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Myth
09-12-2013, 10:20
A list for things to be fixed, removed, added or changed. Let's try and provide CA with something that can help them see at a glance if they're headed in the right direction according to their fans and customers, and if they have everything noted down. I'll edit the original post as you guys contribute more things.

Things to add:

- True hotseat mode

- Bring back the Family Tree from RTW and flesh it out even more, ATM generals aren't very interesting and easily replaced.

- City view in peace time like in Rome 1

- Naval transport ships that can carry a set number of troops at a maximum

- An astrologer/seer type of agent who has to do with research: speeding it up, stealing technology from more advanced factions etc.

- Seasons (preferably 4, but atleast 2...) and seasonal effects.

- Walls or some other way of stalling for minor cities.

- Generals & admirals should gain traits based on their battlefield tactics & tendencies as well as their record of success in battle (with appropriate bonuses). They should gain reputations according to these factors and successful tacticians should be renowned and feared for it. These factors should be taken into account by the AI when fielding its own force. The AI should account for powerful enemy generals on the Campaign Map as well when facing them with inferior forces. The mere presence of a renowned tactician leading a powerful army in an enemy region should affect public happiness for the duration.

- Factions should be able to negotiate peace agreements between their clients/satrapies and other aggressive states, or use the threat of military action diplomatically against aggressors if they don't back down.

- Bring back 'Give Settlement'.

- Bring back Fire at Will for all missile carrying units.


Things to improve/change:


Campaign Map, campaign map AI, factions:

- Campaign AI more cunning and with its own long-term goal whicih it aspires to. The AI must make better use of building slots, especially in newly conquered settlements or we will never see any AI faction expand to become an empire. If the AI is not sophiticated enough for that, let's give bonus and cheat to the AI factions to compensate.

-The ability to zoom out further on the campaign map

- Improved starting positions for "major" factions. No 1 province minors making super empires, no Epirus being wiped out by turn 10. The playable factions should be factors the player has to plan for and work with/around/against for at least the first half of the game.

- Allow us to manually enter amounts in Diplomacy -> Offers -> Payments box

- The AI calculation of force strength on the Campaign Map should be adjusted by taking into consideration that it's always fighting at a disadvantage to the human player, not simply factoring the comparable unit strengths when it comes to a battle. Understandably this is used to assess auto-resolve results, but as it stands now, it grossly misrepresents the AI's fighting capability when it comes to actual real-time battles. This may help the AI from bankrupting itself trying to replace its best units by sending them into battle with little realistic chance of winning. Maybe in cases where the player chooses to manually fight the battle the AI will withdraw after recalculating its potential for success when factoring in the human player as well, and look for additional strength from supporting armies before it reengages.

- Aggressive, Expansionist AI factions should act that way, regardless of campaign difficulty.

Battles:

- Better / expanded shortcuts for battle commands (we should be able to decide if we want our cohorts to waste their pila or not)

- Marines who fight onboard naval vessels for a living should get bonuses versus land-based infantry, especially when actually boarding. Marines should board faster and more effectively, while land-based infantry should suffer penalties during the first phase of boarding when only a few men have made it onboard the enemy ship and are surrounded by the bulk of the enemy unit.

- Cavalry units should not commit suicide by charging headlong into spear units under all but the most desperate circumstances.

- Elite units should be more aware of vulnerable flanks, and should respond to outflanking maneuvers/attempts when possible.
Skirmishing mode that works, based off closest threat proximity. Skirmishers should be much quicker to react to directional changes and have significantly faster acceleration and speed than any line infantry for 'Skirmishing Mode' to work effectively. When a unit is in 'SM' and an attack command is given, they should quickly close to firing distance, release their volley, and then immediately retreat back some distance to repeat this when facing a threat from the front. The effectiveness of this should vary with unit experience and quality. This would greatly reduce them being caught flat-footed by line infantry.

- Guard mode to be switchable and not " by default " as it is now. Guard mode can even replace the discipline concept from previous TW games ! For example, barbarians or non professionnal units could loose this ability when out of the general radius or when the battle is prolonged.


- Ability to zoom into the minimap during battles.

- The ability to line up troops on fences like in Empire / Napoleon.

- More diverse and more beautiful battle maps.

- The collision model. Units often melt into each other and have no sense of solidness or mass at times. There is significant clipping, where pikes in a phalanx will poke out the center of shields in the front rank. Horse heads clipping through the bodies of infantry, getting them stuck together. Boats clipping through ports, beaches and settlements, etc. and disappearing.

- Battle animations are often out-of-synch and units stand around looking at each other and not engaging. Men fall down and die when no one is attacking them, etc. This is a huge step backwards from Shogun 2!


Gameplay:

- Expanded technology tree with more options and longer research times (this will make the +research buildings more valuable). Possibly tying reseearch to knowledge points or other such resources generated by library class buildings. Make technology tied to the resources and provinces a faction holds. If you have no iron at all (not even importing it) it's not feasible to be able to discover better smithing and ironworking techniques. This will make trade and strategic localized conflicts for the obtaining of a particular resource more important. The tech tree should be complex with many smaller discoveris along the way, instead of a 1-2-3-Marian reforms approach. Play Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and see how tech research is done there - it brings atmosphere and excitement in the game to the point where technology itself becomes more important than military expansion for most players.

-The ability to search for another unit while viewing the statistics of one, thus comparing them. For example, comparing Oathsworn versus Berserkers.

- The cities of historical significance should have more building slots - Rome, Carthage and Athens should be more imortant, big and full of high-tier buildings than a backwater provincal capital in the northern steppes of barbarian Europe.

- The political system should be refined and tied with your family tree and the family trees of your rivals. It should be more intuitive and the player should be incentivized to care about it by tools other than the potential game-breaking civil war. Every step of the way should make the player connect with the characters who are in power or striving for it and the decisions shoud have tangible results for the entire kingdom/republic/whatever.

- Civil war armies should not starve to death in 5 turns after they spawn.

- Allow us to garrison agents within cities. When an agent is garrisoned they are considered 'Deployed' until they leave that garrison. Add a visual icon to the towns name that someone is in there.

- Champions, and dignitaries have a lot of cohesion when combined with an army. The spy in my opinion is greatly lacking. With the current way the ambush mechanics work there is a % that you will successfully spring an ambush when in that stance. Let the spy increase that chance.

- More information regarding politics in the form of event messages. If my family is losing constituents (at a big rate) let me know. If I'm close to civil war notify me beforehand.

- Armies should not simply be allowed to traverse the seas with cost-free transports, and the ability to build them should be tied to the Tech Tree. This may help the AI with amphibious assaults, but it's a highly unrealistic gameplay device, ATM. At the very least, clicking a spot on the water to move your army should trigger a ship building animation or device which represents the building of the needed ships for use next turn, and deducts some monies from your treasury (costs should be carefully evaluated for purposes of AI use). It takes a turn to recruit a naval unit, why not a transport? ATM you can get instant navies on the cheap.

- Add a stance that has to do with the building/obtaining of boats to use as transports. It has to drain two turns' worth of movement points while the army assembles the vessels it needs to sail the seas (this is if you don't add actual transport ships). Also, if we are to use this system, make it so that provinces with prots will generate boats the army can "borrow" from the firsher folk and merchants, thus the process could be faster, while being stranded on the Lybian coast with no port in sight, with 1 tree per 10 square km. would make this process agonizingly slow.

- Fixe is the never ending blockades where you cannot attack the city from the land even when it is being blockaded by your ally/client state. For a few turns this may make sense, but there needs to be a time limit or stronger penalties for long blockades to force navies to give up.


Unit balance and Multiplayer:

- War dogs should be an exotic and niche unit, not the end-all, be-all destroyer of all things light and unarmoured

- Add a limitation on unit spam in multiplayer battles. 19 units of Spartan Pikes should be an atrociously sterile army composition that should lose to a better balanced one or one that "hard counters it". You can add two modes, a ranked ladder for MP and an arcade mode. Arcade mode will allow any unit composition and no limit on funds, and will have no capture points (you can corner and hill camp as you see fit). Ladder mode will have increasingly prohibitive costs for spamming the same unit or same type of unit, will have mechanisms to prevent camping and will naturally be ranked. Ranks will be held by battle size (10, 15, 20 and 30 k denarii), and can be filtered by faction and player. Thus we can see which factions rank where in the different battle sizes and so on.

- Add the Avatar Campaign map back to MP. I thought it worked well in FoTS, I imagine it would actually work better in this. You can create custom legions with custom setups.

- The capture point mechanic should stay for mutiplayer battles to prevent corner camping.


Things to remove:

- Armies conjuring transports out of nowhere and basically walking from Rome to Alexandria

- Units being able to destroy gates without siege equipment.

- Remove the unit limitations in Single Player. If I want to recruit 19 Royal Spartans or Hero's of Sparta why shouldn't I be able to?

- Ship-to-ship superjumps. Units should not be able to leap 20 meters through the air to board a separating ship.


Graphics/performance/UI:

- Add a way for us to choose which DX version we run

- Fix rain dropping frame rate dramatically for some players (again)

Unit balance:

- Add a few UI customization options. Nothing too crazy, but how about an option to shrink the size of the UI.

- For those of us with dual monitors - "Confine Mouse Cursor" so that way it stays on 1 screen.

The Stranger
09-12-2013, 11:16
heated sling bullets isnt even that farfetched, though it has limited use. but flaming javelins is just WTF...

To add:
-Seasons (preferably 4, but atleast 2...) and seasonal effects.
-walls or some other way of stalling for minor cities.


To improve:
-army movement speed.
-Client state system (what Rome1 was lacking, you improved, and what Rome1 atleast was doing ok, you removed...), its nice that they join defensive wars, but they should not be able to just attack you 1 turn after you subdued them... Sure, an uprising or rebellion is nice once in a while. But when you subdued a nation in to becoming a client kingdom i expect them to stfu and pay tribute.
-The province system needs to be refined. Now in my campaign Carthage went from 90+ happines to -50 because I conquered other cities in the province. Thats just weird. Cities should have happines independent of the province, and the province happines should be a combination of city happines and perhaps something else.
-better balance garrisons.
-more ancillaries and traits per person, combine with more negative effects to balance it out. And stop making everyone a lunatic.


remove:
units being able to kill gates without siege equipment.

Myth
09-12-2013, 12:36
10764

CA is watching orgahs! Let's provide them something that perhaps they can make use of and as a result we get a better Rome II game!

Alcibiade
09-12-2013, 13:08
Sorry for any repetition but I feel like we need it for ideas to reach CA's consciousness.
Things I'd love to see changed :

_ A family tree would be amazing especially with Rome 2 time frame AND if associated with the present household pools, trait system and faction 's political system ! Yet, the traits needs to be introduced in response to the players action (like in BGRV submod for Stainless steel), as there seems to have no causality in the present system.
_ I'd ratherr guard mode to be switchable and not " by default " as it is now. Guard mode can even replace the discipline concept from previous TW games ! For example, barbarians or non professionnal units could loose this ability when out of the general radius or when the battle is prolonged.
_ Better BAI and CAI of course. More than anything the AI have to use building slots better, especially in newly conquered settlements or we will never see any AI faction expand to become an empire without immediate collapse. And if the AI is not sophiticated enough for that, let's give bonus and cheat to the AI factions to compensate. I really like this new city and province system ! And I love the army limitation and traditions too btw.
_ A different transport boats system.
_ No capture flag outside of settlements. I can understand the supply train's concept but capture flag confuse the AI too much.
`_Please CA slow down units movement and make ranged units less deadly

Myth
09-12-2013, 13:17
Keep them coming! I added a suggestion for MP ladder and how to balance unit spam.

Hooahguy
09-12-2013, 13:29
Im pretty sure that CA wont change the 1 year per turn thing, but we have mods for that.

Agreed about the flaming javelins!

And about the whole "throwing torches onto gates" thing:
Im pretty sure that was only done because you have to research ladders and battering rams. In my opinion, they should remove the torches and make ladders available from the start. This way it would force the player and AI to wait at least one turn before attacking cities. On the mod side of things this can be changed by just making gates much more resistant to fire so youre waiting forever for your guys to burn it down. Though that wont bode well for the AI.

And for town defense: I agree that its dumb that if you have even a slightly above-average force you can waltz into pretty much any town and take it over without much effort. Maybe like a palisade or something that can be burnt down unlike a normal wall. Granted then it becomes another siege battle, but as it stands the enemy isnt exactly coming out to meet you in battle so its basically a siege battle but with no walls. To add another turn or two to the AI attacking just have them wait a turn to "build" flaming torches" so you have some time to come to their aid.

As for transports, I think just making them really vulnerable in battle is enough. Make it so a few volleys of fire arrows sets them on fire, and how one or two rams sinks them.

Lord of the Isles
09-12-2013, 14:32
As for transports, I think just making them really vulnerable in battle is enough. Make it so a few volleys of fire arrows sets them on fire, and how one or two rams sinks them.

This. While I'm not ecstatic about armies turning into fleets (which I first saw in 'Warlock: Master of the Arcane', anyone know if that was the first game to do it?) I strongly suspect it solves a lot of the problems the AI has with planning & executing naval invasions. From the games I've played so far, that part of the Campaign AI is much better than in previous games with a 3D campaign map. The worst bit of it is how good large transport fleets are at defeating real fleets (when you actually fight the battles - my feeling is that auto-resolve does a better job and favours the real fleets). So nerf the transports in naval battles a bit and try to get the AI to use escorts and I'll be happy.

