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Tsar-Ivor
Promising
Legendary Hero
Scourge of God
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posted September 05, 2013 01:23 PM |
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Athenian thraxian swordsmen, and mounted/dismounted thraxian cavalry bodyguard seem to be extremely effective at outmaneuvering Spartan phalanxes, and if you pin them with your own hoplites then it's gg.
Also Angry Joe's opinion.
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted September 05, 2013 06:57 PM |
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Yup, the game is certainly far from perfect right now. I have some issues with the shadows on the battlefields (also, is there any reason why the land battles always seem to take place at dawn/dusk or it's another graphics issue?), there's occasional lag even though my PC should be quite capable to handle the game on Ultra settings and the AI is totally helpless on Normal and doesn't seem to do much better on Hard. All of these things are technical though and a few patches should get the job done. The core gameplay seems addictive enough to make the game an excellent Total War.
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Tsar-Ivor
Promising
Legendary Hero
Scourge of God
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posted September 06, 2013 02:21 PM |
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Ok so I was attacked by a substantial amount of Epies, the first battle was an utter disaster, since I split my army into three battalions which all it did is make me weak everywhere, and being out numbered meant certain defeat. (which was the result) Now, normally I never load back, but I couldn't stand this idiotic defeat, on rematch I crushed my opponent, who attacked my center with overwhelming forces, this allowed me to wheel a few groups around and kill his skirmishers (my general was behind them so they practically ran into my charging infantry thanks to skirmish mode) these units then encircled the enemy just as my center was crumbling.
Battle
No idea how I only lost 44 people, when over a thousand veteran peeps crash unto a double line with no more than 300 men you'd expect them to butcher, especially when I saw them actually penetrating the line.
I do however feel that the AI was a ****ton more solid in Shogun 2, I mean there they'd hard counter any strategy, and the flanking yari cavalry made me cringe with fear every time. It did have some silly flaws that could be exploited, but that's just it, sometimes you needed that to avoid having your ass handed to you utterly by the enemy AI.
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted September 06, 2013 08:33 PM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 20:36, 06 Sep 2013.
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The AI of Shogun 2 wasn't all that good, it just had scripts for most of the basic situations (like "try to intercept the cavalry with spearmen whenever possible") but every slightly more sophisticated approach left it totally confused and unable to respond. Granted, it was better than the AI of the previous Total Wars but still nothing praiseworthy.
That said, the AI of Rome II is pathetic right now. Like I said, Normal is more like Very Easy and Hard is Mostly Easy. The computer opponents are clueless regarding the land battles and don't show any spine on the campaign map either. I haven't played all that much yet but what I've seen is very unimpressive, to say the least. Still, Creative Assembly seem to acknowledge these issues (with the graphics and the AI, mostly) so hopefully within 1-2 months the game will be whipped into shape.
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Tsar-Ivor
Promising
Legendary Hero
Scourge of God
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posted September 06, 2013 09:22 PM |
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Patch notes.
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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Tsar-Ivor
Promising
Legendary Hero
Scourge of God
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posted September 09, 2013 05:10 PM |
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I've entered a Rome II tournament, I don't know the skill level of my opponent(s) but I'm still preparing to deploy every basic strategy and formation that I can, especially the ones centered around my chosen faction Athens.
Now, I'm likely going to start with a standard formation of light mobile infantry (I'm thinking thraxian swordsman) on the flanks supported by skirmishers and archers, with cavalry on the right flank only.
Also I'll try to gamble and place my heavy infantry on the flanks while heaving lower quality hoplites in the center. (pikeman/phalanx hoplites, or militia hoplites) This goes with the hope that I can break the enemy flanks then wheel around to save my center. This is the strat that I hope to go in with, but I hope to evolve it depending on how the enemy acts.
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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JoonasTo
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted September 09, 2013 05:19 PM |
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I've obviously not yet played Rome 2 but what's your counter to skirmishes?
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DON'T BE A NOOB, JOIN A.D.V.E.N.T.U.R.E.
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Tsar-Ivor
Promising
Legendary Hero
Scourge of God
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posted September 09, 2013 06:11 PM |
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Depends on the quantity of them and where they're placed, but the range of missile troops seems extremely crap especially the skirmisher ones, I intend to crush his cavalry or at least draw them away by using thraxian swordsmen to support my cav, then these will charge into the enemy rear, but it's all speculation, I have no idea what type of army my opponent will be fielding.
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted September 10, 2013 07:38 AM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 07:46, 10 Sep 2013.
