousers", and in this context is today used to refer to a style of trousers made from wool. According to the Romans, this style of clothing originated from the Gauls.
>originated from the Gauls

Well well well how the turn tables

The Romans were always a highly practical people that adopted anything they liked from their enemies.

Trousers made perfect sense in cold climates.

 

[Lacrymas]

The portraits for the PC give you the option of the same man with the same haircut and a twink with a different haircut. I also noticed they pronounced the reconstructed latin V and not the ecclesiastical one. Which is certainly a choice and you could do that, but I prefer my Vs hard.

EDIT: They pronounce all the names in the old style.

 

[HoboForEternity]

i like the demo. basically if you like the previous expeditions game, you'll like the game too.

 

[Denim Destroyer]

Tried the demo out and found the game enjoyable but not something I will pay the full price of. I do think the lighting can use some work as there were a few instances of enemies or locations on the world map not standing out due to poor contrast.