Rome Total War II

[Malakal]

Units still lose all cohesion and formation when attacking tho - gives a huge bonus to the defender who can hide behind the phalanx.

The same thing happened in Rome 1, the best way to attack with pikemen was to order them to move to a position behind the enemy line. I'll give the tactic a ago in Rome 2 once the Seleucid DLC is out.

Yes I am aware of this but this tactic is risky since you never know if your units wont just try to move through the enemy forces. AI tries force moving and we see how that works.

Also remembered another quirk of the AI - if it gets reinforcements it tries to combine its forces as soon as possible, often by force marching troops ignoring the opposition it encounters.

 

[Spectacle]

Units still lose all cohesion and formation when attacking tho - gives a huge bonus to the defender who can hide behind the phalanx.

The same thing happened in Rome 1, the best way to attack with pikemen was to order them to move to a position behind the enemy line. I'll give the tactic a ago in Rome 2 once the Seleucid DLC is out.

Yes I am aware of this but this tactic is risky since you never know if your units wont just try to move through the enemy forces. AI tries force moving and we see how that works.

Also remembered another quirk of the AI - if it gets reinforcements it tries to combine its forces as soon as possible, often by force marching troops ignoring the opposition it encounters.

Just tried it out in a custom battle with Macedon against the Arvenii. I easily won the battle with a 2:1 kill ration simply by telling my pike line to walk to the other side of the map. Add some cavalry to chase down skirmishers and flank charge any particularly stubborn enemy units and you're ready to be the next Alexander.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Pikes are insane indeed.

 

[Branm]

....in regards to cracked 0-day updates...Not sure what world you are living in but there are like literally no games that will get all their updates cracked much less have them cracked 0-day.Seriously, the scene is nothing but a shadow of its former self. It's not like 15+ years ago with FTP's and having every single game ripped and all updates cracked...

Besides no group will botherif its from a company like CA which will take 15+ patches to get something halfway playable.

Anyway the brain dead AI was expected and I'm glad I leeched this

 

[Zeriel]

Actually, as much as the groups love to talk about how "this is for the scene, we don't care about you scrubs", the priority seems to be to make sure they always get the big releases, and the big releases patches, no matter how bad or broken those releases are. Like in most things in life, popularity accounts for everything.

 

[Dreaad]

This... I'm sorry but this shit is just incredible. This isn't even anymore, it's just theft. I can accept AAA console-retardation, after all people will always make poor quality products. Selling broken products is a whole other beast. The game industry is just fucked, if you buy something like a fucking TV and it doesn't work at least there is consumer rights laws to more or less protect people. They just return the TV and get a refund or a replacement.

We are at the point where developers blatantly lie to your face, go to work, smile at each other, pat each other on the back and rake in the cash. Releasing fucking beta versions of games for full price and then make retarded passive aggressive apology statements. Then they wonder why piracy is such a problem. Fuck that, I'm not going to buy a product if it doesn't work, that's just stupidity. Popamole decline I can handle, this turd is on a whole other level. Developers need to be held accountable for their bullshit.

Fucking fuck balls!!! Imagine if you go to the cinema to watch a movie and for 20 minutes there's frame ripping and the sound vanishes. Then after you finish watching some fuck tard with a grin came out and said "Yeah I'm real sorry, but don't worry bro's over the next 6 months we'll fix it for you HARHARHAR." I hope these people have an airplane fly into their house.

 

[Zeriel]

Then consider that the game is critically acclaimed. I love the 100% reviews for Rome 2. Nothing wrong with gaming journalism, nope nope nope!

 

[fizzelopeguss]

....in regards to cracked 0-day updates...Not sure what world you are living in but there are like literally no games that will get all their updates cracked much less have them cracked 0-day.Seriously, the scene is nothing but a shadow of its former self. It's not like 15+ years ago with FTP's and having every single game ripped and all updates cracked...

Besides no group will botherif its from a company like CA which will take 15+ patches to get something halfway playable.

Anyway the brain dead AI was expected and I'm glad I leeched this

I'm guessing it's taking so long because they have to make their own installer that unpacks and repacks the files....and ain't no one got time for that shit!

 

[Zeriel]

It was already released. But generally the wait is they have to patch cracked files, so someone has to sit down and do some work. It's not a meaningful amount of work, but it's more effort than "take patch, throw it at users".

 

[Jugashvili]

Looking at the online discussions about RTW2 is very revealing as to why this series is shit and it will keep on declining no matter what. It looks like about 90% of the playerbase is mostly concerned with multiplayer gameplay -- keeping the game fast, "balanced" and popamoleish so they can get it over with before someone's connection dies out and so that nobody whinges about how this or that faction's units are better/cheaper/whatever than another's. The singleplayer experience feels like an afterthought, something to do while not playing MP. I've long suspected that their focus on multiplayer, and on gimmicks like drop-in battles, is an admission of the fact that they are utterly incapable of producing an AI that can pose even a minor challenge to the human player. But then again, I believe the people behind "Total War" only have a very superficial interest in warfare and strategy, as they have been incapable of modelling anything other than simplistic, meatgrinder attrition warfare in the 13 years they've been doing this.

 

[Spectacle]

Looking at the online discussions about RTW2 is very revealing as to why this series is shit and it will keep on declining no matter what. It looks like about 90% of the playerbase is mostly concerned with multiplayer gameplay -- keeping the game fast, "balanced" and popamoleish so they can get it over with before someone's connection dies out and so that nobody whinges about how this or that faction's units are better/cheaper/whatever than another's. The singleplayer experience feels like an afterthought, something to do while not playing MP. I've long suspected that their focus on multiplayer, and on gimmicks like drop-in battles, is an admission of the fact that they are utterly incapable of producing an AI that can pose even a minor challenge to the human player. But then again, I believe the people behind "Total War" only have a very superficial interest in warfare and strategy, as they have been incapable of modelling anything other than simplistic, meatgrinder attrition warfare in the 13 years they've been doing this.

