Rome 2: Empire Divided (DLC)

[Crandar]

1. Verify cache.
2. Opt out of the beta.

If nothing of these works, then:
3. Delete (not only disable) every mod you use.

[hoom]

So did anyone play? Any impressions?

Played a couple of 1 unit vs 1 unit custom battles in the beta to see if there was obvious combat difference & went into a campaign start to look at GUI changes.

Didn't notice anything in combat.
GUI (ingame encyclopedia stuff) generally good improvement but the minimal GUI in battles seems to be AWOL (or I remember wrong).

Basically not in TW mode at the moment, did play a bit of Shogun 1 the other day & prior to that I'd been playing Third Age mod of Med2.

[Cazbol]

I got all excited, bought this and tried to play it. All my attempts at recruiting agents make the game crash to desktop. Does this actually work for you guys?

Edit: Never mind that. I came to think of verifying the files, which solved this.

[JhudielTheOne]

I Think This DLC Is Really Awesome :)

[hoom]

Cool, care to expand on that? What improvements are you seeing? Or is it mostly the setting/time period you're liking?

[lars573]

Well since all of the GUI and other gameplay changes are in every other campaign since the pre-release patch, the only thing to get excited about is the setting.

[hoom]

With all the recent action I've started playing again

Trying Galatians.
First time thought I was doing OK until a Seleukid stack came out of the FoW & captured half my fledgling empire
Rebuilt a bit only to get stomped again by Seleukids with Pergamon joining in for kicks.
Pretty sure is basically a repeat of what happened last time I tried Galatians many years back

Was going to fall back on one of my favs with easier start pos like Cimmerians or Baktria but thought a bit, had a poke round tech-tree & figured out a way to start without aggravating Seleukia, seems to be working & I've got Asia-Minor nearly secured

Edit: so of course a wild Rhodian stack appears & captures the Western parts just as I was heading inland and as I move back the damn Pergamene stack reappears on my East

Anyway, regarding recent changes there are definitely some improvements but the increased dilemma stuff is pretty annoying micro stuff.
Feels like there may be excessively much in the way of female characters, early on had 2 female family members, no males other than my King.

One thing that still bothers me: basically never get good terrain to defend on, always seems to be a hill that'd make a good defensive spot just outside the boundary, meanwhile computer player seems to almost always get a good hill to defend on

Edit2: I mean the dilemma stuff isn't horrific, its just that they come up like every 4-5 turns.
Some of them do give handy bonuses if you choose right but already in the relatively early stages of one campaign I seem to have cycled through the options a couple of times. (possibly a short list because Galatians are a minor faction)
It does have the advantage of encouraging regular checks for promotion availability & I'm actually making an effort to optimise retainer allocation which I've never really done before

On females: with about 8 faction members I'm getting constantly about 3 female.
From recollection Gauls did historically have relatively high female political participation so possibly some of the more paternal cultures will have fewer/none.
I'm not against female leaders, there were a bunch known in historical references & its good to have that represented
I just don't want them suddenly over represented, like while there were some politically active Roman females I don't recall any female Roman generals so it'd be dumb to constantly have several.

Couple of things with Sieges: Not that CA said anything about fixing them but I wish they would.
AI Cavalry never dismount to attack walls & defending infantry never tries to climb up walls to defend.

From recollection there was an older TW game with dismounting cavalry where AI always dismounted & wound up needlessly sending cavalry up ladders to their deaths but in battles where the AI has cavalry whose dismount is strong infantry that could easily clear the walls of garrison levies/slingers its annoying to see them just sit at the back until all other infantry is dead/routed then stand infront of the gates getting shot giving me a win that should have been easy AI victory.

Similarly you can just send missile units up on a wall once its cleared of initial defenders & they'll be left alone (other than by missile units on ground) to shoot safely at superior infantry below.

Campaign progress:
Pergamon had expanded East along the South of asia-minor, pushed the Seleukids away from Syria & I was able to destroy their mainland empire while the main force was taking Crete, Rhodes sent 2 very annoying expeditions that set me back, Pergamon 1 but I was able to fend them off & take Rhodes, expand east to the Caucausus Mts, now down the Levantine coast (Nabataeans dominate inland Desert areas) and I've just secured Crete while the Pergamene main force has been off trying to raid, should be destroying that force soon when they try to take a coastal city, I've got armies ready & waiting.
After that I should be pretty much free to expand as I see fit, my economy is booming, my Empire core secured from nearby threats, I've got plenty of armies available & pretty decent mid-tier troops.

Edit again:
Hotfix today apparently improves the seige AI, earlier pathfinding changes apparently broke it

Edit4: been reading some good suggestions for things that CA can improve over on the official .com forum. (ugh my eyes gonna take forever to recover from reading all that white text on black, one of the reasons I came here all those years ago)

I'd add I wish there would be a return to pushback in combat.
One of the coolest things (& generally handy visual cue to how combat is progressing) about older TWs is watching the front line bend/buckle as the battle progresses, heavier/deeper formed infantry pushing back lighter armed/weaker/thinner lines of infantry, breaking through the middle or themselves getting mini-cannae'd by the lighter unit wrapping round the flank.
In some of the Rome1 (in particular) mods there were light units with very good defense stats who could often win that way, giving lots of ground but not suffering huge losses, while other weaker stat units would get steamrolled with quick big losses.