Briding the Arar does not work and breaks the campaign. I have a save game if you want it.

I get to the point in the campaign where I'm supposed to "Bridge the Arar". The advisor tells me to click on one of my units in the field. I click a legion. It's not possible to build a bridge. The location is not in green. Going closer to the location, I note that there's already a bridge present at that location. Owned by the Sequani, my allies. The advisor hangs to the screen through all this, saying that I should click on one of my units. Further to the east I find an enemy army and defeat it, and take prisoners. Clicking on the slaves I take, updates the advisor and she now tells me to construct the bridge, which is not possible since there is already one there. This all breaks the campaign.

Image showing the situation

More later tonight, but I needed to post this asap.

Thanks! I'll try that.

I started a sandbox game. I fought the raiders but lost a battle outside their camp. My general retreated back home and was separated from the unit he was attached to. Some other raiders were attacking a nearby mine of (erm...) mine. I sent a brigade out to counter them and also sent my general out at the same time. KI tried to merge him with the unit just before they were to impact with the enemy.

The game CTD'd at that point. Things went wrong when I tried to merge him with this unit which was in combat. After the crash the game generated a dmp file which I have saved if you want it.



Also, I used getselected():dismmantle() on the bridge at Arar. This worked, but now I'm stuck with the advisor on the screen telling me to still construct the bridge although I'm at Bibracte already. Also, the machinegun drumming sound is continuing all the time in my campaign now and won't stop even after game restart.

Some first impressions. I have nothing negative to say. The game is a great update to the previous game; it's going to be an appreciated sequel. First, some minor things I have concerns about.

I don't like the "Play" button for OK. It looks like a play button on YouTube or something and interferes with the otherwise Roman/papyrus artstyle. I'd rather like a finger pointing forward or something to that effect.

Colours are similar on the tribes you meet at the beginning of the Roman campaign. I ordered an attack on the Sequani at first only to discover that they are actually my allies. No big deal; the player learns to distinguish them.

I sent a slave unit right through one of my legions. They had a hard time getting through. Some stragglers were inside the legion formation for quite some time.

There's a certain zoom level when you zoom from strategic to tactical map that is greyed, like there's a fog over the screen. This was also present in Hegemony Gold. Maybe some subtle floating clouds would make that zoom level look more pleasing?

The diplomacy screen does not work. It keeps flickering. I cannot click any of the factions there.

The Expenses vs Income pop-up doesn't give the correct information.

I can't scroll the unit upgrades by dragging the scroll bar when upgrading a unit. Same thing in the city upgrade list (love the city upgrades!). Mouse wheel works though.

The drum sound that is used for many actions sounds like a warning. It reminds me of the warning sounds you get when enemy troops are moving in on you in Hegemony Gold. Maybe a more subtle "thump" would be better in some situations; like when ordering troops, selecting things or similar events.

The list of objectives could be further to the right on the screen. Somehow I feel it's not in line with the rest of the information on-screen.

Can't supply lines go over bridges? I frequently get a message saying that it can't connect when on the other side of a river. Connecting Bibracte with the rest of my domain has yet to succeed.

I built a camp and deployed a legion in there. I can see no soldiers manning it. I think it should show soldiers manning the towers and encampment just as it shows guards on city walls and in towers.

Troops crossing bridges actually go under the bridge and not over it. This was most notable on the bridge I built when doing the "Cross the Arar" mission.

Three minor graphical glitches with screenshots. Troops standing on non-existent towers on a bridge. The soldiers do disappear appropriately after a while though. Weird shadows on trees near Bibracte. Water disappeared in the river when I fiddled with the graphics settings. It all went back to normal after a game restart (the game does tell me to restart the game after changing the graphics settings).



The game is absolutely gorgeous. I can't give praises enough for the absolutely smashing looking map. It's detailed and it's alive. My absolutely favourite feature is the working peasants in the fields at the farms. Details like those make the map really come alive and set the atmosphere. More stuff like that is welcome if you have the time and resources! Animals in the forests, more civilians in the towns; like women and children and barking dogs. The water in the rivers look like you could drink it. Excellent. It's a joy to play.