I would bet that multiplayers are just a vocal minority in this game as in most others though. Single players just have much less reason to ever post about the game on a dedicated forum, since they'll be moving on after finishing/getting tired of the campaign, whether the game is good or bad.

 

[Raghar]

Does someone know what battle realism do?

Also can you issue orders when you have paused game on hard?

 

[KoolNoodles]

Does someone know what battle realism do?

Also can you issue orders when you have paused game on hard?

I don't know about the specifics for RTW2, but in the past "battle realism" usually meant you couldn't view the battlefield that far beyond your troops, can't do orders when paused, no mini-map, no units crying out/status updates when shit goes wrong,etc. Don't know what it's like in RTW2. The difficulty should have no effect on issuing orders, but that's easy to test surely?

 

[Acheiropoieta]

Looking at the online discussions about RTW2 is very revealing as to why this series is shit and it will keep on declining no matter what. It looks like about 90% of the playerbase is mostly concerned with multiplayer gameplay -- keeping the game fast, "balanced" and popamoleish so they can get it over with before someone's connection dies out and so that nobody whinges about how this or that faction's units are better/cheaper/whatever than another's. The singleplayer experience feels like an afterthought, something to do while not playing MP. I've long suspected that their focus on multiplayer, and on gimmicks like drop-in battles, is an admission of the fact that they are utterly incapable of producing an AI that can pose even a minor challenge to the human player. But then again, I believe the people behind "Total War" only have a very superficial interest in warfare and strategy, as they have been incapable of modelling anything other than simplistic, meatgrinder attrition warfare in the 13 years they've been doing this.

Nevermind that the multiplayer side of this game is a shell of it's glorious Shogun 2 self (the only game in the series I ever bothered with the multiplayer side of).

 

[oscar]

Medieval II had glorious multiplayer. Played it a fair bit in 2012 and had a lot of awesome matches, some extremely close.

Though you always had the occasional asshole who would camp longbowmen on the edge of the map at the top of a mountain and expect you to charge.

 

[Horus]

Wonder who was the genius that had the brilliant idea to hire BF2 ai designer to design the ai for an strategy game. That sure worked well.

 

[Cursed Platypus]

Wonder who was the genius that had the brilliant idea to hire BF2 ai designer to design the ai for an strategy game. That sure worked well.

Studio Director: Tim Heaton

What did you do before CA?

I was at EA Partners for seven years, working with external teams being published by EA. That included Lionhead, Free Radical Design and Crytek amongst others, and getting involved in due diligence with lots of other developers around Europe. My role was to work with the teams, advising best practice, delivering what EA needed, and supporting in all development aspects. It involved lots of travel, and once I’d collected every gold card for every airline and hotel chain I decided my job was done.

You can have a sample of this genius' opinion on how to develop games : http://gamasutra.com/view/feature/169354/how_creative_assemblys_process_.php

There's a good tumor.

 

[Caim]

For those who do not speak business: "advising best practice" and "delivering what EA needs" means being a slave master who whips the brogrammer grunts until they deliver something what can be technically shipped, then telling the Lords of the Nine who form EA's higher management they're ready to go gold.

 

[Brinko]

Seems CA isn't receiving the support they usually get in their heavily censored forum.

 

[Raghar]

For some reason German empire spawns through whole western europe and conquered north of Rome.

They used agents quite efficiently and concentrated fairly well theirs units.

 

[Bradylama]

So Tier 3 and 4 cities still don't have siege weapons for me. What gives? Do I honestly have to research battering rams before they pop up? Because in that case at least ballistas should be available. otoh I KNOW that the techs weren't the problem because I had everything up to heavy onagers researched and still my Tier 4 city won't let me deploy any goddamn siege equipment.

 

[Cyberarmy]

So Tier 3 and 4 cities still don't have siege weapons for me. What gives? Do I honestly have to research battering rams before they pop up? Because in that case at least ballistas should be available. otoh I KNOW that the techs weren't the problem because I had everything up to heavy onagers researched and still my Tier 4 city won't let me deploy any goddamn siege equipment.

With all siege research I havent seen them too in some battles, it is some bug luck related it seems, just like sea balistae with out attacking capability.

 

[Bradylama]

Tier 4 cities are just so ridiculously OP to begin with it isn't even funny. Ballista towers reach out and rape all of your troop formations. Taking on Tier 4s with onagers/heavy onagers is a must. Best thing is it's not even in the building description.

 

[Malakal]

I think you need military tradition for fielding heavier siege equipment. Superior engineers or something like that.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Tier 4 cities are just so ridiculously OP to begin with it isn't even funny. Ballista towers reach out and rape all of your troop formations. Taking on Tier 4s with onagers/heavy onagers is a must. Best thing is it's not even in the building description.

Well, they balanced it with burnable gates even by peasants ...

 

[Bradylama]

A better way to balance it would have been to make deployable siege defenses actually work.

 

[KoolNoodles]

I still remember when they had all these promises about siege warfare in ETW, massive Star Forts, siege tactics, deployables, etc. Instead we got a broken unfinished shit pile where the only "deployables" were earthworks that didn't really work. Wasn't until a month after release that modders found all the missing assets locked away in the files.

They are just a marketing department now, with a small game dev team attached to churn out "surefire" money makers. That's AAA gaming for you. How much have they spent on the Warscape engine since Empire? A couple bucks? Then look at the sales: profit.