sui forum della pagina web ufficiale di TW, gli amici anglosassoni non sono meno incavolati di noi nei confronti della CA cui fischieranno, e non da oggi, le orecchie. Qui riporto solo due post a titolo esemplificativo di come abbiano fatto dei confronti impietosi tra il primo RTW e l'attuale. Grafica a parte, c'è di che piangere.... leggete dunque e scusate se non traduco, ma è un pò troppa roba...
Everything Rome 1 had that Rome 2 doesn't
I thought I'd like to weigh in on an ongoing debate that I've seen since the release of Rome 2: whether Rome 1 was more feature-rich or deeper. Most of the arguments I've seen are quite subjective, or made by assertions, like 'Rome 2 has way more stuff' or 'it's massively streamlined now'.
So finally, to bring some conclusive evidence to show what the series has lost, this is an attempt to definitively list everything that was in the original 'Rome: Total War' and is not in Rome 2 (features not units or buildings). I personally find the older TW games to be a deeper (if somewhat less historically accurate, but don't make that the subject of this thread) experience, but there are valid reasons to prefer today's games, not least the graphics.
If I have missed anything please post it as well as debate and I will put it in the OP. Also, please post, I'd like to know what people think! If you disagree with me then especially do post, it will make the thread more interesting.
-taxation controls for every individual province
-roads of differing sizes and qualities were build-able on the campaign map (after all, what the real Rome was famous for)
-trade happened between settlements within a faction as well as between factions, this internal trade giving the map a more 'living' feel as your empire's commerce circulated
-unique faction intro videos
-city view for every settlement
-new engine for the game
-a range boost for missile troops on high ground
-fire at will for all units with missiles, including legionaries
-guard mode and loose formation for all units
-seasons
-set capital
-family tree and set heir
-deplete-able family tree
-permanent forts that looked like a fort on the campaign map, not a ring of spikes
-watchtowers
-towns rioted a few turns before rebellions or revolts, and rebels would be unhappy citizens, not just slaves
-some of the wounded on the winner's side recovering after each battle
-formation fighting instead of blobbing
-% of each side that were dead displayed by hovering over the balance of power bar
-diplomatic options: give region, map information, attack faction, threatening diplomacy (accept or we will attack)
-you could set the exact amount of money offered or demanded in a diplomatic transaction
-all buildings constructed shown on the battle map
-building sites on the battle maps of towns in the process of constructing something
-senate missions, with rewards including money, gladiator games or races, public offices, senate standing, naval and land units
-politics had more of an impact on the campaign (in my experience you can ignore Rome 2 politics with no adverse effects)
-contextual and lengthy pre-battle speeches
-characters last long enough to become useful before they die
--characters that become specialized based on there actions and experience, ie a system that makes sense and was highly immersive
-nicknames 'the brave', 'the mad', 'the great' etc.
-more variation in portraits: it was very unlikely you would have two generals with the same face, even though you would have many more generals
-character portraits aged and there were traits to do with age
-large developed citys being worthwhile and very profitable to capture.(In r2 you have so few buildings and you need to tear them all down and rebuild them in insane combinations, so any province or city is basically the same as any other. In rome 1 if you took a large or huge city it was meaningful.)
