I hate Creative Assembly

[alwayzgame]

This game is clearly not designed for low spec computers, I'm going to be saving up for a new processor as some of you already know but the main problem with total war games as has always been the case is that they insist on constantly using these extremely high resource campaign maps, they are massive, they have lots and lots of A.I calculations that the computer has to do so it takes forever a lot of times to end a turn. They spit particles across the screen whenever a character accomplishes something or there are pre-rendered animations which pop up that can easily bugger up your computer.

maybe you can play with a miner   ?

i just bought Rome "1", because only the graphic is cheaper, the rest is the same as Rome 2 i guess.

lol

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[Kluge]

RTW2 rocking a 4.2/10 user score on Metacritic, 3rd lowest rating of recent PC releases. Sega's other recent published release, CoH2, is enjoying (one of?) the lowest ratings I've seen in a long time, at 1.6/10, the lowest of recent PC releases. These may be top contenders for the biggest all-time user/critic score discrepancies, too. RTW2 criticavg-useravg=3.9, CoH2 criticavg-useravg=6.4 which could well be a record. Good thing they got out of the hardware business to focus on games.

(Some of the other worst let-downs in the past couple years include D3, which has cavg-uavg of 5.0, and SimCity Societies, with cavg-uavg of 2.2, though critics gave Societies a fairly low score of 6.3. Gone Home is also setting some records - very indie, but absolutely tanking with players, cavg-uavg of 5.0.)

For reference, 2009 biggest discrepancies (note the gap closed a bit on almost all of these): http://www.metacritic.com/feature/game-critic-scores-vs-user-reviews (highest difference then was 4.9)

[Lethn]

Excellent!... I mean uh... Bad users! Bad!

[Kluge]

Excellent!... I mean uh... Bad users! Bad!

Fun fact: if you check the Wikipedia page on CoH2, they try to attribute the 1.6/10 user score to a campaign against unfair representation of the Soviet government. 

[Lethn]

Excellent!... I mean uh... Bad users! Bad!

Fun fact: if you check the Wikipedia page on CoH2, they try to attribute the 1.6/10 user score to a campaign against unfair representation of the Soviet government. 

BAHAHHAHAAHAHAHHHH!!

Honestly, I don't know why I'm so worried about programming sometimes, I can't possibly do as badly as some of these guys have

[Lethn]

Angry Gamer does some good reviews

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

[LiteCoinGuy]

i heard/read the KI is awful (agian) ?  


epic  :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdpIENG0Y2k

[Lethn]

I re-installed Rome 1 Total War and I've really enjoyed it compared to Rome 2 so fuck you again creative assembly it seems days the only thing a game developer needs to do to keep me happy is code a game that actually works >_<.

[Kluge]

I re-installed Rome 1 Total War and I've really enjoyed it compared to Rome 2 so fuck you again creative assembly it seems days the only thing a game developer needs to do to keep me happy is code a game that actually works >_<.

If there isn't a mod to add war dogs, it's an obsolete game as far as I can tell.

[Lethn]

You haven't played Rome: Total War have you? They not only have war dogs but later in the game you get exploding pigs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cv_ISQt1no

Edit: Incendiary pigs, sorry, I posted this while I was tired.

[Kluge]

You haven't played Rome: Total War have you? They not only have war dogs but later in the game you get exploding pigs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cv_ISQt1no

I have the promotional calendar somewhere, still.  I don't remember things from yesterday very well - much less 10+ years ago. I'll try it out again.
>uninstalls RTW2

(oddly enough, RTW2's ratings on metacritic are continuing to fall after patches. Was [critic/user] 8.1/4.2, now 7.9/3.8. I'm not sure if that indicates much more than many game reviewers being lazy and posting a pseudo-review after a couple hours of play based more on game hype.)

[Lethn]

I'd rather trust the user reviews than the 'professional' reviews, so far the only accurate review I've seen of Rome 2 Total War was from the angry gamer guy I posted and I think there was one other on metacritic that gave it a low score and there was a guardian review that completely agreed with everyone else too.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/06/total-war-rome-ii-review

[Kluge]

^You have any suggested RTW mods? (keeping in mind I only get ~20-80kb/s download bandwidth)

There are a ton of good-looking ones, but I don't look forward to spending literally a week or two downloading all the mods which *look* interesting. Mostly interested in graphical improvements (as a major pack), music add-ons, AI improvements, and higher unit diversity. DarthMod usually has me covered on all of that, though Idunno how thorough the RTW mod is. Not particularly interested in new factions or fantasy overhauls.

[Lethn]

Well I'm afraid Rome: Total War has been modded like crazy compared to the others but luckily I can recommend something simple, you can google this if I got it wrong but if you go into the desc_strat text file of Rome: Total War you can see all the factions listed there in sections 'playable' and 'non-playable' if you copy/paste the non-playable stuff over over to playable and you'll be able to play the minor factions like Thrace/Dacia/Macedon.

A lot of the Rome: Total War mods are huge unfortunately so if your bandwidth is that low maybe it's time to consider an upgrade

[Kluge]

Well I'm afraid Rome: Total War has been modded like crazy compared to the others but luckily I can recommend something simple, you can google this if I got it wrong but if you go into the desc_strat text file of Rome: Total War you can see all the factions listed there in sections 'playable' and 'non-playable' if you copy/paste the non-playable stuff over over to playable and you'll be able to play the minor factions like Thrace/Dacia/Macedon.

