Why I Hate Rome 2 Total War
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- Опубліковано 16 лют 2021
- Why I Dislike Rome 2 Total War, and What Rome 1 does better, in my opinion.
People have been asking for my opinions explained on this game for a while, so here is one basic issue. Of course, there's a lot more I could talk about, but I did not want to make a super in-depth video on this.
I am MELKOR, a Comedy Channel that focuses on Rome and Medieval 2 Total War. Expect things like:
- What your Favourite Rome Total War Faction Says About You?
- Medieval 2 Portrayed by SpongeBob SquarePants
- General History Memes
- AI Only Campaigns
- Goofy Mods
- And the Revolution of getting these classics Remastered!
---
2nd Let's Play Channel: / @melkorplays2802
For the RP Campaigns and Series Let's Plays.
Discord: / discord
Twitter: / melkor83677456
Enjoy : )
#RomeII #Total #War #Rome #MELKOR - Ігри
This is not hate towards the fans, or really the game. It's an expression of opinions that I hope could someday be used by CA in future game-design.
Let me know what you think of this video style, does it help explain stuff?
This visual guide as youre talking was quite nice to follow along with!
Rome 1 is the better game, but i feel like you’re being unfair and biased to this game. I used to think the same as u do. Then i tried playing Rome 2 and realised that despite not reaching its potential, it has come far from the release and become more enjoyable
@@kingmike_gamingvods I frequently called R1 imperfect and even suggested improvements for it. Of course your opinions are yours, but in my personal opinion I don't think I was bias or unfair here.
The First faction i played in rtw1 Was the scipii and the Carthaginian navie crushed my army as I was about to board near carthage, it was a crushing defeat
Till now as i still play rtw and usually as I venture on the sea I calculate the range of the enemy ship movement by right clicking on them to alter my course to the destination point. The devastation I felt still effects my gaming strategy. Rtw is still a chess board for me. I can’t stop playing . Thanks for the video Melkor. You got it all right.
Thats why my favourite TW game is Empire TW despite many bugs and lack of the units.
Just beacuse i like strategy aspect of the game. and ETW have biggest map and give you a feel of control under Empire.
Modern Strategy map looks too scripted and linear
What's even worse is vanilla Rome 2 Syracuse doesn't even have walls.... Archimedes wept
Syracuse: Major Greek settlement for centuries, the leading city of Sicily, center of commerce and strength.
CA: Minor settlement.
@Cynfael Alek-Walker
That quote works especially well, considering Syracuse was in Sicily 😂
CA : haha village go brrrrrrrr
They did fix it by making it a provincial capital in Imperator Augustus expansion. Though I questioned why didn’t they also replaced the grand campaign map with the Imperator Augustus one since that expansion adds more settlements and provinces.
No walls, imagine the Giant Mirrors who could flame the ships, or Archimedes s'claw
mad respect for using paint 3d
I also like the fact that when you play as a non Rome faction, Rome most of the time Gets steamrolled by the empire of Veneti or Some stupid shit
I know ive had to install a frw mods yo give Rome ai a chsnce, same goes with Carthage. One mod I have for Carthage is hiving them their land/vassal states lands, since they are rather pointless.
That’s actually never happened to me, they usually steamroll the Etruscans and gang up on Carthage with Syracuse. Carthage is the one that’s always shafted lol
I play dei and Rome usually does okay. I think they buff them
One time ROME got a great empire in the africa italy and spain (i played seleucids) also they send 3 armies in egypt when i was in east fighting nomads xD plus a civil war
@@daniellipko710 That what always happens in my games. Rome and Syracuse dominate the Western Mediterranean Sea.
Volound: Let me explain to you in several lengthy hours why Rome 2 is objectively terrible.
Melkor: Hold up, I got live MS Paint to explain it!
XD
Lol true what a waste of time that guy is!
His videos could be condensed a little, but the real waste of time is playing rome II
voulund is a special needs kid that thinks he's the smartest in the room
@@calebbarnhouse496 True, but his criticisms of the game are still quite valid.
I mean rome 2 made it so an army or fleet can exist only with a general, which is a horrible decision that persists even today, giving you less options on the campaign map and forcing you to fight unwinable small settlement battles with your garrison which is really annoying in games like warhammer
This is what annoys me the most of Rome 2. Once you have a large empire you must have 1 or 2 generals just for moving troops around.
Really!!? I’ve only played RTW as I can’t afford a pc but hearing that just makes me really dumbfounded. I couldn’t
Imagine the pain of having to go through that.
@@damuvang1915 Yeah, it was an attempt to fix a bug that let you technically have infinite movement in a turn by detaching and reattaching units to an army.
Really, the only game where the system actually kind of works is in Three Kingdoms with it's retinue system, which is way more flexible
I have mixed feelings about this change bc, in one hand, yes it is annoying that you must have a general to move troops around, I'd love to detach some light infantry or light cav to scout ahead or detach a small force to wipe a weak fleeing army. On the other hand, I really hate how long it takes for the AI to make its turn, i even used to fall asleep while waiting for the AI to end the turn lol, and I hated how a piece of shit peaseant unit could raid your country side and wreck my economy. So yeah, there were many ways to fix these problems and they chose probably the worst solution...
@@mager56723
What's funnier is the fact that this bug still exists in Rome 2. You just swap the generals mid movement and they renew the stack's move points.
TL DR: no pink pyjama men 1/10
No Parthian Empire Fashion Clothes? This game is awful. Skip.
yeah what a trash game
@@Dolphin_Wooo they got rid of pajamas instead they gave the, pajama caps
New tw logic:
1. Recruit elephants in desert
2. Send them to the arctic
3. Lose half of the unit in a battle
4. New elephants, naturally occuring thousands of kms away, magically pop out of the frozen arctic ground to replenish the unit.
Well you just recruit local mammoths obviously
@@21Arrozito ah ofc, silly me c:
Elefants have babies too :p
3:50 If memory serves me well, in Rome II Syracuse is a minor settlement at the province, so it has no walls either way. Syracuse, one of the most powerful and developed city states at the time who managed to repel Roman attacks with Archimedes' inventions, burning siege engines and ships with mirrors and solar flares and such stuff. And in Rome II Syracuse is just a village with a port. Very underwhelming. Especially if anyone Remember the unique cities shown such as Rome, Carthage and Athens for example to mention a few.
Yep, that was my bad, but the point about spawning ladders and that causing major issues, combined with the OP auto-resolve still stands.
And yeah, I agree with your 2nd point. Rome 2 may be a good or a bad game, people can disagree, but you cannot deny it wasted a lot of potential and should have been something Really Epic.
@@MelkorGG Point taken and you are right, but a promise also made undelivered was unique settlements, which Thrones did but at the end of the day that game had a lot of other issues.
I agree in general with the video, rome 2 started this type of gameplay, the dumbed down campaign mechanics. However you have to take mods into account with R2 because its one of the most modded TW titles and the mod quality and quantity is very high. Mods are what make R2 a much better game. You have to consider mods when you review R2 because they can have such an impact on the gameplay.
I don't play vannila R2 its just not fun. Many of the problems with R2 can be improved a lot with mods. In my DEI mod campaign Syracuse does have walls , because they are using the later campaign map ( I think the Rise of the Republic Map) which has walls in more regions.
You’re not forced to press the auto resolve though. I do agree the Auto resolve is broken
No it was not in 272 bc. Archimedes was 15 at that time lol. You are confusing timelines here alot. The siege of Syracuse took place 60 years after starting the game. At that time rome already had controll of Apennine Peninsula, Sicily, Corsica and even more - thats not the case when you start the game. You can't somehow include every event. Not in a sandbox game. With the first decision in the game, you are no longer in the real story.
Something that I really like about Rome 1 that isn't really in Rome 2 is the feeling of battles. In Rome 1, every battle feels like something to write down in the History Books, even when its just 3 vs 3 stacks. In Rome 2, you really need minimum 8 vs 8 stacks to make it feel epic and actually important for the campaign.
def
i did enjoy messing with small cheap units in rome 2 at first, but you can only do some many german javelin and spear ambushes before it gets boring
That's typical nostalgia crap talking. Nothing beats Rome2 combined land and sea battles.
@@shiroamakusa8075 Lol I got Rome 1 for the first time around 3 months ago
@@alejoalfonso1459 LoL, grognards are known to lie constantly. So you can go fuck yourself.
In Rome 1 auto resolve is so random that it makes it necessary to fight most battles. This makes almost every battle feel meaningful and special. Meanwhile in Rome II you get your doom stack or three stacks of the cheapest spearmen and click your way to victory on the auto resolve button.
