Last week I started an Iceni campaign. Eventually I landed an attack force of three maxed out armies on the mainland and tried to take a city. Despite the three armies being as close to each other as possible on the world map, the enemy was still able to pick off my armies one by one.
Today I started a Parthia campaign. I tried to take a city. My spearman successfully used ladders to climb the wall and take the main guard tower. I then brought my ranged units up the ladders onto their walls. Rather than fire on the enemy forces inside the city, they climbed down into the enemy masses inside the gates and were slaughtered.
Those are just two recent examples. There's always something going wrong that has me clenching my fists. Sometimes it's glitches (like landing parties being unable to exist their ships or battles not ending despite all enemy forces being destroyed), sometimes it's inexplicable behavior (like two armies not being able to march on a city together, or units wavering despite having the upper hand, or ranged units being terrible at skirmishing and always getting run down), and sometimes it's just bad design (like trying to find a specific ability in the heat of battle by searching through a mass of similar looking icons).
I don't get it... I remember Rome 1 being so intuitive and fun. In Rome 2, so much of the combat feels wrong... the maps feel bigger, the units slower, the charges less impactful, the ranged combat less satisfying to watch. The factions feel too similar. Naval combat is boring and unnecessary. There are hard caps where there shouldn't be. There's less incentive to develop your cities. Turns take forever.
I love this type of game, but I'm just about ready to give up on Rome 2.
Talka on
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
I believe there is a "Keep blood on the ground mod"
I've come to the conclusion that because of my babby 4gb RAM, dead bodies on the ground are weighing down my performance in Shogun 2. Is there a way I can limit the number of bodies? Don't get me wrong, after a battle has ended I love seeing the mound of bodies lying bloody on the ground, but when it's screwing with my performance, I'd like to lower the amount on screen.
Well, it looks like a Civil War opponent is hard-coded never to make peace with you. It turned out more interesting this way anyway.
How interesting? Well, four combined armies decided that they could take Hecatompylos (the capital settlement of Parthia). Six thousand men, all of them the highest-tier units representing the pinnacle of Seleucid military might. How did they fare?
"Hey Dave, you know those ballistae we have back there?" "Yeah, Stan?" "You ever wonder why they aren't blowing up the wall for us, rather than forcing us all to march through this tiny little gate where we can be easily held at bay indefinitely by an entrenched foe?" "Nah." "Me neither."
And the inevitable result:
Yeah, I did lose my general and his entire unit. I got tired of waiting while a group of enemies stood around running out the clock, so I sent the general out and accidentally put him in range of 4 units of ballistae. By the time I'd realized it, it was too late to call them back. He was a rookie anyway.
Is the enemy AI flawed? Yes. Yes it is. On the other hand, I feel like this is righteous vengeance for the arbitrary nature of the civil war system. Since they spawned 12 armies to my 8 (I miscounted the other day) they'll probably get several more settlements from me before I finally regain my footing. But this was a nice start.
I'm not sure I'd recommend it unless you really want to play it. You can definitely get a lot of fun out of it and they have fixed a ton of stuff but still, they've got a long way to go to come close to Shogun 2. Personally, I've given up on playing a second playthrough until they've patched up the game a lot more.
Played my first game. Picked sparta, fiddled around a bit. Epirus came charging over the border and I felt like I had a decent shot at it. Closely matched troop numbers.
But that guy brought elephants. Sad day for Sparta.
I got it 45 and felt it was perfect (pre-order so I got the greek pack, which was important to me).
But if it's 30 I can recommend it. I've only got 70 hours in it but when I finish my backlog (read; never) I'll play more.
Blood DLC is amazing.
A big issue I have is that Rome's win conditions are stupid huge. Basically conquer the whole map. After you've hit half the map you are literally unstoppable so it drags. I will never finish a campaign properly. But a win condition isn't really gameplay, and the gameplay that is here is really fun. I can't wait to see the next TW game.
Put differently: how does it hold up to the original Rome (excluding old mods and the improved visuals)?
I played an insane amount of that (most of it modded, but still).