Aside from that, I'm with the OP Myth and his great list. I would add/stress a few points:


Rain slowing frame rates down to a crawl - really bad bug, fix asap
Still too many graphics/pathfinding bugs - e.g. troops landing/boarding from ships getting stuck, ships sailing through land in battles
Capture points in open field defensive battles - really bad
When AI factions make offers, we need to see more info - make our normal diplomacy screen available before responding
Allow us to manually enter amounts in Diplomacy -> Offers -> Payments box
Characters - esp heroes/warlords etc - really overpowered experience buffs for armies
In general, all buffs seem a little too strong - 3%, 6%, 10% for example better than current 5%, 10%, 20%
Slow down battles - both speed of units and length of melees
Get rid of flaming missiles (esp javelins)
Unit cohesion needs work
Replenishment rates tweaked: currently too quick for armies, too slow for fleets

Spoonska
09-12-2013, 14:34
Bring back guard mode, but also add in attack move. It's pretty common place in other RTS's to have this feature.
Move your Army's win-loss ratings to the top block of Army history with the rest of it's "Lifetime" History
Add a few UI customization options. Nothing too crazy, but how about an option to shrink the size of the UI. Or zoom into the minimap during battles.
Remove the Unit limitations in Single Player. If I want to recruit 19 Royal Spartans or Hero's of Sparta why shouldn't I ?
For those of us with dual monitors -- "Confine Mouse Cursor" so that way it stays on 1 screen. This has been a problem forever, not just Rome 2.
Remove Livestock from the game. Have the Cattle Pen give you bonuses to commerce, and agriculture. Limit Farms to 1 per settlement, and allow city centers to be constructed in towns. Hinder them though so you can only get lvl 2 or 3 buildings.
Give me the ability to line up troops on fences like in Empire / Napoleon.
Allow us to garrison agents within cities. When an agent is garrisoned they are considered 'Deployed' until they leave that garrison. Add a visual icon to the towns name that someone is in there.
On the public order information screen give us a +/- net amount of public order for that Province.
Champions, and dignitaries have a lot of cohesion when combined with an army. The spy in my opinion is greatly lacking. With the current way the ambush mechanics work there is a % that you will successfully spring an ambush when in that stance. Let the spy increase that chance.
More information regarding politics in the form of event messages. If my family is losing constituents (at a big rate) let me know. If I'm close to civil war notify me beforehand.
Flaming Pigs. Self Explanatory. As well as the perfect counter to elephants -- Flaming Mice (<- this one's a joke. The mice not the pigs. Please bring pigs back.)


I have some more, but it's hard to recall while at work.

Hooahguy
09-12-2013, 14:44
Get rid of flaming missiles (esp javelins)


I think flaming arrows are fine, it should just be a 15 second delay.

ReluctantSamurai
09-12-2013, 14:59
- The politcs system should be refined and tied with your family tree and the family trees of your rivals. It should be more intuitive and the player should be incentivized to care about it by tools other than the potential game-breaking civil war. Every step of the way should make the player connect with the characters who are in power or striving for it and the decisions shoud have tangible results for the entire kingdom/republic

Now THIS is connecting with your general: (from a poster at twc)


Probably the fact that my generals seemingly die every couple of turns for no reason, basically making it impossible for me to "bond" with them.In Shogun 2 (FOTS), on the other hand, I had a good number of generals that were with me from the beginning. I remember I dispatched one of my generals (he was one of the first generals I enlisted) to defend a city from an enemy force that I had grossly underestimated. What I thought would be a small stack army turned into multiple full stack armies. It was basically my general, the small force I dispatched with him, and the garrison versus a huge enemy invasion force. It had been way too long since I saved last so I couldn't reload and I was desperate to win the battle because I didn't want to lose the city. My general and his men fought desperately to repel the more numerous enemy force, firing as many volleys as they could before falling back to a higher level. Then, with nowhere else to run, my general and his brave men made their final stand in the courtyard of the castle. In an act of desperation I ordered my general and his men to charge the enemy ranks, where they fought hand to hand until they were inevitably overcome. I remember feeling an actual sense of loss and a rage that would only be satisfied by the utter destruction of my enemy. Now that's immersion if you ask me


Make technology tied to the resources and provinces a faction holds. If you have no iron at all (not even importing it) it's not feasible to be able to discover better smithing and ironworking techniques. This will make trade and strategic localized conflicts for the obtaining of a particular resource more important

This! It's such a basic idea to technological advances, it's almost criminal that noone at the CA think-tank had this in mind when designing what there is of the tech tree. It also makes trade partners who have goods you might need, and goods of yours that they need, vital. A good basis for forming alliances (or for putting a big bullseye on them or you:wink3:)


- The capture point mechanic should only stay for mutiplayer battles to prevent corner camping. Completely remove them from single player open field maps (they should remain in urban fights)

This would be my first choice, but if it would require too much code rewriting, then perhaps something like this:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?620340-How-to-fix-quot-Victory-Points-quot


Military ships should rule the waves and sending transports without escort should be a huge risk

Yeeesch:crazy: This is a no-brainer....a cursory examination of any military history era would point to this....

And 2tpy (like R1) would be sufficient to ensure a better immersion on the campaign map. 4tpy would probably require too much rebalancing of all the features that have their base in the time factor.

I don't mention the AI because it will never get done~:rolleyes:

Alcibiade
09-12-2013, 15:29
Make technology tied to the resources and provinces a faction holds. If you have no iron at all (not even importing it) it's not feasible to be able to discover better smithing and ironworking techniques. This will make trade and strategic localized conflicts for the obtaining of a particular resource more important

Brillant idea ! It just introduce something essential. But there was something like that in shogun 2 (or was it in a mod?)

Sp4
09-12-2013, 15:48
I'd like guard mode.

I'd like to feel more connected with the faction I am supposed to be representing, so a family tree would be nice or generally just some way to get more into that entire internal politics game.

2 turns per year, with a summer and a winter season.

jbillybrack
09-12-2013, 16:03
PLEASE get rid of the flags in single player field battles

Myth
09-12-2013, 16:06
Glad you guys liked my research tied to resources idea. It's both more historically accurate and more interesting from a gameplay persepective. Anyway, I improved the OP, sectioned it to make it more organized and added everything that is not duplicating my OP or another poseter's suggestion. These two I left out for further discussion because I feel they are not really the opinion of the majority:


Remove Livestock from the game. Have the Cattle Pen give you bonuses to commerce, and agriculture. Limit Farms to 1 per settlement, and allow city centers to be constructed in towns. Hinder them though so you can only get lvl 2 or 3 buildings.

Livestock has been used since the first hunter-gatherer societies found out that it's easier to eat domesticated goats than to hunt an antelope with a stick in your hand. IMO it's good to have variety over the previous title's single minded obsession with grain and agriculture.


Flaming Pigs. Self Explanatory. As well as the perfect counter to elephants -- Flaming Mice (<- this one's a joke. The mice not the pigs. Please bring pigs back.)

This I hope is a joke in its entirety. Flaming pigs are bad... Just terribad. I prefer return of the mummy egyptians throwing flaming javelins at lorica segmentatata wearing legionaires than flaming pigs.

fallen851
09-12-2013, 16:07
This is an awesome list, good work. I tried to find something to add, but it is very comprehensive.


PLEASE get rid of the flags in single player field battles

If CA does nothing else to the RTW II, they must remove the capture flags for open field battles.

Or at the very least, allow the defender to choose where they want them.

Sp4
09-12-2013, 16:20
PLEASE get rid of the flags in single player field battles

There is an option for that.

jbillybrack
09-12-2013, 16:52
There is an option for that.

Sorry, I meant the victory points, not the markers for units... And while I'm here, I'll say multiple auto-saves are also very good things that no one has mentioned, as far as I've read anyway.

Spoonska
09-12-2013, 16:56
Livestock has been used since the first hunter-gatherer societies found out that it's easier to eat domesticated goats than to hunt an antelope with a stick in your hand. IMO it's good to have variety over the previous title's single minded obsession with grain and agriculture.


I understand that, and I do agree with you that it's pivotal to history. Unfortunately, I feel that as an ingame resource it's undervalued. Perhaps removing it altogether would be a little extreme, but it could use some work. As it stands currently there are very few ways to obtain wealth from livestock. Lv4 Ranches every faction, but Parthia gives about 150-200 livestock. For Barbarian factions there is the Horse ranch as a third agricultural option which is another +140 Livestock. Eastern Cultures agriculture line of buildings do not even offer a static increase to livestock.They have to get it from stables military line. At most you get +100 livestock from the Nisean Stables at the cost of 12 squalor. All of these values are low when compared to commerce, industry or agriculture.

There's also very few buildings that with offer a modifier increase to livestock wealth, and often times it's paired with agriculture already.Now some factions have greater modifiers than others, and of course the barbarian factions have increased importance. However, the construction choices for those buildings are also very limited. Considering temples and ports do not offer any +% bonus to Livestock you're forced to do so in your capital. Excluding " % All Wealth" buildings, the maximum increased values for a province off buildings are as follows: Romans 80% , Barbarian 85%, , Eastern 50%, and Hellenistic the worst 20%. A minor side note -- Eastern factions can get a % bonus from the agriculture line meaning they can build multiple "Fountains" for the %20 bonus.Just to reiterate though, the highest static amount of livestock you can get is only 100.

When compared to other sources of revenue like industry or commerce it doesn't add up. Maybe it's not supposed to, but it pales in comparison. Your first choice in the Agriculture line of buildings will probably always be a Farm. It gives more food, and has better synergy with other buildings. I don't think that Ranches are competitive enough to be a viable choice.

Sp4
09-12-2013, 17:04
Sorry, I meant the victory points, not the markers for units... And while I'm here, I'll say multiple auto-saves are also very good things that no one has mentioned, as far as I've read anyway.

Oh yeah victory points are a bit crap in some situations, like when the game decides to put it on an open field or at the bottom of a hill or some crap like that.

jbillybrack
09-12-2013, 17:33
When compared to other sources of revenue like industry or commerce it doesn't add up. Maybe it's not supposed to, but it pales in comparison. Your first choice in the Agriculture line of buildings will probably always be a Farm. It gives more food, and has better synergy with other buildings. I don't think that Ranches are competitive enough to be a viable choice.

Don't you think we'll need that extra bit of food sometimes to offset the "-12 food" stat of certain high level buildings? I think that later in the game money will not be an issue, whereas food will be a huge one. I think they intentionally nerfed the livestock chains to encourage farm development, which would have been correct historically too, right? Wasn't everyone typically more reliant on farms than on cattle during this period? Anyway, I agree with you on most points, go farm over cow!

andrewt
09-12-2013, 17:43
I agree with slowing down killing speed. I don't agree with slowing down movement speed. If you do both, we're back to the current problem where it is almost impossible to maneuver because reinforcing units can't arrive fast enough to help.

Flaming stuff destroying gates wasn't a problem for me ever since I researched boiling oil. It turns gates into a deathtrap without siege engines. Like another poster, I suspect it was done because siege weapons need to be researched. It also takes multiple turns to create siege equipment. Personally, I find it too long. If they gave us some siege equipment at the start of the game, they could remove this.

Transports are too powerful. Similarly, ramming is too powerful. It's one thing to ram the sides of a ship but too often sea battles devolve into ships ramming into each other's front and hoping the other guy's ship sinks first.

Tier 3 and 4 improvements need less penalties, tier 4 especially. Improvements whose major benefit is public order/food need to be more efficient at doing so. What's the point of building a +12 food improvement that gives -12 public order when I have to offset that with a +12 public order improvements that gives -12 food? These improvements have little in the way of income or other bonuses. Their major reason for existence is providing food or public order but they are terrible at doing so.

Alcibiade
09-12-2013, 18:30
Something I prefered in RTW1 is experience. Units keep all their experience when they replenish even if most of the seasoned soldiers were slaughtered. Army traditions and champion's training points are already there to maintain experience in the ranks.
Another problem with that system is that units get experience proportionally to their killing rate so phalanx get experience much slower. Plus the faster units get more experience as you get as much from killing shattered units too.

Veho Nex
09-12-2013, 19:47
My 2cents:

1. Marine units should receive a combat bonus when fighting at sea. Land units in their brand new massive transports should receive a combat nerf when fighting at sea. Substantial bonuses and nerfs to allow your 90man unit to take on the 160 men that are suddenly sailing on the largest ships to set sail.

2. Turn transport ships into smaller multiple ship units. So instead of having 160 men on 1 massive ship have 160 men spread between 3 trireme size ships. It would require a rework or a better work around for Naval invasions allowing for more than 10 ships to land on a stretch of coast.

3. Add the Avatar Campaign map back to MP. I thought it worked well in FoTS, I imagine it would actually work better in this. You can create custom legions with custom setups.

4. Change the provincial happiness to set up on 2 levels. Level 1, City happiness: City happiness is increased if you are conquering other cities in the province and by other general means. When city happiness gets too low you experience rioting which causes units to take damage over time. When city happiness gets too low it starts decreasing provincial happiness. Level 2. Provincial Happiness: Provincial happiness decreases over time while a province is owned by multiple factions. If factions are at war with each other happiness goes down faster, if they are trading it doesn't move, if they are allies it will start going up. Making provincial happiness a slow changing thing so its more over a period of 20 turns to get it from extreme hate to extreme love. Provincial happiness can also affect provincial income. A province in turmoil will have more trouble getting goods out due to brigands and robbers than a province thats happy.

5. Fix shields vs ranged units. Right now it is not effective to slowly march forward in Testudo formation against archers because you end up taking more losses on the way there than if you just had them close the distance on foot.

6. Phalanx and Pike walls need a rework. Either they need a buff to frontal defense and attack or they need to hold their formations better.

7. A tech tree with limitations and more substance. Right now the tech trees in Rome 2 are the laughing stock of ETW, NTW, and all of Shogun 2. They laugh because its tiny and not very satisfying. Its the worst 3minutes of anyones lives when they look at the tech tree and realize all the late game tech is in all intents and purposes useless. You can conquer the world with Legionaires and Pre Marion units, all the economy buildings provide most bang for buck at level 2 or 3, naval and siege research is a joke since you dont need a whole lot of either. Philosophy is about the only line where the bonuses over time seem like they are good.

8. 2 turns a year please.