Edit: I'm aware that fighting every single battle can be annoying over time. However this game is called Total WAR and not Total Auto resolve. Total War games are lacking in the campaign aspect if you compare them to paradox games. And since auto resolve is so overpowered and time saving the game ends up to be just a far worse version of a paradox game (if you dont force yourself not to use auto resolve too often). The battles are what differenciate Total War from other strategy titles. It's the main selling point. If the devs make like 80-90% of battles not worth fighting manually they probably dont know which game they are working on. In my opinion Shogun 2 has the best balance in regard to auto resolve out of the "newer" Total War games. However it is still too strong there.
Could not put it better myself
Thats wrong, you can win with most faction by just autoresolving, for example with romans its easy, you'll win almost any battle, with greeks its impossible, but you can do it with seleucids for example, all you need to do is on start build traders and markets, then blacksmiths and then spam scythed chariots only... chariots and infantry with good armor or pilum are op on autoresolve... with gauls its imposible or scythia, as autoresolve dont like their units... I just conquered whole wold with venice in mtw2 by just autoresolving, god it took me 80 turns to destroy timurids, I had whole map when they come with 9 stacks full of experienced troops, my 3 full stacks of crossbowmen were doing only 100 casualties on them on autoreselve xD other option was to spam assassins and reload if they fail, but I was to lazy to do that...
Fighting every single battle can get quite annoying overtime, and tbh, auto resolving battles is up to the player like, if you want to build a doomstack and auto resolve your way through the campaign, it's up to you, but if you want to play the battles manually then there's that option. My points is, you shouldn't be forced to play every battle just bc the auto resolve feature is broken.
@@carloshdez1613 well in Attila game forces you to play every battle, cause in order to win campaign you need ti kill at least 4 to 1 in every battle and for example with eastern roman empire you have like limit of 8 stacks and you can send like 3 stacks to destroy sassanids who also have 8 stacks and all garrisons... its painful game, with eastern rome I did what legend did and abounded all but egypt and with western I abounded all but britannia, then with eastern I slowly conquered everything back, but with westerni first destroyed whole map just from ritannia and then colonized everything xD ohh and with eastern I gave like millions to huns and make them destroy whole map and later when they destroyed 90% of europe I paid them to attack sassanids and they went to persia xD
Forcing the player to fight every battle manually is not a good thing. Eventually it gets tedious to spend real-life time mopping up those tiny rebel stacks. Auto-resolve is meant to make the game more enjoyable by allowing the player to focus on the battles that actually matter.
Amazed how Melkor can replicate the shape of Italy perfectly off the top of his head
@Cynfael Alek-Walker With an accent like that?
@Cynfael Alek-Walker You are joking right? Please for the love of god tell me you're joking lol
@Cynfael Alek-Walker Londinium*
I'm from Metchley Fort myself. I suspect Melkor is from the area around Eboracum.
Vale.
@@helikos1
Considering that Romans tend to have British accents in media. Yeah lol
Step one: draw boot
Step two: profit
There are things I love about both games. Carthage was far better in Rome 1, the barbarians so much better in Rome 2. Parthia, egypt and the east were better in Rome 2, but the family trees were better in Rome 1. The thing total war needs to fix is how every faction gets 50 full stacks while u can barely afford 2.
100% agree, Rome 2 did do Barbarians and the East much better.
@@MelkorGG we know how you adore Rome 1 Egypt
I know it is one year later, excuse me for this. But I totally agree with your last point. In a campaign I razed 2/3 settlements of a faction and destroy their Army ( mine was severly damaged) and after 4 turns they had the economic strength to get up 3 full stacks while I could get only 2. Needless to say, I stopped the campaign therej
Not being able to pull units from a stack killed Rome 2 for me. I wanted to like the game so much.
That is one of the dumbest things I heard as a RTW only player. Too broke for a pc lol.
The sole reasons is because of a movement bug in which to implement is a very tedious process. CA couldn't fix it so removed that feature. On top of that, so what if people are cheating in their single player campaign. They're only cheating themselves.
@@helikos1 yes. Devs heavily overestimate the importance of balancing in a single player game
@@brunowilliam7529 Indeed. I was furious when I found out about this. I first encountered in in Warhammer but thought it was staying true to the tabletop. All armies need a HQ choice to be legal.
If people want to cheat in single player who cares?
You started the video by assuring Rome 2 fans it's okay to like that game, I'm sure they're both touched.
I really liked Rome 2 but Rome 1 was in another dimension. Along with med 2 and shogun 2.
@@nickzock8694 The differences in game design and on the map gameplay have changed drastically. You can not walk out of Rome 1 into Rome 2 and vice versa. You need to goto Rome 2 school before you can play it effectively but you can not play it the same way as Rome 1
I like Rome 2, and I started the video by touching myself. Ohhh yeah bitch
Well Id agree, but every time I go online I realise the Rome 2 player base is the largest of historical games and I get depressed.
I can understand why people like Rome 2, especially relative newcomers to Total War.
But for those of us who grew up playing Rome 1 and Medieval 2, Rome 2 just doesn’t reach that same level for me, or really even come close. It’s a solid game, but very disappointing, compared to its predecessor. Too many mechanics are not what I’m looking for in a Total War game.
I see you're adopting my MS Paint school of explaining complex strategic concepts.
It's surprisingly very handy, but i will never go as far as to use excel spreadsheets : )
(Also, it saves me getting gameplay and screenshots)
What I hate about Rome2 are fricking rebels. They are everywhere, every other turn they raze my settlement or occupie it so I have to send armie to take it back. I don't have enough generals to fight other nations and rebels at the same time.
I uninstalled the game partly because of this, if Rome had to deal with all that they wouldn't be able to conquer even Italy itself, the AI randomly declares war on you from literally the other side of the map, then the rebels constantly popping, on top of that I had to deal with civil wars in a game, they basically spawned with 4 cities, I had to fight like a lion to get these cities, but the separatists just get them and some of my armies for free. Don't ever try playing as dacians, its pure hell.
Nah lets just play other total war games like Warhammer total war
And don’t forget: in Rome 1, having to do all the boat deployment and stuff to take Syracuse teaches you how to use fleets to move troops organically, giving you an understanding of how you do that before you have to take on Carthage and sail across to fight them later on! The game is teaching you how to play it because of good campaign design.
Nope, just lame, tedious busywork.
@@shiroamakusa8075 We get it you're a Rome 2 fanboy just here to troll
Sad how a game that allows you to field gladiators and hornet catapults is more realistic than its AAA successor. Much love to the modding community that fixed rome 2. (As best as they could)
Gladiators were used as pursuit units for fleeing enemies in one of the Punic Wars, but they had proper military garb and not the tedious arena gear.
There's nothing realistic about Rome1, it's pure Hollywood myth BS.
I hate rome 2 just because literally every faction with 1 settlement has 1 full stack of units in it and a second one in the making. I hate it, it makes it almost impossible to attack it with just one army so you are forced to attack with 2 full stacks. Also the enemy armies dont attack you they just go around you to attack your undefended city.
That's a commom tactic I use myself xD you know that if in Shogun 2 you take last city, all units disappear?
Thats make game a bit to easy sometimes.
Not to mention, how easy the rebels manage to form a full army, every farmer can field and supply an entire legion in this game, but when I get my hands on 8 cities I can barely field 3 armies, not even close to be enough to protect my domains.
Mom I'm no longer a gamer. Now I'm a digital artist specialized on antique maps
Upgrades, people. Upgrades.
The moment I realized Rome 2 sucked in comparison to Rome 1 was when I found myself dreading ending my turn. Rome 2 had effective enemy agents that were annoying, but not as annoying as that stupid bongo sound effect the game made to let you know your army was sabotaged when your turn started. So I'd be hit with 5 enemy agents which would stretch out the end turn making me wait longer & immediately I would have 5 of those annoying bongo sound effects blast in my ear consecutively with no way to turn them off. I would get them almost everytime I ended my turn & it got the the point where it caused me so much psychological distress that I had to mentally prepare myself for just ending my fucking turn. It was at that point I realized this game was bringing me the opposite of pleasure & relaxation & that Rome 2 was a bad game.
XD
Agents in new titles are rough. In Attila I had a faction leader killed by an assassin, then my next leader, then my next leader.
I once had a army in Shogun 2 that was immobile for 10 turns, happened on stream, they just kept sabotaging.
I can totally hear it in my head. It sounds like this "BWOAAAANNNG!"
Holy shit the bongo sound is the stuff of nightmares.
BADINGDINGDINGDING DING DA DING
Lol you had PTSD, but I definitely know what u mean. You could win a war with just agents lol
Everybody says ooo it’s good now they fixed the bugs. It’s not just the bugs that made it shite. When I first got it I closed down a Rome campaign and i thought to myself “wow I think I actually don’t like this”
It’s just not good. It’s so different to Rome 1. It has so many useless things they packed in for historical accuracy. Playing it feels like doing a chore
Thats how I feel about every Total War after Shogun 2. Rome1, Empire, Shogun 2, Medieval 2, Napeleon are the only games i like and play.
