Rome Total War II

[Brinko]

Map for the new mini campaign has been revealed.

Still wondering if CA are going to give Carthage an overhaul like Epirus because otherwise this is going to be a quick campaign for Rome players.

 

[Trash]

This is why no map modding tool will see the light. With modders already modding in events and stuff they could easily make scenarios like this and rob CA of cheap small dlc money. Much easier to just ploink down a mini-campaign every once in awhile than to release something massive like Viking Invasion or Barbarian Invasion or even something with lots of mini-campaigns like Kingdoms.

What pisses me off with CA is that they have a golden formula which they have since they stumbled upon it been squandering away bit by bit. You just know that these games could be fucking awesome if they put a bit more thought, effort and creativity into it. Let alone a little love. Alas, we get a consistently more watered down gruel.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

That's SEGA for you.

 

[aris]

This is why no map modding tool will see the light. With modders already modding in events and stuff they could easily make scenarios like this and rob CA of cheap small dlc money. Much easier to just ploink down a mini-campaign every once in awhile than to release something massive like Viking Invasion or Barbarian Invasion or even something with lots of mini-campaigns like Kingdoms.

What pisses me off with CA is that they have a golden formula which they have since they stumbled upon it been squandering away bit by bit. You just know that these games could be fucking awesome if they put a bit more thought, effort and creativity into it. Let alone a little love. Alas, we get a consistently more watered down gruel.

Do you seriously have such a short term memory? Shogun 2? You know that game they released right before rome 2? Easily one of the best series, arguably the best one, and with a fucking excellent expansion to boot that was everything Empire:total war should have been and more in mini format. CA has not been going downhill, they are just uneven as fuck. Characteristically, the more ambitious and the more they hype their game, the more they fuck up. Shogun 2 was released to almost no fanfare at all. Just wait, they will come back.

 

[Trash]

The same gaudaost who has been consistently defending this turd is now telling me it is indeed bad but that CA will be back with incline later on? Dude, that's almost classic pr gaming journalism level damage controll right there.

Easily one of the best series, arguably the best one

Hahaha, no.

 

[commie]

CA has been finished since 2005. Rome and BI were the last real attempts to do something with the premise that really pushed the idea forward. Since then, CA has become the Infinity Ward of strategy lite, releasing the same thing with a graphical facelift every year. Sure it's still fun for a little while, but who really finishes any TW campaigns? After you play around a bit with a few factions, the game ends up collecting real or virtual dust as there's nothing behind the easy as fuck battles or methodically building up your nation with the same 5% bonus upgrades. It's so schematic. Behind the pretty facade, there's little substance.

 

[aris]

The same gaudaost who has been consistently defending this turd is now telling me it is indeed bad but that CA will be back with incline later on? Dude, that's almost classic pr gaming journalism level damage controll right there.

Easily one of the best series, arguably the best one

Hahaha, no.

Tell me which is better and why, and I will tear off your nostalgia glasses and tell you why you're wrong.

 

[Trash]

Ofcourse you will. Or I can look at the drivel you posted throughout this thread and save myself the trouble. Blind fanboyism really doesn't do it for me. Shogun was both original and fresh back in the day. Medieval improved on the formula, was atmospheric and had a great expansion. Rome pushed the idea forward and had another great expansion. Modding taking off also helped it massively. Medieval 2 was decent if stale but improved through a passable expansion and some great mods. Empire was a turd. Shogun 2 gave me back some hope by going back to basics but the same old engine that hampered Empire also held this one back. Rome 2 I actually had some hope for. Shame the game really doesn't make true on it.

Formula that has grown stale and gets milked dryer with each passing installment? I think so.

 

[aris]

Afraid of being wrong? I thought so. By the way, I had great hopes for Rome 2, I was obviously wrong. It's not a good game, I've said as much. I've just said that people that think it's worse than Empire was at launch are full of shit, and remember badly. Also the DLC-content they've been releasing for the game so far, seems like crap.

