Re: First Impressions
I tried it out of curiosity. They aren't available in Custom Battles, but it does indeed unlock them for a campaign. Not working quite right though, at least for me. Had my first crash on the strat map while having a look at the starting settlements.Originally Posted by BroskiDerpman
Re: First Impressions
Seems like you're doing something wrong like some other people on the thread posted.
I don't have Rome 2 luckily so I don't know.
Lets play Divide et Impera, Ptolemy Campaign. Link to full playlist down below!
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL...2oIDsmGrPrKpzM
Re: First Impressions
first impressions: playing as julia (yes yes original i know) on legendary
+++
New auto resolve is nice.
no lag when on faster speed
diplomacy is clear at least.
---
combat speed way too fast (so cant really say how good the ai is since battles are meatgrinders in which thousands die within minutes)
dont like the ui/interface
teching goes way too fast, and not that many techs (i have legionares at 260 bc...)
havent seen much of the internal politics
We do not sow.
Re: First Impressions
Update: Played a bit more (Rome, ~60 turns in) and it's getting ... quite compelling. I still agree with the individual points of my previous criticisms, but somehow they seem less important now that major players and rivalries are emerging to give the game a narrative shape. I do remember now a few reviews mentioning the slow early game, but I must have tuned it out because the early game in previous TW games has usually been the most interesting for me (causing havok in the HRE as Poland in MTW, anyone?). As Rome in the mid-game, there are threats and opportunities in every direction to be balanced. You are generally more powerful than each rival individually, but you can't afford to be caught with your pants down. Quite enjoying it now.
Re: First Impressions
I'm with you man. About half as far into the campaign as you with Epirus, and I'm having quite a bit of fun playing despite the various issues. The politics among the Hellenes on the Strat Map are vicious, I gotta watch my back at every turn
Just wish they were as effective on the battlefield...
Re: First Impressions
Prometheus makes loads of good points here, the majority I agree with. The capture points on the battlefield is just completely stupid, I cannot fathom why they decided to do this.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...be-changed-NOW!!!
Re: First Impressions
ya i thought they said it would only be in certain type of battles:S and not normal ones. whether u have a normal capture point, or a baggage train... what does it matter.
We do not sow.
Re: First Impressions
All right, first impressions are in after 12 or so hours of playing as Rome Julia on Legendary. I've tried to stick to main points, but it ended up unbearably long anyway. My apologies, but I had high hopes and Im frustrated at some of the mistakes made as they feel like steps backwards from both Shogun 2 and the original Rome.
The good:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The bad
This is the stuff that bothers me, but is easily fixable via patches or mods, or a matter of me learning the game
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The ugly
This is the stuff that bothers me and is conceptually designed into the game, making it potentially difficult to fix
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
If only writing a paper for college was half as easy! Well, off to see if that Seleucid faction unlock fix actually works. Here's to a good patch tomorrow!
Last edited by Jarmam; 09-05-2013 at 20:34. Reason: More typos, geez
Re: First Impressions
I enjoy it even if too much isn't clear, even after spending WAY too much time yesterday playing it.
I don't much like the ship combat, but I knew there would be issues there.
Anyway, the game's not a dumpster fire but it's nowhere near as good as Shogun 2 is now.
Azi
Mark Twain 1881"If you don't want to work, become a reporter. That awful power, the public opinion of the nation, was created by a horde of self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditch digging and shoemaking and fetched up journalism on their way to the poorhouse."
Re: First Impressions
This definitely needs to be addressed. It's insane. In the early game, my settlement at Larissa was attacked by a force of Royal Spartans (6 units) when I moved my standing army north and I was left to defend it with a few units of militia & citizen hops and a couple of slingers and your ubiquitous mobs. The difference in force power was absurd, I should've been steamrolled, but the AI had such an insane mad-on for the capture points it just tried to bullrush its units to them completely indifferent to the fact that they were being slaughtered wholesale while doing so. They routed in no time, the battle was over in less than 30 seconds after contact.
Unfortunately just one example of a regular occurrence...
Re: First Impressions
First impressions:
- The UI is, frankly, appalling. From a bunch of small icons on the left at the main "menu", to useless stats obscuring the view of a battle, to cut scenes which don't work if you previously selected a unit, to incomprehensible logic behind placement of buttons, to unit cards which look pretty (if partially anachronistic) but also wholly indistinct. (The difference between pikeman 1 and pikeman 2 could be in whether one has a beard, or which way the head is turned.) At least settings and quitting to windows are now more easily accessible.
- Can't zoom enough (either in or out).
- Tab thingy for the battlefield is not nearly as useful as the radar screen was in battles (can't really access it at a glance), though can see how it may prove more useful than the minimap in campaigns.
