Impressions of the game [v.2] (Total War: Rome 2)

The game is a stub. Spartan proverb.

GyJIeBeR
"Patientia sit virtus" - Patience is a virtue.
Roman proverb.

the one who knows how to wait wins!

Sir.Rumata
But peacefully, do not become personal, everyone has a subjective opinion and everyone has the right to count as he wants.

And Mona peacefully become personal?

Sir.Rumata Please
rename the subject to "Battle proverb" lol

Contra spem spero! - Hopefully contrary to hope.
Dum spiro, spero. While I breathe I hope.
Latin sayings.

So far, the impressions are more negative, but I really hope that all the shortcomings will definitely be corrected. I will not write about optimization, so the floor of the forum prevails over it.

1) I do not understand why diplomacy was introduced at all, no one has ever accepted any of my proposals. But some comrades who are on the brink of destruction offer to make peace and even pay them for it ... well, what kind of nonsense is a drug addict?
2) Go ahead, any commander with an army can easily board ships without any problems, as if he had a magic wand in his pocket - he waved and immediately there were combat and cargo ships. It would be logical to do the following - to give the opportunity to cross water areas only in those places where there are docks and the most important tree (that is, a forest should grow nearby). And all this should be spent several moves at least.
3) The rapidly aging and dying commanders, this is generally a misfortune - you swing it, and then bam and you notice that Grandpa is already 74 years old ...
4) I didn't like sea battles at all, I don't even know why, just boring.
5) Building system - I just hate it, as well as balancing food and sewage.

Otherwise, everything seems to be tolerable, it is interesting to play, the game is addictive, the graphics do not care, even if there are at least circles with squares fighting.

There was no need to close the old topic. It is impossible to interrupt such heated debates.
And according to the subject: The game is 7.5 out of 10.

TouchTheSky
Well, give only to cross the path through the port of the city, ie, through the docks, no?

at the expense of diplomacy, I have a trade, I play on the third move, they already agree

Lord Vivec
no

My opinion

MINUSES:

1. There are no pictures of units and buildings when creating them. It has always been in Rome. The tablets are somehow clumsy now.
2. There is no normal description of units and buildings. There were good descriptions before. You could just copy.
3. The transformation of legions and other armies into ships. This is no comment.
4. Reduced diplomacy in comparison with the past Rome.
5. There is not really a variety of buildings and, in general, the construction line is very simplified and very rigid. There is no space for creativity.
6. Abolition of governors in provinces and cities. This is generally against the very history of Rome.
7. Limiting the number of legions tied to mythical empires !!! Not for food, supplies, weapons, money, but for the EMPIRE !!! This is complete stupidity, to say the least. Apparently Julius Caesar saved up empires in his time to create legions ...
8. There is no change of seasons
9. Dumb artificial intelligence (I can cope with it very simply, it was more difficult before)
10. Fast battles, opponents are very unstable, losses: both legions and the opponents carry very large and very fast, there is no sense of the scale of what is happening
11. Hellish shooting units that cut a HUGE number of units
12. Poor balance of discontent / happiness and an unbalanced food supply structure
13. It is not possible to influence the growth of cities, and you can not see what, in principle, the construction in the city can build, until all snesesh ...
14. There is no sense to pump generals
15. No tree heirs
16 ports, farms, municipalities and barracks, so .e. just that which brings food and order brings discontent. Quite ambiguous.
17. CONSTANTLY METHODOLOGICAL DRIPPING OF KEY HISTORICAL FRACTIONS WITH ALL OBSERVATIONS
18. Apparently the Senate is not particularly needed
19. Videos and historical moments have almost disappeared (before there were different discoveries, reforms)
20. Unoptimized game engine! I have a VERY powerful computer, but it still sometimes dulls at full maximum.
21. Setting fire to gates in cities during the assault
22. Sieges are not needed at all now (and this is in ancient times then?)

PROS:

1. Graphics made a step forward
2. Naval battles

CONCLUSION:

THE GAME TAKE A BIG STEP BACK I HAVE ALREADY REMOVED IT.

Partner001 I will
slightly add to the list.