Edit: Sure Shogun was fantastic when it came out, and so war medieval. But it hasn't really stood the test of time, if you ask me. Especially since both (and really all total war games, since forever), relied heavily on the graphics in the real time combat. When it comes to AI and more complex strategy mechanics, at least in the turn based part, shogun 2 has far surpassed both shogun and medieval.

 

[titus]

Afraid of being wrong? I thought so. By the way, I had great hopes for Rome 2, I was obviously wrong. It's not a good game, I've said as much. I've just said that people that think it's worse than Empire was at launch are full of shit, and remember badly. Also the DLC-content they've been releasing for the game so far, seems like crap.

The sad thing is, comparing this with ETW really does it justice. Worse? maybe, maybe not - but they're clearly in the same league. ETW is still shit, after all these years. Good comparison

 

[Darklife]

ETW was a terrible, soulless and cold game. Also it was terrible.

 

[Brinko]

So Patch 10 is now live and it has thoroughly skull fucked my internet to where I can barely bring up shit due to me living in a hovel

Beasts of War Update

Three additional Elite Units have now been added to the Beasts of War DLC, existing owners will be upgraded:

Wolf Warriors
The Wolf Warriors are available to the Suebi and as Mercinaries for holders of any province in Germania.

Sobek Cultists
Sobek Cultists are available to recruit for Egypt.

Nubian Leopard Warriors
Available to recruit as mercenaries when holding Egypt in the Grand Campaign.

Molossian Dogs and Celtic Warhounds campaign mercenaries have been added.

Berserker units will now wear bear skins instead of wolf pellets (for all users not just BoW owners).

Balancing changes including strength and durability to:
o Molossian Dogs,

o Celtic Warhounds,

o Mercenary Syrian Armoured Elephants,

o African Elephants,

o Camel Cataphracts,

o Snake Pot Ballista,

o Scorpion Pot Ballista,

o Beehive Onager.

Performance improvements

General performance improvements:

• Additional Support for AMD Crossfire multi-GPU configs.
  
  
• Further improvements to GPU performance and reduction in CPU-bottlenecks for all configs.
  
  
• Improved core Battle performance scenarios.
  
  
• Resolved CPU core-affinity threading issue.
  
  
• Implemented borderless window when running at desktop resolution in Windowed mode.
  
  
• There is no longer an upper limit on the graphics settings that a user can select in the frontend. Previously if the game determined that a user’s machine was low-end then it would not allow them to select high graphics settings. This limitation is now gone. Note that selecting high graphics settings on low-end machines will negatively affect performance.
  
  
• Improved consistency of reflections on shiny textures.

‘Unlimited Video Memory’ option improvements:

• Unlimited Video Memory is now selectable for all integrated GPUs running on 64-bit operating systems from Windows Vista onward. Integrated GPUs use system memory as video memory at all times, as they have no dedicated video memory of their own. This code change now allows our integrated GPU customers to use all of their system memory as video memory. When Unlimited Video Memory is enabled, discrete GPUs use system memory as an extension of their dedicated GPU video memory, when their dedicated video memory is not enough to run at their chosen graphics quality settings. Please be advised that in both cases, using system memory as GPU video memory can impact performance as it is generally not as fast as dedicated GPU video memory. Also, if system memory runs low (or out), the user’s hard drive will be paged, resulting in reduced framerates.
  
  
• For users running on an integrated GPU in 64-bit Windows (Vista onwards), with Unlimited Video Memory available but not selected, we have increased the amount of video memory that the game sees from 800MB to 1024MB.
  
  
• Fixed an issue causing Unlimited Video Memory to be unavailable for users with certain discrete video cards.
  
  
• Fixed an issue that was causing Unlimited Video Memory to become disabled on some multi-GPU configurations.

Battle performance improvements:

• Eliminated battle pathfinding performance spike which caused battles to stutter.
  
  
• Addressed a crash in siege battles which occurred on some maps after breaching walls with artillery.
  
  
• Addressed a crash in Egyptian Large City battle caused by the map data.
  
  
• Addressed a crash caused by squads within the same unit attempting to use different formations.
  