What are you talking about?
You need to write better, include what your talking about in the first sentence, otherwise the whole paragraph doesn’t make sense.
@@s4098429 it’s not supposed to make perfect sense I’m just trying to convey my thoughts
@@s4098429 It's a youtube comment, not a marked essay. I understood him well, not even a native speaker. So yah, chill lol
Yes, Rome2 and everything since feels more like a chore. You just do a lot of clicking to make frustrating problems go away. Which is basically my day job so I dunno why I'd spend my free time doing basically the same thing I do at work, but without pay.
Okay so, I watched the whole of your video - just to hear (yet again) your arguments against Rome 2. And to summarise, these are your points on this one particular issue:
Main Topic: Strategic Depth on Campaign Map
• Rome 1 = More Strategic Depth
- Forced to recruit at owned cities.
- No land bridges between land masses, forced to use transport ships + can get intercepted by navies.
- Harsher auto-resolve.
- Can build forts.
- Forced to pay for replenishment.
- Requires building of siege equipment before assault.
• Rome 2 = Less Strategic Depth
- Can recruit as you move within owned province.
- Has land bridges between very close-proximity land masses (in this example, Sicily + Southern Italy), removing need for transports to those areas that have them + attacking from one of those land masses.
- Tamer auto-resolve.
- Can fortify armies.
- Auto-replenishment (based on local ability to replenish).
- First-turn ladders, can potentially assault any time.
Subtopic: Judgement
• Rome 1 = Not a perfect game. But I forgive it because it's on an older engine. Older = We can ignore flaws.
• Rome 2 = Not a perfect game. But I will never forgive it because it's on a newer engine. Newer = We cannot ignore flaws.
Let's go through each one of those comparisons and give you my honest thoughts, from a player who loves *both* games.
1. Settlement vs Provincial Recruitment
Honestly, I really do not mind the idea of provincial recruitment from several POV. From a historical POV, this is fine; armies didn't always just rally men from cities, they called from all corners and rallied anywhere they wanted. They didn't have to set the rally point for their army always to a settlement. From a gameplay POV, I believe this is fine; it allows for more dynamic use of armies and navies rather than always expecting a new stack to emerge directly from the settlements.
2. Land Bridges
This I agree with; I would rather land bridges didn't exist in any of the Total Wars or - at the very least - have the ability to blockade them and also force an army going over a land bridge have severe movement points deducted, as they already are when they attempt to move across rivers. However, I think bashing Rome 2 specifically for this is rather harsh; land bridges already existed in everyone's beloved game of Shogun 2 which connected up several of the islands together yet no one bothered to complain back then. I imagine the devs from Rome 2 were like "well, it seemed no one minded this feature in Shogun 2, maybe we should keep it like this?". Combined with the fact that CA were being rushed by SEGA to release it, I don't blame them for not noticing this - I forgive them for it. If it makes any difference to you, an army can easily block these locations at the tip; whoever the attacker is who tries to cross that point will never have a reinforcing army, while the defender may have one. I've been in this situation many times in DeI while playing as Carthage defending from the Romans, and it is viable; the Romans may even try to bypass my fortified army and try to land one somewhere else which then forces me to flee to the city for the added bonus of walls (Syracuse in DeI does have walls, it's been scripted to have them + maximum ranked minor settlements are given them).
3. Auto-resolve Balancing
If we're talking vanilla here, then I agree - Rome 2's auto-resolving is far too tame. A very simple mod can alleviate this though, and every overhaul mod I can think of edits this to be more balanced for the AI to force you to fight more battles rather than skip them.
4. Long-term vs Short-term Forts
The only thing I like about the permanent fortifications system from Rome 1 + Medieval 2 + Empire was just seeing the little 3D prop staying where it was afterwards. I am totally indifferent to these two methods of forts, one is not clearly better than the other IMO, they're just slightly different ways at tackling the same feature. The only thing I dislike about Rome 2's fort battles are just the battle maps themselves; I wish they didn't always look the same with those damn 3 entrances surrounded by palisades and rocks over and over. They should have made them more dynamic based on the tilemap position (i.e. if fortified army is on a hill, a hill fort appears etc) and also on your army's tradition (e.g. a higher fortification consctruction tradition, the higher level the fort for that army).
5. Replenishment
The auto-replenishment system was introduced with Napoleon, and I've always thought that this was a positive change. I never liked the replenishment systems before it. It streamlines the system so that I don't have to keep clicking on "replenish" every turn (sometimes I may forget to do so), and it doesn't just instantly replenish a unit 100% within a turn or two which feels wrong if I'm, for example, replenishing in a total backwater. The auto-replenishment system takes into consideration the local ability to replenish more than the previous system, potentially over a longer period of time. Perhaps you don't like the system because high-tier units can potentially replenish roughly at the same pace as a low-tier unit? In that instance, I agree, it should take into consideration that a high-tier unit should be slower to replenish since those guys are elites, therefore training them up should take more time. Despite that though, I would rather have auto-replenishment than the clunky old one, it was such a chore and is one of the few times I actually agree with streamlining. Lots of other grand strategy games use auto-replenishment (e.g. CK, EU, IR), but have manpower as an additional factor. If we're talking about vanilla R2 here, then yes, I do miss manpower. Mods however can bring this back thanks to Mitch's + Magnar's work on P++ (integrated + refined in DeI).
6. Siege Ladders
Again, I agree with you - first turn ladders should never have existed in the first place in Rome 2. I believe this was a consequence thanks to Empire, Napoleon and Shogun 2 - games which allowed you to immediately assault their forts from the first turn, where no one seemed to mind. It's possible that the devs recognised this and again thought "well, perhaps we can do the same thing for R2? Allow them to attack, but at a great disadvantage?". They quite rightly altered this with Attila by removing first-turn ladders, decreasing their auto-resolve power and making them even more destructable in battles. I will disagree with one thing you briefly mention about walls; they're "useless". They're not useless at all, they can definitely help turn the tide of a battle by limiting the enemy options of entering the city, decreasing the time it takes to enter the city and also towers + units on walls can wreck havoc on advancing units. Ladders are also the most flammable piece of siege equipment in the game, but a lot of players like to forget flaming arrows exist since they don't do +HP damage as they used to by that point. Even so, again, a simple mod can decrease overall HP (both hard HP + flame HP) when in battle to punish those who assault too early or don't use other forms of siege equipment.
7. Judgement
I find your comments about R1 vs R2 to be rather arbitrary. Take into consideration that it has been almost 8 years since R2 has released, that is almost the same length of time the game was released after R1 was which was 9 years. 1 more year from now, R2 will be the same age R1 was when R2 released. Considering R2 is an old game now, can I not also use the same logic you used to explain away R1's flaws to also explain away R2's flaws? Consider that the team creating R2 weren't the exact same team as they were during R1's development and faced many different challenges. We know that they had to deal with major internal problems at the time of making R2 than the team doing R1. The R2 team were also aiming far higher than the R1 team (check out some of the interviews with Leads at CA during this time, in particular Pawel Wojs' and his experience trying to make an entirely new battle tilemapping system for the series with Rome 2, which is now still being used + refined to this day in the latest entries to TW). Considering the amount of new features and the scale of ambition of what both teams were trying to do with their games, I would say that CA did fairly well to get Rome 2 to the shape it is in today versus what it could have been in the hands of a more incompetent team. Yes it's not perfect, but neither do I believe is it terrible or deserving to be hated / bashed to death anymore. There are so many differing factors and also lots of things we don't know that occurred during both's development that we cannot draw a proper conclusion as to why what happened really happened and judge how much more or less effort they put into it than the original.
“Rome 1 = more strategic depth.” You didn’t say anything against it so I assume you agree. Isn’t that more than enough for it being better? They are both strategy games after all. Well you can have too much depth but I don’t think there is anything to worry in any TW tittles.
It’s not about “one can’t forgive because it’s newer game”, but the expectation how much it should be better are not met. Of course there are many improvements in R2, some that are good and others that are insignificant. Very big problems are unresolved issues, new issues and the worst: thing that were ok or even good in past, but are now really bad. R2 has plenty of these problems.
2. I believe land bridges were added because AI could not handle invading from sea. The problem here as I see it is applying bandages where you have internal wounds.
3. Mods are really not an answer to criticism for actual sold product. But since you brought it up: mods for R1 make it much better than mods do for R2
6. First turn attacking was liked in previous tittles? Who liked them? Where did they express it? During the release of ETW I was quite active in TW community and what I saw was that it was at least very controversial and worst people were against it. People didn’t have problem with attacking with artillery (which you almost always had) but that god awful rope climbing. Well there was one redeeming quality and it was that almost any infantry drying to climb would get minced by even worst troops on top of the wall.