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FreiA French Prometheus UnboundDeadwoodRegistered Userregular
Nothing lives up to nostalgia.
Put differently, it's a different game. Instead of a focus on family trees, there's a focus on army traditions. I basically like every system in the modern Total War games more than I did the old ones, from replenishment to recruitment, diplomacy, everything's better now. The most questionable part of Rome 2 at the moment is the siege AI, but they're improving it with every patch and it's getting good. They've already put a tremendous amount of work into patches and content and are continuously fixing and adding things.
I gotta say, if I'd bought this for sixty I think I might have been slightly disappointed. But for thirty? I can overlook the issues I've had with it easily enough, and there's a lot of fun to be had so far. I'm especially loving a lot of the little details in battles and such, like the way soldiers brace and exchange taunts right before all hell breaks loose?
And I gotta say, there is nothing that beats that first moment of contact when the enemy charges straight into a braced line of soldiers and the line momentarily buckles under the impact before all hell breaks loose and people start dying left right and center.
I really ought to get back into this...
It's a good game. Not great perhaps, I didn't enjoy it quite as much as earlier total war games. Some areas held great promise, but ultimately felt as though they had to be cut back heavily to make it in time for the release version. The best example of this is probably the civil war mechanic and politics. After reading a bit on how it was actually determined I lost alot of interest in it.
The short version is that once you hit the third tier of empire, you get a random chance per turn to trigger a civil war. If your influence is too high, the chance goes up, the same if it's too low (for a republic anyway, think it's only too low for an absolute power). Once you hit the maximum empire, you get a civil war anyway. Outside of that, politics didn't really seem to matter. Especially as I don't think any of your armies can actually defect. Then again, I could be wrong, it has been a while.
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Fleebhas all of the fleeb juiceRegistered Userregular
I really hate that you can't gift cities to your allies. Why the hell did they remove that?
Shogun 2 didn't have provinces, though. You could just liberate-liberate-liberate a section to create a buffer. It makes more sense in R2 then it does in any other previous TW to have province gifting. Mind you, with the way agents and armies roam around, I don't want to think I've put all the Gauls to the sword and find they somehow ended up with a province in Arabia. The whole "barbarians liberate, and sack but these civilized guys do this" attempt at making the conquering unique to factions feels pretty lazy and pointless (there really is no reason at all that all the options aren't up there for every faction, since everyone sacked AND looted, liberated AND made clients, blahblah). There are mods for that, though.
I've put 280+ hours in R2. I think I can safely recommend it at this point, haha. I've completed each campaign I've played, maybe 6 in total, from all across the map. There are serious ways the game needs to be improved, but it's so God damned fun.
Shogun 2 had prefectures, which served the same function. It was roughly the same, mechanically, to Napoleon--a central city and a surrounded territory--where you could gift territories.
Personally, I liked it purely for organization reasons, but it's not a deal-breaker.
Shogun 2 had prefectures, which served the same function. It was roughly the same, mechanically, to Napoleon--a central city and a surrounded territory--where you could gift territories.
Personally, I liked it purely for organization reasons, but it's not a deal-breaker.
I think what he means is provinces as in multiple regions/settlements, as opposed to regions with just a single settlement. Shogun 2's "prefectures" are Rome 2's "regions" - "provinces" are a new thing in Rome 2.
Personally I like that territory is not just an asset, but also a commitment and an obligation. You take that city, you better plan to support it!
I really hate that you can't gift cities to your allies. Why the hell did they remove that?
Remove it from what? Napoleon? It wasn't there in Shogun 2, either.
Err, I know it was in Rome 1 I guess. Can't remember if Medieval 2 had that or not. I haven't played Napoleon or Shogun 2.
But really, like, I'm Rome, Egypt is my long term butt buddy, and they lost some territory. I can ship armies over to fight but if I take the city I can't give it back to them
I know the game is to conquer the world, but I don't wanna do that right now.
