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.