About walls being useless, I believe Melkor was exacerbating and yes walls can change the tide of battle. They should not. They should be the battle. Fortifications were build so that small force could fend of larger force or hold of until reinforcements arrive. In R2 they provide neither but are only mediocre advantage for defenders.
Judgement:
I don’t think it was arbitrary at all. They are both old now but only R1 was once new. It brought many new things and improvements for very new genre. To say R2 was more ambitious is rather gross over grandiosing and in frank insult to R1. Internal struggle and “bad publisher” are neither any defence for poor product. Nor is old people leaving. As I see it those all are very poor mismanagement from leadership. To say that you can’t judge something because you might not know all the facts is to say you can’t judge anything ever.
@@santerilaakeristo7305 Not for me, no. The differences in the strategic element of the campaign map is not enough for me to consider that R1 - as a whole - is clearly the better a game. The strategic element is just one part of a long list of features you have to consider when weighing up the pros and cons, and to me yes that is a con on R2, but just that one con I don't think is enough for me to consider that R2 is an inferior game, at least not enough for me to "hate" it as MELKOR does.
Oh but it is, check my response to the topic of "judgement" below (number 7). In my opinion, a lot of the so called "problems" or features which have now been made "bad" are totally subjective. Most of the time people complain about things like auto-replenishment, the music, the way you can't split your armies the same way anymore (you can in theory still do that, but you require a reinforcing army + another commander), long-term vs short term forts, the 2D unit cards etc - I don't think those are problems and are entirely subjective. Stuff which is quite utterly weird and broken which themselves haven't been fixed or still cannot be fixed through modding - such as ship units getting stuck after ramming - are the worst. Don't forget R1 has its own fair share of issues too, R2 is not unique in having its own issues. For other points regarding the topic of "judgement" and in regards to "expectation of how much it should be better are not met", again take a look at my response to 7 below.
2. I'm not sure if that is the case, but it's a possibility. It could also be because the developers were trying to speed up the gameplay a bit for players who didn't want to have to embark / disembark to a new land mass which is "right there" if you know what I mean. Perhaps internal play testing from certain members suggested the feature because of that, some designer foolishly agreed to implement them to speed things up and that was that. But ultimately we don't know and will never truly know why they were added.
3. I already did say "if we're talking specifically vanilla here, then I agree - auto-resolve is too tame", so I don't disagree with MELKOR there. But if it's such a big deal to you about whether or not I am allowed to suggest mods, then yes actually I do believe it is a fair comment to make - modding provides a platform to alter the game experiences you can edit to however you see fit, and if you believe that that is a feature you do not agree then you can potentially change it. I don't think there's anything wrong with suggesting to a player to go and take a look at a mod if it helps alleviate any grievances they have with the game. Auto-resolve balancing is an extremely easy thing to edit inside the db tables, they're a set of values that anyone with PFM can go in and alter to however they see fit, hence probably why every overhaul for R2 edits these values to be more balanced. And in regards to R1 mods being better than R2 mods, in what ways do you consider them to be better? Based on what, your subjective opinion of believing that the base of R1 is superior to the base of R2? Or modding potential? I've modded both games for quite a while now to believe that modded R2 trumps modded R1.
6. Well that's good for you, but maybe not enough people thought enough of it worthy to complain to the extent that you did on their forums and - as a result of that minimal feedback - CA took that as a sign that the new changes to sieges were fine/liked for Empire->Napoleon->Shogun 2. Usually if you don't hear enough of a backlash against certain design choices, the teams don't aim to change it (unless they themselves find out on their own that it's not what they want for their next game). IIRC you're right, there was a lot of complaining about ropes, BUT that I only ever saw complaints about how they'd get stuck, not the concept of having ropes at all. I don't remember anyone complaining about units in Shogun 2 being able to climb the walls either, which is just a dynamic / quicker form of ropes (i.e. removes the rope animation, which was the thing that made ropes so tedious / prone to breaking). I also remember complaints about points where a fort siege would get incredibly slow, diplomacy being completely fucked on release and poor AI, but I personally don't remember seeing anyone complain about the concept of first-turn sieges, and if I did then they were buried in a flood of people complaining about other, larger issues and I've forgotten about them since it was now 13 years ago. In regards to making walls the battle rather than just an advantage for defenders in battles, yes I entirely agree - I already said that first-turn sieges were a mistake in R2 as a result of the concept being introduced with the previous games. Attila thank god actually changed this, along with providing only one piece of siege equipment per constructed during a siege.
7. In regards to insulting R1 for said points, I disagree vehemently with your logic and accuse you of being a reactionary person who refuses to try to understand what another is trying to say. I do believe R2 to be more ambitious with everything they were trying to do; they had more to deal with in comparison to R1 - to put it very simply, if you were to draw up a long list of the features of both games side by side, you will notice the differences by far. If you're indeed reactionary I'd imagine you start to think right now "but R1 / Shogun 2 laid the foundations for R2 which already means less work to do - R2 only had to add and not take away, so you're wrong and I find your comment very insulting!", but I'm sorry that's not how software development works (of which I also work in IRL) and is an oversimplification of a complex issue; everything is worked on and considered... EVERYTHING! Dev teams only have so much time to add / change features; in a perfect world they would all the time needed to change every little thing to be perfect. Having to weigh up things such as the new campaign + battle map tiling system, new battle types, increase in scale, new battle features to try and accommodate tactics of the time yet also retain the improvements of the last title they released etc on a limited time means that certain things will always fall through the cracks and end up neglected / kept as they are from the previous version in order to meet a deadline. They are fine points to make if we are going down the route of forgiving games for "problems of the time". In regards to R1, it was technology + budget. In regards to R2, it was technology + budget + internal struggles + having to live up to an old legacy while retaining the new; R1 had no legacy to live up to, so R2 was always - in some way - going to fail for a few people who loved the old games to bits and did not like the recent improvements to the formula (another phrase you constantly hear in regards to software development: you can't satisfy everyone). If you knew anything about what they were trying to do with R2 and the internal issues that they were facing, you'd have expected them to produce something totally unplayable and not worthy at all of redemption, but it has surprisingly turned into a fine game and in comparison to older titles just falls short in some expectations like the one covered in this video, and that is enough for me really.
As MELKOR says about R1, yes R2 is not perfect either - that was all that needed to be said on the matter. I didn't personally want to travel into the realm of picking at specifics trying to explain criticism away, but I quote him saying "That being said, it was limited by the engine of the time. I don't know to what extent we can really accuse R1 of not being perfect". I can say exactly the same sort thing (based on the things I listed) with his logic by explaining away R2's issues by saying "That being said, R2 was limited by the team's myriad internal issues, having to balance the new with the old (with what they brought in with titles in between that and R1) and attempting to introduce many new features layered on top of that. I don't know to what extent we can really accuse R2 of not being perfect." So, you are right to say point out my additional comments with "To say we can't judge something because you might not know all the facts is to say you can't judge anything ever", you are so, so, so correct! That is exactly what I am trying to get at. The reason I was saying that stuff is to try to counter MELKOR's own logic about trying to explain away criticism by providing extra points to consider - if we are going down that route - why judging R2 so harshly and R1 not is such an arbitrary position to hold, because he does it across every single one of his videos and his comments since he has a personal bias of loving R1 over R2 that blinds him from judging both fairly (in this video, I'd say it was mostly fair, up until the last comment which he had to shove in). On no point - not even the most obvious positives that R2 has over R1 (e.g. the fact that the startpos has more detail (i.e. more factions, not just generic rebel rebel rebel everywhere), that the historical interpretation of cultures is more accurate, that the political system is more dynamic especially after the political + family tree update 3 years ago etc) are acceptable to him from what I've seen. The few things R2 gets wrong doesn't - in my personal opinion - outweigh the things it gets right to be deserved of being "hated" and bashed to death. It won't be enough for some people such as MELKOR or probably yourself (i.e. players who believe that strategic depth (i.e. army placement / movement) is the most important thing, judging by your "isn't that more than enough for being better?") and that's fine, you can't satisfy everyone. I believe it is for a lot of people, hence why Rome 2 still has quite a large playerbase + active community after 8 years.
Thank you for your analysis but Rome 2 is simply boring.
@@uvuvwevwevweosas4459 Thank you for your opinion.
I remember strategizing my Empire Total War campaign during school.
Rome 2 doesn't allow me that strategization, even with that campaign planner they put out that melted my computer every time I went on to it!
Another thing is auto-replenishment. It amazes me how many players want auto-replenishment in Rome 1 Remastered. Auto-replenishment is one of the worst things about the newer total war games, along with general requirement for units, and broken auto resolves among others. Auto-replenishment makes you value your men way less when it's super easy to replenish them.
