First Impressions

[nearchos]

Extremely frustrated by the army cap. I am earning 20,000 denari a turn and have 5,000,000 gold yet I am relying entirely on garrison units to defend my historic roman empire as I need all of my 16 armies to be holding provinces I've just taken. Rebellion wouldn't annoy me at all if it didn't cancel all of my decades of romanization efforts at a stroke as th rebels convert my stuff to their culture and cause a decline in public order across the province. Worse is that CA is doing the bizarre thing where rebels get access to hellinic cataphracts and silver chevron elite units for no reason. I would like to know how the rebels have the infastructure and facilities to put better armies than most of my actual rivals into service?

If you build lots of farms everybody starts rebelling (because obviously the population is going to instantly go up: sigh). If you build loads of temples everybody is happy as they starve to death. It can be a very fiddly system and the subsistence crisis really adds to the difficulty. But it is so annoying and difficult to balance those scales especially as you take new provinces which messes the system up as the AI hasn't balanced his right at all.

And moreover, if you go for the high level bildings, no mater what type of bilding is, ( religious, farming etc) its either -food or -public order without any serious ballancing by other bilding, ie a temple ofering a +20 public order against the -100 caused by the other infrastracture.

I think they must fix that as well, beeing a ballance between the types of bildings.

[quadalpha]

If you build lots of farms everybody starts rebelling (because obviously the population is going to instantly go up: sigh). If you build loads of temples everybody is happy as they starve to death. It can be a very fiddly system and the subsistence crisis really adds to the difficulty. But it is so annoying and difficult to balance those scales especially as you take new provinces which messes the system up as the AI hasn't balanced his right at all.

Does that actually happen? I've never seen it, and it would invalidate all we know about how population works. Maybe there was something else going on?

[nearchos]

From the Roman perspective (not sure what happens with other factions): One of your regions (single region, not a whole province) remains Roman, but rebels against YOU. This region is treated as a newly arising faction called "Senate Loyalists". In my case it happened to be Sardinia, just across the sea from Italia & Sicily. I'm guessing that the civil war faction will probably always spawn in an older region in or near Italia, rather than out on the fringe somewhere. And this does break up province cohesion, so it negates any edict you had, and may affect recruitment, depending on what buildings are in the rebelling town. For example, my most advanced fleet recruitment port was in Sardinia, so I didn't have access to recruit these vessels until after I retook that town.

In my case, I didn't lose control of any of my army/fleets (although I suspect this might happen if there's one actually stationed in the affected region). I did, however, lose all my Cornelii and Julii general/admirals, and had to replace them. The "Other Houses" general/admirals stayed loyal. So...six armies and four fleets (all 12 units each) insta-spawned in Sardinia, and proceeded to fan out toward Corsica, Sicily, and Magna Grecia from there. And they're all Roman troops, with access to the same level of units (in this case, legionaries with a sprinkling of veteran legionaries among them, with accompanying velites and equites). I did, however, have access to praetorians and 1st cohorts, but did not see any among the opposing legions.

So anyhoo, 6 armies and 4 fleets of Roman troops rampaging around the home provinces, yeah, it was a pain in the butt to deal with, and took quite a few turns to contain. I had enough power to do so, but had to call a lot of legions home so it took some travel time. Meanwhile, they ate up 3 provinces (Sardinia, Corsica, Lilybaeum) and *should* have taken Syracuse (not sure how/why they didn't, they were a step ahead of me and could've done so). They also landed a couple of legions in Italia, but by then my guys were closing in on them. In general, my sense is that the Campaign AI roughly marches toward Rome, although not necessarily in a straight line (thank goodness). And yes, you do have to deal with unrest and conquest public order penalties all over again when you retake those settlements (at least there's not a cultural assimilation though).

I don't remember exactly when it started, I'd say it took me 8-10 turns to get legions home, retake provinces, etc. As I type now, the civil war is still technically going on, but there's only a couple of small beat-up fleets I need to chase down and eliminate. I assume that once they're gone, the "Senate Loyalist" faction is eliminated and that's that. I don't know yet if there's some other event triggered like an internal peace treaty, or establishing the Empire (vice Republic) or whatever.

