Rome 2: A constructive wishlist

[Bramborough]

Lets see.
Military
1. Have Hastati upgradable to Principes at 3 Chevrons, and have Principes upgradable to Triarii at 6 Chevrons.
2. Have Veteran Grade Legions be upgrades of Normal Legions, not a seperate recruitable.
3. Expand the Tech Tree to include later era tech like the Spatha. Let Barbarians finish out at Migration Era tech, and Romans finish out at late Roman Tech. (Greeks and Easterns move to a Heavy Armoured Horse Archer tech level aka Parthian Byzantine)
4. Add caps for Elite unit Types as a player handcuff. There is no reason i should be able to field 15 Legions of Praetorians.
5. Add regional Legions. At the moment it is best to recruit all army units in one specced out region. If you could recruit regional legions (aka Gallic Legions having Better Charge, Italia Legions having better moral, Spanish Legions having better attack, Illyrian Legions having better Pilum Range) there might be a reason to build a barracks somewhere other than Italy.


Campaign
1. Expand the tech tree. I want hundreds of Techs that I can research, not a 60ish I want to be able to pick where and how I research, if I want to develop a superior military at the expense of Civilian then I should be allowed to.
2. Family Tree
3. 2-4 TPY with seasons.
4. Squalor: Farms should not give Squalor, factories should.
5. Food: Temples shouldnt eat 2 farms worth of food. They just shouldnt.
6. AI Recruitment AI should recruit by job than priority. They should look to recruit 5 line infantry. When they recruit that they should get 2 ranged and 2 horse as priority after that they should look for more line infantry. This would vary by culture/Faction. As it is now, it buys as many stats per coin as it can. Which leads to slinger armies.

Battle
1. Get rid of Blobbing. Roman/Greek/Eastern Units should keep formation.
2. Guard mode Toggle. If I want the units to stay and hold formation they should, if I want them to attack anything in range they should.
3. Defensive Pilum. Units with Javelins should have a fire at will button.
4. AI can't calculate battles very well. It thinks that my half stack of boosted Praetorians (~150 Attack 100+ Armour ~150 Moral) would be destroyed by 2 stacks of Levy Spearmen. I can just faceroll charge into them and my PGs will eat them alive in an instant.
5. Celtic Longswords are only 5 AP Damage (the Minimum) Should be at least 10 due to the blunt force of those weapons alone.
6. Magic abilities like Use the Whip or Killing Spree. (I would like more realistic abilities like Rotate, where Fresh units get swapped in to the front line.)
7. Gladiators being super cheap and vicious
8. When taking a minor settlement, the battle should be fought outside of the settlement, the winner then takes the settlement.

Bugs
Clubs do 5 Damage (and 10 AP) this totally nerfs bloodsworn, should be upgraded to at least 15-25 normal damage.
Slingers use a really good shield which gives them amazing Defensive stats (For such a cheap unit) They get spammed. Please eliminate this advantage.

Fully agree with (or at least, "don't disagree with") most of these suggestions. In particular the Roman military tech-up comments. It doesn't make sense to me that one can recruit brand-new units of Pricipe/Triarii, "Veteran" Legionaries, First Cohorts, and Praetorians. These are all older/experienced troops. One should only be able to recruit Hastati and Legionaries, and then upgrade to these elite unit types based on experience (which obtw, is in itself a little too easy to get right now, but that's a separate issue).

Disagree, however, with comments regarding farm squalor and temple food.

1. Farms. As the farms get larger and more productive/efficient, they require far fewer personnel-per-acre to operate. The squalor represents the dispossessed small farmer, a small percentage of whom remain on the big farms as mere tenant employees (as opposed to owners), while the majority remainder flock to cities as unemployed. The Roman Republic had a huge problem with this (never satisfactorily resolved), and was a central factor in the tensions leading to its first major civil war. It's a problem inherent in agricultural development up til today (remember Willie Nelson's "Farm Aid" concerts in the '80's?).

