So, Rome II.

[Person012345]

What a disappointment.

I of course refer to Total War: Rome II. It's being slammed around the web for it's casualized gameplay, awful UI and AI and host of bugs among other problems. It has a metacritic user score of 4.4, down from 4.7 yesterday and still falling.

I'm unfortunately with the hater side. The game doesn't feel like total war. It feels arcadey. It feels like it's prepping for console port (something that may well happen). I find the battles unengaging and simplistic (gone are realistic roman tactics, everything just devolves into a blob now), the campaign map mechanics are confusing and obscure and I don't get the "one more turn" feeling I have with other Total War games. It absolutely does not live up to being Rome I's successor.

So, who else here bought it? What do you think? Does anyone disagree? If anyone is thinking of buying it, needless to say I cannot recommend it. I can show you threads and such explaining exactly why if you need more info. A lot of veteran players are very unhappy with it and there has been huge backlash against what they gave us.

[99TheCreator]

dang, i really wanted to get this game. Any recommendations for a game like total war?

[Person012345]

I can't think of any off the top of my head, although it's probably worth keeping an eye on the wargame series. The last one implemented a TW style campaign, although it had numerous flaws in execution (which I can forgive because they were kind of "this is a totally new thing we're trying and we just got it a bit wrong" flaws and the multiplayer and other game modes are a lot of fun anyway). They already have plans for the next game, although I don't know what they plan to do with that regarding the campaign. Hopefully they will continue to refine the grand campaign style and get it working great. It still wouldn't be the same as total war though in that you don't build up your nation and send out armies (it's set during the cold war and you get battlegroups based on real life units that you can call in).

If I think of any I'll post them but TW is a pretty unique style.

[drakesdoom]

Well back to Total War Rome 1.

It really is awesome that historical tactics work. Have you tried double spacing roman infantry groups in multiple lines and then having the front line fall back through the line behind after they have thrown their pila? By giving a unit wide space between units and staggering the next lines formation is not disturbed by the retreat and they can throw their pila. 4 rows of infantry with some archers behind and cavelry on the flanks will win 2 to 1 battles against AI with minimal losses.

[AncientGammoner]

I just don't get why they changed some stuff that was working perfectly fine in the previous Total War's (like Shogun 2). Like you decide to cross an ocean and poof you magically have ships, I mean are you kidding me, whats the point of a navy then. That totally broke immersion for me when armies starting just vanishing into the ocean on their magic boats. And I can't recruit forces without a general? Dafuq? So if I want maximum troop production I have to station a general in every province. And the AI is still as crappy as ever. I march my army and end my turn on the front door of your capital city and your big army decides to run away and die of attrition in the deep ocean while I capture everything you own. Bah, it just saddens me because I had such high hopes for it.

[KD3]

I like it. Had no problems so far. There are some things that they shouldn't have put in such as the transport ships being as powerful as the main naval ships. They also should have made the battles a bit longer.Please don't call me a CA fanboy and that I have no opinion. Had enough of that on the TW forums.

[air805ronin]

I like it, personally. I'm one of the lucky people who has had it work perfectly on his machine so far.

To me it will feel less arcade-like if they would make some modifications to the morale system. As it is, units can lose morale in a matter of seconds. I could see this happening for a peasant unit, but trained soldiers shouldn't turn tail and run. I've broken an entire line by flanking one unit till it routs and moving the principes unit on to the next for more flank bonuses. 1 minute and a line of 8 enemy melee units is fleeing. Fixing morale along would at least double or triple how long battles last for people, which seems to be about five minutes for posts I've seen.

I don't run into a lot of the AI glitches people have reported. I don't have the graphical issues. My AI isn't acting stupid.

I can see a lot of people's complaints but to me it is still a good game and people don't seem to like change (and Rome 2 has included some radical change). most of the changes don't bother me.

Edited September 6, 2013 by air805ronin

[redwolfy]

well i really wanted this game but i don't think my machine would run it also i need the money for other things but that seems like a good thing now by the looks of things

[Person012345]

If anyone does want the game but can't afford it, I would be willing to trade it for something on steam.

[KD3]

If anyone does want the game but can't afford it, I would be willing to trade it for something on steam.

So you haven't actually played it yet? How can you judge a game without playing it?

[swiftgates24]

If anyone does want the game but can't afford it, I would be willing to trade it for something on steam.

Will an outdated game coupon work? I've never played the series before, but the game looks really fun to me.

[Person012345]

So you haven't actually played it yet? How can you judge a game without playing it?

What, do you have to have not played a game to trade it?

[Person012345]

Well I've played the game, but what I'm referring to is that I'm p. sure there was a ruling in a european court that steam couldn't stop us from reselling our steam games. So if the recipient lives in europe I believe it should be possible. Well, at some point anyway. >>

Edited September 8, 2013 by Person012345

[The Destroyer]

If you want, I might try it unless somebody comes along saying a better reason

[KD3]

What, do you have to have not played a game to trade it?

Yep. Has to be in your Steam inventory to trade. There is no way of removing a game from your Steam Game Library. You are stuck with it.

[Person012345]

Yep. Has to be in your Steam inventory to trade. There is no way of removing a game from your Steam Game Library. You are stuck with it.

Ah.

