Rome Total war 2

McSasquatch

paglynncashel wrote: »

hope im not hijacking this thread a bit, but on a side note I am praying to (god, allah, sweet zombie jesus) that the team that did europa barbarorum will do something on this new version of rome, can you imagine caesars campaign in gaul for real??!

Well, given that EBII still hasn't been released yet (and it's based on Kingdoms), you could be waiting some time! That's not a criticism by the way - just acknowledging how much work is being done by such a small part-time team

It's interesting that CA themselves seem to have taken a more historically accurate approach this time as regards faction names. Would be nice if that extends to unit types, names etc.

McSasquatch

ZeroThreat wrote: »

hmm RTW2 is €54.99 on steam vs £29.99 from amazon, price premium isn't worth convenience of digital download imho...

Steam is required to play, so you'll be registering it to your account and DLing from them no matter where you buy it

ZeroThreat

McSasquatch wrote: »

Steam is required to play, so you'll be registering it to your account and DLing from them no matter where you buy it

yeah but you're still paying about 20 shekels more for it if you buy from steam

McSasquatch

ZeroThreat wrote: »

yeah but you're still paying about 20 shekels more for it if you buy from steam

Correct?

Outkast_IRE

McSasquatch wrote: »

Steam is required to play, so you'll be registering it to your account and DLing from them no matter where you buy it

Well shogun 2 and empire, if you bought the physical disc, it would install from the disc , only updates get downloaded.

McSasquatch

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

Well shogun 2 and empire, if you bought the physical disc, it would install from the disc , only updates get downloaded.

Yeah, actually you're right - you could install from disc if you wanted. But you could also download the whole game if you wanted - just enter the serial number into the "Activate a Product on Steam" window.

Regarding the pre-ordering bonus, I misunderstood the way it's being done. So if anyone else is as dim as me, the Greek States are available to everyone and aren't exclusive to pre-orders. It's just that the pre-order peeps get them for free, whereas everyone else has to pay for them. Key question is how much will they charge for these factions. If it's only a couple of euro you're saving, I wouldn't feel "blackmailed" into pre-ordering. More than that though....

Anyway, I posted this in the bargains thread in the main Games forum yesterday. Essentially you can get 25% a pre-order at GreenManGaming if you use the code GMG25-5GT67-87HJ9. TW:RII would still work out at over €40, but if you desperately want to avoid waiting for a physical copy to be delivered, it might be worth it to you personally.

pablomakaveli

ZeroThreat wrote: »

hmm RTW2 is €54.99 on steam vs £29.99 from amazon, price premium isn't worth convenience of digital download imho...

I ordered it from Amazon. The way i see it is im only waiting an extra couple of days (which is how long it would probably take for me to download from steam anyway) and then i can install it from the disk and pretty much play straight off unless theres a day 1 update and all for nearly half the price id pay on Steam.

Outkast_IRE

The first few weeks of any new total war game is buggy anyway, with both shogun 2 and empire, i encountered some game breaking bugs and needed to restart entire campaigns or go back to a very previous load game.

McSasquatch

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

The first few weeks of any new total war game is buggy anyway, with both shogun 2 and empire, i encountered some game breaking bugs and needed to restart entire campaigns or go back to a very previous load game.

That's a good point. Rome and Med II had fairly game-affecting bugs too on initial release. Wouldn't be a CA game without one

Outkast_IRE

McSasquatch wrote: »

That's a good point. Rome and Med II had fairly game-affecting bugs too on initial release. Wouldn't be a CA game without one

Its the price we pay by playing it in the first weeks.
To be fair any major bugs i have encountered have been fixed after patches.

I can only hope there is an AI improvement in this one. Currently playing a fall of the samurai campaign on shogun2 on hard difficulty, and nobody will stay my ally long term even though i have an hounourable daiymo , and am never the aggressor. Although i do enjoy defending my castles from vastly superior numbers, it would be nice for an ally to stay loyal for once.

McSasquatch

Improved campaign AI would be awesome. I genuinely don't know how it's handled, but it seems that all AI factions are intent on conquering the map as much as you are yourself, so they'll eventually wage war on you even when relations are perfect.

I guess I can understand that from a certain perspective, but I'd much rather the rules governing inter-faction diplomacy occasionally (somewhat randomly) allowed alliances to last.

Then again, as someone said once over on the TW forums, this is Total War, not Total Tea Party!

Outkast_IRE

McSasquatch wrote: »

Improved campaign AI would be awesome. I genuinely don't know how it's handled, but it seems that all AI factions are intent on conquering the map as much as you are yourself, so they'll eventually wage war on you even when relations are perfect.

I guess I can understand that from a certain perspective, but I'd much rather the rules governing inter-faction diplomacy occasionally (somewhat randomly) allowed alliances to last.

