Total War: Rome 2 announced for 2013!

for 1 wouldnt choose that rooster, its too unbalaced, but will deal with whats given

rooster is:
2 hoplites
1 elite hoplite
2 slingers
1 peltast
4 cavalry
1 gen/comp cavalry

Disposition of troops:

2 slingers, 2 cavalry 1 general on the left side in the small patch of forest, probably will depend on the LoS, if they are seen in the forest I would remove them from there and leave behind it

2 cavalry on the forest to the right side

3 hoplites in the middle with the peltast behind them

Moves:

I would have opened very much like he did, cavalry flanking with pinning forces in the middle

I would have advanced my cavalry more into the forest and I would use the other force along with my general (so 2 cavalry + general) to attract the cavalry and dismantle it, but 3 cavalry wouldnt be enough to leave a fighting cavalry force in the end, thats why the other cavalry is moving deeper and towards the enemy for a flank attack on the enemy cavalry, smashed between 2 forces = demoralization

that would force the AI to move troops to fight my cavalry, removing some of the pressure on the upcoming assault at my center, typical bait and retreat engagement, unless the AI sends the skirmishers then I would just kill those, that would be done with 2 cavalry units, the ones that didnt took the charge of the roman cavalry (the ones on the right side), since they would have a chance to kill skirmishers and survive the engagement

my skirmish forces would engage the enemy when they would make a contact with the center, by moving forward at an angle that make them face the romans back, so I will have fire on the roman backs and when my other cavalry arrives, its hammer and anvil time, the peltast after the initial charge from the roman center I would move them to fire on the roman back, if out of ammo just charge them

battle = won

 

the best roman docu series, a great prelude to rome 2

ROME: Rise And Fall Of An Empire - YouTube

 

reposting!

 

Holy crap Karam! Will we still need to defend the main city or all of its extended bits?

 

from what they said there will be several captured points, so we will need to defend a LOT. I like it

in the end I was thinking on how large the maps are for sieges now and what happens if the enemy has more capture points than you do and the timer goes up

Im hoping that what we saw on carthage is what we see on those others non custom cities a very large map, it will be though for my pezhetaroi to attack without proper hack and slash support

 

Total War ROME II: Capital Cities - Total War Wiki

the 5 custom map cities, they are looking good, I wish they were larger

 

Dang, I played the 1st Total War: Rome, Got more complicated as I obtain more province.
Then I found bioshock series haha

 

Pre loading my game as I type this wooooot!

Sent from a Galaxy far, far away

 

me too! Did you see that seleucids is going to be a playable faction? it will come later as a free dlc

 

Yup I caught that, can't wait to play their heavy cataphracts

Sent from a Galaxy far, far away

 

downloaded! ahhh I want so much to play as Bactria, the richness of mixture cultures can't be denied

 

i hope theyve plugged that memory leak that's been plaguing tw ever since

 

I haven't had any problems with it, actually since etw was patched. I did play NTW when it was already fully patched, and S2tw since the beginning (I did preordered it)

what I really want is to have a new engine for m3tw or whatever game is the next, one that is more multithreaded and 64 bit

 

Total War: Rome 2 review | PC Gamer

 

bring it on! 4min remaining to play!

 

i just got it to run. havent played yet but i ran some benchmarks. somewhat disappointing results.

http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt235/pinoy_92/rome2_2013_09_03_03_40_57_823_zpsaf11c8c3.png

http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt235/pinoy_92/rome2_2013_09_03_03_41_06_142_zps67253d52.png

in a nutshell, its not taking full advantage of the gpu. all the settings are at extreme except for AA (set on 2x) and depth of field is disabled.

video memory is only at 1.6gb out of 2gb.

i guess it would really matter as much, because i dont play the game that close. but its something.

 

the game is online woooo!

 

What GPU? I don't like what i am seeing here...

 

Maxed out settings (custom, above extreme): 25.8 fps stock/30.1 fps OC'd (+140/+600).
Same as above, except without Vegetation Alpha: 31.8 fps stock/35.2 fps OC'd (+140/+600).

