150 Turns in, A Critical Review. (Warmonger)

[Pepe]

This is a repost of what Warmonger stated on the TWCenter forums. Enjoy.






I don't often post here, but I've been around this community for quite some time. Anyways like you all I was very excited to get this game, waited for midnight as I'm sure most of you did and played it. Well, to be honest with you as a long time total war fan the criticism on this game is very much warranted, however with that said let us start with 1 positive about this game.

Positive: Even though the graphic is horrendous (lack of optimization, just doesn't look great (I'm on extreme BTW)), what I found most intriguing about Rome 2 is the scope of the battle map. There are just so many scenarios and maps that can be found in this game. Add that with the 144 factions and it would get you drooling...

Unfortunately what I found after 150 turns into my Roman Campaign is that this game is an utter mess.

Let me start with the AI as a whole. In all honesty, I've never had a problem with the AI in past total war games.. mainly because I grew up during the time where Pacman was considered real time strategy (Johnny you gotta make sure you get the left side first). My main complaint with the AI is that battles only last a mere 3-5 minute. Hey my longest battle was 7 MINUTES and this was a battle when the AI had 3 STACKS and I had 2 stacks. What happened was the AI charged my men, a mosh pit ensued and everyone was running around all of a sudden. Not only that, I won practically all my engagement for the first 50 turns (On Very Hard). At first I thought I was the Divine Julius Caesar reincarnated... but no I realize that I won every single battle in my 150 turns... all battles lasting an average of 3-5 minute where the enemy is either routed or utterly crushed. This in itself is game breaking, you end up being in the campaign map most of the time waiting for a turn to end.

But hey, I'm an old guy and I tend to enjoy the campaign map aspect of things.. and as advertised the politics are going to blow my mind. What did I get? No family tree (So I guess I couldn't murder my brother, marry off my sister to some old Frenchmen, and all that nice stuff). No matter lets see this new political system. So I started with Julii and got Julius Libo. At first I thought this was going to be great, but all of a sudden I realize that new generals were generated from the pool and to makes matters worst...NONE OF THEM HAD THE JULIUS in the middle of their names! It was just random generals, HECK my next faction leader in house Julli had the Gens name of CORNELIUS which was the family faction name. I feel that Family was an important aspect in past games, I ended up not caring about my generals at all, Hey Great you died of old age.. lets just hire this Metellus Paullus dude who is apparently related to house Julii. The politics is an utter mess, you get no connection with your characters, no emotional attachment whatsoever.

Events, remember those good old events coming on once in a while to add flavor to the game... In Rome II? Had a couple things happening like sacrificing a fawn, adopting some long lost child, but after a while I faced no such events. All that was shown in my screen was recruitment reports... The campaign map became SO BORING that I began to lose interest in it... its' just dull a dumbed down version of the game we all loved. In 150 turns this was what I did.... End turn, Wait 1 or so minute for 144 factions to process, invade a settlement fight for 3-5 minutes and end turn again. This is so repetitive that I am in boredom, like I've said before the battles last way to fast.

Now lets talk about Army Traditions, one of the features CA talked up so much. I thought this would be epic at first when Legio III Liberatrix got its' first tradition... Cool so this army has better melee damage, COOL I can upgrade this generals traits. Then as the game progressed I realized that all the upgrades are the same, being Rome I do not like to upgrade skirmishers and Navy So guess what... My LEGIONS Ended up having the SAME TRADITIONS. What happen to making each of these legions different? I came under the impression from the advertisement that when a legion loses a battle they would earn traits maybe like cowardly... nope its' all dumbed down to a single tree where it ends up being the same. So No You can't find Edward the Conqueror like in Medieval 2, what you find is the same generic armies and generals only with different name and faces.

So my conclusion after 150 turns? This game is broken and it's far from being finished. When all your battles only last a mere 5 minutes you know that there is a problem, I don't understand if they didn't test this earlier or something, but even ME just one man could see that something was wrong in the combat and that strategy is absolutely thrown out the door when armies clash. Graphic wise? I don't even want to talk about it here, you seen the complaints and I feel they are all justified. Like I've said I'm old and I've got plenty of money to spend on extreme rigs... doesn't run great at all on my rig and the graphics in extreme looks horrendous (blocky, BLURRY and laggy when you zoom).