  
• Fixed a UI lock-up when opening the steam overlay during the introduction sequence at the start of an ambush battle (while defending).

Gameplay Improvements

Battle AI improvements:

• Fixed an issue which could cause the attacking siege AI to stall when attempting to breach the walls with artillery.
  
  
• Improved coordination of AI defenders in city, port and town battles when they are outside the settlement. This improves the behaviour of disembarked naval units and reinforcement armies.
  
  
• Addressed an issue which caused disembarked naval AI defenders in siege battles to become inactive.
  
  
• Improved the battle AI's ability to predict the outcome of combat actions, allowing it to better commit its troops in combat.
  
  
• Battle AI in field battles is now encouraged to outflank earlier when necessary.

General battle improvements:

• Improved ladder docking in Rome city map.
  
  
• Addressed collision gaps in fort walls caused by auxiliary buildings, which sometimes allowed units to pass through walls.
  
  
• Prevented siege ladders/towers being pushed into the wall of a settlement on the battlefield.
  
  
• Settlement gates no longer close on friendly units during battles.
  
  
• Smoothed uneven terrain under a dockable wall in Egyptian port battle map.
  
  
• Fixed wall in large Barbarian city map.
  
  
• Fixed floating buildings in some Roman City and Barbarian battle maps.

General Campaign improvements:

• Improvements made to the campaign auto-resolver's modelling of melee-based infantry, which corrects a wide range of auto-resolver imbalances.
  
  
• In campaign mode, garrisoned Hastati will now upgrade correctly after researching the 'Cohort Organization' technology, which converts Hastati to Legionaries.
  
  
• Slave army leaders will no longer always look Hellenic in Campaign mode.
  
  
• Unit cards no longer appear outside of the merge window UI while merging units in campaign modes.
  
  
• Settlement labels in Campaign modes now consistently display the diplomatic relationship status that is currently held with the owning faction. Red = War, Blue = Allied With, Grey = neutral.
  
  
• Improvements made to the accuracy of the unit tooltip threat indicator in the battle UI.
  
  
• Cinematic Mode shortcut key now works consistently in different languages.

Usability Improvements

• Addressed a number of minor audio issues.
  
  
• Battlefield death animations no longer with the victim in a kneeling pose.
  
  
• Category icon no longer incorrectly appears on elephant units once the unit is out of control.

Interesting to see them release more units for the Beasts of War DLC, probably to entice everyone but the 6 people who bought the thing

 

[Tigranes]

I quit Total War and Ive never looked back.

The few hundred hours I put into the GOOD total wars were enough, thanks.

 

[Trash]

Yeah, but I keep wanting more of those.

 

[The Dude]

High point of the series as far as the strategic map play is concerned is definetely Medieval I. Markers and territories feels a lot more smooth to play with, and the AI is pretty shit when it comes to handling free movement. Probably had most battle map fun with Shogun 2, while I am not a fan of the faster pace the AI gave a decent account of itself outside sieges and playing human opponents were pretty fun despite the somewhat unbalanced units. I have a copy of Rome 2 but haven't played yet, judging by the hordes of disappoint TW fanboys and this thread I am not missing out.

 

[Dead Guy]

The only step up with the switch to the free movement RTW map was being able to somewhat choose your battleground. Too bad they ditched that in Shogun 2 so the free map became completely poitnless. Sadly the campign AI in RTW/M2TW was so useless that you rarely got to find that perfect river crossing or hill side to defend anyway, they just never brought the fight to your armies in the field, either bypassing them to lay siege for two turns before going home, or better yet, sending a hundred armies of three skirmish units everywhere at once. Both of those problems would never have occured on the STW/MTW map, so taken together... eh.

Also darkpatriot wants to play shadow of the horned rat/dark omen.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Don't hate on free movement. It's a nice concept much less dull than discrete region with almost no geo-strategical layer whatsoever. CA simply wasted the potential.