- The settlements are pretty.
- AI is like a cat near catnip once you show them your general. Rather exploitable.
- AI is terrible at attacking, in its mind an attack is a mad rush to the other side (running all the way) with less sense than a WWI Blackadder general. Cavalry is meant to smash headlong in heavy infantry in a frontal charge.
- AI is not particularly inspired when defending, though, if it has the numbers it will win Cannae style by default from other AI due to the mad-rush syndrome.
- Skirmishers don't skirmish, or do a particularly poor job of it -- even more so than in RTW.
- Unit stats make no sense, or rather they do make sense but only in a rock-paper-scissors style thing with cavalry as thermo-nuclear-trumps-all option. Differences between units of the same class are minimal, there's only "more and less powerful in the typical role", there's little chance of putting units from one class to effective use in an alternative role.
- The units are interchangeable pieces, with different skins. Some of which are pretty, some of which are distinctly uninspiring. Standout favourite: the Celtic hairdos. Standout disappointment: the cataphracts with lot's of dark plastic and tape for armour instead of metal. To be fair, they have a decent moustache. Also, game still suffers from faction colours as a "uniform" feature with skins, hence overly saturated colours in tunics & other clothing.
- If the AI were any good, assaulting well developed cities would be a nightmare. So points for that.
Last edited by Tellos Athenaios; 09-05-2013 at 20:00.
- Tellos Athenaios
CUF tool - XIDX - PACK tool - SD tool - EVT tool - EB Install Guide - How to track down loading CTD's - EB 1.1 Maps thread
“ὁ δ᾽ ἠλίθιος ὣσπερ πρόβατον βῆ βῆ λέγων βαδίζει” – Kratinos in Dionysalexandros.
Re: First Impressions
Angry Joe's Rome 2 videos are hilarious, especially the boat that clips through a whole city to ram another ship! XD
@Tellos
Cav got nerfed so bad to be weaker than EB's cav.
Rear charge causes 1 casualty to heavy infantry and makes the cavalry lose many horses and rout.
Source: Online play from Youtubers.
Last edited by BroskiDerpman; 09-05-2013 at 20:26.
Lets play Divide et Impera, Ptolemy Campaign. Link to full playlist down below!
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL...2oIDsmGrPrKpzM
Re: First Impressions
Dunno. I had equites getting their pathfinding mixed up in a city and plow right through a bunch of Samnite "noble infantry". So that was a bit of a déjà vu.
- Tellos Athenaios
CUF tool - XIDX - PACK tool - SD tool - EVT tool - EB Install Guide - How to track down loading CTD's - EB 1.1 Maps thread
“ὁ δ᾽ ἠλίθιος ὣσπερ πρόβατον βῆ βῆ λέγων βαδίζει” – Kratinos in Dionysalexandros.
Re: First Impressions
My 2 cents and let me qualify this by sayin' that I don't have the game yet, but it seems to me after reading all the post's here and on TWC that CA/Sega are spending more and more money on PR rather than using their resources to release a finished product. It's also quite apparent that the truly creative and thoughtful staff a CA are being drown out be those who think gimmicky unit ability buttons, ground shaking camera's effects, 2 minute battles, battle field capture zones and "flaming everything" are cool additions to the game.
It's to bad.
Re: First Impressions
I've seen ships behave weirdly as well. In a coop campaign, one of them clipped from one side of the map, through the beach, not over the beach, it sort of land-sub-marined around and ended up on the other side of the map, where it then unloaded its troops XD
Re: First Impressions
The "capture-the-flag" mentality on open battlefields is a major bummer, for me. Makes a bit of sense in cities, but not in the field. My style of play has me (usually) fighting with vastly inferior numbers but much better quality. To do so requires freedom to maneuver. To be tied to 'defending the flag' sucks big-time
The single season without the visual campaign-map change-of-season is also a major bummer. Even without having played I can already say this would greatly reduce the immersion factor. Shogun 1, with its' four seasons (and corresponding music) was the pinnacle AFAIAC....you actually had to plan your recruitment and construction so you didn't run out of money before the next harvest...and god help you if you had a string of bad ones.....
Battle speed is another downer. It seems that epic battles that take one to two hours to complete are a thing of the past and not likely to ever return.
I've always hated the way family traits were implemented in RTW, and it seems as if I will not be liking the new system either.
I'm sure that the graphical and optimization issues will be dealt with in subsequent patches. I have AMD/ATI all across the board, so I hope compatibility with these is improved.
Legionnaires by 250BC?? Yikes! Talk about a poorly designed tech tree.....
