Is the game in its current state worth installing?

I just got my new rig going and got on the .org to start reading up on RTW2. I have already purchased the game, but havent installed it. I was shocked to see all of the issues popping up. Reading through the posts I see a lot of game issues that downright suprise me and I am starting to think i shouldnt install the game yet. Can you guys confirm a few things for me?

1. No cities have walls? I am seeing where some do not have them, but will you get walls once your city hits a certain size?
2. When you take over a city, instead of fighting to the city center and taking that, you have a series of set points you must capture with your units?
3. When you are defending a city, if you try to gaurd the capture points, the enemy can just walk through your line as if it wasnt there and/or it just takes a few seconds for them to kill your line and advance? It seems some people have posted that its very hard to stop the enemy AI from just pushing through your line with no desire to fight and simply marching on to the control point. What i dont get is why a few strategically placed strong defensive units couldnt hold a choke point between the enemy and the capture point.
4. If you corner an enemy army on the campaing map with two of your armies, the enemy can simply jump into magically created boats and sail away safely? Or if you set up a stack at a choke point (lets say at a bridge), the enemy AI can simply launch their magic navy boats and sail directly around your stack in 1 turn and land on the other side and keep on trucking? Can the enemy stack set sail and land on the same turn? If no, at least i could positition a Navy unit to take out the enemy stack and punish them for haphazardly taking to the sea to avoide a land conflict? Holding a bridge with a small stack of high end troops was a lot of fun, i hope this isnt gone from R2.
5. You are capped on armies? Are people saying that the game limits how many stacks you have? I am reading that the frequent revolts combined with enemy AI looking for weak spots means you must do a better job spreading out your forces, but if you are capped, how does this work as your empire grows to cover the massive campaign map? Will it allow you enough armies to cover all of the "fronts" to your empire?
6. Are people having generals that become powerful over time as in past TW games? I am reading on other forums how most leaders (almost all examples were of Romans) go insane no matter what they do to counter it.
7. Battles are obviuosly finished much quicker. Do you have enough time at least to create a battle line and still have time to move aux units around to attack from sides/behind or is the fighting done so quickly that it reduces the game to simply line everyone up and throw them all at once at the enemy? Is there any real strategy left in battles?


I got a new system really just because of this game as I have been looking forward to R2 long before it was announced. I know the forums are a perfect place to let CA know how you feel so they improve the game through patches and whatnot, but I couldnt have been more shocked about the total amount and depth of the complaints. As bad as the issues with ETW were, i still enjoyed the game to some level. Are you guys getting any satisfaction out of playing? I have not really seen anything postivie at all being mentioned. I am on the fence to wait it out versus jump in and at least enjoy the product now before its either patched up or a good mod comes out.

Fingers crossed on the patch tomorrow.

I've had no issues playing the game with my recent but hardly state of the art rig. No bugs, no freezes, and my only quibble is that I can't find a manual for it.

At any rate -
1. Only province capitals have walls. Silly and gamey, but it keeps from having to deal with huge siege fights all the time.

2. Right. And set points matter, Lord Help Us All, for regular strategic map defenses too. THAT I don't like.

3. Haven't had any issue with this.

5. Only if you've trapped them on a beach. I haven't had any bridge fights.

4. Yes, you are capped on field armies. But each city (even those without walls) have considerable garrison forces, which makes taking them harder than you might expect. As your empire grows you can field more armies. Again, very gamey, but I like how it focuses your efforts and I think it's quite reasonable in practice.

5. One nutty admiral, but the rest of the generals are fine.

6. Everyone moves too fast at a run, but the battles are otherwise very melee-total war (same general tactics since Shogun 1 have worked fine for me).

The game is really neat and I enjoy it.

I don't much care for the attempt at faction-leadership politics, but otherwise, I've enjoyed it.

Azi

I just got my new rig going and got on the .org to start reading up on RTW2. I have already purchased the game, but havent installed it. I was shocked to see all of the issues popping up. Reading through the posts I see a lot of game issues that downright suprise me and I am starting to think i shouldnt install the game yet. Can you guys confirm a few things for me?

1. No cities have walls? I am seeing where some do not have them, but will you get walls once your city hits a certain size?

Not all cities have walls. Only the provincial capitals.

2. When you take over a city, instead of fighting to the city center and taking that, you have a series of set points you must capture with your units?

I have yet to win a city siege by capturing points. I just find myself killing all the enemies instead.

3. When you are defending a city, if you try to gaurd the capture points, the enemy can just walk through your line as if it wasnt there and/or it just takes a few seconds for them to kill your line and advance? It seems some people have posted that its very hard to stop the enemy AI from just pushing through your line with no desire to fight and simply marching on to the control point. What i dont get is why a few strategically placed strong defensive units couldnt hold a choke point between the enemy and the capture point.