Cons:

1) Empty global map. I was waiting for an analogue of the Empire, dotted with a bunch of villages, fishing marinas, farms and all kinds of buildings that could be developed. Those. on the move, it took much more time to tinker with your state. Rome 2 doesn't have all of this. Wildly simplified management, stupidly destroy everyone and everything - there is nothing more to do.
2) Removed the possibility of building roads.
3) Spam AI agents. Freezes terribly.
4) Diplomacy. If you correct it and add a couple of points, it will be good. There is really a lot of nonsense now. In the first Rome, diplomacy did not work at all. Anyone could make an alliance with you, and attack on the next turn. Making someone a protectorate is not realistic at all. Immediately, it has already turned out more than once.
5) Here is my personal opinion: - I expected to see 4 factions of the Romans, as in 1 part (Senate and 3 families). As if the choice of a family is at the very beginning. In principle, you can omit this point, but let it be.
6) Differences in factions belonging to the same culture are minimal. Or maybe not at all ...
7) Obviously, the playable nations did not have time to cut it, or they were stupidly cut out for sale in the form of DLC.

Pros:

1) When the last city of the enemy is captured, it is possible to subjugate it, make it a protectorate (Not for all cultures. Tried for Rome and Carthage, did not work for barbarians).
2) Not endless spam squads, but named legions.
3) An interesting topic among the barbarians is the confederation. Unification of tribes of relatives by blood.
4) There are many different nations. Some even emerge over time.
5) Playing on a global network (I didn't play Shogun 2, so I don't know if this opportunity was there or not), but again it is wildly boring, because of the above-described disadvantages.
6) I liked the trick with your diplomatic authority. Playing for Rome, for the sake of interest, he violated all agreements with Syracuse, started a war and subdued this faction. On the next turn, my long-standing, respected partners broke off trade agreements with me. Then another, and another. Over time, the good name is restored if you behave well;)

1. A good balance of food / happiness / army. Although at the beginning of the game I was terribly enraged by the uprisings, then I realized that, like in other parts, it would not work to stupidly spam the army and download only military technologies.
2. Diplomacy has become better, the computer complies with non-aggression pacts, although not willingly but concludes trade agreements, in the previous parts the AI ​​could attack the next turn after the conclusion of the alliance.
-It is useless to take vassals, it does not work here, they stupidly ignore all instructions + after a few moves declare war themselves.
3. The computer on the battlefield has become smarter:
- tries to quickly take control points during the assault
- Doesn't get stupid at the gate, they burned and ran away (In the first Rome, the computer was terribly stupid during sieges, it was possible to fight off a full pack with a handful of archers)
-On the battlefield, it protects the flanks + uses the potential of the cavalry to the maximum, especially when I don't have it. (They hit my flanks, if the commander's detachment is not protected, they rush at him)
4.On the tactical map
-In the legend, the computer behaves more intelligently, does not attack if he himself is engaged in a war with neighbors, single-celled factions offer to conclude non-aggression pacts with major powers. In the same Shogun 2 on the legend, on the move 5-10 everyone threw their wars and they came at me from all over Japan, this is what they called "strengthening the AI" + in Rome 2 there is no that cheating when a power with 1 province has a full pack of elite warriors.
- I really liked the idea of ​​dividing provinces into villages-villages.
-AI agents cut out everything and everyone (a proprietary technique to cripple the commander and immediately attack with the army). I would have reduced the chance like that.
-There is no point in downloading the commander, all the same, Lags

and crits of the game will die quickly , but they will fix it.

In general, I liked the game (after 2 patches, the computer no longer runs for 2-3 minutes). It became more interesting compared to the rest of the parts.

I installed the first part with the Total Realism mod and take a break from simplifications.
- As many troops as I wish. Their content is not so catastrophic.
- Full of commanders, one for each city.
- A lot of all kinds of buildings available for construction without idiotic restrictions.
- The battles themselves are many times more epic and deeper (In the second Rome, everything happens too quickly. I didn't find any battles for more than 5 minutes. all losses occur as a result of the pursuit of the fleeing troops ...)
- There are no checkpoints, which are generally not clear why. Okay, there are points in cities, approx. But I ran into such a moment. My army was on the enemy territory and they were attacked. He put the army on a hill without noticing and leaving his flag. The enemy simply captured it and won along the way "supposedly" by destroying my commander and the army. WHo?
- Music. What music plays on the map of the first Rome ^^
- There are no such terrible branches of development.
In general, I see no reason to play the second one. Well, there are no pluses. Not in the graphics, not in the gameplay.

