Announced Features of TWR2

[TinCow]

This thread is for consolidating and sorting through all the various news that gets put out about the upcoming game, Total War: Rome 2. This is for actual, hard info from CA or other legitimate news release sources, not simple conjecture. Please post any such information you find in this thread, and we'll keep the first post updated for ease of reference.

General:

• Release Date Target: 2013 (More than one year from July 2012) (Jack Lusted)
• New Engine PCGamer Engine is based on Warscape, but large parts added/rewritten (Jack Lusted)
• There will be DLC (Jack Lusted)
• Will require Steam (Jack Lusted)

System requirements:

• Completely scalable experience, with performance optimised for your PC or laptop. Witness the awesome scale of Total War: Rome II, no matter what your spec. CA

Campaign:

• Multiple regions are controlled as a single province. PCGamer RPS
• However, regions can still be conquered individually. RPS
• Map covers a larger area than RTW. RPS
• Regions can be captured without a siege battle. RPS
• Army management has more focus on the entire group, rather than simply combining individual units. RPS
• Legions can gain traits that last for the life of the legion. RPS PCGamesN
• Legions will have different characteristics based on their origin (ie. Rhine vs. Eastern) RPS
• Chains of 'dilemma' events. RPS PCGamesN
• All factions will get their own internal policy system just as the Romans. Especially mentioned are feuds between different tribes of barbarian factions and intrigues at eastern courts. GamersGlobal (German)
• Roads will be built between the new sub regions of each province and not automatically run to the border pointing to the next provincial capital. Thus it is possible to connect border provinces only to your own Empire but not to your enemy. GamersGlobal (German)
• The player can choose basic stances for armies on the campaign map. Mentioned are forced marsh, ambush or defensive with appropriate advantages and penalties. GamersGlobal (German)

Battle:

• In-game cutscenes instead of pre-battle speeches. PCGamer
• Control naval and land units in the same battle, including beach landings. PCGamer RPS
• Naval artillery can attack cities during a city assault. PCGamer
• Siege towers can be used in city assaults. PCGamer
• New battle camera view with a wide overhead view of at least a major portion of the battlefield, with units represented by icons, though commands may not be able to be issued to individual units from this view. PCGamer
• New battle camera view with an over-the-shoulder view from the perspective of a single soldier.
• Unit limit approximately the same as TWS2. RPS
• City battles will have multiple 'capture points.' RPS
• Maximum battle clock is 1 hour. RPS
• Generals will be able to hide. GamersGlobal (German)

AI:

• More Staff working on the AI. PCGamesN RPS
• Single AI, not two divided between diplomacy and campaign map decisions. PCGamesN RPS
• AIs have unique personalities, ala Civilization. PCGamesN
• "[I]t’ll allow us to tell the player, perhaps if they spy on the AI or whatever, why the AI’s doing certain things, or warn the player that it might do certain things. So for instance, you might think ‘well why is the AI refusing to trade with me?’ and you might be able to find out that it’s because it really covets this particular region that you’ve got, and it wants to attack you. ‘Why won’t it ally with you?’ Well, it actually doesn’t trust you because you broke an alliance before with someone else. All of these kinds of things will actually be able to unify because they’ll be all part of the same system, so will be able to tell a player more about the AI intentions." RPS
• City layouts are designed with the Battle AI in mind. RPS

Factions:

• Possibly 50+ factions. GamersGlobal (German)
• Rome begins as a Republic, and can theoretically become and Empire or a Kingdom. PCGamer
• Only one Roman faction. (Jack Lusted)
• More historical barbarian factions. (Jack Lusted)
• Gaul PCGamesN
• Germanic TribesPCGamesN
• Carthage PCGamesN
• Egypt PCGamesN
• Parthia PCGamesN
• Dacia PCGamesN
• Cappadocia PCGamesN

Units:

• War Elephants PCGamer
• Cavalry with Spatha Sword upgrade PCGamer
• Multiple ships in a single unit. RPS
• Inclusion of Burning Pigs is still being debated. Eurogamer
• More units than in TWS2. Eurogamer
• Mercenaries will be included. (Jack Lusted)

Multiplayer:

• Exists PCGamer
• Campaign MP will probably be included. Eurogamer
• MP system will have significant changes. Eurogamer

Modding:

• Modding support is unclear. PCGamer

[Lemur]

Since so many people are concerned, looks like scalability and graceful degradation are a priority.