Well guys this is my thoughts, I have shelved the game for now and will see what fixes and updates they will do to it. I have no ill-will towards CA for they have made the past 12 years of my gaming experience great (I still remember opening that Shogun I box on my crappy windows 98), but they blew it on this one... they blew it.

Reading fan critiques over the years in these forums, what they made here is the exact opposite of what we wanted. This is a dumbed down total war game... (I forgot to add no population numbers, building management all the same, etc but you'll see when you play it. Having been in the corporate field during my career one lesson that I learn the hardest was that the Customer is always right, always sell what the customer wants, and most importantly customer loyalty gets you more business.

I feel that all the time we took commenting, advising, modding, etc in these fan forums have been utterly ignored... what do we get? A game that is unfinished, horrendous and not Total War.

- Warmonger.


PS. I know some of you love this game but this is my opinion and not yours feel free to disagree but this is what I found after being in the game for more then 20 hours. Also I know we don't like that "Elitist" mentality.. but yeah I've played Total War since the beginning, I'm a veteran Feel free to ask me questions on how the Roman Campaign is.

[100% Recycled Awesome]

So, in your opinion, overall, RTWI better than RTWII in its current stage?

[galactafunk]

Well written balanced review, thanks for your time. I started with the first Rome TW and have been waiting for this for a long time. I stopped after 4 hours of play. Graphic glitches, shoddy AI, random bugs; we've all come to expect them from a CA release. Maybe they'll get fixed, maybe not (Empire).

But boring? Boring, I can't forgive. This game is boring.

[knightrun529]

I could not agree with you more!! I think you said it all my friend, have been on board with CA since the first Shogun, and they showed more ground breaking new ideas then they did with this!! Last pre-sale for me. Have they changed their direction in producing their games or do you think it is a personel issue? There is a big difference in their games now, IMHO.

[knightrun529]

100% Recycled Awesome eredeti hozzászólása:

So, in your opinion, overall, RTWI better than RTWII in its current stage?

RTW1 is better!

[Jonboy]

I like your post. I feel that alot of things have been changed just for the sake of it. In doing so they have thrown the baby out with the bath water. But its a good game and for me the graphics are excellent.

But I couldnt agree more about the family tree being absent and the lack of any emotional attachment to your generals. The legacy or traditions is tedious and rather unnecessary. They are not traditions at all but a random set of buffs. Removing the family tree with all the choices that presented is criminal. The person responsible for that decisons should be taken round the back of the Horsham office for a good kicking. I also dont like the restricted building interface.
IF IT AINT BROKE DONT FIX IT.

Other than that , I love it. The music is awesome, the visuals stunning and the AI is as thick as xxxx. Its a real system hog, and this is the first Ive seen mine struggle. After its patched it will get better so be patient

[DirkDanger]

Totally agree with you, every inch of depth has been stripped in this game making it monotonous and dull. Turns last a year? i thought we'd turned a corner with shoguns season system, that actually added dynamic strategy to the campaign (attacking in winter = bad) Politics mean nothing, characters do nothing except die of old age super quick, what happened to the senate system that we had in Rome1?, i remember being really proud when one of my characters got promoted to consul in the senate, but all we have now is a ticker till civil wa breaks out. Really really dissapointed how they've stripped this game of every single bit of depth and immersion that we've come to expect in a Total War Game

I recently realised that its being released for next gen consoles and suddenly it all makes sense, dumbing down a brilliant game series to appeal to the 13 year old CoD-tards is a severely bad move imho

[100% Recycled Awesome]

{Triari} Jonboy eredeti hozzászólása:

Removing the family tree with all the choices that presented is criminal.

I can't be the only one who enjoyed raising a 16 year old weakling into a dread inducing general in ME2. Or having his brother who was an asshat at age 16 turn into a benevolet general who releases prisoners so often they expect it (boy that was a fun trait to cultivate).

