Well,.its not something I will spend much time arguing as I realize Im very biased in evertthing related to this game. Anyways, just happy people enjoy it and this thread has made me reinstall the game to see for myself how it is these days.
I’ve been spending time with the latest patch, and I’m still having a lot of problems with sieges. I’m constantly having units walk through walls instead of up stairs or the enemy stop after bursting through. For the latter, depending on the city (so far it seems that things get worse the larger the city) the enemy will burst through the gates, gather somewhere near a flag, and just sit there. I would autoresolve these, but the AI is absolutely terrible at managing them. I’ll end up with 50% of my forces by letting the computer handle it, or I can sit through the fight at maximum speed and watch as the enemy gets shot to pieces. I’ve only had two instances where following squads used the ladders, which means that the rest of the army sits further out but within tower range and lets two or three forward squads toss torches. I’m having an insane amount of slave revolts as Carthage, too, which means I am fighting sieges all the time. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’ve stopped taking slaves, upped all buildings to increase happiness, but it’s constantly occurring. I’ve beaten the game as Epirus and Seleucids and had maybe two in both campaigns combined.
Go for it, Caesar in Gaul is much better than the main campaign IMO. You get the shorter campaign with seasons and weather effects, a new tech tree split into normal techs and instant unlocks you buy with gold and a rebalanced unit roster.
Playing the Romans you can no longer afford to steam roll everything with heavy infantry but have to actually field cheaper auxiliary troops now. Terrain and infrastructure play a bigger role too, movement in regions without roads is slow and attrition during winter is harsh. City garrisons are larger, barbarian factions can sack settlements without occupying them and diplomacy is more important because you can’t defend everywhere at once while also waging an offensive campaign.
I find it hilarious that after all these games they still can’t get raids correct. I used to adore the series and haven’t even considering picking this up yet. And I loved RTW. Meh
So based on comments of others (that aren’t even all negative) you’ve decided to not even try it, and you then blame the game? I seriously don’t get that, especially if you loved RTW. Because despite all it’s flawes this is still a very nice game, very much alike RTW, and definitely worth playing (if not for the full price). As long as you don’t get your expactations up way to high like we did back at release, you really can’t go wrong IMO. And we couldn’t help getting our expactations up, what with the promises they made before release, but you don’t have that excuse…
Thanks, zombo. Sounds really interesting. More localized, smaller scale, more difficult, more options, 24 turns per year. Hmm, I am definitely interested.
Although $15 is not that much, I will still wait for some kind of sale though.
I’ll get it eventually, but they carry over the same issues from even the first few games which I think is sad. I don’t think a single one of their games has been able to handle sieges well.
I had a couple good sieges in Shogun 2–the AI would basically just storm the walls, but since there was generally pretty little siege weaponry that’s pretty much all there is to it. Sometimes they would get beaten off, sometimes they would win, and a couple times it ended up being pretty close and exciting. But except for those times it was always determined by the numbers. It was also pretty rare to upgrade to the more extensive castles (or to have assaults happen to them, at any rate), so the smallness of the fortifications helped to AI handle it, I don’t doubt.
But most of the time it was pretty lopsided, because that was just how the strategic situation played out.
Simply removing walls from 75% of Rome 2’s cities was a pretty good solution, but walled sieges are still big trouble.
True. And it would be great if they improve on this. But out of curiosity: did anyone else ever manage to make a game that got this aspect right? Stuff like Stronghold (never played it) perhaps? Or is good siege AI simply still a (moat-)bridge to far?
I think I need to play Medieval 2 again, because I distinctly remember being trounced in sieges there. Perhaps I just didn’t understand the game well enough (I never understand game mechanics well before reading about them, I just play the game) to be able to do well?
Does anyone really LIKE the city battles in wall-less cities? I mean, its annoying having to be defender in them both because there is no space to set up, and because half the time the AI just does stupid things like attacking with melee and leaving its slingers behind until all melee units are dead. The other half of the time, they have units that make straigth beelines for the victory points, and tries to go through my units.
