Rome Total war 2

nesf

I can live with capture points, they add another positional element to the gameplay. I'm all in favour of scale the walls and hold the gate house for X time to open the gates or whatever.

McSasquatch

That's fine for certain battles, but they have no place in open field battles imo.

nesf

Depends on the terrain imho. I think that'll be where stances come in, armies set up in a nice defensible position, holding the strategic points on the height or whatever is pretty much the same as routing the army proper, just a bit faster. If the defending army can't keep you off 3 reasonably placed points then you're screwed anyway.

McSasquatch

Meh, I'd just like to be able to decide for myself where I make a stand. Doubt it will be a feature in every battle, so not a deal breaker.

Keggers2

Agree on the wanky interviewer and weak PC.

I wouldn't be surprised if the chariots had been buffed, probably again to get the attention of the scaly skinned casuals.


In terms of capture points, I think they could be an interesting curve ball if I don't have to put up with them in every freakin battle. Like at the battle of the Nile, where the whole thing is to take the hill, I think a capture point made a lot of sense!

Although I suppose the argument could be made that if it's actually the best thing to do, the strategic powerhouses that we TW players are (:pac:) should know to do it anyway.

grizzly

Keggers2 wrote: »

Agree on the wanky interviewer and weak PC.

I wouldn't be surprised if the chariots had been buffed, probably again to get the attention of the scaly skinned casuals.


In terms of capture points, I think they could be an interesting curve ball if I don't have to put up with them in every freakin battle. Like at the battle of the Nile, where the whole thing is to take the hill, I think a capture point made a lot of sense!

Although I suppose the argument could be made that if it's actually the best thing to do, the strategic powerhouses that we TW players are (:pac:) should know to do it anyway.

Capture points may be great. I always find myself holding up in corner and playing it safe to win battles.

Keggers2

Also a really good point! I find myself doing that too, especially with my good armies that I don't want to risk damaging too badly.

McSasquatch

I really won't have a problem with it if it's only in certain battles, and this seems to be the case.

We're getting the most varied battle maps (terrain-wise) in a TW game yet, what with cliffs, ravines, canyons etc. Add in the new LOS feature and it would seem silly not to allow you use the whole battle map in your tactics.

Sulla Felix

grizzly wrote: »

Capture points may be great. I always find myself holding up in corner and playing it safe to win battles.

That's something that actually annoyed the hell out of me because it makes too much sense tactically to not do it.
Ideally the battlefield would morph depending on troop placement. So you couldn't have a unit too far away from your general, or the furthest away other unit or something.
That way, when faced with superior numbers, holing up in the corner wouldn't be viable because there'd be no corner, you could always be outflanked.

Manach

Looking forward to the game myself, but in my qualified opinion chariots were out of date even in the best of circumstances in that era. Personally I'll be hiring some Parthian Mercenaries to give them a parting shot when they get hauled back to the arena.

McSasquatch

Yeah, historical accuracy was never TW's strong point. Personally though, I don't mind one or two reasonable liberties taken if it means more unit variety etc. Even as is, Rome II looks a wee bit more authentic than the original.

McSasquatch

Here's an official Q&A posted by the not-Simon-Pegg-looking fella over on TWC. Most of it seems to be in response to feedback following the E3 demo. There's some good info in it.

Hi all,

It was a rather exciting week last week with a huge amount of information being split all over the internet from E3 as the press finally got to see the Total War: ROME II campaign map in action and go hands-on for the first time with a sample battle featuring Egypt and Rome duking it out on the banks of the Nile.

As a result, there’s a bit of misinformation doing the rounds on the forums generated by putting different sources together and not getting it quite right, so here’s a few answers to questions that have cropped up from the show.

Hope it helps your discussions by getting some facts in there, and also hope you’ll be able to join us at Rezzed this weekend and other events over the summer to go hands-on with ROME II yourself.

----

Q: Why are animations so over-the-top when men are hit by chariots or artillery?

These animations aren’t final – we’re currently in the process of toning them down to have the right balance between visual impact and realism. There are important gameplay reasons why it might be necessary to indicate that something’s gone very wrong for one of your units, especially when you are zoomed out, but we also need to balance that with the need to maintain a degree of immersion.

They will fly less high in the finished game.

Q: Are Chariots and Artillery over-powered?