No family tree? This is lame. I'm guessing princesses are out too eh?

[Saor]

i am also a total war vet having started with medieval 1 , and while i certainly have some issues with rome 2 (mainly battle times being way to short and bad diplomacy AI), im pretty happy so far,i dont have any real problems with performance or graphics all is running pretty smoothly tbh.

I am on turn 64 playing as Iceni and am meeting plenty of oppostion to my forces.All games at launch have problems but they are usually fixed within a couple weeks.

If anyone here also plays Star Trek online ? when they released the LoR expansion for that there was uproar on STO forums similar to what we are seeing here because of bugs/crashes/things missing etc etc, it was ridiculous.Within a couple of weeks everything will hopefully be much better for all of us who love the Total War series.

Try and be patient guys.

[Saddenheart]

I got 70 turns into a Averni campaign, dealing with all the issues but i noticed about all the same things you mentioned. 90 turns in my game was so laggy i couldn't even do anything really. No family trees and boring politics, everytime one died, i was like, oh hmm time to pick a new one, i wish you could of had family trees, it is very important to a celtic faction, because they were monarchies and such, i haven't even got attached to any general because they die after a few turns(seems like it anyways) I have to auto resolve everybattle, because it lags on the lowest settings if i try to fight. The few battles i did actually control, the AI would just charge me and flee after about a min or so. I will also agree about the armies, you will have the same talents for every army, because of the small selection of unit variety. I'm just waiting on a graphic fix, and maybe i will enjoy it a little more if its not constantly laggy.

[joottaa]

Es realmente muy malo el juego. Abuerrido, malos graficos y la IA es peor.
Creo que este juego es la peor version de todos los total war.
Bye

[=M.D= Lion]

Greenpatriot eredeti hozzászólása:

This is a repost of what Warmonger stated on the TWCenter forums. Enjoy.






I don't often post here, but I've been around this community for quite some time. Anyways like you all I was very excited to get this game, waited for midnight as I'm sure most of you did and played it. Well, to be honest with you as a long time total war fan the criticism on this game is very much warranted, however with that said let us start with 1 positive about this game.

Positive: Even though the graphic is horrendous (lack of optimization, just doesn't look great (I'm on extreme BTW)), what I found most intriguing about Rome 2 is the scope of the battle map. There are just so many scenarios and maps that can be found in this game. Add that with the 144 factions and it would get you drooling...

Unfortunately what I found after 150 turns into my Roman Campaign is that this game is an utter mess.

Let me start with the AI as a whole. In all honesty, I've never had a problem with the AI in past total war games.. mainly because I grew up during the time where Pacman was considered real time strategy (Johnny you gotta make sure you get the left side first). My main complaint with the AI is that battles only last a mere 3-5 minute. Hey my longest battle was 7 MINUTES and this was a battle when the AI had 3 STACKS and I had 2 stacks. What happened was the AI charged my men, a mosh pit ensued and everyone was running around all of a sudden. Not only that, I won practically all my engagement for the first 50 turns (On Very Hard). At first I thought I was the Divine Julius Caesar reincarnated... but no I realize that I won every single battle in my 150 turns... all battles lasting an average of 3-5 minute where the enemy is either routed or utterly crushed. This in itself is game breaking, you end up being in the campaign map most of the time waiting for a turn to end.

But hey, I'm an old guy and I tend to enjoy the campaign map aspect of things.. and as advertised the politics are going to blow my mind. What did I get? No family tree (So I guess I couldn't murder my brother, marry off my sister to some old Frenchmen, and all that nice stuff). No matter lets see this new political system. So I started with Julii and got Julius Libo. At first I thought this was going to be great, but all of a sudden I realize that new generals were generated from the pool and to makes matters worst...NONE OF THEM HAD THE JULIUS in the middle of their names! It was just random generals, HECK my next faction leader in house Julli had the Gens name of CORNELIUS which was the family faction name. I feel that Family was an important aspect in past games, I ended up not caring about my generals at all, Hey Great you died of old age.. lets just hire this Metellus Paullus dude who is apparently related to house Julii. The politics is an utter mess, you get no connection with your characters, no emotional attachment whatsoever.

