Total War: ROME II- Wrath of Sparta Campaign Pack

Ennesima DLC per Rome II, stanno sfruttando all'inverosimile il gioco pur di spillare soldi

Total War: ATTILA - The White Horse official trailer

E' stato annunciato il prossimo gioco della serie Total War, ATTILA - The White Horse, che proietta nel mondo alla fine dell'Impero Romano. Francamente a me sembra più una dlc di Rome II che un gioco separato. Stanno provando probabilmente a spillare altri soldi senza sviluppare nulla di nuovo. Dobbiamo dedurne che la serie è alla sua fine dopo 15 anni dal primo.

Ennesima nuova DLC per Total War Rome II - Daughters of Mars Unit Pack

Ennesima nuova DLC idiota per questo gioco.

Total War – Rome 2 Annunciato Campaign Pack – Caesar in Gaul

E' stata annunciata una nuova dlc di campagna per Rome 2, Caesar in Gaul; indovinate un po' l'argomento?

Comunque qui trovate degli screenshots: http://www.wargamer.fr/tw-rome-ii-la-guerre-des-gaules-aura-bien-lieu/


Qui il preordine al modico prezzo di 13 euro: http://store.steampowered.com/app/261050

Complimenti alla CA, dopo la partenza di merda di Rome 2, sta già sfornando DLC costose.

Company of Heroes 2 – Turning Point disponibile

Da Steam è possibile scaricare l'aggiornamento Turning Point per COH2, che installa del contenuto aggiuntivo gratuito come l'editor di mappe, nuove mappe multiplayer e comandanti multiplayer. Per più info basta andare sul sito ufficiale.

http://www.companyofheroes.com/en_us/

Total War – Rome 2 : DLC Blood and Gore

Ci risiamo, dopo Shogun 2 anche Rome 2, dopo aver fatto calmare le acque sull'indegno rilascio, inizia a sfornare DLC grafiche a prezzi assurdi. Ognuno è padrone dei propri soldi, ma certo per un po' di sangue e scene da Hollywood più di 2 euro sono tantini.

Rome Total War 2 video review

Su The Wargamer trovate una video review di Rome Total War 2.

Patch 2.0 per Rome 2

E' stata rilasciata la nuova patch per Rome 2, chissà se riuscirà a rialzare un po' la fama del gioco?


Technical and Performance Issues

Campaign performance optimisations.
Campaign AI round time improvements (greatest effect during early game).
A new "Limited" option has been added to the "Show AI Player Moves" settings in Single Player an Multiplayer Campaign modes, this enables the player to see all movement of enemy factions, all movement within the players regions, and all movement within sea that the player has ports in during the AI turns.
Improved AI recruitment decisions in Campaign modes. Further improvements planned for subsequent patches.
Pathfinding optimisation on the Campaign Map.
Fix for "Level of Detail" distances scaling incorrectly when the "Field of View" is changed which reduces the chance of the "Intelligent Zoom" [N] key, causing "zombie like” low quality textures on unit faces in battles.
A new warning message has been added to loading screen to inform the player when graphics memory is running low, and the game is downgrading the players graphics settings. This can be overriden, allowing the game to use system memory for graphics (VRAM) by ticking the "Unlimited video memory" option in the graphics menu.
Increased the frame rate and reduced frame stuttering in battles on certain GPUs.
Improved compatibility for graphics cards with multiple GPUs.
Added earlier Multiplayer Campaign resyncronisation detection, upon loading save games which allows resyncronisation in more cases.
More conservative out-of-the-box graphics settings and resolution for DirectX 10 and 11 on Mobile GPUs
Improved the processing speed of the default deployment placement, reducing battle loading times on some battle maps.
Fixed battle crash bug caused by the default deployment placement.
Crash fix for when the player placed the mouse over a garrison force of a region in Campaign mode.
Fix for crash loading save games that were created on the "settlement captured" screen in Campaign modes.
Fix for a crash when holding the [SHIFT] and [CTRL] keys down, and selecting a unit card, when no unit cards where previously selected in Campaign and Battle modes.
Fix for crash caused by forming a Confederation in Campaign modes.
Some desyncronisations have been fixed in multiplayer city / port assault battles.
Crash fix for when multiple AI reinforcements arrive in a single player siege battle in Campaign mode.
Fix for crash when selecting Custom Battle mode after fighting several different Multiplayer battles.
Fix for a crash in 4v4 custom or multiplayer battles caused by the battle AI.
Fix for crash when cancelling a game request for a password protected game whilst in a Multiplayer battle lobby.
Fix some crashes in multiplayer campaign mode, when one player quit the game, it would cause the other player to crash.
Fixed a Multiplayer crash which happened when a client joined a lobby and was being allocated to the wrong slot.
Fix for a very rare crash when launching a new campaign.
Fixed rare battlefield loading lockup.
Fix for a rare crash caused by animal handlers in battles.
Fix for crash that happens when AI unit triggers raise banner special ability when no human units are selected in battles.


