Wishlist for Rome 2 (and beyond)

[quadalpha]

(More than a year to go before release, you never know.)

- I'm personally not terribly bothered, but I expect people would really like extensive mod support.

- Any good ideas/things you want to see in the naval battles?

- I suppose they hinted in this general direction regarding legions and such, but I'd really like more attention paid to more realistic scaling of size, time, and distance. Where in STW and MTW, the campaign map felt like you were ordering attacks on a particular province in a particular season and you are left to imagine the logistical efforts and actual army movement, the later games, by putting an actual army with an actual position on the map, really hurt the credibility and immersion of the experience since it plainly does not take 3 months for an army to march from Rome to Sicily. There really ought to be a more realistic way of representing the army-in-presence on a strategic level. Say, let you decide where to base an army and give you the option of rebasing it from turn to turn, and let you specify where in the map you want the army to concentrate should a province be attacked, for example.

- 'Better' AI? There was an interesting video with one of the Civ developers where he talks about how the point of designing AI is not so that it beats a player, but so that it puts up a good challenge but goes on to lose. Or at least AI that does not annoy. I think FOTS was a lot better about this, but I've just been following the wake of destruction left by the remnants of one Swedish horse regiment with paths seldom tread in NTW and that was not fun.

[Catiline]

Sensible but challenging win conditions for campaigns that involve things other than conquering vast swathes of the map.

[rickinator9]

- More moddability

- More historical accuracy(I will puke if I see those mummies again CA!)

[Andres]

- glorious achievements instead of "take x % of the map" to win the game;

- more immersion and RPG elements in the game, with characters being more fleshed out. I would really, really love the possibilty to role play a general/member of an important family and have the possibility to have that member (or one of his heirs later in the game, after 100 years of being loyal to the family) to rebel against his faction and start his own faction.

[Arjos]

- different governments.

- countless factions to play as.

- roleplaying.

- succession crisis under certain circumstances.

- active supply lines (not simply a distinction between enemy and friendly territory).

[Ibn-Khaldun]

- active supply lines (not simply a distinction between enemy and friendly territory).

I would go even further... I would like to be able to raid enemy supply lines and thus weakening enemy armies in your regions. This would make playing steppe factions interesting.

[Monk]

More players allowed in MP campaigns. Obviously the biggest hurdle is how to deal with extra players when a battle starts, but conceptually, it would be so awesome to load up 4 or more friends and just start building empires, seeing real meta game rivalries and alliances forming, ect.

[TinCow]

More players allowed in MP campaigns. Obviously the biggest hurdle is how to deal with extra players when a battle starts, but conceptually, it would be so awesome to load up 4 or more friends and just start building empires, seeing real meta game rivalries and alliances forming, ect.

Indeed. One of the things that really elevated Civ 4 above its brethren, IMO, was the superb implementation of MP. Civilization was a series that was generally universally regarded as near-impossible to convert into MP in a manner that was not slow and difficult to use. Yet they managed it for Civ 4 with creativity and ingenuity. If it's possible for Civ, it should be possible for TW. A good MP Campaign implementation is something I could see myself getting lost in for hundreds of hours.

[quadalpha]

Another thing for the list: In-battle saving. I know sometimes I decide to settle for auto-resolve because I didn't think I had enough time to finish a battle. This'll have to be for 'beyond' since it's just been confirmed there is no in-battle saving in R2. Which might be a blessing, considering the trouble they have making replays come out right.

[TinCow]

Another thing for the list: In-battle saving. I know sometimes I decide to settle for auto-resolve because I didn't think I had enough time to finish a battle. This'll have to be for 'beyond' since it's just been confirmed there is no in-battle saving in R2. Which might be a blessing, considering the trouble they have making replays come out right.

You're out of luck, part 2 of the RPS interview specifically said no to this one:

RPS: It says a lot about what that visual scale suggests, because I was watching it thinking ‘ah, this is Supreme Commander BC, this is going to have to take three hours’.

JR: No no. There’s no save point in battles.

[quadalpha]

You're out of luck, part 2 of the RPS interview specifically said no to this one:

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Beat ... beat ...

[wangchang]

Please CA depicts the celts/germans more accuratly. They were more than barbarian, especially the gauls who had a thriving civilisation and invented the best armors of that time : chain mail.
In the case of the gauls, they builded great cities, constructed bridges and roads that even caesar found astonishingly well constructed and developed, were extremly fine craftsmen when it came to metals, amongst the finest in the whole world.
Those were civilizations in their own rights mainly conquered by rome because of their internal divisions, and the equipment of their armies could have put others to shame.

