Rome Total War II

[BlackAdderBG]

Basic controls=300 APM What about MP?

 

[Branm]

Soooooo is this shit worth leeching yet?

 

[Agesilaus]

I am so proud of learning my lesson with Empire: Total War. How should I spend the money I saved not buying this shit...

 

[Declinator]

move forward/back , increase rank , select all, group 1,2,3,4,5, run, melee mode ? What game are you guys playing ffs

A game with no AI. Unclench your anus you dont need 300 apm to win everything.

It's not just about speed and winning. It would be awkward and frustrating to have to always pick units separately to move all of them instead of just using ctrl + a. And not having the groups available in quick keys would be horrible. Almost all of BlackAdder's examples are constantly used in the game and it simply improves the game considerably to be able to use them instantaneously with a simple key press.

Sure, you can make do with just the mouse/Steam controller but it would be an inferior experience even if the loss of competitive edge in MP is not considered.

 

[titus]

move forward/back , increase rank , select all, group 1,2,3,4,5, run, melee mode ? What game are you guys playing ffs

A game with no AI. Unclench your anus you dont need 300 apm to win everything.

If you pause the game, yeah.

 

[Trash]

Well, patch 7 is taking its sweet time. If it's not going to fix the shit siege AI by the time it finally arrives (I guess closely before or with the Nomad dlc) then I'm not going to look at this thing anymore for another year or so. A game which has an AI that cannot even function in a large part of what makes the game is something I consider to be unplayable. The shit mechanics (politics, naval, instant fleet, no seasons) are either things I can tolerate or hope to be changed at some point but this is a gamebreaker.

Although the lack of seasons is pissing me off.

 

[Brinko]

http://www.incgamers.com/2013/11/total-war-rome-2-patch-7-now-open-beta-players-tryarii

Known Issues

• The objectives panel will show placeholder text for Ultimate Objectives and Chapter Objectives after opening another UI panel (e.g. selecting a unit, clicking Trade etc.)

Global

• Performance – Unit rendering performance on high spec gpu’s has been optimised, resulting in higher frame rates on EXTREME settings in most scenarios.
• Extensive Frontend-UI tweaks and optimisations.

Battle AI improvements

• Attacking siege AI now uses battering rams more frequently.
• Attacking siege AI can now use all units to burn gates, and should not become inactive if it has only non-infantry units remaining.
• Attacking AI is now more conservative with the use of its general when assaulting walls and gates, but can still use the general unit as a last resort.
• Added safeguards against some rare issues which could cause the attacking settlement AI to become idle.
• Fixed an issue in settlement AI which could result in units losing their attack orders, causing units to sometimes run past enemy units they were trying to attack, as well as causing defending missile units on walls to halt their firing orders.
• Improved AI’s use of Use The Whip and Rapid Advance.
• AI now targets war-dogs rather than their handlers after dogs have been released.
• Eliminated unnecessary reforms in AI’s defence-line tactics.
• Improved AI scouting behaviour.

Unit rebalancing

• Increased damage for club weapons.
• Increased melee defence for pike units.
• Rebalance of all small-arm projectile damage:

Javelins have received a boost to their armour penetration damage.
All horse archers (incl. Royal Horse Archers) now have Heavy Shot.
Some elite foot archers now also have access to Heavy Shot.
Different types of bows now have different ranges.
All bows now have some armour penetration.

• Rebalanced the following units:

Naked warriors
Ambushers
Berserkers
Painted ones
Naked swords

• Some missile infantry shields have had their missile block chance increased.
• Tower projectile incendiary damage has been reduced.
• Burning oil incendiary damage has been reduced.
• Improved arrow tower damage has been reduced, and is now mostly normal damage instead of armour penetration.
• Scorpion tower projectiles now have a smaller cone of effect.
• Reduced incendiary hit points on all siege vehicles apart from burning rams which have both incendiary and normal hit points increased.
• Removed shield wall ability from Falxmen, Thracian Warriors and Thracian Nobles.

