Questions from a TW vet

[Servius]

Hi all,

I haven't bought R2 yet. The first thing that slowed me down was knowing that DarthVader may not be around to make another DarthMod. When I saw Sega jacked the price up by 20%, I slammed the breaks. Since then, I've been reading reviews and there's a lot of bad press about R2. Steam is still selling it at $60, which is ridiculous, but Green Man Gaming has dropped the price again, from $50 to $45. That said, I'm still not convinced I should buy this game. I saw Lemur's post from the gossip department about even basic game functions not being in the game yet. Things like the Hold/Guard order, auto-fire, unit formations, etc. I've also ready about all the performance problems, dumbing down of town/region building options, etc.

So, my question to vets of the TW series, to someone (me) who's played every one since the original Shogun, what's not in R2 that someone like me would expect to be in there?

1) Are the standard battle orders in there (hold position, hold fire, fire at will, block formation, delta (triangle) formation, together vs. spread formation, add/subtract rank, rotate formation, etc)?

2) How's diplomacy going? Can you tell enemies that a condition of peace is that they cease hostilities with another faction, like one of your allies? Are the diplomats rational or still suicidal? Like, if you have a huge army at their last city gate and you offer them peace in exchange for becoming a client state, will they say yes? Has backstabbing been eliminated? It always pissed me off to no end how Hojo would always break it's alliance with me (Takeda) in S2, even if we had a very friendly relationship and were trustworthy. Are the in-game descriptions on the strength of your relationship with another faction really reliable, or will the AI always backstab you, regardless of your relationship, whenever it becomes the most convenient thing for them, without warning?

3) I heard CA tried to stop the tiny aimless units running all over the map by forbidding armies on the map without a general and limiting the number of generals. How's that working? It seemed like a ham-fisted way to solve the problem, but possibly viable. But then I've been reading about how, when you finish off a faction, tiny little units keep suiciding off the city walls. Those tiny units shouldn't exist under this rule, so what gives?

4) I read in Patch 2 they're slowing down the infantry speed, which is a good thing. I remember how crazy it was in R1, it almost made cavalry redundant. Is it reasonable now?

5) Are the melee fights over in a few seconds like they were in R1?

6) Has ship range on the campaign map been changed/increased to something more reasonable than past releases, something closer to DarthMod?

7) Are there family trees? What can you manually do to affect your family tree?

8) Are there the embark/disembark crashes that plagued Empire?

9) Does the AI actually make smart use of land and naval power on the campaign map?

10) Does the AI build multiple stacks that just park themselves around a city like in M2 and Empire?

11) Has the stupid squalor/unhappiness problem from R1 returned or is it more rational like in Empire and S2?

12) Other thoughts?

[Hooahguy]

Hi all,


1) Are the standard battle orders in there (hold position, hold fire, fire at will, block formation, delta (triangle) formation, together vs. spread formation, add/subtract rank, rotate formation, etc)?

All that stuff is still there, in fact it was expanded to a lot more, like double line, archers in front, triple line, etc.

2) How's diplomacy going? Can you tell enemies that a condition of peace is that they cease hostilities with another faction, like one of your allies? Are the diplomats rational or still suicidal? Like, if you have a huge army at their last city gate and you offer them peace in exchange for becoming a client state, will they say yes?

Theres currently this big bug which people are calling the 50/50 bug where when you get to the diplomacy screen it defaults back to the state to diplomacy at the start of the game which makes diplomacy very hard to do. Most neighbors wont even accept a trade agreement.

3) I heard CA tried to stop the tiny aimless units running all over the map by forbidding armies on the map without a general and limiting the number of generals. How's that working? It seemed like a ham-fisted way to solve the problem, but possibly viable. But then I've been reading about how, when you finish off a faction, tiny little units keep suiciding off the city walls. Those tiny units shouldn't exist under this rule, so what gives?

Its still sort of there. But instead of dozens of random one-units its a bunch of random 1 or two units with a general. The problem then is getting them to recruit more people into that army. Im actually using Radious's mods now and the AI is actually a lot better at creating larger armies and keeping away from the smaller ones. Granted its not perfect and there are still some small armies, but Im seeing more larger stacks than before, especially with the 2nd patch last friday.

4) I read in Patch 2 they're slowing down the infantry speed, which is a good thing. I remember how crazy it was in R1, it almost made cavalry redundant. Is it reasonable now?

Again, I cant really comment, Im using Radious's mods which slows units down, but people are telling me who dont have mods that its getting better. Still a bit too fast for some, but with mods, I see no problem with it.

5) Are the melee fights over in a few seconds like they were in R1?

That was a problem before, (as above, Im using mods so I cant really comment, but for me the killing speed is an appropriate length, IMO)

6) Has ship range on the campaign map been changed/increased to something more reasonable than past releases, something closer to DarthMod?

Cant comment, I havent really done any naval stuff in my campaign, but the one time I did use naval transports it didnt seem too bad.

7) Are there family trees? What can you manually do to affect your family tree?

No, not yet, but I have a strong feeling that it will be added in a later patch, as I remember that family trees were mentioned in a while ago as a feature.

8) Are there the embark/disembark crashes that plagued Empire?

Not that I know of...

9) Does the AI actually make smart use of land and naval power on the campaign map?

Campaign AI is quite decent, in my opinion. Its outsmarted me a few times. Like in my AAR posted here, it sent an army towards my capital, drawing out one of the armies I had put in a nearby town to defend it. When my army approached, they evaded me and hit the now undefended town, destroying whatever buildings they could before I was able to defeat them. Battle AI is hit or miss. Sometimes it will show great competence, other times its dumb as a rock.