Thanks, I know the chance of this being read by you is one out of a million (and i'm being generous).

[quadalpha]

I'm going to steal this comment from 'bobsy' on the second RPS interview:

I am equally bothered that CA don’t really understand diplomacy. This bit in particular:

“we’re putting love and hate at the very heart of the AI’s intentions”

Love and hate should ideally have very little to do with diplomacy. Diplomacy is gritting your teeth and being friendly to those you hate, being a dick to people you actually quite like, all because your own empire/kingdom/nation’s interests come first.

The warlord may have brutally crushed your valued trade partner, but you extend the olive branch because you don’t want to go the other way.

Your peaceful ally has been nothing but charming with you, but if you don’t turn around and conquer the shit out of them then those critical resources are never going to be exploited.

If you base your diplomatic AI on love and hate then conflicts like WW2 can’t happen. Stalin and Roosevelt would just turn on each other regardless of the practical concerns of having to stop Hitler first. The Cold War wouldn’t quickly turn hot because the USA and USSR hated each other so much. Forget that mutually assured destruction scared the crap out of both sides, it’s all about love and hate.

I’ve really fallen in love with Crusader Kings 2. It also has a love/hate opinion system, but it’s only tangentially related to declaring war. You go to war for a specifically defined reason, most frequently a family claim (or a forgery of one). Once you’ve achieved your goal in that war, it’s all over. Do you hate the King of France? Tough shit, you’ve got no legal cause to go to war. You’re still going to dick each other about, but it won’t be on the battlefield. And you never, never get in those ridiculous situations from other grand strategy games where your enemy is beaten but won’t surrender because they just hate you so much.

I would personally love a system of casus belli and war-goals for TW. Of course, the concept didn't exist in Roman times, but it would be easy to make you have to justify to the Senate the reason you are going to war with X tribe and set your war-goals accordingly. That would, admittedly, go against the idea of the 'total war,' but that itself is quite anachronistic.

[Vuk]

My guess is that it is way too late for them to be making any major changes to the game, so this thread is probably futile, but WTH.
When you siege a port city, you should not be able to starve them out or make them give in unless you blockade the port with a fleet. In that case, the defender needs to send their fleet to open it up or their population will start to starve.

[Peasant Phill]

I would like:

- A choice of start dates. I loved the 3 periods in MTW. You had so much more difference in campaigns on top of the choice of faction.
- A choice of victory conditions. Glorius achievements, Prestige victory, a specific playstyle, ...

[ReluctantSamurai]

When you siege a port city, you should not be able to starve them out or make them give in unless you blockade the port with a fleet. In that case, the defender needs to send their fleet to open it up or their population will start to starve.

Amen to this and more. Some sensible adherence to basic rules-of-engagement, like:

You need a certain-sized army to siege a particular-sized city [do away with the silliness of a couple of units of light infantry and some skirmishers laying siege to a huge city of 24k+]

If a garrison is evicted from a city due to a rebellion, said garrison should suffer losses depending on the city size (larger city=higher losses). This would simulate the panic/confusion of having to make a hasty exit through a very hostile populace...

If an enemy army gets backed into a position where the only avenue of retreat is through your ZOC (and this should hold true for naval battles, as well) then the enemy is destroyed if defeated.

If the collective mobility of one army is higher than the mobility of another, the army with the lesser mobility has to stand and give battle...that was the point, after all, of having cavalry (AFV in modern warfare)...to force the enemy to battle.

And one that I would dearly, dearly love to see: the ability to scout/see the terrain on which a battle is to be fought. The game is already keeping track of locations on the campaign map and the corresponding battle-maps at any precise point, so let the player see that (perhaps in a sub-box in a corner). One could even have the ability tied to a general's scouting ability or by how much cavalry is in the stack. Nothing more frustrating than maneuvering your army into an apparently commanding position on the campaign map, only to find yourself at the south end of a north-bound kangaroo on the battle map...

And speaking of maps....please, please have some imagination when designing battle-maps. One simply gets tired of having no choice but to charge past a clump of buildings/trees/ruins placed in the center of a map to get at the enemy standing on the hill in either the left or right-hand corner...

[Monk]

I would like:

- A choice of start dates. I loved the 3 periods in MTW. You had so much more difference in campaigns on top of the choice of faction.

I like this. Maybe Early Republic, Imperial, and Late Imperial. Each giving distinct army styles for the Rome factions as well as the enemies they face. Late imperial might be asking for too much (maybe an expansion down the line) but Republic/Imperial start dates would be amazing.

I'd also like the ability to switch government types at the cost of a lot of civil strife. If I want to upset the army and fight for a new republican rome after we're imperial, i should be able to do that.