So bottom line, is it "hard" to deal with? Not necessarily, but harder than any other faction, I'd say. Derails your ongoing plans, takes time, causes some chaos on your core provinces, etc. The battle AI isn't really any smarter than for any other faction, but they are Roman troops, your units don't possess any inherent qualitative advantage over them, so they can't be taken lightly.

In my campaign as Macedon, the Macedonian nobles emerged at my homeprovince of Pella, with 9 20 unit stacks and 6 20 ship fleets, all prime units.

It took me also 9 or 10 turns, to destroy them, by marching half my armies all the way from the caspian sea, ( thank god the chorasmii acepted the peace proposal), and a lot of fighting, where i lost a full stack army.

Well in the end i think its fun and interesting aspect, if only i could understand the mevhanics of the civil war, so far i believe it just hapens in some turn of the game no matter what.

[nearchos]

Are we talking Shoggie I or II here? cuz no player I've ever know could rampage anywhere through Japan in the original on expert setting

Or any other setting exept very easy.....

[nearchos]

So far I haven't noticed anyone mention (and sorry if you have) the total lack of battle map variation.

This is a pet hate of mine. You know, back in RTW days you could forgive them for having fairly bland battle maps during sieges, but at least back then the maps outside of settlements actually kind of represented where the battle took place. It just seems to be the same maps, maybe with a different orientation. And the settlement battles? I was soooo dissapointed that after waiting 10 turns or so after my first settlement capture, getting ready for the next one... patiently tolerating all the glitches and performance issues... finally ready to take my second settlement and lo and behold it was the exact same map as before.... Considering how modular these maps are already I think it wouldn't be too much of an ask to put a bit more effort in to actually make it interesting to take a town, and actually require some, even a teeny-tiny amount of strategy on how best to take the town instead of the exact same way you took this one last time. It makes it worst that the defenders just sit at their defence flag (don't even get me started on those...) waiting for you slice them up, or that their actual army decided to jump in a boat and hang out in the dock so that I'm just breezing through their garrison troops before they even turn up.

Considering that the game is already 9 gB, I wouldn't mind an extra gB or two if that meant more battle maps, not that I think it would require anything near that amount of space...

I havent notice about the settlements but the battlefields looks the same, almost plain, with high grass and some trees here and there.

[Myth]

I had very little time to play last night and I'm on a business trip tonight, but this weekend I'm staying in Sofia and I'll make sweet, sweet love to Rome II. Here go my first impressions:

I need some way to run it in DX11, because It's clearly running in DX9 now and it looks just like Shogun II would at DX9. That being said, patch included, the game runs very well on my rig - notecably faster than Shogun II.

My specs are a 2 year old I7, 16 GB of 1600 mhz ram and an nVidia GTX 570 1gb graphics card. You can change all the graphics options on the fly and tweak them until you get the best frame rate/eye candy ratio. Granted, I'm running on the max settings and I have no severe drops in FPS, but for those with older/different systems they can definitely tweak it. No more of "you must restart the game for these settings to take effect" bull. And yes, you can tweak graphics settings while in a battle. Further more, if you do it on the menu, the game can run a demo for you and you can see your frame rate and performance (it runs the battle of Tetuborg forest demo). Yes the sky is red for me for some reason, but I'm sure this will be fixed.

While on the subject of graphics, and this is coming from a person who still plays very old games (I am not a graphics junkie by any means) - I feel CA has more power stored in that game engine, but they haven't really gotten the fine tuning right. Even when I crank the graphics up to 11 there are still odd glitches here and there - the engine can't decide if the town center is covered in marble tiles or sand for example. Some edges look pixelated even with AA on. The ultrabilinniear shadows look just like plain old shdows to me (maybe because I'm runing DX9 though. I mean, I can't tell if I am, but SII with DX11 had all sorts of blooms and glows and RII doesn't have them now, so I'm assuming it's DX9). But honestly that doesn't really matter. The game loads about 10 times faster than Shogun II does for me. The battles load 15 times faster. If I swtich the graphics down from Extreme to Ultra battle loading times are almost instant.

