Rome 2 released!

[Will]

Anyone else got it? My computer shuts down every 30 minutes because the PSU fan is not working, but I can still see the beauty in this game! I'd like to hear what other people think since my experience has been limited by a broken PC. Have only completed a few prologue campaign battles.

I think it is living up to the hype, and there was no great shortage of that.

[Clockwork]

Weird, I've had no problems on my fairly mediocre rig and all settings on Extreme with 8x anaikofjaidfuhaosgh filtering. Runs alright on x16 but I take fps hit every time theres a clash in the middle of the field.

I think that it's amazing! The political side is so much more in depth, the unit management is such a step up. However the UI especially for buildings is armadilloe, it takes a while to actually knw what you're building and what benefits it has. You need to keep refering to the encyclopaedia to see which buildings produce units...It's a mess. once you've figured that out though, it becomes an amazing game.

Still hoping for a minotaurs/cyclopes DLC...

[comrade_general]

Are there warpigs?

[Will]

Weird, I've had no problems on my fairly mediocre rig and all settings on Extreme with 8x anaikofjaidfuhaosgh filtering. Runs alright on x16 but I take fps hit every time theres a clash in the middle of the field.

I think that it's amazing! The political side is so much more in depth, the unit management is such a step up. However the UI especially for buildings is armadilloe, it takes a while to actually knw what you're building and what benefits it has. You need to keep refering to the encyclopaedia to see which buildings produce units...It's a mess. once you've figured that out though, it becomes an amazing game.

Still hoping for a minotaurs/cyclopes DLC...

Oh the crashing is just my computer, nothing to do with the game at all. It has been borked for a year, but I got Rome 2 because HELL IT IS ROME 2! I'm running the game fine but my computer overheats and crashes or just crashes and crashes.

The graphics are gorgeous though, and generally the battles feel right. I agree on the buildings though.

[Skull]

What about the unit cards?
And the UI in general?

[Son of the King]

To say the minimum requirements are similar to Shogun, my computer sure struggles to run it . I can only play on low or medium (depending on what seems to be random luck of how the game feels like running at any given point in time), rather than high on Shogun. I'm also not a fan of the unit cards, they are ugly and not great for glancing at to see what you have.

In fact, the whole UI in general is bad. Information is hidden in expanding boxes at best, or hidden in the encyclopedia in the case of trying to figure out what buildings do. I also still do not like the building system that has carried over from Shogun, that is the one extra building type per settlement size thing. However, my frustrations at this from Shogun are alleviated somewhat by the up to 4 regions = 1 province thing. Basically up to four regions (and therefore settlements) make up a province. Public order, building effects, recruitment etc. is on a province-wide basis, and all of the settlements in a province can be seen and expanded/constructed in on one interface, which lets you decide how to specialise each town to make the province run smoothly easily. A vast improvement on Shogun, where having to specialise each town individually frustrated me no end.

Another thing with recruitment is that it is done via generals now, rather than by cities. This was odd to me at first, but now feels natural and a good change. Units also replenish over time while in friendly territory, which is nice too. The army stances seem interesting, although I've not put them to much use yet. However, I have one huge issue with the units side of things. Each army must be lead by a general. And there is a limit on how many generals you can have. I hated this in Imperial Glory, and I hate it here too. Not only does it have the obvious implications of needing to have a small number of large armies on your frontiers rather than lots of smaller forces on the move to defend strategic points, it makes rearranging your forces between armies a lot more tedious, to the level of barely seeming worth it, and more worthwhile to just train new units instead.

Upon clicking the end turn button, another problem rears its head. I am forced to sit a good 2-5 minutes between turns once a campaign gets going a little. When you are in a consolidation phase of "set some things building/training->end turn multiple times" this is horrible. Then the campaign map camera starts throwing itself around and changing orientation to follow the opponent turns, leaving you with little idea where it is actually looking in relation to your lands (at least at a glance). This mixed with the vast size of the map (not really a bad thing, although the zoom is so limited a good overview is difficult to get outside of the "tactical view", which is effectively an expanded minimap) make it easy to get lost. Not to mention all the weather effects causing random fps slowdowns as a particularly big cloud floats across screen.

As far as I can see, the reason for this huge time between turns is the sheer number of factions in the game. That is, almost every region in barbarian lands is owned by a different tribe, each represented by a unique (in name at least) faction. Great, you would think. Except of this ocean of factions, a raindrop's worth are actually playable. Obviously there is Rome, wherein you choose which of 3 families to head in the in-faction politics. Carthage is similar in this set up with the politics as well. There are then the Iceni (for Britannia), the Aedui (for Gaul) and the Suebi (for Germania). Two eastern factions and two successor kingdoms (Macedon and Egypt) make up the rest of the core game's lineup. You can play as 3 of the numerous Greek City States for the extra price of the Greek Factions DLC (£5.99). This is a decently wide spread across the cultures in the game, but why can I not play as say the Etruscan League and try to reverse the history books by eliminating Rome instead of vice-versa? Where are the Selucids? (coming in DLC soon I think). Why not add some of the many barbarian factions/tribes to the playable list, and add a bit of variety between them? Otherwise it feels the same as fighting one large faction (ie Rome's Gaul) but with the added annoyance of long turn waiting and having to negotiate diplomatic treaties with each settlement...

I can get past the annoying changes, I can mostly get over having to pay for DLC to unlock factions, but a release with the number of graphical glitches and other bugs this game has is not good. The crazy amount of texture pop in is annoying too. I'm sure after a few patches there will be a good game here, but it will not ever be as good as the original. I hope it is very moddable.

[Dunadd]

First two times i tried playing it i got so pissed off with how hard it was to work out what the buttons did that i switched it off. You really have to play the prologue campaign to understand how it works, because the icons don't look enough like the thing they're meant to be the way they mostly did in the original Rome Total War.

