Rome: Total War Remastered

[Breakdown]

I really don't get the logic behind this one. Why would you get a remastered version of Rome: Total War when the sequel is available and far superior?

I'd rather see a remaster of Medieval 2: Total War, seems like a much more obvious choice.

 

[meiam]

The sequel, rome 2? I dunno if I'd call it far superior...

There's plenty of interesting things that rome 1 does that later entry in total war stopped doing. Like pre battle speech, why did they ever stop those?

 

[SckizoBoy]

The sequel, rome 2? I dunno if I'd call it far superior...

I'm right with you there. Rome 2 *looks* pretty and gritty, but dear lord does it have problems (politics and auto-resolve to name but two, probably biggest, problems) that suck the fun out of it.

There's plenty of interesting things that rome 1 does that later entry in total war stopped doing. Like pre battle speech, why did they ever stop those?

The engine change to WarScape for Empire was nice, but they tried to do too much too quickly and I think settled on an evolving formula that still doesn't quite work (don't get me wrong, I really enjoy Warhammer II, but it's still lacking in a few ways, streamlining in ways I don't fully approve of, even if I tolerate them).

In terms of gameplay, the effectively unlimited building options was such a freeing thing in Rome and Medieval 2 and it made more sense for great cities to have a butt load of space for construction (not just that, but the siege battle maps reflected these buildings, including the progress of construction or its disrepair). The recruitment system was simplistic, but it worked. For those superficial flourishes, removing the speeches for Empire and Napoleon I get (they made a welcome comeback for Shogun 2 in Japanese, no less, which is a touch I loved, even though there was no effort to have regional variations, even a token Kansai accented one), but getting downgraded to post-deployment background chatter for Rome 2 disappointed me immensely.

I'm not sure if you've seen the new UI, but I'm not sure what to make of it, TBH.

PSA for Rome: Total War owners on Steam - FAQ for Total War: Rome Remastered - Total War: Rome Remastered will be half-price until May 31st, which is a nice carrot (USD30 to 15). I'll likely hold off until reviews trickle in (I can guess what they'll say though, in fairness) given Warhammer III is coming later this year as well.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Might be a good excuse for new players to give the game a try.

 

[happyninja42]

I really don't get the logic behind this one. Why would you get a remastered version of Rome: Total War when the sequel is available and far superior?

I'd rather see a remaster of Medieval 2: Total War, seems like a much more obvious choice.

Because a lot of people don't think R:TW 2 is superior, and love the original with a fervent passion. Many A True Nerd is super hyped about it, as he considers it one of his top 3 games of all time.

 

[Hades]

Because most people seem to agree that Rome 2 was a flop that didn't even come close to the original.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Modern total war games use the Warscape engine, developed for Empire: Total War. It's an engine that's designed to be very cinematic and to represent gunpowder warfare, but it has always struggled to properly represent melee combat as anything more than duels between individuals. The total war 2 engine developed for the original Rome Total war isn't as cinematic, but its simulation is actually much better. Combat is more unpredictable and much less determined by stats, because the individual position and circumstances of each soldier actually matter. It also looks a lot more organic, and is less prone to breaking down into weird shuffly nonsense.

Secondly, management. In modern total war games you can't have an army without a general. That's because of an exploit where the player could get infinite movement by splitting and merging armies. A lot of players really hate this change, because it really cuts down on the possibilities. You can't leave a garrison in settlements without wasting a general, so your settlements have to have a standardized garrison provided by buildings. You can't move troops from settlements to reinforce in the field organically, it has to be done through special remote recruitment systems.

I don't hate Rome 2, I feel like it got a bit release but has been fixed over time to the standard where it's perfectly fine and fun to play, but it's still a very different game from Rome 1, and I feel like it's not all been progress.

 

[Agema]

The more I think on it, the more I'd be perfectly happy if TW hadn't evolved much past Medieval: Total War. Like, the original M:TW, the second in the series. I struggle to think of anything that's much improved about the gameplay since then, not least because so many of the new mechanics haven't really worked properly.

 

[FennecZephyr]

The more I think on it, the more I'd be perfectly happy if TW hadn't evolved much past Medieval: Total War. Like, the original M:TW, the second in the series. I struggle to think of anything that's much improved about the gameplay since then, not least because so many of the new mechanics haven't really worked properly.

I mean, Warhammer's spell system and single entity generals and heroes fit really well with the mythical, larger than life setting it has.

It just sucks a little because we havent gotten a decent real historical title since Atilla. 3 Kingdoms has the single entity generals and kinda treats them like superheroes, and that's a little lame.

 

[Ender910]

Really depends on what's involved in the remaster. If it's just a texture and mesh update, then you're better off playing Europa Barbarorum on the original game or something.