And graphics don't really matter that much in a TW game for me, because I'm a lazy general and I only ever bother leading armies early on (when every unit matters) or when faced with below average odds. The new cinematic cam is good for when you're bored and have your cav chasing down enemy units at max battle speed, though in some cases using it right before a clash really gives you the feeling that you're there in the thick of things. Seriously, it's not a gimmick, it's actually pretty awesome for those of us who enjoy roleplaying/immersion.

The actuall battles are different, but with some patch love the new battles will be better than Rome 1.

What's better:

- preset formations that are actually useful (ranged in front, solid line of infantry after, cav at the back. Or cav to the flanks, archers at the back etc.)
- you can lock down your initial formation: what this means is that whatever setup you have in your deployment phase, you can use Ctrl+G and lock the formation in place. When you move your army the formation is kept as is, and wit the right mouse button you can deloy it facing the correct way.
- The units are more responsive. Yes, you can actually disengage cavalry from melee and have them run away from the enemy.
- Unit animations and sounds are really immersive
- You'd be surprised but once I got to actually playig the game the new unit cards don't bother me at all and are actually pleasing for the eye. Also, it's not hard to tell the difference between units once you start paying attention. The unit cards and text are bigger than SII which is a life saver for me.
- General's Bodyguards and early cav in general no longer kill 80% of the enemy army via charging at their backs. Cav has a shock/support function at the start (haven't played wtih a cataphract faction or with Pretorian Cav yet)
- Javelins actually useful not only as general slayers or at the backs of enemy phalanxes. They break up the enemy line now.
- Slingers other than Rhodian Slingers actually useful (as they were historically)
- Playing battles in realism mode and with the new LOS feature really feels like you're actually leading men on the field and not like an arcade grind.

What's the same:
- Skirmish mode is still hit and miss, nothing new here
- The AI seems it's usual self, that is to say dumb with moments of clarity here and there

What changed for the worse and has to be fixed:
- Removal of various hotkeys like fire at will, skirmish mode, flaming missiles, close/loose formation and such (we need those!!!)
- Flaming javelins are here to ruin your day. Not only are they historically inaccurate, they pack a mean punch and will melt your cav general in seconds.
- Once your melee troops engage the enemy they tend to blob and start fighting like undisciplined barbarians. Imagine if you're playing rome 1 or M2TW and every unit behaved like peasants once they engaged.
- The killing speed of infantry is too high.
- Too many special abilities for generals.

Overall I think with some patching that the land battles will be great.

So I start the game, the intro is really great. Once I got to that angry looking, badass Legate pondering over the campaign map I got shivers. The tutorial I couldn't finish, it is very, very heavily scripted and meant for very new players.

On the actual campaign I only played 10-ish turns. Here are my impressions so far:

