Rome Total War II

[Average Manatee]

Victory conditions seem irrelevant in these kinds of games. Either you quit when you get bored or you reach the victory condition and want to keep playing.

Economic victory in a game called total war is hilariously out of place though.

 

[Nutmeg]

The strategic side of Medieval Total War II and Rome Total War (the first one) were horrendous. They were just grinding, and didn't lead to any interesting scenarios except very early on, when it was all set up (presumably) to be interesting. I also played the first Shogun: Total war, but it was too long ago for me to be able to reliably comment today. I have fond memories of that game.

Did the series ever improve on its strategic gameplay? I found the tactical side of it always engaging, even if I thought the A.I was a poor opponent.

 

[KoolNoodles]

I just hope they make naval warfare/supremacy a relevant idea for once. I want to be Athens and subjugate tons of city states on the back of my navy, with a shitty army for "just in case" that I frankly don't even need.

 

[Regvard]

Who are these camel riders?

Genius. Let's try to stop charging camels with out shields. Screw spears.

 

[Brinko]

 

[Disgruntled]

I just saw that new E3 footage... oh boy. Im hoping that build had everything scaled to over-the-top, way too ardcadey.
Im not one that gets bothered by background historical innacuracies or some 'gaming', but when the whole battle is flames and giant explosions with men flying everywhere.. any sense of immersion is lost. Those capture points dont make me excited either. Some argue the whole TW series is shit and I shouldnt be surprised, but this has gone another level.



Ryse: Total War till I see an official statement proving otherwise.

 

[Trash]

They mention that being a 'historical' battle and those have been scripting showcases since forever. Otherwise looking neat.

Only wonder if the battlemap cities change according to what buildings there are and whatnot. They make mention of them changing on the campaign map as you build stuff but nothing about battle maps. Then again, they did recently mention that if cities got damaged in a battle they will stay damaged for a few years and that this would show up if another battle would be fought.

 

[Malakal]

Some historical battles were pretty graphic though, like that one siege in Galia where Caesar build a wall around the city and another around his forces to separate him from the army besieging him in turn. Fun times.

 

[Borelli]

Who are these camel riders?

Genius. Let's try to stop charging camels with out shields. Screw spears.

More correct criticism would be "genius, let us lightly armored camel riders without lances and stirrups try charging heavy infantry up front".

200 regions my ass.
This is better.

Spoiler

 

[Regvard]

Who are these camel riders?

Genius. Let's try to stop charging camels with out shields. Screw spears.

More correct criticism would be "genius, let us lightly armored camel riders without lances and stirrups try charging heavy infantry up front".
200 regions my ass.
This is better.

Good point though the first lines are still gonna get it regardless of the outcome. A 500 kg camel isn't easily stopped.

 

[Kattze]

FFS, when would EB2 be finished?

 

[Spectacle]

Good point though the first lines are still gonna get it regardless of the outcome. A 500 kg camel isn't easily stopped.

Unless it stops itself. Most animals are smart enough not to run straight into something that looks like a wall, even if the rider wants it to.

 

[praetor]

FFS, when would EB2 be finished?

at this rate, not in this century

 

[corvus]

The latest information from the modders is that the units are mostly finished, the map is being finished, and the only major things left are regional and resource descriptions... as of this year, anyway.

http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?144479-Trade-Resource-Descriptions-Help-the-EBII-Team

About Rome II, I'm glad they've extended the map to Bactria, but the map pictures tell me that the 200 regions was a Bethesdian "exaggeration" or I'm just confused about them being divided into sub-regions, which doesn't look likely since the campaign map only shows major cities, roads and trade resources. I was impressed with Shogun II though and how smooth it played compared to every game since Medieval I that I briefly considered pre-ordering this game. Then I made the decision not to support bad business practices that CA/Sega is pulling and will probably just play the demo/extended demo when it's released.

The obvious arcadeness of the game doesn't bother me, since TW has been arcade for almost a decade now and Shogun II at least managed to be good arcade with its rock-paper-scissors style. I wonder how balance will be though, since they don't look like they're giving factions more diversity beyond one unique unit.