Absolutely, playing med 2 and rome 1 the casualties in battles feel way more impactful, and as much as I love shogun 2, I don't really like the auto-replenishment because you can just sit around and have reinforcements magically appear, despite not having the required buildings.
@@thepizzafoogle5481 you control the land Auto replenishment makes more sense then having to go back to a settlement with said building to replenish units the latter is actually so stupid its dumbfounding since rome was known for its logictics 🤦
@@undary0u Nah, the problem is why do we have guys just magically materialise into the army over time? You don't even pay for them to replenish. The latter is not 'actually so stupid', and is better for logistical depth, as it means reinforcements can be intercepted from the main force. You do realise you can just recruit new units and send them to reinforce an army?
The pacing of progression in Rome 1 is one of the main reasons I love it so much, I remember playing as the Greek Cities and fighting a 30 turn long war for control of Sicily with all three sides shipping reinforcements constantly and the tide changing form turn to turn. That would never happen in Rome 2, one side would send a massive army over and take the whole island in 1 turn.
Get what you mean. But guess it kinda depends on your plat style and how good you are. I have well above a thousand hours on rome 1. Playing as the creeks you can defeat rome in like 20 turns. (With the cheese offcourse). But still. Depends on how good you are i guess
@@hoflypofly The main reason the war took so long that I forgot to mention was that I was also fighting the Brutii and Pontus at the same time so my resources were spread very thin
@@definitelynotaweeb6879 that kinda explains it:)
I always enjoyed going into battles in Rome 1 and Medieval 2 most of the time, only occassionaly skipping obvious victories, defeats, if it was a sea battle or if I was just was too lazy that time. It's a complete 180 in Rome 2/Attila/Warhammer even Shogun 2 to some extent. I just can't be bothered most of the time, occassionaly I might fight a battle that is big and interesting, but they're rare. I think its auto-replenishing units conributing to this, there is no urgency or motive to keep your army as fully stacked as possible, because they'll be fuly stacked in a few turns anyway, especially with modifiers post-battle that replinish it even faster. So that enemy army that is coming to reclaim it's lost settlement will be of little threat by the time it gets to you anyway.
Rumour is they’re doing a TW:Medieval 3
@@stevepirie8130 It doesn't matter does it? If the features that made the older games great would not return.
Rome 2 made me so bitter and I'm still holding a grudge at ca over it
9:00 this is such a good idea. Additionally, the "boarding" could also be in a state of limbo, just like the disembarking state. So that both boarding and disembarking is dangerous. Which gives use to using harbors as important safe boarding/disembarking spots.
Almost all your objections are mediated by installing Divide et Impera:
Armies movement
Fleet movement
Army replenishment even better tahn rome 1, linked to local population.
I wished they removed the instant ladders...
I don't know how you feel, but imo the movement distance of armies is still too high, I mean settlement or weaker army sniping like coming out of hyper space is still a thing there.
I experienced the population mechanic to be mostly unplayable for minor factions because once you have a full-scale war against another small faction, you can afford only very few actual battles where you have to deal with enemy fullstacks because afterwards you can no longer replenish or recruit mid-tier units properly anymore. Then you have to stick to low-tier ones while the AI doesn't have such limitations and keeps outclassing your armies while you have to wait dozens of turns out to get halfway good units again when attempting to wage the next war.
@@acealinka489 sounds like you need to get better
DEI is so good.
@@acealinka489 Bro that just means you're management is potato. The whole idea is to weigh your options and check populations and supply lines before starting a war. It makes everything harder, but not unplayable. I play nothing but DEI and it's really not that hard. You just have to play smart.
@@acealinka489 I agree. Any significant campaign mechanic that applies to the player but not to the AI just kills the strategy for me. To me strategy is not just about what are my limitations, it's also since these limitations apply to both the AI and me, can I also use this to my advantage by making the AI suffer from the limitations more than I do? If I have supply lines that limit my armies, the AI should have them so that I can strategise and fight them at places were they cannot supply themselves. If I take attrition in certain conditions, I can think of what conditions the AI would take attrition and fight battles that take advantage of that.
I haven’t played Vanilla Rome 2 in at least five years
Even DEI could only shore up its flaws, rather than “fix” it
Oh really. Im thinking about going into DeI and it looks really complicated but I want to learn it.
Do you mean that the first Total war Rome game (or wym with "Vanilla Rome 2") is better than DeI?
@@asdfgasdfg8006
DEI is good, especially for a mod for a rather shit game
It’s not as good as Rome I, an all-time classic
Did this help?
@@asdfgasdfg8006
I’d also say that DEI is a different enough experience than Rome I that it wouldn’t be fair to compare them and say you only need one
@@warlordofbritannia Ohh I see. Well I might try Rome 1 first then. Is the remaster any good? Im usually a fan of old games.
@@asdfgasdfg8006
All seems to be promising thus far
He's sharing his opinion, let's get him boys
I agree alot. R2 has alot of problems that make it more arcade-y than anyhting else. Everything is fast, easy and so numerous that you are not meant to take time and think. And you are almost punished for taking your time.
I think in Empire total war there was the boat loading system you mention, when your army gathers in the ship or ships you have wait one turn for the ship to be able to move again, and when they disembark (even at the same place they embarked for example) the army must wait 1 turn before moving
It depends if you embark from port or not.
Damnit Melkor you just made me want to play Rome: Total War again, I cannot wait for the remaster to be out...
I like rome 1/medieval 2 better then the newer ones. I like how you can have armies without generals, liked how the family members worked, how you can governor cities. I also think the diplomats, assassins, spies were much more useful and realistic. Also the free upkeep units that you have to garrison vs the city upgrade auto garrison i felt was much better.. Honestly I kinda miss the old auto-manage option in the older games, made speed running much better
I like the style of the video.
I agree with the problems you found with Rome 2: I think the DeI helps very much in solving those issues, but I don’t think that CA will ever go that direction with newer games
DEI is the only way to play rome 2, in my opinion
And with it, as much as I like Rome 1, I just enjoy 2 better
It doesn't help it because it has nothing to do with the core mechanics. On the contrary it makes worse the problem mentioned about the Patavium situation. In DEI the population is of another culture, so the already weak garrison is weaker, and if they raze the city you don't have enough people to replenish your stacks or the city's garrison or recruit new units, unless there is some useful barbarian levy in the province. So you either stay where you are with a damaged stack, hoping for the population to recover and start replenishing, or walk in another province and let every settlement vulnerable and always in negative public order.
@@Seedmember The problem he mentions about the north of Italy is that, being able to attack a city in one turn, you cannot move an army in to protect it.
The DeI gives you bigger garrisons, helping in the defense, and lowers armies movement: if you have all the nord of Italy, as per the drawing shown in the video, Pavitum is not attackable in one turn from outside your territory, because an army cannot reach it (not sure about Genoa, you can only attack Mediolanum in one turn, a walled city with big garrison).
So yes, the DeI does not change some core mechanics, but helps reducing the problems mentioned: another example are the fleets, that are very useful in the DeI
It only has a big garrison if you managed to convert it from barbarian to roman first and did not sack it when you took it. The ai can easily field two stacks for each one you have so unless you constantly leave an army right next to the city you either lose it or fight through repetitive battles trying to cheese the broken ai. And if they sack it once the whole province goes into downwards public order spiral. Add the fact that the ai dogpiles on you if you are in a war with someone they deem stronger and you get an exhausting cycle of trying to hunt down ais, rebels, keep public order and build up population for recruitment.
Mind you, DEI is the only way imo to play Rome 2 now, but while it improves the game, it just can't fix something that was so broken to begin with.
I completely agree with the movement changes. I play a lot of RTW2 (moded with DEI) but I still feel RTW does a much better job at using the campaign map as a challenge rather than just battles.
At first I didn't realise it was a drawing in ms paint, I thought it was an actual screen shot from Rome 2. It wasn't until I read the comments that I noticed. Amazing drawing talents, bravo sir.
XD
5:18 the point you begin to talk about here is one of the worst aspects of Rome 2, I definitely agree with you on that. It's annoying how easily your borders crumble
I just played my first ever game of rome tw and chose the blue romans. I was told by the senate to take Syracuse e and lilybeum but I fought one small battle against the Greeks and then bought their city and their friendship. Later I bought lilibeum too from the carthagineans and bought several other Greek cities. My first real military campaign was many turns deep when I invaded Macedon.
blue romans. this is so beautiful in so many levels
Your accent is the Male version of "You know nothing John Snow". Lol not a bad thing it's just all I can think of.
He speaks as if he was from some kind of medieval french province speaking english
@@martonk Thes gaem secks eheheh
@@Burgermeister1836 Im pretty sure its Northern english. Sounds Northumerland/cumbria sounding.
@@Burgermeister1836 it's not a Scottish accent.