- The sound and voice acting are to my oppinion, good and fit the game perfectly. It is possible for one to immerse themselves in the world of classical antiquity.
- The graphics on the campaign map are great and really nothing better is required for a TW game.
- I agree that we can't zoom out far enough. Imagine playing Rome 1/ Medieval 2 from about a 20% lower angle. Yeah... But this is easily fixed with a patch.
- The campaign map does indeed possess lots of choke points between forests, mountains and hills but this is pretty historically accurate. Armies used to march with a huge baggage train, you can't expect them to trudge through dense forests, swamps or high mountains without any roads.
- The new city/province management system shows great potential indeed. You will have a lot to learn, more if you didn't play Shogun II. If you come straight from Rome 1/ Medieveal 2, you will have a steep learning curve to cover quickly.
- I agree that while the encyclopedia is easy to access and MUCH easier to read than the one in SII which had miniscule typeface size, some things are not made clear. For example, the temple to Neptune boosts income from ports, but is this only for the town it's built in, or for the whole province? Do temple bonuses stack? What about the bonuses from other structures? This will need to be discovered by trial and error IMO or CA will have to give us the information or to expand the encyclopedia. Still, most things we now take for granted from Rome 1/Med 2, we actually learned on our own from trial and error, so don't be a spoiled brat and just play the game
- The tech system is pretty, it makes sense, the names are great but it is indeed way too small and way too fast to research. By 260 BC you can have marian troops indeed, and that is bad mojo for the AI even on Legendary.
- Everything, from units to traits to names, is very immersive. If you right click on any unit you can read their stats a-la Shogun II and also a detailed historical explanation. Even a simple item equipped by your general will have such a description.
- Can't comment much on the campaign AI but Epirus got stomped 10 turns from the start of the game, so something isn't right here, considering that Epirus should be a major player in the region.
- Diplomacy looks like Shogun IIs and makes sense. Faction leaders have attitudes you can adjust to.
- Armies can indeed conjure sea worthy transports out of thin air which IMO should be removed and only left in if we get travesrable major rivers in Europe. Right now it literally doesn't matter if your army is on land or sea. You can right click from Rome to Alexandria and your legionaires will swim there no problem. IMO, considering that the Romans were notoriously bad sailors, and that trans sea sailing requires a lot of supplies, this has to be removed and changed. Do note though that Rome 1/Med 2/Shogun II all had the same ridiculous system of "1 dingy boat can carry a fullstack of 20 units of 80 horsemen per unit) so it wasn't really better but a different flavor of bad. IMO we do need transports as units in the game. Remember how the crusaders begged and parlayed for genoese/venetian transports to get them to the levant? We need this in TW games.
- Stances make sense and I have to explore them more. Playing on legendary and forgetting forced march on can really bite you in the butt. Also, armies can fort up but no longer magically create motte&bailey settlements in the middle of nowhere like in R1/M2
- You can grow your generals as they rank up and choose some traits for them, but the "random bullshit traits out of nowhere" system from R1 is still somewhat present. On turn 3 one of my generals got "not quite right" meaning he started going insane, and another freshly recruited one got "procrastinator" because I sent him to Rome as a governor because he had a +1 food for the local province as a starting trait...
- Army customization in names and symbols is really fun an immersive. I will strive to keep Legio I Italica alive until campaign end. Some are complaining that the bonuses are small but I disagree. 3% to melee damage at the first level up (which happens after your first victory) is not a small ammount. Army bonuses should not be game breaking - an enemy must have the option of coming back into the game if you wipe out their experienced army but they have more troops than you. If army experience gave absurd bonuses like 50% damage or something, the player would just grind to level them up and then become unstoppable. So I think these bonuses are fine, and this is a mechanic meant to increase immersion and roleplaying and not be a major strategic advantage for either side. Even so, 3% at first level is really not a small ammount, and I assume that 50 turns in I can have a legion that will have indeed a substantial edge over a fresh army. And that is all I really ask for - in reality veteran troops and commanding officers had an edge, they didn't turn into terminators on steroids.
- The movement points are indeed somewhat low when not using forced march, but you can choose traits for extra MP bonuses for your champion (and stick him in your main stack), and get items that give MP bonuses as well. So I thnk later on with more experience and careful use of forced march the MP will be enough. And actually low MP means less blitzing of the map, which is what CA is going for and which is a good thing. What fun is there to blob and be unstoppable by turn 20?

I need to play more to give a detailed review but I think Rome II is a god game and will probably become the best in the series (excluding Shogun 1 and Medieval 1) with a few easily implemented changes.

[phred]

Does that actually happen? I've never seen it, and it would invalidate all we know about how population works. Maybe there was something else going on?

I think it's representative of upgrading farms into giant latinfundia that results in putting the small farmer out of business.
Since the latinfundia are worked by slaves, then unemployed small farmers flock to the cities and cause squalor.
Historically, I think something like that happened in the imperial time frame. (also cheap wheat from Egypt put small farmers in Italy out of business).

