Rome II: Total War

[total1402]

Yeah this is true, fighting the Gauls or any other "barbarian" tribe in RTW was brutal. I mean it felt like their armies were endless, I guess that wont be much of a problem now.

Depends. If its anything like Shogun 2 then even a single territory faction can get really big really fast.

[Hallyington]

So, Is it more or less RTW1 just with an updated engine? Same factions and towns?

[Werthead]

So, Is it more or less RTW1 just with an updated engine? Same factions and towns?

No. Similar factions but quite a few differences. Massively upgraded graphics and more to do on the campaign map, you can fight naval battles on-screen (rather than auto-resolving) and you can have mixed-forces naval-and-land battles. Rome is just 1 faction (rather than 3) and the map is bigger, extending further east.

[Hallyington]

No. Similar factions but quite a few differences. Massively upgraded graphics and more to do on the campaign map, you can fight naval battles on-screen (rather than auto-resolving) and you can have mixed-forces naval-and-land battles. Rome is just 1 faction (rather than 3) and the map is bigger, extending further east.

Sounds great, The auto resolving naval battles was tormenting.

[total1402]

You can also make naval assaults on cities and if the siege of Carthage is any indication these can be massively epic in scale.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

I guess this means that you can no longer carry a twenty unit strong army on a single boat anymore. Oh well.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

Well, they could solve that by making ships into fleets rather than single vessels.

[Werthead]

Well, they could solve that by making ships into fleets rather than single vessels.

This is exactly what they've done. Each naval unit is now 3 ships, I believe.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

Cool! That means some seriously big naval battles. :D

[Talleyrand]

In anticipation I've gone back on Rome and began playing the SPQR mod - it only has 1 rome faction and whilst it is quite fun and more realistic I can't deny that there was a certain charm to the family system

[Corvinus85]

a new walk through video, featuring the Battle of Teutoburg Forest, this time showing someone actually playing.

This looks better and better. I even like the unit cards, which I had a problem with in Shogun 2.

[Grip]

In anticipation I've gone back on Rome and began playing the SPQR mod - it only has 1 rome faction and whilst it is quite fun and more realistic I can't deny that there was a certain charm to the family system

I really like the SPQR mod, I think its a vast improvement over having Rome divided into three families. That said though, I liked the Scipio family in vanilla RTW..Besides, they had the coolest banner of the roman families imo.

Corvinus; Yeah I agree, that walk through looked good.

[paddington]

Looked pretty awesome, although I've never been unimpressed with TW battles, the AI can be a bit wobbly at times, but considering how complex that needs to be then it's still good. I've always found the TW games to be good value as well, I get a lot of time with them before I get bored.

This may require a new video card :(. I could play shogun 2 with a mix of ultra and high, with shadows and some of the other stuff turned off.

[Werthead]

This may require a new video card :(. I could play shogun 2 with a mix of ultra and high, with shadows and some of the other stuff turned off.

Rome 2 has the same system requirements as Shogun 2 allegedly.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

I think the issue with this game will be CPU. I hope they've resolved their issues with threading (from what I read, Shogun II needed a lot of CPU power but the game only utilized 2 cores at best) or else this game is going to feel clunky on anything pre-Sandy Bridge. Maybe even there.

That said I am totally investing in a new GPU and monitor prior to this. I've got a 560ti now which is great for my needs - my monitor is not 1080p - but I'll need an upgrade to get the most out of this game.

[Winterz]

Yeah this is true, fighting the Gauls or any other "barbarian" tribe in RTW was brutal. I mean it felt like their armies were endless, I guess that wont be much of a problem now.

How so? They still will make likely alliances against you.

As for Rome Total War mods, I play Rome Total Realism, the best mod around IMO. I love plenty of variety.

[Talleyrand]

I've moved onto Roma Surrectum II great mod - the tribes being separate seems similar to the system they are going with in Rome 2 and the combat is fun - though fighting any of the Hellanistic factions can be a bit of a bitch with their pikes and Hannibal fucked me over the first time

[Grip]

How so? They still will make likely alliances against you.

But they could just as easily fight each other, or you can try and make a separate peace with one and fight the other. A unified Gaul would be much more of problem, larger forces/resources at hand etc.

[Werthead]

Rome II will definitely maxmise quad-core compatibility. As long as everything else is the same as Shogun 2 there should be no need to upgrade: my 550ti already runs Shogun 2 with everything turned up to maximum with no problems.

[Talleyrand]

Love the look of the Teutoburg forest battle - the graphics are great (when zoomed in the face and body graphics look better than some modern rpgs and shooters). Fighting looks good and I hope that you can get the rolling fire bales in normal gameplay. And if the whole get a certain distance away to escape an ambush was part of normal gameplay then that'd be great.

Kind of hoping we get the choice of decimating a unit if they run too often to steel their resolve - I'm a bit psychotic when I get control over pretend people, so sue me.

Though on the downside Varus may have been a bit of an idiot but he wasn't a coward - a detachment of cavalry did try and escape but the books I have don't put the blame on Varus and instead say that in the end he committed suicide to avoid capture.