Expansion Feature Wsihlist

[Claudius the God]

You do realize that the last Roman emperor was Constantine XI and he died in 1453 at the hands of the Ottomans. My wish list is for CA to fix Roman cavalry auxilia, and reconsile the horse archer move and fire issue with the FF issue. For them to seperate generals and family members. So that all family members are generals, but not all generals are family members.

Romulus Augustulus was the last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, even though he was a puppet emperor. he died 476 AD
somehow i don't see Rome: Total War continuing into the middle ages just to show the end of the Byzantine Empire, and Imperial Russia claimed to have followed that imperial tradition through their adoption of the Russian Orthodox church

anyway,
while i would love to have 3D naval battles, i can't see it happenning for the expansion set

using diplomacy on a besieged settlement is a must... and the ability to cross rivers (not over bridges or shallows) should be allowed, but using up something like four times the number of movement points in crossing the two tiles distance for the river crossing.

[Khorak]

Campaigns from different periods A very early campaign at the time of Alexander and the Samnite Wars (with higher resolution Italy map). A later, 3rd Punic War/Marius campaign. A slightly earlier Pyrrhus time period Campaign.

This I'd like. Maybe a really early campaign starting from the foundation of Rome itself (no three factions, just SPQR) for example, so I could indulge more with differing starting positions and situations. As it is, pretty much every game is the exactly the same expansion then show down with Rome.

At least three different campaigns I think, an early one like you describe (but obviously still just on the same world map), a middle one like we already have, and a late one with a vast Roman juggernaught. The last one would be a real challenge as a barbarian, having to pussyfoot around Rome until you're powerful enough to start chipping away at them.

The middle one would still be the most varied (being the only one with the four Roman factions), I'd just like to play as a single Roman faction from the very beginning as Rome itself.

[_Aetius_]

Romulus Augustulus was the last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, even though he was a puppet emperor. he died 476 AD

He was deposed in 476 he died later, the point were most consider the end of the Roman emperors is Heraclius (sp?) but all emperors called themselves roman so it doesnt matter if the west existed or not, the roman empire existed aslong as there was an emperor there to rule it and in 1453 that ended.

I think personally the Holy roman empire was simply a joke lol

[Nelson]

I'd like to see musicians with the commander units. The trumpeters and what not. In fact, I would prefer a lot more signalling then we have now.

[Wishazu]

if my city has just come under siege i would like the choice to either A) march out and deploy in front of the city to try and see off the enemy army before the actual siege begins. B) sit tight and hope for reinforcemenst(thats actually what happens now) or C) abandon the city alltogether if you have no possibility of sending any assisstance.

[_Aetius_]

1, I think they need to improve how individual men fight, if you zoom in you see the men kind of pushing into each other and everynow and then someone randomly swings his sword and kills somebody but in battles swords are being flung far more frequenly than that.

2, Also use of shields to, i want to see men pushing behind there shields or blocking attacks abit more.

3, Id like to see when for example a general wins a great battle or a great campaign that you can dedicate an arch or column to him in a city (a triumph)of your choice etc i think thatd be pretty cool, it could cost say 10000 denarii so its a rare thing and not overused and it could improve public order and morale of garrison troops stationed in the city or something like that.

4, They absolutely have to improve the stats of troops, units of 80 men seem to flee more often than not when only 1/4 of the men have died battles are needlessly short.

5, Armies need to start further apart I think, give more chance for tactics and so on, itd give the terrain a much bigger part to play, currently its massively under used.

6, improve AI in sieges, im sick of enemy armies besieging my cities when i know they cant possibly win, but they are strong enough that if i sallied id take heavy hits, but because the auto is so innaccurate im forced to personally take command of sieges were the outcome is a forgone conclusion thus wasting my time.

7, use cities more realistically, I think taking the central plaza is abit silly really, i mean dont some cities have citadels at the heart of the city? or some other form of hard fortification to resist this? cities that supposedly hold 25000 people seem abit tiny, buildings could be possible to occupy, making sieges more realistic will add to there duration and improve steady fighting in the streets instead of just sitting the centre for 3 minutes.

[Red Harvest]

Adding to my list:

Ability to handle more complex unit types Right now you only get one type of soldier per unit--even elephants and chariots use this, and merely put the crewman in a different animation as mahout or charioteer. In addition you get an officer. But some historical units were filled out by soldiers with various roles: infantry shield bearers combined with archers or spearmen or javelinmen; chariots with shield bearers, charioteer, and one or two archers or spearmen; Assyrian horses and Arab camels riders with one controlling the horse/camel, and the other using a bow.

