Do these + gravitas traits on agents actually do anything?

[Sp4]

Here, my agent has a trait that gives her +2 gravitas a turn, which is nice but do they actually do anything for agents? Agents can't gather gravitas and they don't contribute to your overall influence or do they? Embedding her in an army doesn't do anything either.

[Bramborough]

I've been assuming that +gravitas on an army-embedded agent would add to the gravitas of whatever character is leading the army, and the trait would be inactive whenever the agent is acting independently. If the agent is embedded, the +gravitas does show up under the general's portrait in the mouse-over screen for "Agent's Effects". Never actually added up a generals gravitas gain on a turn to see if it's actually happening or not.

[Sp4]

I've been assuming that +gravitas on an army-embedded agent would add to the gravitas of whatever character is leading the army, and the trait would be inactive whenever the agent is acting independently. If the agent is embedded, the +gravitas does show up under the general's portrait in the mouse-over screen for "Agent's Effects". Never actually added up a generals gravitas gain on a turn to see if it's actually happening or not.

It's not.

[easytarget]

And is that because it needs to be added to the list of things not working?

Or is it because CA decided more meaningless choices like all those in the politics module was a part of the larger design plan intended to make R2 a mediocre game in comparison to their previously rather brilliant S2 effort, and as a result they decided some drop downs with no effect would be fun?

Ok, I'll give a real alternative, is it not supposed to do that? And if not, what is it supposed to do?

[Sp4]

I don't know, that's why I am here =p

I also don't know why people keep praising Shogun 2 so high. I found the game boring and stupid most of the time, with every faction being literally the same (yet somehow, cultural penalties upong conquering a place still happened), walls being climbed without any sort of special equipment, bla bla, anyways yeah, I thought the game was fairly boring and on that level at least, Rome 2 is doing better. S2 had it's fair share of useless things too, like screwed auto resolve calculations, useless or plain stupid choices for retainers and such...
The only reason I played the game as much as I did was because it had a working co-op mode and if someone had made a co op mode for Rome 1, I would have just played that instead. The co op mode in Rome 2 is kind of lacking at the moment with bugs, lag that can't really be explained and ridiculous slow downs in all and any situations.. so yeah it is kind of a crappy alternative. If someone made a working co-op mode for Rome 1, I'd still leave this alone XD

[Slaists]

I suspect, CA just has a general random pool of house retainers and draws from that pool get applied to all characters who have the slot (for a retainer): thus, no distinction is being made whether the household retainer is useful for the target char or not.

[Bramborough]

I suspect, CA just has a general random pool of house retainers and draws from that pool get applied to all characters who have the slot (for a retainer): thus, no distinction is being made whether the household retainer is useful for the target char or not.

I think there's a lot of truth to this...but I'm not sure it's completely random. I've noticed that the naval retainers (Old Fisherman, etc) do tend to pop up for admirals rather than generals. Other than that, though, yeah, doesn't seem to be any other rhyme or reason. It's possible I guess that a general may be more likely to get a civic retainer (+ ag wealth %, etc) if he's sitting in a city and hasn't fought in a while...but I haven't really tracked it closely enough to discern an actual pattern.

[jbillybrack]

I think there's a lot of truth to this...but I'm not sure it's completely random. I've noticed that the naval retainers (Old Fisherman, etc) do tend to pop up for admirals rather than generals. Other than that, though, yeah, doesn't seem to be any other rhyme or reason. It's possible I guess that a general may be more likely to get a civic retainer (+ ag wealth %, etc) if he's sitting in a city and hasn't fought in a while...but I haven't really tracked it closely enough to discern an actual pattern.

But I often get the "- 5% to ship building costs" on my generals...

[AntiDamascus]

I enjoy the + to cavalry recruitment on my admirals. Fishing up horses.

[easytarget]

I also don't know why people keep praising Shogun 2 so high. I found the game boring and stupid most of the time,

You and I will just have to completely disagree on this, I'm sure we'll both live.

[Slaists]

You and I will just have to completely disagree on this, I'm sure we'll both live.

S2 probably is the best game CA has developed so far. Nonetheless, it was nowhere near perfect upon release (as many now would suggest with nostalgia). It took quite some tweaks/patches to get the campaign AI functioning in S2. Even with those, FOTS is ridiculously easy after the initial fight (due to the AI rushing player's army whenever the player has good artillery).

[easytarget]

I guess, I was there playing it the day it released. Ran through a Date campaign start to finish that worked flawlessly day one.

[Sp4]

Are we talking stability of the game or eh gameplay or whatever? I just found the idea of a TW game with a bunch of factions that are essentially the same on an island that will make every campaign boil down to east vs west pretty boring. I never actually finished a Shogun 2 campaign I think. I finished a coop one once but that may have been FotS.