On my system with the GTX 780M. Haven't tested actual gameplay yet.

Now to test actual gameplay...

 

2gb 7970m. my cpu is 920xm at 3.3ghz

apparently im wrong. its gonna have terrible fps in most battle, specially with big armies. also, when attacking/defending a city, i found that it uses all of the vram in ultra.

the game runs extreme at max of 30-40fps (40 on small areas with no troops, minimum vegetation, and no structures). it is playable at low at avg of 40fps. only time i hit 60fps is when im at the map.

creative assembly is aware of the issue. ( Steam Community :: Group Announcements :: Total War: ROME II)
however, i think amd users would have to wait till new drivers comes out.

 

Nvidia FTW ?

 

Unfortunately there seems to be some sort of GPU utilisation bug affecting my performance. Look at the 'GPU Load' graph in the screenshot of GPU-Z I took after alt-tabbing out of the game. GPU utilisation seems to be rather low for a title this demanding. As I pan around the battlefield, the framerate goes all over the place from smooth to stuttery. GPU utilisation also varies considerably. This does not occur in the in-game benchmark which uses 99% GPU load and produces much better performance. Hmmm...

 

the performance problems is spread all around, I have it, I can barely play the game. Some people are affected/unaffected doesn't matter the vendor, AMD or nvidia

I can't actually believe that they didn't polish this game as shogun 2, it was the most polished game of the series and sincerely one of the best

 

i think i found an annoying bug in the game. they ditched the time limit during the battles in rome 2, or at least i couldnt find it. for the past 10 minutes, ive been staring on a ship floating just outside the beach. i sent some range units to kill it, no damage whatsoever. i cant reboard the ships on the beach. i dont see any time limit. maybe its because im still in the first campaign. either way its really annoying.

 

there are still time limits for battles, are you playing the prologue? I have to start it all over again, Im getting a CTD whenever I load a save game

 

Update on official Total War forums.

Apparently performance issues are to do with GPU drivers from NVIDIA/AMD.

EDIT: NVIDIA now aware of issue. I guess all we can do now is wait...

 

really not happy about it, I got to play at the time of launch and sincerely when I used everything maxed out, I was able to actually get better performance, strangely as it is

 

my performance seems better than shogun 2.
granted i am in a custom settings with a combination of ultra and high, the game seems smooth. iirc im getting 47fps ave on benchmark. ive played a little of the prologue and some custom battles.
im using 326.41 beta drivers

 

ah hey travelbug add me on steam, its the same nick as here

Im really envious of people with good performance, the game seems fine, exactly as I pictured it

 

will do buddy.

just 'tried' to play the carthago historical battle. that definitely was not 47fps. i also experienced a ctd around 20minutes(?) into the game. got no notif, but my guess is an out of memory error. will try configuring desktop composition. what exe should i configure?

 

one thing i noticed outright, is that compred to shogun2, the bai seems dumber at comparable difficulty settings.

 

i havent experienced any ctd yet and i am still on the prologue.

so far in the game, whenever there is a big battle my fps drops to less than 20 on ultra. the gpu usage also drops.

this fix kinda worked. it made the game slightly better.
Install DirectX from the game folder (go to your Rome 2 folder -->redist-->directx-->DXSETUP.EXE

also, if u havent, turn on unlimited video memory.

btw, am i the only one here running the game on a amd card?

 

nope I do as well, but its a freakin 4670m

I read the are technics review
Total War: Rome II review: A total mess | Ars Technica

and sincerely I would have to agree on the tech issues, but I didn't notice the points that he tried to convey. and yes the BAI seems dumber, one time I killed half a unit before the AI responded, it felt like I was playing against a noob, well the AI always seem that way

interesting note, my mother visited me this weekend I actually showed her rome 2 trailers and how psyched I was to get the game (poor soul asked me if I was going to a game fair)... Now Im just reading some books instead of playing the game

 

id take any review at this time with a grain of salt. for something like rome 2, you will need at least a few days for the new system and game quirks to settle in. many times reviewers and gamers in general can hastily judge a product based on past versions, thinking that what worked then still works now, and if it doesnt they feel the game is broke. i myself am giving this game a chance to sink in and actually l2p.

with that being said, i do think that shogun2 was a greater technical leap and bai was better then but it may be a bit too premature to truly generalize that. as for other features/gameplay, ill play for a week or so before forming any concrete judgement on the game.