2. Temples. I will agree that, superficially, it doesn't make sense that higher-level temples eat a huge amount of food (above and beyond the relatively tiny population percentage which the clergy & temple workers would make up). Within the game mechanics, however, it's livable. Level III+ buildings need to cost something. In this economic system, it's either squalor or food. So while it's counterintuitive that temples would consume an inordinate amount of food, it would make even far less sense that temples would come with a public order penalty.

[Jarmam]

Disagree, however, with comments regarding farm squalor and temple food.

1. Farms. As the farms get larger and more productive/efficient, they require far fewer personnel-per-acre to operate. The squalor represents the dispossessed small farmer, a small percentage of whom remain on the big farms as mere tenant employees (as opposed to owners), while the majority remainder flock to cities as unemployed. The Roman Republic had a huge problem with this (never satisfactorily resolved), and was a central factor in the tensions leading to its first major civil war. It's a problem inherent in agricultural development up til today (remember Willie Nelson's "Farm Aid" concerts in the '80's?).

2. Temples. I will agree that, superficially, it doesn't make sense that higher-level temples eat a huge amount of food (above and beyond the relatively tiny population percentage which the clergy & temple workers would make up). Within the game mechanics, however, it's livable. Level III+ buildings need to cost something. In this economic system, it's either squalor or food. So while it's counterintuitive that temples would consume an inordinate amount of food, it would make even far less sense that temples would come with a public order penalty.

Just seconding this since it is really, really important. The patch that reduced food/squalor for buildings already made economy super-easy to get out of control - if you get rid of more of it we are back to a Shogun 2 system of exponential absurdity and while it was kind of fun, it kind of... wasnt. I love the fact that even though I am clearly the major power a combination of food, squalor and corruption puts a leash on my economic superiority even 170 some turns into the game with lots of philosophy and economic researches.

Another minor, yet surprisingly frustrating thing I've quickly come to hate:
You cannot upgrade a Legion at a time, even though they require the exact same type of upgrade. My Legio I Victor Liberatoribus (they saved me from the 6 civil war stacks, good guys!) just came home from conquering Britannia and needed the +20 melee +20 shield +20 defense ups I had set up in Italy meanwhile. This goes the following: Select General, select upgrade, upgrade. Select 1 more unit, repeat. You cannot select 7 Legionary squads and upgrade them all at the same time - even though they are identical. And if I recall correctly you can select 7 Principles and upgrade them all to Legionaries in 3 clicks. But for weapons/armor this takes a massive 60 clicks per stack. And I have 12 legions! Please! Fix!

Also agents are way too good and their abilities are blurry in what they do. Why does the enemy lose some seemingly random amount of movement if I poison the stack or disrupt the baggage trains?
Replenishment (on land at least) is way too fast and its bugged with the AI. Everything replenishes in the player's turn. So I might attack and win a fight vs Britannia. The remaining units retreat to their province - but they aren't replenished in his turn. Instead they replenish in mine. This also means that if they attack me and lose (in their province) I cannot take real advantage of this in my turn, since the remaining units have all replenished even though he hasn't had a new turn yet. Too fast replenishment (probably a problem linked to the 1tpy) combined with this can get quite annoying when expanding against enemies that actually put up a real fight. Yes, my friends, Oathsworn and Noble Cavalry stacks - be afraid.

[Shaitan]

One thing I miss from the last TW I played (M2) is the option to offer or demand regions via diplomacy. It gave more room to play the economical way. You could try to get region without going to war if your funds were big enough.

What do you think?

[ararax]

Fully agree with (or at least, "don't disagree with") most of these suggestions. In particular the Roman military tech-up comments. It doesn't make sense to me that one can recruit brand-new units of Pricipe/Triarii, "Veteran" Legionaries, First Cohorts, and Praetorians. These are all older/experienced troops. One should only be able to recruit Hastati and Legionaries, and then upgrade to these elite unit types based on experience (which obtw, is in itself a little too easy to get right now, but that's a separate issue).