[Suraknar]

I think it's representative of upgrading farms into giant latinfundia that results in putting the small farmer out of business.
Since the latinfundia are worked by slaves, then unemployed small farmers flock to the cities and cause squalor.
Historically, I think something like that happened in the imperial time frame. (also cheap wheat from Egypt put small farmers in Italy out of business).

Some nice thoughts here :)

I am not sure however that the game uses these factors, especially the cheap Wheat from Egypt :P ... something is amiss, the game is different, maybe it is a combination of play style and a missed bug?

I am going to be watching this, so far in my first campaign I am making at lest 3 farms per province.

[Spoonska]

I just hit the 75 hour mark last night in terms of time played, so I feel like I can give this game a fair shake. My sentiments about Rome 2 have changed a lot in the past week. The honeymoon phase of loving the game, when it's unpacking and you're as giddy as a little school girl... It gets stomped out when you have that first round of bugs, and crashes. Kinda like when David Goyer shreds one of your childhood heroes. I wrote earlier in this thread "Good not great", and that is still generally my feeling. It's not the best Total War game I've ever played, but it's most certainly not the worst or even second worst.

That being said I really dig this game, a lot. Sometimes I wonder if I'm playing the same game as everyone else that tear it apart with such hostility and bile. I get bugs sure, like: Antioch fully upgraded is a siege nightmare for the computer. AI bull rushing for the capture point, defeated armies with only a handful of units suiciding into full stacks, lag, fps drops... There's a really weird thing where when I start the game in windowed mode I have to always select the proper resolution, I guess Rome 2 isn't dual monitor friendly?But none of the Total War games are. Stuff like the navy just sitting around not doing anything or ignoring orders. During a siege the troops won't throw their fire sticks at my gate, sometimes the sticks go through the gate causing 0 damage. Sieges not happening because siege weaponry won't fire (this happened in Rome 1. Yay for continuity). During large sieges on capitals the game always crashes when reinforcements enter for the enemy. It might sound a little overwhelming, but its not all happening at the same time. One of these things might happen ever 3-5 turns.

I'm not apologizing for it. I'm not a CA apologist. These are things that absolutely shouldn't be in the game, and if they are you should run into it maybe once or twice every 100 turns, bugs happen. The marketing department, whoever's fault it was clearly misled consumers about Rome 2. Look at the Teutoburg Forest playthrough and then run the benchmark OR play the battle in game. There is a night and day difference in terms of visual appeal. These are things that are inexcusable in the eyes of a consumer. That may have not been their intention, but more or less CA/Sega played that card. Speaking of that playthrough, whens the next Rally Point? You want to make an apology to fans Mikey boy, that's the perfect avenue. The avenue that put out videos almost once a month for the past year exclaiming about the wondrous things that Rome 2 would have, but fail to deliver on launch day.

All that said, I'm really invested in the current campaign I have going. That's where 90% of those 75 hours are made up of. I love the way they reworked the talent tree system. In Shogun / FotS there were blatantly obvious talents that you wouldn't take if your life depended on it.It was cookie cutter every single time. How many people do you know that went down the right side of the General's talent tree in Shogun? You didn't because Generals where one if not your most valuable resource. If I'm recruiting a General in Rome 2, and I see he gives bonuses to something like Taxes or Public order then I can recruit him as a Governor and specialize in public order, and siege defense. If I have an army in the north that needs good reinforcements then I can spec a General for mercenary bonuses. People were originally upset that Generals would die too quickly, but having played a good bit I don't mind it.They level up quickly and my needs for a particular army change every 30 or so turns. Agents are great as well for most of the same reasons, they are a jack of all trades. Take the Champion for example; you can deploy him in your province to boost public order, throw him in an army to boost experience, morale, or replenishment rate, or throw him in an enemy territory, and have him make money or incite slave revolts among other things.