Gameplay Improvements

Reduced infantry run speed, charge speed and acceleration in battles.
The low level casualty moral penalties have been significantly reduced in battles.
Improved balancing for Food and Squalor in Campaign Mode.
Campaign AI is more likely to make a stand when defending its final settlement, but may still seek out another home, if they fear losing the final battle.
Encampments battles are no longer incorrectly merged with Coastal battles, which lead to forts floating in the air when a friendly navy reinforced an army in the Fortification stance.
Improved ship movement speeds in battles.
Shock cavalry run speed and charge speed have been increased in battles.
Increased flanking morale penalties.
Added icons to indicate activity in the Technology and Faction screens during a campaign.
Fix for the boarding/ramming button which showed the incorrect state in certain circumstances in battles.
Fix for a bug that sometimes made it impossible to exchange units between a transported land force and another land force on the Campaign map.
Fix for armies on the sea getting stuck in patrol stance in Campaign modes.
Fixed splitting an embedded army from a navy which sometimes caused the player to get stuck in the Prologue Campaign.
Some missions in single player and multiplayer Campaign have been fixed and now execute correctly.
When a settlement is captured via a siege battle, with a friendly naval fleet blockading its port, the ownership of the port is now changed correctly to the friendly navy fleet on capture.
Fix for AI taking inappropriate sized siege equipment into battle when the user changed the settlement wall height, via the map selection settings, in Custom Battle mode.
Fix for defending armies under AI control grouping together at the edge of their deployment zone, during Ambush battles when the player choses to wait before attacking them.
Improved AI and scripting in the Raphia Historical Battle.
Fixed a bug preventing the player from progressing in The Invasion of Samnium prologue chapter, if they had spent all of their funds before being instructed to recruit a General (and therefore having no funds to do so).
The Attribute increases for an agent accompanying an army now activate its associated effects on the general of that army in Campaign modes.
Improved AI collision detection with Deployables in battle.
In Multiplayer Campaign mode, one player can no longer cancel recruitment during the other players turn.
The order of events leading up to the Battle of Bovianum in the prologue have been re-scripted. The player now gets multiple turns to construct siege equipment.
Fixed issues with not enough time being given for certain advisor lines to play in different languages in the prologue.
Fix for units floating in the air while climbing siege towers in battle, when the tower is placed on a slope.
Attacking siege ladders will no longer clip through the gate house in the siege on Bovianum battle during The Invasion of Samnium chapter in Prologue Campaign.
The victory screen in Multiplayer Campaign mode now shows the correct title for both players.
The Basilica of Vulcan religious building now applies the correct bonus to recruitment cost reduction in Campaign Mode.
Added level indicators to the Sanctuary of Austro & Sanctuary of Fraujaz shrines in Campaign mode and the Encyclopaedia.
Fix for settlement expansion trapping / blocking units movement on the campaign map in very rare cases.
Improved the terrain in a small Barbarian city battle map.
Minor bug fixes for Roman and Barbarian siege battle maps.
During battles, players are no longer able to un-pause the game while in the options menus.