 

[Trash]

If you look at the campaign map of the video when they build a temple in that town you'll see that each province has three or so 'slots' for settlements. One big one that you must fight over and the other ones smaller ones that give some bonus but still can hold a garrison. But yeah, it appears as though they now simply call the old 'resources' like farms and so on regions. Had expected something better than that but it appears serviceable.

At least the campaign map looks a lot more open than the corridors of Shogun 2. Looking forward to see what that will mean for the CAI.

EDIT: Looked at it again. I might be wrong here. There were slots for four possible settlements in that province with one capital that you can besiege and three possible smaller ones that actually seem to have their own buildings and so on. So maybe not just farms.

And indeed, the large campaign oversight map they showed had only capital cities with resources like hides shown as extra icons. Seems resources are apart from these settlements.

And watching it closely shows you have some kind of edicts you can use. Oh well, enough nerding.

 

[corvus]

If you look at the campaign map of the video when they build a temple in that town you'll see that each province has three or so 'slots' for settlements. One big one that you must fight over and the other ones smaller ones that give some bonus but still can hold a garrison. But yeah, it appears as though they now simply call the old 'resources' like farms and so on regions. Had expected something better than that but it appears serviceable.

At least the campaign map looks a lot more open than the corridors of Shogun 2. Looking forward to see what that will mean for the CAI.

There was a realism (immershun) reason for the FPS-corridors at least with most of Japan being mountains outside of Kanto and Tokai regions. It would have been far more enjoyable had fortifications and sieges played a more important role than none at all. But I guess CA gave up trying to make sieges not tedious so they gave soldiers spider-man powers and fucked off with that gameplay. The pics of Asia Minor remind me of Shogun-corridors, and their talk of defensive employments with armies sounds good. But Glorious Hellas looks very not-mountainy in screenshots.

 

[Cursed Platypus]

Good point though the first lines are still gonna get it regardless of the outcome. A 500 kg camel isn't easily stopped.

Unless it stops itself. Most animals are smart enough not to run straight into something that looks like a wall, even if the rider wants it to.

But it doesn't look like a wall from their perspective. They are uphill and way taller than the soldiers.
Animals tend to knock over everything in their path when put in a certain mental state.

 

[Spectacle]

Good point though the first lines are still gonna get it regardless of the outcome. A 500 kg camel isn't easily stopped.

Unless it stops itself. Most animals are smart enough not to run straight into something that looks like a wall, even if the rider wants it to.

But it doesn't look like a wall from their perspective. They are uphill and way taller than the soldiers.
Animals tend to knock over everything in their path when put in a certain mental state.

Horses really will not charge a properly formed shield wall, it's one of the reason the formation is so effective. I don't know about camels specifically but I have no reason to think they are dumber than horses

 

[Burning Bridges]

This looks like utter shit.

 

[Dajaw]

I love how they show the campaign and all he really talks about is meaningless shit like the graphics for cities. Doesn't look good. You can see its still the same shitty engine from the last games (since empire), probably take 12 years to load the game like Shogun 2. Everyone running around super speed, capture points...

 

[DeepOcean]

Good point though the first lines are still gonna get it regardless of the outcome. A 500 kg camel isn't easily stopped.

Unless it stops itself. Most animals are smart enough not to run straight into something that looks like a wall, even if the rider wants it to.

But it doesn't look like a wall from their perspective. They are uphill and way taller than the soldiers.
Animals tend to knock over everything in their path when put in a certain mental state.

This is well known, animals stop when facing a compact formation of men, spears or not. If they could talk they would say: "Fuck you rider, I'm not going to charge that." The only exception is elephants but they are easy to scare and romans discovered that they prefer charge through open lanes in the formation like a boss than to charge directly at scary masses of humans. Animals are people too.

 

[anus_pounder]

All this talk about Rome and the greeks. I hope the Numidians are playable.

 

[Kattze]

Cavalry charges only really succeed on disorganised infantry or if they charged from the flanks or the rear. There is not one successful cavalry charge in history against a well-ordered, organised mass of heavy infantry.

 

[Brinko]

Skip to about 0:50 to see the gameplay

 

[Cursed Platypus]

Nothing new here. completely pointless episode. 2 retards.