Spring RTS Engine

Anyone checked this one out?
Am I the only one who finds the visual style of this game kinda horrid?

I want to but probably won't have the spare cash until next week. I really loved the first one.

What in particular do you dislike?

I've lost interest in the Total War series, and I started playing it with Total War Shogun (1) when I was much younger. I think it was because I felt they just improved the graphics of the combat, which is the part I least cared for.

gajop wrote:I've lost interest in the Total War series, and I started playing it with Total War Shogun (1) when I was much younger. I think it was because I felt they just improved the graphics of the combat, which is the part I least cared for.

Same boat as you. Though I do still enjoy them from time to time, and also enjoy the modding community around most of the newer ones.

Steam sales made all the total wars a pretty easy purchase for me..

Das Bruce wrote:I want to but probably won't have the spare cash until next week. I really loved the first one.

What in particular do you dislike?

I dont know. It is hard to describe.
It's the feel of the UI.How the windows look, how the buttons feel and look, the portraits, the 2d art and pictures...
Even the actual strategic map seems a bit too busy and imprecise.
It's hard to really convey in words.

I had the same issue with shogun 2 and Rome 1.
Also I really dont get the point capturing.during fights the defender has a point that the attacker must capture to win.
This new addition creates tons of problems.
First off It means its much harder to utilize the topographical features of the map since the capture point can just be in an open field..
Secondly you can have thousands of troops fighting and win cause one made it to the capture point and captured it..
It makes no sense.
Also, they seem to have sped up the battles and many times battles turn into chaotic cluster fucks as oppose to the disciplined formation battles back then.
I can understand the galic forces fighting chaotically but roman forces were disciplined to use strict formations, and to hold them.

They seem to have also nabbed the idea of having no buildable transports (inspired by civ 5 maybe?) and allowing troops to just magically spawn them when they want to move through the sea.

I'd suggest trying before you buy.

I dont know. It is hard to describe.
It's the feel of the UI.How the windows look, how the buttons feel and look, the portraits, the 2d art and pictures...
Even the actual strategic map seems a bit too busy and imprecise.

I got that fealing when i changed from medieval 1 to rome 1, now i dont have it at all and i cant go back to the old shogun and medieval.

Things i dislike about the campaign map, zoom is to low, theres is a mod that fixes this issue and you can zoom far away.

I hate the fact the cities are bigger compared to the actual terrain they are on, Athens ,Pella are way to big(fixable maybe with modding i hope).

Also I really dont get the point capturing.during fights the defender has a point that the attacker must capture to win.
This new addition creates tons of problems.
First off It means its much harder to utilize the topographical features of the map since the capture point can just be in an open field..

Up until now only when assaulting towns you will have several points to defend witch makes it a lot more interesting than bull rush to a single point.

The land battles in multiplayer are the same, there arent any capture points that i have experienced(yet) in quick match, the line of sigth feature and the general abilities are an awesome adition.

Phalanx formations mechanics are awesome now, with the steady command you can holt a charge, not like in rome 1 witch was click phalanx and let the unit stay there.

Melee units that have javelins use them while charging(they arent javelin trowers anymore) witch is nice.

Shock cavalry versus melee cavalry its interesting how they have done this.

Also i enjoy the different styles of ammo you can equip on horse archers and regular ones (affect morale, flame arrows, regular), even the fast reload mechanic is nice.

Roman tactics, legions need an ability trown there that keeps them in place and doesnt make them figth like barbarians tbh, like hoplite phalanx, maybe an improved shield wall /square.

Also, they seem to have sped up the battles and many times battles turn into chaotic cluster fucks as oppose to the disciplined formation battles back then

I have to disagree here, i enjoy the fast pace, and i still think formations are even more important with the unit abilities they added in. For example i still use levy pikeman to hold my front, and they are cheap units (in multiplayer).

I think that the combat is actualy better and more strategic now than in rome 1.

However i miss the guard option(havent seen it yet ingame), to stick your units in formation no matter what.

They seem to have also nabbed the idea of having no buildable transports (inspired by civ 5 maybe?) and allowing troops to just magically spawn them when they want to move through the sea.

i agree with you on this.

As you said try it before buying it, tbh i expected a bit more on the faction system(witch is totaly bad and stupid), compared to rome 1, picking your heir, even the character traits were better than the current simplified 3.

I also dislike the way they are sticking to the way of empire regarthing buildings, i enjoyed rome 1 style of building, like regions that had 0 roads when you build them in they show up, same thing with ports etc.

So my review is i love the combat system/multiplayer battles hate the campaign.

Also the ai is stupid, and with the food mechanic most of their units starve, and since to go to sea you dont require ships, most of their armys just move around and around the sea while i take their towns.....(im playing on legendary dificulty btw)

Video review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_QK-lcW8a8

Apparently it's a buggy POS.

scifi wrote:

stuff

Here compare this modded Rome 1 battle with what you usually see in Rome 2(total clusterfuck).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9Tg0dzUaCo

i never compared with modded rome 1, i modded that game and participated in the development of several mods(god i know how mods are 100 times better than the vannila game).

I mostly played roma surrectum, the graphics and the towns even the battles look awesome.

I just compared the box version of the game compared to rome II, and theres meat in there even if the meat itself is a bit rotten to the core, its still a total war game with the usual shit AI and bugs.

Even still i do enjoy some of the changes to the battle system, even after hearing angry joe review on it.

Man even medieval II sucked balls at launch, the map so small, you could see when modding that game that it was rome 1 in so many areas only worse but what saved that game was how people with mods could fix the problems and create awesome content for it.