My hat is off to those of you willing to plunk down your hard-earned cash for, essentially, a beta-version game. I will be waiting until the graphics-issues and bug-squashing patches come out.
Last edited by ReluctantSamurai; 09-06-2013 at 05:34.
High Plains Drifter
Re: First Impressions
You start with legionaires ... admirals are a unit of 120 legionaires.
Our genes maybe in the basement but it does not stop us chosing our point of view from the top.
Pape for global overlord!!
Re: First Impressions
That makes no sense, to meYou start with legionaires
High Plains Drifter
Re: First Impressions
You just said it all right there. Without a doubt the most absurdly questionable gameplay decision CA made this time around, as far as I'm concerned (and a wholllle shitload of others gauging by the TWC forums). Capture points actually serve no purpose in a pitched battle setting, other than to completely strip the player of any tactical deployment choices before the battle. Honestly, this feature is close to game breaking at times, it needs to be removed post haste.The "capture-the-flag" mentality on open battlefields is a major bummer, for me. Makes a bit of sense in cities, but not in the field. My style of play has me (usually) fighting with vastly inferior numbers but much better quality. To do so requires freedom to maneuver. To be tied to 'defending the flag' sucks big-time
I've had no less than 20 heroic victories snatched away from me cuz some errant unit that spawned somewhere hundreds of meters away from the battle ran to the capture point while my vastly outnumbered force was tied up taking care of business. All because the game decided I had to defend this random stretch of dirt that had no strategic significance whatsoever.
It literally breaks the deployment feature since it renders the player's choice untenable by design. The AI will make a beeline right for the capture point, you have no choice but to defend it. Like you state, if you're severely outnumbered you now have probably zero chance of victory.
Re: First Impressions
What I don't understand is why play-testing didn't point this out. Surely there must be some of the CA staff who actually know how to play this gameIt literally breaks the deployment feature since it renders the player's choice untenable by design. The AI will make a beeline right for the capture point, you have no choice but to defend it. Like you state, if you're severely outnumbered you now have probably zero chance of victory.The staff members playing some of the demos certainly didn't, but I can't believe noone raised the fact that what you just stated is plain as day......place a victory point on the map and you've just dictated to the defender where they have to deploy irregardless of terrain or troop composition.....
And yes, it approaches the 'game-breaker' status for me.
As stated earlier, the most obvious reason for this has to be preventing "corner cuddling" but to this I say.....make better maps. As a mapmaker for a now-forgotten WW2 strategy game, I can say with some authority that maps make the battle. Make them interesting, make deployment areas flexible depending in the situation, and for gods sake get rid of those hills/mountains in the corners where the AI loves to camp
Last edited by ReluctantSamurai; 09-06-2013 at 10:22.
High Plains Drifter
Re: First Impressions
You just said it all right there. Without a doubt the most absurdly questionable gameplay decision CA made this time around, as far as I'm concerned (and a wholllle shitload of others gauging by the TWC forums). Capture points actually serve no purpose in a pitched battle setting, other than to completely strip the player of any tactical deployment choices before the battle. Honestly, this feature is close to game breaking at times, it needs to be removed post haste.
I've had no less than 20 heroic victories snatched away from me cuz some errant unit that spawned somewhere hundreds of meters away from the battle ran to the capture point while my vastly outnumbered force was tied up taking care of business. All because the game decided I had to defend this random stretch of dirt that had no strategic significance whatsoever.
It literally breaks the deployment feature since it renders the player's choice untenable by design. The AI will make a beeline right for the capture point, you have no choice but to defend it. Like you state, if you're severely outnumbered you now have probably zero chance of victory.
Thing is - this could make sense if, as in the tutorial the defender had a camp with a capture point, in a tactically sensible position, and there was another capture point of strategic value on the map. As you say, having only 1, anchors you to a random spot. Having more would give you a real choice of whether you prefer to reach and defend the points, or route the enemy.
I'm thinking it has been underdone if anything - toning down the killing speed, and with the huge maps in R2, we could easily distribute 6-7 cap points on the map giving the player much more choice on how to position their army. Of course the attacker should control none of these initially.
If the intention of capture points is to portray a feeling of 'denial of the land' as opposed to 'destruction of the enemy' then it's been vastly underdone and only works as the 'town square' mechanic in RTW1. However, as a strategic option, it is a valid one.
Example: siege of Lylibaeum - 1 cap point. This in a town with a port, landing beaches, temples, high ground? Really? That's stupid. Who controls a city supplied both by sea and land by capturing 1 spot? That's ridiculous. However, having 5-6 cap points would make a lot more sense. It would force the attacker to put in more effort if they were going for controlling the land instead of destroying the enemy, and it would force them to garrison each of these points after capture, as otherwise the defender would just cycle around.