General battle improvements

• Increased battle-side hit points of all generals and officers.
• Fixed issue in battle combat rules which failed to give the commanding general additional saving throws, making generals unusually vulnerable in harder difficulty modes. These saving throws have also been extended to non-commanding generals, making all general characters harder to kill in battles.
• Fixed issue which caused artillery units to sometimes move forwards instead of firing when targeting a ground position.
• Formed Attack button added for key disciplined units (eg Legionaries, Hoplites, Pikemen). Disciplined units are now better at keeping formation when fighting.
• Improved existing unit formations.
• Reduced “blobbing”, where units converge into a disorganised brawl
  *Adjusted spacing of some infantry units to prevent units being too cramped.
• Added blood effects on animals, for players who own the Blood & Gore DLC.
• Fixed an issue where pikemen would ignore orders.
• Fixed rank & file shortcuts which were not working correctly; and only ever resulted in wider units.
• Telestration (drawing on the map) now works for spectators in MP battles.
• Fixed issue where throwing torches at gates failed due to projectile simulation causing torches to bounce off the roof of the gatehouse instead of hitting the gate itself.
• New guard mode mechanic: units will be in guard mode behaviour by default and hold their line unless they have a direct attack order.
• Several improvements to how formed attackers adjust to one or more targets, encompassing different target widths.
• New hiding mechanic: running will no longer reveal hidden units.
• Behaviour improvements for disengaging units: Units pulling out of melee will now try harder to avoid combat and run to the ordered location.
• New mechanic for knocked-down soldiers: Heavier units will take longer to get up after being knocked down.
• Fixes and improvements to bracing:

- Formation depth and defensive formations now have the correct impact on bracing bonus.
- No bracing bonus when using loose spacing.

• Elephant and chariot collisions are now less lethal.
• Boiling oil no longer triggers when enemies are on top of a gatehouse.
• Entities no longer warp in combat when two infantry units charge each other.
• Avoidance-jittering eliminated when multiple units in formed attack overlap.
• Prevented ships and drowning men from floating above the waterline in very rough seas.
• Improved the framerate when multiple units pass under boiling oil.
• Added option to disable left-click dragging move-orders.
• Locked formation unit groups now correctly track moving targets when given attack orders.
• Locked formation unit groups should now move at the correct speed in all circumstances.
• Units now interweave less when moving a locked formation backwards.
• Artillery units no longer move forwards to attack a building when their target is already in range.
• Firing whilst moving now always fires at the target unit.
• Reduced instances of ranged-unit stop/start movements when chasing a moving target.
• Units no longer automatically attack their previous melee target after routing then rallying.
• When gate capture points are neutralised, gates are now locked to all alliances and boiling oil stops pouring.
• Units firing from walls can now be consistently halted.
• Units firing from walls now fire with all ranks.
• Rebalancing of entity/projectile/effect audio volumes.
• Added new preset city and port maps to the custom battle/multiplayer map lists.
• Removed situations where defenders could partially deploy units outside the city walls in siege battles.
• Siege maps now have towers or gates linked to the correct capture points.
• Changed capture point timer from 20 seconds to 30 seconds. Gates and towers now take 1 minute rather than 40 seconds to change from one alliance to another.
• Added new minor settlements: 1x Persian port and city, 2x Egyptian cities, 1x Greek city.
• Improved docking and landing points in several maps.
• Added spectator icon for battle to make it clearer when people are spectating.
• Cinematic camera now works correctly for units on buildings.
• General technical/usability fixes across many battle maps (docking points, deployment zones, scenery placement, tower bridging-points etc).
• Extensive battle-UI tweaks and optimisations.
• Fixed several rare crash instances.
• Aide de camp advisor has been enabled for multiplayer now.
• Modified right click drag-outs, so when moving the mouse to the minimum drag threshold, and then back under the minimum drag threshold, the drag-out visualisation will no longer be hidden.