9. AND MY BIGGEST CONCERN. These "random" maps make it seem like every single battle was fought over a dried out hunk of hillside on the coast. Every battle looks like the middle east on the slopes of Mt. Everest. Even though there were fewer maps I really enjoyed the custom made maps of Shogun 2 and the beauty they had.

Bramborough
09-12-2013, 22:07
Awesome job, OP. I agree whole-heartedly with 99% of what's been expressed in this thread.

Some comments:

- Naval transports. From a "streamlined gameplay" perspective, I rather like how armies can go to sea on their own...I don't necessarily think removing this feature is the best idea. Furthermore, I don't think this is the real problem, for me or for most others. The issue isn't their ability to do so, but rather how powerful they are at sea relative to true warships. This does need to be fixed. Right now it's perfectly feasible to play an entire campaign and never sink money into a single naval unit, even as a maritime-focused faction that spends a lot of time trucking around the Mediterranean. It's also a secondary issue that armies seem to be able to go waterborne too easily...there does need to be a bit more of a "cost-benefit" decision involved. There's several ideas already posted above that sound pretty sensible to me for resolving these issues. Personally, I would advocate:
1) Greatly increase movement penalty for going waterborne, something which reflects an army sitting on the coast for an extended time, cutting down trees, building/procuring ships, etc. Perhaps requiring them to sit still for an entire turn to go to sea; no land movement allowed prior, no sea movement allowed til next turn. Meanwhile on subject turn, the army is in an increased vulnerability state, similar to "forced march" mode.
2) Substantially decrease transports' at-sea combat capability, perhaps to the point of nearly eliminating it. Bottom line, a fleet of true warships ought to be able to destroy any similarly-sized fleet of transports with impunity, and to be at least on even terms against a transport fleet 3 or 4 times larger. Right now that isn't the case.

Victory Points. Don't get me wrong, I'm not necessarily a supporter of victory-point flags in open-field battles. It wouldn't bother me if they went away. I gotta say, however, that I just don't understand the huge problem so many folks seem to have with this. I've played 200 turns by now, and fought dozens of open-field battles...and I've never once had to defend a stupidly-placed flag in a field engagement. Why not? Because I've been pretty careful about not force-marching armies in areas where there was a reasonable chance they might get attacked. A few times I have had the enemy army have to defend a flag...because I was lucky enough to catch them in forced-march mode. The solution to avoiding the victory-flag problem seems pretty simple...don't put an army in forced-march mode in areas where they might get attacked. I certainly agree that the feature could have been implemented much better, and definitely support ideas to improve such...but I don't see this as nearly the game-breaking, top-priority issue that so many seem to feel it is. What am I missing?

ReluctantSamurai
09-12-2013, 22:13
but I don't see this as nearly the game-breaking, top-priority issue that so many seem to feel it is. What am I missing?

~:confused:

Perhaps I am missing something, here?!? I though the flag for field battles was present for any and all such battles, not just ones coming off of forced march:shrug:


1) Greatly increase movement penalty for going waterborne, something which reflects an army sitting on the coast for an extended time, cutting down trees, building/procuring ships, etc. Perhaps requiring them to sit still for an entire turn to go to sea; no land movement allowed prior, no sea movement allowed til next turn. Meanwhile on subject turn, the army is in an increased vulnerability state, similar to "forced march" mode.
2) Substantially decrease transports' at-sea combat capability, perhaps to the point of nearly eliminating it. Bottom line, a fleet of true warships ought to be able to destroy any similarly-sized fleet of transports with impunity, and to be at least on even terms against a transport fleet 3 or 4 times larger. Right now that isn't the case.

There are many other war games that I play that do this: a turn sitting in preparation, and another to board. Similarly, when debarking, no movement prior, and no movement until the following turn after leaving the transports. Point #2 is simply a no-brainer. Transports in any era had to be escorted from attack by hostile warships. It'd be like inviting the fox into the chicken coop otherwise:freak:

Hooahguy
09-12-2013, 22:25
~:confused:

Perhaps I am missing something, here?!? I though the flag for field battles was present for any and all such battles, not just ones coming off of forced march:shrug:

From what I can tell it comes from being in a forced march, if you retreated twice and have no more retreating left (and as such need to make a last stand), and I think if the besieged sally out and you are defending against them, not sure about that.

CaptainCrunch
09-13-2013, 01:52
This is an awesome thread Myth, thanks for starting it! :2thumbsup:

Great contributions everywhere, but I especially like this one;


...Make technology tied to the resources and provinces a faction holds. If you have no iron at all (not even importing it) it's not feasible to be able to discover better smithing and ironworking techniques. This will make trade and strategic localized conflicts for the obtaining of a particular resource more important...

This idea is so legit that it's downright shameful no one at CA thought of it before. An absolute game changer. I wonder how difficult it would be to implement with the current diplomacy model?

I'll begin my two bits with AI specifics (I'll no doubt repeat/reinforce ideas already mentioned along the way);

** Warning, this post be a bit looooonggg ** ~:eek:

IMPROVEMENTS

Battle AI:

Unit cohesion does not exist at the moment. I believe this is the single biggest weakness of the AI. If this one thing can be addressed it will improve the AI's fighting effectiveness by several orders of magnitude. Professional units being led by a general need to behave as a unified force, not individual units behaving on their own. The AI needs to account for its own supporting units and how to best arrange its battle line according to its strengths and weaknesses, and the reputation/ability of their general (<- see below Additions). They need to more or less move together and be 'aware' of the friendly units next to them. The more experienced or disciplined the units, the more likely this should be, with the appropriate amount of gaps in the battle line according to these variables accounted for.

AI armies should employ Defensive/Balanced/Offensive stances according to the compositions of their own force and that of their opponents', and the reputation/ability of the generals. The AI should never just simply throw its entire force at the enemy in one chaotic blob when they close to engagement distance. AI armies should variate in their battle capabilities according to their generals' tactical tendencies and reputation.

AI units should not chase units that are vulnerable to it all over the map without any regard for their own safety or separation from the main force. Examples; spear infantry exhausting themselves and turning their backs on missile units while chasing cavalry all over the map -or- melee infantry breaking ranks and falling against an entire enemy battle line because some peltasts looked like an easy target.

Cavalry units should not commit suicide by charging headlong into spear units under all but the most desperate circumstances.

Missile units should not commit suicide by charging a battle line like first wave assault infantry. They should try to avoid melee combat at all costs and stay just in range of their missile capability, especially crack veteran units. The higher the unit veterancy, the quicker they should react to the changing battle field.

Generally, unit morale needs to be looked at carefully. This, along with poor & non-cohesive AI tactics, results in the AI often getting routed in seconds.

Conversely, elite units that become exhausted should suffer greater penalties to morale. Currently, some elite units can keep fighting well after they've become exhausted against enemies who are fresh or just winded. Exhausted means you can hardly lift up your arms, much less fight effectively.

Elite/disciplined units who are meant to fight in formation (and who are not exhausted) should hold formation much better during battle, particularly when compared to less professional units.
Elite units should be more aware of vulnerable flanks, and should respond to outflanking maneuvers/attempts when possible.

Skirmishing mode that works, based off closest threat proximity. Skirmishers should be much quicker to react to directional changes and have significantly faster acceleration and speed than any line infantry for 'Skirmishing Mode' to work effectively. When a unit is in 'SM' and an attack command is given, they should quickly close to firing distance, release their volley, and then immediately retreat back some distance to repeat this when facing a threat from the front. The effectiveness of this should vary with unit experience and quality. This would greatly reduce them being caught flat-footed by line infantry.



Naval Battles:

The effectiveness of troop transports needs rebalancing in relation to naval units. Transports are too powerful, being fast & maneuverable enough by comparison to make all naval vessels extremely vulnerable to boarding (which brings their necessity into question as a consequence). Most naval vessels can't survive a boarding by even cheap militia infantry. Why have an expensive navy when you can simply put a bunch of cheap infantry and missile units out to sea for free and have a much more effective force? Transports are heavy and carry significantly more troops and material than do purpose-built naval warships, they should accelerate (key!)& maneuver much slower as a consequence. They should be extremely vulnerable to warships and require naval escorts to transit safely through contested waters.

Marines who fight onboard naval vessels for a living should get bonuses versus land-based infantry, especially when actually boarding. Marines should board faster and more effectively, while land-based infantry should suffer penalties during the first phase of boarding when only a few men have made it onboard the enemy ship and are surrounded by the bulk of the enemy unit.

It should be much more difficult for a transport to trap & board a naval vessel with little to no hull damage, not simply get close enough to suction itself to it. Why can't a naval vessel backwater right after 'melee mode' begins from a simple brush with a transport? Only a few men have made it onboard, land units can disengage from battle, so should capable naval units. They shouldn't get frozen in place when they're free to back out.

Conversely, ships of any type with excessive hull damage should be very vulnerable to boarding and should not be able to backwater fast enough to disengage. Same goes for naval vessels that have been trapped from both sides by transports. As it stands now, I can trap, freeze & board any AI naval vessel with any transport by simply getting close to it from one side.

Obviously, beach landings need to be looked at, as they are buggy and often entire units that get stuck in the graphics get sent to oblivion ("Numba Ten!" :thumbsdown:)


Campaign AI:

The AI calculation of force strength on the Campaign Map should be adjusted by taking into consideration that it's always fighting at a disadvantage to the human player, not simply factoring the comparable unit strengths when it comes to a battle. Understandably this is used to assess auto-resolve results, but as it stands now, it grossly misrepresents the AI's fighting capability when it comes to actual real-time battles. This may help the AI from bankrupting itself trying to replace its best units by sending them into battle with little realistic chance of winning. Maybe in cases where the player chooses to manually fight the battle the AI will withdraw after recalculating its potential for success when factoring in the human player as well, and look for additional strength from supporting armies before it reengages.

Aggressive, Expansionist AI factions should act that way, regardless of campaign difficulty.

Campaign AI is generally too passive, it needs stimulation both militarily & diplomatically. This doesn't mean illogically spamming full-stack attacking armies every other turn, but factions should look to reach objective-oriented goals, first through proper economic management and diplomacy, then militarily.

AI factions should first look for diplomatic solutions when faced with a potential threat, especially from the player, rather than choose inevitable destruction by way of incompetent stubborn diplomacy that takes no consideration whatsoever of the economic & military might of a potential aggressor state. More diplomatic options should be available. As it stands, the diplomacy mechanic is very basic, generally requiring you to move up a ladder by either first establishing a Non Aggression or Trade Agreement, then moving to Defensive Alliance, etc. etc. This is too linear and rigid.


General:

The collision model. Units often melt into each other and have no sense of solidness or mass at times. There is significant clipping, where pikes in a phalanx will poke out the center of shields in the front rank. Horse heads clipping through the bodies of infantry, getting them stuck together. Boats clipping through ports, beaches and settlements, etc. and disappearing.
Battle animations are often out-of-synch and units stand around looking at each other and not engaging. Men fall down and die when no one is attacking them, etc. This is a huge step backwards from Shogun 2!
Happiness and Squalor should be region dependent, not provincial. The attempt to streamline micromanagement is understandable, but the way these 2 components are now is counter-intuitive. Squalor is in itself counter-intuitive and needs to be rebalanced, as of now I feel it's poorly implemented as a gameplay mechanic, not to mention irrational.

Armies should not simply be allowed to traverse the seas with cost-free transports, and the ability to build them should be tied to the Tech Tree. This may help the AI with amphibious assaults, but it's a highly unrealistic gameplay device, ATM. At the very least, clicking a spot on the water to move your army should trigger a ship building animation or device which represents the building of the needed ships for use next turn, and deducts some monies from your treasury (costs should be carefully evaluated for purposes of AI use). It takes a turn to recruit a naval unit, why not a transport? ATM you can get instant navies on the cheap. As already mentioned, transports should also be highly vulnerable to attacks from enemy warships, and need naval escort.

Foot speed during battles needs to be reduced, as it is now some units like Light Hoplites are absolutely bonkers! If you consider the scale of the battle map in relation to their speed some of the units are moving superhumanly fast. It's not every unit, but the fastest units need to get looked at again. There is very little difference between the speed of mounted units and the fastest foot soldiers. This is a real problem for the AI, as it already cannot keep its units together when advancing to meet an enemy.


Additions:

Generals & admirals should gain traits based on their battlefield tactics & tendencies as well as their record of success in battle (with appropriate bonuses). They should gain reputations according to these factors and successful tacticians should be renowned and feared for it. These factors should be taken into account by the AI when fielding its own force. The AI should account for powerful enemy generals on the Campaign Map as well when facing them with inferior forces. The mere presence of a renowned tactician leading a powerful army in an enemy region should affect public happiness for the duration.

Bring back the Family Tree from RTW and flesh it out even more, ATM generals aren't very interesting and easily replaced.

Factions should be able to negotiate peace agreements between their clients/satrapies and other aggressive states, or use the threat of military action diplomatically against aggressors if they don't back down.

Bring back 'Give Settlement'.

At least 2 turns per year, Summer - Winter, appropriately reflected on the Campaign and Battle maps.

Bring back Fire at Will for all missile carrying units.


Removed/Scrapped:

Any flaming magic missile, with the exception of arrows from foot archers. And these should have their rate of fire appropriately reduced. No flaming javelins, or arrows from horse archers, etc. This is laughably nonsensical.

All Capture Points from single player open battles. The AI simply cannot deal with these properly and they are incredibly gamey. Tactical deployment options in open battles are now broken in the current state because the player is forced to deploy in the small Capture Point area which invariably holds no strategic significance in any random battle map. The AI will also rush to the Capture Point, totally oblivious to its own safety and whether or not its being destroyed by the player in the process. I've routed multiple units of Royal Spartans with militia hoplites because of this! I would rather all capture points be removed period, but I'm still considering workable alternatives for siege battles and multiplayer. At the very least, a central Capture Point in a settlement should only be considered captured if the player takes it with the majority of his attacking force. This way a player can't okiedoke the AI and tie it up while a single unit of men slip in the back and take the CP. This makes the AI simultaneously rout whether or not they're winning the pitched battle elsewhere on the map!