Units in this game don't feel 'heavy'. There is no phalanx or unit of heavy infantry that can actually act like a wall or a line on the battlefield. Mostly it looks like blobs of people crowding around each other like puddles of differently coloured water. It's a bit like in Shogun, though in Shogun, I felt that some units had at least some 'weight' behind it.

5. If you corner an enemy army on the campaing map with two of your armies, the enemy can simply jump into magically created boats and sail away safely? Or if you set up a stack at a choke point (lets say at a bridge), the enemy AI can simply launch their magic navy boats and sail directly around your stack in 1 turn and land on the other side and keep on trucking? Can the enemy stack set sail and land on the same turn? If no, at least i could positition a Navy unit to take out the enemy stack and punish them for haphazardly taking to the sea to avoide a land conflict? Holding a bridge with a small stack of high end troops was a lot of fun, i hope this isnt gone from R2.

Yes, I think all of that is possible. Haven't seen the AI do it yet though. They seem to be avoiding my armies in general and prefer fighting in towns it seems.

4. You are capped on armies? Are people saying that the game limits how many stacks you have? I am reading that the frequent revolts combined with enemy AI looking for weak spots means you must do a better job spreading out your forces, but if you are capped, how does this work as your empire grows to cover the massive campaign map? Will it allow you enough armies to cover all of the "fronts" to your empire?

You have a limited amount of armies based on your empire level (3>6>9>...) Same with agents and edicts.

5. Are people having generals that become powerful over time as in past TW games? I am reading on other forums how most leaders (almost all examples were of Romans) go insane no matter what they do to counter it.

I can't really talk about the way generals and important characters grow and what sort of influence it has because I really don't get half of it.

6. Battles are obviuosly finished much quicker. Do you have enough time at least to create a battle line and still have time to move aux units around to attack from sides/behind or is the fighting done so quickly that it reduces the game to simply line everyone up and throw them all at once at the enemy? Is there any real strategy left in battles?

Heavy infantry or spear infantry in a line + flanking forces has been the way to deal with the AI since Rome 1. I'm afraid there isn't much change to that. Battles do end very very quickly though. I am kind of hoping that has to do with the shitty quality of units used in the campaign early on.

I got a new system really just because of this game as I have been looking forward to R2 long before it was announced. I know the forums are a perfect place to let CA know how you feel so they improve the game through patches and whatnot, but I couldnt have been more shocked about the total amount and depth of the complaints. As bad as the issues with ETW were, i still enjoyed the game to some level. Are you guys getting any satisfaction out of playing? I have not really seen anything postivie at all being mentioned. I am on the fence to wait it out versus jump in and at least enjoy the product now before its either patched up or a good mod comes out.

Fingers crossed on the patch tomorrow.

Cool, thanks for the reply Azi and SP4. Your feedback is much appreciated!

lol 5 so true... got "sometging is not quite right" in turn one, got insane within 6. its like a true epidemic lol. as if all family members are inbred XD

I had one guy go "something is not right" but it was early and I'd rather have it sooner than later before I dump a lot of time into him.

tbh im not even sure what the drawback is of being insane... you lose some authority but gain zeal. and i have no clue what these traits are for in the first place. all i got from the cyclopedia is that its somehow related to agents trying to murder your dudes...

Authority = moral for units on the battlefield, Zeal = melee attack for units on the battlefield (not sure if archers too), Cunning = Melee defence.

3 generals, 1 admiral.

My pious general believes he is a teapot. -6 authority, +2 Zeal (maybe +3).

I'm not sure if his rank or his zeal has unlocked a special ability of intimidate.

I play him to form. His army has the halo like standard and the general is in a lot of hand to hand combat. If I lose him big deal, until then he can froth at the mouth at the front lines and scare friend and foe alike.

I realized I didn't actually answer the question (not that anyone has asked me to) :D

Yes, I quite enjoy the game. The loading times between turns is sometimes a flow breaker but nothing has really made me turn off or uninstall the game. I've only logged a few hours so maybe it gets worse later.

I think being on the fence is for those who haven't bought it yet. Just install the thing and find out for yourself!

Re: authority, zeal, cunning. If you select your army on the campaign map, your general's face should show in the bottom left. Mouse over the attributes there and it'll explain exactly what each one is doing.

With regards to question 5, units can only go from land onto transports at certain points on the coastline. Usually it requires a port or a specific section of beach. They cannot magically sail across a river. Early in my Rome campaign, I took the two northern cities from the Etruscan league and found that two small remnant armies sneaked past one of mine running south through Italy. I pursued them, only to have them run way down towards the tip of the boot before they found a port on the coast that wasn't part of a city, where they went sailing back to Corsica to get away.

