Rome 2: Total war is coming!

[tenpole]

With the end of turn waiting; if it was due to the processing power needed for the AI to come up with a cunning plan I would not mind. But it does less than the first rome total war. The original RTW was the last of the total war series I bought btw, I never tried Empire or Shogun 2.

 

[loganone]

I'm already bored. The core foundation of the game is so flawed I don't think any amount of patching can save it. The limited armies, clone factory generals, armies magically turning into navies, nonsense capture the flag battles, quarter assed political system.. bleh. Theres just no atmosphere, no immersion, no challenge.. it all feels like a bland, hollowed out, empty shell of a Total War game.

I'm expecting the console port announcement any day now.

 

[StinkyPinky]

That data was proven to be false. Reviewers are given a special version of the game that doesn't even have achievements. Those people were likely QA testers or other company-internal people whose job doesn't require many hours of playtesting.



Because reviewers are lazy? Because reviewers need to churn out as many reviews as possible and that is why you make the first few hours of the game the best you can?

Not to mention, many reviewers said the game was too complex, hard, or just got facts plain wrong.

Game reviewers suck in general. Sure, they get bribed, but I don't think CA is a big enough studio to buy great reviews.

Sega is big enough.

Plus it's not so much bribery. I like to think the industry is not that corrupt. It's more about protecting their advertising revenue and access to future games. Pissing off large publishers isn't a sure way to achieve that.

 

[Dumac]

With the end of turn waiting; if it was due to the processing power needed for the AI to come up with a cunning plan I would not mind. But it does less than the first rome total war. The original RTW was the last of the total war series I bought btw, I never tried Empire or Shogun 2.

It gets a lot faster later in the game when the number of facitons shrinks.

Also, the AI is doing more than you think. They wage war with each other quite a lot and have a huge number of agents.

I'm already bored. The core foundation of the game is so flawed I don't think any amount of patching can save it. The limited armies, clone factory generals, armies magically turning into navies, nonsense capture the flag battles, quarter assed political system.. bleh. Theres just no atmosphere, no immersion, no challenge.. it all feels like a bland, hollowed out, empty shell of a Total War game.

I'm expecting the console port announcement any day now.

I like the limited number of armies. It makes each army feel more unique, especially when coupled with the tradition system.

Armies turning into transport ships makes sense to me as well. However, they should not be as good as they are in a naval battle.

Without a family tree, the generals do feel souless. Especially since they all look the same.

Flag capturing in open battles is annoying and should be removed.

 

[Bateluer]

With the end of turn waiting; if it was due to the processing power needed for the AI to come up with a cunning plan I would not mind. But it does less than the first rome total war. The original RTW was the last of the total war series I bought btw, I never tried Empire or Shogun 2.

Medieval 2 was a great TW game, and the last one I dumped any significant time in. 700+ hours between base and the Kingdoms expansion.

 

[Dumac]

Sega is big enough.

Plus it's not so much bribery. I like to think the industry is not that corrupt. It's more about protecting their advertising revenue and access to future games. Pissing off large publishers isn't a sure way to achieve that.

I agree. This totally happens, which is why I don't trust any reviewers much.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

I think General legacy was replaced with Army legacy.

 

[BladeVenom]

I'm expecting the console port announcement any day now.

That would explain some of the design decisions.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Now now, don't go hinting towards another "Diablo 3".

 

[Skott]

I watched AJ's review earlier today. He cracks me up. He is correct though about the problems it has. What I'm wondering is can CA or the modding community actually fix things enough for it to be good. Some of the things I been seeing makes me wonder if anyone really can fix it. I've always said CA is either too lazy or too unskilled to actually fix things because they keep making the same fundamental mistakes over and over in their games. I bought RTW when it released and although buggy I don't remember it that buggy. Maybe its just my age and memory? I sure hope someone can save this game.

Oh, and god please don't let them do a MTW 3! I shudder to think how badly they would mess up that game.

 

[Bateluer]

I watched AJ's review earlier today. He cracks me up. He is correct though about the problems it has. What I'm wondering is can CA or the modding community actually fix things enough for it to be good. Some of the things I been seeing makes me wonder if anyone really can fix it. I've always said CA is either too lazy or too unskilled to actually fix things because they keep making the same fundamental mistakes over and over in their games. I bought RTW when it released and although buggy I don't remember it that buggy. Maybe its just my age and memory? I sure hope someone can save this game.