Separating mounts and men Allow dismounting or loss of the mount. Also loss of the rider with mount continuing on. Many camel riders actually dismounted to fight. And British chariot types did the same.

[Sam Adams]

"peasants with varios farm tools

barbarians are a mottled group (not all wearing the same cloths and same weapons some with axes, some swords, spears ect)"

hell yes. I agree with that one.

accurately similuating naval conflict would require a vast addition to the RTW engine... it would be nice but I think this is pushing it.

I would like to see some blood, personally.

and it would be simple to have napoleonic total war based on this engine, just need to change the art stats and names.

[HarunTaiwan]

2) Kill-rate, unit speed slider - Epic games mean longer battles! I have units routing so easily. I don't mind chain rout at all, but this is obscene, it happens within seconds of impact. Also, these guys run like sprinters (they carry gear too, mind you).

1) SPEED is too fast once battle is joined to maneuver anything.

I hate waiting 5 minutes for them to march towards me and then be frantic for 20 seconds trying to adjust to the final charge.

[_Aetius_]

If battles lasted as short as they do on RTW in reality, then wars would have lasted about 20 minutes Lol

[Colovion]

If battles lasted as short as they do on RTW in reality, then wars would have lasted about 20 minutes Lol

nah, they'd have to get there first

so in RTW ...

that would be like 25 minutes

[LestaT]

Besides the changes from pre-Maroius to Marius units, (Hastati upgrade to ELeg Cohort) I would like to see barbarians faction can use siege engines. I mean it's okay they're stuck to pre-historic roads and equipments but when they sacks Rome don't they have atleast can use the onagers and catapults if the factory still standing ? Or they just rape, pillage and burn ?

[fret]

the current units in 1st person perspective would look absolute crap!!! & yes 1st person perspective is alot closer than your maintaining.

A lot closer to what?!?!

It is possible to position the camera at eye-level, when there are battles, you can even position the camera 'inside' a soldier, and view the battle as he sees it from behind his shield.

Horses with triangular rear quarters wouldnt cut it im afraid,

They cut it with a floating camera, why dont they cut it with a camera fixed to eye level?

plus you consider facial animations, non generic cloned units & an environment to match, all the extra scripting for unit deaths etc,
imagine a siege on rome in 1st person, with thousands of units!!!

Your asking for a lot more than just a camera postion now, yes that would take more power. What you meant to say originally was "imagine it 1st person and the units were a detailed as the Combine in Half Life 2, with envoironment textures taken straight from Farcry"

im sorry but i think current cards would struggle

No need to apologise, they probably couldnt handle having 2,000 unique characters all animated to the quality of a HL2 character, that isnt what you said in your original post though, you just said '1st person capability', which any game with a realtime 3D engine has by default, because 1st person is just another angle like any other.

[Quietus]

If battles lasted as short as they do on RTW in reality, then wars would have lasted about 20 minutes Lol

Ah, the British obsession with Benny Hill . I suppose they speed up the music as well to fit the fast units, so it will be Benny Hill-ish. :::cues Benny Hill music:::

[Rosacrux redux]

I just wish for an Alexander expansion... or even better, for a Persian Wars expansion... does this sound too much?

[Claudius Maniacus Sextus]

1)BETTER AI!!!!!!
2)Morale MUST be fixed,i had 1 GenBOdyGuards rout an 54 ScythiaHA,it just SUCKS,and when 1000 gauls attacks 300 greeks fight till death not charge then they rout!
3)Rome MUST be an SPECIAL city,and diffrent from other.
4)Upgrade unit


3)if another guy tell's me that it is possibile with: u can mod that........please SHUT uP!

[Temujin]

Recruit representative armies, not units

Ditto. This is at the at the top of my list. It would be nice if this also enforced some sort of army coherency, requiring a general to actually move an army. You would need to have an option to promote a captain to a general (without adopting him, mind) but with a limit on the number of non-family generals (say 1 pr. army barracks + 1 for the capital).

Also, give the player some measure of control over army reforms. Say, whenever you get a family member elected as consul, or have a particularly nice string of victories, you could try to change the "standard" army and re-equip your troops, with the senate's approval of course. A reform along the lines of "yeah, all ownagers, all the time, baby!" should of course have a smaller chance of being approved than a less radical proposal. Yes, I know this is hard to implement, but I think the game should have more politics in general. It's frustrating to see your family members rise in the senatorial ranks, without getting to use their newfound powers for anything.