I don't have a problem with the auto-replenishment. If you are talking about historical accuracy people are going to die all the time outside of battle through attrition or recruits aging out (and this accounts for those losses when retraining is automatic), and when your army gets wrecked you couldn't just run up to a city and fill up half an army in a few months with the same quality fighting men, especially in a freshly conquered territory. Recruiting takes time, and would be more of a slow process.
And if they aren't defending their city, rushing unguarded walls with ladders would have happened quite often I'd imagine. I'm pretty sure that's when they got used most often. Otherwise they would have to build actual siege towers and use artillery to push people off the wall. Going up ladders against an occupied wall side was a sure way to break your own army.
So in short, just leaving your city lightly defended was an invitation for an attacking force to run in quick to loot and sack, while fleeing away from reprisal.
I agree with most of the boat stuff, but rarely would armies get repelled on the shores in ancient times. They would just find another part of the shore that was unguarded to disembark on rather than do a risky coastal attack.
Good video with solid points. Love how pleasant and welcoming MELKOR is. ROME II is personally my favorite TW title. It's the only game I've put over 2000 hours in besides League of Legends. Come to think of it, maybe that's why my serotonin levels are so low.
>Bae, are you really going to watch a 14-minute long video essay on Rome II core gameplay mechanics instead of coming to bed?
>Yes.
Honestly I don't understand why there is so much hate towards this game. It is so damn good, you have so much scenarios to play and each one of them is different. I have 1000h+ on RTW and played the shit out of that game, but this game has so much more options and factions to play. Stop comparing both of them, it is not RTW 2, but TWR2. Of course not everything is likeable, but personally, as a RTW player, I absolutely love the game. It's a different game, I really don't understand why people are complaining about things that were in RTW, this is a new game with different gameplay.
...Should we tell him about the Rome: Total War speed runs?
Yea, yea we should
Being able to cheese the diplomacy isn't much of a detriment if you actually want to enjoy the game. Not being strategically challenged, however is a pretty big detriment to fun.
@@24680kong Sure Rome 2’s base game is not challenging at all, but worth the DEI mod, I had a war with Carthage that lasted about 60 turns. They were very difficult to deal with and it was very satisfying to finally take them down. Granted, once I reached the Marian reforms some time later it wasn’t too challenging because I could just spam legionaries without worrying about population, but that’s kind of realistic for Rome at the time anyway. That’s just my experience though.
@@24680kong False, it shows how crap the balancing in Rome1 is.
Honestly I don’t know why so many people hate on Rome 2 that games is so fun and I love the political system in that game
because its awful. not to mention its state on relase and the updates recently after that.
Having put a couple hundred hours in Rome 2, I will give you an explanation:
As shown in the video, military campaigns are extremely simplified, a point and click system that does nothing to make you feel like you are actually mustering an army to go fight a war. the political system you are praising can be practically ignored as it really does not matter. I've had campaigns where I looked at it twice just to fix things in a turn once they had become too bad. This "feature" has practically negligible impact on the campaign and as such might as well be missing.
The battles are decent in Rome 2, if you ignore the fact that you are forced to use specific types of armies due to the fact that you only have so many of them (for no good reason). Additionally, there are far too many battles in the late game. You don't want to play because you know you can win but you don't want to deal with the spam of armies heading towards you - there are no decisive battles that can change the course of a campaign unlike in Rome 1 where training an army took time so you had the chance to push hard after a victory. Additionally, the replenishment system and the no-armies without generals rule completely remove small battles or campaigns where you have to use your forces well because you won't be able to replenish them.
All of these things are before we even mention the fact that autoresolving is faster and more efficient 90% of the time and the lack of population mechanics, meaning that your soldiers matter even less - after all, losing an army in no way impacts the growth of your towns. I should also probably talk about the stupid provincial system that requires you to attack your allies to remove some cultural penalty because you cannot ask them for the province; the diplomatic options are too bare bones (who decided that region trade should be removed even?). Also, provinces are completely arbitrary, you should be able to designate your own provinces with your own major walled towns (not to mention that you are no longer able to upgrade your walls or cities in general so that they change on the battle map).
So ye, I can go on and on but those are the worst offenders. And I know that many of these things are fixed by DEI but we really should stop excusing bland/boring/bad games with the work of modders.
6:31
Little mistake here, you can't move your army after occupying the city (on this turn). This is sure way to get trapped and lose whole stack if enemy's army is nearby. Anyway, I agree with point that siege could've been better.
But they can move it and run away if they sack it though. I think?
Mister Dundie
whatever u do , if u leave the army outside of that city in the end turn you can withdraw if you or the city is being attacked .
"You don't need any ships, you can walk into Sicily." True. But you don't build transport ships even if you sail to Egypt. Because apparently, in ancient times, if you marched an army into the ocean, the men and their equipment just kinda morphed into transport ships, and they morph into men again when they reach their destination. I have no idea how Rome One missed this, as they had you actually build transport ships.
not really, in Rome 1 you just needed one ship to transport a 20 stack of several thousand men
@@jam8539 But that would be a risky as hell move to put your full stack army to one boat. Meanwhile, in Rome 2 this transport fleet will overwhelm the actual naval units.
@@gronndar Indeed, I remember in Rome 1 taking advantage of a better fleet and destroying large armies stacked inside a few ships by sinking them to the bottom of the sea! Such a great feeling!
@@jam8539 technically 1 unit of ships is what 40 ships? 40 ships can move an army
@@Venakis1 If only a rome 3 where in order to transport an army by sea you have you go to a harbour and then use money to commader the local trading ships. However the amount of ships you can commander depends on the size and the trading frequencey of the harbour. If your army is larger than the amount of trade ships the harbour has avaible then you have break up your military force.
What I fucking hate the most is the map design and its effect to the battle in Rome 2. Unlike Rome 1
It seems like the total war games were made more accessible to a wider audience by making it easier to understand the games mechanics. Thus simplifying them in the process
This happens to so many games, and usually to the detriment of the original player base.
So Rome 1 was more complicated?
base game rome 2 is okay. it was amazing in my first campaign. I had only ever played Rome 1 and medieval 2 because my pc was doodoo and couldn't play anything else but I upgraded and rome 2 was my first purchase. it was a joy to grow my roman empire. then I discovered DEI and it added more depth to everything. it made rome 2 even better. with DEI rome 2 in my opinion is better than rome 1. without dei, not so much.
I don’t agree with the delay in boarding ships necessarily, but I do agree with your overall concept. I think this is done well in PDX games where your army gets a severe penalty (think ambush in TW) when landing troops for quite a while afterwards. A similar system where if the enemy attacks you soon after landing, you get a massive penalty, would be better than delaying your troops for a turn. As far as I can remember they get a big movement penalty once landed anyway in RTW
My favourite aspect of Rome 2 is the fact that only 2 cities in Greece have walls thank to the provincial system. That is exactly what fans wanted
I agree that is good, the province system I think was one of the best new decisions in Total War.
@@MelkorGG I hate single city building. Although the province system has its problems, it's more due to the design of the provinces, not the province system itself.
Yep I remmeber my first game... A other team took my Capital Rome and I got food shortage :/
Rome II Is one of my favorite total war games, with mods.
That northern italy example. I did that when i was Armenia against Cimmeria. Grew tired of them besieging the town (i dunno the name but it's a town near the black sea in modern day Georgia). I just went and razed the Cimmerian settlements and destroy everything . It doesn't get rid of the Cimmerians but it sure as hell did stop them attacking me.
2 years later and I can still agree. Amen brother.
Just started a grand campaign as Pontus. Huehuehue
Lmaoo
Bruh, you can not beat my The Great Parthian Camaping.
Paradox's Imperator: Rome is better than Rome 2: Total War, and Imperator was considered to be the worst franchise of its genre within modern Paradox.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Oof
I have almost 1,000 hours in Total War Rome II. Many of the arguments you make here are completely valid and fair. Ive had to download several mods to make the game more enjoyable to play. What wounds me the most is seeing the massive potential the game had / still has going to waste due to CA's laziness. Rome II could've been absolutely amazing and they messed it up. I hope maybe someday they'll return to caring about their games. That being said, i do love the Rise of the Republic DLC. Ive played it so many times due to the way the factions play out and how massive and small the campaign map feels at the same time.
Sounds like someone doesn't get the game mechanics of Rome II. Your army make-up is important, so is the size of an army they have in the area plus the size of their garrison. Rome II is by far a better game and far more challenging than Rome 1. Rome 1, diplomacy was a complete mystery and you could just build doom stacks and steamroll the map. Rome II, you have to be a lot more strategic in your moves and who you declare war on. You also can't ignore diplomacy or your family members. Atila dials that up several notches and Thrones takes it to another level. Personally, I fondly remember the original Rome 1, but Rome II and thereafter are my hard favorites. Also, walls are not useless in Rome II, it depends on the type of wall you're up against. I've actually defended a settlement from a much larger force because all they brought were ladders.