I also really love the expanded economy from Shogun. It's really a juggling act of balancing taxed income versus public order versus food. In Shogun it was set it and forget it cookie cutter builds. In the 155 turns I've played I've restructured my empire three times, and every single time brought with it its own challenges. Having unit replenishment tied into food, and then food being an inhibitor for what you can and can't build was a fantastic design choice. I've seen people talk about how much a throwaway the economy is in Rome 2, and to that I say where is your economic victory? I have a pretty firm grasp of the economics in this game, and the most I can squeeze without a ton of food / order disarray is around 20-25k talents a turn. That 80k mark seems unfathomable to me at the moment. Point being when you're going for a military victory or a cultural victory the economy is supposed to be secondary or tertiary. Your focus is meant to be taken away from economy.

Even though I'm loving this game there are a ton of things I wish were more fleshed out. I really don't care about politics in this game. There is nothing really steering me towards them, and I feel no connection to the people on that screen. And that's not because they die too fast or some other excuse, it's because they pop up out of nowhere, and every now and then you'll get a random event message about them; and I'm like," Errr, okay I guess you want to adopt someone or something ...? " A family tree or something desperately needs to make a comeback. I will be an apologist for multiplayer. For the past 2 years that Shogun has been out people have constantly cried about the complexity and fairness of the Avatar / Veteran system. It seemed at least to me the vocal majority wanted to go back to the simpleness of custom games that Rome 1 had. Well they did that, but I'm not really surprised those same people that wanted less now want more. I've personally never felt that way because I liked everything about the MP in Shogun 2. It was a game within a game. With Rome 2 though, it gives me the same mixed bag of feelings that I have with things like the political system. A system that's not fully fleshed out or hopefully, (but I honestly don't have a lot of hope)will eventually be implemented all the way.

I'm an avid streamer. Pretty much all of my 75 hours are recorded on Twitch. I've also spent a good bit of time watching other streamers play, and I realized my play style is very different from them. Perhaps that's why I have such a differing view of Rome 2 than most people. I like to play a little more passive, and lure out those field engagements.Those that say the AI is too passive; I streamed for 6 hours last night and only moved from turn 150 to turn 155. I'm constantly getting attacked by people I'm at war with, and not minor armies, but full stacks.When I started out the night, Egypt landed a full stack on the shores of Jerusalem trying to take it back. I sprung a civil war on like turn 152, and 12 stacks that were 1/2 -3/4 full marched out N,S,E,W towards each of my provinces and gave me all sorts of headaches last night (crushed them though, filthy rebel scum). At one point 4 stacks would hit Pergamon resulting in a 60-something minute siege. All the while Syracuse is sieging 3 of my towns in the west.

To wrap this up, I want to quote Reluctant Samurai where he made this point in another thread:

And yes, you may spend considerable time right now, playing the game....How much of your attraction to the game, at the moment, is simply novelty? how much is because of the 'meat & potatoes' of the game itself? how much time will you be spending 6 months from now? or a year?

I got this game because I love past Total Wars. The novelty of that wore off pretty quick when "Pre-Alpha" Teutoburg forest looked nothing like the "Finished" version. Reality comes sharply crashing down after that.The meat & potatoes of this game fall into the 80/20 rule for me. 80% of this game is fun, immersive and a rewarding experience. 20% as always is what should've happened or what could've happened (as with every game,ever). I don't know if I'll come around to liking this game as much as I like Shogun 2 or even Rome 1, but I'm excited for the future of this game. And that's not a sarcastic, " Oh you mean when the game is out of beta, herp derp ". I'm optimistic about future additions, and playing this game into the ground. Even if the bugs stayed, and there was never another patch , I'd probably still sink hundreds of hours into this game. I'm enjoying it that much.

[Bramborough]

I just hit the 75 hour mark last night in terms of time played, so I feel like I can give this game a fair shake. Etc Etc.

Nice post, Spoonska. Well written. I find your take on the game close to my own.

[fallen851]

I like to play a little more passive, and lure out those field engagements.

Nice review.

It is upsetting that you have to "lure" out field engagements. Rome Total Siege II?

[Hooahguy]

Great review Spoonska, saw some of your posts on Reddit, cant agree more with your posts.

[Barkhorn1x]

Nice review.

It is upsetting that you have to "lure" out field engagements. Rome Total Siege II?

Yea, and CA stated it would be just the opposite.