Destruction of fortification gates with torches.

Ship-to-ship superjumps. Units should not be able to leap 20 meters through the air to board a separating ship. C'mon.


Ok lemme stop now! ~D

ReluctantSamurai
09-13-2013, 04:30
It's also a secondary issue that armies seem to be able to go waterborne too easily

Not sure I can agree with this...

Too many times I've read where land-locked factions suddenly become the world's greatest mariners and go sailing off halfway around the known world to attack an enemy faction, that by all rights, they would not even come into contact with in any foreseeable future. I'm not suggesting that R2 needs to be a historical simulator, but some levity is necessary, I think.

jbillybrack
09-13-2013, 07:07
Awesome job, OP. I agree whole-heartedly with 99% of what's been expressed in this thread.
Victory Points. Don't get me wrong, I'm not necessarily a supporter of victory-point flags in open-field battles. It wouldn't bother me if they went away. I gotta say, however, that I just don't understand the huge problem so many folks seem to have with this. I've played 200 turns by now, and fought dozens of open-field battles...and I've never once had to defend a stupidly-placed flag in a field engagement. Why not? Because I've been pretty careful about not force-marching armies in areas where there was a reasonable chance they might get attacked. A few times I have had the enemy army have to defend a flag...because I was lucky enough to catch them in forced-march mode. The solution to avoiding the victory-flag problem seems pretty simple...don't put an army in forced-march mode in areas where they might get attacked. I certainly agree that the feature could have been implemented much better, and definitely support ideas to improve such...but I don't see this as nearly the game-breaking, top-priority issue that so many seem to feel it is. What am I missing?
It's just, couldn't they have implemented a deployable "baggage train"? I understand the need to put you at a disadvantage running all over the campaign map, but I wish you could set the victory point within your deployable zone. Overall, I'm loving this game bugs and bad AI and all. I love the province control, because it forces you to slow the steam roll down a little bit, and sometimes drags it to a screeching halt. I just wanna choose where the victory point is

fallen851
09-13-2013, 11:09
I don't like the way I need to control G to get my units to stay in formation. This should happen automatically... not game breaking, just really annoying. I don't spend all my time lining up my guys just so they can break formation.

Myth
09-13-2013, 12:34
I don't like the way I need to control G to get my units to stay in formation. This should happen automatically... not game breaking, just really annoying. I don't spend all my time lining up my guys just so they can break formation.

I don't quite understand your point. You need them to keep formation, then press Ctrl+G. You need flexible armies and have good micro management? Then leave them as is. You're complaing that the mode is not on by default? As a person who loves using cav and HAs and manually retreats ranged units instead of using skirmish mode I'd say this would be really annoying for me.

Seyavash
09-13-2013, 12:34
I disagree with some of these.

I actually think the provincial happiness system is a serious improvement over prior ones. It is quite simple to manage and I like the idea that you need to focus on the whole province and not just your capital cities which is what will happen if they change it.
I also prefer the wall less minor cities. They are minor cities and should be extremely vulnerable to attack compared to the major cities. This recreates the sense of danger that small cities and towns actually faced plus it avoids the extremely dull constant siege battles from every TW game since Shogun 1.

I also think the water transport system works just fine as a concept. The only problem I see is as others have pointed out is that the transports need to be more vulnerable.

What I would like fixed is the never ending blockades where you cannot attack the city from the land even when it is being blockaded by your ally/client state. For a few turns this may make sense, but there needs to be a time limit or stronger penalties for long blockades to force navies to give up.

I would also like to see a request to end war with faction X as a diplomacy option. The choices available for the most part continue to improve and this would really flesh it out. I don't want to be able to force it on a client state but to make it a negotiation option in the same way as ending trade agreements or starting wars is only logical

Alcibiade
09-13-2013, 13:09
I also think the water transport system works just fine as a concept. The only problem I see is as others have pointed out is that the transports need to be more vulnerable.

I agree with everything you wrote but this. The concept migh be fine, but it somehow confuse the IA. I saw many factions that just leave their armies in the water, not admirals, but generals. First I thought it was to prevent blockade but they have one or two fleet for that purpose. I don't get it, if it has the choice, the IA will always use its army as a fleet. It seems it prefers to control the sea than the land even when the land seems to have more strategical value. Might be a bug, anyway it's annoying.

Jarmam
09-13-2013, 13:11
I disagree with some of these.

I actually think the provincial happiness system is a serious improvement over prior ones. It is quite simple to manage and I like the idea that you need to focus on the whole province and not just your capital cities which is what will happen if they change it.
I also prefer the wall less minor cities. They are minor cities and should be extremely vulnerable to attack compared to the major cities. This recreates the sense of danger that small cities and towns actually faced plus it avoids the extremely dull constant siege battles from every TW game since Shogun 1.

I also think the water transport system works just fine as a concept. The only problem I see is as others have pointed out is that the transports need to be more vulnerable.

What I would like fixed is the never ending blockades where you cannot attack the city from the land even when it is being blockaded by your ally/client state. For a few turns this may make sense, but there needs to be a time limit or stronger penalties for long blockades to force navies to give up.

I agree with most of this. The provincial system is great. The more I play with it the more I love it.
The port blockade -> city unsiegeable needs a fix yesterday.
But I feel that water transports, apart from being straight up imbalanced compared to actual fleets, should carry a bit more of a movement penalty when switching from land to sea from ports.

I would further like that if a city gets besieged its garrison should be able to respond instantly and not next turn. 15 Noble Cavalry with their 7 Scorpion guys can shut down the replenishment of units and construction of buildings along with mustering from a barracks in a city that has more than 2000 retainers ready to fight off a real siege. This is ridiculous and unfathomably frustrating, especially since agents are incapable of destroying said stack of 7 Scorpion guys and since armies are limited to x - so I can't just hire 2 units to fight it off, I need to dedicate a significant % of my empire's potential army for this.

Myth
09-13-2013, 13:22
Added all new suggestions.


I actually think the provincial happiness system is a serious improvement over prior ones. It is quite simple to manage and I like the idea that you need to focus on the whole province and not just your capital cities which is what will happen if they change it.
I also prefer the wall less minor cities. They are minor cities and should be extremely vulnerable to attack compared to the major cities. This recreates the sense of danger that small cities and towns actually faced plus it avoids the extremely dull constant siege battles from every TW game since Shogun 1.

People like the system but they dislike that as Rome, you're conquering Sicilly and trying to unite your southern province and suddenly the Roman populace in Brundisium is unhappy because you conquered Syracuse and occupied it. It makes no sense, hence the suggestions to separate settlement and province happiness.

Every settlement but the smallest hamlets and villages had some sort of wall, ditch, motte&bailey or something of the sort. I disliked how Shogun II did away with wall defenses and everyone climbed like lizards over the walls.



I would further like that if a city gets besieged its garrison should be able to respond instantly and not next turn. 15 Noble Cavalry with their 7 Scorpion guys can shut down the replenishment of units and construction of buildings along with mustering from a barracks in a city that has more than 2000 retainers ready to fight off a real siege. This is ridiculous and unfathomably frustrating, especially since agents are incapable of destroying said stack of 7 Scorpion guys and since armies are limited to x - so I can't just hire 2 units to fight it off, I need to dedicate a significant % of my empire's potential army for this.

You can actually sally with your defenders by manually selecting them and right clicking the besieging army.

SwordsMaster
09-13-2013, 13:56
Bring back the stability! My game is crashing every few turns after the latest 'patch'! While before I played 170 turns with no crashes at all!

Bramborough
09-13-2013, 15:21
It's just, couldn't they have implemented a deployable "baggage train"? I understand the need to put you at a disadvantage running all over the campaign map, but I wish you could set the victory point within your deployable zone. Overall, I'm loving this game bugs and bad AI and all. I love the province control, because it forces you to slow the steam roll down a little bit, and sometimes drags it to a screeching halt. I just wanna choose where the victory point is

Fully agree, and that's what I meant about how the VP could've been implemented better. Would be an improvement if there was actually some sort of baggage train unit, deployable within the zone, and potentially a some movement rate to move off the edge of the map...turning the battle into a slow "rearguard action" by your army. Preserves the intended disadvantage, but adds context and allows at least an attempt to intelligently make the best of a bad situation.

These comments I understand and agree with.

Wilbo
09-13-2013, 17:30
You guys are covering the gameplay well, so I will simply add one: they should bring back the choice of Short or Long Campaigns.

I'm playing as Rome and estimate that it's going to take me around 60hrs+ to gain a recognised victory. The game has many nations to play as - with long campaigns, I'm simply not going to be able to complete it with all nations (unlike Rome or Shogun 2) and it certainly removes my appetite for further nations as DLC - I have the Greek states pack, but am I really going to plug in 180hrs to complete the game as Sparta, Epirus and Athens?

I would suggest that a short campaign should take as long as on Shogun 2.

ReluctantSamurai
09-13-2013, 17:32
As a person who loves using cav and HAs and manually retreats ranged units instead of using skirmish mode I'd say this would be really annoying for me

Here-Here!:2thumbsup:

Bramborough
09-13-2013, 17:34
You guys are covering the gameplay well, so I will simply add one: they should bring back the choice of Short or Long Campaigns.

I'm playing as Rome and estimate that it's going to take me around 60hrs+ to gain a recognised victory. The game has many nations to play as - with long campaigns, I'm simply not going to be able to complete it with all nations (unlike Rome or Shogun 2) and it certainly removes my appetite for further nations as DLC - I have the Greek states pack, but am I really going to plug in 180hrs to complete the game as Sparta, Epirus and Athens?

I would suggest that a short campaign should take as long as on Shogun 2.

Agree.

Seyavash
09-13-2013, 22:56
You guys are covering the gameplay well, so I will simply add one: they should bring back the choice of Short or Long Campaigns.

I agree though I tend to stick with long campaigns myself.

I would go a step further and say they should expand the options beyond short and long. This is probably a wish list for future games, but I would love to be able have a timescale option. For those who want longer campaigns including seasons could check 4 turns per year, or 2. As long as the transportation and build times scaled with them and given perhaps a few other creative options you could have a truly flexible campaign length beyond just short/long

BroskiDerpman
09-13-2013, 23:18
I don't quite understand your point. You need them to keep formation, then press Ctrl+G. You need flexible armies and have good micro management? Then leave them as is. You're complaing that the mode is not on by default? As a person who loves using cav and HAs and manually retreats ranged units instead of using skirmish mode I'd say this would be really annoying for me.

Indeed, I like it so far. Hit G to make a group but it won't put them in a rigid formation and if you want a gigantic static infantry line with reserves that was neatly planned out, ctrl-g.

Much better than in Shogun 2 where it had that tinly button w/ lock group. I finally agree with you on something Myth. ;)

jbillybrack
09-14-2013, 06:00
how about an encyclopedia entry that lists all buildings that effect edicts? This is something that would make planning buildings in major provinces a lot easier than right click and read

AFM984
09-14-2013, 09:09
- Politics needs an overhaul, republics should be completely different from kingdoms or tribal federations, they should have parties.
- Character pool, like a certain other game.
- Faction leaders should matter, their strengths and weaknesses should affect the realm.
- A family tree for monarchies is necessary, and civil wars should be tied somewhat to it (a disgruntled younger brother, an uncle who sees himself worthier than his 10 y/o nephew, the sudden death of a young king with no direct heirs)
- Regions should be varied concerning food production, based on fertility.
- A manpower pool? it could work.
- Roads that can be upgraded, depending on civilization.

And I agree that seasons should be brought back, with more effects than shogun 2.

The Stranger
09-14-2013, 13:34
roads upgrade automatically as the region gets more advanced/richer. i kinda like that.

Hooahguy
09-14-2013, 14:40
It definitely takes some of the micromanagement out of the game. Though I kinda liked having to manually upgrade my roads, though it is a good sign of how rich a province is, so I like that.

BroskiDerpman
09-14-2013, 14:48
- Politics needs an overhaul, republics should be completely different from kingdoms or tribal federations, they should have parties.
- Character pool, like a certain other game.
- Faction leaders should matter, their strengths and weaknesses should affect the realm.
- A family tree for monarchies is necessary, and civil wars should be tied somewhat to it (a disgruntled younger brother, an uncle who sees himself worthier than his 10 y/o nephew, the sudden death of a young king with no direct heirs)
- Regions should be varied concerning food production, based on fertility.
- A manpower pool? it could work.
- Roads that can be upgraded, depending on civilization.

And I agree that seasons should be brought back, with more effects than shogun 2.


Now those are good ideas...

ReluctantSamurai
09-14-2013, 15:59
Faction leaders should matter, their strengths and weaknesses should affect the realm.

Very good point. I would even go as far as having his location matter, as in the original Shogun. Using him at the front can be a good thing if he has fighting skills, but like the saying goes... mice will play when the cat's away.


A family tree for monarchies is necessary, and civil wars should be tied somewhat to it (a disgruntled younger brother, an uncle who sees himself worthier than his 10 y/o nephew, the sudden death of a young king with no direct heirs)

And ain't that how it usually goes...family intrigue? Would make roleplaying your family that much more enjoyable. Like suggested in an AAR here, send your disgruntled family member on a highly risky mission in the hopes of getting him killed......but beware if he succeeds:boxedin:

Nelson
09-14-2013, 16:33
I generally like the new regions/province thing but it does lead to an issue that bugs me somewhat. Since only capital cities have walls, there can never be great sieges in places like Syracuse. That was one of the most famous sieges of all time! I was planning to build ships with stone throwers to pound the place from the sea before I realized that the mighty walls of Syracuse weren’t there and never can be. Archimedes will need to find employment elsewhere I suppose…

I wish Syracuse had walls.

In addition, during a turn, when an ally asks for me to attack his enemy, I need to know my current diplomatic situation with the target. That is not reported, I can’t look and I may well not remember if I have a non-aggression pact or not.

