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On September 09 2013 23:44 DonKey_ wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2013 23:30 xDaunt wrote:On September 09 2013 18:18 Arunu wrote:
Fek Macedon is awesome as well if you manage to survive the first few turns.
Thorax pikemen, royal peltasts, companion cavalry all in one, yes please.
I don't really get some of the comments so far, yea the AI can be quite daft at times, but there have been some examples which I really liked. the AI did manage to annoy the hell out of me in some wars with actually blocking my harbours, going after my ill defended parts of the empire and actually using their agents on me.
which is good, I like it when I actually have to plan.
I did also see armies of the AI which were way better developed than just tier 1 trash.
Hell even Sardes and Seleucid put up a decent fight when I first invaded Asia as Macedon.
Have yet to invade Rome but they seem to be struggling against multiple enemies anyway so no rush.
even with the bugs I'm still really enjoying it.
Why is Macedon hard during the first few turns? You have easy allies in Athens and Sparta, and a really easy initial target in Epirus. But yeah, once you get a Tier 3 barracks, you can start cranking out Royal Peltasts, which murder most anything that you're going to face. I'm not sure he meant it was hard, but the most difficult time on them is the early turns because of the negative diplomacy trait you have.
Try epirus. Within 10 turns, you are at war with Rome, Syracuse, Macedon, Athen, Sparta, Daorsi, some other tribe just north of you. All immediate neighbours. If you move out to attack, another faction comes and capture your town. You are fully surrounded and there's very little you can do !
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On September 09 2013 23:44 DonKey_ wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2013 23:30 xDaunt wrote:On September 09 2013 18:18 Arunu wrote:
Fek Macedon is awesome as well if you manage to survive the first few turns.
Thorax pikemen, royal peltasts, companion cavalry all in one, yes please.
I don't really get some of the comments so far, yea the AI can be quite daft at times, but there have been some examples which I really liked. the AI did manage to annoy the hell out of me in some wars with actually blocking my harbours, going after my ill defended parts of the empire and actually using their agents on me.
which is good, I like it when I actually have to plan.
I did also see armies of the AI which were way better developed than just tier 1 trash.
Hell even Sardes and Seleucid put up a decent fight when I first invaded Asia as Macedon.
Have yet to invade Rome but they seem to be struggling against multiple enemies anyway so no rush.
even with the bugs I'm still really enjoying it.
Why is Macedon hard during the first few turns? You have easy allies in Athens and Sparta, and a really easy initial target in Epirus. But yeah, once you get a Tier 3 barracks, you can start cranking out Royal Peltasts, which murder most anything that you're going to face. I'm not sure he meant it was hard, but the most difficult time on them is the early turns because of the negative diplomacy trait you have.
Yep exactly, did not really word that well in my initial post.
In the first play I did with Macedon I thought it would be a good idea to focus on consolidating what I have with minimal expansion (on very hard btw), that was a pretty bad idea due to the penalty which resulted in pretty much every one around me declaring war on me.
Second play was better, train extra units straight off the bat, neglect upgrading buildings for a few turns and stomp Epirus and preferably the 2-3 neighbors in your other starting province as well, after that it gets pretty easy.
Edit : have not yet tried Epirus myself, the starting position alone and them being killed off in every other game within 4-5 turns made it pretty clear that there should be a Hero like achievement for actually completing a campaign with them on harder difficulties.
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On September 09 2013 23:30 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2013 18:18 Arunu wrote:
Fek Macedon is awesome as well if you manage to survive the first few turns.
Thorax pikemen, royal peltasts, companion cavalry all in one, yes please.
I don't really get some of the comments so far, yea the AI can be quite daft at times, but there have been some examples which I really liked. the AI did manage to annoy the hell out of me in some wars with actually blocking my harbours, going after my ill defended parts of the empire and actually using their agents on me.
which is good, I like it when I actually have to plan.
I did also see armies of the AI which were way better developed than just tier 1 trash.
Hell even Sardes and Seleucid put up a decent fight when I first invaded Asia as Macedon.
Have yet to invade Rome but they seem to be struggling against multiple enemies anyway so no rush.
even with the bugs I'm still really enjoying it.
Why is Macedon hard during the first few turns? You have easy allies in Athens and Sparta, and a really easy initial target in Epirus.