Also, it should be possible to raise a full army in 6 months, within the usual constraints of man-power and funds. The romans did it, so why can't we?

Of course, such an army would be completely green and much less effective than veterans. I think the whole experience system needs re-jigging too. As it is, troop type is much more important than experience, and this didn't seem to be the case historically. Veterans should be more flexible in between the different roles, cf. the carthaginians re-arming their more experienced troops in legionary style and the macedonians using the argyraspids for more than simply better phalangites.

Also, give armies the ability to march along roads in friendly territory, and between friendly ports, without using movement points. It is unrealistic that it takes several years to shift your forces from one theater to another.
You could separate such "instant" marches into a separate movement phase, taking place after normal movement, to prevent players from invading enemy lands with an army from across the empire. Forcing "instant" marches to stop at borders would give the enemy some time to prepare against hostile build-up of forces, if they paid attention to their borders. Alternatively, you could allow armies to "teleport" between forts, cities and ports in friendly territory, as long as you could draw an uninterrupted line between the two, and let a "teleport" cost 100% movement points.

Finally, draw a line between field armies and garrisons. Historically, armies didn't hang around long in cities, as the generals didn't trust the soldiers to keep their hands off the civilians and their goods. Instead, they manned forts out in the sticks, where the battles were actually fought. Garrisons should be a city upgrade, like walls and other defensive structures.

All these changes to armies only apply to roman factions and others who actually had standing armies. It would be nice to see a levy system in place for the barbarian factions. Each warlord could have a small number of "chosen" units as a sort of retinue. You could then choose to levy more troops by choosing that warlord, paying a raising fee and clicking a button. What you get when you click that button depends on the v&v's of the warlord and the upgrades in the province he's in. Take your chance!
Such levied armies would probably disintegrate again on defeat (or complete success!) but particularly charismatic and powerful warlords would be able to maintain their armies for longer before they had to click the "levy" button again, and their retinue would of course increase in size with victory and success.

Just a few suggestions. Sorry about the length.

[Darius]

Only way I'd ever go first person to fight is if I was sure the AI wouldn't promptly charge my archers and catapault crews at the enemy pikemen leading to a chain route and me being the only guy left on the field.

People fighting after being dismounted would be a good idea but would lead to certain complications. I mean if one guy got dismounted but the others didnt, you'd end up with a unit of horsemen...and some dude running far behind yelling "come on guys wait up, this isnt funny! IM TELLIN MOM!"

Units with assorted weapons would be ok as long as they all still had the same attack value. Otherwise it would get crazy with some guys getting a spear and getting a bonus vs cav and another guy getting an axe and gettin an AP bonus...they'd be hard to counter seeing as they have no real uniformity.

Something that wasnt mentioned was bringing back CIVIL WARS! I don't mean this retarded three family thing for just the Romans. I'm talking about like in MTW where if you screwed up royally or some Inbred lunatic took the throne you'd get a bunch of seriously unhappy people who decide to go their own way.

Also I'd like to see bandits and such appear in a more intelligent way. It should take a certain level of low public order obviously, but also depend largely on the wealth of the province. This is something that the Scythians and Numidians would really need, they have these huge, desolate lands that get bandits poppin up all over the place. This shouldn't happen, why, because they're poor. You don't see homeless people getting mugged too often do you?

In regards to siege battles, other than the obviously needed fix for the path finding ( I swear my men seem to eat lead paint chips for snacks ) is to get the citizens more involved. If they are being besieged by an enemy, they most likely want to join in the defense as nobody enjoys seeing their homes looted, their wives and daughters raped, and their neighbors killed. Make a certain percentage of these people rise up as militia that exist only for this battle.

Only other thing I can think of is to have them either eliminate the unit/faction limit for modders or at least make it a lot larger. Throw in a bunch of new units, let us bring in more than 20 units, and all that good stuff.

[nokem]

Ah, the British obsession with Benny Hill . I suppose they speed up the music as well to fit the fast units, so it will be Benny Hill-ish. :::cues Benny Hill music:::

Actually Benny Hill was never as popular in the UK as it proved to be in continental Europe. Especially Germany for some reason.

Whaddya mean "off topic"?