It's just that They never managed to implement properly. They were actually going in the right direction in Rome and Medieval 2, by allowing you to place forts in places you deemed strategical chokepoints. Now if only they could have expanded on this building mechanism, we could set up great fortress in mountain pass, found new trading ports in previously deserted estuaries, relocate farmlands to safer places...
More Base building.
Decent AI is possible. Modders in Medieval 2 did an excellent job. They are quite specific and not well known, but once you found them all the difference is blatant.

 

[spectre]

Oh come one, it's totally fair to hate it when the devs code in a feature and then "forget" to teach the AI to use it without being a total embarassment.

 

[Trash]

Decent AI is possible. Modders in Medieval 2 did an excellent job. They are quite specific and not well known, but once you found them all the difference is blatant.

Share the goods then as I'm dying to know what you mean.

And there was a time when CA was experimenting with the CAI. RTW had the BI invasion that did quite a bit. It also had a much lesser known expansion called Alexander. Someone at CA toyed around quite extensively and made the CAI tailer made for it. Unfortunately the improvements never got patched into the general RTW and the BI exe files and the Alexander expanded AI missed out on specific improvements from BI and had no naval invasion part. Damn shame it never got properly patched in by CA and no modder found a way to merge these.

I always felt that this AI guy left afterwards since the TW AI since then has been a joke. Yup, RTW wasn't much to start with but at least it improved through patching and felt like it was a genuine piece of work. The later AI's always seemed like a watered down version of that. In fact, the RTW and its expansions in hindsight feel like a goodbye to the old CA that innovated, allowed a lot of room for modding and actually expanded and improved the games they released.

 

[muds_animal_friend]

Free movement in Total War is an abomination unto the Lord. Hate it brothers. Hatred forges the armor of contempt. Free movement created Rome: Total Siege. Free movement ensured field battles became as rare -- and strategically unnecessary -- as tits on a bull. Free movement inflated the tedium of managing agent units. Free movement bloated AI turns times. Free movement contributed nothing whatsoever of worth. Nothing. And the apostates at CA have being alternately attempting to justify or compensate for it's unholy existence in every iteration since Rome 1: forts without significant zone of control ensuring they actually guard nothing, pointless wack-a-molery around strategic resources physically located on the map, choke-points littered all over Europe and Asia Minor in Rome 2 in a vain attempt to increase the frequency of field battles.

 

[fastjack]

Free movement in Total War is an abomination unto the Lord. Hate it brothers. Hatred forges the armor of contempt. Free movement created Rome: Total Siege. Free movement ensured field battles became as rare -- and strategically unnecessary -- as tits on a bull. Free movement inflated the tedium of managing agent units. Free movement bloated AI turns times. Free movement contributed nothing whatsoever of worth. Nothing. And the apostates at CA have being alternately attempting to justify or compensate for it's unholy existence in every iteration since Rome 1: forts without significant zone of control ensuring they actually guard nothing, pointless wack-a-molery around strategic resources physically located on the map, choke-points littered all over Europe and Asia Minor in Rome 2 in a vain attempt to increase the frequency of field battles.

Unfortunately the forum won't let me brofist this more than once, but rest assured that in my heart there is a never ending brofist for the truth that you spake here.

 

[Ranselknulf]

Can't the movement be modded to be more restricted?

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Share the goods then as I'm dying to know what you mean.

It's been a while, but I believe either Third Age Total War or the popular submods had built-in CAI improvements, and the campaign experience was almost flawless. There was one in particular that I remember : Look up AlreadyDead's CAI. It was surprisingly compatible with just about every convoluted mod combination. The AI created doomstacks and moved it around like humans, instead of stack splitting. That's really when It started to feel like I was playing against humans roleplaying a LOTR faction ( I had a few other mods for the roleplay part).

 

[Ranselknulf]

Third Age Total War was extremely polished, but it wasn't the most difficult AI from available mods.

I'd still recommend playing that mod though.

 

[Emily]

Medieval 1 is about as good as it gets for Total war series, i still play it today from time to time and it reigns supreme.
Shogun 2 is a runner up in that it works and has some interesting features.