Field battles are still fun, and as a defender the AI is competent I find and thats fun!
That’s the thing I find puzzling. Fighting sieges and city battles IS NOT FUN. It has never been and it will never be. City (wall-less) battles are not even realistic. Not only they are not fun, they are also extremely difficult to implement in a computer game.
And yet Total War series insists on implementing them. Poorly. Instead of working on improving/enhancing the fun part - field battles. It’s probably some kind of masochistic fetish. :)
There is the “sally forth” option when defending cities, allowing you to fight a field battle instead. Sometimes the computer chooses it. But I agree, until CA can make city battles as interesting as field battles, just push battles to the outskirts of the city. Adding the garrison army does a fine job adding to the difficulty of taking a city.
Things are heating up nicely in my Icinin campaign. I’ve swept into Italia, pillaging and looting like the barbarian chieftain I am. Unfortunately, this has incensed the Hellenic cultures, and the powerful forces of Sparta and Athens have declared war on me, launching assaults across the Adriatic. In the north, My eastern barbarian friends have been swept aside where another Hellenic state (b-something?) pushes into the underdefended heart of my mainland empire. I’m hoping half the forces I sent to deliver the killing blow to the Romans can succeed, because I’m retreating the other half to defense. And hope my enemies never send anyone to Britain itself, because they’ll find a sprawling economic network defended by two shepherds and a goat named Randy.
OK I don’t have Rome 2 yet, but I am still playing Medieval 2 and it does walled sieges fine. The defenders assume good positions on the walls. The Attackers have to scale ladders, or seige towers, or battering rams. Oil is dumped. Only thing that is hard is you have to be careful sometimes about pathfinding. Being the attacker is appropriately difficult, and you can expect to need a army advantage of 2 or 3 to 1. I like the seige battles!
Thank you! that is exactly what I’m talking about. Walled sieges were better in Rome 1 and Medieval 2 than here.
well, it’s puzzling they can’t achieve the same quality in RTW2 then. Could it be that the different wallstructure plays a part in this? (assuming the walls in Medieval 2 are higher and stronger then the Roman ones? I don’t really know, somehow I never played Medieval 2…).
Anyhow: I wouldnt mind if they would stick to fieldbattles only. I tend to autoresolve sieges whenever I can…
And Giaddon: never underestimate a goat, especially when it’s named Randy…
So, its been a while since I Ranted about this game, but its time to do so again, but with a somewhat different slant. CA have released a number of updates, and a few DLC’s. The latest DLC, Ceasar in Gaul, changes the game by adding Seasons and letting a turn last longer than a year, namely 3 months instead. A lot of people were upset about this, because the seasons weren’t a part of the main campaign and CA refused to add it.
Now, CA has released a new DLC I havent bought yet, Hannibal at the Gates, about the 2nd punic war. At the same time, they released an update which added not only seasons to the main campaign game, and a number of AI fixes (Sieges in particular), but also 8 new wonders both to the main campaign map and to the battlemaps. They also changed city battles to no longer be about victory points, but those adds morale instead, which is FRIGGING AWESOME!
So, where are we now? If CA had released the game in the state it is now, I would have been very happy with it, and if people are looking for a new CA game to purchase, this is actually now worth it, and lot of fun.
The Ceasar in Gaul campaign is brutal, but also pretty damn nice, and I heartily recommend it. At the same time the modding scene has released some awesome mods, amongst those making a year in the main campaing last 4 turns instead of one, allowing you to have your generals longer, which was a big issue when the game released.
All in all, this is actually a fun game now. CA has followed its proud traditions and released the game 6 months early.
Time to reinstall.
Thanks for the update. This is in my “wait a year or two, and it’ll eventually be great” pile. That’s an awfully big pile, sadly.
Are any of the DLC’s needed to make the main game good? I hear good things about the Caeser in Gaul campaign, but I’m more inclined to stick to the base game and see how that goes, before spending any more on this.
They aren’t needed no, but some might like the tighter direction of them, as the goals are more clearly defined.