The release of the long-awaited Rome 2: Total Thief immediately caused a lot of emotions and sometimes not always unambiguous ... After downloading the pirate (I decided to play pirate first, then decide whether to take the game or not), I also experienced some confusion from the Mechanics. It seems that my favorite topic is antiquity, but ... somehow it’s not so. Well, yes, the count is already happy: nature is beautifully made, cities, open spaces for battles ... but, here are the models, (not all ... there are very interesting ones, for example - Gostats, Spartan heroes, Triarii ... but these are Triarii of the early period of the Republic ... but where is the second stage of evolution ?? But, everything in order ...
Stylization of strata. Maps - Immediately striking, more accurate and well-developed stratum. Map ... Now, it is no longer possible to land wherever you please! For this special places are allocated, more or less corresponding to the real - geographical! But even here it is not without jambs. The cities on it look extremely ridiculous, since their size, well, frankly, is not entirely adequate in scale in relation to the map on which they are located! (Apparently, the size of cities should compensate for the absence of other large cities in Italy). And this despite the fact that at the beginning of the company we have mostly small, not yet developed cities ... In my opinion, the number of cities has become much smaller. In my opinion, even in the first part, there were more of them. The logic of the developers is not clear and the distance of movement of armies is small. Also, for some reason I expected that they would leave such a counter - like fields and estates, destroying and plundering which you can put some pressure on the enemy. This is not ... Roads ... well, why not leave, as in the Empire and Napoleon, the importance of roads that can also be blocked to harm the enemy ... In general, everything is very relative ... but, unfortunately, there are fewer pluses than minuses. More precisely, almost nothing new has appeared, except for the animation of the construction of cities. The game interface is very inconvenient in terms of the location of buttons, icons and other junk, because they are terribly small ... The game is apparently designed for a large .... No, just a huge monitor, which I personally don't have at the moment. Models of soldiers on strat. The map is made and stylized in accordance with the faction you decide to play. Breaking the enemy or losing to him, you will see a mini duel of soldiers, symbolically representing your armies ... beautiful!
Sound accompaniment - The atmosphere that the singing and music gave to the first Rome, here you will not hear ... sadness ... Some units are not even fully voiced, which again yell in the manner of the American Marines "E Sir" ... terribly annoying! The game is raw, and you can feel it with your spinal cord. Again, I really liked the musical and sound accompaniment in fashion from Darius: "Wind of the East: Revival of Hellas."
Graphics - Well, here are the least complaints - the graphics pleases, of course - good! But ... personally, I expected something more from the SA. I have a laptop ... Draws to ultra ... yes, it is impressive, but the jambs and then follow the jambs of strata in a round dance. Cards. As a designer, I have noticed for a long time that CA has problems with high-quality textures ... I suppose they are just too lazy to deal with them, setting each one for a separate polygonal segment of the model. Textures are blurry and not of high quality, for example: You can see high-quality textures in the fashion of Roma Surrectum 2 ... Even then, three years ago, the picture from Roma Surrectum 2 was very similar to the new Rome 2 ...)) It's fun that SA, having such a budget , does everything as soon as possible. In my opinion, Segu was simply bred for loot by making a game on the engine of the Empire and Napoleon, it's obvious.
PS Want a joke ...))) Load the city of Rome in a custom battle ... Oh, but where is the Tiber, you ask .. And he flew into the sky ... The river bed is empty, and the river flows in the sky !!!! Shame ... what kind of deer you have to be to allow such shoals ... And at the same time, the graphics are pleasing. Not hopeless, at least.
Models: At the beginning of my discussion, I already tried to express my emotions and opinions on this aspect, I have every right as a specialist in the 3D community ... There are few, very few models, or it would be more correct to say - units, in the game (I hope so far) ... and not all of them are of very good quality. But there are models I especially liked ... Such as: Gastats, Triarii, Hoplites - veteran mercenaries, Horsemen, Allied cavalry, Heroes of Sparta, Gladiators with swords - Sekutors, Gladiators with spears, allies - extraordinars and some others ... But here are the models of Principles and legionaries early and late legions - I didn't really like it. The Principles have bad textures of the homata lorica ... and because of this, the model looks faded, there are no pants and leggings, the model looks scanty. The legionnaires of the early legion - the helmet does not correspond to the historical one and there are no pants, there are no leather wrist rests, but they were an obligatory part of the equipment of any legionnaire of that time. An intermediate, mixed legion - one in which there were soldiers with a hamata lorica and a segmental lorica (the era of Augustus, his reforms), also have helmets, which in that era did not yet exist, they were only for cavalrymen, I do not know why So! Late legion, the same problem ... no pants, no leggings, no wrist or brace, but there is a steel sleeve ... this is generally from the opera - a la 325 AD ... Well, that's why, on the strat. map, army models are executed beautifully and correctly ??! The legionnaires had tunics with a low hem, just above the knee, there were legionnaires right there, and everyone was wearing a civilian tunic ... it was shorter than a military one! In short, the models are raw, and therefore the field for modders is completely open to work. Praetorians, too, have only an early and intermediate evolutionary appearance ... late, during the time of Marcus Aurelius and the civil war that began after the death of Komod - no! And these praetorians are coolly made in the fashion - "Wind of the East: The Rebirth of Hellas" - and if these guys get down to business - there will be a sense! I am also very surprised by the Indian elephants near Carthage, which is located in North Africa ... How so ... Exchange of experience or what ... ??? All Roman generals wear exclusively Attic-type helmets, more reminiscent of pots or bowls ... Apparently in the SA it is very bad with consultants ... This is about Rome. As I get to know other factions, I'll give my opinion on this point ... but I guess it's the same song, so that's all for now. My verdict on the models - there are cool ones, but there are few of them, and therefore I think so, I hope - ahead!