10) Does the AI build multiple stacks that just park themselves around a city like in M2 and Empire?

I think it depends. If its their last city/town and they are at war they park themselves around their last town. But if there is more than one city/town they tend to go on the offensive.

11) Has the stupid squalor/unhappiness problem from R1 returned or is it more rational like in Empire and S2?

Initially it was bad, but it was patched to something a bit more reasonable. Again, Im using a mod which brings it down further so I think its very reasonable.

12) Other thoughts?

I would wait a month or so before you buy it, for more mods and patches. While I did pre-order and I love it, I am using a bunch of mods that really enhances the gameplay for me, and Im not sure if I would love it as much as I do now if I had no mods.

Also, I wouldnt worry too much about Darth Vader leaving, Radious is doing just as a fine job as Darth did.

[Bramborough]

Hooah's line-by-line response is spot-on.

I want to add an amplifying comment about "Fire at Will" mode. It IS in the game for dedicated missile troops (archers, skirmisher javelin units, siege arty, etc), and works pretty much as it always has, as far as I can tell. The issue with Fire-at-Will, however, has to do with Rome's pilum-armed heavy melee infantry units, from hastati/principes up through the various legionary units. THESE guys don't have a Fire-at-Will mode. They do stop to chuck their pila during their own melee attacks, but when standing on defense, simply let the enemy close to melee range without giving them a pilum volley as they advance. Which sucks.

This capability was there in R1, kinda inexplicable that we don't have it in R2...especially as Rome is the centerpiece faction of the game and arguably received (or at least should have received) the most attention during development. Obvious though this omission is, it would also seem to be readily patch-able, and I'm confident will be corrected sooner rather than later.

[jbillybrack]

Another comment about first question, as far as I can tell there is no "together/spread formation," but this is SURELY something they'll add later, right?

[Hooahguy]

Another comment about first question, as far as I can tell there is no "together/spread formation," but this is SURELY something they'll add later, right?

Its listed in the encyclopedia so I can only assume that it will be added at a later date.

[phred]

regarding trade - I'm playing a Pontus campaign and trade has been pretty easy.
Pontus starts with the timber resource and within a 3-4 turns can conquer provinces with wine and iron.
I have a steadfast reputation and have had no problem getting trade agreements. Seleucia even paid me 1900 for one.
Plus I have the Hellenic culture, and most everyone around me is Hellenic.

In my previous Carthage campaign I had a terrible time getting trade agreements early in the campaign, but I wasn't paying attention to the resources I had in my regions.

I'm assuming that the number of resources you have to trade is proportional to the number of factions wanting to trade with you.
And culture affinity may be making a difference. But that's speculation on my part.

Also,
I'm liking the new province/region setup.
I also like that you can tailor-make the squalor in your provinces. If you don't want squalor in a province, then you don't build certain high level buildings. If you want to fully exploit resources in a region, then you'll want to build the high level buildings that cause squalor, but you don't have to do that in every province.

I like that you can train armies on the move and don't have to be in a city. If you're in your territory, you can move an army all of it's movement points then recruit some units. The next turn you'll have new units in the army, and then can move it and recruit some more. You can have a decent sized stack in 3 turns without sacrificing movement.

The AI is mostly dumb, but occasionally it will surprise you. I had stack moving towards a faction's last region, they hit me with an agent that killed my general, then they swarmed me with 2 and a half stacks. I retrained the army, made sure to protect the general, and they did it again. I had better troops; they just had too many for me to handle, and it was a flat desert map.

[Sp4]

There is no guard mode.

[Hooahguy]

There is no guard mode.

Yeah I should have mentioned that in my original post. It can be quite annoying, but I suspect it will be added in a later patch.

[The Stranger]

since i dont want to make a new thread, and im also a TW vet, ill ask my question here :P sorry for hijacking.

but what happened to arche seleuke? i thought we would get it free-LC :D

[Hooahguy]

If I had to guess, fixing the game is first on the docket for CA.

[Bramborough]

And culture affinity may be making a difference. But that's speculation on my part.

It does indeed make a significant difference. If one looks at the factors in the diplomatic screen (mouse-over tooltip from the red/yellow/green face icon), "Cultural Aversion" is usually one of the biggest negative factors, eclipsed only by war. With the absence of this diplomatic hit, the Hellenic factions start off much friendlier toward you (or perhaps more accurately, "much less hostile"), and therefore readily willing to engage in trade.

[Quillan]

While cultural affinity definitely has an impact, reputation also seems to have an impact. Getting to dependable or steadfast seems to get me a flood of trade relationships, even from cultures that really dislike me. Unreliable people tend not to be good trade partners.

[Bramborough]

While cultural affinity definitely has an impact, reputation also seems to have an impact. Getting to dependable or steadfast seems to get me a flood of trade relationships, even from cultures that really dislike me. Unreliable people tend not to be good trade partners.

Where is one's own diplomatic reputation displayed? I've missed that up til now.

EDIT: Duh, never mind. Right there in the spot where one would expect, below the Roman portrait. I feel silly.

Just pretend this post didn't happen.

[Zatoichi]

since i dont want to make a new thread, and im also a TW vet, ill ask my question here :P sorry for hijacking.

but what happened to arche seleuke? i thought we would get it free-LC :D

CA said it was due in October, but that was before the fun and games they've had with the release. So until otherwise stated by CA, it's still due out in October as far as I can tell.