Looking at CA's Rome II in comparison with Fields of Glory II potential

[Ironduke]

Are we ever likely to see a strategic map on a par with the Rome II franchise, creating a army and deploying it on a proper campaign map, if combined with proper strategic movement time frames. A more accurate representation of the Senate and a half descent diplomacy system. And a naval game equal to the quality of the land battles in Fields of Glory II, then I think we have a winner certainly a game that would have huge advantages over the CA Roman world. Or does this all seem like to much hard work.

[Captain_Narol]

You need to realize that Byzantine is a very small company compared to CA and that they can't compete in term of scope of the game.

This is not an AAA product that tries to simulate everything, it's rather a semi-indy product.

FOG II is focused on Battle Tactics, and does them better than Rome 2, which is an impressive achievement.

Quality over Quantity for the win !

If you are interested in naval battles, I would suggest to give a try to MARE NOSTRVM by the maker of QVADRIGA, another indy developper from the Slitherine's rooster.

[X-the Unknown]

This is all this game needs to simulate. It can hold it's own with just battles and randomness. RTW's are just waste of time strategy map geting to the real meat of the game; the battles. It already has an excellent AI so doesn't need a campaign overlay or diplomacy to be great. While it would be nice to have a strrategic overlay it isn't necessary. This game sells on it's own merits of great battles and armies of ancient history; although the DLC is a bit high. ;)

[Ironduke]

Just saying I would enjoy building a Roman empire using the Fields of Glory II battle system, Ok its a small company and lacks resources, that is a shame if I had the money then I would know where I would invest it.

[smidlee]

-The majority of TW tactical battles are already won or loss before the battle even begins. This is why CA tries to keep the tactics battle short. In the first Medieval TW I had tactical battles to took hours to finish where I was able to conquer an army much larger than mine. Rome TW they simplfied the combat so most battles would be between 10-20 minutes.
IMO Field of Glory 2 tactic battles are more interesting than any TW series. Tw series badly needs the campaign map building to make up lack of depth of it's tactical battles. (I never like to play tactical battles only in TW.)
- I have a few battles in FoG 2 I didn't know if I was going to win or loses until the last few turns.

-How could you have a campaign map while still keeping the tactical battles that way they are. The difficulty increases by you haves a few less troops than the AI. In a campiagn map you could determine when the odds are in your favor which would be easy victories on the majority of tactical battles just like AoW 3. In AoW 3 after I've got a strong position on the map I auto-resolve most battles because they become boring and easy. The only downside of auto-resolve is my units take more damage. So even in the early game I manually do battles just to keep from losing units yet in most cases victory was no doubt.

- FoG 2 tactical battles are designed so you have a limit of which each units you can bring into the battle. How would this work with a campaign map? Either you will have to seriously limit the player choices on the map or give the player freedom like AoW 3 where any player can have units of all the different classes.

["Possibly" Shalfoon]

Iron Duke, if you want a campaign of that nature, I suggest Alea Iacta Est by Ageod. It's superior to Rome 2 imho as it's far more historical and the wars tend to mimic ancient warfare at the time.

As others have said, this is a battle game, not a campaign/operational or grand strategy game.

Also echoing what others have said, as someone who played Total War since Rome I, I have to say the game is pretty dull now. If you know how to use the campaign map you never even have to fight a tactical map, and if you do the battles consist of-
a) charge with your line and flank
OR
b) camp.


As a final aside, if you're into board games, Pericles has an excellent factional/senate system combined with campaign level wargaming. If you like the Peloponnesian Wars, I'd recommend it.

Happy slaughtering Duke!

[Mamba]

I actually far prefer the FoG 2 campaign style to Rome's, mostly for reasons already outlined here. A group of us now play rome 2 in mp battles with just a scenario, some imagination and dice to hook the battles up into a story. This way we can always give the ai a decent enough army and avoid a second rate paradox experience at the same time.

[Captain_Narol]

If you really want something with a campaign map, this indy game has been released recently :

http://store.steampowered.com/app/588080/Numantia/

I haven't tried it yet so I'm not sure if the Turn-based Battles stand up to those in FOG II and the choice of units is much more limited (Celtiberians versus Romans) but it has 2 fully fledged campaigns and looks like an interesting effort.

[Ragnar One Tooth]

maybe fog battles on a crusdader kings map

[X-the Unknown]

Originally posted by Captain Narol:

You need to realize that Byzantine is a very small company compared to CA and that they can't compete in term of scope of the game.

This is not an AAA product that tries to simulate everything, it's rather a semi-indy product.

FOG II is focused on Battle Tactics, and does them better than Rome 2, which is an impressive achievement.

