IS there a guide on how things have changed? Especially politics and buildings?
Has anyone else experienced that now everything is just blurry?
Not me.
Yeah, looks good to me.
Yay - a problem just for me! :-)
Have you tried deselecting the option marked “Blurred in Denmark”?
Razgon,
I did see some mention of this when the game came out originally. Many people seemed to be able to fix it by tweaking graphics settings and/or resolutions. I also have to ask, when was the last time you updated your graphics card drivers?
That’s a good question - I turned off the NVIDIA auto thingie since it claimed all my disc resources on occasion for no reason, so its probably been a month or two since I did so last - thanks for the suggestion!
Don’t do it some have problemd with latest nvidia. Research first.
Okay I got enough hours with the Emperor edition to write some tips to ease back in. Please excuse the formatting because I am on mobile.
Province: press 2 for details. This is where you can disable tax for an individual province.
Some factions can recruit very cheap mobs from slums. This is semi exploity because they make for a cheap garrison for unrest purposes.
Agents:
At the bottom is the “passive” skill. This is where you activate dignitary tax boost. It is not reflected on province income data so I am unsure if it is bugged.
Agent skills have a tree. For spies the poison tree may be most useful. I am unsure on when you slow and when you halt the enemy. Does not seem to be feedback.
Revolts are at -100 order. They appear in a random province. They pick up strength the longer you leave them alone.
Hoplites and pikemen. Do not attack with them. Deploy pike formation then “push” troops. Do this by control clicking the group so they stay more or less in formation.
Slingers and archers can shoot behind ranks. Friendly fire seems to be minimal. Shooting flanks and rear is of course better.
You can now only build a shield and blacksmith in special provinces with iron. There are not many: Egypt starts with one. There is one around Macedon. There is one around France. I have not explored Germany or Asia much.
Ballista can be abused same as in shogun. Use the superior range to force the ai to attack your anvil even when you are the attacker.
Rear attacks no longer cause an instant route.
Elephants still possess ridiculously fun charges.
Generals unlock various clicky abilities depending on stats. Authority helps influence radius. Zeal increases troop strength. Cunning drops upkeep.
Foot archers beat horse archers.
Wisefool (or anyone) if you figure out how diplomacy works in depth and civil ware please feel free to write a loooong post :)
I second that request. Id like a deep understanding of empire politics especially preparing for and dealing with a civil war.
No idea about civil war. It is strange and possibly buggy.
Diplomacy is simple on normal. Treat it like civ 5 diplomacy. Find a good target and join the war or bribe others to join in. Note this can be a fake war. You are just declaring to get good boost with their enemies.
Early on NAPs cost about 500 while trade seems to cost 1000ish
Joining a war via an allied request is exploity because you can bypass naps or trade agreement timeouts.
Woops I didn’t mean diplomacy I meant “politics”. The political tabs look like a bunch of gibberish to me.
Wow, I had no idea they actually fixed this game. Loaded it up last night, and everything was so much better. Campaign map framerate isn’t stuttering all over the place, load times are much improved, battle AI seems better…
Now I’m actually going to play this for real.
So, I have a few questions:
First of all, how are you supposed to manage the new “region” system? Should I make one region’s 4 cities all work together to produce one single thing… be it commerce, food, or military? Like make the region with Rome as the capital have all military improvements, and put all food-generation improvements in the southern region? Or should I be mixing them up a bit?
Looks like it’s bugged. Writer is from CA.
You need to hit Imperium level 5 before civil wars are possible. Any increases beyond that will increases the base chance of civil war per turn. You also need at least 70% influence in a 2 party faction, or at least 50% influence in a 4 party faction.
Even with 100% party influence you won’t (/shouldn’t!) be getting civil wars at Imperium 4 or lower.
Bonuses are province-wide, so in general it’s good to focus (i.e., a lot of the bonuses are +5% to commerce/agricultural/industrial/etc. income – so the more income of that type you have the better the bonus). You have to balance this with the general need for food and military. Provinces now have unique resources as well – so build your blacksmiths and military centers in regions with metals that increase your soldier’s power, that kind of thing. I like the system a lot.
Yes, the new system combined with special buildings that take advantage means that you should be more carefully considering your choices per region. In the starting region for Rome for example you gain wine as one of the resources early on. This opens up a couple of really nice building options that add significant bonuses to both commerce and public order (wine makes people happy!). As Giaddon mentions, find and control regions that have metal resources and you’ll see new options open up for buildings that produce significant upgrades in weapons and armor. Even units not produced within the region can be upgraded there. Squalor had been toned down a bit too, as second tier buildings now have a cost in food instead, and the third tier buildings don’t have quite the huge squalor hit to public order that they used to. The end result is that food producing buildings and regions are far more useful now as they not only effect population growth, but now factor into construction costs as well. Overall the system is much improved and far more rewarding to players who take the time to think things out.
I only put one of each type of military building I want in each region. By that I mean I may have 3 military buildings in 3 cities in a region, but each one produces a different set of units as they cover the entire region. That way armies passing through can recruit what they need. If regions are smaller and/or more densely packed in an area, I might even skip military construction for a region that is bordered by others where I have built already. Many of the new non-military buildings provide decent garrison troops, which means you can concentrate a city on economics or civics if you want, forgoing the need for military construction in every town.
Recruiting a single general in a decently-garrisoned town can be enough to fend off small assaults (even auto resolve, so I am not using exploity tactics).
Speaking of exploity tactics - pikemen are great now. While their stats are lower than a hoplite’s, the flexibility is great. You can charge pikemen into the cavalry, then deploy the pike formation afterwards. You can deploy them in thin, long ranks (3 deep) and STACK another unit on it. So you end up with 4 units of pikemen with 6 deep formation, but you’ve doubled the pike density and morale absorption. Tried it a couple of times defending chokepoints, those guys do not die. They will hold off an entire army while you shoot some projectiles and wait for them to rout.
Grand campaign is still too grand thought. I’ve been ending games and trying another faction when I get to a certain power point. Doesn’t help that the civil wars are weird now.
I haven’t tried the new campaign because you start off big already. I like to start small and boom out.
They’ve improved a lot. Interface still has some issues (for example, construction window should remain open while you go through different places. this worked fine in Shogun 2.)
Does Rome 2 do anything better than Shogun 2 does, other than the setting? Shogun 2 has sat unplayed in my backlog for quite some time since I tend to tire of Total War games rather quickly. I have no plans to pick this up anytime soon. I’d need a big price drop to consider and if it doesn’t improve upon anything in Shogun 2 there probably isn’t any point - although I would prefer the setting in Rome.