The above effect will over emphasise the impact, but it’s important to note that not every solider knocked over by those units’ attacks are killed; a proportion will get back to their feet. These units, and others in the game, are important disruption weapons alongside the direct damage they do. Such attacks are important to use strategically, slowing, demoralising and disrupting the formation of enemy units, causing follow-up attacks to have greater effect.

Q: Does every battle have a capture point?

No.

Most battles in ROME II are either normal field battles or open sea battles. These do not have capture points or baggage trains. Ambush battles don’t have capture points either.

Capture points for cities have been present in all Total War games since “Rome: Total War”. Larger city battles in ROME II now have multiple capture points as this increases the skill and tactical requirements for attacking and defending cities while allowing the use of elements of stealth and surprise, rather than previously where sides could just camp in the centre of the city. Smaller cities will have one, and are likely to be first type of siege battle encountered by most players at the start of the game.

Additionally, the new feature of Baggage Trains (the capture point type you saw in the E3 footage) occurs in battles where an army is attacked while it is in Forced March stance on the Campaign Map. This represents the army being caught while on the move and so being more unprepared for battle. This disadvantage balances out the advantage of being able to move further in a turn and means that players need to judge their strategy more intelligently when selecting this stance. Conversely, as an attacking player, you would do well to time the interception of Forced Marching enemy armies to take advantage of their additional vulnerability.

Also, where there are land and naval forces combined in a battle, the defender’s baggage train will be present to prevent any remaining defending navies winning a battle unrealistically by hiding out at sea, waiting for the battle to end or the attacker to give up, while remaining attacking land forces are unable to reach them from the land.

In this particular instance, the attacker has the disadvantage of time in which to capture the defender’s baggage train, but the tactical advantage of picking the battleground in the first place.

Placement of the baggage train will vary from battle to battle, while still being in the defender’s deployment zone. Both sides will be able to see exactly where during the deployment phase.

In whatever form they appear, Capture Points are not instant wins. They have a timer on them that allows for any reasonably astute player to react to the situation.

The defence of the baggage train was a genuine issue for armies of the ancient world. Losing your supplies, spare equipment and possessions was a disaster that led to some of history’s most catastrophic defeats.

Q: Are you going to change the unit cards?

No, we have no plans to change the unit cards. When you’re hands-on in battle, we find the new card design to be particularly useful for identifying which unit is which in the heat of battle. You should reserve judgement on their effectiveness until you’d had an opportunity to use them. Needless to say, in the thousands of hours of testing so far they have proven their worth.

We like them a lot as their style is in period for our game and the Romans were rather fond of mimicking the art of other cultures, including Greece.

Q: What is the multiplayer element of ROME II going to be?

ROME II will contain traditional TW multiplayer modes such as versus battles (1 to 4 players per side, 2 sides) and 1v1 campaigns (co-op or versus), there will be some additional features added in here including a neat MP battlefield selector which we will be talking about soon. However, the Avatar Conquest mode from SHOGUN 2 will not be returning in ROME II; we believe we can create a much more compelling persistent multi-player offering for Total War that will appeal to multi-player fans with Total War: ARENA, and we’ll be bringing you more on that at a later date (get involved with the beta for ARENA here).

Q: Will there be blood DLC in ROME II?

Possibly, but it won’t be in the core release due to the age rating we want to adhere to for Total War games, which we intend to be in line with all previous releases. There is the option of potentially doing a DLC down the line, as we did with Shogun 2, but at the moment we don’t intend to talk any further about this before ROME II is released.

Q: Will there be a BETA or demo for ROME II before release?

There will not be, no.

Q: Why does Julius Caesar change into a horse when moving on the campaign map demo?

This is an animation to indicate quick movement across the campaign map, which we find preferable to a ‘Benny Hill’-style fast walk. This is subject to change for the final release.

Q: Will there be a hotseat multiplayer campaign?

No, the hotseat feature hasn’t been present for a number of Total War games. There will, however, be a 1v1 multiplayer campaign – both co-operative and head-to-head.

Q: Why is the battle in the E3 demo so fast?

The Battle of the Nile features a lot of fast-moving units, such as chariots and cavalry. This has an impact on the perceived overall speed of the battle. We’re still tweaking the final foot-speed of units, but we’re happy we’re close to final. It is also worth saying that the battle was chosen to fit within the time we had available with journalists at E3, which is often all too brief. Overall you can expect to experience longer battles on average.