[Colovion]

Individual Moral Status

I know this is something that would be really hard to impliment. Essentially it would be made so that each soldier has a moral of their very own, ikmpacted by their experience/kills and other influences such as the General etc.. If one unit gets impaled by a pike right next to him, that has an impact; more on green troops and less on seasoned veterans. This would be a great idea because when one side of a unit gets crushed, usually the entire unit puts down their swords and stops fighting; with this feature it would make it possible for small pockets of soldiers to hold out longer and make that "heroic last stand" or something. I've had it where there was a unit of 120 men charging at me and my cavalry and hastati charge at that unit, kill about 20 of the enemy and suddenly the other hundred don't want to fight anymore and get ground up like so many coffee beans. It would be awesome to have a battle going on and see a couple guys running away slowly off the back of the army, get your General to come around and blow his horn and get those men back into the battle. At the moment it's as if the average man in the unit wants to run then the rest of them dont' get a say - they're just all going to die because once they start running away they're gone.

[Chelifer]

"Auto-pilot battles" (not auto-resolve ones)

Could be fun to watch AI vs AI

[SwordsMaster]

I wish units gained morale with distance travelled. Firstly, crossing 5000miles on foot, is a tough test, and you get hardier want it or not. Secondly such a long trip makes for stronger bonds between soldiers so they fight more united and protect each other more. Or something.

And it is really easy to implement IMHO.

[sassbarman]

I would like to see archers handled differently. As it stands now they are just way to powerful. Watching archers simply annhilate advancing heavy infantry with sheilds at such ridiculous rates suspends my belief that I'm watching a real battle, to the point where it almost ruins the expierence.

I suggest that instead of archers simply killing or missing units, they should do what in real life they actually did, which was to break up enemy formations lower moral and yes kill some enemy troops. I think it would be much more realistic and intersting to have advancing units hunker down behind their shields in fear, resisting orders to advance when arrow fire became too intense, rather than just wholesale slaughter. Of coarse better quality troops would advance more steadily and be less inclined to ignore orders.

Just some thoughts on how archers are handled presently, I think ca could make some major improvements in this very important aspect of the game. What do you guys think?

[Byzantine Prince]

Wow dude you joined in 2001 and you only have like 81 posts?!?! That's amazing.

Anyways though you're right archers are a little too powerful. Just get RTR though. It makes them a lot weaker somehow. It's weird since their attack is almost the same.

[_Aetius_]

Individual Moral Status

I know this is something that would be really hard to impliment. Essentially it would be made so that each soldier has a moral of their very own, ikmpacted by their experience/kills and other influences such as the General etc.. If one unit gets impaled by a pike right next to him, that has an impact; more on green troops and less on seasoned veterans. This would be a great idea because when one side of a unit gets crushed, usually the entire unit puts down their swords and stops fighting; with this feature it would make it possible for small pockets of soldiers to hold out longer and make that "heroic last stand" or something. I've had it where there was a unit of 120 men charging at me and my cavalry and hastati charge at that unit, kill about 20 of the enemy and suddenly the other hundred don't want to fight anymore and get ground up like so many coffee beans. It would be awesome to have a battle going on and see a couple guys running away slowly off the back of the army, get your General to come around and blow his horn and get those men back into the battle. At the moment it's as if the average man in the unit wants to run then the rest of them dont' get a say - they're just all going to die because once they start running away they're gone.

I think this is the kind of thing that we will see in the next generation of RTW style games, i just cant it happening soon, but it would drastically improve the realism of battle, however wouldnt it be over complicated for an already over complicated game? the main problem i think is that this would make it impossible to know the effectiveness of a unit, you can tell which unit of for example hoplites is experienced and more likely to stand in battle by the chevrons etc and that is all the 80 men in that unit who have say 3 bronze chevrons, if we had individual experience/morale etc, itd be impossible to determine the effectiveness of a unit as a whole. Therefore making it very hard to know if you can rely on them or if theyll do anygood.

Though i suppose that in itself is part of realistic warfare

[The Storyteller]

I think upgrading existing pre Marian troops to their post Marian counterparts is a little too much. In reality, there was a lot of opposition to the Marian reforms. The Marian reforms came about because of a huge lack of manpower - the able bodied, propertied men are precisely the ones you want to have at home, plowing the fields and attending to their businesses. So Marius recruited from among the Head Count, the underprivileged and jobless, people from the lowest rank of society. Because of that, the Senate wanted nothing to do with these troops, and there were still many armies using the older style of troops for many years after. I think the game as it stands now portrays it more accurately - as soldiers in the old style armies serve out their time or are killed, the new style armies gradually replace them.