This more of a essay on the way TW has changed over time, and the issues you see with the series in general, using Rome-Rome2 as an example. The way recruitment was tied to population in Rome1 is one of the things i would like to see return to historical titles. I rather like Navies in Rome2 and often rely on them. Don't really get satisfaction from Rome1/Med2 autoresolve.
Yep it is. I don't think I advertised it differently. Rome 1 - Rome 2 was the best comparison. But in this particular field I think Rome 2 and Troy do it worst.
Navies in Rome 2 are weird. I like them, and they are some of the few sea battles I like, due to the ramming, but I don't see enough use for them. I think if Rome 2 made it so armies on land need a navy to travel the Sea, I think it would have one of the best navy systems in Total War, but due to armies spawning boats out of their... it ruins it for me. (Just my take)
@@MelkorGG but it is quite satisfying to catch an army at sea with a few cheap ramming boats and just wreak havoc upon them.
@@hedottenno True, true XD
@@MelkorGG I like to use them to garrison(to save on limited Armies at low Imperium) , and assist with seiging coastal settlements, i usually stick ballista boats in. That and smashing the occasional embarked enemy army is the only tactical uses i have for them. Ultimately, i stick any generals that are from opposing Political Parties in them so during a rebellion they're just a Navy and I have all the Armies. I agree about land armies embarking on their own.
I'd like to point out that Rome 2 was sort of more historically accurate, which is why I prefer it. Rome1 i feel like is more tactical and strategic, and generally more interesting campaigns. however, i just feel more immersed in rome 2. i also like how 90% of the world isnt rebels in rome 2 too
Historically accurate, but not historically immersive (the step by step strategies of Rome 1 I find to be more accurate). Immersion depends on how your imagination works, I guess, so it will be different for everyone.
Rome 2 really isn't accurate, the units are about as incorrect as rome 1, they just seem more accurate on the surface.
@@ElZilchoYo i play divide et impera, the atmosphere of the game just feels good and i feel as if the units are accurate enough to pass.
@@garret16 Play Ancient Empires after march 1st
@@ElZilchoYo I mean... there aren't people in the damn bronze age
Well former Rome 2 hater here - so for anyone who thinks this game is bad let me just help you out. Download DEI (Divide et Impera) 1,2 and 3 mods as well as Rome music mod (original rome soundtrack) and boom you have an insane Rome 2 total war game. Some of my main issues with the vanilla version, lack of units and factions and too easy (too easy meaning war on all legendary provided limited challenge). All of these are addressed with DEI mods, unit portraits look like actual pictures rather than ancient wood carvings, supply systems prevent too rapid expansion, unit quality and variety is actually insane and a welcome return of the population mechanic. While it is balanced around normal difficulty for the most experienced total war player if you crank that up to legendary gl with the smaller factions. I also used to love Rome 1 total war but lets face it, it is very dated now and sure some mechanics were implemented better but the reality now is that Rome 2 vanilla is far better and Rome 2 with mods is on a different level to Rome 1. Alot of rose tinted glasses on Rome total war for sure cough* one unit of heavy cav winning entire campaigns etc.
Hey Melkor love your videos. I have a hot take on this campaign map moving problem that I have been having for a long time, and that is I think a return to the province based campaign movement system from Shogun 1 and Medieval 1 would solve this problem and make the game simpler AND more strategic at the same time.
I lol’d at you saying “CA developers i know you’re watching this”
They clearly know him, otherwise they wouldn't give him an early copy of RTW remastered
I like how he says Rome one is more accurate😂
Yeah lol, bronze age Egyptians and everything.
The sad thing is that in this instance he's right.
@@Burgermeister1836 yup,i sure do love numidians existing before the punic wars and bronze age egypt
@@baconbaron1776 accurate used to refer to historical accuracy
why I hate Rome 2: I never EVER got beyond the first few turns because I'm lazy to learn new game mechanics but also battles are too slow and the color palette doesn't help with its complexity as well as slowness; it is a confusing mess whereas Rome 1 was a GAME
How is no one mentioning the combat engine in Rome 2. Or how projectiles look like a giant snowball fight. Truly a shameful display as they are catering to toddlers now, not virtual emperors such as us.
I didn’t expect such a good argument on game design. You’ve successfully turned me off Napoleon and Rome 2 and made me want to play Rome 1.
Theres a video to fix gamemap lag search rome 1 map lag fix
I prefer rome 1s flow but i prefer the Greek city stats being charged to each of the individual citys like sparta and athins of rome 2
I completely agree with you. in order to prevent the enemy from attacking me with no time to react, I had to carefully select where to stop my expantion. the idea was to find a choke point, so that enemy forces would attack one knowk settlement, and then I would put an army and military buildings there
About the Sicily campaign for Rome: in fact, the Scipios (or whatever these wolf-fan-blue-boys are called) are able to take over the whole island from the get-go: like, it takes two turns to get the Greeks out of their settlement (siege->repel the sally out) and than... not only you’ve the higher ground over the pesky moon-liking-white-boys, but you’ve been able to pomp out the best units in the game, hastati, in Massina from turn 1. Carthaginian elephants mean shite when talking about some 3-4 additional pilla-carrying units. Like, c’mon, that’s easy
I was going by the average players (the casual, the new guy), and most would need some reinforcements, including myself when I first started.
Mostly as the players first campaign is by far the most important.
@@MelkorGG maybe so, maybe so...
Yeeeeah, I remember my first campaign - the passion I had about the town watch, their cloaks are so 10/10, I tended to use them in my army, but then... then a battle starts, and those dudes, well... Let’s say I don’t like recalling this moment
This is why I like divide et impera because of the population mechanic that reminds me of Rome 1 population
It helped, but still it did not complete for me.
@@MelkorGG nothing beats the original sadly
I disagree completely on boarding and un-boarding ships. It should be a benefit of using the ports to board and un-board instantly while taking extra time on regular beaches, it already sort of does this by costing more movement anyway.
This sums it up like "Old veteran mechanics vs new age shit.", I mean in newer TWs some artillery units cant even fire across a simple blockade within the city. Even tho realisticly they could. One of the UA-camrs actually showed that, especially noticable in TW:Three Kingdoms.
Oh, i can definitely relate to this.
Playing as the WRE in Atilla: TW is incredibly frustrating once the Huns arrive.
They would suddenly come out of the fog of war, pile up on some town, attack on the same turn and raze it to the ground before i could even react.
I couldn't even keep garrisons everywhere since you can't move armies around like in Rome 1, you are limited to like 12 armies (as Rome) and i have a massive empire to garrison, i couldn't keep them all guarding every town in the Balkans.
If in the series of total war games we maintain the division into, for example, four turns is a year, it would be a stupid idea to unload the fleet for a few turns because they would leave the ships for several months. Ps. Rome 1 is better
I agree, but to be honest all the turn per-year stuff is broken anyway. Just look at Medieval. Every turn characters age 0.5 years, yet it cover 2.5 years or something. Rome conquers the world before 200BC etc...
That's why I try not to see it as a time-passer, but rather as just the AI taking a turn. I think the end turn would be best, to be honest, if it did not have a year assigned to it.
I like Rome 2-in many ways, more than the original-but there’s a lot of small things about it that I don’t like. For example, when you sally out, why doesn’t the battle start at the walls? The original’s family tree is better IMO, too. And the soundtrack is better in the original already.
I watched a lot of total war channels and really almost no one points out this crucial point recently. Personally I have found this to be a real problem for modern total war games for quite awhile. I think the point is modern tw map is larger but the distance between settlements is a lot shorter now. Pair this with the ridiculous amount of distance an army can travel in one turn, a lot 'response time' is lost on the campaign map, and scouting is a lot less meaningful on the campaign map. This takes away a lot of strategic elements on the campaign map.
Its because every turn is at least couple months. The army could travel very long distance for 3 months. In Medieval 2 its 2 years.
Imagine how far an army could reach within 2 years?
On the other hand, imagine taking 5 turn before leaving your own province? That would give you time to response, but would be boring.
Can’t agree. Rome Total war is flawed as once as city has all buildings built they constantly rebel due to squalor. There’s nothing you can do about it other than let it rebel and re take it. Which is just annoying and silly. Least with Rome 2 it has proper management and you don’t have to leave armies in every settlement just to keep them in check. I personally prefer being able to walk across rather than having to get on and off a ship.
I said several times R1 is far from perfect. But at least that is a very late game issue. R2's issues for me are here from Turn 1.
I had played that game for more than 300 hours until I was done with it, and even I couldn't call it a game I genuinely liked. I don't know why exactly, but that game feels like it has no soul. I nowhere near get the same feelings while playing Rome II as I get when I was playing Rome I.