Quality over Quantity for the win !

If you are interested in naval battles, I would suggest to give a try to MARE NOSTRVM by the maker of QVADRIGA, another indy developper from the Slitherine's rooster.

Lol any game with battle tactics is better than the Total War franchice; they had maybe one good one in Medieval Total War I and it really wasn't all that but it was more challenging than the rest of their renditions.

FOG2 is by far the better tactical game of the two. Though a campaign map would be nice; it's not necessary for this game to surpasss Creative Assemblys works by 100x. I doubt I will ever go back to playing Total War games after playing this one.

[Concerned West Virginia Resident]

The problem with the big campaign games like total war is that doing well on the strategic map makes for a bunch of really boring tactical battles. The goals don't mesh.

[Dunadd]

tbh while i was initially looking forward to Rome II, it was a mess. I was disappointed at first that the campaign in this game was minimal, but it's overall much more fun and a better game than Rome II.

Having said that, yes, there is scope for having some kind of campaign map and more strategic options in this game. It wouldn't need to have as much detail or the animations or high graphics on the campaign map that Total War games have.

But having a campaign map and cities to besiege/regions to invade or defend - and the option for multiple field armies would add a lot. You wouldn't need the type of city management there is in Total War games - just more points for reinforcements each campaign turn for every city/region you hold, and settlements without extra garrison troops added being easier to capture. Choice of which cities you put garrisons in - and option not to put any in at all.

Sea battles could be autocalced. So could assaults on cities. Or you could have DLCs adding both in.

Total War only results in army spam because they allow every city to produce one unit every turn - and tbh one thing Rome II got right was restricting number of senior generals and so number of armies to end that. Though they messed up by having lots of unwalled settlements which resulted in boring "battle for the village green" battles - and less big battles where multiple armies tried to break a siege.

[Captain_Narol]

Graphics apart, the original RTW is miles above RTW II.

They butchered the strategic aspects to an inimaginable level and that killed all interest in the game for me, to the point I erased RTW II and re-installed back RTW instead.

That was my most anticipated game that year and my biggest disappointment.

On the other hand, if you haven't tried the first RTW yet, go for it it's a strategic gem.

My dream game would have the excellence of the Turn-based battles of FOG II, the strategic campaigns of RTW I and the graphics of RTW II.

[Dunadd]

Originally posted by Captain Narol:

Graphics apart, the original RTW is miles above RTW II.

They butchered the strategic aspects to an inimaginable level and that killed all interest in the game for me, to the point I erased RTW II and re-installed back RTW instead.

That was my most anticipated game that year and my biggest disappointment.

On the other hand, if you haven't tried the first RTW yet, go for it it's a strategic gem.

My dream game would have the excellence of the Turn-based battles of FOG II, the strategic campaigns of RTW I and the graphics of RTW II.

Agree on everything except that the original hard massive army spam, making battles become pointless, repetitive and make no difference in the late game. The one thing RTW II did right was to limit the number of field armies - unfortunately they messed up almost everything else.

[ur doing gr8]

I hope all y'all from 2017 are playing Empires bc yer wish came tru

[Mitth'raw'nuruodo]

We do not need the strategic scope of Total War here. But it still requires significant improvement to be worthwhile. Something like the Ultimate General series would be a good middle ground.

Most important features without which a "campaign" becomes pointless -

1. Persistent units. Units should become better and get promoted with more experience. Perhaps pick up a few traits that make certain units unique. The way I currently have to give away my experienced troops for "garrisoning" is just dreadful. I get that you want to reduce the size of the player army before certain battles for balance reasons, but it would be better done by introducing a point cap for those battles, so that I can bring a smaller army in those battles without being forced to discard the rest of my army permanently

2. Persistent leaders. Something similar for leaders, who should have some skills and traits that make them somewhat more individual. There should be a pool from which you can hire new or replacement officers. They should have greater impact on the battle, especially on nearby units and units under their command. There should be some sort of command rating (number of commanded units) beyond which a leader becomes less effective. They should get better over time and get promoted, allowing them to command more units effectively.

3. Persistent army organization. Organizing the command structure and army formation before every battle is quite tedious. These should be created and managed at a strategic level shared between battles. There could be groups of units like legions and divisions (depends on the culture and period) that can moved as a single formation at turn 0.

It is a wargame. The campaign should be like a strategic wargame, not grand strategy. It's why FoG: Empire does not solve the issues of this game's campaign. FoG2 is a great plug-in for Empire, but not vice versa. Trying to get a campaign experience for this from Empire will saddle a wargamer with a bunch things that are of no interest to him, while lacking the details like military organization, leadership etc that are actually required for a military strategy game.