No Posts for two days in here

**Sp4** · 06-22-2014, 12:03

Originally Posted by BroskiDerpman

I got R2.

The terrain reminded me of an old flight sim I played.

I'll go grab some graphics mods to ease the game on my eyes. Any suggestions?

I used GEM for a while. It looks quite good. Remember to turn the unlimited GFX memory thing on in settings.

For prettier units, DeI, although that is a total conversion and a little 'heavy' if you've not played vanilla before.

**Myth** · 06-23-2014, 07:54

Some of the RII stuff is on Steam sale at the moment. I'm waiting for the last day to get everything but the latest DLC at 75% off.

I started a new Sparta campaign last night. I got a weird bug where I couldn't levle up my army (the button had disappeared). I had to quit and restart the game to resolve it.

I was frustrated and left when I fought a 20 minute slugfest with my Spartan hoplites, backed up by 6 slingers and 3 javelins versus similarly arrayed Roman armies defending a minor settlement. Autocalc had given me horrible odds due to the ships parked nearby. But I know that ships eraly on are manned by weak skirmishers, so I bought 2 mercenary shock cav and wrecked them as they debarked.

I didn't count on literally sitting there for 20 real life minutes on 6x speed, lookng at 2 blobs (one of hoplites, one of Hastati) pushing into each other in a narrow street choke point.

Look, if I'm going to lose, make me lose. If my hoplites can shred Hastati in a city conquest (they could do so in Rome 1), let me do it in reasonable time. DON'T make me wait for my general to inevitably die so I can get chain routed (or something similar happen to the enemy). City assaults feel like a chore to me, that's why I AR 90% of them unless I have superior quality troops or tons of artilery so I can just fry the AI blob. It's too bad that most battles in Rome 2 are either city assaults or city defenses and that is of minor settlements 3 out of 4 times statisticaly.

**ReluctantSamurai** · 06-24-2014, 08:56

City assaults feel like a chore to me, that's why I AR 90% of them unless I have superior quality troops or tons of artilery so I can just fry the AI blob. It's too bad that most battles in Rome 2 are either city assaults or city defenses and that is of minor settlements 3 out of 4 times statisticaly.

This is precisely why I refuse to purchase the game unless I can get it dirt cheap. City assaults are a boring affair to begin with, and in all honesty, even in R1 I AR most assaults on walled cities. After a dozen or so, the procedure is virtually the same....tedious and boring. This flies in the face of CA's supposed attempt to remediate the quantity of siege battles that so many complained about in R1. It's one of the reasons Shogun 1 will forever remain my favorite. You fought for control of the province in a field battle, and you could simply force the AI to fight a field battle in order to lift a siege if it chose to retreat to the castle.

Agent spam is also a big "deal-breaker". I never got bored with the Ninja cut-scenes of Shogun. When it became apparent your assassin was going to die, you just felt bad. When he succeeded, it was....YES....another one bites the dust

Agents that can disable an entire army without assassinating the general is.....well....just silly

I didn't count on literally sitting there for 20 real life minutes on 6x speed, lookng at 2 blobs (one of hoplites, one of Hastati) pushing into each other in a narrow street choke point.

IIRC, doesn't this happen because CA got so wound up in animating "killing moves" that individual soldiers will stand around doing nothing if they can't complete one on an enemy soldier?

**Sp4** · 06-25-2014, 08:36

Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai

IIRC, doesn't this happen because CA got so wound up in animating "killing moves" that individual soldiers will stand around doing nothing if they can't complete one on an enemy soldier?

No. Not all deaths happen by killing moves. A lot of them are still your simple stab and fall over moves from R1.

**Slaists** · 06-24-2014, 18:46

Originally Posted by Myth

Look, if I'm going to lose, make me lose. If my hoplites can shred Hastati in a city conquest (they could do so in Rome 1), let me do it in reasonable time. DON'T make me wait for my general to inevitably die so I can get chain routed (or something similar happen to the enemy). City assaults feel like a chore to me, that's why I AR 90% of them unless I have superior quality troops or tons of artilery so I can just fry the AI blob. It's too bad that most battles in Rome 2 are either city assaults or city defenses and that is of minor settlements 3 out of 4 times statisticaly.

Um, if I'm not wrong, cities tend to have more than one street. Why not charge those hastati in the rear with that shock cavalry you bought?

Other than that, I agree, city battles are a chore. After a few: you've seen everything there is to be seen unless it's a human controlling the garrison.

