Rome Total War 2 Isn't that bad...

Battlehamster

Okay, so as someone who waited until patch 5 (V1.6) to purchase this game I have to ask. Just how bad WAS that game? I've been playing it for a few days so far and haven't run into anything so horrific it made me outright hate the game. Although I did read about the invisible war dogs. That was funny.

Heindrich

I've followed the leadup to its release and then followed a couple of LPers playing various campaigns.

Overall it's not a bad game, once the major bugs had been dealt with, and actually it looks pretty fun.

However I feel like the devs missed a chance to create a truly special game. Instead of trying to create an awesome ancient battle simulator, Rome 2 feels incredibly... 'gamey'... like if you watch a battle in Rome 2, it looks nothing like how a sword and spear battle looks in terms of tactics, formations and the dynamics of a battle. It looks nothing like TW trailers! Instead TW games have become increasingly about micro-managing a chaotic mess of units in cheesy tactical manoeuvres to gain advantages here and there.

Even graphics wise, I don't feel that Rome 2 is a significant improvement on Shogun 2.

MERLANCE

I played it from release, and even though there were some "WTF, why did they do THAT" moments with the game, it was still a solid game. All the 0/10 reviews and stuff were unfair, it was more of a 5 or 6/10 and has moved to an 8 now.

That being said, its still the second weakest total war in my opinion (Napoleon being the worst).

Battlehamster

Napoleon being the worst? You mean worse than Empire? Maybe it was just a fluke accident but in the siege battles it seems like the AI has become significantly better to me. At least it seems like the AI tries (though still usually fails) to attempt flanking/cornering maneuvers. All the other TW games I've played they usually sit there and eat missiles all day. I'd say its still better than Rome 1 with all things considered, although it doesn't feel as groundbreaking as the original was for its time.

scriver

I didn't have any problems at release... At least not that I noticed.

As for the game. To me, it's probably the most fun total war since Medieval 2, maybe even Rome 1. I'm still missing a lot of the good old stuff but I definitely feels it's a big improvement over Shogun 2.

Also War Elephants. They're the greatest thing ever.

zerckan

Graphics improved greatly over years but AI is still standing on its dumb state.
I don't blame developers though. It's a general problem in games but somehow first Medieval:Total War has best campaign AI of the series. Maybe because it had divided regions instead of free-roam.

Kanaric

It actually is quite terrible. If you are good at the game and delve deep into it the flaws are obvious and annyoing. Anyone who says CAs games, aside from Shogun 2, are anything above mediocre probably are bad at them.

They never fix ANY of their issues either, especially pathing issues in a RTS game, how are they STILL not fixed? Basic refinement is why these games will never reach beyond their current niche level of popularity for multiplayer.

[quote]"Also War Elephants. They're the greatest thing ever."[/quote]

Or another example of broken shitty game mechanics liked by bads.

[quote] but in the siege battles it seems like the AI has become significantly better to me[/quote]
WHAT!?!? The siege battles show the most broken aspects of the AI! Do you not roll over the AI 10:1 on Legendary because of how stupid it is on siege battles?.... see this is what I mean.

[quote] but somehow first Medieval:Total War has best campaign AI of the series.[/quote]
It's easy to figure out why. In these later games they have a whole campaign map and they have to organize their forces and build proper armies. In MTW1 far less AI programming is needed because of the risk-style campaign map so it's easier for CAs inept programmers to get right.

O_Bruce

With gliches like that, I can't blame reviewers, really.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdpIENG0Y2k

Heindrich

@scriver

I guess that, as always, opinions will be divided depending on what you are looking for in a game. If you enjoy the rush of a fast paced, challenging and graphically exciting game, then the TW series has probably been going in the right direction.

What I hoped TW would do as computing power increased, was to increase the scale of battles, so you can actually replicate historic battles, instead of conquering Europe with a 'super-stack' of 3,000 elite soldiers. Larger battles means larger units, less emphasis on detailed graphics and less micromanagement, with more generic orders being issued to sections of the army, as opposed to using godly like powers to micro-manage each small group of men, who would otherwise stand around like idiots as a battle raged around them.

Some of the things Shogun 2 got criticised for is actually what I liked about it. Specifically the lack of unit diversity enabled much more balanced battles in general, and you really felt the 'rock-paper-scissors' dynamic in action, where even elite cavalry struggle to break the humble Yari Ashigaru in a frontal charge.

