Rome 2 released!

[Othko97]

The new DLC will make there be 24 turns in a year!

[Son of the King]

Yeah for a price and only in the DLC campaign -.- .

[debux]

I don't feel that the extra turns per year will really be a big addition to the game. I feel a lot more can be said for the ability to levy troops from client states. Sadly, the guys that made the latest "Let's Play" for CA don't feel the same way. I think it's a pretty good representation of how much CA, as well as the customer base they seem to be aiming for, seem to care more about graphics rather than actual gameplay.

It's really stupid for me to give my opinion on the topic without even owning the game, but I feel I've read and seen so much I can actually say something. The 1TPY wasn't a bad idea at all, it fits the map scale very well, and aids to properly represent empire expansion, in terms of the space-time relation (at least, from my point of view, better than RTW). The thing was that they didn't add anything really important to make up for it. Sure, they added politics, but it seems to be that it's entirely possible to run a campaign by barely paying attention to it (I believe that some players even play around it to have the civil war at a point of their choosing). Therefore, family members are barely 30-turn-faces for your armies, and not much more than that. With a family tree, and a real politics system (not as complicated as the EU series, but it would be a nice source of inspiration) individual characters (with their family history and their life achievements) could really feel as if they're doing something in your campaign, as if they're real people doing stuff in your empire.

[Clockwork]

Just an update now that I've had a chance to play Emperor Edition.

Generals and agents now live longer (roughly 25 turns more on average).

Combat has slowed down a huge amount, instead of battle being over in minutes (seriously, around 5 for 2 full armies to hash it out) they now take roughly 20 to do the same. I have no real opinion on whether this is a good change, I guess it's ok but leaves my favoured charge units nerfed back into oblivion.

New building system. Too complicated to post here. Long story short, it makes armouring your units a pain in the nutsack while giving them small buffs has become ridiculously easy. No opinion here either.

Hoplites have become horrible. I am sad.

Archers are the new meta, they just kill everything now. I like.

Playing as Mark Antony is cool. As is playing as Lepidus and Octavian. But Antony has Cleopatra and thus tv/movie/music references that the others lack. Much to the pain of my co-op campaign buddy.

[Tom]

Hoplites have become horrible. I am sad.

Please explain? I still think they are quite effective and as they are my favourite classical units I was wondering why you think they have been made horrible? As far as I can see they are very effective at holding a line and in a battle of attrition they are difficult to beat, the new morale changes have really helped that imo. I know that they're not killing machines but neither do I think that they should be.

[Clockwork]

They used to be killing machines though, which I miss Regularly I would field my prized Spartan Hoplites against barb/roman/punic spears and swords and the hops would generally kill them. Now they end up with 40-50 kills a piece and thus take ages to level, severely gimping their usefulness. Plus with the changes to how upgrades work, its much more difficult to get an army of tooled up hops with the gear advantage to be able to kill said barb/punic/roman masses.

[Tom]

Recently I played a Sparta vs Rome online battle and with practically unlimited funds I took loads of royal Spartans fully upped with experience. They took on a similar number of fully upped Pretoria guard and held them with very few losses for long enough that my cav could win the cav fight and rear charge them. They're great at being an anvil that isn't as susceptible to flanking as pikes.
Sorry about spelling errors, my Chinese phone doesn't like words.

[Clockwork]

If you're using Citizen cav, you're doing it wrong

Any Rome infantry from veteran legionaries upwards have ripped through any hoplites whenever I've played against them. Maybe I'm hopliting wrong?

The reason to choose Spartan hops over pikes (unlike regular hops/pikes) is the versatility, the hops are actually amazing on the counter charge. Nobody else can get away with that though

[Tom]

Maybe the highest veteran royal spartans are a little more durable than regular spartans? I took 10 units of full experience citizen cav if that explains the cavalry victory to you whereas the enemy didn't take very good or upgraded cavalry.
If you want to use your hoplites to hold the enemy always engage them in hoplite phalanx for that defensive bonus as well.
Quick question, what has your experience been with picked and thorax hoplites?

[Clockwork]

Thorax hoplites are just an upgrade of regular hoplites as far as I can see, Picked are too pricey for a battle line but they make a nice unit for refused flank if you want those peasants to hold a little longer.

[Tom]

I often find my trouble is that I take too many elite units and get outflanked or outmanoeuvred by a numerically superior foe. I always hear about making your armies cost effective and it seems that I'm struggling to do that.