Usability improvements

In Campaign mode, exempting a province from tax will no longer incorrectly adjust the food number in the province info panel left side of the screen.
Improved multiplayer lobby discovery, reducing the chance of finding *multiplayer lobbies with the wrong battle type.
Removed the red tint from the sky in battles.
Fix for "Rome Wasn't Built in a Day" achievement failing to unlock when its requirements were met in some situations.
The "Quaestor" achievement should now unlock correctly, when completing the Prologue campaign
Fixed the inability to select the previous faction, when an army is automatically loaded due to a battle type change during battle setup.
Improved the clarity of stats displayed for Slaves Economic Effect when placing the mouse over "Slaves" in the Province Details panel on the Campaign map.
Fix for rare cases of broken save games in Campaign mode.
Fix for Campaign mode bug, where a hostile agent and the players' ship became stuck in the same position, with neither one able to move.
Fix for very rare agent pathfinding issue, which caused the game progression to become impossible in Campaign modes.
Removed the ability to loading the wrong type of units into a battle from a saved army pre-set in Custom Battle mode.
In Multiplayer battle setup, unit restrictions related to "Battle type" are no longer desynchronised between the host and client, so only the correct units can be chosen.
Defending armies in an Ambush Battle can no longer load an army containing *Fixed Artillery and other Siege Equipment.
Fixed the tooltip displayed when placing the mouse over the garrison in enemy settlements, while the settlement is under siege.
The Public Order "Change per turn" stat is now displayed as the sum of all of its "Contributing Factors" on the Province Info panel in Campaign mode.
Right-clicking on the Aggressive, Balanced and Protective stance buttons when Autoresolving a battle in campaign mode will now take the player to the Encyclopedia, where these stances are explained in more detail.
More detailed descriptions added to the tooltips for the "Occupy, Loot and Raze" buttons after successfully capturing a settlement on the Campaign map.
Improved icons for Province Effects in Campaign mode.
Fixed an error with uploading stats when a multiplayer battle was ended prematurely.
The "Force March" movement effect on the campaign map (looks like a whirlwind) are now correctly removed from the screen when the AI move their army.
Correction to the Assault Hexeres unit card in the Parthia faction during battles, which had no colour mask and appeared black.
The buttons to change pages in the Leaderboards menu have been fixed, so more players can be seen on the Leaderboards.
The Provinces list in Campaign mode can now be scrolled with the mouse wheel.
Units in a recruitment queue, in a province with its capital under siege, now have an "infinity sign" icon to indicate that the "turns to recruit" is infinite while the siege is maintained in Campaign mode.
In the "Controls" menu under the "Settings" option in the main menu, when the player modifies the keyboard controls, and saves them, the new name for these controls is now replaces the "Classic Total War" name.
Added a tooltip to say "Left-click to remove unit from recruitment queue" for units that are queued for hire in Campaign mode.
Added a tooltip to make ruined buildings more obvious in Campaign mode.
Added tooltips to "Weather" and "Time of Day" settings in the Custom Battle menu.
Fixes and corrections for text in the encyclopaedia have been made.
Minor text and grammar corrections in Campaign Modes.
Fix for some German text not fitting into the available text space in the campaign mode user interface.
Improved text formatting in the Objectives panel in Campaign mode.
Added some localisation text fixes for French, Italian, German, Spanish, Czech, Russian, Polish and Turkish.
Fixed some missing text on the Diplomacy screen in Campaign modes.
Added white outline to Armoured Legionaries unit cards in battle.

Il nuovo lavoro di DarthMod - Ultimate General

Giusto l'anno scorso Darthmod, il famoso modder dei TW da diversi anni, aveva dato l'addio per sempre ad ogni futuro mod sulla serie, dopo la polemica con la CA, sia per la chiusura progressiva e controllata al modding della serie, sia per non essere stato nemmeno invitato alla session dei modders organizzata dalla CA.

Ebbene, non solo Darthmod, alias di Nick Thomadis, ha confermato che non ci sarà nessuno Darthmod per Rome 2 ma sta lavorando con un piccolo studio di appassionati ad un gioco nuovo (in realtà lo studio sta lavorando su due giochi), che riflette le loro idee e si propone come la versione intellingente dei TW.

http://www.ultimategeneral.com/

(link al secondo gioco: http://www.navalaction.com/ )

Ultimate General: Gettysburg deve essere il primo titolo di una serie ad ambientazione storica; the feature principali del gioco saranno:

Take Command - Fight the Battle of Gettysburg as a Union or Confederate general and attempt to rewrite history through a chain of historical and “what if” battle scenarios.

Dynamic Progress - Your performance in battles affects future missions. Losing too many soldiers in your first encounter will drastically change the last days of your battle.

Easy controls - Deep tactical gameplay driven by simple controls. Give orders to hundreds of troops organised in brigades of infantry, cavalry and artillery.

Thinking Soldiers - Units can retaliate and defend themselves without player input and excessive micromanagement, giving you the freedom to focus on other more important strategic matters.

Realistic Morale - One of the most complex morale systems ever created makes your tactical decisions crucial on the battlefield – demoralised troops become irresponsive, devastating volleys cause havoc in your lines, flank attacks can rout your strongest units.

Terrain Advantage - High ground provides increased weapon ranges, accuracy and morale bonuses. He, who takes the hills, wins the battle.

Challenge - AI does not need traditional game cheats or hidden tricks to face off against humans. Innovative Ultimate General AI comes with different characters such as "Careless", "Indecisive", “Defensive”, “Cautious”, “Cunning”, “Aggressive” or “Dynamic”.

