Rome Total War II

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

Doesn't matter, pretty bro move on the part of CA.

If Skyway dies (knockwood) will we have a model of him in Arma 4?

 

[anus_pounder]

Doesn't matter, pretty bro move on the part of CA.

If Skyway dies (knockwood) will we have a model of him in the next KotOR?

 

[Commissar Draco]

Looks pretty Roman to me... Now CA has to ''only'' make game which won't suck.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

From what they promised it sounds great. And you could tell that Shogun 2 would be said from the interviews and previews only, so I have some hope in this.

Doesn't matter, pretty bro move on the part of CA.

If Skyway dies (knockwood) will we have a model of him in the next KotOR?

Silly Ansu, there will be no next KotOR.

 

[Turisas]

Silly Ansu, there will be no next KotOR.

Well they certainly aren't going to make another TOR, so a singleplayer game is the only way to exploit the franchise. Kewl next-gen reboot Action RPG with gay bromances!

 

[Trash]

Read a lot of the information available and the entire picture being painted is kinda disappointing to me. One year turns yet somehow with seasons (one year summer, the other winter will prolly be the outcome) generals that only live for 40 or so turns and advance rapidly, armies that also get skills and can never be fully destroyed, forced march so you can cross your entire empire in one turn, only generals can recruit troops, provinces seperated in regions with only one region holding a city (which goes some way into explaining the larger map. There just is a lot less on the map itself) It's all very much Total War but also shows that instead of adding a little depth they've simply made the game even more streamlined.

There is for instance a massive shitstorm going on at their forums atm because of the one year turns. CA's answer is that most people won't play a campaign beyond two or three hundred turns and so they decided to make the game that long. I'm just stupefied they simply won't make a short, normal and long campaign so everyone can be happy. Not to mention they also decided to get rid of victory conditions so players wouldn't feel rushed or pushed. Seriously, wtf?

The engine they've been using for awhile now is also a lot more limited than the one they had in RTW and MTW. It doesn't seem to allow for easy changes into localities and places so I'd wager that cities won't change depending on what you've build and will be alltogether rather static compared to the ones we had in earlier games. We'll see but I'm willing to bet that the siege battles in place will use lots of static components no matter what your force composition.

Do hope I'm wrong though but it sounds like they once again go for the style over substance route they also did with Empire and Napoleon. Goddamnit, CA.

 

[Brinko]

I'm pretty sure they have gone for style over substance when every one of their showoff videos have never been more than showing some premade battle. Yeah that's great and all but what have you changed CA? Nothing? You've just made yet another overproduced Hollywood imagining of how people fought? I'm glad that they are streamlining the campaigns but I have to wait 10 minutes for those stupid fucking animation to play just so my heavy infantry can cut through shit levy troops.

 

[Brinko]

Just saw this posted to the website. They seem so fucking proud that their last game + the 2 expansions had a combined total of 90 units. Can't wait for CA to ram more dlc up my ass hard in preparation of RTW2.

 

[Raghar]

One year turns yet somehow with seasons (one year summer, the other winter will prolly be the outcome)

That's quite bad, it gives a term "a year without summer" a whole new meaning.

 

[Brinko]

Didn't they already do that in Medieval 2? I remember the game skipping 2 1/2 years ending with a 5 year span within one season which ended up with the game having about 250 turns.

 

[Raghar]

No, medieval 2 had winter and summer turns. 5*250 would be 1250 years. M2 had slightly more than 100 years.
Actually it had:
start_date 1080 summer
end_date 1530 winter
timescale 2.00

470/2 = 235 turns

 

[Sranchammer]

Is that the utopian, multicultural society we keep hearing about?

 

[anus_pounder]

 

[Brinko]

No, medieval 2 had winter and summer turns. 5*250 would be 1250 years. M2 had slightly more than 100 years.
Actually it had:
start_date 1080 summer
end_date 1530 winter
timescale 2.00

470/2 = 235 turns

Yeah i know they had both summer and winter turns, I'm just saying there is precedent in this stupid decision. Even more so when Shogun 2 included spring and fall.