[BroskiDerpman]

Hoping they do betas before release for their next TW game. (Before...)

Antiquity in the Western world is full of different cultures and such but it just feels really misrepresented and implemented. (Tried out Rome 2, on a friend's account)

The cultures to me feel like Shogun 2's and the game's ui bugs me. Plus the over streamlining of gameplay.

[Spoonska]

Nice review.

It is upsetting that you have to "lure" out field engagements. Rome Total Siege II?

What I meant by that is: encircling a settlement , ambush stance or moving my troops into mountain passes / valleys. The latter frustrates me in game because often times an army would rather go around you then engage you. I know it makes strategic sense for the AI to do that but whatevs. If I implied I was perhaps cleverly tricking the game to do that, apologies. I've been able to get off ambushes, but I have yet to be ambushed myself. I'm not sure if the difficulty level I'm playing on (Hard campaign, VH for battles) has an effect. I think it did in Shogun ?

[BroskiDerpman]

Think that also can happen on the battle maps, especially sieges. I got the ai to run forward to get shot and then back repeatedly. What's so nice is that I'm besieging and heavily outnumbered. Then the ai rushed forward and back all the time till their forces were shattered.

Roflstomp victory, going to try this out on every siege and easily take over all of Europe.

[CaptainCrunch]

... I've been able to get off ambushes, but I have yet to be ambushed myself. I'm not sure if the difficulty level I'm playing on (Hard campaign, VH for battles) has an effect. I think it did in Shogun ?

I'm playing a 'normal' campaign and I've been ambushed several times. Once, while campaigning in Magna Graecia with Epirus my military intelligence was intercepted by the AI and I got a message saying that my strategic plans were now compromised. When I moved on Consentia I had scoped it out with my spy and found it to be defended only by the garrison, but when I attacked it that same turn I found 2 Roman support armies waiting for me in ambush! Pretty nice, wish stuff like that happened more often.

Think that also can happen on the battle maps, especially sieges. I got the ai to run forward to get shot and then back repeatedly. What's so nice is that I'm besieging and heavily outnumbered. Then the ai rushed forward and back all the time till their forces were shattered.

Roflstomp victory, going to try this out on every siege and easily take over all of Europe.

Right now the AI can't deal with missile units well on land, either defending or attacking. They often sit there and get showered to death, or run back & forth like you mentioned -or- use their own archers, for example, to attack your heavy infantry with their dinky little melee weapons as first assault units

[Myth]

Think that also can happen on the battle maps, especially sieges. I got the ai to run forward to get shot and then back repeatedly. What's so nice is that I'm besieging and heavily outnumbered. Then the ai rushed forward and back all the time till their forces were shattered.

Roflstomp victory, going to try this out on every siege and easily take over all of Europe.

You will get torn up by heavy infantry that way. At some point plinking bullets or javs won't do squat versus armoured phalanxes.

[BroskiDerpman]

By then I'll be blasting the ai with artillery, even then in SP missiles are more useful vs the ai.

Vetted slingers seem fun... I'll also have my own heavy infantry.

It's just much easier to exploit the ai in this game. Also I can keep the ai occupied and sneak up on the capture point and win while the ai is too must running around in circles or just standing still.

I'm glad my friend let me try out the game so I could see how it's like. I can go on but people would get mad at me of course.

[Spoonska]

I'm playing a 'normal' campaign and I've been ambushed several times. Once, while campaigning in Magna Graecia with Epirus my military intelligence was intercepted by the AI and I got a message saying that my strategic plans were now compromised. When I moved on Consentia I had scoped it out with my spy and found it to be defended only by the garrison, but when I attacked it that same turn I found 2 Roman support armies waiting for me in ambush! Pretty nice, wish stuff like that happened more often.

That sounds pretty great. I didn't add it in my post, but I really like the reworked version of ambushes from Shogun. It's a lot easier to set up hidden along the CPU's path, and contain them from bolting to a hill or something like that.

[CaptainCrunch]

... It's just much easier to exploit the ai in this game. Also I can keep the ai occupied and sneak up on the capture point and win while the ai is too must running around in circles or just standing still...

