Rome 2: Total war is coming!

[boxleitnerb]

Late 2013.

 

[Sulaco]

Late 2013.

 

[boxleitnerb]

At least it gives them time to deliver a great game. I'd rather wait than to get a beta full of bugs with less features than promised.

 

[Skott]

At least it gives them time to deliver a great game. I'd rather wait than to get a beta full of bugs with less features than promised.

That's a very common problem with CA's games. Full of obvious bugs they don't bother to fix before release. I've always been very critical of them for it too. I wish the professional reviewers would get a bit more verbally strict with them about their laziness. It might actually force CA to do better QA. Personally I feel CA reached their peak with ETW but we'll see what they come up with. Luckily the modding community makes their games shine much more so there is that to look forward to as well.

 

[BladeVenom]

I'd like them to deliver a game with a good AI for a change. If they'd spend the time to do the AI right, I wouldn't mind waiting.

 

[thm1223]

That's a very common problem with CA's games. Full of obvious bugs they don't bother to fix before release. I've always been very critical of them for it too. I wish the professional reviewers would get a bit more verbally strict with them about their laziness. It might actually force CA to do better QA. Personally I feel CA reached their peak with ETW but we'll see what they come up with. Luckily the modding community makes their games shine much more so there is that to look forward to as well.

I feel that Shogun 2 was a consolidated version of Empire and that, largely as a result, it was much more polished upon release and in general just more fun.

In fact its one of the games I'm currently playing (albeit modded).

 

[Regs]

I'd like them to deliver a game with a good AI for a change. If they'd spend the time to do the AI right, I wouldn't mind waiting.

I found the AI in shogun II to be quite good compared to the mess that Empire was. Empire had one too many empires to deal with for the developers.

 

[gingermeggs]

I am waiting for TOTAL WAR: WW1
Then to do all the wars up to today including Afghanistan- get to work u programmers!

 

[BD2003]

I am waiting for TOTAL WAR: WW1
Then to do all the wars up to today including Afghanistan- get to work u programmers!

Lol, that would be a great game. The only effective tactic is to build trenches, barbed wire and artillery. Every cavalry and infantry charge fails as they get mowed down by machine guns in no mans land. You can order airstrikes, but they always miss. You can shell and mustard gas the enemy every turn, but you still can't overtake them. Every turn the map stays exactly the same. At the end of the campaign, no one wins.

 

[thm1223]

Lol, that would be a great game. The only effective tactic is to build trenches, barbed wire and artillery. Every cavalry and infantry charge fails as they get mowed down by machine guns in no mans land. You can order airstrikes, but they always miss. You can shell and mustard gas the enemy every turn, but you still can't overtake them. Every turn the map stays exactly the same. At the end of the campaign, no one wins.

Domination campaign objectives: Advance along the Western Front 100 meters by the end of the year 1918.

 

[LurkerPrime]

hopefully they will have figured out how to do multi-core support by the time they release this.

 

[Skott]

hopefully they will have figured out how to do multi-core support by the time they release this.

Yeah, that would really help out I'm thinking. My gut feeling is though is that they cant figure it out or to damn lazy to bother. Neither is good.

 

[Skott]

I am waiting for TOTAL WAR: WW1
Then to do all the wars up to today including Afghanistan- get to work u programmers!

You don't see many WW1 games. Other than the old hex style games there haven't been a lot. I'm not sure CA or anyone else can actually figure out how to do it properly. Otherwise I think we'd have seen it by now.

 

[JasonCoder]

You don't see many WW1 games. Other than the old hex style games there haven't been a lot. I'm not sure CA or anyone else can actually figure out how to do it properly. Otherwise I think we'd have seen it by now.

Also don't see many American Civil War games. WRT WW1 games, not sure how fun that would really be. I could see a Hearts of Iron style game but not sure about the TW style.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

You don't see many WW1 games. Other than the old hex style games there haven't been a lot. I'm not sure CA or anyone else can actually figure out how to do it properly. Otherwise I think we'd have seen it by now.

That's cause the only remotely fun part of a WW1 game would be being the guy that mans the machine gun, or the guy that's flying the Fokker or the Camel.

 

[Sulaco]

The problem is, the Total War engine and style of gameplay was not designed for more modern warfare.

Period.

Even Napoleon Total War, which everyone lauds (and from a simple game standpoint, is very good), doesn't begin to do the period justice. The Battle of Waterloo, for instance, involving tens of THOUSANDS of troops on the field, is limited by the scale of the TW interface and engine to...what?...5,000?? And that's supposed to represent the entire battlefield throughout the day? It's a joke. Great game, it's the best they can do, but it's laughable at trying to capture the feel of truly grand battles of the period.

The TW engine simply cannot capture the scale of (more) modern warfare, based on:

A) The fact that EVERY individual unit represents 1 soldier. So 5,000 guys on the screen, represents 5,000 soldiers in the battle. That's the series BIGGEST strength, and also it's biggest weakness.