System requirements:

• Completely scalable experience, with performance optimised for your PC or laptop. Witness the awesome scale of Total War: Rome II, no matter what your spec. CA

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

It looks like they're taking pages from the books of Paradox and Longbow. Definitely a good sign.

Also lol@modding support.

[Philadelphos]

How many regions in the map? Map accuracy?

[TinCow]

How many regions in the map? Map accuracy?

The RPS interview said there would be "hundreds" of regions. I haven't seen anything with more specificity than that. Personally, I bet that's a bit of an exaggeration. I would imagine something in the 150-180 range, as opposed to the 200-300 the statement would literally suggest.

Map accuracy seems to improve with each game, so I'd expect it to be decent, though we won't know for sure until we get screenshots, and the campaign map always seems to lag far behind the battles on PR reveals.

[feelotraveller]

The RPS interview said there would be "hundreds" of regions. I haven't seen anything with more specificity than that. Personally, I bet that's a bit of an exaggeration. I would imagine something in the 150-180 range, as opposed to the 200-300 the statement would literally suggest.

Map accuracy seems to improve with each game, so I'd expect it to be decent, though we won't know for sure until we get screenshots, and the campaign map always seems to lag far behind the battles on PR reveals.

You could be right but I wonder.

Say 80 provinces (only 15 more than S2) with 3 or 4 regions each = 240-320 regions. In fact we might hope for more.

[quadalpha]

Another RPS interview: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012...e-total-war-2/

[cunctator]

Jack Lusted from CA has opened a Q&A thread at twcenter.net. New info so far:
- its more than one year till release, so probably autumn, winter 2013
- the new engine is still based on Warscape, but large parts added/rewritten
- as currently planned there will be just one Roman faction JL page 1
- more historical barbarian factions JL page 3

[Arjos]

BTW reading into the units, there will be spatha upgrades, might this go even further than 14 AD?
Even though, there were spathas in the 1st century BC :P

[Ibn-Khaldun]

I wonder if the game is 4 turns per year or something else?

[quadalpha]

I wonder if the game is 4 turns per year or something else?

If it starts around the Punic wars and ends in the early empire, 4 turns per year would work out to more than 1000 turns. (Did I hear somewhere they wanted to finish around Trajan, or did I imagine that?) I imagine 2 turns per year is more likely, unless there are going to be different starting points like in MTW.

[andrewt]

They said in an interview that the Roman Empire reached its peak size-wise with Trajan even though the empire really reached its peak with Augustus. Unless I'm mistaken, I thought Hadrian added a few more territories and they only started pulling back afterwards.

Looking at the faction list, I'm guessing Cappadocia replaces Pontus. There's no reason to put two major factions right next to each other with that large a map unless they plan on giving us 20 major playable factions.

[Arjos]

Looking at the faction list, I'm guessing Cappadocia replaces Pontus.

That would be most awful...

There's no reason to put two major factions right next to each other with that large a map unless they plan on giving us 20 major playable factions.

I hope that at least there are minor factions, making the total number quite high...

[Barkhorn1x]

They said in an interview that the Roman Empire reached its peak size-wise with Trajan even though the empire really reached its peak with Augustus. Unless I'm mistaken, I thought Hadrian added a few more territories and they only started pulling back afterwards.

The geographic peak was 117CE

http://www.worldology.com/Europe/roman_empire_imap.htm

...during the reign of Trajan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_emperors

[Barkhorn1x]

I hope that at least there are minor factions, making the total number quite high...

My guess is an approach more like TWS2 than RTW. So many minor factions.

[cunctator]

They said in an interview that the Roman Empire reached its peak size-wise with Trajan even though the empire really reached its peak with Augustus. Unless I'm mistaken, I thought Hadrian added a few more territories and they only started pulling back afterwards.

Looking at the faction list, I'm guessing Cappadocia replaces Pontus. There's no reason to put two major factions right next to each other with that large a map unless they plan on giving us 20 major playable factions.

Most likely all provinces at the start will be controlled by indepent factions just as in Empire and Napoleon. I guess they will decide later when the campaign is playable what minor factions will become playable and get some more love.