I wish we would be reminded of treaties when the strategic turn demands that we make an immediate decision.

Hooahguy
09-14-2013, 16:52
I do wonder why they made Brundisium the provincial capital and not Syracuse.

Nelson
09-14-2013, 16:53
I do wonder why they made Brundisium the provincial capital and not Syracuse.

Puzzled me, too.

Antonius Rex
09-15-2013, 02:51
Great thread so far guys! Hopefully CA sees this and gets some ideas. Some of what I'll list here might be a bit repetitive from earlier posts on the thread but hopefully that will make them see how some issues have widespread consensus:

Bring back loose formation (unless it's hidden somewhere I haven't found yet) or some other common anti-missile formation, as well as fixing Testudo.

Fix unit formations in general so that they don't break and blob as easily except for maybe lowly militia or disorganized barbarian warriors. Ordering my Phalanxes or Roman columns to move shouldn't shatter their formation, especially when their success relies on it. I've been defending towns that by all rights I should have been able to hold even with smaller numbers, however enemy units have literally walked unharmed straight through my phalanxes that were blocking the street and taken the capture point while my own units refused to obey the movement orders I gave them because they were now stuck in melee with the other units that attempted to walk through after the first wave.

Pikemen shouldn't default to their swords. We're recruiting Pikes for a reason, they shouldn't only use their primary weapon while in a Phalanx that will immediately break when given any movement orders.

Battlefield AI glitches such as running back and fourth like turkeys over the same ten yards or remaining stationary while they are supposed to be attacking the player.

Armies/feets from destroyed factions dying much more quickly from attrition/lack of funds or scattering after a certain number of turns being homeless. I have too many issues with two or three unit militaries hiding and returning to harass behind my current lines years later against garrisons that should destroy them. Also if autoresolved these armies seem to almost always survive with a few men and return indefinitely.

^^^Along the same lines as the previous suggestion, a notification of when there are rebels. I've received these occasionally but the vast majority of the time it is simply an army randomly spawning in a relatively content and peaceful province (that gives no signs of revolt) and hiding unnoticed while it gathers its forces to attack undefended cities while my few armies are busy conquering. Again, if these defenses are autoresolved a handful of men will infinitely survive and return to hiding while they gather troops for another attack.

Again, open battle victory points must go or be significantly altered. Maybe taking/losing a victory point could be a moral buff/debuff instead of ending the battle even when the defending side is winning by a good margin.

Adding another slot or two for the household would be nice. One doesn't seem like enough especially with the horde of random people the generals seem to find. (And stop making all of our generals babbling psycopaths)

Changing/rebalancing the army traditions system. It seems like the bonuses from traditions are a bit random and underpowered compared to the stat bonuses from reaching even a couple of experience levels. Also adding a traditions tree and general skill tree that you can see all at once while choosing bonuses (Like in Shogun 2) so that the player can better plan them out.

Definitely have to agree with you guys about the family trees, Republic vs Kingdoms running differently, and most especially more turns per year and short campaigns. It seems like as soon as I get a couple of levels for a general he dies of old age and is replaced by some nobody. Not that I really care though because I've got almost no attachment to the former commanders. Also I'd like to have the entire system explained in more detail (or at all) and have benefits and negative consequences spelled out more clearly.

There are issues I and others have with our own army unit AI and orders not always going through. If I click for my units to attack or retreat they should do so. When I lose battles it's almost invariably because my units do not respond and therefor sit idly while their hard counter plows through them or the unit they were supposed to reenforce as I'm distracted at another part of the lines for 5 seconds. Mots of my battlefield time is now spent with the game paused so that I can be absolutely sure that every order was received and that the units are moving at the appropriate speed. Also I (personally) have had occasional problems with my own superior armies breaking and running for seemingly no reason even while winning and taking few losses. I have no idea how it happens. They aren't flanked, nor outnumbered, and facing lesser quality troops, they just for some reason mass route just before the AI's last unit breaks and give the enemy a victory.

Rebalance stats like HP and skirmishing. There are frequent situations where enemy units numbers will hold or drop slowly, and then all of a sudden in a few seconds 3/4 of their troops will be dead. I can only assume it was because I leeched their HP with lightly hitting skirmishers first (like slingers that never seem to get their own kills for me even when they practically unload on a single stationary enemy) and then the bulk of them were finished off around the same time in melee. I understand where the idea is coming from but to kill so many men in a standard melee so quickly without flanking seems sudden and awkward.

Agreed with whoever proposed adding directx version options earlier. My little brother is having huge compatibility, menu, and lag issues. He says he had the same thing with Shogun 2 until he changed Dx versions so that option would be a lifesaver.

I know this one is a bit much to ask but at some point I'd like to see certain factions unit rosters balanced out. Sparta for example seems to be one of the strongest militaries in the game, and mostly based on hoplites, as they should be. However Spartan hoplites have been able to mow through spectacularly bad odds with little problem in my playthrough, even against units that have better stats (and what's with standard Athenian hoplites having better stats that Spartans?). I'd like to see them being a bit less like supermen and balanced out with a few more unit options. I'd like a unit of dedicated swordsmen or something of the sort to be able to assist in situations where the obligatory spear units might be at a disadvantage.

Someone mentioned in another threat, and I agree, that the Roman units specifically need huge rebalancing. The stat/cost/upkeep ratios are such that there is almost no reason to use mostly Hastati supported by elite Principes or Lengionaries with a few veteran legions units in reserve when you could have a horde of the vastly superior troops for only a few coins more upkeep per turn.

Diplomacy wise I'd like to see the AI automatically making peace with your allies and other client states when you subjugate them, and subsequent attempts of them attacking each other would count as the attacker betraying you. There is little point in making someone a vassal if two turns later they are absorbed by another vassal or ally who joined the war in your defense and is still hostile towards them.

I like the province system but strongly agree that conquering (or uniting) provinces that you already have a foothold in should add to public order, not hurt it. The two-seperate-levels of public order idea that someone posted earlier sounds like a particularly good fix.

Overall still a decent game but one that has much more potential. There are a lot of things that could be fixed, added, or improved to make it great. There are issues but I still enjoy it (most of the time). In fact I'll probably start it up in a few minutes and see if the new patch fixed any of these complaints.

Sp4
09-15-2013, 04:01
I do wonder why they made Brundisium the provincial capital and not Syracuse.

Cause Rome and all that.

Hooahguy
09-15-2013, 04:14
Cause Rome and all that.
Can you explain that a bit more? Is it because the game is Rome-centered?

jbillybrack
09-15-2013, 06:21
Am I missing the place to view what edicts are being issued? Because I've looked and just can't track it down.

More information on the tactical map would be nice, such as:
1. List the army, not the agents i have riding in my armies.
2. (To refer to my point above) List which edict is in effect.
3. Be able to see how much movement a force has left what type of units, and how many soldiers are in said units.

and possibly, hooahguy, so you could coexist with syracuse and not lose the provincial capitol playing as Rome?

CaptainCrunch
09-15-2013, 07:04
... I wish Syracuse had walls...


I do wonder why they made Brundisium the provincial capital and not Syracuse.

This was a terrible omission in my opinion and needs to get sorted. They should make a system within the province where you can change your central city, like the way you could change your capitol in RTW. I actually like the fact that every settlement doesn't have a wall, but the larger & more economically powerful settlements should all be capable of building fortified walls regardless.

Also, CA needs to sort out the bug/feature where you kill and sink every enemy ship in a naval battle and the general just sails away afterwards like he's pleasure boating in the Med. I have to chase down dead men resurrecting their boats out of the abyss after most of my naval battles, this becomes insanely tedious. Naval battles in general need immediate attention, they're just absolutely busted right now and I think this can be a really key feature of the game if it gets sorted.

One other thing, 'Rotate' in the new camera mode does no such thing. It has the exact same function as Camera Up/Down. This is because in the new mode the camera orbits around the object you're focused on, as compared to the Classic Mode which orbits around an axis. This is fine when you're dealing with horizontal adjustments, but doesn't work in the vertical at all the way it's been implemented. Please fix with an actual feature to let you pivot your viewpoint up and down like the classic TW cam. If we could get the cam to go a bit closer to the ground on some maps that'd be nice too :grin:

Jarmam
09-15-2013, 07:39
You can actually sally with your defenders by manually selecting them and right clicking the besieging army.

Yes, the next turn. The problem is the following: Say Im Rome and next to Roma there is a squad of 7 Scorpion guys and a general. In the province I am constructing a trading port and I have an army of 20 units that all need replenishing for whatever reason stationed in the city.

So now those 67 guys besiege Roma in the AI turn. There is nothing I can do to prevent this, even though I could defeat the "siege" with 1% of my retainers from Rome.

Now its my turn. The trading port has not been built (or progressed), the replenishment has not happened. Yes, now I can attack the besiegers, but... the damage is done already. The town has skipped a turn and I have lost a massive amount of time due to this pathetic stack of 67 men. What if I need 20 units to deter an assault from a real army thats close by? That means I cant chase the 67 guys - so the next turn they can siege Roma again. And again. And again. And I can only scare them off the next turn, meaning that the town is paralyzed.

Now lets say there are no units in Roma, only retainers (or garrison or what have you), because I have access to 6 legions and all 6 are needed on the frontlines because this is Legendary and the barbarians have wisely allied against Rome, plus this general can never threaten to actually take the city, no matter how many mercenaries he can muster up. However the 67 men can paralyze Roma 'till the end of time. I cannot build anything from the city, no recruitment and no constructions. I also cannot send units to kill off this silly little stack, because I only have access to 6 legions and they're all busy. This is all due to the fact that I can only assault the siege in my turn and not in the turn it initiates, after which he will simply re-engage the siege in the AI turn over and over. I can assassinate the general, sure, but as long as 1 unit remains a new general will take over the army, and I cannot completely wipe out units with Agents so thats not an option either.

Now this stack has the option of going into raiding stance, thus hurting my province without engaging any garrisons. This means I can either chase them off or take the penalty from the raiding. So why, oh why, can the stack also time lock my city and its 2k garrison with 7 Scorpion guys forever? What are they doing while the 7 Scorpions somehow encircle the city and all traffic in and out? Why dont they just... sally out... right now? As in: When the enemy attempts the siege. Not a turn later.

Thats the issue in gruesome detail.

Suraknar
09-15-2013, 09:26
A list for things to be fixed, removed, added or changed. Let's try and provide CA with something that can help them see at a glance if they're headed in the right direction according to their fans and customers, and if they have everything noted down. I'll edit the original post as you guys contribute more things.

Things to add:


- True hotseat mode

Ok.


- Bring back the Family Tree from RTW and flesh it out even more, ATM generals aren't very interesting and easily replaced.

Agreed, always liked the Familly trees in the series. Not sure how it can fit the new system with the houses etc, but maybe it can actually be an improvement over it.


- City view in peace time like in Rome 1

Yes that is missing.


- Naval transport ships that can carry a set number of troops at a maximum

I like the new system for transports, I like that we do not have to build fleets to trasport armies and that armies can embark disembark with transports as they do now.

The game's trategy I see it has changed. We long longer have to have armies guarding every single city/settlement. There is an automated good Garisson tied to technology so it improves with time. Which can put up a good fight too. And we have armies, as historically Raised and assembled by great people and generals, states of Houses and Famillies. That do Regional protection.

Playng Rome II for me has been like Playing ROME the TV series... I think they did a great job with the changes on teh Strategic level.

So Armies looking to travel by Boat normally brokered deals with numerous merchants and other seafaring factions historically. And I think the way the system is made represents this.

What would be an improvement following the same vision, could be to have to pay a certain fee for embarcation of armies based on the number of units that are being transported. But going back to the old system, I do not agree it was really a pain gameplay wise.


- An astrologer/seer type of agent who has to do with research: speeding it up, stealing technology from more advanced factions etc.

Good idea, however, Philosopher would be better, Seers and Astrologers were religious people, those interested in technologies were the Philosophers, mathematicians, Histrorians of the time. As they travelled from city to city to exchange Idas they also contributed in the proliferation of knowledge from different cultures.


- Seasons (preferably 4, but atleast 2...) and seasonal effects.

It would be nice to have this as a Toggle in the game Settings that wway players can customize their experience as they wish. It is done through modding at this time.


- Walls or some other way of stalling for minor cities.

Not all cities had walls in the perriod. I relly much like the new Provincilal major/Minor City interelationship and setup. In fact I love it. It is simply refreshing to play :)


- Generals & admirals should gain traits based on their battlefield tactics & tendencies as well as their record of success in battle (with appropriate bonuses). They should gain reputations according to these factors and successful tacticians should be renowned and feared for it. These factors should be taken into account by the AI when fielding its own force. The AI should account for powerful enemy generals on the Campaign Map as well when facing them with inferior forces. The mere presence of a renowned tactician leading a powerful army in an enemy region should affect public happiness for the duration.

Could be interesting, neutral here.


- Factions should be able to negotiate peace agreements between their clients/satrapies and other aggressive states, or use the threat of military action diplomatically against aggressors if they don't back down.

Agreed 100%, I been looking for the options to Broker Peace in the diplomacy list. An Arrange Peace/Seasefire option would be a great addition to the intricacies of Diplomacy. And if two states at War become Client states they should sease hostilities as well.


- Bring back 'Give Settlement'.

Neutral here. I am not missing it. Again I think the game is geared in its new itteration of gameplay towards more exchanges of settlements through military means. The armies we raise have a purpose. In reality we should actually be disbanding armies when in peace time and only maintaining a Defense force. Like it was historically.


- Bring back Fire at Will for all missile carrying units.

This is there already... what did I miss?


Adding to the thread:

Client State Mechanics.

I am Playing Rome. at one point the veneti request to become a client state with patavium. hen they get attacked by the Ligurians. The Ligurians take patavium while the Veneti take Genoa...I go in and take Patavium by the Ligurians. The Veneti take the Large city of the Province to the north (name escapes me atm), while they lose Genoa to the Ligurians, I take Genoa from the ligurians and now the Veneti hold the Large city in between Patavium and Genoa...

