Rome II

[Nefaro]

Nef....I am playing Massilia, one of the Greek States. But I also tried Iceni, one of the Britannic Tribes.  Both were listed as 'easy' as an Initial Challenge.

Don't go by what the beginning faction difficulty says.  They're not always very indicative. 

That said, I've not played either of those yet.  So I don't know the specifics on their start situation.

I would definitely advise against starting as either Epirus or Carthage.  Those start off getting dogpiled by most of their neighbors pretty early IIRC.

[Martok]

Not sure if anyone else here has noticed, but -- to my utter surprise & delight -- CA is working on patch 17.  O0 

The beta has been available for over a week now (for those who wish to opt in).  Here are the patch notes (I'd post them here, but they're actually too long!). 

[Gusington]

Yeah I saw that. Have not opted in as I've only been playing Attila lately.

[Nefaro]

Some interesting changes in there..

Reduced zone-of-control size for forces and cities from 5 to 3.5

[Nefaro]

Total War...

The only game series where a 24MB patch on Steam requires three separate download & installation sessions that take 15+ minutes.

Wutdasheet?  Do they use witchcraft to compress 2GB down to 24MB, then require an extensive sacrificial ritual to pull it back out of the void and install it?

[Gusington]

The long awaited WitchPatch. Happy Halloween!

[Nefaro]

After checking the forum for some answer to why such a small patch ended up taking 30 minutes to finish, I found an answer.

Lotsa people complaining about the 24MB patch taking so damn long.  The CA (dev) guys said it was a patch to accommodate a new physical retail version being sold overseas.  They didn't mention why it took so damn long.

Some of the users mentioned it reserving 12-14GB of hard drive space, likely for file swapping purposes, while in the middle of the patch.  So evidently their 24MB patch was busy moving, erasing, and rearranging the file structure for the game. 

This isn't the first time I've seen these TW patches do this, especially with the large file swapping & rearranging.  It's been happening since TW Shogun 2.  WTF are they doing with these little updates?!  Besides their dark witchery.

[Sir Slash]

Hard to tell whether we're playing their games or their games are playing us these days. Think about it.  :o

[Gusington]

There is nothing beyond dark witchery.

[AchillesLastStand]

Ive noticed this too the last few TW releases. Very small patches that take forever to download. I'm sorry but the franchise has been taking a slow nosedive ever since Sega took over the reigns.

[Jarhead0331]

I don't think this is a total war issue at all. I find myself scratching my head frequently over the time it takes to not only download, but to apply some relatively small patches on various games. It is clearly a steam issue.

Come on! Total war is taking a nose dive? It's one of the greatest strategy series ever made on the PC and anyone who is still bitching about them and complaining about sega is just a hater with an axe to grind.

[AchillesLastStand]

Went back and played the original Medieval Total War and I'm sorry I think it was the shining pinnacle of the series. The gameplay is second to none and the atmosphere is spot on for recreating a dark medieval vibe. Shogun 2 and Nappy have been high points since. Rome 2's shabby release was the nail in the coffin for me, while I understand after the countless patches it is much improved there are many things on a basic structural level that cant be changed in a patch. Holding out the greek city states unless you pre ordered was a big negative for me as well.
From Empire onwards I have also used  exclusively AMD CPU,s which really struggle running the warscape engine. I recently installed a i7-4790K so I may have to reinstall the game and see how she runs.

[Sir Slash]

I still love the series though I also find them to be watered down in a lot of ways from my first experience in Rome 1. And mods make the game more gooder. I have been Assimilated.

[Gusington]

IMHO Shogun 2 is the best game of the entire series. Medieval 2 is #2 and the original Medieval is #3.  Attila may be #4 for me even though I suck at it. Rome 2 may actually be my #5.

[AchillesLastStand]

I admit I haven't touched Rome2 after about the 6th patch or so, so Im not sure how it has improved since. I just remember it seemed like a shell of a game and had some very bad design choices. They seemed to get better on track with Attila and just wish Rome 2 had Attila's family tree.