The art style is really immersive! Everything from the cutscenes to how the GUI is displayed. Just Lovely and very suitable; there's nothing plastic about it, and it's just unique and really appealing suitable a beautiful game! I like everything about the UI; it's all well-displayed and gives the player good information; easy to read in most cases. It's a good upgrade from Hegemony Gold.

It's fun and it's interesting. I'm really looking forward to the completed Sandbox experience; I tried it a bit already and it's really appealing where you start with only a city and a general and have to expand from there. Continue on that idea! I hope we get to play the Romans in the sandbox in a similar way as the Gallic tribes too; starting with nothing but a city and a general. Again, this is already a really appealing game, and with the ironing out of the problems remaining, it's going to be one great game in the end. I hope it'll be Longbow's real, true breakthrough and that people will buy it in masses.

I see there are functions for mods and DLC's. How powerful will the modding functions be? Can you tell us anything about what DLC's you're planning?

I am continuing to play on chapter 2, where I build siege equipment and conquer Noviodonum. It's a bit confusing how it ends up. I assaulted Noviodonum before finish my siege machinery, and I lost badly. All my legions were routed. Finally, when the siege equipment is finished, the game just tells me that Noviodonum has surrendered at the sight of my newly built siege tower. Good enough. The town is under my flag, but when I roll the siege tower up against it, it's surrounded by loads of enemy troops who are doing nothing to take it.

I turn my siege tower around. One enemy unit is chasing it and can't catch up. It's a pretty funny sight with the siege tower being chased by an enemy unit like that. Since they can't catch up, one of my legions arrive and stab them right in the back. Very entertaining situations. I think siege towers should be slower. In fact, I'm rather skeptical to siege equipment being built in cities and organised with the field armies and moved around in the terrain like that. The Romans built most of their heavy equipment during the regular sieges and exclusively for the particular sieges. A notable example is the massive siege tower and ram at Masada as described by Josephus.

I had a crash. I'm supposed to meet up with two men after taking Novodionum, but I don't know where they are. My troops are headed back to the camp I built right at the beginning of the scenario. As I try to select one of the units outside that camp, I get a CTD.



I see there are actually soldiers patrolling and manning that camp! Disregard my previous note abou there not being soldiers in the camp. I guess it's something you're working on.

Units on their way south past that camp stayed in there and disregard their waypoint. I manually have to send them out from the camp again; it's like the camp is sucking units in. When marching troops to an important battle and in lack of time, this can be a troublesome effect.

Can't supply lines go over bridges? I frequently get a message saying that it can't connect when on the other side of a river. Connecting Bibracte with the rest of my domain has yet to succeed.

You actually have to connect first to the bridge and then to whatever you want beyond as two separate supply lines.

Oh yes. I found that out in Chapter 2 now as well. It tells you more about bridges in Chapter 2. Good stuff.

Oh, okay. I haven't got that far yet. Switched to sandbox mode.

Some more observations playing Chapter 2.

I had a weird issue with disappearing surrendered soldiers as shown in this screenshot. They belonged to one faction at first, but then all of a sudden were represented as belonging to the Free faction. I think these invisible soldiers disappeared altogether when I reloaded the save. I haven't seen them since. I couldn't capture them. I would have loved to have invisible slaves.

Autosaves freeze the game if loaded from within an already running game. Loading them from the title screen seems to work OK.

Governors aren't saved to the save game. Upon loading a saved game, I have to reassign the governor for a city. Furthermore, I think it should be possible to click the empty governor portrait in the city upgrade menu to appoint him from there as well as from his own unit menu.

I know the AI isn't finished. I had a large enemy army with archers standing on the other side of a river. I thought it would be really bloody to defeat them. I just had to wait, because their morale was dropping fast, and when I finally went over the bridge they just turned and ran. That could have been a really great, epic battle though, so there's something for you to work on when designing the enemy AI.

I get a slight but noticeable framerate drop when many legions and units are displayed on-screen. It was especially noticeable at the Battle of Bratuspantium. I'm going to monitor it in the future.

