Rome Total War 2 looking likely!

Setting, scale, and diversity.

I also really like the way it limits units and agents. I love the province system as well.

But it sounds like you’re not into it, so by all means, skip it.

Is “setting” really better than in Shogun 2? Shogun 2 was very good in the atmosphere created by the map, the descriptions, the music, the ui, the agents, etc. It really nailed the setting.

I didn’t mean that they necessarily did a better job with Rome, just that I’m more interested in the Rome setting.

It’s one of those series that I convince myself that THIS time I’ll like it more than the last one, even though my brain knows that its the basic gameplay that I tire of. I really like the initial battles with a small amount of units, but like 20% into a campaign I’ve had enough. I have less complaints about the strategic side, but if I just want to start autoresolving everything it kind of defeats the point of the series :-). Especially since if I just want the strategy part there are probably better options out there.

I downloaded it for the free to play weekend, but I keep playing Endless Legend :-)

Yeah, i don’t think think one is as good with setting by far. But then again that would be impossible given the breath of the game. It encompasses a geography with multiple cultures and art styles.

However, the map makes a great job of making very region feel very different strategically, and the very different units by faction also make for a more varied and less stale experience than vanilla Shogun (fall of the Samurai is a sequel, like Attila, in all but name)

The scale is totally different from Shogun 2 to Rome 2. There is an incredible amount of diversity in terrain, factions, units, buildings, strengths/weaknesses and strategies from one edge of the Rome 2 map to the other. The thing that was holding the game back previously was that in all that grand scale they lost sight of the base gameplay a little bit, that and it was buggy as hell on release.

Much of that is fixed now, and if you liked the original Rome then this game will win you over as well. No need to buy today at full price though. The game has been on sale for around $20 multiple times in recent months, and should see that price point at least a couple of more times before Christmas through Steam, Amazon, GMG and other outlets.

It’s too bad this isn’t on sale during the Total War Steam sale.

Thanks! I’ll try to give it a go during this free to play weekend.

Agents are too powerful. AI still doesn’t really know how to do sieges. Pathfinding in sieges is still broken. Siege maps are awful and a serious step backward. All battle maps feel too small with very little variability. Campaign map movement is too fast. Naval battles don’t work (ram ram ram). Game bogs down into minutaie too quickly when it comes to settlement management. Politics is pretty awful and utterly pointless.

Much more but that’s just off the top of my head. Just played it for the first time last week, first game as Rome on Hard/Hard. Coming from shogun 2 I find it a lesser game in every way.

Going to try the DeI mod before uninstalling but don’t have much hope.

To each his own. I find the siege AI the best yet by far in a Total War game, much better than Shogun 2 (where you could rolfstomp 12 units with 2). Battle maps are good and varied, imho, specially if you play with seasons, and campaign map movement is decent in the smaller campaigns. The campaign maps are waaay better than Shogun 2 (much more varied and strategic). However, a lot of this is because the grand Campaign is, as people above say, a little too grand and it loses detail and focus. I think the game is best when playing any of the other campaigns.

And I find settlement/province management a huge improvement and much less micro managy.

But naval battles do suck. No contention there.

There are many YouTube videos showing how bad the AI is at sieges. Certainly worse than Rome or Shogun 2 (not sure what version of S2 you were playing where 2 units could beat 12, Shogun 2 siege AI is very good at multiple assaults and flanking during sieges - something R2’s AI never does). You also can’t move units on/off the walls after battles start, the pathfinding just gets confused and runs in circles.

Everyone recommends just auto resolving sieges.

I don’t. Sieges are a LOT better now than they have been in any previous Total WAr game I ever played. I can get off the walls fine during sieges. I did this recently in Rome actually, when the enemy decided to send a small force all the way around back and attack me there, while attacking with a larger force from the front. i.e. flanking.

I used to be the biggest denouncer of this game, but there is a lot to like now, if you like the Total War games. I never got into Shogun 2 (Because of the setting) and probalby only have about 40 hours in it, but Rome 2 I have over 100 hours in by now and its been rather fun lately.

edit: That was 200 hours I see - not 100 in Rome 2.

Yes, the siege AI was abysmal, but the (very) recent patches have made wonders! I suspect those videos are either old or made trying to break the AI (which is possible, of course, since they do follow more or less predictable scripts).