Yeah, considering that you win the campaign when you and your military allies control 150 total territories, it should be possible to gift or trade territories in order to solidify provinces for mutual benefit. If I conquer Knossos, it's doing almost nothing for me, but if I gave it to my buddy Athens then he'd have a complete province and be more useful, plus it would still count for my total victory condition.
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Fleebhas all of the fleeb juiceRegistered Userregular
"New campaign map: The expanded map of Gaul and southern Britannia brings 18 provinces to conquer, fully detailed with resources, settlements, capitals, and new environmental effects.
"Greater focus on characters: Play through the campaign with faction-leading avatars such as Caesar and Vercingetorix.
"24 turns per year & seasons: A shorter campaign timespan (58-51BC) means each in-game year is split into more turns. As the calendar changes, so do the seasons, bringing seasonal gameplay effects and stunning visual alterations.
"New mid-game challenge mechanics: Caesar in Gaul replaces ROME II’s civil war with different, conflict-appropriate mechanics. As barbarian players progress, they’ll begin to feel the mailed fist of Rome as heavy intervention forces are sent to Gaul. Likewise, Roman players will see the tribes rebelling and forming alliances.
"Compact, focussed multiplayer campaign: With a tighter geographic scope and faction-roster, 2-player campaigns are more focussed and less time-consuming than the full ROME II campaign.
"New historical battle: Surrounded and outnumbered, take on the role of Caesar as he fights the last desperate, decisive engagement of the Gallic War: the battle of Alesia.
"New Total War: ROME II playable factions: Alongside the factions playable in Caesar in Gaul, several playable factions are also unlocked in the full ROME II campaign: the Nervii, the Boii and the Galatians.
"New units: A raft of new battlefield units is unlocked for the Boii, the Galatians, the Nervii and the Gallic tribes, plus new auxiliary and mercenary units."
Not gonna lie, I'm really excited about this. I'm hoping there are many highly focused mini-campaigns, I mean, what time is more perfect than the countless very specific wars of Antiquity? They certainly did a wonderful job with Napoleon, Rise and Fall of the Samurai. Those are the best of the Warscape games (well, maybe less so Rise).
I also very much like that this provides base-game content, since it should signal they aren't dropping the main game like a bad habit and just focusing on expansions. Also kind of a bummer than you have to pay the slightly hiked price for it being a combined DLC of base-game and expansion content. Nonetheless, hoping to see more focused expansions coupled with main game additions or fixes. Getting seasons into the main game would be lovely, if they could do it without breaking everything.
Edit: The base game is desperately lacking in Historical Battles, though. The Battle of Alesia should be a handout at this point, along with some others over time. Maybe one HB for every new free faction?
Klash on
We don't even care... whether we care or not...
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
I would reaaaally like to see a Maccabean revolt mini-campaign, first their rebellion against the Seleucids and then the Romans. Maybe they could even unlock an Israel faction on the main campaign map, turn it into a capital city with own walls, and add a few regions around it to make Judea it's own province.
That or a Punic Wars mini-campaign, or a Warring Greek Stats mini-campaign, or even a Roman conquest of Brittania campaign.
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FreiA French Prometheus UnboundDeadwoodRegistered Userregular
This should be good. Fall of the Samurai showed they're really good at the tightly focused campaigns like this.
Are you the magic man?
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FreiA French Prometheus UnboundDeadwoodRegistered Userregular
small update today made Baktria playable. will post thoughts on them after I finish playing around with them a bit. we're all iced in today so I get to enjoy a super long weekend.
They keep making races playable in the same region. How about one of those Iberian factions? I'm getting kind of bored conquering Parthia and Persia over and over again.
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Fleebhas all of the fleeb juiceRegistered Userregular
FreiA French Prometheus UnboundDeadwoodRegistered Userregular
edited December 2013
Don't be a goose.
Moving on from replying to weird attitude posts -
Baktria isn't anything hugely special. Greek/Eastern fusion like the Seleucid Empire but with a smaller roster. They have some pretty cool hoplites (Scale Hoplites) and Indian Armored War Elephants, as well as decent cavalry and some horse archers. They don't start out at war with anyone but have a couple decent targets at the start. They're right next to Aria, who will probably declare independence pretty soon so you can take them on as well. They start with two full provinces (though they are both two settlement provinces).
