Game News Want to see some Total War: Rome II gameplay?

I sure am glad the game is going to be darker, grittier and more visceral. They had me worried for a minute.

Yeah I'm kinda worried about that whole "Get the FEEL of the battles" mood thing will detract from the overall gameplay in the long run but other than that my expectations have been exceeded. The tactical map really is a nice touch.

man, if this is pre-alpha and it already looks better than all the previous TW games then this thing will be a beast...

roman era is best era!

"Saving Private Ryan of the ancient world."

All the 'cinematic' shit was skip-worthy boring in the trailer, and will be too in the game. We all know TW can evoke the feel of warfare really well, they've done that every game. What matters is the AI and other mechanics.

I do like the tactical overview, seems really useful and along with things like big cities and naval landings, there's scope to evolve the TW break between 'battle' and 'campaign' and introduce wider-scale tactical considerations.

*sigh* Blocked at my work. Damn their hatred of streaming video.

Anyway I always hoped EB2 would come out before this. Guess not.

So does every game need to have that yellowish-brown shitfilter these days? Sigh.

It would be incline if they go back to first Medieval campaign map setup(also the AI will be way more capable).As Tigranes says,hope they don't spend much effort on this useless first person camera nonsense.

It's darker in the sense that the corners of the screen are darkened, as far as I can see. Really, is the "battle feel" something that needs to be fixed in a total war game?

Visually nice, though the color palette is shitty (I wonder if this grey brown rather unlifelike approach to color in games and a lot of movies will come to be a definining feature of the media from our era, retrospectively). City battles look a lot more fun than in R:TW, where they quickly become incredibly boring and repetitive for such a core part of gameplay ( I understand why later TW games moved away from siege emphasis). I'm a history/simulation guy though so I am way more excited about EB:II**, too bad they seem to be in a development rut. Invasio Barbarorum 1->2 (multiple 2's infact) somehow managed to have a much better development schedule, while still being high quality. I imagine EB guys are spending all this time obsessing over unit models or some shit.

edi:** plus RTW2 will inevitably rape any computer i could ever hope to own in the next five years or so

Well consider yourself very lucky,because their code is proven to have problems with a lot of high end GPUs and ton of memory leaks.Also now sure what you mean by "that much of a powerhouse" and "max settings",are you saying that you can go ultra setting and ultra unit size without having a top tier machine?I think that was little bit of overstatement or you are again very lucky(which is possible,games sometimes just click your pc configuration).

I've always gotten some weird-ass graphical glitches from Shogun 2 where my soldiers transform into blue rectangles.

Mixed feelings for me. Loyal fan of the franchise since the very first Shogun. But the last few iterations just feel samey.
They've done a good job with the general AI with S2 but im not seeing a lot of progress gameplay wise. Yea we always get a few new tricks here and there but it hasnt made any big differences in how i play the game.

Cant' quite explain what it is I want.. Perhaps a huge shift in how you personally control the empire or get involved in managing the armies. Something that will make you say "woah this is a brand new Total War and not simply 2013 edition"
They have spoken about inner politics and specific legions so theres a bit of hope on that front.

The video itself doesnt show much to be excited about.

Dear developers, if your RTS interface isn't a carbon copy of Supreme Commander's, you're doing it wrong. I should have complete control of all my units at the overview level. I should not be attempting to control my units while I'm admiring the ass of one of my spearmans. Whatever idiot you had commenting on that video got it exactly wrong. And based on your long and unbroken line of really fucking broken interfaces, you too are going to get it exactly wrong if you don't read this post and do exactly what it tells you to do.

Thanks in advance for not despoiling the RTS portion of yet another Total War game.

The reason the TW franchise is important is the TB Grand Strategy layer. The RTS component has always been mostly shit. Primarily because of the fucking awful interface, and secondarily because the GS layer actively discourages the player from getting into genuinely interesting and challenging RTS battles.

I wish I could say the SupCom's revolutionised 3D graphics-based RTS games, because they combined 2D graphics-based RTS controls with infinite zoom and a "hold key for vanity camera" function. They certainly should have. But virtually everyone else developing 3D graphics-based games with anything vaguely like RTS gameplay or a top-down perspective, completely ignored the fact that SupCom not only re-invented the way to provide players the best possible control of their stuff, but actually improved on it.