I believe the last great old style army assembled was for a battle at Arausio. The Romans lost miserably because of a lot of wrangling between the commander appointed by the Senate, and the guy who thought he ought to be commander... after that, there just weren't enough able bodied, propertied men left in Rome OR Italy to do much. (The Senate had to call on Marius, whom they loathed, to again assemble a Head Count army to avenge that defeat and stop the Germans invading Rome...)

I like the levy idea! That would mean that the Barbarian factions would have far mroe of a role playing feel to them, because you would have to train up your leaders and really watch their V&Vs...

I would like to see a more variable AI (when they get the basics sorted out). When I face an army lead by a "good defender", it should behave differently from one led by a "good attacker" (or a "social drinker", for that matter).

[Colovion]

I think this is the kind of thing that we will see in the next generation of RTW style games, i just cant it happening soon, but it would drastically improve the realism of battle, however wouldnt it be over complicated for an already over complicated game? the main problem i think is that this would make it impossible to know the effectiveness of a unit, you can tell which unit of for example hoplites is experienced and more likely to stand in battle by the chevrons etc and that is all the 80 men in that unit who have say 3 bronze chevrons, if we had individual experience/morale etc, itd be impossible to determine the effectiveness of a unit as a whole. Therefore making it very hard to know if you can rely on them or if theyll do anygood.

Though i suppose that in itself is part of realistic warfare

I am pretty sure that the current way XP goes up for a unit depends on the average XP value for each soldier within the unit. At least I'm pretty sure that's how it works. If they already have XP values for each man, why not just add a Moral feature for each unit? Doesn't really seem that difficult to me.

[BobTheTerrible]

I am pretty sure that the current way XP goes up for a unit depends on the average XP value for each soldier within the unit. At least I'm pretty sure that's how it works. If they already have XP values for each man, why not just add a Moral feature for each unit? Doesn't really seem that difficult to me.

That's true, I'm pretty sure that each man has his own exp.

The problem with this idea is that men are still ordered as a unit. So take an example: there's a unit of 80 hastati. 40 run away during a fight. However, the general rallies the 40 men. Now you have a a group of 40 men still fighting, and 40 men far away who just got rallied. This could cause some weird pathing issues, also, when an enemy attempts to charge a unit, which 'group' does it go for, and what does it do when it defeats one 'group' etc etc.

This would be possible with a really good pathing engine and stuff, but right now I think it would be hard (but not impossible) to implement.

[caesar44]

1, I think they need to improve how individual men fight, if you zoom in you see the men kind of pushing into each other and everynow and then someone randomly swings his sword and kills somebody but in battles swords are being flung far more frequenly than that.

2, Also use of shields to, i want to see men pushing behind there shields or blocking attacks abit more.

3, Id like to see when for example a general wins a great battle or a great campaign that you can dedicate an arch or column to him in a city (a triumph)of your choice etc i think thatd be pretty cool, it could cost say 10000 denarii so its a rare thing and not overused and it could improve public order and morale of garrison troops stationed in the city or something like that.

4, They absolutely have to improve the stats of troops, units of 80 men seem to flee more often than not when only 1/4 of the men have died battles are needlessly short.

5, Armies need to start further apart I think, give more chance for tactics and so on, itd give the terrain a much bigger part to play, currently its massively under used.

6, improve AI in sieges, im sick of enemy armies besieging my cities when i know they cant possibly win, but they are strong enough that if i sallied id take heavy hits, but because the auto is so innaccurate im forced to personally take command of sieges were the outcome is a forgone conclusion thus wasting my time.

7, use cities more realistically, I think taking the central plaza is abit silly really, i mean dont some cities have citadels at the heart of the city? or some other form of hard fortification to resist this? cities that supposedly hold 25000 people seem abit tiny, buildings could be possible to occupy, making sieges more realistic will add to there duration and improve steady fighting in the streets instead of just sitting the centre for 3 minutes.

loved the idea of triomphs

[Nelson]

It would be nice if line-of-sight could be handled better. As it is missile units fire at targets they cannot see, ignoring walls, buildings and hill crests like they have x-ray vision. I expect this would make for a more complex shooting algorithm that would go beyond a simple range check. Hence not a likely improvement. But hey, this is a wish list, right?