 

I go only for the tech problems with the game now, those should be worked out soon. Currently I don't see anything that actually detracts from the game and compared to the others from the series I think its a step forward

the guy from ars he really had some non interesting view of the game, I favor the campaign map over the battlefield, and for me the campaign map is plenty fine and the new mechanics work, I will know for sure if the CAI is working after several long campaigns

still reading the aforementioned novels

 

yup the way i read that reviewer, it seemed like he just wanted similar mechanics to the older and was unwilling to invest in anything new.

ive had some 3 hours on it and i must say it looks less than shogun for a the same performance/fps. this is not really a disappointment for me as i have commented on the drab gfx of rome 2 in this thread in the past. i think they do have to optimize the gfx engine. but all in all i find shogun2 and etw with darthmod better looking than this game- but that is also a function of culture and history and not only gfx performance. tried running it also on extreme just to see how it looks and wasnt that impressed (ofc fps suffered ). but idk, maybe it looks better with heftier, modern hardware.

 

regarding looking good, I have the problem with the textures, so it looks like Im playing rome 1 in low detail aka dreadful

i think as soon new drivers for the game comes out we should do better in terms of looks, viewing the trailers with the units I don't see much difference from shogun in terms of quality, I do think that the environment visuals got really better, and I thought the shogun ones were breath taking with the castles, rivers, mountains...

Some things are not even new, for example the province system is based on empire with a better mix of what you can do, I like how you can see more of the diplomatic penalties and I really liked the agents in shogun, sometimes I had to halt my advances because of them, and surely enough I started to train better my agents that were never ever a cause of concern, with the notable exception of the scholars and 3 diplomats in older tw games

So biggest change in the campaign map is province system, followed by naval provinces and the no need for fleets to transport troops

naval provinces should bring more tactical positioning which is good, auto creation of transport fleets makes naval invasions more dynamic

Battle changes are more use of abilities, which I can't care less. I do use em

All in all the reviewer doesn't know what he is talking about, what is broken for many are the tech difficulties

the BAI has always been problematic, and always will be. If they do like some players wanted that are fixed formations based on the history, it will be very easy to the player to exploit that, rome for example in the manipular system, its main weakness is that its extremely flexible

2 novels down 11 to go

 

the addition i like is that the game clearly shows the numbers. for anyone who was into boardgames, this is a welcome feature.

 

This review sums up my feelings about the game, from what I've played so far: Total War: Rome II: The Kotaku Review

 

i just started a campaign with sparta, and it feels like im playing an alpha version of it. 30fps on the campaign map on low settings.

this is how game devs lose fans.

EDIT:

new patch on friday.
http://forums.totalwar.com/showthread.php/79006-First-Total-War-ROME-II-Update-this-Friday?

and new patches every week.

 

if someone can tell me a way to make a end turn faster in a game with more than 40 civis I want to know

 

I have been waiting for this game for over 9 month but I will wait a little longer until more fixes are patched. Maybe within a few months the game will perform better.

 

Im waiting for the next patch tomorrow, if things are not ok, I will wait for till the first dlc is announced. I completely lost interest in playing this thing, even the forums that I usually go are crapy, i.e. twcenter, so I don't feel compelled to play with my buddies and those MP campaign plans are currently on hold

 

i switched my unit details to extreme from ultra and lost 1fps. (46.1 fps on becnhmark). i odnt know if these are the high def textures but they look okay to me:





i also tried pitting 4 hero spartan units against 4 praetorian guards, each supported by 2 units of velites. the battle lasted for ~7-8 minutes which is long for such a small number of units. i think the complaint that battles are lasting too short was a design decision to reflect the deadly nature of battle in that era. when veteran troops are facing each other however, the battle lasts longer.

i also noticed that a lot more barbarian units formed organized squares, not the unruly rabble they all were in rome 1 . this was probably implemented to give barbarian units a better chance against more organized units like roman legionnaires.

i really havent gotten deep on the campaign yet but from what i see, they are trying to make a deeper provincial management system; im not sure if the system works yet however. from the little i have seen, diplomacy seems to be working and alliances seem to be holding up; again too early to say.

all in all, im still having fun with the game and giving it a chance to sink in.

