51–60 of 91 posts
Here is what Medium looks like to someone who was considering spending their time to read your content:
https://imgur.com/a/do-not-use-medium-WhK3omB
EDIT: Apparently imgur is thoroughly enshittified as well. I didn't notice, I'm using Firefox with adblocker. Try this url instead:
For the love of all that is good and wholesome, DO NOT USE MEDIUM. Here is what Medium looks like to someone who was considering spending their time to read your content: https://imgur.com/a/do-not-use-medium-WhK3omB EDIT: Apparently imgur is thoroughly enshittified as well. I didn't notice, I'm using Firefox with adblocker. Try this url instead: https://i.imgur.com/AIrZmUp.png
For the love of all that is good and wholesome, DO NOT USE MEDIUM. Here is what Medium looks like to someone who was considering spending their time to read your content: https://imgur.com/a/do-not-use-medium-WhK3omB EDIT: Apparently imgur is thoroughly enshittified as well. I didn't notice, I'm using Firefox with adblocker. Try this url instead: https://i.imgur.com/AIrZmUp.png
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> However I was shocked to learn that the game was not playable until very late That seems rather common for many projects? If you have so many pieces developed in isolation, putting them together only really starts to happen when you get higher time pressure.
Even if it's common, I still don't think it's good. Some games seem to be made playable way earlier then in the case of Rome 2. Look at Baldurs Gate 3 and soon for Path of Exile 2 - all the content is not there yet but the main "game loop" and features are there, this seems like a great way to get feedback, and have time to adjust if necessary. In the case of Rome 2 I guess the management imposed deadlines that did n…
For the love of all that is good and wholesome, DO NOT USE MEDIUM. Here is what Medium looks like to someone who was considering spending their time to read your content: https://imgur.com/a/do-not-use-medium-WhK3omB EDIT: Apparently imgur is thoroughly enshittified as well. I didn't notice, I'm using Firefox with adblocker. Try this url instead: https://i.imgur.com/AIrZmUp.png
For Medium, replace medium.com with scribe.rip at any Medium URL.
> This is an approach that is sometimes taken when planning game projects, that you design your production plan so that as many parts of the game as possible are made in parallel, and then it all gets put together near the end of the development timeline, hopefully with enough time to fix bugs, balance gameplay, and add polish. I feel like all AAA games are developed this way: Not playable till very late. Thats why t…
Is that actually true? Have you worked on AAA games or got this information from credible sources?
As far as I've seen the process, MVPs and play testing is a concrete phase even in AAA development, usually for each major gameplay feature, where they're tested with minimal graphics (sometimes just blocks/boxes) but still in isolation from everything else.
But, this is just gathered from the few times I've seen the process from the outside, I haven't personally worked on any AAA games.
Rome 1: Playing the Romans was amazing, all the way to the corner where you could try expanding with the Egyptians and running into the Roman might.
They basically perfected the simple gameplay loop in this title. Later on they would make changes to make managing cities less onerous (good), but would introduce the concept of Generals to rally armies with (terrible). In later games you would need to move your General back to a city (and even later just in the province) to recruit, then you could set out again to fight. In Rome you you'd usually want your General on the frontlines in enemy territory to fight and you would create units in your cities back home and then send them out to join up to the army in small groups.
What this caused is that often you would have random small numbers of units fighting other enemy groups, so you'd have to finely decide if you could win a 3v4 battle, or if you needed to delay to get a few more units there. This added a randomness to both fights and how the maps played out. Today all of the TW's play exactly the same. They give you an initial fight you're meant to win, then you have to build more units until you can go and capture the next city, rinse and repeat. Eventually you have enough support and you create a second army. While you're expanding, because there are a lot more opponents now, you will get stabbed in the back and have to move your single army back. With Rome 1 you could decide to have a percentage of your units in front busy conquering, while roaming non-General group(s) could be back at home to defend.
Medieval 2: The generic starting European factions were less fun for me, so I switched to the Egyptians (with whom I had also conquered the world with in Rome). Playing them wasn't too hard until the Mongols showed up. Due to unit compositions it would take about 2 of your full armies to beat 1 of theirs without suffering too many losses, and they would show up with at least 3 armies who would roam and burn everything. It took some serious strategy to out-maneuver and beat them. Overall strategy wise this is still the best Total War game.
Reading this is bizarre, because I played a lot of Rome II and enjoyed it. I experienced very few problems with it (except the technology tree is tiresome and just feels like paperwork to navigate… I want an auto mode for that). Some people just play things and enjoy things and have no idea that there is controversy. Death threats over a game? jeezuss.
Maybe you didn't play Rome I? I also don't understand the death threats but I still remember playing Rome II on launch - after playing Rome I for years - and being absolutely baffled at how bad it was. Apart from the graphics nothing was better and a lot was worse. And I actively avoided playing siege battles, for fans of those it was even worse as explained in the article.
Also, I found the battle simulations tiresome, so I stayed on the strategic side and auto-resolved the battles.
The one big bug which puzzled me is that there is a probability indicator before you auto-resolve, yet, no battle that it predicts you will win EVER is lost. So the probabilities are meaningless. I liked that bug, though. I don't want randomness.
I love the Total War games. I missed out on Shogun 1, but after that I've played almost all of them from Medieval onwards. I still figure Rome 1 and Medieval 2 as the best overall versions of the game. Rome 1: Playing the Romans was amazing, all the way to the corner where you could try expanding with the Egyptians and running into the Roman might. They basically perfected the simple gameplay loop in this title. Late…
I remember when I was a kid and shogun 1 was announced. I spent many hours in excitement, reading over and over gaming magazines reviewing the game announced features.
The game concept was simply mindblowing at the time. I was used to RTS like AoE and the likes, and always felt like I wanted more realism. Shogun 1 felt like a dream come true.
Such good memories.