I find the battles fun actually, especially in Rome 1. I've always felt that the campaign maps were mostly shit because they lack the depth of Europa Universalis or Hearts of Iron, and instead decided to overfocus on naval battles, which I never really cared for.

Total war's been stuck in a jack of all trades position for years now, an expanded battle system or empire map? either is fine with me. Just do something instead of playing it safe every year.

I haven't yet commented on whether I think any of the SupCom's are good or bad, nor have I in any way suggested how I believe anyone else should feel about them, by themselves or in comparison to any other game or games. If you have a problem with SupCom, substitute it with Sins of a Solar Empire instead. As far as the stuff I've been saying here is concerned, SoaSE and SupCom are identical.

What I have said, is that SupCom's INTERFACE - you know, the means by which the player interacts with the game - is outstanding and ought to be standard.

Part of what makes SupCom's INTERFACE so good, is that it lets you interface with the game as if it was a 2D game. There's nothing original about that. Until RTS games transitioned to 3D graphics, they all had that kind of interface. At least from Dune 2 and onwards. Anything prior to that was before my time. Not having to waste your precious time or pause the game to pointlessly fuck around with camera controls, is a good thing.

Another part of what makes SupCom's INTERFACE so good, is its infinite zoom. Rather than limiting your view of the battlefield to facilitate clarity and precise controls, the interface lets you zoom seamlessly into what's traditionally been a separate iconographic map viewmode, and offers you the same complete control of the game elements in this viewmode as it does at any other zoom level. This is 3D graphics increasing functionality and ease of use, rather than hampering both. As far as I'm aware, this lovely way of doing things is one that SupCom invented. And assuming they did, I certainly think they deserve credit for it. But far more importantly, other games should copy it. Religiously. Because it works a hell of a lot better than what everyone else is doing.

Total War and almost every other 3D graphics based game under the sun with similar interface needs, gets this shit dead wrong. It's probably the most frequently voiced complaint about Neverwinter Nights 2 on this forum. The lack of... fuck it, let's call it the Sin's interface so you don't shit a brick, seriously detracts from Heroes of Might & Magic 5. It makes Dragon Age: Origins a pain in the ass to play every other time you need to shoot someone. Hundreds of games are marred and some badly crippled in the exact same ways and for the exact same unreasons by craptastic "Weeee! 3D!!!" interface fuckery. Fuckery that got invented and became standard AFTER Sin's interface had been the standard in all such games for several years.

...

Finally, it may bring your sore little butthole some small degree of comfort to know that I do in fact not think any of the SupCom's are better than Rome:TW (my favourite of the TWs) or EU3 (my favourite of the EUs), nor have I played any of the SupCom's anywhere near as much as I have either of those two games. But that does not in any way mean I don't also think the SupCom's interfaces (and EU's too, for that matter, but those games don't have traditional RTS gameplay) are vastly superior to the retarded shit that passes for a RTS game interface in the TW series. Games with terrible interfaces can nevertheless be good games, and vice versa. But all that is entirely besides the point.

I realise I'm quoting a guy who's ignore-listed me, but disregarding that and all the lovely RAEG for a moment, I think it's a pretty good question. One I wish I knew the answer to. I kind of doubt "We spent X gazillion monies on purdy graphics so now we're gonna force you to play in vanity cam mode so you can fucking choke on them!" is the answer, though if I was a TW developer, I'm pretty sure it's the one I'd want to give.

Still, several games have copied SupCom's infinite zoom and received critical praise for doing it. StarCraft 2 doesn't have infinite zoom, but use a traditional, vanity camera-free RTS interface. As do several other 3D graphics based RTS games. If memory serves, Mark of Chaos is the only 3D graphics based, regiment-oriented RTS that combines map-like zoom functionality with a traditional RTS interface. The NeoCore games use vanity cam interfaces like TW's.

Like I said, though, I can't offer an explanation. Wish I could. But I would appreciate it if someone would share the explanation, assuming there is one, or explain their own preference for vanity camera controls.

That goddamn 300 shit/piss filter is so awful.

I hope they shake up the strategic layer. The battle side of the game has been good since the original Shogun, but they've kept piling on stuff in on the strategy side, making it increasingly complicated to manage without having any real strategic depth. I liked the boardgame like simplicity of the original Shogun and Medieval better than the current detailed strategic map.

Also, we seem to have picked up some really shitty newfags in connection with the Obsidian kickstarter.