-more building freedom, with the ability to construct as many buildings as you liked in towns (up to about 30) and not limited to 5 in Rome itself, or 3 or 4 in minor settlements
-buildings that should be easy to construct don't require 30 turns' research, so you are less constricted in your building options
-more period-inspired HUD (not gonna get involved in the row over the unit/building cards though)
-historical event messages, and historically timed natural disasters
-plagues that made sense (from squalid places) and that occurred more often to liven the campaign map up as did all natural disasters
-more detailed breakdown of income with lots more factors in income per settlement
-more trade resources, multiple trade resources per region
-more detailed breakdown of public order with more factors for both positive and negative
-all three of the post invasion options gave tangible benefits, as opposed to occupy being the only viable option in R2: slaughter gave public order as they were terrified of you and instant money but destroyed the population size, occupy gave a large population but had potential public order problems, enslave provided long-term money and trade resources so was kind of a half-way house
-no crippling attrition when besieging (subjective whether this is a good thing or not, but encouraged you to build lots of siege engines for epic battles)
-casualties actually mattered as you couldn't just stand in your territory for a turn or two to replenish them for free (and replenishment is much faster now than in NTW or S2 - this one is up for debate as to whether it is a good thing, but it is a fact that you couldn't heal your armies as quickly or at no cost in Rome 1)
-unit experience decreased when fresh recruits were used to refill it, making casualties matter even more
-retrain was available in every town with the relevant barracks
-music composed by Jeff van Dyck (matter of opinion as to whether he is better, but he did win awards, including a Bafta)
-music that reacts to events on the battlefield for immersion and 'hollywood' drama
-tunnelling under town walls to bring them down (sap points)
-wall sizes were not automatically changed with settlement sizes: they were built independently, so large cities could have meagre defences, and smaller ones (if maxed out) could get decent ones e.g. stone walls. This led to more diversity and different challenges between cities
-religion (especially in Barbarian Invasion)
-all buildings in towns were flammable, and those destroyed had to be repaired on the campaign map
-unit merging to refill units or balance casualties
-slower paced battles (though patches have made this much better than at R2 release)
-numbers on unit cards (same as above)
-general can be seen ordering the units about with every command you give: signalling with his sword for movements and rearing up to order a charge. Rallying also caused him to rear his horse
-no limits on armies
-military forces not glued to generals
-being able to use multiple generals in one army, IE using your nobles and there bodyguard as emergency elite troops.
-not broken up into piecemeal dlc
-pirates as actual naval forces that can be fought not percentage penalties on income (an Illyrian pirate queen is one of the R2 loading screens, and fighting pirates was the main occupation of the Roman navy - where are the pirates?)
-no automatic transports, so navies more useful
-pikemen that use their pikes
-bonuses not measly ('5% better melee attack')
-needed siege weapons for town assaults, gates couldn't be burned down by infantry, bigger walls required better siege engines
-abilities that could come from training e.g. formations and attacks, not magical stat boosts
-more land battles (as opposed to settlement battles)
-civil war actually against the other families not generic 'senate loyalists', a particularly annoying term if you want to preserve the republic
-ongoing cutscene to show senators' reaction to you
-brigands appeared on the map on rich trade routes
-scorched earth from armies in hostile territory, devastation shown on map and had public order and income consequences
-units stayed together when routing, not turning into weird massive long single-file lines, and chasing routing units was not a micromanagement-fest
-routing enemies were shown on the minimap ('radar map') so didn't require the chore of searching the battle map and examining the landscape to find them
-marginally bigger units: infantry 160 standard/240 largest, missile 160, cavalry 108 compared to infantry 160 standard/200 largest, missile 120, cavalry 80
-full page displays when needed (settlement details, diplomacy) and not obstructive when not needed (R2's massive tall empty unit cards box)
-population (and the ability to do migration tactics by recruiting units and disbanding them elsewhere)
-a more dynamic base for modding: it will be much harder to change core game mechanics with R2
-units could disengage without massive casualties or men 'locked into' time-consuming combat animations that ensured they would be caught and killed
-a video showing you the death of the general on either side, and a video showing wall and gate breaches
-more spaced units so you can see the fighting
-lots of (orangey-yellow) torches in night battles, not one weird bright white spotlight on the unit commander like in R2
-horse sound effects
-smoke trail behind torches and fire arrows
-horses try to leap over spears and shields when charging
-artillery is (realistically) less accurate