Additionally, we are constantly testing and updating the distances between deployment zones depending on the size of the engagement, while constantly adjusting movement speeds for armies. All of which can have a significant effect on how quickly or slowly battle is joined.

Q: Why aren’t there any minimum or recommended specs available yet?

There are, our current expected specs are listed with retailers at the moment url]http://store.steampowered.com/app/214950/[/url; these are subject to change as the game is optimised. Our intent is to get the minimum spec as close to Shogun 2’s requirements as possible. When the specs are finalised we will post them on the TW Wiki.

Q: If I pre-ordered the game before the Pre-order bonus was announced, will I still get the Greek States Culture Pack?

Yes, as long as your retailer is participating in the offer. Check with your retailer if you have any doubt.

Q: How cool are the Iceni?

The Iceni are extremely cool. In test, the first ever properly completed game of Total War: ROME II was accomplished by the Iceni by way of cultural victory.

A shame there'll be no demo, and a larger MP campaign would have been nice. But looking forward to feedback from Rezzed over the weekend!

Keggers2

I'm surprised they won't be doing the Battle of the Nile demo like they did with Sekigahara for Shogun 2!

Seems like our guessimates were pretty accurate.

Also, I like the new unit cards, I don't see what everyone hates so much??

Can't WAIT for rezzed!

McSasquatch

Yeah, I like the visual style of the cards, although some complain that it's too hard to differentiate between units. That will come with a little time I'd imagine. Others complain that the style predates the Roman era and is more Greek in origin. I have no idea what to say to those people :pac:

And yeah, looking forward to the Rezzed aftermath. It seems quite a few from the various TW forums are going, so there should be plenty of feedback next week!

McSasquatch

The pre-order is down to €31.50 on Amazon.co.uk for any interested. It's eligible for free delivery if you don't mind waiting a week or so, and includes the Greek factions DLC.

McSasquatch

Nice little article on the campaign's political mechanics over on IGN. As usual, sounds great in theory...

McSasquatch

There's a livestream of CA's dev sessions at Rezzed over the weekend. From what I can see, it'll be a live code demo of the campaign map and battle of the Nile (again).

Anyway, the sessions are being streamed live on Youtube, at 1PM Saturday 22nd, and at 2PM Sunday 23rd.

McSasquatch

Here's the video of the first session at Rezzed. Skip forward to 10:55 or so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPQCn7beqew

Keggers2

Definitely starting to come round to the campaign map. Though it seems like cities are going to grow ridiculously huge!

Also, despite that video, from other parts of Rezzed it looks like a lot of people have been winning The Battle of the Nile with the Romans, so I'm even less worried about overpowered units now!

I would have liked to have seen more about forced march and different stnace mind.

Sephiroth_dude

I like the idea of being able to hire local mercenaries in friendly territory.

Sephiroth_dude

I cringed so hard from 28:00 minutes onwards :pac:

McSasquatch

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

I cringed so hard from 28:00 minutes onwards :pac:

Yeah. I was going to warn ye about it, but then thought "If I had to endure that, then so does everyone else". :pac:

Agreed keggers re the OPed units - seems like they genuinely disrupt more than they kill.

Sephiroth_dude

McSasquatch wrote: »

Yeah. I was going to warn ye about it, but then thought "If I had to endure that, then so does everyone else". :pac:

You evil person :pac:

The game is currently 31.99 on g2play if anyone is interested.

Keggers2

Haha, ah I find them charming in their awkward nerdy way! :P


Actually, what little we saw of it, the naval combat looks a lot better this time round too!

McSasquatch

Second demo stream (starts at 2 today).

Be warned, it's expected it to be the exact same as yesterday!

Keggers2

You never know, maybe we'll get a Roman perspective of the battle!

grizzly

Keggers2 wrote: »

Haha, ah I find them charming in their awkward nerdy way! :P

Yeah, they're goofy but I'd have a drink with them.

McSasquatch wrote: »

Be warned, it's expected it to be the exact same as yesterday!

Shame, seems like a missed opportunity. They could have showed off battling the huns in the snowy north instead.

Keggers2

Goofy is the perfect word!

I would really like to see more on the other factions (gimme my damn Greek States!) I suppose they have plenty of time between now and September though.

McSasquatch

Definitely wouldn't say no to some barbarian action!

I hope the questions from the audience are better than yesterday too; "Which TW game has been most profitable?"

Keggers2

That one had me scratching my head as well!

I was expecting them to get grilled by some of the forum types!