On September 09 2013 23:44 DonKey_ wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2013 23:30 xDaunt wrote:On September 09 2013 18:18 Arunu wrote:
Fek Macedon is awesome as well if you manage to survive the first few turns.
Thorax pikemen, royal peltasts, companion cavalry all in one, yes please.
I don't really get some of the comments so far, yea the AI can be quite daft at times, but there have been some examples which I really liked. the AI did manage to annoy the hell out of me in some wars with actually blocking my harbours, going after my ill defended parts of the empire and actually using their agents on me.
which is good, I like it when I actually have to plan.
I did also see armies of the AI which were way better developed than just tier 1 trash.
Hell even Sardes and Seleucid put up a decent fight when I first invaded Asia as Macedon.
Have yet to invade Rome but they seem to be struggling against multiple enemies anyway so no rush.
even with the bugs I'm still really enjoying it.
Why is Macedon hard during the first few turns? You have easy allies in Athens and Sparta, and a really easy initial target in Epirus. But yeah, once you get a Tier 3 barracks, you can start cranking out Royal Peltasts, which murder most anything that you're going to face. I'm not sure he meant it was hard, but the most difficult time on them is the early turns because of the negative diplomacy trait you have.
This is what I experienced at the beginning of my Macedon campaign. It was "tough" because Epirus can be really friendly with you, and Sparta and Athens, while they have diplomatic obligation to not attack you, comparatively despise you. So it's either try to work with Epirus and back-stab the two factions that initially dislike you, or back-stab a faction that starts out kind of appreciative of you.
Plus, trying to capture a settlement that has 5+ units of garrison as well as an army of actual units of 5+ in number with only a couple regions of your own is challenging too, lol, but that's a more universal quandary.
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I'm playing Carthage's Barca family and the negative diplomacy trait they have is annoying. With two client states to start with, a lot of the North African and Iberian factions declared war on me or on my allies. The AI has been really annoying with their constant attacks.
They really need to look at the base income. In every game since Shogun 1, each faction has a base income that's separate from all the province and trade income you have. I think this is to give income in the early game and help small factions starting out. In Rome 2, that base income is 2500 for me. At normal difficulty, I suspect that it's 2500 for all the AI factions as well.
2500 in base income allows every single minor 1 settlement faction to afford 3 huge army stacks. Town income in this game is fairly low. The capital city drives much of the income of the province. The corruption administrative penalty that ramps up as your empire gets bigger has been cranked up to a much higher degree since Shogun 2. Even if you have 2 provinces with 6 settlements total, for example, the 2500 in base income is still a huge portion of your per turn income.
The result of this is that minor factions are too powerful compared to their larger cousins. 2 minor factions (1-2 settlements each) ganging up on me was much harder than fighting Rome (2 provinces, 6 total settlements). I overran Rome pretty easily. The minor factions had too many stacks and were a total pain to deal with. The player can deal with this. The AI can't. And even if the AI can, it skews the balance of the game. The minor factions are more difficult to deal with compared to the major factions.
The new army system compounds the problem. While good in theory, you need to conquer too many settlements to increase your imperium level. I believe it took more than 20 settlements before I went from 6 armies, 4 navies to 9 armies, 6 navies. Considering each 1 settlement minor faction can afford 3 full stacks, it's hard to be everywhere at once with the few armies I have. No surprise that other players report that the AI Carthage frequently dies.
In addition, these minor factions can and will also spam small armies and navies all over the map. They aren't strong enough to take any settlement with a decent garrison, but they can tie them up with constant besieging and blockading. That prevents buildings from finishing, among other things. These small armies/navies are very difficult to stomp out. They survive very frequently when I use the garrison to lift the blockade/siege. What happens is that the general/admiral survives to do it again the next turn and then survives that battle again somehow. Worse yet, sometimes they retreat when I sally with the garrison, only to besiege again the next turn. Even when I send a real army, it frequently takes 2 battles to wipe each one out. Autocalc doesn't help because it frequently doesn't wipe out the enemy, even when using aggressive stance.
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I second that. The worst is that a sieging army prevent you to build units. So you can basically block someone for recruiting at all by sieging his city with one unit, every turn. Meaning you have to recruit outside the city, giving up the defensive advantage.