Animation - Well, animation was fine with me in the previous part. The soldiers walked more realistically, rather than trudging, as it happened in this case, swinging their weapons from side to side ... nonsense. In the case of pursuit, they tried to finish off the enemy on the run - here again they simply run with the enemy for the race, apparently wanting to drive him to death with a marathon run. Yes, of course, spectacular lunges and attacks, dodging and parrying weapons with a shield - that's all - SUPER !!! But after all, during the attack, the soldiers are corny huddled together, (which was not even in the first Rome, and in the Middle Ages 2, this was not), and even if you can see at least some kind of animation in this crush, (I I'm already silent about the front one, the camera simply does not allow you to see it), - consider yourself lucky ...))) I think this is the main reason for creating a first-person camera ... Well, seriously, during the attack, the soldiers try to climb each other's heads, or simply fall into each other's textures ... shame on the SA, in all its glory ... Haste is visible in everything. Everyone was so waiting for this game ... so they hoped that they would simply add new ones to the old chips ... no, they just added water. the shield on the panel made it possible to regulate the combat mode of each detachment - now it simply does not, although the light infantry has .. ha, it remains. And again the logic is not clear - why is this ??? without even bothering to at least pretend that they took out an arrow from a quiver ... animation in some places is simply absent ... (((But I remember how many videos were on the topic of cool animation and other things, and as a result, a very mediocre game !!! Then you involuntarily remember the saying: "Don't say gop until you jump over."
Gameplay: The first thing that catches your eye, there are many factions, the moves of which you will memorize ... because the computer goes around all for about three minutes ... horror tiresome. A bunch of some kind of research ... reminiscent of Civilization. What I really liked was the creation of legions and the ability to name them whatever your heart desires. It is - great !!! In addition, each victory or defeat is recorded in the personal history of each individual legion, in the tab of the detailed view of the legion - it is also a very interesting feature! Squads are replenished when there is a general - automatically! Otherwise, as before, build cities, recruit armies - or rather legions: First, the commander, and then the detachments, but only for this legion. Garrisons in cities exist by default, depending on the degree of development of the city - the cooler the city, the better the garrison! A similar scheme has already been implemented, to some extent, in the Empire and Napoleon. Garrisons of cities are very weak, and cities require protection, and strategic thinking from the player. I advise not to divert the army away from small, underdeveloped cities. Garrisons keep their accumulated experience! By the way, legions too ... now they can be improved ... Earlier, by recruiting Gastats, after a while you recruited Principles ... now, Gastats can be upgraded to Principles, and after researching some technologies and then building a barracks, you can equip them with the best equipment up to legionnaires! On the tactical map, everything is as before, without any special changes ... well, well, the soldiers began to run faster ... But they stubbornly do not want to pursue the enemy, you have to click on the enemy unit a hundred times, while your winners will shout parting wishes in the trail - to run away as soon as possible.)) Now, and this is a new feature from the CA, you and you, therefore, the enemy sees only with a really allowable distance for this. This allows you to make a deep flanking maneuver invisible, although sometimes it does not make any sense, because the battle lasts from 5-15 seconds ...))) Yes, yes ... I did not seal myself ... everything is exactly like that. But, I remember in the first Rome, it was all the same. In general, there are few battles, but after defeating the main army, the road is open for you - this is the correct move of the SA, but ... from the small number of battles, the game became boring. For this reason, you will press the end of turn button much more often, watching the moves of the AI, than in any other strategy! ( This allows you to make a deep flanking maneuver invisible, although sometimes it does not make any sense, because the battle lasts from 5-15 seconds ...))) Yes, yes ... I did not seal myself ... everything is exactly like that. But, I remember in the first Rome, it was all the same. In general, there are few battles, but after defeating the main army, the road is open for you - this is the correct move of the SA, but ... from the small number of battles, the game became boring. For this reason, you will press the end of turn button much more often, watching the moves of the AI, than in any other strategy! ( This allows you to make a deep flanking maneuver invisible, although sometimes it does not make any sense, because the battle lasts from 5-15 seconds ...))) Yes, yes ... I did not seal myself ... everything is exactly like that. But, I remember in the first Rome, it was all the same. In general, there are few battles, but after defeating the main army, the road is open for you - this is the correct move of the SA, but ... from the small number of battles, the game became boring. For this reason, you will press the end of turn button much more often, watching the moves of the AI, than in any other strategy! (
the gaming industry did not know yet ... It is sad and boring in general to play ... this is my opinion! I really hope that modders and programmers are intelligent, they will fix many of the jambs of this miracle of 2013, which we all have been waiting for !!!
And yet it seems that every new game from CA is made every time by a new team of designers and modelers and programmers ... everything is so different, and with every new product - more and more !!!