For now, the game is just not good enough to bother. I've barely played it and was bored nearly immediately.
The repulsive interface and questionable (read : retarded) design decisions like the "magic ships" completely gutted my desire to play.
And the cramped zoom just make it annoying to look at the map.

Decided to post the link in a few threads in which I believe is relevant;

https://youtube.com/watch?v=tjzd5ilKzMM

I want to try out Spartan Pikemen spam now for lulz.

After 50ish hours of playtime over 2 1/2 campaigns, I'd have to answer your question with a capital N.O.

Not to beat this mutilated horse anymore, but the main issues preventing playability in its current state in my opinion are:

-Battle AI and mechanics in general are so bad it makes them basically worthless; even with mods, (kudos to Radious) the battle AI is still extremely retarded and glitchy, especially in siege battles... pathfinding for even your own troops is the worst in any total War Game besides maybe pre-patch Empire and the collision/spacing issues give one the impression they took the model for all those other "real-time war strategy" games that no one buys/plays and used that as their model to "improve" battles.

-Navy battles need serious work but might turn out alright with major modifications, but I'm not sure they'll be able to fix the flag issue or Battle AI in general, especially in sieges, without major help from the developers. I basically am to the point where I auto-sim 100% of naval battles and about 80% of land battles in my campaigns...

-Shogun II seemed to mark a huge step forward over Empire in terms of stability where as Rome II seems to have taken another step back. So far, I've had 6 crashes - 5 during loading battles (3 of those against the Roman Senate Loyalist faction that rebels, the other 2 when there were large reinforcing armies from allied factions supposed to participate) and one that basically ruined a campaign for me - the game crashes during Rhodos' turn and it seems to be something to do with a glitch where the Celtic Confederacy faction owns Rhodos' only province (Rhodes) on the diplomacy screen but Rhodos' forces are still in the city on the campaign map (but taking attrition, as if their last city had been taken)... hopefully these get fixed with patches but if not, this game can basically be put in the same category as Empire (playable but not really)

-The campaign itself can probably be salvaged to a degree with mods as with every Total War game since Rome I (again, Radious to the rescue by saving my campaign from an endless game of moving my armies from province to province trying to prevent/respond to rebellions and only going on the offense every 10-20 turns or so) -- the TW campaign AI has never been particularly great and the diplomacy seems to be actually moving in the right direction (mods should be able to help the AI's passivity) but in its state right now, there is no challenge whatsoever - just frustration from dealing with massive squalor and food penalties from every upper-level building if you don't use Radious' mod to tone it down

-While I'm trying to remain optimistic that patches and mods will able to make this game playable, I'm fearful that instead we will just continue to be promised major upgrades in the form of DLC expansions that will continue to promise much more than they deliver.

Frankly, this experience has soured me to the point where I'm trying to avoid buying any new SEGA/Creative Assembly games for the rest of the year, and avoid any DLCs until I've heard all the negatives first (and not from the sellout "professional" reviewers and "critics" who all gave this POS an 8/10 or higher). I MIGHT give this game another shot in a couple months after mods have had time to develop and if this Imperium Aquilarium thing turns out to be anything of any substance, but I think the TW community (at least those that are disappointed in this half-finished game after all the hype it was given) needs to realize that ever since Medieval 2, this franchise has been going down in quality (and the only reason RTW and M2TW were so great were thanks to the modding community; S2TW was good because it didn't have the issues Empire did & it was such an upgrade over original STW, which along with original Medieval and original Rome, were excellent games for their time)

If you hadn't already paid for the game, my advice would be to wait. I've been a fan of the Total War games since I bought the original Shogun, but I haven't bought one at release in many years and got exited and kind of jumped the gun on this one. I'm having fun with it, but it is more than a bit disappointing to see that the classic failings of the series have not been addressed. You can't unbuy the game, so why not go ahead and install and try it out for yourself?

Not yet, wait for patches, sales, and Gold Edition.

What's wrong with Rome 2, and I'm not going to bother listing it all out, can't be patched. You can't patch bad game design decisions, and this game is full to the brim with them.

I agree with you, but the game can be fixed to some extent with dlcs and patches (Though I don't prefer it that way) the game is quite dissapointing imo but it does not reach Total Failure (tm) levels. (It gets pretty close though)

The game is ok at best, quite disappointing but playable and can be fun; especially with mods such as Radious or Yarkis' TROM.

Though in my opinion it's not the best TW or a good TW but playable to an extent.

Before anybody calls me apologetic; I've been ranting the whole time in every thread active for quite a while by myself. (This post isn't even apologetic, just my thoughts on the game)

From what I have played of the game so far I have to admit it has tremendous potential, the only thing I dislike at the moment is the speed of the units in battle mode they need to be slowed down but my biggest problem is I cant stop the game from crashing, After 5 mins of play it reboots my system. Tried reinstalling and the latest patches but no joy here yet.
Goth