The Boii start off at war with the Suebi, and The Galatians are sandwiched in between Pontus to the North and the Selucid Empire and its puppets to the south. Also the only Gaulish in the region.
Kinda wish we got the Frisii rather than the Narvii, but oh well.
Thought I'd share a battle I just had playing The Third Age mod for Medieval 2
I'm playing as the Free Peoples of Eriador. Basically The Shire, Bree and some other small towns, fairly bad units except for Dunedain (i.e rangers like Aragorn)
Isenguard declares war on me and sends 3400 orcs heading my way, all heavily armoured uruk hai. Up to this point all I faced were small armies which my rangers would shoot before they got near me, however this army was too large for that to work and there was going to be hand-to-hand fighting.
I had 1800 men. 7 units of rangers and 7 units of sword wielding dunedain, along with Aragorn and a couple of horse rangers. I also have a night battle because lets face it they're just plain cooler.
My plan is to let the Uruk-hai come to me, use my archers to soften up some units (desperately needed as an uruk unit has 250 men to my 120 per unit), and while my sword guys engage them I flank them with the cavalry and win the fight.
So it turns out 7 units of rangers focusing fire on tightly packed units = alot of dead orcs. The middle of their army basically halts under the fire and my sword guys engage on the flanks. Co-incidentally stopping in front of rangers just leads to more casualties before the center units see sense and join the fight (having lost about 700 guys to arrows.
My cavalry flanks the uruks and they promptly break, rout and get massacred trying to run away. whats left of their forces try to run but none escape. 3800 Orcs start the fight and all die. I lose about 130 swordsmen. Its such a crushing victory that Isenguard doesn't try to invade the lands of men ever again.
GaryO on
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Fleebhas all of the fleeb juiceRegistered Userregular
edited December 2013
Third Age is an awesome mod. It'd be pretty cool if something similar gets whipped up for Rome 2.
Elven archers are ridiculous. There's no better feeling than charging your orcs in to beat the crap out of the pointy eared machine gunners.
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
Been reading the 8 and 8.1 patch notes. They have heard the rumblings on sieges apparently, which is fantastic. I honestly hope they will make the AI intelligent enough in such a way that the torches will no longer be necessary.
The idea of being able to recruit units from statrapies and client states sounds sweet. I mean, for Carthage and Athens, it doesn't matter as much as after a while you can basically recruit other faction's units for good prices and upkeep. But, now maybe as Suebi, I could make a goal of reaching and subjugating Rome, so that I could get their units.
After 100 hours of play, I am definitely sure that Shogun 2 is superior to Rome 2 in every way except unit/faction diversity. I really, really, really wished they had kept in economic growth for regions, and would do away with army limits and allow money to be the limiting factor to armies again. Also, I wish they had kept cities consistent with everyone having walls. Now, famous fortresses like Jerusalem or Syracuse have none, which bothers me. Also the UI is nowhere near as good as Shogun 2.
Sorry for intermixing my praises with a rant.
I just hope if they're planning to make Warhammer/Medieval 3, they learn their lesson and make them more like in my opinion their best game, Shogun 2.
Been reading the 8 and 8.1 patch notes. They have heard the rumblings on sieges apparently, which is fantastic. I honestly hope they will make the AI intelligent enough in such a way that the torches will no longer be necessary.
The idea of being able to recruit units from statrapies and client states sounds sweet. I mean, for Carthage and Athens, it doesn't matter as much as after a while you can basically recruit other faction's units for good prices and upkeep. But, now maybe as Suebi, I could make a goal of reaching and subjugating Rome, so that I could get their units.
After 100 hours of play, I am definitely sure that Shogun 2 is superior to Rome 2 in every way except unit/faction diversity. I really, really, really wished they had kept in economic growth for regions, and would do away with army limits and allow money to be the limiting factor to armies again. Also, I wish they had kept cities consistent with everyone having walls. Now, famous fortresses like Jerusalem or Syracuse have none, which bothers me. Also the UI is nowhere near as good as Shogun 2.