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andrewlt, meanwhile other people are complaining that at one point, being the larger nation ends up steamrolling the rest of the map too easily. The things you present that you feel are issues, are actually innovations that help the game overcomming some of the major issues that the series previously had.
About "greater" nations not fulfilling their destinies, but becoming disappointments. I think this helps create variety in the game, AI nations could become big, but other nations could also rise up. E.g. in my Athens game, Egypt got totally raped by a minor faction, but that faction actually became quite significant, having like 7-8 provinces.
Now, I'm not saying that Rome 2 is the best game to ever have come out, and even though I like the changes, many could have been mechanically better. I do disagree with your point about the Army System though, I think it's a great addition, and because of the tradition system, I really wouldn't want to have 9-12 armies that early anyway. You're not meant to keep them defending in most situations anyway.
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I think you misunderstood just about the entirety of my post. By minor factions, I don't necessarily mean the non-playable factions. I mean the factions with fewer provinces. Those "innovations" as you call it aren't perfect fixes. They create their own issues as well. Those big AI factions? Most of their land is undefended. They only grow that big because they were lucky enough to not get ganged up by smaller factions. Three 1-2 settlement factions, doesn't matter whether playable or not, are much harder to deal with than 1 faction that has 10 settlements.
I don't want 9-12 "real" armies. I only use 3-4 main armies. I just need a bunch of very small ones running around killing the AI's 1 general/admiral stacks that roam around besieging/blockading random settlements and almost always surviving the autocalc with a small amount of its troops left. That and also ferrying elite troops from my main province to the frontlines. Otherwise, I have to move my entire army back just to recruit better soldiers.
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On September 10 2013 02:13 andrewlt wrote:
I think you misunderstood just about the entirety of my post. By minor factions, I don't necessarily mean the non-playable factions. I mean the factions with fewer provinces. Those "innovations" as you call it aren't perfect fixes. They create their own issues as well. Those big AI factions? Most of their land is undefended. They only grow that big because they were lucky enough to not get ganged up by smaller factions. Three 1-2 settlement factions, doesn't matter whether playable or not, are much harder to deal with than 1 faction that has 10 settlements.
I don't want 9-12 "real" armies. I only use 3-4 main armies. I just need a bunch of very small ones running around killing the AI's 1 general/admiral stacks that roam around besieging/blockading random settlements and almost always surviving the autocalc with a small amount of its troops left. That and also ferrying elite troops from my main province to the frontlines. Otherwise, I have to move my entire army back just to recruit better soldiers.
I keep a general back home to raise troops to protect form invasions, and disband troops when there's no trouble so that I don't incur massive upkeep costs.
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I don't see the issue of smaller nations being more difficult to deal with than larger nations. I can see why it seems counter-intuitive. You'd think that larger factions means being more powerful, but it often means the opposite, as the area being administrated is larger, the room for overlooked inefficiences is larger, room for corruption, etc. Size is more a trade-off between having a greater potential for unified effort vs. being vulnerable to being attacked yourself. And I guess one could discuss eternally if it's right or not, but I feel like it boils down to personal opinion on how the game should be structured.
As for your second paragraph. The game clearly gives you limitations. Previously, these limitations existed through the management of gold\wealth. Now, it is more spread out through the different mechanics. Good or bad? I like that you have to make choices, how do you make use of your limited resources? There's a lot more to manage, and tougher choices to make.
I never called the innovations perfect fixes, something being described as innovative only means that it is something new and different, and does not describe the quality in any way. I actually said that the system could have been much better, but I would disagree on the 180 degree turn that you'd want.
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On September 10 2013 03:34 TokO wrote:
I don't see the issue of smaller nations being more difficult to deal with than larger nations. I can see why it seems counter-intuitive. You'd think that larger factions means being more powerful, but it often means the opposite, as the area being administrated is larger, the room for overlooked inefficiences is larger, room for corruption, etc. Size is more a trade-off between having a greater potential for unified effort vs. being vulnerable to being attacked yourself. And I guess one could discuss eternally if it's right or not, but I feel like it boils down to personal opinion on how the game should be structured.
As for your second paragraph. The game clearly gives you limitations. Previously, these limitations existed through the management of gold\wealth. Now, it is more spread out through the different mechanics. Good or bad? I like that you have to make choices, how do you make use of your limited resources? There's a lot more to manage, and tougher choices to make.