BUT, in the process of all this...the Client State relationship got lost...and the Veneti are remembering that I broke the agreement... How? I never attacked them, the Ligurians did and I even declared war on them to protect the veneti since they were my client state.

So maybe Client states should be associated with the Faction, not the settlements...it is an agreement between peoples...not between stones.

Conclusion

Overall, not have much else to add here, I really am liking the game in the way it is made, and the patches have been improving the Bugs/Performance and minor issues it had at launch, and will continue to do so. And in between everyone feed back the list above covers most of the things.

Nelson
09-15-2013, 13:12
Now this stack has the option of going into raiding stance, thus hurting my province without engaging any garrisons. This means I can either chase them off or take the penalty from the raiding. So why, oh why, can the stack also time lock my city and its 2k garrison with 7 Scorpion guys forever? What are they doing while the 7 Scorpions somehow encircle the city and all traffic in and out? Why dont they just... sally out... right now? As in: When the enemy attempts the siege. Not a turn later.

Thats the issue in gruesome detail.

All true. We need a sort of "man of the hour" who can appear just long enough to take command of the garrison and sally out to handle enemies that are below the strength of the home forces. Above the garrison strength and you would need to bring a force home to deal with the invasion/rebellion.



Also, CA needs to sort out the bug/feature where you kill and sink every enemy ship in a naval battle and the general just sails away afterwards like he's pleasure boating in the Med. I have to chase down dead men resurrecting their boats out of the abyss after most of my naval battles, this becomes insanely tedious.
This, too. Sunken ships should stay sunk! This was also an issue in Shogun2 IIRC.

And I wish there was a Roman ship with the corvus. A HUGE omission. It's akin to leaving out elephants. How can you have the Punic Wars without them!

CaptainCrunch
09-15-2013, 16:44
- Bring back Fire at Will for all missile carrying units.


This is there already... what did I miss?

Units carrying pila can only throw them during an attack charge, they have no way of throwing them without charging like in RTW, where you could set them to Fire At Will and they would automatically throw them at enemies in range. This really hurts in naval battles in particular, where certain 'peltasts' can't throw their javelins unless they're boarding.

BroskiDerpman
09-15-2013, 16:47
Lets not forget the friendly fire from attacking with Romans, in Rome-Med 2 you alt right click, in Empire-Shogun 2 you missile cav if melee enabled will fire until they charge.

AntiDamascus
09-15-2013, 17:08
I wish the household cards were the family tree.

I should click on my family tree and have a tree (or several) of members. These members should have bonuses like the household cards. They should have ages so they die eventually. If I need to recruit a general or an admiral they should come from this group and have about the same stats or something similar when they are recruited. This does a few things...

* A household actually looks more like a household. It gives a better idea of where these people are coming from.

*It makes it easier to assign household members to fleets/armies. Instead of clicking a fleet and having a huge set of cards pop up where I need to hover over every one to see which is best, I just click from the household window or tree and assign it to one of my way fewer in number generals or admirals

*It could allow a better training of the household members. Never use a naval household guy like shipwright? Well that lineage dies out or shames themselves into something else. make it so you can't just pick the best military traits of your house. You need to cultivate a good farming line too for when it's needed (see what I did there?)

*Having us pick our generals and admirals from these guys makes us make tougher choices. Do I leave that awesome bonused guy in my fleet so I can win faster or do I leave him in town to be an admiral soon because my current ones are bad or getting old? If I pick a land based guy to be an admiral he's going to suck and vice versa.

*Let us assign household members to regions to help us shape the towns a little more. They aren't generals but maybe like mini governors who gave give (very small) bonuses to regions.


I don't know if any of this is possible or even desired by other members but one of my favorite things was always seeing the household grow and expand. I personally liked Rome I where you had family members who were obviously governors. I don't mind the politics section as it is but it needs fleshing out. My family at a glance consists of one or two guys. We already have this large number of household guys, "just" give them faces names and ages. However complex that would be I don't know but I would probably adore it.

Suraknar
09-15-2013, 20:56
Units carrying pila can only throw them during an attack charge, they have no way of throwing them without charging like in RTW, where you could set them to Fire At Will and they would automatically throw them at enemies in range. This really hurts in naval battles in particular, where certain 'peltasts' can't throw their javelins unless they're boarding.

Thank you for clarification :) I have not noticed that behavior, especially in the naval battles. I will pay more attention to that.

Kurisu
09-17-2013, 15:40
- Factions should be able to negotiate peace agreements between their clients/satrapies and other aggressive states, or use the threat of military action diplomatically against aggressors if they don't back down.

Still reading the OP, but this reached out and spoke directly to me. "Make peace with..." is sorely missing.

Wasn't it implicit in Shogun2 that vassals gained a clean slate with belligerents? Lacking some expanded diplomatic options, this would be preferable.

Bramborough
09-17-2013, 18:24
I wish the household cards were the family tree.

I should click on my family tree and have a tree (or several) of members. These members should have bonuses like the household cards. They should have ages so they die eventually. If I need to recruit a general or an admiral they should come from this group and have about the same stats or something similar when they are recruited. This does a few things...

* A household actually looks more like a household. It gives a better idea of where these people are coming from.

*It makes it easier to assign household members to fleets/armies. Instead of clicking a fleet and having a huge set of cards pop up where I need to hover over every one to see which is best, I just click from the household window or tree and assign it to one of my way fewer in number generals or admirals

*It could allow a better training of the household members. Never use a naval household guy like shipwright? Well that lineage dies out or shames themselves into something else. make it so you can't just pick the best military traits of your house. You need to cultivate a good farming line too for when it's needed (see what I did there?)

*Having us pick our generals and admirals from these guys makes us make tougher choices. Do I leave that awesome bonused guy in my fleet so I can win faster or do I leave him in town to be an admiral soon because my current ones are bad or getting old? If I pick a land based guy to be an admiral he's going to suck and vice versa.

*Let us assign household members to regions to help us shape the towns a little more. They aren't generals but maybe like mini governors who gave give (very small) bonuses to regions.


I don't know if any of this is possible or even desired by other members but one of my favorite things was always seeing the household grow and expand. I personally liked Rome I where you had family members who were obviously governors. I don't mind the politics section as it is but it needs fleshing out. My family at a glance consists of one or two guys. We already have this large number of household guys, "just" give them faces names and ages. However complex that would be I don't know but I would probably adore it.

+1 to this post, I agree with its intent 100%. I believe these objectives could be met with a family tree. My one comment is minor: I think the "Household" slot for an individual general is meant to refer to servants, retainers, and/or entourage types of folks, rather than actual family members.

Bramborough
09-17-2013, 18:30
One to add to the list:

Edict visibility. Could be done several different ways (faction summary page, strategic map, province list tab, etc)...there needs to be some mechanism whereby the player can, in a single display, see the location and nature of all edicts. Right now, the player has to cycle through each province and look at the little edict button on lower left. This is kinda annoying. Not a big deal early in the campaign with only a couple of provinces and limited edicts available, but when the empire gets big and Imperium level high, gets to be a pain.

I've started keeping track of my edicts with pencil on a yellow-sticky...I think I shouldn't have to do this.

AntiDamascus
09-17-2013, 19:31
+1 to this post, I agree with its intent 100%. I believe these objectives could be met with a family tree. My one comment is minor: I think the "Household" slot for an individual general is meant to refer to servants, retainers, and/or entourage types of folks, rather than actual family members.

It is, but I think they could just make them part of the extended family or something.

AntiDamascus
09-17-2013, 19:44
One to add to the list:

Edict visibility. Could be done several different ways (faction summary page, strategic map, province list tab, etc)...there needs to be some mechanism whereby the player can, in a single display, see the location and nature of all edicts. Right now, the player has to cycle through each province and look at the little edict button on lower left. This is kinda annoying. Not a big deal early in the campaign with only a couple of provinces and limited edicts available, but when the empire gets big and Imperium level high, gets to be a pain.

I've started keeping track of my edicts with pencil on a yellow-sticky...I think I shouldn't have to do this.

You should be able to hover over a province and see an edict

Myth
09-18-2013, 08:57
Thanks for all your feedback guys, I'll add the new stuff to the OP. I played some more and I have things to add as well:

I invaded Egypt as Rome, expecting an epic Casar & Cleopatra fight and drama. I waltzed right through their major cities on the Nile with no opposition apart from the weak garrisons. Only after I had gone a lot furher south along the Nile did Egypt bring it's army - basically a fullstack of warships, and retook 2-3 coastal cities. But it could only support those ships, leaving no food and money for a land army. And 9 experience Pretorians chew marines up for breakfast in a land battle.

So the AI must prioritize land armies over navies if it can't support at least a 1:1 ratio. 2:1 is better.

Also, champions are indeed overpowered. Not only is their training action too effective too quickly, they also level up very fast, to the point where + agent levels buildings become meaningless. Why invest in a tier 5 building to get +2 agent levles when that champ will level up to level 6 in a matter of turns?

I haven't been able to play on Patch 2 as I have been busy, so I hope some of the other issues are resolved. I'm espcially curious about the high-tier buildins rebalance.

ararax
09-18-2013, 12:43
Lets see.
Military
1. Have Hastati upgradable to Principes at 3 Chevrons, and have Principes upgradable to Triarii at 6 Chevrons.
2. Have Veteran Grade Legions be upgrades of Normal Legions, not a seperate recruitable.
3. Expand the Tech Tree to include later era tech like the Spatha. Let Barbarians finish out at Migration Era tech, and Romans finish out at late Roman Tech. (Greeks and Easterns move to a Heavy Armoured Horse Archer tech level aka Parthian Byzantine)
4. Add caps for Elite unit Types as a player handcuff. There is no reason i should be able to field 15 Legions of Praetorians.
5. Add regional Legions. At the moment it is best to recruit all army units in one specced out region. If you could recruit regional legions (aka Gallic Legions having Better Charge, Italia Legions having better moral, Spanish Legions having better attack, Illyrian Legions having better Pilum Range) there might be a reason to build a barracks somewhere other than Italy.


Campaign
1. Expand the tech tree. I want hundreds of Techs that I can research, not a 60ish I want to be able to pick where and how I research, if I want to develop a superior military at the expense of Civilian then I should be allowed to.
2. Family Tree
3. 2-4 TPY with seasons.
4. Squalor: Farms should not give Squalor, factories should.
5. Food: Temples shouldnt eat 2 farms worth of food. They just shouldnt.
6. AI Recruitment AI should recruit by job than priority. They should look to recruit 5 line infantry. When they recruit that they should get 2 ranged and 2 horse as priority after that they should look for more line infantry. This would vary by culture/Faction. As it is now, it buys as many stats per coin as it can. Which leads to slinger armies.

Battle
1. Get rid of Blobbing. Roman/Greek/Eastern Units should keep formation.
2. Guard mode Toggle. If I want the units to stay and hold formation they should, if I want them to attack anything in range they should.
3. Defensive Pilum. Units with Javelins should have a fire at will button.
4. AI can't calculate battles very well. It thinks that my half stack of boosted Praetorians (~150 Attack 100+ Armour ~150 Moral) would be destroyed by 2 stacks of Levy Spearmen. I can just faceroll charge into them and my PGs will eat them alive in an instant.
5. Celtic Longswords are only 5 AP Damage (the Minimum) Should be at least 10 due to the blunt force of those weapons alone.
6. Magic abilities like Use the Whip or Killing Spree. (I would like more realistic abilities like Rotate, where Fresh units get swapped in to the front line.)
7. Gladiators being super cheap and vicious
8. When taking a minor settlement, the battle should be fought outside of the settlement, the winner then takes the settlement.

Bugs
Clubs do 5 Damage (and 10 AP) this totally nerfs bloodsworn, should be upgraded to at least 15-25 normal damage.
Slingers use a really good shield which gives them amazing Defensive stats (For such a cheap unit) They get spammed. Please eliminate this advantage.

Spoonska
09-18-2013, 12:53
Also, champions are indeed overpowered. Not only is their training action too effective too quickly, they also level up very fast, to the point where + agent levels buildings become meaningless. Why invest in a tier 5 building to get +2 agent levles when that champ will level up to level 6 in a matter of turns?

You build the +agent buildings to get a Lv.10 agent, but it's really a bit of a mess.I did some testing (while watching movies :P) for leveling agents over the weekend. For experience it's : 2 exp for a failed action, 10 exp for a success. The conclusion I came to was that if you're starting from scratch, i.e. no +agent bonus, then the likelyhood of getting that agent to Lv. 10 is slim to none. I spawned 5 agents 2 spys, 1 dignitary, 2 champions all at 1 stars, and when old age killed them off they were between Lv.7-8. By building a +2 or +3 building you'll get higher up quicker.


Why would you want to do that ? Well for agents I personally find it best to focus on 2 talents to max out. For example the dignitary... Getting a dignitary that spawns with +Civil administration and then going down the Authority tree for Politics for more Civil administration will net you 24% taxes. In order to hit that magic 24% number you'll need 7 talent points. If you spawn with an agent with 3 or 4 stars you can just hit that max benefit faster of course.

Why is it a mess ? Because leveling slows to a crawl once you get to level 7. If you can get to level 10 with an agent they will most likely be in their sixties. So that gives you maybe 5-10 turns of usability before they bite the balista. Another reason being you can max out an agent's success to 95% relatively quickly. Spies for example their % success rate contrast to the towns cunning. So if you're trying to poison the wells every point of Cunning will give you +% after 3 cunning. If you specialize agents like Spies and go heavy on cunning you're pretty much all set by level 5.