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After the first patch the game looks better for me (unexpectedly, because I don't think it was supposed to fix major issues) and particularly the shadows now look as they should. The battles run smoothly on Ultra with a fairly old video (GeForce 9800) but the campaign map remains a bit laggy, however far from unplayable.
My impressions so far are mostly positive. This is certainly the most atmospheric Total War to date (for me) and even though it is not really the most historically accurate game overall, it manages to do fairly well in this regard too (better than the previous Rome, at least). The battle maps involving rain or snow are nothing short of beautiful, the "standard" maps also look decently (not any worse than in Shogun 2, at least) and as I said previously, the campaign map is arguably the best one of the series, seriously improved over the Rome 1 - Shogun 2 ones (I still miss the "chess-like" campaign maps of Shogun 1 and Medieval 1 a bit though).
The core gameplay is mostly the same, with some of its tedious micro-management aspects gone (so, simplification is not necessarily stupidification, ye hear Ubisoft morons?!). I certainly like the new way the regions are organized, with 2-4 settlements forming a province where one of the settlements is a local capital. The external farms, blacksmiths (factories), mines, etc. of Empire and Shogun 2 were just defenseless targets for the pillaging enemy army, or just small raiding parties in the worst case (seriously, guarding them was totally unfeasible - any garrison smaller than a regular army was doomed to be slaughtered and nobody would station a regular army in a farm). Now even the settlements which do not have walls like the provincial capital can put up a good fight against all but the well-prepared enemy armies. The new on-the-field recruitment also makes the things more manageable and is somewhat more historically accurate - although it is still silly to "train" veteran units. I also like the idea of armies/fleets gaining experience bonuses on their own but frankly the implementation is not very imaginative (+x% attack/defense/movement). The agents also have an expanded arsenal and now can REALLY do major damage/boost your armies' efficiency. The biggest change so far seems to be the "landing battles" with fights at sea and on the coast on the same battle map. Apart from being quite enjoyable, they finally introduce one of the missing real-world tactical layers to the Total Wars.
The so-so changes are mainly related to the political/diplomatic system. I am yet to see any considerable gravitas/ambition-related impact on the actual strategical planning and the worst things that have happened to me so far are a few semi-successful assassination attempts against house members serving as legates. I stopped countering blackmailing attempts because I don't really see how low gravitas impairs a character - from what I've seen he can still be a good commander and blackmailers don't seem to target statesmen (it's a bit early to say for sure though). Securing promotions don't result in great benefits (+5% something, yeah right). There are also a number of random events that require certain action, like some local celebrity dying or some ba$tard of your house popping up from nowhere, but they seem to be bugged. My first game on Normal (which continued for some 30 turns until I got totally bored with the inability of the AI to defend itself) had plenty of them but when I switched to Hard, they stopped completely.
As for the diplomacy - it is not really enhanced as advertised. The only notable difference compared to Shogun 2 is the ability to coordinate attacks against the common enemies but I haven't tested it yet. The rest seems to be same old.
The game's biggest (and hopefully repairable) failure is the AI. At the moment it just doesn't do anything to challenge you. On Hard, nobody declares war on me and the only raids on my territory happen after I declare a war on somebody. Three Veneti armies of 6000+ men preferred to sit on my border for 50 turns and do absolutely nothing until I cleared all of the neighbours and attacked them with a legion of veterans. The situation with various Celtic tribes to the west was identical. After the AI loses a settlement and if it doesn't have any forces in the region, it doesn't seem to make any attempts to re-capture it. On the other hand it does attempt to amass forces before it attacks you (I usually fight against 2 armies at once) but that doesn't help it much. Why? Because it's equally incompetent on the battle map. I have no issues whatsoever to fight a force that outnumbers me 2:1 on an open field with no tactical advantages for me like high ground and emerge victorious with minor losses. That was nearly impossible in Shogun 2. There doesn't seem to be any coordination between the different unit types, no flanking attempts, no purposeful use of the missile troops besides "if they shoot at you, you go shoot them too". It doesn't do anything when under artillery bombardment (that means that the enemy idiots just stand where they are until all of them meet idiotic deaths). It doesn't counter the attempts to be encircled in the slightest. And the worst of all - it has no idea what to do when attacking a fortified settlement. It's a real pain to wait for the bloody timer to expire (damn, I'm glad that I turned this thing on) while 2000 marathon runners dressed as hoplites train in front of your walls under the occasional fire of the defense towers. Literally, the do exactly that! No attempt to storm the gates, no preparation to build siege equipment, most of the time it is not even trying to use its missile troops against the guards of the wall...