Campaign

• Multiplayer campaign legendary mode saves now work correctly.
• Campaign AI is now more focused on recruiting better units and constructing buildings that allow the recruitment of better units.
• Increased number of Imperium thresholds from 4 to 7, rebalancing progression of military, agent and edict cap increases to match.
• Campaign diplomacy: It’s now harder to sign trade & alliance treaties with AI factions, gifts now give a bigger boost to relations.
• Added warning when the player is about to break treaty in Diplomacy which will result in player being treacherous.
• Enemy/ally armies/agents are now shown on the Campaign Tactical map and not just players.
• Fixed user interface animation issues in campaign, where in Multiplayer Campaign mode, animations would sometimes be in slow motion.
• Added resource icons to the city info bar.
• Added a small delay to update of the Settlement info panel, when moving the mouse off building icons to make easier to compare two buildings, without info panel flickering to province info in between.
• Fixed setting for whether Unit info panel is shown in battle, which was being set incorrectly in campaign modes, leading to unit info panel being hidden in battle, without player ever minimising it.
• Fixed campaign cycle buttons (which cycle between settlements) going in opposite direction, and fixed both buttons going in the same direction.
• Fixed issue where if a unit was gifted in a group, the player could still control that unit via group they were previously in.
• Fixed issue where current army emblem wasn’t shown in list of emblems meaning once changed couldn’t set it back.
• When the player is defending in ambush, the attackers units are hidden because if they were ambushed they wouldn’t know the details of the force they were up against.
• Telestration (drawing) now works on the campaign tactical map for Multiplayer Campaign mode.
• Added a vote-timer to the autoresolve panel buttons in Multiplayer Campaign mode pre-battle, so players know how much time is left to make a decision once the panel is opened.
• Join Confederation option now appears as a diplomatic option when countering an AI’s diplomatic offer.
• Added experience indicators on queued recruitment unit cards.
• Multiple units can now be upgraded with better equipment, or retrained into better units, simultaneously.
• When retraining units, UI now shows the unit a current unit will be retrained into, along with the cost for doing so.
• Finance panel tax-slider now snaps to values, to make it easier to use, and to clarify that there are a finite number of levels.
• Added notifications for when the other player saves in multiplayer campaign, so you know why the game is pausing.
• Added filter-specific info to tooltips in the campaign tactical map (such as regional wealth values when on the region wealth filter).
• Unit info UI now takes into account bonus HP for unit health stat, to fix incorrect values being shown
• Unit info now shows the breakdown for melee defence and shield armour values on the tooltip.
• Added vote timer to the pre-battle screen in Multiplayer Campaign mode, so players know how much time left to make decision once open this panel.
• Unit info missile-damage display now working correctly (damage modifier was being applied to armour penetration damage, and breakdown wasn’t taking into account the missile damage modifier).
• Campaign radar map now follows the camera to improve navigation.
• Client states and satrapies are now shown as allied on settlement panel. Also added an icon to show relationship of the factions owning the regions.
• Fixed several rare crash instances.

Any brave souls willing to attempt the beta patch report back if this fixes anything or just horribly breaks shit even more.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Nothing will be fixed until they go back to the old turn based campaign map.

 

[Trash]

Siege AI is still a broken mess. And no, CA. Having every unit being able to burn down the gates does not mean you fixed or even improved sieges. Au contraire.

 

[Brinko]

I did love that they announced that the general unit is now going to be the last unit to go into a siege battle in desperation. Like they are proud to announce that on patch 7 when their previous game did that day 1. Can't make for the next TW game to come out and the patch 12 notes contain "Game will now run when you click the executable."

 

[corvus]

Attacking AI is now more conservative with the use of its general when assaulting walls and gates, but can still use the general unit as a last resort.

They worded this to sound like the AI will demonstrate reasonable behavior and not sacrifice its general, but I know that the best to be hoped for, like Brinko said, is the Shogun 2 feature of throwing all its troops in the assault and only sacrificing its general last, rather than wisely withdrawing him (or any other general units) if you have more defenders than they attackers. This should actually be even more important now in Rome 2, since armies cannot be leaderless.

 

[Declinator]

Nothing will be fixed until they go back to the old turn based campaign map.

This one is turn-based also but I guess you meant the STW/MTW system with simultaneous turns and less possible points to move to. I don't like simultaneous turns and there is no reason why the AI would be better simply because of that but a province-based movement system would probably make the AI better.

As long as they don't return to that old MTW battle AI...