Which brings me to the next point - ongoing city battles. If we recognise that cities have several points of strategic importance it means it's possible to control part of a city without controlling the whole. The Romans held the Capitolium having lost the rest IIRC a few times during their early history. Attrition should be huge per turn spent in a 'split city' situation to encourage one of the forces to take over.
Anyway, this is my thinking. The only things I'm really, seriously annoyed at now are the terrible pathfinding in naval battles and gate attacks in sieges, and the absolutely stupid 4 man army sieges of various cities after their last city was taken. Since these last 4 dudes are usually powerful ones, often they can't be defeated outright. Rome was besieged 4 times by a lone Etruscan League general bodyguard with 12 men, I autoresolved, and he left with no casualties all 4 times. I the fought the battle manually and killed them in with 2 volleys from those garrison leves. Unjustifiably idiotic. And you can't even sally the garrison to deal with them!
Managing perceptions goes hand in hand with managing expectations - Masamune
Pie is merely the power of the state intruding into the private lives of the working class. - Beirut
Re: First Impressions
I've heard that RTW2 is going to release an edition called Black box. What's that and When will be released?
He who has bread has many problems;
He who has no bread has only one problem.
Byzantine Proverb
Re: First Impressions
I agree 1000%, i dont know wether is posible or not to remove the capture points from the battle map with some patch, but if it can be done they must do it yesterday.....
Capture points in open battles + problems with the units behaviour = no real battles
Re: First Impressions
Hear, hear. Non-siege battle capture points = lame!
"Après moi le déluge"
Re: First Impressions
I played a pair of defense battles last night, one on the side of a hill, and another really fun (I hate the Celtic commander heavy cav!) bridge/river crossing. No stupid capture points in either.
This morning I captured the capitol of Sardinia, and that had three capture points, but it's a city.
I still dearly like this game, even with its silly bits.
Azi
Mark Twain 1881"If you don't want to work, become a reporter. That awful power, the public opinion of the nation, was created by a horde of self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditch digging and shoemaking and fetched up journalism on their way to the poorhouse."
Re: First Impressions
I remember people voiced concerns about this during the pre-launch and I distinctly remember CA reps saying that it would not be a 'feature' of open battles, with the exception of ambushed armies who would be forced to protect their baggage train. So either those people were talkin' outta their rear ends, lying, or it somehow became part of open battles cuz of a bug.
It certainly seems like a bug, or something that was hastily implemented at the last moment without much thought. You can have a battle on the exact same tile and every time the 'capture point' will be in a different, equally inconsequential spot near the deployment area.
This right here is some more utter nonsense that needs immediate attention. Why waste time with siege engines when you can simply burn down the gate and in you go? And no shattered remnants of an army with fewer than 'x=amount' of men left should even have the option to assault a settlement. Since the mechanic is already in place for the game to predict your chance of victory when it calculates the result of an auto-resolved battle before you commit to it, it should be pretty easy (not to mention logical) for them to apply this to the AI. If the AI has absolutely no chance of victory with its unit of rabble, it shouldn't even have the option to attack settlements. I mean, they wanted to create new features to reduce micro on the Strat Map but didn't refine the game so that their philosophy works in harmony
Is it me, or does it not even matter that I place armies in the path of expected assaults outside of settlements just to watch the AI simply go right past them and attack the settlement anyway when I end turn? Evidently they don't have their path restricted the way the player does around hostile armies. I wont even mention the times when AI armies can attack one of mine standing right next to 2 others and then not have access to my support forces during the battle...
Re: First Impressions
oh god... please increase movement range by like 300% atleast for navies and armies in friendly territory... it takes me 8 years to move an army from one side of my empire to the other, playing as carthage.
We do not sow.
Re: First Impressions
Or
Capture points in open battles = Much less difficulty to design battle AI
I'd wager a very nice bottle of Irish Whiskey that this is exactly why it is so.
Encyclopedia pictures?
Didn't want to start another thread for a simple question so hoped I could get away with it here: am I the only one who has no pictures in the Encyclopedia? I have all the info but none of the boxes in any page has any pictures in them. Which makes the whole thing just a mass of empty black boxes. I can move the mouse over and get a tooltip which answers (most) of my questions but I can't help feeling this is not quite right.
I bought a DVD of the game but used the preload feature to download all the stuff last weekend. Perhaps that has caused the glitch.
Re: Encyclopedia pictures?
Nope - I get that too. Looks like this "encyclopedia" is incomplete. I searched disc 1 and could not find a discreet file so no dice there either.
"Après moi le déluge"
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks