Rome 2 : Total War

OK, I do not wish to start or drag on an argument but.... The more I am playing this game the more I am enjoying it and amazed at some of the fine touches. The problem with a game of this magnitude is the complexity of its design, its is a RTS, it is a turned-based game and it even has RPG elements within it. As an avid fan of the Total War series, this has to be the most complex game CA have built and I can understand why there are so many issues.
I do feel sorry for CA, as I feel that since they were bought by SEGA, they have been under great stress to develop and cater games to appease die-hard Total War fans who love deep strategy games and casual gamers who want to play a game that commands massive armies in epic battles that look like Hollywood blockbusters. Another influence from SEGA was to make the series more accessible to console users with a pc, wasn't there plans to convert the game to console?
I have played other games and they have similar amounts of game breaking bugs and also console dumbness, even when they are heavily patched after a couple of years (original Company of Heroes; Armed Assault; etc).
I would recommend this game to any gamer wanting a grand, epic strategy game with heavy historical accuracy and the potential to change the timeline future (mwahhaar a Celtic run Europe and Middle East).
 
During the week my campaign map performance went south rather badly - probably because I was nearing turn 100 and there was a lot going on.

I loaded up this morning and it's much better - and the AI turn is at least three times quicker.

My in-game benchmark on Medium settings has gone from 30-odd FPS to 47. So, it's either yesterday's patch, my new laptop cooler or a combination of the two. Either way, I'm rather pleased :)
 
shaggyd said:
OK, I do not wish to start or drag on an argument but.... The more I am playing this game the more I am enjoying it and amazed at some of the fine touches. The problem with a game of this magnitude is the complexity of its design, its is a RTS, it is a turned-based game and it even has RPG elements within it. As an avid fan of the Total War series, this has to be the most complex game CA have built and I can understand why there are so many issues.
I do feel sorry for CA, as I feel that since they were bought by SEGA, they have been under great stress to develop and cater games to appease die-hard Total War fans who love deep strategy games and casual gamers who want to play a game that commands massive armies in epic battles that look like Hollywood blockbusters. Another influence from SEGA was to make the series more accessible to console users with a pc, wasn't there plans to convert the game to console?
I have played other games and they have similar amounts of game breaking bugs and also console dumbness, even when they are heavily patched after a couple of years (original Company of Heroes; Armed Assault; etc).
I would recommend this game to any gamer wanting a grand, epic strategy game with heavy historical accuracy and the potential to change the timeline future (mwahhaar a Celtic run Europe and Middle East).
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How is it the most complex yet? It's had a ton of features removed or streamlined, the worst ai of a TW title and the only added features are stupid flags and a lame squalor mechanic. It's awful in its current state, I'm playing Shogun 2 just to take the bad taste out of my mouth, it's better in every single way.
 
shaggyd said:
epic strategy game with heavy historical accuracy and the potential to change the timeline future (mwahhaar a Celtic run Europe and Middle East).
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What?

What is historically accurate about the following:

* Men being able to set fire to and seemingly melt away metal gates with a few torches..

* Pikeman magically getting rid of their pikes when not in Phalanx. Either that or they have telescopic pikes...

* it taking 4 years to sail around Italy because of the stupid 1 year = 1 turn mechanic

* You can only throw Pilla when charging, not as a fire at will weapon and to harass the enemy ( so basically the opposite of how they were used in real life....and in Rome Total War 1)

* Capturing a flag on an arbitrary spot on the map in the middle of a field magically wins you the battle and kills all your enemies...

I know it is a game but jesus this new game is a serious regression in the Total War franchise.
 
You think this game is less complicated than Shogun 1? Medieval 1? Comparing vanilla games this game must be as complicated/more than other Total War games. Someone sitting down to play TW:RII would find it harder than M2TW I think.
 
Fanatic said:
You think this game is less complicated than Shogun 1? Medieval 1? Comparing vanilla games this game must be as complicated/more than other Total War games. Someone sitting down to play TW:RII would find it harder than M2TW I think.
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It's a downgrade from Shogun 2. Stripped down of so many essential features. The battles are laughably easy, even on legendary.

Defending Rome 2 in its current state is just an act of mindless fanboyism.
 
Fanatic said:
Oh no, some guy on the Internet called me a fanboy.

Obviously my fanboyism blinds me to the essential features that Shogun 2 had that are now missing from Rome 2.
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The missing features are not even what makes Rome 2 a bad game. Dreadfully bad AI, on the other hand, takes away any enjoyment from longer sessions with it.

I didn't call you a fanboy. I said that defending the game in its current state is mindless fanboyism.
 
Fanatic said:
Rubbish AI has been a staple of all Total War games.
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Yes, but not to this extent. There are some major game-breaking issues, such as levy army recruitment by the AI in late game, troops charging and breaking at the last second, widespread starvation in AI's cities, suicidal attacks on your cities, or even worse, enemy armies just standing there, doing nothing.

There are plenty of things missing from the game too:

1) Family tree and complex internal politics - stripped down to bare minimum in Rome 2 that doesn't even make sense half of the time
2) Seasons - 1 year/turn takes away so much from the game, no winter sucks and you can't in any way connect with generals who die of old age within 10 turns
3) In-game cinematics (the cutscenes for events, agent's actions, etc.)
4) General speeches that warmed you up for the hardships of total war
5) Historical events (a big stepdown from previous games)
6) City view (I was really looking forward to CA bringing it back in this release, the pre-release footage showed something familiar, but it was never implemented in the final game)
7) More complex diplomacy
8) Bloody stances - fire at will for melee troops with the ability of range combat, guard mode, loose/tight formations...
9) Centurions in your legions

To name a few. Instead, we're given random civil war event, ability to take down the strongest gates with some torches, open field capture the flag mode and magical quick-cooldown abilities for all troops.


The fact remains, this is the worst launch since Empire, the game is half-finished and clearly rushed for early release. We're being shoved day-one DLC down our throats, half-baked patches for the months to come and pointless promises of not making the same mistakes in future games.

I'm disappointed and will not pre-order another Total War game again.
 
Game is running worse than it did when i bought it on release. The world map was running fine on Ultra a few days ago. I played last night and had to turn it down and it still runs like crap. Looks like a step backwards in performance with these patches. Going to shelf this for a few months till they fix it!!!!!!!!
 
Still can't put this down tbh. It might have its flaws, but I can't help but enjoy it.

Really like the new launcher too, makes me want to start playing the other games in the series again.
 
Massive patch and it hardly fixes the broken naval battles and the repetitive situation where tiny nations are asking me 5,000 gold for a peace or trade agreement or non aggression pact. Surely they should be paying me money not to destroy them!?
 
Crippled Potato said:
Massive patch and it hardly fixes the broken naval battles and the repetitive situation where tiny nations are asking me 5,000 gold for a peace or trade agreement or non aggression pact. Surely they should be paying me money not to destroy them!?
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You should be getting paid for being part of the gigantic team of QA beta testers. :D
 
OMG. Friend and I have been struggling though a co-op campaign for just 30 turns over the last week (averaging about 5-6 turns per night due to the silly AI turn speed) only to find after this patch the AI turn speed is even worse and after each turn one of us either desychs or crashes.

For the last 2 hours we have made TWO ****IN TURNS. Between crashes, desynchs and reloads. TWO TURNS IN TWO HOURS.

I'm going to retreat away from the PC now and slowly pluck my left eye out with a sharp pencil because I think that may be much less frustrating, a little more entertaining and slightly less painful.
 
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