 

[Raghar]

Actually Shogun 2 was correct, 4 seasons per year. 240 turns. (I wonder why they are so scared to have 400+ turns.)

 

[Trash]

Because according to their stats most players quit after 200 or so turns. Ofcourse having a short, normal and long campaign is out of the question since players would just get confused having to make such choices right at the start. Same with them removing Victory Conditions. Don't want people to feel frustrated or angry because they can't win. Everyone should be a winner!

It's all so fucking pedestrian.

 

[kris]

Because according to their stats most players quit after 200 or so turns. Ofcourse having a short, normal and long campaign is out of the question since players would just get confused having to make such choices right at the start. Same with them removing Victory Conditions. Don't want people to feel frustrated or angry because they can't win. Everyone should be a winner!

It's all so fucking pedestrian.

But I wonder why they see that as a problem. I pretty much never finish Strategy games, less so 4X ones. If they want players to continue playing longer they should make it more challenging as the game progresses, because the main reason I (and I guess most else) is because the game is by all means already won. apart from a few times when the end game just aint as fun.

 

[Raghar]

because the game is by all means already won. apart from a few times when the end game just aint as fun.

That's just before a Mongol invasion right?

Because according to their stats most players quit after 200 or so turns. Ofcourse having a short, normal and long campaign is out of the question since players would just get confused having to make such choices right at the start.

Well it depends on how many tactical battles you need to finish every turn. If it's a battle after battle after battle, it can get tiresome.

 

[Brayko]

I'm glad they're going back to non-firearms Europe. I get to create me a new personal battle tactics doctrine that endures victory in every battle, which I do for every Total War game that I like. :D

 

[kris]

because the game is by all means already won. apart from a few times when the end game just aint as fun.

That's just before a Mongol invasion right?

Well, stuff like that would spice things up. they certainly have historical possibilities on that account for this game.

 

[Spectacle]

I'm another one who rarely finishes a TW campaign. The end game is just so tedious and unrewarding. You have tons of provinces that all need to be managed, and more armies so there are several battles per turn. By this time you have your unit composition and tactics nailed town, so no battle is even remotely challenging, but you still need to play them all, using the auto-resolve can turn a steamroll into a defeat.

 

[Trash]

Medieval Total War managed to spice up the endgame (and the game in general) by making it possible for civil wars to break out when a king dies. Sometimes pretenders show up or one of your other sons won't accept his brother becoming king and voila, up to half of your armies and provinces rebel and shit gets interesting again.

In every other CA game they tried to spice up the endgame in more and more hamfisted ways. They really should look at Paradox for some ideas. Faraway provinces more difficult to rule and keep loyal, generals or governers getting their own ideas for power and independence, civil war between different factions, emergence of new threats from the edge of the map and the already mentioned succession possibilities could all work to spice things up when you grow too powerfull.

EU: Rome did a marvelous job at this with civil wars, ambitious governors trying to establish their own rule and powerfull generals suddenly deciding to cross the Rubicon. Oh well, we'll see what they'll do. I think it's going to be the same thing as in Shogun 2. At a certain point (probably dictated by number of provinces) your faction will splinter in two parts fighting for power with a massive diplomatic penalty to booth so every other faction will suddenly hate your guts and go after you. Sucked before so I hope it will be different but I highly doubt it.

 

[Spectacle]

One idea I've had to improve a TW style game is to have different turn scales for war and peacetime. When you're at peace you'd have one turn per year, and spend most of your time on diplomacy and managing cities, while when you're at war there would be 1 turn per month. When at war you'd mostly be moving your armies around. Build times and such would still be counted in years, so everything would take 12x as many turns during wartime. This means you would mostly fight wars with what you've got, building new fortresses and training new elite troops would take so long the war might be over before they finish, so you'd be fighting with your standing army and whatever levies you could round up on short notice.

 

[JarlFrank]

But the problem is: how will you make that work with AI wars?

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

But the problem is: how will you make that work with AI wars?

This.

It's not a bad idea, just really hard to implement. Having 4 turns per year (each for a season, with different marching distances) would be the best imo.