-there are 10 historical battles, compared to the 4 in R2, 3 of which have the Romans in them
-more populated cities have related problems, like squalor, and related benefits, like a large recruitment pool, unlike R2 where settlement size and squalor are not linked
-elephants have more animations and throw men into the air with tusks and trunk
-mounted units have more impact, and units look like they have more weight: the men sent flying from cavalry charges flail like men, rather than flying 10 feet like a paper doll
-there is more room for tactics: usually you can manoeuvre with infantry and skirmishers and deploy cavalry in flanking attacks, and battles progress in stages. In R2, once one line breaks somewhere, the whole battle line routs quickly and there is little room for tactics (admittedly this one is quite subjective, feel free to dispute if this is not your experience)
-banners stay on routing units so you can track them down and see their numbers and the factors affecting them
-agents have more distinct roles, less crossover between them (for me roles were more intuitive but that is only my opinion, not a fact)
-you have the option of a short campaign as any faction which is less of a long-term commitment, and can be completed in a few hours, or 1-2 days
-videos for capturing a wonder
-much less distorted map projection
-distance to capital
-map areas: sahara desert, tip of Sweden, modern day Belarus, Lithuania and Latvia, more of modern-day Ukraine and Russia
-you could zoom out much further on the campaign map
-fertility varying between regions, and the ability to get a good or bad harvest instead of a set income
-the year and faction displayed when loading a campaign
-cities with more than one culture's buildings in them
-units visibly pushed siege engines to the walls
-save battle replay saved exactly what happened
-culture-specific advisers
-animations for natural disasters: volcanoes erupted, floodwater could be seen on the map, and the ground convulsed in earthquakes
As a little aside, I'd also like to remind you of the things that have been removed that were in Medieval 2:
-agent videos
-armour cleanness deteriorated over the course of a battle, troops did not start out filthy
-armour and weapon upgrades visibly changed the appearance of units' equipment
-prisoner count displayed on in-battle UI
-diplomatic options e.g. marriages
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The gameplay in Rome 2 becomes dull compared to Rome 1.
Here are the reasons:
In Rome 1, when Rome is my enemy, I have be careful not to get close because i fear their pila and their discipline. Thats why I always take initiative to charge firtst so they cant use their pila.
In Rome 2, I dont care about them anymore, they cant throw their pila anymore when they are not charging...
In Rome 1, when my enemy are on the higher ground, i'll have to be careful of their archers, they can kill me with their archers on higher ground
In Rome 2, we have the same range, if he can shoot me, I can shoot him as well...
In Rome 1, he has better cavalry, ill have to be careful
In Rome 2, our cavalry abilities counts...
In Rome 1, ill always fear if my enemy has hoplites, they have discipline...
In Rome 2, hoplites are just spearmen in disguise, they cant attack in formation while charging...
In Rome 1, i always avoid engaging enemy chariots with my cavalry
In Rome 2, the chariots dont use their advantage....
With the implementation of MAGIC ABILITIES, all units will now have almost the same abilities.
In Rome 1, whenever an enemy has berserker that can go berserk anytime, I worry about my men.
In Rome 2, I dont care about their berserkers, I have Frenzy ability or Whip ability.
In Rome 1, every missiles has different types of weapons therefore they have different time of reloading, accuracy and kill rate.
In Rome 2, almost all missiles can reload quickly (Quick reload)and fire with precision (Precision Shot) disregarding what type their ammunition is.
In Rome 1, whenever my enemy recruits cataphract, i became cautious cataphracts are deadly
In Rome 2, im not that scared anymore, because my cavalry has Draco ability, Trample ability
Other abilities
Trample, Draco, Steady, Stampede, Headhunt, Heavy Shot, etc,... Should these be attributes instead?
Its now becoming battle of pressing magical abilities buttons at the right time, not tactics anymore...
Also, I notice that
- pikes are secondary weapons of pike infantry in this game, you have to press phalanx first before they use their pikes... Pikes should be their primary weapon not swords!!!
- rome now is not unique compared to rome 1 because of their pila, some of my units can also throw javelins upon charging....
- units celebrate early when their enemy routs, is it because they have done their part and wont help their comrades anymore? I suggest they cheer(that unit only) quickly when they kill enemy general... and the whole army will cheer when all enemy rout...
- axe should be used to slash not to stab like glaudius
The uniqueness of each faction has now gone...
But there are also good things happend in Rome 2:
-shield raising when units are under missile fire
-arrows stick to bodies and shields of enemy
-missile infantry are now also an essential part of an army
-line of sight
-ambush battles
-port battles (still broken though) *some navy cant disembark
-units variety ( although not enough ) *only one type of elephant was used
>nomads, parthian, hellenistic cataphracts diversity (good)
>also pike infantry, they look different with each other (good)
Just my opinion....