Rome Total War II

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

Campaign and land battle AI are pretty decent, especially for a total war game. Haven't had naval battles yet so I can't tell.

Overall it's a nice SP experience and multi battles are also very good. If only there was a way to make turns go by faster.

 

[Cursed Platypus]

I think the game is more instable than anything. The way my friends are describing it, everything is intermittent.

Sometimes things are flawless, AI is smart enough, graphics pretty, turns quick, framerate fluids. Other times AI starts to comically glitch everywhere, Textures are missing, textures are completely awful, Game is choppy, turns take 2 min...
It seems the coding is here, but there are some massive flaws that prevent it from running correctly.

Just found this :



(I know it's starting to get old)

 

[Kattze]

And so the false messiah known as Rome II was unmasked, meanwhile fanatical devotees such as yours truly continued to wait patiently for the return of the prophesied saviour, EB II.


Thank god I don't have enough money to spend on D1Ps.

 

[Cursed Platypus]

With the absence of the option to choose the size of the city in custom siege, I'm having a doubt :

Does the city on the battle map scales to it's appearance on the campaign map? Does a huge province capital looks the same on the battle map as a small province capital?
Does a small port without walls looks the same as a big port without walls?

 

[aris]

So far the UI has been my biggest issue. It just irritates me. Is this the Shogun2 UI?

1. no, It's different. Shogun 2's UI was great. This ono bothers me too. Especially the fact that the different bottom screen are of different sizes, and that fact that you can't get them away.

 

[Space Satan]

So far:
- UI is dumb as hell
- AI is retarded in city combat
- Loading speed and graphics are okay
- Tons of bugs
- Battles are quick but not in a bad way
- Abilities suck. Noone is using common throwing pilums when you have flaming ones.
Overall - game have potential but will be in "acceptable" state after 5 or so patches.

 

[titus]

So far:
- UI is dumb as hell
- AI is retarded in city combat
- Loading speed and graphics are okay
- Tons of bugs
- Battles are quick but not in a bad way
- Abilities suck. Noone is using common throwing pilums when you have flaming ones.
Overall - game have potential but will be in "acceptable" state after 5 or so patches.

Pretty much. With the mention that they will eventually fix the bugs and other stuff, but the UI will probably remain a piece of shit. Why the hell couldn't they keep the RTW's UI (full screen, easy to work with). What is up with this next-gen, innovative shit?

Also, I haven't experienced any CTDs. I`m playing the steam version with a crack applied(reloaded), so for those who get CTDs, you may want to try that.

I`m a little bothered by the number of buildings and the buildings themselves. Has anyone managed to build more than 5 buildings in their cities? That is where my cities started revolting...

Oh, and the campaign AI is still retarded.

 

[CrisGer]

I have my fingers crossed about this, i am hoping against hope for decent naval battles and assets. And for some way for the game to be more than individual set piece battles, but we will see how it is, I have studied the predecessors a lot and collected and supported mod projects for them as well, as some game tweaks and fixes. So i will see how it goes. Glad it is covered here.

UPDATE: ok, had time to view a few videos...some detaiil is good, some not good. Armour and clothing so so, ships again, somewhat accurate but some major faults. But the dynamics are impressive. Will have to test the game itself when i have time, glad we finally got II out of the devel's hands and now we can set about fixing it as we have with past titles.

 

[Spectacle]

Seems a bit buggy. I attacked and destroyed an enemy fleet that was just outside a port, and after I won my fleet is stuck inside the port's zone of control, and the game wont let me move my fleet, I can neither move away nor attack the settlement. I gotta reload it seems.

 

[CrisGer]

Oh dear. Well we will hope for the best. It is not an easy matter to deal with mobile naval units in a sim of any kind, had no idea how they were going to handle this and will hope it maybe just early days. thanks for the report.

 

[oscar]

"Hold ctrl while dragging out a formation to order the selected units to walk instead of run"

Why is running the default movement now? Makes much more sense for marching to be the default.