One glaring thing that has sort of killed the classic total war games for me though is that there isn't actually a sun used as a dynamic light source. Baked ambient lighting alone is just... tough for me to get used to now. Especially in outdoor environments.

Edit: Yup, so far it looks like it's mostly just a texture and mesh update, along with a few minor things like ultra widescreen support. Ah well, I think I put enough hours into the original game as it is.

 

[Chupathingy]

3 Kingdoms has the single entity generals and kinda treats them like superheroes, and that's a little lame.

Which you can fortunately turn off.

 

[Agema]

I mean, Warhammer's spell system and single entity generals and heroes fit really well with the mythical, larger than life setting it has.

I know. But I kind of hate them.

I hated them when I did tabletop wargaming in the 80s/90s. Warhammer was always a game where the units were meaningless: every battle is really about who can get the most badass heroes and monsters. One level 25 hero would just wipe out an entire regiment of 20 elite troops without taking a single hit. All those grunts were just there to make the battlefield look prettier and players spend more money on lead alloy (now plastic) figurines: they don't actually affect the battle outcome.

When I dreamt of epic battles from fantasy novels, I dreamt of huge armies clashing, with tactics, and struggle, and morale. Not a simple matter of who's got the dragon or the most bad-ass magic sword.

 

[SckizoBoy]

The more I think on it, the more I'd be perfectly happy if TW hadn't evolved much past Medieval: Total War. Like, the original M:TW, the second in the series. I struggle to think of anything that's much improved about the gameplay since then, not least because so many of the new mechanics haven't really worked properly.

Not a fan of Rome 1/Med 2? I feel the upgrade in engine made those games a lot more enjoyable and a better gameplay experience, because of the more natural movement of the armies. Cleaning up various aspects of the engine and taking the Med 2 formula should've been what they did for Empire as it was too ambitious a concept and too grand a scale for a new engine. But Shogun and [/b]Med 1[/b] were kind of rigid to me with the campaign map feeling too much like a boardgame (i.e. with the limitations of a boardgame). The battles really haven't aged well at all either (even if they did hypothetically replace the 2d sprites with 3d models).

 

[Agema]

Not a fan of Rome 1/Med 2?

I preferred M2:TW to R1:TW. I much preferred the Barbarian Invasion expansion to the R1 base, though, even if the horde mechanics were broken (and still not fixed by the time of M2).

I feel the upgrade in engine made those games a lot more enjoyable and a better gameplay experience, because of the more natural movement of the armies. Cleaning up various aspects of the engine and taking the Med 2 formula should've been what they did for Empire as it was too ambitious a concept and too grand a scale for a new engine. But Shogun and [/b]Med 1[/b] were kind of rigid to me with the campaign map feeling too much like a boardgame (i.e. with the limitations of a boardgame). The battles really haven't aged well at all either (even if they did hypothetically replace the 2d sprites with 3d models).

I think the province movement was fine, really. I get the theoretical advantages of the more granular map - you can select defensive territory, block passes, etc. but in the end I never found it counted for very much. You need the higher difficulty levels, because the tactical AI is so stupid. In particular, the game at higher difficulty levels is set up so a) everyone declares war on you and b) you cannot keep up with AI unit building because they have a big economy bonus. This means you are massively outnumbered for a long, long stretch of the game and have to take too many battles as sieges, because it's the only way that the 4 units you can afford can cope with the 16 coming at you.

I'm not that bothered by graphics.

Spoiler: And E:TW was a clusterfuck.

Never has the battlefield AI been so woeful. I use to watch in something between bemusement and horror as the AI would expend all its cavalry in incredibly stupid flanking attacks, totally isolated, to try to target the cannons and general, and die hopelessly. Meanwhile, you picked off the enemy cannons with your own. Then in the end phase, the AI infantry marches in, unsupported, to be cut down by canister and musket-shot, and ridden down by your cavalry.

To offset this, there was the braindead strat map. At the higher levels needed for a challenge, your army is stuck in the province capital, otherwise it promptly riots, whilst your province is filled with tasty, undefended towns that the enemy keeps sacking. You have barely any money to raise troops and develop for a zillion turns, so battles consist of your 4 units trying to hold off 10 for far too long. Maybe you could hold the enemy back with a fort? No, because you need a goddamn 12-unit army to man the fort effectively, otherwise the AI just scales an undefended wall and your defence turns to dust. And if you have 12 units, you don't need a fort. The whole early game is an agonising chore.

Why is France ONE PROVINCE? I mean, the UK is 3-4. A country twice the area is just one. Well, okay, there's Alsace-Lorraine separate, but... You can't build a new university until a town consents to develop, which means the UK can't build a second for 50 turns except in Toronto, Canada. The hopeless and bizarre distinguishing of colonial and settled places. Why are the distant, underdeveloped nations so effective? The machine gunner Native Americans, who comprehensively outshoot you with their primitive bows, and the Indian states who seem as effective as modern Western militaries?