I never called the innovations perfect fixes, something being described as innovative only means that it is something new and different, and does not describe the quality in any way. I actually said that the system could have been much better, but I would disagree on the 180 degree turn that you'd want.
It's not just counter intuitive, it's also unrealistic and historically inaccurate. There are plenty of examples of smaller, more disciplined armies beating larger armies. There are no examples of smaller nations being able to use this many soldiers. Even if they teamed up with other smaller nations, which happened a lot historically, they don't win with numbers. Don't misunderstand me again. I'm not saying they never win. In fact, they do win frequently. It's just that they never do so with numbers. They do in this game because the mechanics guarantee that each faction can magically support 3 full stacks of units, regardless of trade or province income.
Besides, I never said I wanted a 180. Stop taking things out of my mouth. It decently worked in Shogun 2. It needs a revisit in Rome 2 because incomes from non-capital settlements are low and army upkeep is smaller. The base income was only good for 1 stack in Shogun, which ensured that every faction can afford at least 1 full stack army to defend itself. Factions in Rome 2 can afford at least 3 full stacks and a few stragglers with that base income in Rome 2.
For the second paragraph, I wonder how much you've actually played the game. I had an enemy fleet blockade one of my ports. That fleet consisted of just 1 admiral unit and nothing else. My town had a garrison of 2-3 raiding ships and 6-7 regular units that fight on transports. Autocalc, admiral survives with roughly 25% of its numbers alive. He blockades again the next turn. I attempt to break it with the garrison again. Every turn, somebody survives and that stupid ship is back to 15% of its full crew the next turn. This went on for multiple turns. I finally decided to fight the battle manually. I killed every single person on that ship and sank it. Game declares battle over and throws me back to the campaign screen. Somehow, 1 person survives and that ship is back to 15% the next turn. I attempt to wipe it out multiple times. Nothing works. Always 1 person survives and back to 15% crew the next turn. This goes on for 5+ turns. Fucking cockroach wouldn't die and somehow breeds on his own.
Because the game has limitations, my armies/navies are busy elsewhere. I finally got one freed up to get to it. I had to attack it twice to kill it. Since Rome 1, the game auto-wipes every army that loses twice in the same turn. Many times, it's the only way to completely kill off armies without any survivors.
Carthage starts out with a spread out position. With a sprawling empire, I'm constantly getting attacked by numerous 1-4 unit stacks. No matter how badly they lose to the garrison, the remnants of the army/navy frequently survive. I have to play whack-a-mole with my real armies because attacking them twice in the same turn is the only way to wipe them out. Otherwise, city is besieged/blockaded again by a 1-man army that somehow stops all production by himself. Or a 2-4 unit army/navy where everybody dies including the general/admiral except 1 unit that barely has enough numbers to survive by itself. Next turn, that surviving unit regenerates a general/admiral for it that continues the annoying process. And I have to wipe out all these armies/navies even after I eliminate that faction's last settlement.
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carthage is a horror. even with forced marching/sailing it takes 5-6 turns to move an army from inland spain to mainland lybia. garrisons are a joke and the ai doesnt fight you head on but instead sacks a city and leaves it undefended to sack another city. and u just run behind it, mopping up the dmg.
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The game gives you a limited amount of armies\fleets, and you want to remove that limit. In terms of that mechanic, that is a 180 degree turn.
Don't they get auto-wiped on second defeat in Rome 2? Also, after you bring down the last settlement, the enemy armies stop regenerating.
Dunno about Shogun 2, I had 1 province nations spawn stacks in the fog of war, and he could get like 5-6 stacks, at least in this game it's limited to 3 xD At least in my experience, they aren't fielding 3 fully top shape armies, but rather primarily massed low-tier.
Anyway, I think it is a good thing that the people you are at war with, are trying to the best of their abilities to act like assholes towards you.
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well I finally finished my first total war campaign... arverni on legendary difficulty. the last 50 settlements were just annoying.
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On September 10 2013 05:14 RolleMcKnolle wrote:
well I finally finished my first total war campaign... arverni on legendary difficulty. the last 50 settlements were just annoying.
It gets to the point where you just gotta say "Burn it" and start mindlessly auto-resolving everything. I lose interest after awhile because it's just mopping up the last objectives for a victory.