[Peasant Phill]

If the collective mobility of one army is higher than the mobility of another, the army with the lesser mobility has to stand and give battle...that was the point, after all, of having cavalry (AFV in modern warfare)...to force the enemy to battle.

Isn't this already the case? Or am I missing something?

[ReluctantSamurai]

Isn't this already the case?

Bear in mind that I play a modded version of vanilla RTW and I haven't bothered with any TW games since M2TW. Later games might have implemented this feature...I wouldn't know of it then.

But in vanilla RTW, an army can decide to fight or retreat irregardless of the mobility factor. I play mostly the Armenia faction and by mid-game I have several all cataphract armies roaming the country-side and I can tell you that an all infantry army very often retreats from my initial attack requiring me to attack them a second time....that's just not right considering that infantry could hardly escape from cavalry except, perhaps, in a heavily wooded situation.

[quadalpha]

Bear in mind that I play a modded version of vanilla RTW and I haven't bothered with any TW games since M2TW. Later games might have implemented this feature...I wouldn't know of it then.

But in vanilla RTW, an army can decide to fight or retreat irregardless of the mobility factor. I play mostly the Armenia faction and by mid-game I have several all cataphract armies roaming the country-side and I can tell you that an all infantry army very often retreats from my initial attack requiring me to attack them a second time....that's just not right considering that infantry could hardly escape from cavalry except, perhaps, in a heavily wooded situation.

It's still like that. You can explain the current behaviour by saying that the army icon only represents an army dispersed in a general area that has a certain amount of strategic mobility (+baggage trains, etc.), but the way it's represented makes it look like the whole army is in one place.

[quadalpha]

You know what would improve the campaign game immeasurably? Simultaneous turns. You order an army to a location, set its stance (attacking/attacking+pursuit/avoid battle/etc.), and there is no guarantee it will get there. This would make the campaign much more tense and exciting, as well as putting real emphasis on scouting and intelligence since you can't just walk up to an enemy army and decide what to do. It would also be more realistic than present, all with one little change to the turn resolution system.

[Stuie]

I like this. Maybe Early Republic, Imperial, and Late Imperial. Each giving distinct army styles for the Rome factions as well as the enemies they face. Late imperial might be asking for too much (maybe an expansion down the line) but Republic/Imperial start dates would be amazing.

I'd rather see Early Republic, Middle Republic (Carthaginian Wars), Late Republic (First and Second Triumvirates/Civil Wars).

It would be interesting if they could change the campaign game to more accurately reflect periods of peace and war. When at peace, turns could encompass longer periods than when at war. Almost like having two different campaign map modes. This would help solve the scaling of time/movement during campaigns vs. peace.

[TinCow]

You know what would improve the campaign game immeasurably? Simultaneous turns. You order an army to a location, set its stance (attacking/attacking+pursuit/avoid battle/etc.), and there is no guarantee it will get there. This would make the campaign much more tense and exciting, as well as putting real emphasis on scouting and intelligence since you can't just walk up to an enemy army and decide what to do. It would also be more realistic than present, all with one little change to the turn resolution system.

That's an interesting idea, though it would make the action very difficult to follow when the turn execution began. You couldn't simply watch one area, then watch another area, etc, as all areas could theoretically impact each other, by blocking army movement and such. Everything would literally have to move together at the same pace, pausing the entire world for battle resolution, then resuming the worldwide movement of all units. You'd pretty much have to hit end turn, fight a bunch of battles as they popped up on your screen, then review the map and try to figure out what happened and why.

[quadalpha]

That's an interesting idea, though it would make the action very difficult to follow when the turn execution began. You couldn't simply watch one area, then watch another area, etc, as all areas could theoretically impact each other, by blocking army movement and such. Everything would literally have to move together at the same pace, pausing the entire world for battle resolution, then resuming the worldwide movement of all units. You'd pretty much have to hit end turn, fight a bunch of battles as they popped up on your screen, then review the map and try to figure out what happened and why.

You can do it as it was done in MTW, where the moves play out in a certain order geographically. So you'd just see all the players' moves in one region, then in another. You'd fight a battle either as it comes up, or all battles could be saved up as icons on the map you can then click to resolve. You can also display a line showing the last part of the conflicting armies' approach. To make things clearer as the armies move, you can use large arrows pointing in the direction of march, like they do in history documentaries. That would be exciting, actually. I want large arrows.

[Vuk]

Am I the only one who is super excited about being able to choose your troops equipment?! Even if they only give you a few choices, but allow people to mod it so you can choose all the equipment from all factions!
I would love to make Rome a Kingdom, and then equip my men with round shields and pikes when I fought the Parthians!