The third patch is successful in terms of balance, although it does not remove lags. Descends the Roman legions from heaven to earth, before 8 to the army he defeated in the city with 200 losses (disappointed strongly, not true). After the patch in a similar situation, I lost 1,800 legionnaires with gold stripes, the Scythians were generally brutalized, 2 cavalry armies defeated two foot legions, one in ambush, the second two moves later on a flat field. Light infantry became more stable (even half of the the first seconds does not fall from the onslaught of legionnaires). I am writing for those who temporarily deleted the game, but follow the patches.

Well, I’ll bring my milestone to the minus pole.
First, minus
1. Ballistae and heavy siege weapons cut everything, with 8000 by 1500, I got about 300 by 1500 periodically, that is, I stupidly endured 7700 with ballistas, the rest ran away.
2. Cheating theme with dogs, their three and four detachments endure all long-distance men and (which surprised) swordsmen at once, especially the weak ones. I already grabbed half of the card and did not see the tin.
3. Not very clear system with a faction, make an appointment, kill, wedding, etc., in my opinion, superfluous.
4. Agents, perhaps the most important disadvantage, are highly mixed, warrior, spy, dignitary, almost the same, for a single player game everything is standard.
Pros
The game is awesome, a masterpiece.

There are a lot of bugs, it depresses me that the Ultra settings are the same on the low Freezes. I'm afraid to turn on naval battles, because in 80% of cases the boarding crews simply do not land on the enemy ships stupidly and their arrows mow down like pawns, I'm afraid to go into battles where there is more than 3k Ryl just throws out APPCrash and that's it .... Everyone says the computer is weak ... 2 vidyuhi GTX 670 with 2 Giga memory, RAM 32GB percent AMD 8 cores overclocking to 4.4Mg and everything on a smart mother from Asus with EVO technology, probably everyone is right, the computer is generally weak for Rome 2 I will continue to play Crisis on 3 monitors on ultra settings with fps 80+, because Rome 2 does not pull :( And the balance is also very infuriating to destroy all 20 AI units, you only need 5 packs of War dogs, at an average level, it reached that dogs killed up to 900 snouts, stupidly let them down and went to lunch, 914 Spartans glade from Ratvelyrov ... funny .......

Tier69
On three monitors with 800x600 resolution, or do you run them one by one ??? since the aforementioned Crysis 3 with an expansion of 2560x1600 MSAA 4X on GTX690 produces 27min-34 average FPS !!! And a GTX690 is TWO GTX680s. So what combination and how two GTX 670s do you have on THREE MONITORS and on what SETTINGS and how much (80+) it produces, think for yourself. And sli (two) from GTX 670 can MAXIMUM in theory 25x2 = 50min - 30x2 = 60 FPS, all on ONE monitor in Full HD, all on Ultra! Moreover, this (double increase) in PERFECT conditions, which does not happen in principle, I myself checked it repeatedly when I was slipping from GTX 560. Here is a link for review http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/crysis -3-test-gpu / graficheskaya-chast.html.

PS: Total War ROME II is not an optimized game, no doubt about the CPU !!! and by the way, video memory of 2 Giga, ALREADY becomes insufficient (remember Company of Heroes 2, with the requirement of almost 3 Giga, and Command & Conquer has not yet come out, etc.) I had 2 detachments in the army, against the Spartans and especially the "royal" ones it was quite difficult, the dogs after the attack become uncontrollable and their indicators are so-so, but they hurt the fleeing infantry well, as they easily catch up with increasing losses)))