not sure how old this is(May 5th is the date of post, but some info is relatively new):
http://forums.totalwar.com/showthread.php/64152-Confirmed-Rome-2-features-specs Regions are now grouped into provinces. Each has a single administration center, into which the surrounding regions report. The goal is to reduce some of the area micromanagement that occurs in vast empires.
• Another goal from this new system is to avoid the relentless siege battles of Shogun 2. It’s believed that players will attempt to take the smaller regions first, and tempt the opposing armies out of their castles to fight on the field.
• In diplomacy, you can now ask an ally to attack a specific town, at a specific time. (for better synchronization)
• When moving armies over water, you no longer need to load them into a separate navy. They will automatically enter transport ships. You will still require a navy to protect them.
• The factions in the game are more clearly defined with starting bonuses and traits. There are ‘flavors’ of faction which should help organize your thoughts. For instance, Barbarians like the Gauls will have similar traits. In the barbarian’s case, that includes a +2 happiness in every settlement for every faction they’re fighting with.
• Naval battles are now fought over naval ‘regions’, rather than having a completely fluid ocean. “This was decided because having a completely organic map wouldn’t be
• Naval warfare will incorporate ramming and boarding actions. The Corvus was hinted at.
• Internal conflict and civil war will act as a check to balance gameplay should the player's empire become a rich military juggernaut.
• Navies are able to control sea regions, and must be forcibly dislodged.
• The system for seasonal rotation is still being adjusted to conform to the 1 turn/1 year play style.
• You can put your navies in different modes like the armies, like raiding.
• Characters have more movement points than armies. One example I talked with Mike Simpson about is Scipio Africanus where he gave up command of an army in Spain and was in Sicily in a few months training a new army for the African invasion. In game terms he boarded a ship and sailed to Sicily in the one turn/year.
• Armies can move over rivers without building boats/bridges
• Attrition will not be vastly different from how it was in previous Total War titles. There are of course differences (including different types of attrition), but you will still find it rather familiar.
• The map will go farther east than RTW.(up to bactria says elsewhere)
• Armies have their own skill trees, with improvements earned through battle.
• Armies have at least three possible stances that you can place them in during a turn. I’m not certain the mechanics of how they will play out in the campaign are quite fixed, but it was hinted that switching stances would take a turn. They are... normal, ambush (hidden from the enemy’s sight), forced march (quicker to move, but if caught on the hop, they’ll suffer diminished combat effectiveness), defensive (given a fort or palisade to defend from)
• Mercenaries will make a return
• Every general is affiliated with a ‘party’ within their faction, such as one of the major Roman or Carthaginian dynasties or the royal household of an Eastern kingdom and their court rivals: as these characters act around the campaign map or retire to the homeland to scheme, they contribute to their party’s overall influence within the faction, with repercussions that will carry on from one generation to the next.
• Military traditions established by armies and fleets over the years also persist beyond the lifespan of any one character or unit, a legacy handed down the generations by those who fought and died for the good of their people. This process will be slower than that of characters gaining ranks, but can span the entire length of a campaign: even if a military force is disbanded or destroyed utterly, it may be re-established once more, the past effects of its history and traditions intact.
• Forces effectively move in a state of battle-readiness but may be ordered into a ‘forced march’ (armies)or a ‘double-time’ (fleets) stance. Their movement extents are vastly increased, allowing them to assemble from afar in preparation for invasion or to support threatened possessions, albeit at the expense of their offensive and defensive capabilities: long-distance headshotting will not be a valid tactic.
Just look at that link. 117 FACTIONS and 500 Units. Pretty ambitious aren't they?
183 REGIONS. Regions are like the old school settlements from the other Total war games(the resources etc that you could upgrade). Provincies are made up of Regions, but you don't need to hold the CAPITAL to control regions. Only the capitals are where you will have siege battles. There's 57 Provinces and 183 regions, so you get like roughly 3 regions per province.
"So we’ve got a province system where a province is made up of several different regions. That means that you don’t have to manage each individual region, you’ve got management at a province level which is maybe four regions, which reduces the management burden, but gives you more strategic depth.”
By breaking up territory into these smaller regions, you can’t effectively ‘headshot’ a massive area by knocking out a single city. Instead, provinces can be captured region by region, so even if you lose part of a province, you’ll still maintain control of it, though with resource accumulation penalties. “What that means as well is that there are more varied battlefield types, so we want to have more battle types, objectives, more varied terrain.”