Sul blog trovate linkato un forum dove potete interfacciarvi con Darth e gli altri.

Queste le parole di Darth:

There were things that I could not deliver to players as a modder (Read about my mods). That is why I decided to develop my own strategy game and in this blog post I will write about its main aspects. Working with a group of very talented programmers I am now able to build the strategy game I always dreamed of that will satisfy the following four main principles:


Battle Realism: Rock/Papers/Scissors-style simplistic gameplay is in my opinion an obsolete way to provide battle balance and does not resemble reality. Would Alexander the Great win his battles if these examples always happened: cavalry beats archers, spearmen beats cavalry, infantry beats spearmen (the usual simple approach of an RTS game)? In our game soldiers will react using realistic physics and many important tactical aspects so that the player will feel that he commands real troops and not lifeless robots. Our current graphics technology may prohibit us from creating the perfect looking game, but from the start we will offer common sense to strategy. Factors like Morale, Fatigue, Flanking, High Ground are essential to strategic thought and must be simulated as accurately as possible.


Deep gameplay with less complexity: Striving too much for realism can make a game too complex, boring, difficult to handle and eventually a failure. On the other hand over simplicity and arcade gameplay is something I have never preferred as a gamer and I am certain many others feel the same, considering the success of smaller Indy games that outsell games with much bigger budgets. So in a few words I will try to make Ultimate General: Gettysburg as easy to handle as possible without many confusing buttons. You should not require a tutorial or a big manual to play the game but you will be able to understand progressively how the "inside" complex mechanics work. For example: terrain importance increasing unit's effectiveness or brigade's exhaustion making them rout more easily even when facing a smaller force.


Good AI: A strategy that is easy to beat offers only few gameplay hours and can be really frustrating, if AI is a complete fool. Now, I have the chance to design an AI that can make a proper firing line, that can flank, that can understand where and when to attack… in real time. That may sound trivial, but I think you will agree that very few games can offer these features in a whole working set. Most RTS games make the AI tough by providing better fighting statistics per higher difficulty rate or hide its incompetence by speeding up everything so the player cannot catch up with all simultaneous actions. This is a cheap cheat! My goal is to make the AI effective and able to win you without these tricks. And from first looks it seems we have succeeded in that (we will be able to show it to you in the near future).


Connection with players: It will be a game where strategy fans can participate very actively in its creation. As you did for DarthMod, providing valuable feedback, and requesting features, you can do it now again; using our forums where we will have active discussions with players, gather ideas and organize frequent gameplay tests. For me a game must have a strong “pre-connection” with all of its potential players during production, so that it gets as many features they want as possible.

Naval action sarà l'equivalente di Ultimate General ma sul mare

Armchair General Total War Rome 2 review

La review è molto positiva, ma se vedete i commenti sotto dei lettori, tendono a non essere per nulla d'accordo. In effetti c'è da chiedersi come'è possibile che i recensori non vedano quello che i giocatori hanno visto finora.

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/total-war-rome-ii-pc-game-review.htm

La patch 2.0 è stata rimandata, ma una beta è uscita per provare le prime modifiche.

Penso che questo sarà l'ultimo Total War, non tanto per la figura di merda fatta dalla CA (la gente ha la memoria corta, perchè alla fine in un modo o nell'altro risolveranno i bugs più vistosi anche se dubito riusciranno a rendere il gameplay più avvincente), ma perchè ormai con il marchio Warhammer tra le mani, e i due remakes più richiesti (Shogun e Rome) già fatti, c'è ben poco marketing appeal da sfruttare. Il motore del gioco ormai è al limite e può solo crescere lo spazio richiesto ogni gioco che passa, e non investiranno mai in un nuovo motore per una serie vecchia anche se famosa.

Prima patch per Rome 2 change log

Ecco il changelog della prima patch per Rome 2:

Higher average frame rates with out-of-the-box settings (more conservative settings)
Fix for DirectX 10.0 Lighting issue reported - environment map wasn't being created leading to black reflections.
Fixed a sunken Samothrace temple complex world wonder on the Campaign map.
Fixed defender being able to create encampments when involved in a combined battle.
Added some localisation fixes to audio packs in French, Russian, Italian, German and Spanish.
Fixed lock up in Multiplayer Campaign battles when a desynchronisation occurs. Players are now notified of the desynchronisation, and the battle ends.
Fixed Multiplayer Campaign battle "overrun" prompt, which was not being shown to a player if they were a reinforcement and the other player was spectating.
Fixed corrupt loading screen when changing to fullscreen / windowed mode after a battle, and then going into another battle.
Fix for Multiplayer Campaign host being unable to move the camera in campaign, after reloading a save game on some rare occasions.
Safe guards added to prevent a very rare crash in coastal assault battles.
Fix for game lock up during end turn sequence / Celtic AI faction turn in single player campaign.
Improved AI use of walls on Athens large settlement battle map.
Improvements to Auto-resolve balancing in Single Player and Multiplayer Campaign modes.
Aligned ship unit upkeep costs with land units - made mercenary ships more expensive and non-mercenary ships cheaper.
Fixed slow turning rates for transport ships.
Improved civil war balancing in relation to campaign difficulty.
Fixed vehicle ground pipes, to prevent Siege Towers becoming immovable when they are left empty during the Deployment Phase of a Siege Battle, then units were moved into the Siege Tower when the battle has started.
Fixed bug when ramming sideways into moving ship, which caused the ramming ship stick to target and strafe along with it in battles.
Reduced the chance of Naval units sometimes clipping through the ground or harbours / ports during Port Assault battles when attempting to disembark.
Fixed issue where armies would be stuck in Muster stance and could not exit that stance in Campaign modes.
Fixed case where spies could get stuck on top of fleets in Campaign modes.
Fixed rare post battle lockup in Campaign modes.
Improved unit pathfinding in Barbarian village battle maps (fixed no go zones).
Fix for Multiplayer Campaign lock up when the player was reinforcing an AI ally who was victorious in battle, causing the player to become stuck with no victory / continue / exit battle user interface functionality.
Fix for cultural influence bonus from the Shrine of Neptune building
Fix for “Zone of Controls” of hidden armies being visible to both players in head to head Multiplayer Campaign mode on mouse-over.
Assorted minor fixes to city battle maps.
Fix for "Rome Wasn't Built in a Day" achievement failing to unlock when its requirements were met in some situations.

Questo venerdì prima patch per Rome 2

Questo venerdì dovrebbe uscire la prima patch per Rome 2, non è chiaro cosa sistemerà dei numerosi bugs del gioco. Non sembrano bugs strutturali quindi è probabile che siano risulti tutti con il tempo (come dicevo giusto in tempo per prenderlo con lo sconto).

Rome 2: Presentazione dettagliata del gameplay

L'uomo dal cappello più brutto del mondo ha fatto un'altra presentazione del gameplay di Rome 2.

Nuove fazioni per Total War Rome 2

La prima sono i Parti, famosi per i loro catafratti ed arcieri a cavallo

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Total_War:_Rome_II_-_Parthia_Faction

La seconda gli Egiziani, famosi per i documentari sulle mummie:

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Total_War:_Rome_II_-_Egyptian_Faction

Total War Shogun 2 - Gold Edition

E' stata annunciata per Marzo la versione Gold Edition di Shogun 2, che conterrà tutto quello che è uscito per il gioco. Qui trovate la notizia ufficiale:

http://www.totalwar.com/en_us/shogun-2-gold

Aperta pagina Wiki su Rome2 Total War

Aperta una pagina Wiki dedicata ai TW ed in particolare a Rome 2.

http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Factions

La pagina delle fazioni mostra per adesso solo Roma, ma mano mano si amplierà con le altre fazioni.

Creative Assembly produrrà gioco su Warhammer Fantasy Battle?

Si vocifera che SEGA abbia comprato i diritti per i giochi elettronici sulla famosa serie di miniature. E visto la natura del gioco, e possibile che lo sviluppo sia affidato proprio alla Creative Assembly. Vista la natura sempre più fantasy dei TW non mi stupirei.

Eurogamer Expo 2012: Rome 2 Total War Developer Session

All'Eurogamer Expo è stato presentata una session di Q&A con James Russell della CA con un video di presentazione di 30 minuti del gioco

Rome 2 Total War primo video di gameplay

Circola da qualche giorno il primo video di gameplay di Rome 2, tratto dalla pre-alpha. Si tratta di 9 minuti di replay di battaglia. Tutto molto cinemaografico e bello ma la sotanza resta un click and go.

Articolo su RPS sui modding tools di Shogun 2

Su Rock Paper Shotgun è apparso un articolo riguardo i nuovi modding tools rilasciati dalla Creative Assembly recentemente. Ormai è chiaro che ETW e NTW non avranno propri modding tools e chi scrive ha  messo molti punti di domanda su molti punti ancora oscuri riguardo la politica della CA riguardo i mods.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/10/19/shogun-2-modding/#more-128734