Oh, and god please don't let them do a MTW 3! I shudder to think how badly they would mess up that game.

I bought Rome 1 a few months after release, but well before the final patches were released and it wasn't very buggy. I'm starting to think that SEGA is getting more involved with CA now that the franchise is more popular, leaving its niche status.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

I disagree with Angry Joe. I don't think Rome 2 feels like a beta test. The state it is now, I wouldn't even rate it an Alpha-level release. It feels like nobody from Creative Assembly has actually played the game for more than a minute at a time, let alone any kind of beta tester, it feels like many of the bugs that are in the game currently should have been found and fixed well before release, and it feels like a console port more than a made-for-PC game.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Second statement from CA on Rome II's release (11 Sep 2013)

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthre...nt-from-CA-on-Rome-II-s-release-(11-Sep-2013)


Hi everyone,

We’ve just put up a hotfix that significantly improves campaign map frame-rate on a variety of hardware combinations that were getting frame rates less than 15 fps. It took us until Monday to get a case of this happening in the studio, but it was a very simple fix, so we’ve decided to put it out as a single issue patch. This bug was introduced very late in the process, but we absolutely should have found and fixed it before release.

This release has obviously not gone as planned for some people, and I want to apologise to everyone out there who had issues with the game, whether they were hardware issues or disappointment in the performance of game features. We obviously don’t plan to release a game with any bugs, performance and AI issues. How this has happened is something we’re beginning to post mortem in detail now.

Fortunately, the same tech that gave us the rope to work on the game right up to release lets us keep working on it after it’s out, and the flaws in the game are mostly just bugs, not structural defects. We can and will get the game to where we wanted it to be for everyone.

The top priority is stability and performance – both frame rates in battle and campaign, and end of turn times and loading times. Then gameplay spoilers – AI flaws and exploits, balancing tweaks and the level of challenge on higher difficulties. Then minor bugs, lesser features that really didn’t pan out, UI improvements, and longer term adjustments to features and systems that could be better. Because there are a lot of us working in parallel there will be a mixture of different priority fixes in each patch. Much of this work would be part of the usual planned improvements we would make to our games post-launch anyway, but we are aware that they have now taken on extra significance and importance.

We have a major improvement to end of turn times in the pipeline, along with around 100 fixes in the next patch. We have another 100 or so fixes already being tested for the patch after that. At this point the limiting factor on getting issues fixed in patches is not our ability to fix issues, it’s our ability to test them and guarantee that we don’t repeat past mistakes by putting a patch out that breaks something new. We’ll also be putting each patch up as a beta you can opt in to before releasing it. It’s our aim to continue patching more or less weekly until all the bugs are dealt with.

Then we can start the kind of dialogue we always want to be having with the community – which new features you like, which you don’t like, which deleted features from previous games you really miss and so on. That’s a good conversation to be having, and since it’s our intention not to fall in to the trap of just re-skinning the previous game each time, it’s one that hopefully you’ll be having for years to come.

Lastly, I’m hoping we can fundamentally treat our releases differently in the future. Long open betas are the way things are going, and while that model hasn’t been compatible with the way Total War has been built to date, that could be the way forward.

Mike Simpson
Creative Director
Creative Assembly

 

[Genx87]

My eyes are on fire

 

[Regs]

lol. Good lord man.Like I am back in year 2000 looking at Nutscrape webpages.

 

[Ruptga]

Balla's avatar and content in that last post... synergize well.

Protip: highlighting garish text makes it readable.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Text updated, now with 100% more readability!

 

[Regs]

It is great that they're acknowledging the issues. It just seems so unnecessary that they have to rush everything out the door. Obviously, time and money goes a long way in a budget and the shear scope of a Total War game always seems more burdening for what the budget they can give them before the game is no longer profitable enough for a publisher to risk. Someone mentioned all ready that after so many released, you think they would learn from mistakes that should be fundamental right now.Total War will soon be a victim of their own success, if not all ready.