Well, I looked it up and the court ruling was that we are allowed to resell our digital licences, and the first lawsuit against steam (for providing no way of doing so) got filed in like, february or something. I can't find anything more recent than that so I guess the case hasn't come to court yet. When it does it's expected to be an open and shut case. So, Soon.

Edited September 9, 2013 by Person012345

[Manifest]

Yep, not playing this- thing, that they've decided to release for at least half a year or so, just going to download Roma Surrectum for Rome 1 instead, it's probably going to be a much better experience not only battle vise, but also in vise to the game layout in general.

the only thing I regret is that I now have to look at this thing on my steam account as it just lays there oozing it's foul stench.

Biggest let down I've had in a long time.

[CaptainKipard]

I just don't get why they changed some stuff that was working perfectly fine in the previous Total War's (like Shogun 2). Like you decide to cross an ocean and poof you magically have ships, I mean are you kidding me, whats the point of a navy then. That totally broke immersion for me when armies starting just vanishing into the ocean on their magic boats.

You mean the immersion you got when you fit several thousand men into a single bireme?

[Monkeh]

As someone who got into PC gaming through the Total War series I can say it does feel slightly broken right now. I've had 2 attempts at playing and yeah, the AI is a bit dumb and there are a few slightly annoying bugs but most importantly is both games I've started have been ruined by a bug.

First game I had my one big army on a boat and the boat glitched out and couldn't move anywhere or disembark the troops. Game ruined.

Second game I got a bug where I couldn't move the camera on the campaign map...horrible to try and play like that. Game ruined.

It was at this point I decided to wait for a patch or two before another attempt. It actually runs nicely on my sub par machine, even on high settings, so not a problem for me there.

I decided the curse of the early release has struck and I'm waiting for a patch or two before committing any more time to it.

At it's core it seems like a nice addition to the Total War family, it just needs a little fixing.

Basically happy to have bought it, but unhappy it's not finished yet. I can wait though, there's always Dota, TF2 and KSP to keep me busy after all.

[Vanamonde]

For me, the TW series went off the rails with Rome 1. They sped up the action to the point that the only way to maintain situational awareness was to pause the game every few seconds to make sure that, for example, no cavalry had zipped around your flank and was chewing up your archers. The tactical AI was actually pretty good in Shogun, but got stupider with every new game in the series. But the thing that really killed the series for me was the unit AI and pathfinding, which was flat-out awful. When you gave an order to a group of units, there was only about a 60% chance that they'd all actually do what you told them to do. Infantry would get confused and march to the wrong place on the field, archers would shoot at whatever the snot target they felt like shooting at (which was a problem because it could cause nasty friendly fire casualties), and cavalry would charge an enemy unit, hit it, and then stop and just stand there until you gave them more orders. I got so mad once that I wrote out a list of just the *major* bugs and gliches of RTW, and it was 1.5 pages long. And they never did fix most of those even in Medieval II, which was when I gave up on what was left of the series because they started requiring that Steam nonsense. In my 22 years of PC gaming, I have seen no other game series that started off so well and had so much potential become so thoroughly and absolutely ruined.

[icemasterpt]

The game has really Bad FPS issues, i can play Shogun 2 with max settings in 1028x726 resolution and get smoth gameplay, while in Rome 2 , even in Medium low i get mediocre FPS, and it is worse on the campaign map than the normal map xD

Also it is a shame u can only play a limited number of Celtic tribes, i would like to play Lusitanians or Helvetic Gauls, which i can't, but no problem.

[Person012345]

The game has really Bad FPS issues, i can play Shogun 2 with max settings in 1028x726 resolution and get smoth gameplay, while in Rome 2 , even in Medium low i get mediocre FPS, and it is worse on the campaign map than the normal map xD

Also it is a shame u can only play a limited number of Celtic tribes, i would like to play Lusitanians or Helvetic Gauls, which i can't, but no problem.

I will almost guarantee there will be a DLC for it. They have the units all in place obviously, they have the factions, it's all fleshed out, the only reason it's not included in the base game most likely is because they want to sell every possible faction as a DLC. They might add some as free DLC too though.

[Custard Donut (In Space)]

I haven't played Kerbal in a little while having been taken up with this game the past week or so and i have to say it's a pleasure to come back to these forums, with regard to Rome 2 i'm pretty disappointed, the campaign map is fun but there's just so much that is bugged or missing altogether, it has the feel of a game that was released six months too early.

[air805ronin]

I posted on the first page, this is sort of an update:

I'm still not having the significant bugs or issues others are reporting. Personally finding the game fun and the enemy AI somewhat intelligent. Morale, especially of the enemy, breaks entirely too quickly still. The enemy also isn't very aggressive on the campaign map just yet.

I've played 19 hours thus far completing the prologue and roughly 70 turns of the singleplayer campaign. I'm playing as Rome because...well....I love all things Rome. Started out taking Sicily, then Sardinia and that other island over there. Then I decided to follow in History's footsteps and annihilate Carthage. That done my legions took the rest of North Africa as well. I'm now moving on the Cisapline region. the African regions I haven't taken belong to defensive allies Athens and Nova Carthage.

In North Africa I faced my first truly huge enemy unit stacks and it was nerve wracking. they completely encircled my units and only my better morale kept my units (some brought down to only 5 men) from breaking. One battle was 6000 of them vs 2000 of me and their arrows really did block the sun!

Unlike seemingly everyone, I'm having a good experience with Rome 2.

[stu6000]

looking forward to this, just need a new PC ...