The AI is very easy to exploit, but that's how it is with most TW games. It's the nature of how the battle AI is instantly fed info on your battlefield commands, and their single-minded suicidal focus on attacking units it deems vulnerable to their own. We all know you can get every unit of AI spear infantry to chase around a single unit of cav all over the map for instance. I avoid exploiting it at all costs to try to make the battles at least a little more interesting.

I also make it a personal policy to never take any capture points in sieges, cuz that's way too easy. I also remove the battle timer, try to always fight outnumbered and fight 'til one side is crushed. Capture points are absurd and seriously gamey in my opinion, in any scenario. If they applied it right it could be good for sieges, in certain situations. But I feel the way it is now is goofy. You can be in a pitched battle in the middle of the streets surrounded by the enemy and they all suddenly rout cuz one of your units took the central capture point off in the distance.

[CaptainCrunch]

That sounds pretty great. I didn't add it in my post, but I really like the reworked version of ambushes from Shogun. It's a lot easier to set up hidden along the CPU's path, and contain them from bolting to a hill or something like that.

Yes. Definitely agree. I especially used to hate when they ran and hid on a mountain top surrounded by forest in RTW.

[VAE VICTUS]

the learning curve on this game is quite steep for me ( I never really got into Shogun 2 ). I am likely doing everything wrong, but I enjoy because if the game were too simplistic I would grow tired of it quickly. This game is so rich, I think it will be still be fun and challenging to play ( I am a terrible general ) well into the future. Some controls could be more intuitive however, but this is a small complaint from someone who still frantically scrolls through the encyclopedia looking for ways to grow the economy.

[VAE VICTUS]

yes, I enjoy ambushes, you know how to use fireballs or did I make them up?

[nafod]

I must say the Beta patch hasn't necessarily fixed the AI to perfection, but if you play on hard and try to mail in the war against the Etruscans they will at least make it difficult. Granted if I played the battles they unleashed on my garrisons it might have been different but at least they put up a fight as opposed to rolling over and laying siege with 1-2 units.

I was so surprised I decided to start over!

[ArcturUs]

Uhm a noob question, has anyone used first person view in the battles? How do you do that? I'm half way into the campaign and still don't know how to do it

[Sp4]

Insert button.

[ShadesPanther]

Uhm a noob question, has anyone used first person view in the battles? How do you do that? I'm half way into the campaign and still don't know how to do it

Insert, as mentioned by Sp4 or the button that looks like a sort of shield in the bottom left corner (I think it says cinematic view when you hover over it)

[Cyclades]

Cinematic view for battle replays is impressive.

[nearchos]

What I meant by that is: encircling a settlement , ambush stance or moving my troops into mountain passes / valleys. The latter frustrates me in game because often times an army would rather go around you then engage you. I know it makes strategic sense for the AI to do that but whatevs. If I implied I was perhaps cleverly tricking the game to do that, apologies. I've been able to get off ambushes, but I have yet to be ambushed myself. I'm not sure if the difficulty level I'm playing on (Hard campaign, VH for battles) has an effect. I think it did in Shogun ?

It is a tactics the AI is using, since i think MTW2, to avoid battle and go for the settlements, i remember that in MTW2 the only defencive open field battles i enjoyed were those when i was besieging a settlement and an enemy field army wanted to lift the siege,( very rare).
But i think that CA must change something here since even historicaly, during a war, there was a rule.
Seek and destroy the enemy in the field and then proceed to conquer his lands unoposed.
I mean, whats the point for the AI to avoid battle and conquer a settlement, by fighting a battle which will cost him any way leaving your field army intact who in next turn will assault the settlement destroy thim and retake it.
In history the one that was less powerfull was trying to avoid battle and choose at least a good battleground.
So AI must be more capable in handling first of all the economy, then the bilding decisions, then unit recruitment/army composition and then when it decides that it is profitable to attack you do it properly.
Invade your lands, seek and destroy your standing army and then rambage your land.