I officially like this game now
Now this is going to be a very long, very subjective thread, so if you can't stomach that kind of goodie-noodie then save your soul and skip this one. But in light of the deserved rough reception of Rome 2 I felt like expressing my feelings towards the game at hand as of today.
I played the first Rome for a total of about 600 hours, give or take, and the only real modifications I had were a triple-cost/upkeep of all cavalry, chariots and elephants (should have just reduced their unit sizes, oh wise Jarmam) - other than that the game worked perfectly fine for me to enjoy it immensely for that long. I liked Shogun 1, I loved Shogun 2, but never clawed in more than 400 hours in each, so I might come off as somewhat forgiving to those of you that have sunk a tremendous amount of time into the various TWs. I have also never really played the multiplayer outside of a few MP campaigns in Shogun 2, so this part of the game being hopeless in Rome 2 as of now is something I dislike and hope will be looked into for the sake of those doing it. But I wont touch it here.
Some things have been taken care of in earlier patches, like unit formations sticking, UI updates, CPs changed etc. But I never really genuinely felt I "liked" the game in its then-current status. There was just so much to do and so little chance of it all being done.
The recent Seleucid patch did just about everything I still desperately wanted from Rome 2. Like a lot of people I hated the capture point system, and while I will admit that the ambush-solve to Forced March might never lose the feeling of being a "bandaid"-change, it still made those battles more tolerable. I like the macro-aspect of Rome 2 a lot more than most people seem to, balancing food, squalor, order, production sites, provinces and new conquests on what can feel like a knife's edge at higher difficulties. I love the faction variation, the various bonuses and starting locations for each faction and how different they feel compared to one-another (unlike Shogun 2, which admittedly didn't try to provide that feeling).
But my main issue with the game was the AI, specifically the campaign AI since the BAI was never the greatest in TW. Sure, you can mod it, but an AI is a lot harder to "fit right" for me than the cost of unit x, and the way the AI handles modifications to things like food and squalor can be quite difficult to predict and control if moved too far away from the "vanilla game" that the AI is designed around. The AI at release was hopeless - predictable and stupid, breaking down under its own weight right when the earlygame was about to end. This breaks the singleplayer, and unlike Spartan unit caps or Parthian unit skins this isnt something you can fiddle with and correct in a few hours. Diplomacy was also rubbish. As in: Non-functional. Nothing made sense in regards to diplomacy and I quickly gave it the "trade partner or enemy"-treatment since the AI could never really muster a defense once I got bigger than 3 provinces anyway so declare-war-away.
Now in regards to diplomacy there is still much to be done, but it feels a lot more intuitive now. I can ally myself with someone and... act like we have an alliance. People will trade with me if it benefits them greatly and we're not immediate enemies. The AI doesn't ask for 70.000 for a tradepact it breaks the next turn anyway anymore. And the weaker factions now actively seek my help against stronger enemies, going so far as to offer satrapy-status in return for a war-declaration of what could easily be a common enemy. Even better - the AI even attemps to kill me now! Sure, right now I am Seleucid and Seleucid is completely overpowered, but when the AI declares war it takes an actual fight to me. And it brings friends. And my friends fight their friends - constantly. Like... I wanted from the start. Even the Mark-for-Death diplomacy feature seems to work decently. Still not sure if the AI can tell you to bugger off when you use it, but it seems content to then actively assist me - if there's a potential gain or if its a satrapy. Else it does nothing, if I would have done nothing in its sitation.
I cannot stress enough how huge this is for the campaign singleplayer experience. Macroing your own empire can only be fun for so long when the rest of the world seems like a headless chicken that eventually lies down and stops moving after fluttering around for 40 turns (yes, chickens do exactly that). To add to this the BAI - while still not spectatular by any stretch - has recieved some great changes. The siege AI in particular was absolutely broken at release and for quite a while afterwards. Yes, its still kind of rubbish when it comes to reinforcing itself, but is it night and day when it comes to assaulting walls or settlements. It even uses tactics like trying a strong flank, taking walls, finding an angle of attack in the streets of settlements and so forth. Yes, it can still be outsmarted heavily, and yes, the predictability thing is still strong - but just going from "absolutely broken" to "decently functional" is really all I can ask from a TW game. I just want them to use their cavalry to wheel around and try to break my paper-line of Levies. And it really tries at times! Formation-based strategies and tactics surely aren't TW's BAI's strongest point - these games are much more suited for the Shogun 2 sort-of-clustersquabble due to the BAI - but I feel... effort... to tighten the AI on all fronts and I especially feel it where it seems successful, namely the CAI's decisionmaking.
Now as is obvious there are still flaws and a bundle of them for sure. Lack of family trees and consequently lack of care for my agents and generals due to dying-too-quickly or just being too irrelevant is still a problem, which is obvious when what I really care about is my Legions and their names and identities, rather than my potential world-overlords. The AI can still kill itself off due to lack of food or cash without provocation. Diplomacy is still scetchy at times. And a lot of balance decisions and gameplay functions are still confusing at best and frustrating at worst. But this is where the other massive part of this patch enter the scene: The Steam Workshop and how it has made modding a no-brainer for me. I love Valve for this system. I love Valve in general and have an altar dedicated to Gabe Newell posing in ways I would be banned for describing in this forum, but this in relation to Rome 2 in particular has reinvented the game for me. I want... slower replenishment, more turns per year, longer research time in general and tweaked objectives/win conditions. *Snap* - your wish is my command. Maybe a slight food buff for the AI - *snap*. How about a more damaging civil war? *Snap*. Gone are the days of editing every single bloody cavalry unit's cost and upkeep in the most tedious way possible, someone else has probably already done that for me or will in time. Can I get... family trees? *Snap*. Well, functional'ish they are! This has always been possible, but only in the Shogun 2 days has it been anywhere near as accessible, which is an egg in the basket for both game, player and modder. In a game with as many factors as Rome 2 this is so much more important.
The ease of modding and the way Steam tracks popular mods and trends combined are brilliant. CA, despite a borderline unacceptable lack of polish at release, have shown both will to listen and to change things. If the family tree mods, flaws aside, start dominating the Workshop, well, that's a pretty strong signal to the company of what people are sorely missing. The direct access to a vast array of mods for every single player out there might also be a bolster to an already fantastic modding community to continue to furthen their work (I refer to Skyrim as an example of the potential of this). And best of all this renders the debate we players can have on what is a sensible solution to the campaign less "must... find... common... ground", since it can be structured so flexibly to suit one's deepest desires (Emperor Gabe Newell). Again, there was always room for lots of good solutions, but the accessability-increase is huge. Just look at Shogun 2 and its additions for examples, and those (I believe) never sold anywhere near as well as Rome 2.
Now I admit that much of my recent near-falling-in-love has as much to do with the potential shown and granted by the patch as it is with the actual hands-on changes. Maybe Im a Star Wars Prequel-fan in denial due to wanting to like something so badly, because I will admit I really want to love Rome 2. But for the first time since release, mostly due to the aformentioned changes to CAI, BAI and modding, I feel like I can like it without any feeling of "maybe I want to love it more than I actually do". Still far from perfect, I am now convinced that I may soon come to percieve the product at hand as my favourite TW game. And goddammit, I expect nothing less from the game I've wanted since 2004.
Patch 5
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Re: I officially like this game now
Originally Posted by Slaists
I've been a fan of Total Wars since I came late to the party with Rome 1 around 2010. 
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