 

there are some basic things in there, most interesting is the last one.

I still think in terms of polish this one is lower than shogun, however when I get to actually play the game remains to be seen, moreover when I actually can give fair assessment of the game

 

actually rome 2 is par for the course for ca. the astoundingly almost bug free launch of shogun 2 was the exception to the rule for ca and the gaming industry in general.

many people fail to remember that the classics like rome1 were almost unplayable at launch and took month or so to be at least playable.

 

oh I remember, rome 1 actually was only playable when 1.3 reached, i.e. the last patch, it got better if you had the expansions thus 1.5. medieval 2 was also terrible, 6 months after the launch it was plenty playable.

napoleon according to people I trust was also in the same space as shogun 2, so 2 good games in a row, they must make the 3rd with a large base of bugs or at least one thats affecting a lot of players, I actually feel bad on pre ordering now

 

yea pre order was a huge mistake.

btw in campaign mode, the portraits looks like a potato with hair and helmet attached to it. the eyes are completely gone. there are just dark shadows where the eyes are suppose to be. am i the only one seeing this?

 

yup and i think thats where the disappointment comes from. having two relatively stable releases in napoleon and shogun2 was no guarantee rome 2 would be the same, especially considering the technical history of the series.

maybe im just one of the lucky one with my combination of settings, hardware and drivers, but ive never seen those zombie soldiers, potatohead portraits and what not while playing. neither have i encountered the funny ai 'tactics' in angryjoes video.

i did notice the naval ram/melee icon is bugged. tried a few naval head to head ramming battles, the bigger, weightier ships always win as intended. from the video complaints ive seen about naval warfare, it seems like people are ramming into bigger ships head on and complaining that their ship gets sunk. also see videos where the ships are ordered to ram but dont ram, possibly due wrong angle of attack. both could very well be a l2p thing and not bugs as many suggest.

 

well its just not you that aren't affected by the tech bugs, its a large base that is voicing their dissatisfaction to the game tech problems, occasionally as you can see Im one of them.

regarding naval battles there is apparently some bug regarding ramming, but from the videos you can clearly see that they are doing it wrong most of the times.

The AI has been a problem in all the games and people praise the AI from EU series, which to be fair is alright, its worse than the AI in SOASE, which is also not that good, all in all since I mainly play strategy games I know that the AI can't beat a medium level player, and people as in shogun are using levy units, expecting that they will fight like hardened veterans, they won't, and anyway when things get tough, people will flee, from the archaeological diggings we can see that most battles didn't involve a massive destruction of the opposing army, but a severe casualty rate was around 10%, off course we have examples that will contradict that, thermopile, canae and others, but those were devastating military defeats made possible by sheer force and strategy genius.

the worst complain is how that garrison units can't handle an invading army, face palm can't cover what I feel when I read those things.

Well I never regretted pre ordering shogun, I do somewhat regret doing the same with rome 2, not because of the performance bugs that are affecting me, but because I couldn't play the game when it was launched, I have logged only 2h in it, shogun 2 I think is more than 300h and the rest of the series follows a similar pattern, except medieval which I didn't like much, since I don't like the settings, I do play third age tw, but that is actually the only mod that I play on it and the only reason I do play that game

and yes empire is one of my favourite titles in the series, I like the huge scope, the BAI is terrible and the CAI they have largely fixed it. that doesn't mean that you can't have surprises on the BAI in empire, strangely enough I don't have any kind of surprises in napoleon, I think I posted my most exciting battle here, and I was grossly outnumbered and had lower quality troops, cavalry and cannons saved the day