Basically, the whole thing was wrong, from start to finish.

I quite liked Shogun 2. That seemed to strip down back to basics a little. The battlefield AI isn't quite so stupid, although the diplomacy and economy bonus can still be a little crocked. I quite liked the way there's a sort of secondary difficulty setting in the clan you pick: e.g. Uesugi are hard mode, Tokugawa easy, etc.

 

[SckizoBoy]

I preferred M2:TW to R1:TW. I much preferred the Barbarian Invasion expansion to the R1 base, though, even if the horde mechanics were broken (and still not fixed by the time of M2).

Eh, swings and roundabouts, I'm usually more taken by setting than particular gameplay mechanics hence my greater enjoyment of Rome 1 (and the objectively bad Wrath of Sparta DLC for Rome 2, I'm too much of a sucker for the Peloponnesian War setting). To each their own, I suppose.

I think the province movement was fine, really. I get the theoretical advantages of the more granular map - you can select defensive territory, block passes, etc. but in the end I never found it counted for very much. You need the higher difficulty levels, because the tactical AI is so stupid. In particular, the game at higher difficulty levels is set up so a) everyone declares war on you and b) you cannot keep up with AI unit building because they have a big economy bonus. This means you are massively outnumbered for a long, long stretch of the game and have to take too many battles as sieges, because it's the only way that the 4 units you can afford can cope with the 16 coming at you.

Province movement was a bit too Risk-ish, and the movement across Africa was a bit odd when you had the really bunched up central European provinces. What measure is "a turn" in a game, I suppose, given that an army in Med 2 moves the same distance in 2 years (though the characters age 6 months) as an army in Napoleon moves in 2 weeks. We get our immersion in different ways.

Re: strategic bonuses, I never found the AI to get that big a bonus in the TWE2 games, playing on Normal vs Very Hard (campaign, that is, battle's a different story, I'll admit) showed not much difference to me. These bonuses were very much a thing on the WarScape engine games (without exception), though, that much is true (and how much I'm willing to put up with it depends on the game).

And E:TW was a clusterfuck

When it comes to the AI in Empire, I don't think there's anyone that'd disagree with you. Like I say, I believe it was far too adventurous of CA to take it to a new setting and necessarily new mechanics with a new engine instead of staying with TWE2 for it and just cleaning it up even further. I went through multiple campaigns auto-resolving my way to victory (even though that really shouldn't be possible), because battlefield behaviour (both player's army and AI) got on my nerves so much.

I was also somewhat bewildered at both Spain and France being single regions. From a historical perspective, it makes perfect sense, as absolute monarchies with highly centralised governments, but from a gameplay perspective, what with the idea of the War of the Spanish succession etc., it's... puzzling, to be sure.

 

[Agema]

Province movement was a bit too Risk-ish, and the movement across Africa was a bit odd when you had the really bunched up central European provinces. What measure is "a turn" in a game, I suppose, given that an army in Med 2 moves the same distance in 2 years (though the characters age 6 months) as an army in Napoleon moves in 2 weeks. We get our immersion in different ways.

I think in immersion terms, what you say about the illogicality of distance travelled compared to the timescale made the thing so artificial to me that I wasn't invested in it at all. I quite like the Paradox model: zip through the quieter bits on fast mode, and slow it down for the warfare. TW really has you doing stuff all the time - endless warfare - and a tight campaign such as the Napoleonic wars actually makes a lot more sense than the more reality where nothing much is going on bar a few little side issues for a generation, and then a big conflict blows up for 5 years.

I was also somewhat bewildered at both Spain and France being single regions. From a historical perspective, it makes perfect sense, as absolute monarchies with highly centralised governments, but from a gameplay perspective, what with the idea of the War of the Spanish succession etc., it's... puzzling, to be sure.

Historically of course combats did constantly blow up: there was a point to attacking Bordeaux, or Calais. In E:TW, there's no point at all. Expend a load of money and troops and effort to deny France a few gold/research a turn. TW is Paris or bust: no capital no point. It also reveals the fundamental stupidity of the troops needing to be in te capital to maintain order. Pacify the whole of France with 8 units in Paris? Sure, I guess nothing will go wrong in Marseille or Toulouse.

The rationale is simply to even out the provinces, otherwise Spain and France would be too powerful due to their colonial possessions if their European segments had too many provinces; the UK was managed by separating the US colonies as a different power. And a lot of this was because in reality, if European countries needed to defend their colonies beyond the basics, they shipped over troops from Europe. But when this takes so many turns given the movement system, instead there has to be a system to raise troops in the colonies. It's all a mess, really.