[Slaists]

I guess, I was there playing it the day it released. Ran through a Date campaign start to finish that worked flawlessly day one.

The starting campaign AI in S2 was extremely passive almost the same as in R2. The naval one was a complete joke: a player could occupy all the trade nodes with merchant ships only and no AI would challenge that. The campaign AI became much more cunning with later patches and expansions. I've forgotten all the smaller bugs, but one of the biggest on the S2 release was that besieging AI would just sit at the edge of the map and not do anything: that bug seems to have founds its way into RTW as well.

[Alcibiade]

S2 battles were working nicely at the end. The game was beautifull, an aesthetic success. But I found the campaigns rather boring too. On a role-play level this game was really too one dimensional. Every faction's purpose being to grow bigger than the others and conquer the whole map. At the end there were just three or four huge empires. No small or mid size factions left.
Another thing, the ennemy generals and daymio were much too suicidal and I always found very frustrating not to being able to have a long ware with Uesegi Kenshin or Takeda Shingen for more than one turn because he would die in the first battle against my armies or another AI army.

Now about this thread's original question, I'm afraid gravitas doesn't have any use for agents.

[easytarget]

The starting campaign AI in S2 was extremely passive almost the same as in R2. The naval one was a complete joke: a player could occupy all the trade nodes with merchant ships only and no AI would challenge that. The campaign AI became much more cunning with later patches and expansions. I've forgotten all the smaller bugs, but one of the biggest on the S2 release was that besieging AI would just sit at the edge of the map and not do anything: that bug seems to have founds its way into RTW as well.

Again, we played a different game you and I. Or you played on normal or something. On H/VH/Legendary the AI is most certainly not passive, in fact if it has a problem it is way too hostile, even to the point of being fixated on the human player.

Trade nodes were definitely an economic gimmick that could be exploited, I'll grant you that one. And I'm not sure that I feel by FOTS with navies cruising around every where whether that was "the improvement" everyone was looking for or not

Yes, we're all painfully aware of the fact that way too much in the way of sieges took place in S2, funny thing that, it was supposedly going to be addressed in R2, yet I'm finding most of my engagements rarely take place in open battlefields.

[easytarget]

S2 battles were working nicely at the end. The game was beautifull, an aesthetic success. But I found the campaigns rather boring too. On a role-play level this game was really too one dimensional. Every faction's purpose being to grow bigger than the others and conquer the whole map. At the end there were just three or four huge empires. No small or mid size factions left.
Another thing, the ennemy generals and daymio were much too suicidal and I always found very frustrating not to being able to have a long ware with Uesegi Kenshin or Takeda Shingen for more than one turn because he would die in the first battle against my armies or another AI army.

Now about this thread's original question, I'm afraid gravitas doesn't have any use for agents.

Funny you should mention that, in Rome 2 I long for the days of S2 when there were powers to be reckoned with, now all I've got are a hundred two settlement factions sitting about starving waiting for me to put them out of their misery.

[Alcibiade]

Funny you should mention that, in Rome 2 I long for the days of S2 when there were powers to be reckoned with, now all I've got are a hundred two settlement factions sitting about starving waiting for me to put them out of their misery.

:-) Yes, this is an issue at the moment.

I hope CA will be able to fix that. Let's see what we got after patch 4.

[Myth]

Funny you should mention that, in Rome 2 I long for the days of S2 when there were powers to be reckoned with, now all I've got are a hundred two settlement factions sitting about starving waiting for me to put them out of their misery.

The 200 minor factions approach is the best thing that has happened to the TW series. It makes the "Rebel" faction actually an interesting addition to the game. You will read how people use diplomacy with such factions time and again if you take a look at AARs and campaign reports.

The game is no longer a steamroll after patch 3 and patch 4 makes it even more difficult. There ARE powers to contend with. Have you tried a Legendary Epirus or Avernii campaign?

[easytarget]

My you are busy trying to control exactly how I play this game in order for it to be enjoyable aren't you Myth.

If I play a certain faction, on a certain day, with the moon full and on legendary with the right patch.

Dude, do you read what you write?

As for 200 factions, you call it a win, I call it beyond CA's ability to manage.

[Sp4]

As for 200 factions, you call it a win, I call it beyond CA's ability to manage.

That's pretty much what I am thinking.

[AntiDamascus]

I prefer the lot of factions to just the few interchangeable ones in S2. They had no distinction.

[Sp4]

And these ones do? The only distinction I can see with them so far is that I have heard a couple of the names, which might have been true of the ones in S2, had I grown up in Japan.

[AntiDamascus]

It's at least different units and looks.

[Sp4]

Rome 1 had this diversity as well and they only had a 'Rebels' faction.