 

[aris]

1. hmm, as far as I remember, when single clicking a selection to move, they did not run, they marched. Anyway, a trick that I learned from shogun 2: while having a selection of unit, you can make them change from walking and running during the course by pressing 'r'. It makes it infinitely more easy to control the approach speed.
2. also, whatever they are seeing must be seriously scary :D

 

[CrisGer]

wow some seriously improved equipment on those Peditatii...i am impressed. and Hopeful.

 

[CrisGer]

Agree about that insta feature...love the roller skate troop image wont be able to get that out of my head now lol.

It is a poor choice for a complex maneuver game to set defaults to lowest common denominator. It may take time to learn but it makes the overall dynamics flowed from the start, without mega tweaking which we could and did do with most of these but it was a pain.

have to think of a good latin name for the roller troops.

Veni Velites?

 

[aris]

Why is running the default movement now? Makes much more sense for marching to be the default.

The fast troop movement speed and perma-running are meant to allow bad casual players to fix their mistakes without any consequences. As in "BAWWWW THE ENEMY CAVALRY IS FLANKING MY ARMY, WHAT CAN I DO?" ----> Insta-move spear-armed imperial rollerskate corps on said flank to face cav, defeat same, day saved.

This all began in Empire with the insta-squares.

1. BS, this is exactly how it was in total war: rome, and that's why they have it here. Fucking nostalgia fags.
2. it's also a design decision to bring back the arcade strategy game feel of the first rome game, which hasn't really been there in the other games since.

 

[CrisGer]

heheh, yep like that one.

roll on rollermen.

 

[Stonewolf]

Still no QTEs during battles?

 

[Brinko]

Someone unlocked the Seleucids.

 

[kris]

"Hold ctrl while dragging out a formation to order the selected units to walk instead of run"

Why is running the default movement now? Makes much more sense for marching to be the default.

the running could just be for the formation change, which has been default before.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

Someone unlocked the Seleucids.

Now what does this remind me of?

 

[oldmanpaco]

heh. Didn't they say that the Seleucid's would be a free 'download' in a month or so?

 

[Mortmal]

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/09/total-war-rome-ii-review-a-total-mess/

Pretty accurate review

 

[BlackAdderBG]

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/09/total-war-rome-ii-review-a-total-mess/

Pretty accurate review

LoL for me is opposite of what this journo says.The game is more complex than Shogun,campaign map has more choices and is the best since original Medieval.AI is ok,nothing Empire level bad, loading times are way,way shorter.Pretty unaccurate review.Game actually tries something fresh with all the events ala CK style,armies leveling separate from generals , tons of minor fractions having potential for modding them.Things that annoy me is the same external web encyclopedia,graphical glitches on campaign map and broken shadows in battle.

 

[Brinko]

heh. Didn't they say that the Seleucid's would be a free 'download' in a month or so?

Yeah it is and it's probably going to introduce a few unique units (read: palette swapped phalanx and horse archers) and balance it because as it stands the Seleucids under player control are just too damn good and just bulldoze everything from the few people I've talked to who've used it.

 

[Cursed Platypus]

I've seen this game running fine (30 FPS) on my friend's DELL XPS. It's got a mid range graphic card, GT640 or something. He runs it on High settings with AA.

These professionals must be running this on crappy laptops with integrated graphics. There's no other way. Or maybe they haven't figured out that you must restart the game for the options change to really take effect.

It's really like they're doing it on purpose. The one thing they should focus their criticism is the intermittent AI, and relative instability. I can confirm those bugs and CTD are nothing compared to Empire's release.

And the fucking UI. Yet none of these retards really speak about how inferior it is to Shogun's. Probably because they haven't played neither.

Stuff that they have praised or ignored in Empire, Napoleon and Shogun are now being criticised, and the scores are the 2nd lowest after Napoleon.

It's like they're really doing it on purpose.