Rome Total War II

[Infinitron]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-08-29-total-war-rome-2-emperor-edition-announced

Total War: Rome 2 Emperor Edition announced
New campaign, feature changes, and free for current players.

Sega has announced Total War: Rome 2 Emperor Edition, a new version of the strategy game that adds new content and feature changes.

It collects all the free content released so far as well as a new campaign pack expansion, Imperator Augustus.

Existing Rome 2 players get all that for free when the Emperor Edition launches in September as an automatic update for PC and Mac.

Developer Creative Assembly said Imperator Augustus adds hundreds of hours of gameplay across a new map based on the Second Triumvirate War, which saw Octavian, Marc Antony and Lepidus vying to become the very first Emperor of Rome. You can tackle the campaign as various Roman and non-Roman factions, including Armenia for the first time.

It also includes a tweaked politics system, overhauled building chains, rebalanced battles and better visuals in campaign and battle.

"Rome 2 was far and away our most ambitious game," Total War creative director Mike Simpson said.

"We see more people playing, and playing for longer, than any other game in the Total War series. However, we take our players' feedback very seriously. Through the multitude of improvements and free content updates we've brought to Rome 2 since its launch, we've worked hard to try and meet their expectations. We want Emperor Edition to be remembered as one of our finest games."

Rome 2 launched in September 2013 and became the most successful game in the series, but many fans were left unhappy with frustrating bugs, puzzling AI behaviours and performance problems. Creative Assembly has released a raft of updates since in a bid to improve the game.

 

[Irenaeus]

"Rome 2 was far and away our most shitty game," Total War creative director Mike Simpson said.

Fixed

 

[Tytus]

At least I'm getting this for free, so....meh.

 

[Irenaeus]

 

[KoolNoodles]

"We see more people playing, and playing for longer, than any other game in the Total War series."

Nobody will be playing Rome 2 in eight years. Nobody.

 

[General Maxson]

Nobody will be playing Rome 2 in eight years. Nobody.

No developer cares about that (maybe MMORPG devs do though).

 

[Caim]

It doesn't count as playing longer if all the other factions taking turns after yours takes so long you can take an extensive dump while waiting for them to finish.

 

[KoolNoodles]

Nobody will be playing Rome 2 in eight years. Nobody.

No developer cares about that (maybe MMORPG devs do though).

Was more a comment about how EB2 just came out, and there are hundreds of people browsing the TWC Medieval forums at any given time.

 

[Morgoth]

Nothing can save Rome II from it's internalized mediocracy and Hollywoodification.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Nothing can save Rome II from it's Hollywoodification.

Rome 1 suffered the same too. That's what mods had to fix. I remember that as far back as 2003 there were complaints about historical accuracy and awfully portrayed barbarians, from the previews.

 

[Brayko]

^Except Rome 1 was actually playable. Not to mention the fact that "Barbarians" was a derogatory term the Romans used, yet has somehow been embraced in modern times.

 

[TripJack]

^Except Rome 1 was actually playable.

thankfully our good friends at creative assembly recently released a patch to rectify that problem

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Not to mention the fact that "Barbarians" was a derogatory term the Romans used, yet has somehow been embraced in modern times.

That was the whole point of EB in the first place, hence Europa Barbarorum. At that time CA and their publishers couldn't give less of a shit. I still don't completely understand why they tried to do more of an effort this time.

 

[titus]

thankfully our good friends at creative assembly recently released a patch to rectify that problem

That's just their strategy to force players into the new game. "If Rome 1 is broken they'll play the less broken(yeah, right) Rome 2"

 

[Brinko]

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Total_War_ROME_II:_Patch_15

The headline changes in this beta are:

• Politics and civil war improvements
• Overhauled building chains
• Special regions
• Campaign balancing changes
• Land battle changes
• Naval battle balancing changes

Politics and Civil War Improvements

• Civil wars no longer inevitable, instead they are now based on your level of support. Based on your support you can end up having a high, medium or low chance of a civil war occurring each turn. You’ll get warning messages when you reach those levels (currently a few bugs related to that).
• When a civil war occurs, all the generals and admirals not of your family will go over to the civil war. As will any agents in their armies and the regions their standing in. All other agents and regions then have a chance to join the civil war faction.
• Multiple civil wars can occur through the course of a campaign.
• There are now political support effect bundles. Based on the support for your party you will get an effect bundle that affects your faction. Very low support and you’ll get penalties to morale, public order, research. Very high you’ll get big faction wide bonuses but you’ll also run a higher risk of civil war occurring.
• Political action costs reduced.
• New effect bundles based on your Imperium level that increase political action cost and political incident occurrences, as well as giving your party more support each turn past level 4 Imperium. The effects of technologies that reduce political action cost have been increased.
• Effects of political promotions improved to give gravitas per turn and better bonuses.
• The first level political promotion no longer has any requirements so even basic statesmen can accumulate gravitas and contribute to the political game.
• Core general skills also give gravitas per turn. Want to keep politics balanced? Make sure generals from all the parties are fighting and gaining skills.
• The effects of wives have also been increased.
• New effects from Imperium that increase political action cost and political incident frequency as you gain more power. You will also gain more influence for your party automatically as you get bigger, making it harder and harder to avoid civil wars.

So now it is perfectly possible to avoid civil wars if you manage politics right. You do that via actions, getting promotions or by having generals win battles and skilling up. But as the game goes on and you expand it will be harder and harder to avoid civil wars.

Overhaul Building Changes
The Aim

The aims for these changes are simple:

• Provide more building options for all cultures and more interesting building combinations.
• Make resource regions more important.
• Improve the balance of the late game economy.
• Balance food/squalor so buildings can be upgraded further.

THESE CHANGES DO NOT APPLY TO EXISTING SAVE GAMES

In order to not break/soft-break save games, the new building changes are only available when starting new campaigns.

Universal changes
These changes affect all cultures.

• Resource chains – have been renamed and their effects improved to make them more important.
• New amber resource chain – appears in some regions in German. Amber will not be a tradeable resource, but the chain will provide a good amount of income.
• Removal of military equipment chains apart from siege engines. Weapon and armour upgrades now come from iron regions. New horse resource chain added to buff cavalry units which is also exclusive to some regions.
• Universal minor industrial chain now only has mine line of buildings. This change has been made because of other chain changes for each culture that have added more industrial focused buildings.
• Splitting of industry and culture income types into manufacturing/mining and entertainment/learning respectively. This is taken advantage of with many of the new building bonuses. For example Gold resource chain gives mining income, and the Roman goldsmith lines gives manufacturing income and a bonus to mining income for the province.
• Garrison units now come from the core settlement building, ports and military chains only. The core settlement chain garrisons have been improved and all now include at least one good quality unit.
• No longer any difference in port and religious chains in major/minor settlements.
• Coffee machine now works.
• Negative bonuses now apply from level 2 in a small form so you can see what those are earlier
• Food penalties removed from lowest level core settlement buildings.
• Number of religious chains has been reduced for all factions so the remaining ones can provide better bonuses.

Barbarians

• Province capital core chain now splits at level 4 into 3 options which allow you to focus the speciality of a province more.
• The minor settlement core chains in non-resource regions now splits into 2 options at level 4 for the same reasons as above.
• New Warrior Lodge chain added for province capitals. The goldsmith building line and tavern building lines have been moved here and a new proving grounds line added. This chain provides income/happiness along with providing buffs for your units.
• Artisan chain split into artisan and craftsmen chain.
• Artisan chain has bronze workshop, new coin maker and new horn maker lines. Bronze workshop line provides recruitment of all melee/spear infantry.
• Craftsmen chain has clay pit, brine distiller and woodworker lines. Woodworker line provides recruitment of all ranged infantry/siege units.
• Both of the above can be built in major and minor settlements. Changes should keep the barbarian flavour of recruiting from diverse chains, but having recruitment focused onto a few lines instead of being so spread out as it was before.
• New minor sanitation chain added, has 2 lines that can be upgraded to level 3.
• Storage pit line now provides a replenishment rate bonus for the province.
• Research chains moved from agriculture to commons chain.

Eastern

• Province capital core building splits into 2 at level 2: the Royal and Satrap lines. The Royal will be more expensive once costs are added in.
• The minor settlement core chains in non-resource regions now splits into 2 options at level 2: trade and garrison lines.
• Infantry military chain merged into one line to make infantry recruitment simpler.
• New military buff chain added, with ranged and cavalry upgrade lines which go to level 3.
• Industrial chain adjusted so it has 3 lines: adobe, new weaving, and new mint ones.
• New water chain, using existing windcatcher and fountain lines, available in major settlements only.
• New town centre chain added for minor settlements. It has trade and game field lines.
• New tax chain added for minor settlements. Splits into tax and road lines. Focused on tax and agent bonuses.
• Herding and granary lines added to agriculture chain. Granary line gives replenishment bonuses.

Greek

• The minor settlement core chains in non-resource regions now splits into 3 options at level 2: farm, market and civic lines.
• Military buff chain now only goes up to level 3.
• Industrial chain adjusted to the following 3 lines: amphorae, goldsmith, mint.
• Granary line added to agricultural chain, gives replenishment bonuses.
• New town centre chain added for minor settlements. It has trade and gymnasia lines.

Roman

• Province capital core building splits into 2 at level 2: the civic and garrison lines.
• The minor settlement core chains in non-resource regions now splits into 3 options at level 2: farm, market and civic lines.
• Military buff chain now only goes up to level 3.
• Industrial chain adjusted to the following 3 lines: amphorae, goldsmith, mint.
• Granary line added to agricultural chain, gives replenishment bonuses.
• New town centre chain added for minor settlements. It has trade and theatre lines.