Unit cards are annoyingly slow to load the first time you go to look at one, but slightly less slow after that.

I played as Carthaginians twice and there are some improvements compared to the original Rome. If one of your cities is attacked it automatically raises a militia and levy garrison which has a size and composition based on what military buildings you have in it.

You can move armies by sea without building ships to represent commandeering merchant vessels as transport ships (the problem being that if it's a big army it can beat warships, which it shouldn't be able to - should get sunk by warships automatically as in Rome I with transports).

The biggest problem is that each city gets only one or two building slots for each size level it has - so you end up having to choose to build certain buildings, you can never build the whole range in ever city. This seems unnecessarily limited. And if it's possible to build city walls i never got the technology or buildings needed.

The technology tree is not bad - there are different tech advances available for each of the four types of faction (Roman, Hellenistic, Eastern and Barbarian) and a lot of buildings require both other buildings built first and technology - and the buildings available are different for the four types too.

I found the limited numbers of buildings per size level of the settlement made it almost impossible as Carthage. Build military buildings to get good garrisons and armies? You run out of food and your armies and people starve and lose people and soldiers. Build food production buildings? You're well fed but your small armies get massacred and enemy armies take your settlements.

Characters get only 3 or 4 retinue members each (courtesans, mercenary captains etc) which seems a very small number.

I think there may be a multi-player campaign though i've never checked properly. I'm wondering if the limited numbers of buildings and retinue sizes are to do with that?

There are far too many factions and many of them were nowhere historically.

Playing as Carthage it very annoyingly only gives you 4 settlements at the start and gives all the rest to 'Libya' and 'Nova Carthago' - AI factions which are Carthage's client states. In practice all this gives you is an alliance and trade rights with them. You can demand money from them but they'll tell you to sod off, though they will declare war on anyone who declares war on you.

Maybe if they gave Carthage control of more starting cities and took out the stupid AI client state allies in a mod it would be possible to win as Carthage.

The graphic, which were supposedly going to be amazing look considerably worse on my laptop which is less than a year old and high spec with a high end graphics card. In graphics options Rome II won't let me set graphics quality higher than Medium. Everything is also very very dark in battles - don't know if this is some copy Europa Barbarorum thing - liked EB but never understood why turning the brightness way down in it was supposedly "more realistic". It's often pretty sunny in the Mediterranean and it was in 272BC too.

[Son of the King]

Yeah, I tried Carthage too and had the same issue. With Rome however the limited building options are less frustrating due to the speed with which you can unify a couple of provinces. It mostly seems pretty unbalanced against widely spread factions.

I have a similar problem with the graphics, I find that Rome on max settings is more aesthetically pleasing than this on low ish settings, simply because it is brighter and far less washed out. I had a similar issue with my old laptop and Medieval 2, and as I enjoy the battle mechanics and it feels good except the washed out graphics and sometime frame rate issues I am hopeful that when I get a new computer it will be better, as Medieval 2 was.

[Dunadd]

If the Carthage "client states" Libya and Nova Carthago's cities were made either Carthaginian or neutral as they were historically it would be entirely possible to play Carthage, if still tricky - they make it impossible to expand without going to war on your allies. Putting them in has turned Carthage from the major faction it should be into a minor player that stands little or no chance.

[Dunadd]

I thought initially that i just hadn't worked out yet how to vary taxes in individual cities or provinces, but no the Advisor helpfully explains that taxes can't be set on a city or province level but only on a faction-wide level. WTF? Who thought this was a good idea? Does it make the game more fun to play? No. Does it make it more interesting? No. Is it historically accurate? No.

[Dunadd]

In battles there's no longer any way to make a unit's formation deeper or wider, no way to wheel it left or right. Can't believe how many steps backward Rome II has taken compared to Rome I. About the only really big improvement is the automatic raising of militia garrisons when a settlement is attacked. Everything else just seems to be inferior to the original - ten steps backward for each step forward. Was hoping that if i tried harder i would come to enjoy the game but it's just an inferior game - will go back to Rome I mods and EBII when it comes out.

[Son of the King]

Taxes are stupid now, I agree. My main problem with unit movement in battle is the lack of wheeling around and also the way that right clicking with everything selected just moves it into a stupid straight line... But that was in Shogun also iirc.

[Dunadd]

Apparently you can change unit depth/width in battles by hovering the left mouse over a unit and using the + and - keys  - but i only know because someone replied to my post on the Total War Center forums - and i don't see why there aren't buttons for it like there were in Rome I.

EDIT actually you can wheel units left and right using CTRL along with Home and End or left and right arrow, strafe them left or right by not using CTRL - and change depth/width by using CTRL along with Page Up and Page Down or left and right arrows.

You have to go to the main total war screen, then Options, then Controls to find this out - no mention of how to do either in the manual or encyclopedia at all.

[Skull]

I'm also not a fan of the unit cards, they are ugly and not great for glancing at to see what you have.

They look like they were made by a 6 year old.

[Dunadd]

yeah i don't like the unit cards at all - very poor and take far too long to load when looking at them. Makes it difficult to compare unit ratings.

Another thing i dislike about Rome II is the music, which is just mediocre and way inferior to the original Rome Total War music. It doesn't change as much according to what's happening in a battle as the original did either.

There don't seem to be any sounds of marching feet or horses neighing or hoofbeats when units move either, nor do elephants trumpet.

This all really damages the atmosphere of the game and makes it kind of dull.

The combat animations are also very poor. Makes troops look more like they are trying to shoulder their way through a crowd than fight.

Hoping modders will improve on all this eventually. I've tried very hard to like Rome II and keep playing it only to just switch it off because it's so dull, buggy and annoying. Hopefully mods will be great in the end though.