B) The interface. With 15 odd "boxes" at the bottom of the screen representing various units you can control, and with each unit only able to contain so many men, you're basically limited to how many units you can adequately control on screen at any given time.

Basically, TW was designed and works best with battles involving only a few hundred to a few thousand units. Otherwise, it just doesn't come close to doing the subject matter justice.

 

[StinkyPinky]

The problem is, the Total War engine and style of gameplay was not designed for more modern warfare.

Period.

Even Napoleon Total War, which everyone lauds (and from a simple game standpoint, is very good), doesn't begin to do the period justice. The Battle of Waterloo, for instance, involving tens of THOUSANDS of troops on the field, is limited by the scale of the TW interface and engine to...what?...5,000?? And that's supposed to represent the entire battlefield throughout the day? It's a joke. Great game, it's the best they can do, but it's laughable at trying to capture the feel of truly grand battles of the period.

The TW engine simply cannot capture the scale of (more) modern warfare, based on:

A) The fact that EVERY individual unit represents 1 soldier. So 5,000 guys on the screen, represents 5,000 soldiers in the battle. That's the series BIGGEST strength, and also it's biggest weakness.

B) The interface. With 15 odd "boxes" at the bottom of the screen representing various units you can control, and with each unit only able to contain so many men, you're basically limited to how many units you can adequately control on screen at any given time.

Basically, TW was designed and works best with battles involving only a few hundred to a few thousand units. Otherwise, it just doesn't come close to doing the subject matter justice.

Some of the big roman battles had 70k men in each army. The Romans had 87k at Cannae for example.

 

[LurkerPrime]

Yeah, that would really help out I'm thinking. My gut feeling is though is that they cant figure it out or to damn lazy to bother. Neither is good.

The game should easily lend itself to multi-core support though, thats the mind boggling part about it. The fact that I have a near top of the line system and the game still takes 1-3 minutes to load battles (even with an SSD). On top of that, it can still bog down on 4x speed.

The new game needs to support 64bit process, so it can use more than 2-4GB of ram (8GB is the new standard anyway). That and they really need multi-core support, so that 87.5% of my cpu resources aren't sitting idle when playing the game. If they fix these things, then I'll consider buying thier next game.

 

[Skott]

The game should easily lend itself to multi-core support though, thats the mind boggling part about it. The fact that I have a near top of the line system and the game still takes 1-3 minutes to load battles (even with an SSD). On top of that, it can still bog down on 4x speed.

The new game needs to support 64bit process, so it can use more than 2-4GB of ram (8GB is the new standard anyway). That and they really need multi-core support, so that 87.5% of my cpu resources aren't sitting idle when playing the game. If they fix these things, then I'll consider buying thier next game.

I agree with you. Which leads us back to my question. Are they too dumb or too lazy? I've often wondered about this with CA and their games.

 

[Revolution 11]

I was hyped about this game, a big fan of the first Rome TW, but that ugly yellow filter in the gameplay trailer is ruining my feelings about this game. Its worse than the yellow tint in Deus Ex Human Revolution, which was otherwise graphically nice. I know Shogun 2 had a blue filter or bias but at least that is easy on the eyes. I hope that was just a early or limited look and that this does not extend to the whole game.

 

[Regs]

I agree with you. Which leads us back to my question. Are they too dumb or too lazy? I've often wondered about this with CA and their games.

Find me a game that offers turn based strategy with real time battles involving hundreds of AI units, and I will show you someone that is not lazy. The development time would be tremendous.

 

[Regs]

Lead developer Q&A forum thread:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=548136

Q. All the screenshots released so far look like they’ve been painted brown or orange. Why is this and will this be true in all parts of the game?
A. The orange/brown hue is there because of the part of the world the screenshots have been set in, North Africa. All of the ones released so far have been from the same battle, the Siege of Carthage.

Doesn't look like anyone asked why and if there will be Multi Core Support. Edit: Ok someone did ask, but it was never answered.

And if CA lives up to their legacy of mod support, I'm sure those hues could be changed.

 

[Skott]

Lead developer Q&A forum thread:

[And if CA lives up to their legacy of mod support, I'm sure those hues could be changed.

Yeah, its the modding community that takes a average good game and makes its a really great to excellent game. God bless them modders! /salute

 

[thm1223]

A good balance of both would be awesome. 50k with plain graphics and animation would look like you're just in control of a bunch of ants. Rome TW2 they go as far as having animations where you can see a spear go right through a soldiers head! Sounds like I'm a sadist, but, cool!

Yes your avatar is appropriate in this instance. :biggrin:

 

[magomago]

I wonder if my GTX460s are going to choke on this game; if it does, time for a new graphics card the end of next year.

The funny part is I still need a lot of practice with tactics on the first one.

Speaking of which let me ask a question: If the enemy engages me and I'm in defensive mode, only my direct line is doing any defending/attacking. The rest stand still. Is it better to engage the rest of the troops, or am I making a mistake to turning defend off in that instance?