Sorry for intermixing my praises with a rant.
I just hope if they're planning to make Warhammer/Medieval 3, they learn their lesson and make them more like in my opinion their best game, Shogun 2.
No need to apologize, comes with the Creative Assembly territory. Thankfully no release has been as bad as empire lately.
I'm really excited for the Warhammer title, which is confirmed to be in progress but still incredibly early in development. I'd wager it's a year and a half out. I'm curious if that IS the next TW title or if they are doing a separate historical one. I never played Medieval 1 so a sequel would be exciting. I'd really like a WWI title though. After seeing FotS I think it can be done (there is already a good WWI mod for Napoleon, which sadly I don't have either).
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FreiA French Prometheus UnboundDeadwoodRegistered Userregular
Caesar in Gaul has been pretty excellent so far, definitely reminds me of FotS, like I've mentioned.
also side not recruiting from your satraps/client states is absolutely great. really spices up the game and gives you a lot of options, especially for the factions that don't have the biggest rosters.
"Changed victory conditions in grand campaign for all playable factions. The number of regions the player needs to control in order to win the game has been reduced."
Posts
Last week I started an Iceni campaign. Eventually I landed an attack force of three maxed out armies on the mainland and tried to take a city. Despite the three armies being as close to each other as possible on the world map, the enemy was still able to pick off my armies one by one.
Today I started a Parthia campaign. I tried to take a city. My spearman successfully used ladders to climb the wall and take the main guard tower. I then brought my ranged units up the ladders onto their walls. Rather than fire on the enemy forces inside the city, they climbed down into the enemy masses inside the gates and were slaughtered.
Those are just two recent examples. There's always something going wrong that has me clenching my fists. Sometimes it's glitches (like landing parties being unable to exist their ships or battles not ending despite all enemy forces being destroyed), sometimes it's inexplicable behavior (like two armies not being able to march on a city together, or units wavering despite having the upper hand, or ranged units being terrible at skirmishing and always getting run down), and sometimes it's just bad design (like trying to find a specific ability in the heat of battle by searching through a mass of similar looking icons).
I don't get it... I remember Rome 1 being so intuitive and fun. In Rome 2, so much of the combat feels wrong... the maps feel bigger, the units slower, the charges less impactful, the ranged combat less satisfying to watch. The factions feel too similar. Naval combat is boring and unnecessary. There are hard caps where there shouldn't be. There's less incentive to develop your cities. Turns take forever.
I love this type of game, but I'm just about ready to give up on Rome 2.
I've come to the conclusion that because of my babby 4gb RAM, dead bodies on the ground are weighing down my performance in Shogun 2. Is there a way I can limit the number of bodies? Don't get me wrong, after a battle has ended I love seeing the mound of bodies lying bloody on the ground, but when it's screwing with my performance, I'd like to lower the amount on screen.
How interesting? Well, four combined armies decided that they could take Hecatompylos (the capital settlement of Parthia). Six thousand men, all of them the highest-tier units representing the pinnacle of Seleucid military might. How did they fare?
"Hey Dave, you know those ballistae we have back there?"
"Yeah, Stan?"
"You ever wonder why they aren't blowing up the wall for us, rather than forcing us all to march through this tiny little gate where we can be easily held at bay indefinitely by an entrenched foe?"
"Nah."
"Me neither."
And the inevitable result:
Yeah, I did lose my general and his entire unit. I got tired of waiting while a group of enemies stood around running out the clock, so I sent the general out and accidentally put him in range of 4 units of ballistae. By the time I'd realized it, it was too late to call them back. He was a rookie anyway.
Is the enemy AI flawed? Yes. Yes it is. On the other hand, I feel like this is righteous vengeance for the arbitrary nature of the civil war system. Since they spawned 12 armies to my 8 (I miscounted the other day) they'll probably get several more settlements from me before I finally regain my footing. But this was a nice start.