[Myth]

My you are busy trying to control exactly how I play this game in order for it to be enjoyable aren't you Myth.

If I play a certain faction, on a certain day, with the moon full and on legendary with the right patch.

Dude, do you read what you write?

As for 200 factions, you call it a win, I call it beyond CA's ability to manage.

I prefer to have an objective view of Rome II. I enjoy the game greatly as a player. You want to bash it and praise Shogun II which I found boring and bland, and with several really bad design desicions. Who is right? It's a matter of perspective. But this is the Rome II forum and you're shouting left and right that the game sucks and you long for it to be more like Shogun II. Should I (as a player, not as a moderator) sit by and watch you say this without responding? Is it really fair to say the game is boring and easy if you don't have the guts to try Legendary and a faction other than Rome?

Ultimately I can't control how you play, but I can control the image you give about Rome II to other members and guests who don't own the game yet. There is no way I can play Shogun II which would make me like it more, but I daresay there is a way for you to play Rome II where you will find it more challenging (and judging by your posts, you should find that more fun).

[easytarget]

You ask the wrong questions, so you get the wrong answers. The question isn't about guts to play legendary, that's a 10 year old ploy that you could hardly expect to work on adults. The question is rather should CA design a game that allows you to play different factions at different difficulty levels and find entertainment and engagement. Or better yet, the question even CA is asking themselves is even more obvious: WTF did they not beta this game first?

And yeah, Shogun 2 is better, I'll say it, critics are saying it, and plenty of players say it. Does that make it true? Hardly, it just means your ignoring it and pretending to be objective about something as subjective as a PC game is just funny is all. But you don't need to argue with me about it, not like you're going to convince me my favorite color isn't green, whereas I will give you and anyone else a hard time if I feel like what you're doing is ignoring the simple fact that this launch looks a lot like Empire, come to think of it we ought to dredge up the Empire threads and see if you were playing apologist for that one too.

Oh, and I'm enjoying Rome 2 btw, so don't worry yourself on my account, it's just not as good as Shogun 2, and I seriously doubt any amount of patching is going to get it there.

But I'm still having a reasonable amount of fun, already at 112 hours, so it could hardly be said I'm not playing this.

[Myth]

I admit to previously misunderstanding your position. I fully agree that the launch was abysmal and that the game should have been beta tested instead of us (paying customers) being assigned to this task. I fully blame Sega for this.

That the game is not as polished as Shogun II is also something I agree with. I do not agree that Shogun II is a better or more entertaining game however. Certainly not a better Total War game. Perhaps for those really into the 1500s in Japan it would be great, but for me it's definitely not fun.

Should Rome II be fun on all difficulty levels? Yes. Should it be challenging on anything lower than hard? No.

[BroskiDerpman]

It's at least different units and looks.

For Rome 2?

It's tiers of spear men, swordsman, cav, siege equipment, etc. Just more reskins using the module (Lego like) model and color swapping to create "more variety".

Unlike in S2TW as long as you can use the next "tier" of units in a reasonable amount there isn't much reason to use the previous one unless you use them as filler or fodder.

I remember how my buffed up Yari Ashigaru were still the core of my unit stacks in S2tw due to how they were an extremely useful unit in spear wall.

Each unit had a more clear roll requiring different play styles to each specific unit.

The main thing that I see why people don't like S2tw is the culture and how it's a civil war (lack of variety) on one island nation. I took my time to read a little on the history and actually started playing s2tw from a whole different perspective.

You got to know that a Japan setting game is made because of "western" interest in the Japanese culture. You don't see China usually represented or Dai Viet, etc because those nations are in a bad standing with "western" nations and they don't influence the media with anime (sengoku basara, etc) Hence in Asia you don't talk about Sengoku Jidai in Vietnam, you talk about the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" (A really popular subject) or the local stuff.

What surprises me is even though s2tw is based on one island there is still enough variety to keep you interested. I remember playing FKoC mod for m2tw and there was essentially even less variety than Sengoku Jidai. So the main thing that puts people off is culture, and variety. Next is some quirky game mechanics but those two mentioned before seem to be the main ones.

Cheers.

[Bramborough]

I think a TW game set in China or East Asia would be pretty cool. I don't know any more about this than I do feudal Japan...but the geographic and/or time sweep of a R1/R2 would be there. Could involve Mongols or other Central Asian steppe folk. Southeast Asian, Korean, and perhaps Indian cultures. Or perhaps more China-specific. Wasn't there a period of "The Warring States"? I don't know flip-all about it...but the very name sounds like fertile ground for a TW title.

This may sound contradictory coming from a guy who's already said that he passed up S1/S2 because of disinterest...I can't really explain that. .