[quadalpha]

Am I the only one who is super excited about being able to choose your troops equipment?! Even if they only give you a few choices, but allow people to mod it so you can choose all the equipment from all factions!
I would love to make Rome a Kingdom, and then equip my men with round shields and pikes when I fought the Parthians!

It would be nice to actually be able to carry out Marian reforms.

[Vuk]

It would be nice to actually be able to carry out Marian reforms.

Exactly. The thing that made Empires so great was their ability to adapt to new threats and conditions. When they failed, it was usually because they didn't adapt. If you are in command of a European country, it should be up to you how you adapt, since so much of your success hinges on it.
Take Rome and Parthia for instance. When the Parni started fighting their way into the Seleucid empire, they adapted their way of warfare from light horse archers to a mix of that and heavily armoured heavy cavalry with lances. It brought them success in their region. Rome fought the Samnites and then the Gauls and Germans, they changed their military to adapt to new enemies and territory. It brought them success in their region.
When the Romans and Parthians fought, they both failed to adapt to their new enemy, and so both of them had success in their region, but not outside of their region.

The ability to adapt made them great, and the failure to adapt nearly ruined them. Since this whole game is about changing history, it would be so cool to be in charge of how and if your country adapts. And of course you could balance that out by making it that your regions have certain military traditions, and if you start training and equipping your men for a way of warfare that is not part of their military tradition, they will have penalties until that new tradition develops over the years, and the longer a country does one thing, the better its men get at it (up to a point). So if the Arsacid Empire adopts heavy infantry and siege machines for its invasion of Rome, they will not perform as well as the Roman ones, but will still do better than horse archers and cataphracts.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Am I the only one who is super excited about being able to choose your troops equipment?! Even if they only give you a few choices, but allow people to mod it so you can choose all the equipment from all factions!
I would love to make Rome a Kingdom, and then equip my men with round shields and pikes when I fought the Parthians!

I like this idea. Something like in Mount&Blade?

[ReluctantSamurai]

It's still like that.

And I still disagree with it

And of course you could balance that out by making it that your regions have certain military traditions, and if you start training and equipping your men for a way of warfare that is not part of their military tradition, they will have penalties until that new tradition develops over the years, and the longer a country does one thing, the better its men get at it (up to a point).

Excellent idea...and I might even take it a bit further by restricting the recruitment of certain elite troops to a particular province, much the way ellies were recruitable only in certain areas for vanilla RTW. It seems, well, not right that Rome, for instance could train cohorts out of a population of a Middle East city/province Cohorts should have to come from Rome, while auxillia units could be recruited from anywhere. A player would have to be much more careful of their elite units because replacements could be a long, long way off....

The simultaneous move idea is very cool but implementing that seems like a programmers nightmare....

[Vuk]

And I still disagree with it



Excellent idea...and I might even take it a bit further by restricting the recruitment of certain elite troops to a particular province, much the way ellies were recruitable only in certain areas for vanilla RTW. It seems, well, not right that Rome, for instance could train cohorts out of a population of a Middle East city/province Cohorts should have to come from Rome, while auxillia units could be recruited from anywhere. A player would have to be much more careful of their elite units because replacements could be a long, long way off....

The simultaneous move idea is very cool but implementing that seems like a programmers nightmare....

Actually, I believe it could be implemented quite easily. I am no expert programmer (novice in fact), but I think it would not be that hard.
If you are training cohorts in the middle east for 100 years though, shouldn't they be as good? You can have it that over time, the military tradition grows, so you eventually can produce elite units there.

The way I envision it is this:
You are given general categories (heavy infantry, medium infantry, light infantry, light/med/heav cav, missile troops, etc) and certain once are available to certain nations (though the ones that are not can be unlocked by building the right buildings and having the right stuff available (say horses for the cav). You can then (once you have the prerequisites) change the equipment and training focus in that province for a certain type of unit. As you do, it will (over the years) develop a military tradition for that specialty (say, light infantry, sword use, etc), and the smiths in that region for producing that type of armour and weapons. When you switch to something else, that tradition starts to corrode.
Basically your base would be a nake soldier, and his ability and equipment would be decided by the player (and there would be defaults of course). I think it could be pulled off fairly easily. One commentor above pointed out that something similar was done in M&B (though of course it would have to be implemented differently.)
It would also give modders a huge pool of resources to work with when designing their default troops for their mod. It would make modding in soldiers sooo much easier.

EDIT: It would make the game more modular. Like with mechanics, initially making it modular would take more work, but it would save a ton of work down the road for the game designers and modders I bet. Modular systems, tools, and games are so much easier to work with.