**Myth** · 06-24-2014, 18:52

Originally Posted by Slaists

Um, if I'm not wrong, cities tend to have more than one street. Why not charge those hastati in the rear with that shock cavalry you bought?

Other than that, I agree, city battles are a chore. After a few: you've seen everything there is to be seen unless it's a human controlling the garrison.

The AI had one Roman cav general, 3 merc cav of some sort and a Triarii general. I had no chance to use the cav, it knows how to position itself. I had to split my hopiltes in 2 groups and flank that way, but i didn't expect that I would need it versus hastati and town watch when fighting with Spartan hoplites.

**Slaists** · 06-25-2014, 14:34

Originally Posted by Myth

The AI had one Roman cav general, 3 merc cav of some sort and a Triarii general. I had no chance to use the cav, it knows how to position itself. I had to split my hopiltes in 2 groups and flank that way, but i didn't expect that I would need it versus hastati and town watch when fighting with Spartan hoplites.

So, if I read it right, you're saying the AI was pretty decent in this battle. :)

But yeah, hoplites have no killing power (they do have staying power), even the Spartan ones whereas hastati's swords have a bonus against spears. Add to that the fact that the formation stance is supposedly improving fighting stats now (I have not tested this, but CA claims it does as of a few patches ago) and you get your standoff there.

Originally Posted by Sp4

No. Not all deaths happen by killing moves. A lot of them are still your simple stab and fall over moves from R1.

Given the hitpoint mechanism I would not be surprised hit-animations and a soldier getting killed are uncorrelated.

Anyway, most melee killing at least in Roman armies happened by simple stab moves (from behind the shield). Romans did not like expose themselves to be able to do dramatic cleaves.

**ReluctantSamurai** · 06-25-2014, 16:32

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...combat-system?

Older discussion, but apparently there were/are issues related to the Warscape Engine and melee animations...

Which led to this:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=208344533

20 minutes on 6X speed is more than a bit excessive to resolve a unit combat situation, so something is still not right....

**Slaists** · 06-25-2014, 16:50

Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...combat-system?

Older discussion, but apparently there were/are issues related to the Warscape Engine and melee animations...

Which led to this:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=208344533

20 minutes on 6X speed is more than a bit excessive to resolve a unit combat situation, so something is still not right....

There is also a thread where someone from CA responded that while the animations show only 1 on 1 duels, the engine actually accounts for the fact that units are locally outnumbered, outflanked, attacked from multiple sides, etc. This suggests, the animations and actual hitpoint loss/kills are not necessarily 100% correlated. Sorry, could not find the reference. I read that post a long time ago.

As to 20 minutes on 6x speed combat: to be honest, I personally have never seen that in my gzillion hours with Rome 2. Very rarely any of my battles against the AI go longer than 10 minutes on normal speed [mostly the longer ones are siege battles where I have to wait for reinforcements or defending siege battles where the AI is drawing multiple stacks in]. But in those cases it's not combat that takes time but rather there is a long wait for troops to arrive. Then again, I have not attempted to play a pure hoplite nation since patch 3 or so.

**fallen851** · 06-25-2014, 07:08

Originally Posted by Myth

Some of the RII stuff is on Steam sale at the moment. I'm waiting for the last day to get everything but the latest DLC at 75% off.

I started a new Sparta campaign last night. I got a weird bug where I couldn't levle up my army (the button had disappeared). I had to quit and restart the game to resolve it.

I was frustrated and left when I fought a 20 minute slugfest with my Spartan hoplites, backed up by 6 slingers and 3 javelins versus similarly arrayed Roman armies defending a minor settlement. Autocalc had given me horrible odds due to the ships parked nearby. But I know that ships eraly on are manned by weak skirmishers, so I bought 2 mercenary shock cav and wrecked them as they debarked.

I didn't count on literally sitting there for 20 real life minutes on 6x speed, lookng at 2 blobs (one of hoplites, one of Hastati) pushing into each other in a narrow street choke point.

Look, if I'm going to lose, make me lose. If my hoplites can shred Hastati in a city conquest (they could do so in Rome 1), let me do it in reasonable time. DON'T make me wait for my general to inevitably die so I can get chain routed (or something similar happen to the enemy). City assaults feel like a chore to me, that's why I AR 90% of them unless I have superior quality troops or tons of artilery so I can just fry the AI blob. It's too bad that most battles in Rome 2 are either city assaults or city defenses and that is of minor settlements 3 out of 4 times statisticaly.

It genuinely saddens me when the people who like this game struggle with it.

I personally gave it up, but I check the forums every once in awhile to see if naval battles and siege battles work. I'd really like to play a proper naval battle.