Disagree, however, with comments regarding farm squalor and temple food.

1. Farms. As the farms get larger and more productive/efficient, they require far fewer personnel-per-acre to operate. The squalor represents the dispossessed small farmer, a small percentage of whom remain on the big farms as mere tenant employees (as opposed to owners), while the majority remainder flock to cities as unemployed. The Roman Republic had a huge problem with this (never satisfactorily resolved), and was a central factor in the tensions leading to its first major civil war. It's a problem inherent in agricultural development up til today (remember Willie Nelson's "Farm Aid" concerts in the '80's?).

See that was a problem specific to Italy. Regions such as North Africa and Egypt never had these types of problems due to the large amounts of ramland availible.

The Roman Latfundia issue was 3 fold.
1. Rome was huge, By 1AD Rome was over 1 Million people. Alexandria was also this size in the era, but unlike Alexandria, Rome was surrounded by other large cities.
2. Italy was not suited to mass scale pre industrial farming, unlike Egypt. Central Italy is very Mountainous there was no central river such as the Nile that connected farms with the city. Rome was even slightly inland which makes things harder.
3. Rome had independant farmers for much of its history, Egypt never had a similar situation (Except for isolated incidents such as Galatian landed mercs) Once they got pressed out and replaced with slaves they were forced into the cities. Egypt had a long history of slave/serf like existance of the natives being controlled by the noble classes, and also in this case it added to unrest, but in this case it was the natives away from the cities that revolted most, while in Rome the unrest was formost involving the plebians who were evicted farmers, bought or pushed out by the rich.

So while yes, high level agriculture has caused unrest in history, in both cases due to the huge amounts of population that they were expected to provide for. But really the Roman case was causes by high usage of slavery coupled with hgih city populations with no work, and the Alexandrian problem was caused by Feudal exploitment of the native population.

Again, this would probably be better represented by things other than farm size.

So long story short, it was the size of Rome and the surrounding areas and the relative lack of usable farmland that created the Latfundia problem.

But I agree that there needs to be some kind of Gameplay Limit on player growth.

[Bramborough]

Already mentioned in a couple of other threads, but posting here for potential inclusion in our collective wishlist:

Post-Civil War Internal Politics. Currently, internal politics abruptly ends with the start of the CW. After CW conclusion, influence/gravitas are frozen at pre-CW levels for remainder of game. Character actions such as Marriage, Promotion, Assassination, etc, are no longer possible (I guess all generals remain lifelong bachelors?). A 2nd CW is not possible. There's plenty which could be improved in the politics system...but flawed as it may be, at least it's something which adds to the complexity of gameplay. With its removal, the post-CW campaign becomes much simpler...and therefore more boring.

On the other hand, there does need to be some sort of "resolution" from the Civil War, in order to give some meaning to that event. Potential for endless CWs through remainder of the campaign wouldn't be too attractive either.

I would propose that upon a player concluding the Civil War, the following be implemented:

1. If the player wins the CW outright, by destroying the opposing faction, then no further CW is possible.
2. If the CW ends by treaty, however, then further CW IS possible. Therefore, a player must completely beat the opposition in order to reach full resolution of the "CW Question".
3. Influence, gravitas, and ambition traits continue to operate just as they did pre-CW.
4. Even though further CW isn't possible, a high-gravitas/ambition general from family other than player's own may still rebel (and take his army stack with him). He starts heading toward the capital, and if he gets there and captures, then there would be some sort of severe penalty (possibly losing the campaign). The idea here is that the threat wouldn't be very serious as long as the player prudently stations armies and generals, and reacts appropriately when it happens...BUT, if the player just goons up the response, or outright ignores the rebel general, then it's a real problem.
5. Marriages, promotions, assassinations, bribes, rumors, etc, would still continue (thus making continued influence-management of some worth).