Events, remember those good old events coming on once in a while to add flavor to the game... In Rome II? Had a couple things happening like sacrificing a fawn, adopting some long lost child, but after a while I faced no such events. All that was shown in my screen was recruitment reports... The campaign map became SO BORING that I began to lose interest in it... its' just dull a dumbed down version of the game we all loved. In 150 turns this was what I did.... End turn, Wait 1 or so minute for 144 factions to process, invade a settlement fight for 3-5 minutes and end turn again. This is so repetitive that I am in boredom, like I've said before the battles last way to fast.

Now lets talk about Army Traditions, one of the features CA talked up so much. I thought this would be epic at first when Legio III Liberatrix got its' first tradition... Cool so this army has better melee damage, COOL I can upgrade this generals traits. Then as the game progressed I realized that all the upgrades are the same, being Rome I do not like to upgrade skirmishers and Navy So guess what... My LEGIONS Ended up having the SAME TRADITIONS. What happen to making each of these legions different? I came under the impression from the advertisement that when a legion loses a battle they would earn traits maybe like cowardly... nope its' all dumbed down to a single tree where it ends up being the same. So No You can't find Edward the Conqueror like in Medieval 2, what you find is the same generic armies and generals only with different name and faces.

So my conclusion after 150 turns? This game is broken and it's far from being finished. When all your battles only last a mere 5 minutes you know that there is a problem, I don't understand if they didn't test this earlier or something, but even ME just one man could see that something was wrong in the combat and that strategy is absolutely thrown out the door when armies clash. Graphic wise? I don't even want to talk about it here, you seen the complaints and I feel they are all justified. Like I've said I'm old and I've got plenty of money to spend on extreme rigs... doesn't run great at all on my rig and the graphics in extreme looks horrendous (blocky, BLURRY and laggy when you zoom).

Well guys this is my thoughts, I have shelved the game for now and will see what fixes and updates they will do to it. I have no ill-will towards CA for they have made the past 12 years of my gaming experience great (I still remember opening that Shogun I box on my crappy windows 98), but they blew it on this one... they blew it.

Reading fan critiques over the years in these forums, what they made here is the exact opposite of what we wanted. This is a dumbed down total war game... (I forgot to add no population numbers, building management all the same, etc but you'll see when you play it. Having been in the corporate field during my career one lesson that I learn the hardest was that the Customer is always right, always sell what the customer wants, and most importantly customer loyalty gets you more business.

I feel that all the time we took commenting, advising, modding, etc in these fan forums have been utterly ignored... what do we get? A game that is unfinished, horrendous and not Total War.

- Warmonger.


PS. I know some of you love this game but this is my opinion and not yours feel free to disagree but this is what I found after being in the game for more then 20 hours. Also I know we don't like that "Elitist" mentality.. but yeah I've played Total War since the beginning, I'm a veteran Feel free to ask me questions on how the Roman Campaign is.

again you spoke the thoughts in my mind. remember this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXby75cye0Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6dB9dF8RQ8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWVgQYN37yk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjyKcd4yRFQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7dNVEKA5Wc


you missed one thing, the music,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12HXnYNA6Cg

[100% Recycled Awesome]

GR4_WolF eredeti hozzászólása:

They shouldn't have changed the music. There's barely any variety in it now. And those intro movies still gives me chills

Damn Gauls. :)

[Pepe]

Reminder. This is a repost of another player. I liked his insight.


Also, could a friendly anon repost this on the official forums? I have issues connecting to it.

[cloudsora]

I don't love or hate the game I'm rather apathetic to it and I'm waiting for updates and mods. The previous Total War games were all best with mods, but yeah I'm a little annoyed with some of the dumbed down stuff and the fact that generals die all the time (old age).

[Seusscaboose]

Well said, sticky this so that others may learn.