But what about at thirty?
I have enjoyed it enough for 60. But the patches have fixed a shit ton of problems and it is pretty decent atm.
Indeed, I am wondering the same.
I passed on Paper's Please since I can get it from GoG for the regular $9.99 (and it'll probably go on sale from them eventually), but what of this?
But that guy brought elephants. Sad day for Sparta.
But if it's 30 I can recommend it. I've only got 70 hours in it but when I finish my backlog (read; never) I'll play more.
Blood DLC is amazing.
A big issue I have is that Rome's win conditions are stupid huge. Basically conquer the whole map. After you've hit half the map you are literally unstoppable so it drags. I will never finish a campaign properly. But a win condition isn't really gameplay, and the gameplay that is here is really fun. I can't wait to see the next TW game.
I played an insane amount of that (most of it modded, but still).
Put differently, it's a different game. Instead of a focus on family trees, there's a focus on army traditions. I basically like every system in the modern Total War games more than I did the old ones, from replenishment to recruitment, diplomacy, everything's better now. The most questionable part of Rome 2 at the moment is the siege AI, but they're improving it with every patch and it's getting good. They've already put a tremendous amount of work into patches and content and are continuously fixing and adding things.
And I gotta say, there is nothing that beats that first moment of contact when the enemy charges straight into a braced line of soldiers and the line momentarily buckles under the impact before all hell breaks loose and people start dying left right and center.
It's a good game. Not great perhaps, I didn't enjoy it quite as much as earlier total war games. Some areas held great promise, but ultimately felt as though they had to be cut back heavily to make it in time for the release version. The best example of this is probably the civil war mechanic and politics. After reading a bit on how it was actually determined I lost alot of interest in it.
The short version is that once you hit the third tier of empire, you get a random chance per turn to trigger a civil war. If your influence is too high, the chance goes up, the same if it's too low (for a republic anyway, think it's only too low for an absolute power). Once you hit the maximum empire, you get a civil war anyway. Outside of that, politics didn't really seem to matter. Especially as I don't think any of your armies can actually defect. Then again, I could be wrong, it has been a while.
Remove it from what? Napoleon? It wasn't there in Shogun 2, either.
I've put 280+ hours in R2. I think I can safely recommend it at this point, haha. I've completed each campaign I've played, maybe 6 in total, from all across the map. There are serious ways the game needs to be improved, but it's so God damned fun.
Personally, I liked it purely for organization reasons, but it's not a deal-breaker.
I think what he means is provinces as in multiple regions/settlements, as opposed to regions with just a single settlement. Shogun 2's "prefectures" are Rome 2's "regions" - "provinces" are a new thing in Rome 2.
Personally I like that territory is not just an asset, but also a commitment and an obligation. You take that city, you better plan to support it!
Unreal Engine 4 Developers Community.
I'm working on a cute little video game! Here's a link for you.
Err, I know it was in Rome 1 I guess. Can't remember if Medieval 2 had that or not. I haven't played Napoleon or Shogun 2.
But really, like, I'm Rome, Egypt is my long term butt buddy, and they lost some territory. I can ship armies over to fight but if I take the city I can't give it back to them
I know the game is to conquer the world, but I don't wanna do that right now.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/12/02/total-war-rome-2s-first-expansion-announced-caesar-in-gaul/?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=emp
Sounds nifty.
I also very much like that this provides base-game content, since it should signal they aren't dropping the main game like a bad habit and just focusing on expansions. Also kind of a bummer than you have to pay the slightly hiked price for it being a combined DLC of base-game and expansion content. Nonetheless, hoping to see more focused expansions coupled with main game additions or fixes. Getting seasons into the main game would be lovely, if they could do it without breaking everything.
Edit: The base game is desperately lacking in Historical Battles, though. The Battle of Alesia should be a handout at this point, along with some others over time. Maybe one HB for every new free faction?
That or a Punic Wars mini-campaign, or a Warring Greek Stats mini-campaign, or even a Roman conquest of Brittania campaign.