Agreed. I had fun with the suebi, and some of the things, but it feels too arcadic. Like I was able to buff my troops with attack and charge to insane levels du eto how the buf/weapon system worked. Sure you could get 9 chevron gold/gold in rome 1 too, but took much longer even when cheesing it. Rome 2 like you said has really no soul, it feels empty. A lack of fighting armies, constant fights over small settlements with tiny garrisons, and it just feels bland. I really want to like it and play it ever since it came out, but its just boring. The atmosphre of the campaign map can be quite nice, but it doesnt at all reach rome 1 with how epic it was, there spending time on the campaign map was very fun aswell, really taking your time managing your empire. In rome 2, it all looks pretty but its like a pretty girl with zero personality, you get bored very quickly.
I heard from many others that its almost like they have to force themselves to play it, I felt the same. The units in the game also feels like they have zero weight to them, and artillery is ofc stupidly OP.
A major thing for me is all the abilities, its just a bit silly, and if you abuse the weapon and buff systems you could get some absolutely insane units with far over 100+ attack and charge, at least as suebi.
Me too... I never go back and play it after 500 hours but I go back to medieval 2 and even Attila
@@tldr7159 I agree with everything you said, and I'd like to add some more to it.
In my Rome 2 playthroughs, I've come to realize how important it is for a game to have good voice-overs and music soundtracks. These two weren't there for Rome 2, but they were for Rome 1. This made me realize that without these two, a game can, and most likely will, feel empty.
Take Rome 1 and Medieval 2 for example:
Those of us who played those games STILL remember their soundtracks, their epic battle themes, their awesome campaign themes, the things the soldiers and the commanders used to say during battles, the voice-overs, and random words/sentences you hear throughout your campaign. These small things eventually add up, and subconsciously they take your game from "just a game" to an "experience".
And now I can easily say that games that have a good soundtrack and voice lines are one step closer to being a memorable game. Including Rome 1, excluding Rome 2 :)
I do like a lot Rome 2
and, well, Rome 1 i love it too
but, idk, its pretty slow, and you can only recruit 1 unit at a time
and well, Rome 2 has its little dissapointments
but in average is a pretty nice game that i like a lot his mechanics, and more realitism, with tecnology, great battles, and some other things
also, you covered a lot of strategic things, but, in average, we all can just rush and take settlements, and you can speed run Rome 1
Rom 2 needs a little time, but in average, is fun
both are great games, and Rome 2 needs more Love, it doesnt deserve hate, at least not that much
Its the worst and most boring Total War game
@@ruas4721 That's a Opinion, alright, but for some it is boring, but i, even with a lot of lag that made the battles near impossible to play, i haved a lot of fun
Yeah definitely agree with you MELKOR I do miss the old mechanics where you had to recruit units in your settlement and manually bring them into the army you want
Rome 2 vanilla campaign map is lacklustre. Only when Augustus DLC came when they fix it with more provinces
divide et impera fixes most of these problems that you mentioned
I've played DEI and it improved it, helped here, but there's so many other issues, from my perspective, that it does not fix. Also I think the spawning with a ladder thing is still in DEI?
That it does
I actually liked Rome 2 for most of the reasons that were listed here as detriments. In fairness, I was looking for something at lot less realistic and more of a "real time strategy" feel, like Melkor suggested
I love both games, but I still prefer Rome 2. A big thing for me is the diplomacy, there are so many factions to trade and ally and fight with and earlier games just feel so barren to me in comparison. 1 German faction, 1 Greek faction, etc. Food, politics, etc. add a lot to immersion, and the game just feels more historical and “real.”
It definitely has problems, the biggest of which (imo) is the ability to just auto-resolve a battle and just replenish within a couple turns - you don’t have to worry as much about army composition or the geography of where you’re fighting, you just click a button. Unless I’m playing a Greek faction that has pikemen and archers (which are all worth their weight in gold in Rome 2), I just auto-resolve, because Legendary pitched battles can feel impossible to win without them and there’s no incentive to manually fight a battle you’ll probably get crushed in, if you can just push a button and win with 70% of your force left instead.
Nevertheless, I think every other aspect of Rome 2 is an improvement over the original.
Rome 2 is just boring
I am not sure I agree with you. I think a lot of your suggestions de-privilege raiding, which itself was a historical problem that often encouraged expansion or fortification. That said, I do agree that newer games are far from perfect, particularly in how they deal with walls poorly: I hate how in many of them the attacker either begins a siege with free ladders or has troops that all can scale walls. Honestly, this is why I actually really like Thrones of Britannia as I believe it handled a lot of the issues around raiding and fortifying really well
I agree there with Thrones. As for R2, I think if they just made it so you did not auto-spawn ladders, and had to recruit navies to transport troops, all of the issues mentioned here would be fixed.
Rome 2, whether you think it is good or bad does not matter, but all sides agree it was wasted potential and should have been so much more epic.
@@MelkorGG Yeah, Rome II is in many ways the definition of "two steps forward, one step back"
It's not an accent, it's a speech impediment.
Atilla Total War> Rome 2 Total War UwU
Even with its problems I still prefer Rome 2 over Rome 1, which is the only total war game (out of those I have played) that I consider completely unplayable without mods. This is mostly due to Egypt’s unit roster, the map size and Rome being three factions while somehow, the Gauls and Greeks are just one. Vanilla Rome 2 handled those issues I had with the first one.
Though to be honest I still like some of the titles that the community seems to look down on. I still consider shogun 1 and medieval 1 to be among the best the series had to offer. I liked the “risk board” style of army and agent movement, as it among other things, increased the chance of having the players allies actually assist in battles. Also the ending victory sequence of Shogun 1 has yet to be equaled by any title I have played.
Hey melkor, love your content but i struggle to hear it, would it be possible for it to be louder in the future?
Just play Imperator Rome already, CA is dying on realism an becomes more arcade every year
Even Koei's Dynasty warriors & Samuria Warriors have far more strategy than Creative Assembly.
Took me a while to like Rome 2, but it grew on me and ended up loving it.
Great critique of Rome 2. I just got back into the Total War series and it is really annoying what the enemy AI can do in Rome 2. Hopefully they add in your suggestion about boarding to the future games. It would make all their game more fun even WH3 could benefit from that since it would make the invasion of Ulthuan more dramatic and far less frustrating if you are playing the High Elves.
So I know this video is already 2 months old, but I respectfully disagree with a lot of your points here. I do not deny that Rome 1 is overall a better and more fun strategy game, but I do think Rome 2 offers a more realistic experience, especially with mods (which I won't use to defend Rome 2 in this comment). I'll address every point you make about Rome 2 since I have an ungodly amount of hours in it and it's my favorite game in the series. Let's begin:
1:35 - I agree that it is better game design that you must cross the open sea to Sicily while risking a naval battle with Carthage. Historically however, the Romans crossed from the tip of Italy into Messana by commandeering merchant ships to cross. The crossing is also only a few kilometers and it wouldn't take long to transfer an army through the straight. They then conquered Messana, which was considered an act of aggression by Carthage who then started the First Punic War in 264 BCE. This wasn't the case for Augustus when he tried to retake Sicily from Pompey's son because little Pompey had setup an effective naval blockade. In order for Augustus to reach the island, his army would first have to commit to a naval battle in the open seas. The situation you're describing is what accurately happened to him, but not to the Romans in Messana. I do agree with you that taking Syracuse in vanilla Rome 2 is underwhelming and it is a failure that in an update, CA never ported the IA map into the Grand Campaign. This can can at least be fixed with mods.
5:23 - I've never known the AI in all of my hours of Rome 2 to attack a walled settlement in one turn. They usually take 1-5 turns building siege equipment before they attack. If your troops are in Patavium, you'd have time to break the siege in Mediolanum. The same thing can't be said for the minor Ligurian settlement in western Cisalpine. I do agree that is an issue as your garrison without mods won't have a chance to defend itself. This is where you make proper use of diplomacy and agents. It would be rare as Rome for you to be at war with all three Alps tribes plus the Massalians to the west. Station a spy in the town of the faction you're at war with and observe whether they plan to attack and plan your defense accordingly. You can even put your army in fortification mode where they must defeat your army in a fort battle before attacking the town. Also, if the AI attacks a town, they cannot sack/occupy the settlement and pullout in one turn. That would take at least two turns. I do agree that the AI does a piss poor job in vanilla Rome 2 defending Sicily as Carthage.
I think you should try Divide Et Impera in Rome 2 if you're looking for that same strategic process in Rome 2. The mod even makes Sicily its own province which means a mighty walled Syracuse and multiple settlements in Sicily. Rome 2's greatest issue will always be its AI and a head-to-head multiplayer campaign in DEI modded Rome 2 is the best strategy experience I've ever had in gaming.