 

[Brinko]

Baktria greyed out in the faction selector? Incoming announcement for new free faction or new faction pack.

 

[Brinko]

 

[Echo Mirage]

So...is Rome 2 actually in a state worth playing yet ?.

 

[titus]

Better than at release date. Runs better, looks crappier because I think they did some downgrading. Still shit.

 

[DeepOcean]

So...is Rome 2 actually in a state worth playing yet ?.

It had gone from horrible broken mess that barely works to watching the AI being slaughtered is kinda of fun but there is no illusion of challenge anywhere. If you want a proper strategy game wait for patch 20 or maybe (I said maybe.) they are going to fix something with the inevitable expansion.

 

[Raghar]

I did love that they announced that the general unit is now going to be the last unit to go into a siege battle in desperation. Like they are proud to announce that on patch 7 when their previous game did that day 1. Can't make for the next TW game to come out and the patch 12 notes contain "Game will now run when you click the executable."

Theirs next game will be warhammer, they might do that.

Although the lack of seasons is pissing me off.

This is part of problem. The game feels too abstract, and every decision can have too harsh effects because turn resolution is too coarse.

 

[Esterhaze]

How moddable is this game? Like can I expect to have some good total-revamp Europa Barbarorum-quality mods for this in a couple years when I have a computer that can run this? Obviously not from the EB team since they'll still be working on EB2 in a decade but maybe somebody with a little more pep in their step like the Invasio Barbarorum guys.

 

[Vibalist]

No, I don't think that's likely. The new engine (the one that's been used since Empire) is less modable than the older ones. There have been no complete overhauls of neither Empire, Napoleon nor Shogun 2. It's impossible as far as I understand. The best you can hope for are smaller mods that fix certain issues or make minor gameplay changes, unfortunately.

 

[Esterhaze]

Well that's a damn shame, I wish CA a pleasant future making trashware. I actually think the developer-modder symbiosis that existed for strategy companies like CA and paradox was an ideal ecosystem for the genre, with developers releasing a fairly incomplete but solid and sellable framework and compulsive modders doing enormous historicity, bugfix and gameplay overhauls. One can't expect developers to spend massive resources churning out highly detailed systems and aesthetics for a niche audience (they probably couldn't even if they wanted to) and one can't expect obsessive modders to be able to competently create a good base game (see Magna Mundi: the game). But their strengths and weaknesses complemented each other well enough to create some of the best gaming experiences out there. Maybe we've witnessed the passing of a golden age.

 

[DemonKing]

I'm finding it relatively enjoyable in its current state - sure the AI sucks at siege battles but then from my memory it pretty much always has in TW. Other than that I'm finding there's a nice balance between struggling to achieve your goals but at the same time countering the inevitable revolutions, starvation and other issues that spring up. The original Rome TW is still my favourite but I'm not finding Rome 2 as awful as some seem to be.

 

[Brinko]

So CA just annouced the second modding summit is happening on Dec 6.

SCHEDULE:
10:00AM: Welcome to CA by Craig Laycock, Community Manager and introduction to the new members of the CA community team (myself included, yay!!).

10:15AM: Rob Bartholomew, Brand Director, discusses modding from a corporate standpoint and our vision for the future.

10:45AM Guy Davidson, Coding Manager at Creative Assembly, discusses why our codebase works the way it does. Opportunity for Q&A.

11:45AM Jack Lusted discusses how to best mod units and how the AI copes with modded troops.

12:30PM: LUNCH

1:00PM: Round table: What’s your experience with our mod tools to date?

2:00PM: Round table: What could we do better in terms of modding?

3:00PM: PUB

They have stated they are going to stream the conferences so can't wait for the lulzy shit to come out of those vids. Personally can't wait for the coding Q&A where we learn about how the AI coding department is 2 guys doing lines of blow and copy pasting shit from the earlier games.

 

[Brinko]

Can't watch atm because I forgot my damn headphones coming to uni so someone watch this and see if it's shit or on the money.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Can't watch atm because I forgot my damn headphones coming to uni so someone watch this and see if it's shit or on the money.

tl;dr The engine is shit.