I remember in Barbarian Invasion expansion for Rome 1, I just spammed armies of Sassanid Cataphracts and conquered the Eastern Roman Empire with about 2 armies of 1500 men each. After which I gave up cos I was bored of just steam rolling everything with super cav that were tough as nails, hit like train and could fire arrows effectively! Granted Rome 2 doesn't seem so extreme, but from the LPs I've seen, some units are clearly overpowered cos CA thought 'we should make these guys COOL, fuck realism'. For example there is a good reason why War Dogs were not widely used in historic warfare, and elephants largely disappeared from the battlefield except in South Asia... because they weren't very effective once enemies knew what to do against them.

Battlehamster

@heindrich1988

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure they stopped using the elephants, not because they weren't ungodly powerful, but because there was no way to control them. I know there was a carthiginian general (I think Hannibal's fajah?) who charged a roman line expecting to stampede through the ranks. Unfortunately for him Scipiio was all "Now if everyone could move three feet to either side..." Long story short the elephants ended up running a gauntlet of Javelins and promptly died or GTFO as fast as possible. IMO a lot of units are OP. Thing is, every faction has an OP unit if you think about it. Its one of those things where IMO I feel like its balanced in its imbalanced - keep in mind though that I have no internet connection so I can't really play multiplayer although I loved to in college.

@Kanaric

Maybe its because I'm a beast on siege defense - I have literally defeated a 3/4 stack of knights in medieval 2 with 3 peasant archers and 2 hungarian infantry of some sort in a 15:1 defense, admittedly on normal, and they didn't just stand there and eat arrows, they actually came over the walls and nearly captured the town center. I can 100% believe any sort of defensive victory is possible at this point. Its the first game where I feel like I've had to really remotely try at a siege battle since the AI doesn't just sit and wait for me to place my units where I please before I come slaughter them by the metric ton.

I have to say, the campaign features are much nicer imo. Shogun 2 was way too easy since all you had to do was capture one end of the island and then steamroll your way to Kyoto. Empire and Napoleon, despite being buggy and the laughably stupid battle AI the campaign wasn't too bad. Shogun 2 is still definitely my favorite in terms of field battles, but for me the enjoyment is 50/50 between the campaigns and the battles. Rome 2 simply requires more strategy imo for the campaign, not necessarily the battles. Though, it is nice to see varied AI generals (who are all still idiotic) rather than the one general who runs to the top of the hill and sits there. Now if we could just get past the fact that the game crashes every 90 minutes, that would be fantastic.

etagloc

My biggest issue is the difficulty, even with the latest patches, even on legendary difficulty you can still attack 5000 men with 2000 and win. loseing 500 men yourself.. it is ridiculous!!!!

ajwz

Does it still take ages when you click end turn to cycle through 5 billion different AI civilistations?

scriver

Nope.

Drugar

My biggest problems were that
A) My family line was hidden somewhere in the background and most of the time I had no idea who my faction heir was (I still don't know what the point of gravitas is, it's just something that randomly pops up).
and
Whenever combat was joined, it became a blob of units killing eachother with the victor being declared after 15-20 seconds, not enough time to send reinforcements or have cavalry charge in for backup.

I doubt those were fixed, but not having to wait 5 minutes every turn does brighten my day a bit.

Battlehamster

Drugar said:

My biggest problems were that
A) My family line was hidden somewhere in the background and most of the time I had no idea who my faction heir was (I still don't know what the point of gravitas is, it's just something that randomly pops up).
and
Whenever combat was joined, it became a blob of units killing eachother with the victor being declared after 15-20 seconds, not enough time to send reinforcements or have cavalry charge in for backup.

I doubt those were fixed, but not having to wait 5 minutes every turn does brighten my day a bit.

@Drugar

I found a work around to B - if you move your units in line formation rather than simply have them attack they tend to retain their formation FAR better than the blob. You lose a charge bonus, but you formations end up MUCH more disciplined and you don't at least lose in 15-20 seconds.

@ajwz

Not anymore!

@etagloc

Were you playing as Rome? Their units (particularly later one) are waaaaay OP. Try winning a battle outnumbered as one of the barbarian or greek factions. The ride isn't quite as smooth. Also maybe its because my gaming rig is fairly high performance, but I've found the AI to be more challenging than other TW games so far. At least they don't (always) sit around and take missiles all day. I've found ways to manipulate the AI into doing that in a siege battle but at least it tries to go after the missiles instead of playing the world's deadliest game of catch. Also I've noticed huge AI differences depending on what faction you're fighting based on their attitude. Could be a placebo effect, but that's how it seems to me.