Moving on from replying to weird attitude posts -
Baktria isn't anything hugely special. Greek/Eastern fusion like the Seleucid Empire but with a smaller roster. They have some pretty cool hoplites (Scale Hoplites) and Indian Armored War Elephants, as well as decent cavalry and some horse archers. They don't start out at war with anyone but have a couple decent targets at the start. They're right next to Aria, who will probably declare independence pretty soon so you can take them on as well. They start with two full provinces (though they are both two settlement provinces).
http://goo.gl/Z16IPT
Green=Galatians
Red=Boii
White=Nervii
Blue=Bactria
The Boii start off at war with the Suebi, and The Galatians are sandwiched in between Pontus to the North and the Selucid Empire and its puppets to the south. Also the only Gaulish in the region.
Kinda wish we got the Frisii rather than the Narvii, but oh well.
How did the Nomadic tribes turn out?
I'm playing as the Free Peoples of Eriador. Basically The Shire, Bree and some other small towns, fairly bad units except for Dunedain (i.e rangers like Aragorn)
Isenguard declares war on me and sends 3400 orcs heading my way, all heavily armoured uruk hai. Up to this point all I faced were small armies which my rangers would shoot before they got near me, however this army was too large for that to work and there was going to be hand-to-hand fighting.
I had 1800 men. 7 units of rangers and 7 units of sword wielding dunedain, along with Aragorn and a couple of horse rangers. I also have a night battle because lets face it they're just plain cooler.
My plan is to let the Uruk-hai come to me, use my archers to soften up some units (desperately needed as an uruk unit has 250 men to my 120 per unit), and while my sword guys engage them I flank them with the cavalry and win the fight.
So it turns out 7 units of rangers focusing fire on tightly packed units = alot of dead orcs. The middle of their army basically halts under the fire and my sword guys engage on the flanks. Co-incidentally stopping in front of rangers just leads to more casualties before the center units see sense and join the fight (having lost about 700 guys to arrows.
My cavalry flanks the uruks and they promptly break, rout and get massacred trying to run away. whats left of their forces try to run but none escape. 3800 Orcs start the fight and all die. I lose about 130 swordsmen. Its such a crushing victory that Isenguard doesn't try to invade the lands of men ever again.
Elven archers are ridiculous. There's no better feeling than charging your orcs in to beat the crap out of the pointy eared machine gunners.
The idea of being able to recruit units from statrapies and client states sounds sweet. I mean, for Carthage and Athens, it doesn't matter as much as after a while you can basically recruit other faction's units for good prices and upkeep. But, now maybe as Suebi, I could make a goal of reaching and subjugating Rome, so that I could get their units.
After 100 hours of play, I am definitely sure that Shogun 2 is superior to Rome 2 in every way except unit/faction diversity. I really, really, really wished they had kept in economic growth for regions, and would do away with army limits and allow money to be the limiting factor to armies again. Also, I wish they had kept cities consistent with everyone having walls. Now, famous fortresses like Jerusalem or Syracuse have none, which bothers me. Also the UI is nowhere near as good as Shogun 2.
Sorry for intermixing my praises with a rant.
I just hope if they're planning to make Warhammer/Medieval 3, they learn their lesson and make them more like in my opinion their best game, Shogun 2.
No need to apologize, comes with the Creative Assembly territory. Thankfully no release has been as bad as empire lately.
I'm really excited for the Warhammer title, which is confirmed to be in progress but still incredibly early in development. I'd wager it's a year and a half out. I'm curious if that IS the next TW title or if they are doing a separate historical one. I never played Medieval 1 so a sequel would be exciting. I'd really like a WWI title though. After seeing FotS I think it can be done (there is already a good WWI mod for Napoleon, which sadly I don't have either).
also side not recruiting from your satraps/client states is absolutely great. really spices up the game and gives you a lot of options, especially for the factions that don't have the biggest rosters.
"Changed victory conditions in grand campaign for all playable factions. The number of regions the player needs to control in order to win the game has been reduced."
How many regions do you need now?