A lot of the Rome: Total War mods are huge unfortunately so if your bandwidth is that low maybe it's time to consider an upgrade

No upgrades available unless I move (or have a slow T1 line run out to my house for something like $8k + $180/mo). I have a bunch of pamphlets drawn up to hand out to the villagefolk with a direct contact for someone in the (non-)serving DSL company who draws up expansion plans out here, but not the balls to actually distribute them and interact with humans. It seems very undignified to have to campaign/beg for something pretty much every other being in post-industrial nations have. I guess I'll have to just have a few drinks and get over it soon.

I'll try out the cheat fix for pointlessly-locked content. RTW is still downloading (no clue what I did with the CD).

[Lethn]

Have you thought about satellite? I've heard that isn't so bad anymore, I was actually researching it and I saw 2MB speeds as standard so that's not too bad.

Edit: Scratch that, looks like it's changed even higher since I looked, I'm just looking at the UK companies now though, I think I was looking at global stuff before.

https://www.satelliteinternet.co.uk/packages

[Kluge]

Have you thought about satellite? I've heard that isn't so bad anymore, I was actually researching it and I saw 2MB speeds as standard so that's not too bad.

Edit: Scratch that, looks like it's changed even higher since I looked, I'm just looking at the UK companies now though, I think I was looking at global stuff before.

https://www.satelliteinternet.co.uk/packages

Yeah, I had satellite for ~a month, a year ago. It was pretty terrible. Harsh caps (10GB/mo for "cheap" package), ultra-high latency, unreliable (outages when dense clouds rolled by), and massive slowdowns at peak times (their idea of "peak times" are during daylight). Speeds proved roughly equal to the weak 3G signal I'm tethered to, now, and 3G is "uncapped" (until they forcibly terminate my contract  ). The high latency makes it unsuitable for VOIP, so I'd still be stuck with a landline or cell bill, which pushes the "real" cost to $100+/mo compared to $60/mo for cell phone.



ETA: The 10GB is really 5GB during peak time (while everyone's awake), and 5GB you can only use between 2-6am or something silly like that.

[Lethn]

Might be worth finding a good company that doesn't do that kind of thing then, the disadvantage may be a sacrifice in speed but if it's constant then it will work better than the connection you've got, I'll bet they're out there.

[Kluge]

Might be worth finding a good company that doesn't do that kind of thing then, the disadvantage may be a sacrifice in speed but if it's constant then it will work better than the connection you've got, I'll bet they're out there.

There are essentially two Satellite ISP providers in the US. There's Hughesnet (and their subleasing partner, DishNet/Dish), and WildBlue (and their subleasing partner, Exede/DirecTV).

WildBlue has the same issues as Hughesnet with reliability, because at least in the US, they both use extremely high GHz signals (40GHz, I believe) which are just barely able to penetrate dust particles (compared to 3g and 4g, which use very low frequency signals, allowing even significant forest penetration). Latency is the same issue with both - they're both sending signals an extremely long distance -- the high frequency helps, but there's no getting around latency hurdles of beaming something out to space, back to a terrestrial tower, and then through traditional ground infrastructure. In the US, they're trying to advertise the new satellite ISP technology as being comparable to 4G, which is complete bunk -- latency's a very important vital statistic when looking at ISPs, which they appear to completely gloss over (even if you generously assume they can compare their advertised maximum speeds with speeds actually achievable with 4G).

Bandwidth not coming close to "maximums" is an issue with overselling service, which WildBlue may or may not have an advantage in (they have far, far fewer customers, but probably also much less infrastructure [unless they share with Hughesnet - I don't know how "roaming" works with satellite ISPs] -- hard to say if it balances out, but if you have less satellites to choose from, that'll cause additional reliability problems). With satellite ISPs, the illusion of "peak speeds" is totally shattered, because they mean it when they say maximum -- you "MIGHT" get the advertised speed at some point throughout service (in my case, I ordered a mid-tier package and never saw speeds advertised for the cheapest package).


As far as pricing, Wildblue's 10gb/mo plan is $60/mo + a 2-year contract. A 15GB/mo limit is $90/mo + contract. A 25GB limit is $140/mo + contract. Those are in addition to hidden/grey fees and a $50 setup fee. Keep in mind, the BTC blockchain alone is coming up on 12GB (+ overhead and seeding traffic). Because of the harsh contract, there's no way to test-drive the service (Hughesnet at least offers 30 days to cancel without penalty). OTOH, Wildblue is at least truthful enough not to promise higher theoretical speeds based on which package you order.

Satellite infrastructure, even after the "revolutionary" upgrades in 2012, is still inadequate for digital age unless you believe the "digital age" is reading emails and news stories (Skype can probably be stuffed in so long as you keep it text). Their only saving grace is that they act as a gap between dial-up infrastructure while already-obsolete ADSL infrastructure is slowly rolled out in the rural US, which probably wouldn't ever happen if the USG weren't shoveling hundreds of millions at DSL providers in grants.

[Lethn]

Well that sucks