State of the Game

[knoddy]

Hi all,

Have not played since around patch 6 or 7. I just couldnt get immersed, I would start a campaign play 10-15 turns go do something else and never come back.

So how does the game play now? do I need to play Ceaser in Gaul or Hannibal at the gates or is the basic game much more improved now/have they fixed a lot of the major bugs?

Is the Pirates and Raiders DLC worth it?

let me know your thoughts

Cheers Knoddy

[easytarget]

The short answer: you can't patch what's wrong with R2

[Slaists]

I played my Barcid campaign to military victory last night [my first RTW 2 campaign I actually played to the end]. It was fun for the first 50-75 turns with things hanging in balance. After that: the usual steam-roll.

What kept me engaged was playing and experimenting with Carthaginian mercenary roster, LOL.

In general, despite that mid-game-on steamroll, I have to say, the grand campaign has improved a lot since the release.

Here's a peak at the end-of-campaign map. As you can see there are a few larger AI states (which was unusual around patches 5-7).

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

As to raiders' pack. I'd buy it only if you want to play with those factions (which can be achieved with mods anyway). All 3 have a challenging start.

[easytarget]

My instincts on game quality are driven entirely by what I feel compelled to play, based on that, I can't recommend the GC for R2.

Because since its release I forced myself to slog through one GC under the original victory conditions, which btw were just completely stupid, it was just short of a requiring to conquer the entire map. Once that was done I've played and enjoyed both DLC's more than the GC, so thumbs up to HaTG and CIG.

But currently if you look at my steam play time you'd see I'd rather play R1 EB, MTW2 vanilla or under any mod or Shogun 2 over R2 GC.

That's how I rate games, do I play them. I've got limited amounts of time just like anyone working to allocate to gaming, given it's a limited resource, where I choose to use it says everything I have to say about how I feel about a recently released game. In this case it would sum up this way: I'd rather play games that released a decade ago.

[Kamakazi]

The game to me is generally a throwback to Age of Empires II (which I also play). Survive the first few assaults and when those are over steam roll the competition.

After a certain point the AI seems to be content to puppy guard their forts and not form any kind of offensive.

The reason I still play is that I enjoy the real time battles. The tactician in me needs the high.......

[knoddy]

thanks for the replies, I might see if I can get back into it. to the point about getting to a point where you steam roll, this is like nearly every strategy game out there, at some point your so big that it hardly matters what the AI does but I do take your point.