Then again, as someone said once over on the TW forums, this is Total War, not Total Tea Party!

I agree with what your saying, but to me, increasing the campaign difficulty, mostly just increases how much the enemy want to war with you. And leaving them build some decent units.

In the game im currently running theres a neighbour that wont declare peace with me , despite both of us loyal for the shogun (fall of the samurai), and tonnes of postive diplomacy points, and them actually showing up as friendly in terms of relations.

ZeroThreat

I played rome 1 for the first time in years last month, I'd forgot how fast everything moves in it. The legionaries were galloping along like horses! Hopefully they'll slow units down to something more realistic for this one.

paglynncashel

they apparently changed the thing where the soldiers stop and throw to where they throw as they run, those little details will make one of the best games yet and hopefully they can tweak the problems with massive battles like in shogun to where you could actually have thousands of soldiers on the map and be able to play the damned thing without it looking like a slideshow

Outkast_IRE

paglynncashel wrote: »

they apparently changed the thing where the soldiers stop and throw to where they throw as they run, those little details will make one of the best games yet and hopefully they can tweak the problems with massive battles like in shogun to where you could actually have thousands of soldiers on the map and be able to play the damned thing without it looking like a slideshow

I have never had any real problems with frame rate in shogun 2 , with unit numbers maxed out.
Is there any chance its the setup your running it on.

McSasquatch

Just occured to me that Jeff van Dyck won't be doing the music for this (I know he hasn't for a few games now), but the bombastic (and yeah, sometimes clichéd) soundtrack of the original Rome was one of the things I loved about it. Hopefully it won't be lacking in this department.

On the subject of campaign map diplomacy, I just read you can now request an ally to attack specific targets, at specific times. I assume it's something your AI allies will only agree to once in a blue moon, but if/when a co-ordinated attack like that comes off, it must be a prety sweet feeling

ZeroThreat

some of the pre-battle speeches were pretty amusing, if your general had the philospher trait, one went along the lines of "i am known as something of a philospher. Some ask me. 'Why are we here?' Then answer is often complicated... but today we are here to kill all those bastards."

McSasquatch

Yeah, that was a pretty nice touch when the speeches reflected some of their personality traits, especially insanity.

And remember, they may have the Moon People on their side, but we have lovely hats. Those hats will shield us from their fearsome gaze!

McSasquatch

Apparently Rome II will have it's own official series of tie-in novels! The first, called Destroy Carthage, will be available in September and is penned by Times bestselling author David Gibbins and published by Pan Macmillan.

I suppose this is one example of CA's attempt to get players more emotionally invested in their empires. Will specific characters in the book appear in the game? Interesting.

ZeroThreat

McSasquatch wrote: »

Apparently Rome II will have it's own official series of tie-in novels! The first, called Destroy Carthage, will be available in September and is penned by Times bestselling author David Gibbins and published by Pan Macmillan.

I suppose this is one example of CA's attempt to get players more emotionally invested in their empires. Will specific characters in the book appear in the game? Interesting.

meh, I read the "Marius' Mules" series of novels (very cheap on kindle) recently, more than enough to whet my appetite for killing smelly hairy barbarians

McSasquatch

ZeroThreat wrote: »

enough to whet my appetite for killing smelly hairy barbarians

*looks at my own avatar*

grizzly

RTWII will probably be like Empire – a very ambitious leap, but it will take a future game to refine it and work out the bugs. Still buying it.

McSasquatch

Yeah, that's my fear too - a lot of new stuff being added to battles in particular; amphibious landings, LoS, unit cam, tactical satellite view, multiple capture points etc etc. So much can go wrong

But yeah, still buying :pac:

Celtic Tiger

Didnt one of the lead ai programmers leave a few months before empire was due to ship. Well i remember that was the excuse they gave for a lot of the problems with that game. Releasing it with a global map when the ai couldnt do any naval invasions just meant the game was horribly broken It was such a dissapointment because i loved the time period.

Total war is still one my favourite series of games series though so i know ill be getting this.

McSasquatch

Some new info available in the latest Rally Point vid, with this episode concentrating on some of the campaign map mechanics (discussion of which starts at about 6:40).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcBZfYatj_Y

There's some really interesting stuff there which sounds great in theory, although it comes with the perennial caveat of "if they can get it right".

nesf

Simon Pegg does game journalism now? :pac:

Sephiroth_dude

Anyone gonna splash out for the collectors edition ?

McSasquatch

I'd love it, and have most previous TW collector's edirtions, but it's far too expensive I'm actually not sure if we have anywhere to buy it in Ireland anyway.

McSasquatch

Has anyone pre-ordered, and if so from where?

Keggers2

Gonna pre-order mine from Steam, I need me that Greek Culture pack!