Shogun’s 2 siege AI was worse but they sidestepped the issue with the castle wall design. When unit can just surround the castle and charge up the walls, it’s easier to make it non ridiculous. So it looked better (less pathfinding issues), but actually was really bad at reading the battlefield.

Poor elephants are still getting chewed up in autoresolve. I don’t know if they are trying to fly off cliffs while grasping a feather after one amphora of wine too many or something. This makes me very sad.

Horsies get chewed up too. It’s pretty annoying to wait 4 turns to heal up the horsies while the rest of the army is at 98%. I’ve been bringing an empty army behind just to heal these guys up while the main army keeps moving.

Also, found an issue/bug with diplomacy. The relations do not get refreshed between actions. You must exit back to diplomacy screen and reenter it to see new effects. Tested.

Example - you sign a NAP, try to sign trade agreement. Does not accept.
You sign a NAP. Exit. Try again. Now it is a green face and they accept

I’ve only played since Patch 15 (Emperor Edition?) and have yet to have a single decent siege battle throughout a military victory campaign as Rome. I’ll FRAPS the pathfinding issue later just to show how broken it is but this search should show how ubiquitous the issue is.

Essentially, units don’t know how to use the stairs to get on/off walls. If I have a unit on the walls and tell it to move off, it will run up and down the wall for a while before just stopping. Occasionally a few troops will drift down the stairs but the rest will remain on top. The same happens in reverse. I can manage to get them on/off most of the time by spending 30 seconds clicking until they finally come down, but that’s not playable.

You keep saying the S2 siege AI was worse but haven’t actually explained how. Sure the not having battlements was sidestepping issues with pathfinding, the point is it worked successfully whereas R2 is and always has been just broken. How is it bad at reading the battlefield? How is R2 better? Any siege in R2 follows a three step script;

  1. Use artillery to knock out towers and open holes in the wall
  2. Use siege equipment
  3. Once siege equipment is used units finally start to advance.

Even with the latest patches, if siege equipment gets stuck on terrain for whatever reason - the siege AI completely breaks. It also never seems to try to flank with siege equipment or open up multiple fronts which is something that happened in Rome 1, never mind the sequels.

Indeed even in battle AI where I’ve faced 3 whole stacks with just my 1 defending, the reinforcing stacks coming in at my sides never tries to flank or attack from behind - it always tries to join up with the original army before attacking.

My last Shogun 2 campaign was FOTS Legendary with no Minimap, I was surprised by reinforcing attacks from the rear many times.

I’ve noticed the same, the Ai is paranoid about getting defeated piecemeal. As for siege, sometimes I think it’s map dependant. I’ve seen the Ai siege very well compared, it will send a lot of troops over, however in shogun the Ai would dismount its horse to join the fray, no such thing here.

Last I think the sheer amount of units compared with shogun might have been the issue

I took this for a spin during the free to play weekend. Boy the campaign map looks nice. I love the choke points, ambushes, the way the ZOC works on the campaign map. I played a bit of the Prelude. I have all of the coastal cities and it’s time to push inward. I made one attempt at the first enemy city off of the coast and was outnumbered so I had to pull back. That’s when I set an ambush to thin out their numbers.

The camera during the battles seems like it should be able to go higher. So often it was a pain to get the camera how I want to, or I was just unable to do so. In the mountains it was especially problematic, sometimes going just barely above my troops. It was also a pain to position the camera when the troops were in the forest. I don’t know why, but I just find the battles tedious.

It also would have been nice if the Prelude spent more time explaining how the systems work - food, public order, map resources, building, etc. Even though I’ve played many of the TW games before I kind of forgot how it all works.

Playing a Britannia game, early days. First siege, send two ladders. Both make it to the wall, but one unit just sits at the base of the ladder and won’t climb it while the second one starts to climb. The ladder now doesn’t exist as far as pathfinding/AI is concerned, despite being undamaged and against the wall. 60 seconds later, the unit just starts climbing the ladder and makes it to the wall.

I also dislike forest fights. Can’t see squat.

BTW to use deployables right drag.

One thing that drives me crazy is whenever I press the middle mouse button to rotate during a battle, the camera moves down a few feet towards the ground. Is there a way to fix this?