And thats what im saying theres good things in rome II, even if its bugged.

And man you cant say the added projectile types are a bad choice, or the steady phalanx formation option. I do miss the guard option the fire at will and smth else i dont recall. Its not a total cluster fuck in multiplayer, its fixable tbh.

The added commander options and the ui is an improvement.

Ive gotten used to these bugged releases before, the shity ai etc, the only thing im mad about is they are cutting on the ability of mods to fix their game....(and thats the problem)

scifi wrote:...

"Lets release a shit buggy game at full price"
"In hopes that people will buy it"
"And other people will fix it for us for free"
"And more people will buy it later"

With all of the effort spent on fixing, why the heck not just make your own game with similar mechanics?

P.S. This sort of logic is nearly identical to AppleFan(TM) logic.

==Troy== wrote:

scifi wrote:...

"Lets release a shit buggy game at full price"
"In hopes that people will buy it"
"And other people will fix it for us for free"
"And more people will buy it later"

With all of the effort spent on fixing, why the heck not just make your own game with similar mechanics?

P.S. This sort of logic is nearly identical to AppleFan(TM) logic.

Inst that the logic of all total war games, since rome 1 except shogun 2(witch was quite polished but still was streamlined as hell).

The box price almost never pays off, and i still go back to medieval II and how horrible that vanilla experience was, and how it was a huge modded game, and the sales of that game went on and on over the years. There isnt anything better in terms of grand strategy out there with real time battles and thats the only reason why they can pull it off, and the fact they also dont improve their game its a testement to the lack of competition.

Since this was the title they spent most money on, i was kinda hopefull, but they did the usual release, and probably spent more money on adds and on the history channel promos than anything else.

scifi wrote:There isnt anything better in terms of grand strategy out there with real time battles and thats the only reason why they can pull it off, and the fact they also dont improve their game its a testement to the lack of competition.

The only competition I can think of is the Civilization series, a digitized board game, on one side and whatever autistic spreadsheet graphics engine Paradox released recently on the other.

Are there any others?

He mentions "grand strategy game with real time battles", so neither civ5 nor ck2/eu4 is an alternative.

There's Dragon Commander. Also the King Arthur games.

medieval 1 had a much better strategy map game, rome+ were all simplistic and I could never get into them

1v0ry_k1ng wrote:medieval 1 had a much better strategy map game, rome+ were all simplistic and I could never get into them

iam sorry to hear you never gave the game and its sucessors a shot rather than the vannila experience.

Because i had matches 100 times better than vannila medieval 1.

I have been playing this since yesterday now (bought it online).

It's quite nice, lots of depth added over RTW1. This game certainly feels much more complete, although the technology tree, diplomacy and economy parts are rather simplistic still. One thing that bothered me is figuring out all the strange buttons and menus. Doesn't feel that intuitive to me.

It is a bit unstable, as most of these total war games are. But still very playable. What bothers me the most is the long waiting times between turns. It's nice to know what nearby factions are doing, but at least in the beginning of the game most are just unknowns that I really couldn't care less about.

Worth a buy. I haven't tried the online mode yet. I'm guessing waiting times and lag would make it unbearable. Then again I have yet to see a turn-based game with decent online play (beyond speed chess).

I really really enjoy it. A lot of the general complaints people have about instability I haven't experienced. It hasn't crashed once for me and it runs just fine on very high settings with textures and units set to whatever that highest setting is.

I don't even have that new of a card either. I'm still running a 6850 (1gb) ffs. Though, I did just upgrade everything else. (4770k, 16gb ram, etc.)

In terms of the game itself, I really like it over Rome 1. I like the new UI, and I like how the campaign is much less of a glorified land grab and more of an internal struggle with your own populace. I also like all that they carried over from Shogun 2.

In terms of bugs, I haven't really experience a whole lot. I guess I just got really lucky. The one time I did get one was when I was derping around with a siege tower and I wedged it in between some buildings and rocks.

I played it as soon as it was unlocked on steam for about 3 hours and then started to watch as everyone went nuts on metacritic and the forums. I was pretty surprised.

So, I dunno. I really enjoy it and think its an improvement, but that's because I haven't experienced what apparently everyone else on planet earth has.

Mr. Bob wrote:I really really enjoy it. A lot of the general complaints people have about instability I haven't experienced. It hasn't crashed once for me and it runs just fine on very high settings with textures and units set to whatever that highest setting is.

I don't even have that new of a card either. I'm still running a 6850 (1gb) ffs. Though, I did just upgrade everything else. (4770k, 16gb ram, etc.)

In terms of the game itself, I really like it over Rome 1. I like the new UI, and I like how the campaign is much less of a glorified land grab and more of an internal struggle with your own populace. I also like all that they carried over from Shogun 2.

In terms of bugs, I haven't really experience a whole lot. I guess I just got really lucky. The one time I did get one was when I was derping around with a siege tower and I wedged it in between some buildings and rocks.

I played it as soon as it was unlocked on steam for about 3 hours and then started to watch as everyone went nuts on metacritic and the forums. I was pretty surprised.

So, I dunno. I really enjoy it and think its an improvement, but that's because I haven't experienced what apparently everyone else on planet earth has.

i had the same experience, but i guess since we didnt played it hardcore for 12 hours straigth, i guess we didn`t find that many bugs.

scifi wrote:didnt played it hardcore for 12 hours straigth

That's the problem.
Damn casuals .