 

[Anteaus]

What I like about Angry Joe is that unlike many other reviewers such as PC Gamer, IGN, or Gamespot, he backs up every remark with in game examples both good and bad to the tune of 20-40 minute reviews on average. He really does take the time to put together a picture of the overall product and I trust his opinions. He is making a name for himself with all the theatrics, but even without it his reviews are top notch.

I also like that he doesn't look at games that rate 5-7 like they are poison. He states his case but he always tries to find the positives. Even with Rome 2 which he really tore into, he admitted to having alot of fun in spite of it.

He also regulary shows how many hours he has played a game during a review which adds credibility.

 

[Madia]

The newest patch did make a huge difference in the campaign fps for me and the Friday patch enabled me to play it on very high at 60fps (whereas before I experienced sudden drops in fps on medium). Still, I think I'm going to wait awhile before getting back into the game. It whet my appetite for a Total War game so I'm going to go back to play Shogun 2. Hopefully in a month or two they'll have some major fixes and I can get back to Rome.

My main problem with Rome 2 is that as a total war novice (I've only played Shogun 2) I found it hard to learn the game enough to be really good at it (in other words know actually what I was building toward and what specific units I should recruit.) Aside from the buggy AI the battles go by so fast there's little room for tactics and to learn how your units actually perform. I ended up mostly recruiting the best infantry and missile tropes with 2 or 3 cavalry units. I had no idea why I should recruit units like the war dogs or social hastate.

Outside of battle I didn't know whether to select authority, cunning or zeal for my generals. Shogun 2 had a nice menu of the progression for your general and was easy to plan ahead. Rome 2 may have it buried in their encyclopedia but I don't want to have to open it every time I want to upgrade. Also there doesn't seem to be an obvious difference between spy, champion and dignitary.

I've put about 13 hours into the main campaign as Rome and it pretty much followed a basic formula. Decide on which province to take. Raise up enough forces to do so. Upgrade your settlements and take care to keep the population happy. Eventually invade and take a city or capital in the province in 2 or 3 five minute battles. Auto resolve any fights as the remaining few enemy units throw themselves at you. Stabilize the unhappiness and finish taking the remaining parts of the province. Rinse and repeat.

The main problem for me was the buildup to attack took a very long time to do (sometimes 40 minutes or more) and the "epic" battle ended in 5 minutes with no real strategy. The game takes a very looooong time in between turns even with the enemy's movements hidden. I didn't hate or even dislike the time I've spent so far in the game but right now the game is pretty 'meh' and I don't want to spend 20+ hours or so to finish a campaign that's not very fun or rewarding. I still think there's potential for Rome to be a very good game but I'll wait until there's significant patching to get into it.

 

[tenpole]

Also there doesn't seem to be an obvious difference between spy, champion and dignitary.

They do all seem to the the same, not like RTW 1.

 

[StinkyPinky]

They really need to address the turn times. They become excruciating mid game

 

[Dumac]

Just went through my Roman civil war. It was pretty exciting. A bunch of full-stacks spawned in the middle of Europe and spread out taking over cities everywhere. I had some pretty close battles and a few losses, but I ended up winning in the end.

It was kind of anticlimactic after that. I choose to become na Empire and got a nice -10% unit upkeep cost and an even better -25% corruption. The politics panel is still there though...you just can't really do anything. Also, I don't know who is Emperor? It isn't clear at all and seems unfinished.

 

[Skott]

He doesn't mention AI at all though. Unless I missed it somehow. I know they have a plate full of problems but the AI in RTW2 is worse than any of their previous games. They have always have had buggy and bad AI but man it really looks they took three steps back like AJ said. And they need to toss out that flag bs.

Also it sounds like they are just going to go back and reinvent each game in the franchise over and over. On one hand that's kind of cool but it sounds like they have no vision of creating anything new. To me that is dissapointing.

 

[Dumac]

Also it sounds like they are just going to go back and reinvent each game in the franchise over and over. On one hand that's kind of cool but it sounds like they have no vision of creating anything new. To me that is dissapointing.

I don't think so. They said they won't be doing any 3's for a long, long time, so that means no Shogun/Rome/Medieval.

They could do Empire 2 but i doubt it.

I think the next game will be Warhammer related.