Special Regions
A new thing that has been introduced are special regions.Effectively regions now have effect bundles that give them certain bonuses. Currently Roma, Carthago, Pella, Pergamon, Antioch and Baktra have these effects. Rome for example gives +2 recruitment slots in that province for owning it and +15% to all income. Carthago has a bonus to commerce income.

Other Campaign Changes
Alongside the extensive building changes are a bunch of other balance changes for the campaign.

• Core income for all factions reduced from 3000 to 1500
• Playable factions get different bonuses to core income. Sparta gets 500 for example, Macedon 1000, Rome 1500. So overall Sparta will have 2000 (1500 base + 500 extra) and Rome 3000 (1500 base + 1500 extra).
• Post-battle settlement occupation options rebalanced.
• Iceni, Roman, Eastern and royal Scythian faction traits adjusted. Iceni captive reduction replaced with small negative to morale in enemy territory. Roman experience bonus for infantry replaced with +1 recruitment slot in all regions. Eastern experience bonus for missile units replaced with +25% ammo. Same for Royal Scythians.
• Besieger attrition reduced.
• Replenishment rates reduced.
• Biephi faction renamed to Apulii.
• Fixed inconsistent messages/outcomes for subjects (faction screen dilemmas).
• Fix for not all factions getting missions, subjects, incidents or dilemmas in all campaigns.

Land Battle Changes

• Units with precursor weapons can now fire at will when stationary.
• The pace of battles and combat has been reduced, and morale values adjusted so battles last longer and are more dynamic.
• Axe and shield animation set based on existing animations added to the game.
• Balancing changes to almost all units.

Naval Battle Balancing Changes

• Speed of all ships reduced.
• Ship artillery accuracy reduced.
• Transport ships ramming damage significantly reduced.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

Who cares?

Just let it rot.

 

[Ranselknulf]

If it hits $5 or less I'll probably buy it. By that point Activision / Creative Assembly will probably not care about modders doing their thing.

The real question is when Medieval Total War 3 is coming out. I enjoy killing mongols more than anything else.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

I wish Activision were still the publisher,not something I ever imagined to say

 

[Dead Guy]

I wish Creative Assembly were still creative.

Actually, I guess they were never all that creative, all the battle rules are pretty much Warhammer with different dice.

It's pretty amazing that patch 15 can include so many things that I can't even be arsed to read half of it in the first place. Most of what I skimmed through sounds like good things, but how is it that it takes you 15 patches to get some of these things into the game? Like throwing pila without charging, holy shit?

 

[KoolNoodles]

If it hits $5 or less I'll probably buy it. By that point Activision / Creative Assembly will probably not care about modders doing their thing.

The real question is when Medieval Total War 3 is coming out. I enjoy killing mongols more than anything else.

First part won't happen because mods can't save this engine, and it's not as "moddable". E:TW still sucks, there's your answer.

Second part, probably never(or it won't be any good). Main reason: Medieval warfare has a much stronger siege element to it, and their engine just can't do siege battles. Either they develop a new engine(unlikely, as they've milked this one since ETW, and it costs them next to nothing compared to developing a new engine), or they release a bad game. The other thing their engine can't do properly is cavalry. In medieval warfare, cavalry is everything. The nobles, the tanks, the elite. It's what wins battles while the peasants and middle class/mercenaries muck about in the mud. First time people see gothic plate knights slam into some archers, stop, throw a few around, then dance in one on one combat for 5 minutes, they will uninstall the shit that will be MTW3.

 

[JarlFrank]

Cavalry is not "everything" in medieval warfare tho.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

Still a very big part.

The current engine cannot simulate melee combat, period. Everything else comes later. As long as they don't pour some serious sources and capital into making a new one, TW will continue being shit.

 

[JarlFrank]

Yeah, current engine sucks hard at melee and it's been shit since Empire (but bearable there because of musket focus).
The way their melee combat focuses on COOL ANIMASHUNS makes units often lose all coherence as individual soldiers do cool 300-like finishing moves instead of standing in line and stabbing the guys in front of them like they did in the Rome/Med2 engine.
It became really obvious in Empire when sending cavalry after fleeing infantry. In Rome and Med 2 they'd just ride by and hack the guys in their vicinity. In the new engine, there is a COOL TAKEDOWN ANIMATION for each individual kill.

 

[Jick Magger]

It was passable in Shogun II, primarily because of the faster-pace of combat and the HONORABU WONU ON WONU COMBATU at least fitting with the period. It stopped being excusable in Rome II when Roman Legions and phalanx formations degenerating into incoherent blobs the moment they get into combat became commonplace.

 

[Infinitron]

Release date for Emperor Edition - September 16th: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-09-04-total-war-rome-2-emperor-edition-release-date-announced