Hadrian just abandoned some of Traians recent unsecured conquests in the east. The Roman Empire had to fight a few major wars in the 2nd century. Marcus Aurelius planned to create new provinces after the Marcommanic wars north of Danube when he died and Septimius Severus finally added northern Mesopotamia and wanted to do the same with Scotalnd. The Romans als o expanded south in Africa, but in a more peaceful way. It's a rather interesting period, not as quiet as it is often portrayed, we just lack good sources detailing these campaigns.

But it would be hard to balance a game where you can controll the resources of the whole Roman Empire at its peak. Maybe we will see some of the more famous wars of the Empire as (DLC?)) regional campaigns.

[Madae]

Hmm, any word on how turns will be? I've always disliked how the you've always had that looming feeling that the game was about to end. It would be nice if the game was genuinely so long that running out of time to do what you want to do is simply an afterthought. I'm hoping it's something like FotS, with something like 4 turns per season or whatever it was, with 400 years of time to play. That would be pretty sweet.

Also not sure how I like there only being 1 Roman faction. I guess I liked the idea of having a natural ally at my back for as long as I wanted, but who also had his own ambitions. It's like all 3 factions were working towards a common goal and helped shape the whole, even though you had to conquer them sooner or later.

[andrewt]

Most likely all provinces at the start will be controlled by indepent factions just as in Empire and Napoleon. I guess they will decide later when the campaign is playable what minor factions will become playable and get some more love.

I'm guessing it will be like TWS2 as well, with every province controlled by a faction. I was just guessing that it's unlikely that they will place too many major factions close together. And by major, I mean playable.

[Moros]

Flaming pigs might be in: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-vision-of-war
<=>
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-2-information

The latter also provides a lot of more and other new information.

[Moros]

Jack Lusted has confirmed that there's only one Roman faction planned!
The civil war (?) and senate will thus be represented quite differently.

[CaptainCrunch]

From the EuroGamer.Net article with Mike Simpson;

" "We haven't really fleshed out what we can and can't do from a modding point of view," Simpson went on. "We're going to spend some more time actually talking to the modder groups and try to come up with a plan that actually delivers them what they need rather than what we think they need, which isn't necessarily the same thing."

To that end, Creative Assembly has organi[z]ed a modding summit at Total War HQ in Horsham, England. That's next month. Key modders from the community will be invited and both parties will work together for mutual gain."

Is this actually legit info? Cuz it sounds too good to be true. Ye gods I hope the EB team is all over this!

[quadalpha]

You did not just editorialise 'organised' with square brackets! That is unnatural!

[Moros]

50+ factions?

See this TWC thread and the link posted:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=549106

article: http://www.gamersglobal.de/angetestet/rome-2?page=0,0

[Vuk]

50+ factions?

See this TWC thread and the link posted:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=549106

article: http://www.gamersglobal.de/angetestet/rome-2?page=0,0

50+ factions?! Who knows...they may just make this ok.

[Moros]

50+ factions?! Who knows...they may just make this ok.

Probably because the lack of a slave faction. Hence they will present the peoples with minor factions or something like that, I assume.

[Arjos]

Probably we'll have rebel "factional armies" for each region, just like from ETW onwards and should they succeed, it will result in the emergence of a minor faction...

But 50 playable factions (or at least the desire to make them) is great news, hopefully they will manage to give each cultural group, a proper depiction...

[quadalpha]

Also from that article: generals will be able to hide.

[Monk]

50+ factions?! Who knows...they may just make this ok.

Totally believable. Shogun 2 modeled every minor clan of the japanese islands even the non-playables incredibly well. All told there were 20+ factions just on the Japanese islands without even counting the pirate faction, rebel faction and the off-map trade factions (european powers). Rise of the Samurai was even MORE ridiculous. Just about every province had a unique faction for it.

[cunctator]

The German preview from gamersglobal.de also says that all factions will get their own internal policy system just as the Romans. Especially mentioned are feuds between different tribes of barbarian factions and intrigues at eastern courts.


Two other features CA is thinking about from the preview that sound quite nice:

-Roads will be build between the new sub regions of each province and not automatically run to the border pointing to the next provincial capital. Thus it is possible to connect border provinces only to your own Empire but not to your enemy.
- The player can choose basic stances for armies on the campaign map. Mentioned are forced marsh, ambush or defensive with appropriate advantages and penalties.

[Arjos]

Cheers cunctator for those traductions, very nice news, especially the roads ^^