Perhaps that's how it was intended. I know for Hellenistic factions the +Agent bonus is tied to the hambone City Centre building giving you 10% Ag wealth, 50 Culture wealth and food. It does seem like it needs to be tweaked. As far as champions go I was thinking that they would be nerfed inconsequentially when the AI gets "buffed". At the moment the AI more or less is still a potato brain mulling about. In the future when it's fielding armies that don't contain 15/20 javelinmen (or slingers), and is a considerable threat we will hopefully have to train more units. As it stands on VH battle AI there's been multiple times where I've gone into a fight down 2:1 and come out with only 200 losses. More losses should drop experience allowing the champion to help get it back up. At least that's what I think about it.


TL;DR - Champions are good because the AI is terrible and not forcing you to lose troops. +Agent buildings are worth it because it can get you to Lv.7 (IE 2 maxed talents) the fastest increasing their efficiency. Even more so if you're Hellenistic because a Pandocheion gives you food along with some other great bonuses.

Lord of the Isles
09-18-2013, 14:13
I've already posted my main thoughts in this thread. Decided to add a few more, prompted by my finishing a game (Athens on Hard at 1 AD). I started on 3rd Sep with Rome but gave up around turn 160 as crashes happening more regularly and the first patch was out so decided to begin another campaign.

First thing to say is that I'm surprised that, unlike some other TW games, I have kept going till the end. Must be something driving that one-more-turn feeling. Mind you, when I say 'the end', I didn't actually win the game. I had all the Bonus Objectives fulfilled and all those needed for an Economic Victory except one: I needed trade agreements with 20 factions but only had 9. But by 1 AD there were only 23 factions left in the game and 14 of those had no trade route to their capitals, and likely never would have. So it was impossible and I just decided to declarer myself the winner by Imperial Fiat ~;)


Victory Conditions. Need work (see above). Don't mind them being tough (getting all 9 trade goods was really hard - found silk in Edessa eventually) but when they are impossible it kind of devalues the point of them. For economic, x trade agreements or 33% of remaining factions, whichever is fewer, might work.

Battles. I've not had a single open field battle where I was defending a capture point. As Bramborough noted, this is probably because I only use forced march in friendly areas or where the AI doesn't have a large stack army close. I only had 1 battle in the whole game where I was attacking and the AI defender had a capture point to defend. Mind you, I only had a handful of open field battles the whole game - almost every one was attacking or occasionally defending a city or town. I know CA tried to reduce the number of siege battles but it hasn't worked well. We just get lots of no-walled towns to attack instead. A change to begin with but it is quickly becoming boring. And the AI's habit of parking army stacks in naval transports outside the towns isn't helping.

Buffs. From buildings, heroes/veterans, generals, techs, army traditions and experience. Those add up to far too much, especially when the AI can't manage it. Remember that small % increases mean a lot - it isn't that a 20% buffed weapon damage unit beats a non-buffed unit leaving 20% more men in it. Maxed out units tear through weaker ones losing hardly any men most of the time.

Replenishment. Too fast for armies at least (fleets I'm not sure about, they don't seem so quick). Down to 30/160 men in middle and late game I was back up to usable next turn and 160/160 in 2. That's too soon.

Characters. No doubt a side effect of the 1-turn-per-year system (sigh) but they die before I get attached to them. I don't even care about buffing their units with weapons & armour since by the time they get back to the front line, they'll be dead and the next one comes along.

Amphibious Assaults. Maybe I am missing something but: I have a 10 unit fleet & 20 unit army in transports outside a town. If I select the army and right click to attack, the army goes onto land and pauses, letting me attack from land but that wasn't what I wanted. If I select the fleet and right click it goes into a battle as expected. But in both cases, I only get part of the supporting force appearing. If the army attacks from land, only say 5 or 6 of the naval units appear as reinforcements. When the fleet attacks with the army in transports as support, only say 6 - 8 of the transports appear as reinforcements. Weird.


Overall, I've had fun and my money's worth. But, despite many interesting and good new design features in the game, I wonder how long it will be before the novelty wears off and I go back to Shogun 2 (or the Third Age TW mod). Maybe not long; I'm already auto-resolving battles most of the time.

Bramborough
09-18-2013, 19:30
Lets see.
Military
1. Have Hastati upgradable to Principes at 3 Chevrons, and have Principes upgradable to Triarii at 6 Chevrons.
2. Have Veteran Grade Legions be upgrades of Normal Legions, not a seperate recruitable.
3. Expand the Tech Tree to include later era tech like the Spatha. Let Barbarians finish out at Migration Era tech, and Romans finish out at late Roman Tech. (Greeks and Easterns move to a Heavy Armoured Horse Archer tech level aka Parthian Byzantine)
4. Add caps for Elite unit Types as a player handcuff. There is no reason i should be able to field 15 Legions of Praetorians.
5. Add regional Legions. At the moment it is best to recruit all army units in one specced out region. If you could recruit regional legions (aka Gallic Legions having Better Charge, Italia Legions having better moral, Spanish Legions having better attack, Illyrian Legions having better Pilum Range) there might be a reason to build a barracks somewhere other than Italy.


Campaign
1. Expand the tech tree. I want hundreds of Techs that I can research, not a 60ish I want to be able to pick where and how I research, if I want to develop a superior military at the expense of Civilian then I should be allowed to.
2. Family Tree
3. 2-4 TPY with seasons.
4. Squalor: Farms should not give Squalor, factories should.
5. Food: Temples shouldnt eat 2 farms worth of food. They just shouldnt.
6. AI Recruitment AI should recruit by job than priority. They should look to recruit 5 line infantry. When they recruit that they should get 2 ranged and 2 horse as priority after that they should look for more line infantry. This would vary by culture/Faction. As it is now, it buys as many stats per coin as it can. Which leads to slinger armies.

Battle
1. Get rid of Blobbing. Roman/Greek/Eastern Units should keep formation.
2. Guard mode Toggle. If I want the units to stay and hold formation they should, if I want them to attack anything in range they should.
3. Defensive Pilum. Units with Javelins should have a fire at will button.
4. AI can't calculate battles very well. It thinks that my half stack of boosted Praetorians (~150 Attack 100+ Armour ~150 Moral) would be destroyed by 2 stacks of Levy Spearmen. I can just faceroll charge into them and my PGs will eat them alive in an instant.
5. Celtic Longswords are only 5 AP Damage (the Minimum) Should be at least 10 due to the blunt force of those weapons alone.
6. Magic abilities like Use the Whip or Killing Spree. (I would like more realistic abilities like Rotate, where Fresh units get swapped in to the front line.)
7. Gladiators being super cheap and vicious
8. When taking a minor settlement, the battle should be fought outside of the settlement, the winner then takes the settlement.

Bugs
Clubs do 5 Damage (and 10 AP) this totally nerfs bloodsworn, should be upgraded to at least 15-25 normal damage.
Slingers use a really good shield which gives them amazing Defensive stats (For such a cheap unit) They get spammed. Please eliminate this advantage.

Fully agree with (or at least, "don't disagree with") most of these suggestions. In particular the Roman military tech-up comments. It doesn't make sense to me that one can recruit brand-new units of Pricipe/Triarii, "Veteran" Legionaries, First Cohorts, and Praetorians. These are all older/experienced troops. One should only be able to recruit Hastati and Legionaries, and then upgrade to these elite unit types based on experience (which obtw, is in itself a little too easy to get right now, but that's a separate issue).

Disagree, however, with comments regarding farm squalor and temple food.

1. Farms. As the farms get larger and more productive/efficient, they require far fewer personnel-per-acre to operate. The squalor represents the dispossessed small farmer, a small percentage of whom remain on the big farms as mere tenant employees (as opposed to owners), while the majority remainder flock to cities as unemployed. The Roman Republic had a huge problem with this (never satisfactorily resolved), and was a central factor in the tensions leading to its first major civil war. It's a problem inherent in agricultural development up til today (remember Willie Nelson's "Farm Aid" concerts in the '80's?).

2. Temples. I will agree that, superficially, it doesn't make sense that higher-level temples eat a huge amount of food (above and beyond the relatively tiny population percentage which the clergy & temple workers would make up). Within the game mechanics, however, it's livable. Level III+ buildings need to cost something. In this economic system, it's either squalor or food. So while it's counterintuitive that temples would consume an inordinate amount of food, it would make even far less sense that temples would come with a public order penalty.

Jarmam
09-19-2013, 07:33
Disagree, however, with comments regarding farm squalor and temple food.

1. Farms. As the farms get larger and more productive/efficient, they require far fewer personnel-per-acre to operate. The squalor represents the dispossessed small farmer, a small percentage of whom remain on the big farms as mere tenant employees (as opposed to owners), while the majority remainder flock to cities as unemployed. The Roman Republic had a huge problem with this (never satisfactorily resolved), and was a central factor in the tensions leading to its first major civil war. It's a problem inherent in agricultural development up til today (remember Willie Nelson's "Farm Aid" concerts in the '80's?).

2. Temples. I will agree that, superficially, it doesn't make sense that higher-level temples eat a huge amount of food (above and beyond the relatively tiny population percentage which the clergy & temple workers would make up). Within the game mechanics, however, it's livable. Level III+ buildings need to cost something. In this economic system, it's either squalor or food. So while it's counterintuitive that temples would consume an inordinate amount of food, it would make even far less sense that temples would come with a public order penalty.

Just seconding this since it is really, really important. The patch that reduced food/squalor for buildings already made economy super-easy to get out of control - if you get rid of more of it we are back to a Shogun 2 system of exponential absurdity and while it was kind of fun, it kind of... wasnt. I love the fact that even though I am clearly the major power a combination of food, squalor and corruption puts a leash on my economic superiority even 170 some turns into the game with lots of philosophy and economic researches.

Another minor, yet surprisingly frustrating thing I've quickly come to hate:
You cannot upgrade a Legion at a time, even though they require the exact same type of upgrade. My Legio I Victor Liberatoribus (they saved me from the 6 civil war stacks, good guys!) just came home from conquering Britannia and needed the +20 melee +20 shield +20 defense ups I had set up in Italy meanwhile. This goes the following: Select General, select upgrade, upgrade. Select 1 more unit, repeat. You cannot select 7 Legionary squads and upgrade them all at the same time - even though they are identical. And if I recall correctly you can select 7 Principles and upgrade them all to Legionaries in 3 clicks. But for weapons/armor this takes a massive 60 clicks per stack. And I have 12 legions! Please! Fix!

Also agents are way too good and their abilities are blurry in what they do. Why does the enemy lose some seemingly random amount of movement if I poison the stack or disrupt the baggage trains?
Replenishment (on land at least) is way too fast and its bugged with the AI. Everything replenishes in the player's turn. So I might attack and win a fight vs Britannia. The remaining units retreat to their province - but they aren't replenished in his turn. Instead they replenish in mine. This also means that if they attack me and lose (in their province) I cannot take real advantage of this in my turn, since the remaining units have all replenished even though he hasn't had a new turn yet. Too fast replenishment (probably a problem linked to the 1tpy) combined with this can get quite annoying when expanding against enemies that actually put up a real fight. Yes, my friends, Oathsworn and Noble Cavalry stacks - be afraid.

Shaitan
09-19-2013, 11:51
One thing I miss from the last TW I played (M2) is the option to offer or demand regions via diplomacy. It gave more room to play the economical way. You could try to get region without going to war if your funds were big enough.

What do you think?

ararax
09-19-2013, 14:25
Fully agree with (or at least, "don't disagree with") most of these suggestions. In particular the Roman military tech-up comments. It doesn't make sense to me that one can recruit brand-new units of Pricipe/Triarii, "Veteran" Legionaries, First Cohorts, and Praetorians. These are all older/experienced troops. One should only be able to recruit Hastati and Legionaries, and then upgrade to these elite unit types based on experience (which obtw, is in itself a little too easy to get right now, but that's a separate issue).

Disagree, however, with comments regarding farm squalor and temple food.

1. Farms. As the farms get larger and more productive/efficient, they require far fewer personnel-per-acre to operate. The squalor represents the dispossessed small farmer, a small percentage of whom remain on the big farms as mere tenant employees (as opposed to owners), while the majority remainder flock to cities as unemployed. The Roman Republic had a huge problem with this (never satisfactorily resolved), and was a central factor in the tensions leading to its first major civil war. It's a problem inherent in agricultural development up til today (remember Willie Nelson's "Farm Aid" concerts in the '80's?).


See that was a problem specific to Italy. Regions such as North Africa and Egypt never had these types of problems due to the large amounts of ramland availible.

The Roman Latfundia issue was 3 fold.
1. Rome was huge, By 1AD Rome was over 1 Million people. Alexandria was also this size in the era, but unlike Alexandria, Rome was surrounded by other large cities.
2. Italy was not suited to mass scale pre industrial farming, unlike Egypt. Central Italy is very Mountainous there was no central river such as the Nile that connected farms with the city. Rome was even slightly inland which makes things harder.
3. Rome had independant farmers for much of its history, Egypt never had a similar situation (Except for isolated incidents such as Galatian landed mercs) Once they got pressed out and replaced with slaves they were forced into the cities. Egypt had a long history of slave/serf like existance of the natives being controlled by the noble classes, and also in this case it added to unrest, but in this case it was the natives away from the cities that revolted most, while in Rome the unrest was formost involving the plebians who were evicted farmers, bought or pushed out by the rich.

So while yes, high level agriculture has caused unrest in history, in both cases due to the huge amounts of population that they were expected to provide for. But really the Roman case was causes by high usage of slavery coupled with hgih city populations with no work, and the Alexandrian problem was caused by Feudal exploitment of the native population.

Again, this would probably be better represented by things other than farm size.

So long story short, it was the size of Rome and the surrounding areas and the relative lack of usable farmland that created the Latfundia problem.

But I agree that there needs to be some kind of Gameplay Limit on player growth.

Bramborough
09-19-2013, 21:47
Already mentioned in a couple of other threads, but posting here for potential inclusion in our collective wishlist:

Post-Civil War Internal Politics. Currently, internal politics abruptly ends with the start of the CW. After CW conclusion, influence/gravitas are frozen at pre-CW levels for remainder of game. Character actions such as Marriage, Promotion, Assassination, etc, are no longer possible (I guess all generals remain lifelong bachelors?). A 2nd CW is not possible. There's plenty which could be improved in the politics system...but flawed as it may be, at least it's something which adds to the complexity of gameplay. With its removal, the post-CW campaign becomes much simpler...and therefore more boring.