In short, right now the game is enjoyable but flawed. The official forum is full of complaints about the graphics issues and the stupidity of the AI but Creative Assembly have a good patching tradition so hopefully the major issues will be addressed soon. When this happens, the game will have to be re-evaluated for sure.
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Tsar-Ivor
Promising
Legendary Hero
Scourge of God
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posted September 12, 2013 03:26 PM |
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Okay the last patch broke my game in ways that I did not know were possible, so here's hoping that the next patch will magically make things alright. (Not expecting it to fix the entire game, just enough so I can pway)
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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GunFred
Supreme Hero
Sexy Manticore
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posted September 12, 2013 03:53 PM |
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Luckily for me, none of the patches have made any negative(or positive) impact on my campaigns.
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Tsar-Ivor
Promising
Legendary Hero
Scourge of God
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posted September 12, 2013 04:21 PM |
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Still nothing, the amount of new black holes that appeared are staggering, (I used to only get them in custom battle) and the fps crash is idiotic as well, like my men are walking fine then the game gets a seizure and everyone walks as if in slow-mo.
Could be this particular siege battle that I'm trying to do idk. (previous sieges were perfectly fine before the patch_
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted September 12, 2013 06:31 PM |
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I played for a while today and had a rather weird siege battle. Foggy weather, I'm attacking with some 2k army, the defenders are around 4k (half land army, half landing fleet forces). It started smoothly, after a while my troops started marching... slowly but at the same time observing the battle map remained just fine. When the actual battle started, pretty much everything started lagging as well and remained like that until the end. I had other large-scale battles before (with around 5k soldiers on both sides) without any issues...
And also... these 4k defenders managed to kill 151 of my men. I stormed right through the gates. No advanced siege tactics. Two of my units had 750+ kills... 
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Tsar-Ivor
Promising
Legendary Hero
Scourge of God
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posted September 12, 2013 07:51 PM |
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Same, battle started completely fine, then something clicked and everything went sloooow mo, in the end I only lost 140 men, 2800 vs 6000 (they had reinforcements) funny cause I had my main veteran hoplite army in reserve, and only used my militia hoplites who somehow decimated their militia and light hoplites.
I clicked out of the game turned everything to low detail and went back into the same siege, and it had the exact same 'click' that just turned my fps into mush. Here's hoping that it's just this siege that does this. 
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted September 13, 2013 07:57 PM |
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So, anyone tried today's patch? Some people say that the overall performance is improved considerably, other say that nothing's changed, a third group says that some things are better but other things are not, new issues are reported and so on. Casual. I'll be able to try it tomorrow at the earliest. So?
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Tsar-Ivor
Promising
Legendary Hero
Scourge of God
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posted September 13, 2013 08:11 PM |
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Today's patch?! I downloaded a patch a couple of days ago (the second one) so which patch is this lol?
Edit: Thanks./
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted September 13, 2013 08:18 PM |
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The thing from a few days ago was some hotfix (1.5) which did... something (nothing that I noticed anyway). Today's one is 2.0 beta and is supposed to fix quite a few things (the low FPS on the campaign map, mostly) - here are the notes.
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Tsar-Ivor
Promising
Legendary Hero
Scourge of God
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posted September 13, 2013 09:32 PM |
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That new patch worked wonders, at least it solved the damage that the first patch did, the way I confirmed is that my map no longer has fps lag and I can again do ultra detail 80 battalion battles smoothly.
♥♥♥♥♥
Most of the losses came from the enemy overwhelming my left flank with cavalry (he had cav on both flanks but they just overwhelmed my left) while my right completely obliterated their left, luckily I managed to redeploy two center phalanxes and concentrated archer fire on the cavalry. A spartan royal phalanx punched its way through one of my center phalanxes and then outflanked me O.o I noticed a red blob, then realized that there's royal spartans putting their spears in my men's asses.
Anyway once my right flank dispersed their skirmishers they moved in on center and gg.
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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GunFred
Supreme Hero
Sexy Manticore
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posted September 14, 2013 11:29 AM |
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With that many pikes, no wonder you won... 
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Tsar-Ivor
Promising
Legendary Hero
Scourge of God
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posted September 14, 2013 11:35 AM |
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I actually preferred the bot's composition, he had enough pikes to keep my center pinned and he moved ALL his cavalry round my flanks. But worst of all were his peltasts. If it would've been a player he'd have had a cav or two to get my thorax swordsman occupied then drive his cavalry into my rear, instead only two of his horseman reached my rear, but these I drove off with missiles and my general.
But it wasn't supposed to be some tactical battle or anything like that, I was simply testing whether my computer could handle it again. (id est whether the patch fixed the first patch's damage)
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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