I'm not really clear on how to use siege equipment. The Siege of Bratuspantium was actually over before I got the towers and Scorpions in place. In Hegemony Gold you just ordered the artillery to start shooting. Here, I've just been rolling them up into range of the city I'm sieging. I roll towers up towards the walls and assume that the yellow markers on the siege marker ring around a city are meant for towers to be deployed.

How about a toggle UI function? Is there such a function already? This game will make for some really good looking screenshots!

I've tracked down a problem causing CTD in Chapter 2. It seems there's a cattle farm to the north of Durocorton (the starting city in the chapter). It has a black cow on the strategic map instead of the regular colour. There are two cattle farms in the area, the one I'm talking about is the southernmost. If I have a unit selected and just mouse hover over that cattle farm, the game CTD's every time and gives this error.



LOL'd at CA! BTW, I didn't buy their latest copycat DLC. I'm loyal to the true Caesar. ;)

Spoiler Warning. Again, I am aware the AI isn't finished.

Just returned from a very much fun battle. I have some notes on the AI. I'm still on Chapter 2 and have built the camp on the hill in the east against the Belgae. Belgic Skirmishers started an initial attack, and I was able to form a proper battle line, since they were so slow. I was also transferring archers from my homeland to the area, and these got there before the Belgae even commenced to attack. The Belgae formed a weird battle line with their front facing in the wrong direction (Screenshot). It's really nice to see that he's already forming real battle lines! They then proceeded to commit their units one by one; I isolated them and took them out at my own pace.

All of a sudden there were news of another attack to the north. I wasn't done with the first army, and kinda panicked. I still shifted a lot of troops to the north, but the Belgic attack never materialized. He was running around aimlessly in the north, while I was finishing up after the first attack and then built a second battle line. I had plenty of time to think about it. I used the units I had at my disposal. Archers at the back, Legions at the front and Skirmishers at the very right to act as flanking force, since I lack cavalry. Really good situation that I enjoyed a lot! It was better than any battle in Rome 2 Total War.

The Belgae were again committing their units one by one (Screenshot), although not even a concentrated effort on their part would have been powerful enough to break my line. They had given me too much time and space to form up. If that Belgic attack had started right as they entered the field and I was still mopping up after the first fight, I might have had some problems. They sent one unit way out north, threatening my right flank and my skirmishers. That was nice to see; it looked like a flanking attempt, but I know the AI isn't done for that yet. At the very end of the battle, they used their three remaining units for an all-out assault, but that was not enough. My skirmishers swept around and destroyed them while my legions, supported by archers were tying them down.

I had fun and spent over an hour on this battle! This is what it's all about. Epic battles with proper strategy, battle formations and use of units! Really, really good fun! I'm not at all disappointed in the AI! In fact, he did rather well considering. There were only three errors as I saw it. 1. He formed his battle line the wrong way, 2. He never committed his full force in a concentrated attack, 3. He didn't attack me soon enough when he arrived with the second army; he should have thrown it all at me. Maybe he should even be programmed to have one or two units concentrate on demolishing my camp. There are also lots of Belgic units inside the nearby cities that could be used for a surprise or two. The mission of the first army should be to tie me down, while the second one stabs me in the back; to some extent it worked that way too though.

On another note, In Chapter 2 I can also see into parts of southern England. It's still covered in Fog of War, but I can see the cities and stuff in Lindinis, for some reason.

Oh. And sometimes the Army Icons show trough the menues in the interface. Like in this screenshot.

I notice a significant stutter on the title screen since the last update.

I am not sure if you are already aware of this but when Anti Aliasing is enabled on a Nvidia card it instantly causes the game to crash. I was just wondering if anyone was having that same issue on an AMD card?

I am not sure if you are already aware of this but when Anti Aliasing is enabled on a Nvidia card it instantly causes the game to crash. I was just wondering if anyone was having that same issue on an AMD card?

I use Nvidia, and enabling AA is working fine for me. Running a GTX 660 if that helps.