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On September 10 2013 04:45 TokO wrote:
The game gives you a limited amount of armies\fleets, and you want to remove that limit. In terms of that mechanic, that is a 180 degree turn.
Don't they get auto-wiped on second defeat in Rome 2? Also, after you bring down the last settlement, the enemy armies stop regenerating.
Dunno about Shogun 2, I had 1 province nations spawn stacks in the fog of war, and he could get like 5-6 stacks, at least in this game it's limited to 3 xD At least in my experience, they aren't fielding 3 fully top shape armies, but rather primarily massed low-tier.
Anyway, I think it is a good thing that the people you are at war with, are trying to the best of their abilities to act like assholes towards you.
You should be able to have small internal policing armies though. In real life, not every army had a crack general. Large powers would have plenty of small forces maintaining internal defense. You shouldn't have 1-man armies besieging whole cities or blockading ports, that's stupid. You also shouldn't be forced to turn a real army around to clean up BS like that.
To be honest, it doesn't really make sense that you can't have some no-name captain lead a small force on patrol. Maybe limit the size of his force, but it should still be possible.
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i think the biggest peev i have with this game so far is that you can't attack another settlement that another faction is blockading, even if that blockades been up for the past 20 odd years >.<
also am i doing it wrong that i'm playing as rome and its 168BC and i've still not declared war on carthage? also hilariously enough when i triggered the civil war the settlement they usurped was carthage which due to my machinations was taken over by slaves before i invaded it originally, but i have no other settlements on the african coast and a pretty powerful fleet nearby so i'm feeling pretty good about smacking down the loyalists
(for the record my rome is a peaceful rome. Macedonia, athens and sparta are all alive to and haven't been to war with me yet either, though i'm marching on scotland having taken over the rest of britain, france about half of germany, and most of the baltic states, i'm marching on spain atm and have two legions fighting further inland in africa)
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On September 10 2013 06:28 SCkad wrote:
i think the biggest peev i have with this game so far is that you can't attack another settlement that another faction is blockading, even if that blockades been up for the past 20 odd years >.<
That's a common complaint yes.
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Netherlands45349 Posts
So do you need a NASA computer to run this properly?my computer automatically put it on very high and even at medium the framerate/performance is underwhelming to say the least.
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On September 10 2013 08:56 Kipsate wrote:
So do you need a NASA computer to run this properly?my computer automatically put it on very high and even at medium the framerate/performance is underwhelming to say the least.
There are VARIOUS issues with the video settings in the game currently. The largest of which currently being the lack of driver support and the auto detect memory mucking up.
Patches are going to to fix most issues if you have the patience or care to wait for the alarming slow response. I would search for solutions though if you care enough, because you are not a minority, a huge amount of users have had issues and there are many unofficial "solutions" that alleviate some of the issues.
Edit: Don't think I've found one for the sloooooooooow turn waiting time though. I guess un-checking the show computer moves helped marginally.
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On September 10 2013 06:25 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2013 04:45 TokO wrote:
The game gives you a limited amount of armies\fleets, and you want to remove that limit. In terms of that mechanic, that is a 180 degree turn.
Don't they get auto-wiped on second defeat in Rome 2? Also, after you bring down the last settlement, the enemy armies stop regenerating.
Dunno about Shogun 2, I had 1 province nations spawn stacks in the fog of war, and he could get like 5-6 stacks, at least in this game it's limited to 3 xD At least in my experience, they aren't fielding 3 fully top shape armies, but rather primarily massed low-tier.
Anyway, I think it is a good thing that the people you are at war with, are trying to the best of their abilities to act like assholes towards you.
You should be able to have small internal policing armies though. In real life, not every army had a crack general. Large powers would have plenty of small forces maintaining internal defense. You shouldn't have 1-man armies besieging whole cities or blockading ports, that's stupid. You also shouldn't be forced to turn a real army around to clean up BS like that. To be honest, it doesn't really make sense that you can't have some no-name captain lead a small force on patrol. Maybe limit the size of his force, but it should still be possible.
But even in the older titles when you could have as many splinter forces as you wanted, you couldn't afford both an army at home to protect yourself and an army abroad capable of making any headway into expanding anyways -- not until later in the game at least. It doesn't really make a difference.
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EPT