On the other hand, there does need to be some sort of "resolution" from the Civil War, in order to give some meaning to that event. Potential for endless CWs through remainder of the campaign wouldn't be too attractive either.

I would propose that upon a player concluding the Civil War, the following be implemented:

1. If the player wins the CW outright, by destroying the opposing faction, then no further CW is possible.
2. If the CW ends by treaty, however, then further CW IS possible. Therefore, a player must completely beat the opposition in order to reach full resolution of the "CW Question".
3. Influence, gravitas, and ambition traits continue to operate just as they did pre-CW.
4. Even though further CW isn't possible, a high-gravitas/ambition general from family other than player's own may still rebel (and take his army stack with him). He starts heading toward the capital, and if he gets there and captures, then there would be some sort of severe penalty (possibly losing the campaign). The idea here is that the threat wouldn't be very serious as long as the player prudently stations armies and generals, and reacts appropriately when it happens...BUT, if the player just goons up the response, or outright ignores the rebel general, then it's a real problem.
5. Marriages, promotions, assassinations, bribes, rumors, etc, would still continue (thus making continued influence-management of some worth).

Kamakazi
09-26-2013, 23:58
A downloadable Blood Pack such as in shogun 2 would be nice. I enjoyed the flailings of death and the kill moves.

Also better battle in general. Often times my units are just siting there and killing without doing anything

oz_wwjd
09-27-2013, 03:26
I'd go one step further. IN MTW there was a option called Glorious Achievements mode. Why not bring something like that back,as I found that to be fun when I didn't want to conquer the entire world,as it gave the AI time to bring decent armies against me.

Myth
09-27-2013, 07:48
Hah, that GA mode was stolen from Knigts of Honor :yes:

Shaitan
09-27-2013, 08:48
I'd go one step further. IN MTW there was a option called Glorious Achievements mode. Why not bring something like that back,as I found that to be fun when I didn't want to conquer the entire world,as it gave the AI time to bring decent armies against me.

Yes the cultural and economical victory conditions have to much military goals (settlement requirements) for my taste. GAs would be a welcome addition.

oz_wwjd
09-28-2013, 08:57
I didn't know that,but it did make sense at the time,as I felt it gave an additional challenge to the game,as goals were added from time to time,which were hard to accomplish.

Wilbo
09-28-2013, 10:36
I have a few issues with the generals, the core issue of which is that this is the first TW game that I don't feel any emotional attachment to them. I can see three points of improvement:

1) Return of the family tree, as mentioned previously.

2) We must have back the command stars visible on the command map - as per every other TW game. Traditionally, when I look across my armies, if I see one with a 5 star general I checked them out and made sure he was in control of the greatest army, but in RII I have no idea - nor do I care - who is in control of any army. Similarly, I would avoid encounters with enemy 5 star generals.

3) Way too many bonuses - why do I have fifty retainers that offer the same thing? Give me the choice of three, as per Shogun 2! The same with skills - I have loads to choose from and isnce I don't know what zeal, authority and the other one do, I just choose any - these latter things aren't well transposed into battlefield effects.

A key point however is that RII has given me major emotional attachment to my armies (Legio III Martia are legends), so CA have handled this excellently. Good job.

AntiDamascus
09-29-2013, 16:53
I really never pick any retainer with zeal,auth or whatever because it seems to be a waste of time. I pick things like armor, morale, damage or movement speed.

Bramborough
09-29-2013, 23:11
I really never pick any retainer with zeal,auth or whatever because it seems to be a waste of time. I pick things like armor, morale, damage or movement speed.

In theory, I agree. In practice, however, generals (the Roman ones, at least) usually seem to go crazy (first "Not Quite Right", followed soon by "Unhinged") and lose tons of authority. I find myself using +authority retainers quite often, trying to get rid of their low-auth debuffs. Other than that, yeah, I much prefer the others, especially the +damage guys.

A side observation: Household members with +authority and +cunning come up all the time, but I don't think I've ever seen one with +zeal, which I find rather odd.

AntiDamascus
09-29-2013, 23:37
Maybe because they knew how easy it was for a general to go +zeal?

Bramborough
09-30-2013, 00:04
Maybe because they knew how easy it was for a general to go +zeal?

True enough, especially since it's much more natural to embed a champ with an army stack than a spy or dignitary.

Myth
09-30-2013, 07:44
+1 to seeing command stars on the map.

For general development:

Get the walking stick household item that gives +1% campaign map movement.

Go for Strategist and then for the horn icon which gives 6% campaign map movement at first level.

Can't go wrong with these. If you don't have that household item, 5% morale or armour is great (morale not needed once you have a sufficient armidoctor and Pretorians)

Nelson
09-30-2013, 15:04
I don't like the way the event messages disappear between saves. If I need to quit before reading them all I won't see them. They should be saved, too.

I would also like the food surplus display to show, in addition to the current surplus/deficit , the pending food balance when looking at my current construction projects. With so many food changes happening turns later it would be nice to know what the forecast is when making still more construction decisions.

Sp4
09-30-2013, 15:10
In theory, I agree. In practice, however, generals (the Roman ones, at least) usually seem to go crazy (first "Not Quite Right", followed soon by "Unhinged") and lose tons of authority. I find myself using +authority retainers quite often, trying to get rid of their low-auth debuffs. Other than that, yeah, I much prefer the others, especially the +damage guys.

A side observation: Household members with +authority and +cunning come up all the time, but I don't think I've ever seen one with +zeal, which I find rather odd.

If I get a general going crazy, I just roll with it and buff the guy's zeal. Minmax and all that ^^

sassbarman
10-02-2013, 23:59
- should be able to build walls around any settlement. so you just can't spam them make the ability to build walls only in regions where you've managed to build the highest level of city center building (high squalor and food penalty's)
- minimal battle UI please!!
- as mentioned above I can't believe CA missed the boat on strategic resources...I mean come on we had it in shogun2...I thought they would have expanded on it not got rid of it.
- Yes command stars on camp map!

Kamakazi
10-03-2013, 05:18
As I said before BLOOD PACK!!!! but anyway

Having the ability to tell your units to use the ladders you've thrown on the enemies walls. My units tend to throw them up and then let go and walk through the gate my other forces have breached... Hello TW2 Im trying to do a pincer here........:wall:

Alcibiade
10-07-2013, 10:03
Lets see.
Military
1. Have Hastati upgradable to Principes at 3 Chevrons, and have Principes upgradable to Triarii at 6 Chevrons.
2. Have Veteran Grade Legions be upgrades of Normal Legions, not a seperate recruitable.
3. Expand the Tech Tree to include later era tech like the Spatha. Let Barbarians finish out at Migration Era tech, and Romans finish out at late Roman Tech. (Greeks and Easterns move to a Heavy Armoured Horse Archer tech level aka Parthian Byzantine)
4. Add caps for Elite unit Types as a player handcuff. There is no reason i should be able to field 15 Legions of Praetorians.
5. Add regional Legions. At the moment it is best to recruit all army units in one specced out region. If you could recruit regional legions (aka Gallic Legions having Better Charge, Italia Legions having better moral, Spanish Legions having better attack, Illyrian Legions having better Pilum Range) there might be a reason to build a barracks somewhere other than Italy.


Campaign
1. Expand the tech tree. I want hundreds of Techs that I can research, not a 60ish I want to be able to pick where and how I research, if I want to develop a superior military at the expense of Civilian then I should be allowed to.
2. Family Tree
3. 2-4 TPY with seasons.
4. Squalor: Farms should not give Squalor, factories should.
5. Food: Temples shouldnt eat 2 farms worth of food. They just shouldnt.
6. AI Recruitment AI should recruit by job than priority. They should look to recruit 5 line infantry. When they recruit that they should get 2 ranged and 2 horse as priority after that they should look for more line infantry. This would vary by culture/Faction. As it is now, it buys as many stats per coin as it can. Which leads to slinger armies.

Battle
1. Get rid of Blobbing. Roman/Greek/Eastern Units should keep formation.
2. Guard mode Toggle. If I want the units to stay and hold formation they should, if I want them to attack anything in range they should.
3. Defensive Pilum. Units with Javelins should have a fire at will button.
4. AI can't calculate battles very well. It thinks that my half stack of boosted Praetorians (~150 Attack 100+ Armour ~150 Moral) would be destroyed by 2 stacks of Levy Spearmen. I can just faceroll charge into them and my PGs will eat them alive in an instant.
5. Celtic Longswords are only 5 AP Damage (the Minimum) Should be at least 10 due to the blunt force of those weapons alone.
6. Magic abilities like Use the Whip or Killing Spree. (I would like more realistic abilities like Rotate, where Fresh units get swapped in to the front line.)
7. Gladiators being super cheap and vicious
8. When taking a minor settlement, the battle should be fought outside of the settlement, the winner then takes the settlement.

Bugs
Clubs do 5 Damage (and 10 AP) this totally nerfs bloodsworn, should be upgraded to at least 15-25 normal damage.
Slingers use a really good shield which gives them amazing Defensive stats (For such a cheap unit) They get spammed. Please eliminate this advantage.

If only CA could have an eye on this thread from time to time !

3,4 small things :

_ when moving units with the directional keys, it would be nice if they were not running by default. Pikemen always loose their phalanx formation this way.
_ see the general's name in the left panel for every enemy stack (doesn't mean I want to see their composition, just the general's name, for narrative purpose).
_ see IA faction's diplomatic relations between each others like in Shogun 2. *
_ accelerate fast forward speed (at least 2x)
_ make general's assassination more difficult for agents


EDIT : * YES ! Patch 5 did it !

al Roumi
10-11-2013, 11:45
A good comprehensive list here! Only comment is that it would be more use to CA, but more demanding to mods and posters, if each suggestion were updated after each new build - to say whether addressed, partially or not at all.

Anyhow, something micro that really irked me and could eba dded to the list is...
- The size of the roman ballista and particularly the giant ballista. The normal ballista model is so large it already looks silly. The Giant ballista (at least it's true to the name) is simply absurd - it defies credibility. The model itself looks pretty lazy, on its flat "door frame" chassis, and the giant variant is a very lazy scaled up version of the normal ballista (including washers larger than men). Compared to the (beautiful) scorpion and onager models, these units look farcical and undermine the credibility of the game - a real immersion breaker. They look sloppy and lazy. A quick fix would be to simply scale them down drasticaly.

Myth
10-18-2013, 07:52
Make the AI which leads the civil war stacks to go and conquer your biggest provinces ASAP. Like Athens figured out that after I kicked it out of greece that it must go and take Lybia from me since that's where the money and grain is. It's very disappointing to see the mighty civil war armies dying not by your careful tactical maneuvaring and use of agents, but by virute of a lack of food.

*

Split the wonders into two categories:

1 Major wonders of the world: these should be the 7 classial wonders IMO. They should give a video when you capture them like in Rome 1.
2. Minor wonders, such as Mount Olympus.

Currently the wonders are all mixed up and quite underwhelming (one doesn't even notice them unless they look closely at the bottom left or naturally, on the campaign map)

The player shold be able to construct more major wonders and should get an appropriate celebration video. It's not every day we get to make the Colosseum or the Pantheon.

Prodigal
10-23-2013, 09:04
Very possibly a repost, but need to vent a little.

When in Fortification stance, you get one single camp in a turn. That's it.

During a civil war, with two stacks in Fortify stance, not near each other, both were attacked multiple times, I had one camp the first time the first stack was attacked only. Looks, and smells, like a bug.

So pwetty please, could that one get fixed? There, that's my wish.

Kamakazi
10-28-2013, 18:10
The ability to mass select and upgrade troops armor and weapons. Im getting arthritis doing it one at a time

Beskar
10-28-2013, 19:57
A way for units to disengage combat more efficiently. It is annoying telling my horseriders to pull back, only for them to re-engage because one of them is surrounded by enemy units. They should just run and leave them behind to die, instead of constantly knotting themselves up.

In the same vein, if I am telling my unit of cavalry to run past a group of enemies, they should just run past, instead of getting hold up because one guy got hit by a spear.

AntiDamascus
10-28-2013, 20:10
I remember using that to my advantage in older games. If I could just get one guy in a cavalry unit to engage it would stop the entire unit.

Myth
10-28-2013, 20:48
A way for units to disengage combat more efficiently. It is annoying telling my horseriders to pull back, only for them to re-engage because one of them is surrounded by enemy units. They should just run and leave them behind to die, instead of constantly knotting themselves up.

In the same vein, if I am telling my unit of cavalry to run past a group of enemies, they should just run past, instead of getting hold up because one guy got hit by a spear.

They did this already in patch 4 I think, but it seems it's still not enough as it still happens to me too.

Alcibiade
10-29-2013, 10:49
Another small wish, but that could change a lot to the ambiance in game in my opinion :
_ to separate ambiant sounds (waves on the shore, birds in the forest, etc...) from the voices of the character (ready to fight, etc...). Those last one are really loud and innoportune when the former grantly had to te feeling. Especially since the music is boring.

Myth
10-29-2013, 13:28
Removed things that were fixed and things that were erroneously reported as broken by players who didn't know how certain mechanics work (some suggestions were done literally days after game launch when we were all new to RII)

Amras
10-30-2013, 13:20
- Add a list of Army/Fleet Tradition for better overview

As this is now, i can't make head or tail of this Traditions

Geronimo2006
09-11-2016, 13:18
I would like an option to change religion as in TW Atilla.

Hooahguy
09-11-2016, 14:38
I would like an option to change religion as in TW Atilla.
Im really looking forward to the Ancient Empires mod (http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?2095-Ancient-Empires-(AE)) for Attila which basically puts Rome 2 into Attila from what I can tell. Apparently they have a major release coming at the end of the month so we will see how that goes.