Do you play with or without battle time limit?

[TheStranger]

How do you play? I'm always playing without battle time limit (in Vanilla Rome I played with), because it's a way too short, especially when fighting sieges and it's more realistic.

edit: Yes means with limit
No without

I hope it's clear.

[/Bean\]

Could have been phrased better...

-Do you play with or without?

-Yes

[HopAlongBunny]

Voted yes....but sometimes the answer is no :p

There are a cpl of problems with using no time limit; if you draw the AI into a really bad attack...particularly when it has overwhelming numbers it will just sit; either you attack and give up your advantage (getting slaughtered) or sit forever: if I expect "woods" to be a factor I will play with the limit-enemy units getting stuck routing can take a long time to find _ had one game go to -10mins.

[Zett]

Looks like many have experienced AI, that never attacks you, even if it started the battle (like sieges for example). It can be pretty annoying if the AI attacks a city with a small garrison after they have builded seigeweapons, but don't attack. You have to move out and get massacred even if you would be able to hold the walls against them.

But after some other members have suggested to play without it, I will try a second Mak campaign without timelimit. Hope I don't get frustrated.

Ceterum censeo Romam esse delendam

[Tychon Miletou Ionikes]

Generally I play without the time limit, as I find it unrealistic. However, as some have said, it's very frustrating when you're being sieged and the AI just sit there, so sometimes I turn it off.

[Nachtmeister]

Just don't let that sort of thing happen... With higher-ground situations and bridge battles, usually some missile units are sufficient to convince the AI to get killed.
However, battle-AI aggression responds to casualties, not attack by it's self. So it is useless to try shooting at a phalanx from the front if you want it to cross a bridge.
If all else fails - just stop winning un-realistically. To beat a full stack, one would usually need at least a full stack. Makes the campaign much more challenging due to upkeep issues and other army logistics related stuff.
Definitely no timelimit for me.

[bobbin]

I used to play without time limit but got fed up of the AI's camping, the limit isn't too bad and i'm rarely pressed for time in my battles.

[Marcus Ulpius]

I play with. Time is usually enough to finish any battle. Only in big sieges it can be a problem, on the other hand, it helps to end the battle without lurking all over the map, trying to find out what enemy unit is stuck and where.

[d'Arthez]

With time limit, unless attacking a stone-walled city. It just takes too long to secure enough of the walls.

[seienchin]

The time limit there is, is still too long for me. :book:

[Owen Glyndwr]

I used to play with time limit because there were a few occasions in Vanilla where the enemy sieging would lose their assault, and just sit there outside the walls and wait. Since I wouldn't have adequate forces to beat them, I would have to surrender, which was quite frustrating.

However I soon began to find that when I was the one sieging, I either wouldn't have enough time to win (especially is a lot of time is spent beating the enemy on the walls), or I would feel rushed, so now I play with it off.

[HunGeneral]

I usually play without. Earlier on I hated the time limit - most time I besieged the AI and I hated to see me loose the battle 5 seconds before the last two soldiers on the main square fell:wall::wall::wall:

Since it could be set I always choose time limit OFF. When it comes to the enemy besieging me I turn it on during camapign since the AI really likes to just stand before youre walls. Right after the battle is over I turn it off again. Till now it has worked perfectly.:yes:

[Owen Glyndwr]

I usually play without. Earlier on I hated the time limit - most time I besieged the AI and I hated to see me loose the battle 5 seconds before the last two soldiers on the main square fell:wall::wall::wall:

Since it could be set I always choose time limit OFF. When it comes to the enemy besieging me I turn it on during camapign since the AI really likes to just stand before youre walls. Right after the battle is over I turn it off again. Till now it has worked perfectly.:yes:


Hmm, good idea, I might give that a try.

[Ibrahim]

without limit-limit is a pain during sieges. That said, I never failed to capture a city before the time was up, but I don't like being constrained. besides, battles typically lasted longer in real life (outside of the greeks), and its a true challenge to b on the defensive and outnumbered, as you have to rout the entire enemy rather than hunker down and dodge the enemy.

[Zradha Pahlavan]

I play with it because it's never really been a problem for me. I've learned not to bother attacking stone-walled cities with large garrisons anyway, better to siege them out. And for most enemies it's not that hard to fight out a battle in the time given, though sometimes it's really close.

[TheStranger]

Could have been phrased better...

-Do you play with or without?

-Yes

I know I saw it when it was too late, but it can't be edited.

[Reno Melitensis]

I never Play with time limit, there was no time limit in ancient battles, so the answer is No.

Cheers.

[PraetorFigus]

I know I saw it when it was too late, but it can't be edited.

Could a Moderator change the question for you?

I play without the time limit, I prefer that, since it seems to force the AI to engage when it has an advantage on the battlefield, and I've also had battles where they attack and wait for me to advance to them! Who knows maybe I'm seeing things :dizzy2:

Only problem I've had is CTDs after fighting several battles on AI's turn :whip:

Cheers:2thumbsup:

[StellarW]

Hi,

I stopped using time limits before i started playing EB as there are just too many ways to abuse the system with ranged units or cavalry. Beside the fact that you never had to 'lose' a battle ( allowing you to get plenty of units healed) you could engage in endless skirmishing with your missile + cavalry stacks to beat of seiging forces or just to weaken enemy stacks until you could defeat them. Inside your city walls you could often distract enemy units ( if you were not totally outnumbered) long enough to let the time run out...

So yes, i play with the time off as that forces you to win battles when you pick them and make skirmishing somewhat harder. This is just one of the few dozen house rules i am currently playing with. :)

Stellar

[Drewski]

Without time limit, I could win just about any sally battle with just a (horesborne)general against anything....(see spoiler if you don't know how, but its incredibly cheesy, almost as cheesy as Horse Archers;))

Likewise, sieging any kind of largish garrison without a time limit is also just too easy. (It basically involves using runners to take all the towers, and let the enemies own walls kill itself).

So always a time limit for me. Adds quite a lot more drama/strategy to the battle (e.g. secure a gate, and head an elite force to the city [] drawing off wall defenders, then attacking at the now weakened walls)

Take one General Unit. Head out of walls towards Huge Army. Tease/faint attacks, until a unit or two start to follow. Run away a short distance. Repeat until following units are in range of tower walls. Run around the walls (stopping and starting, they have to keep following), until persuing units are dead (optional charge when you get bored and they are highly depleted). Repeat until units are dead. With unlimited time, I assure you its entirely possibly, even against a stack of 20 Elites...ALMOST as cheesy as using 3 units of Horse Archers to beat 10 times that many foot soldiers...almost ;)

[/Bean\]

Its also easy to just run in and out of the city gates if theres only enemy cavalry left unengaged. They die like flies from the gatehouse towers while you barely have to run at all

[julius_caesar_the_first]

I play with the time limit because of a very traumatic event back when I was playing vanilla (it was RTW 1.0, so all the bugs were still there):

I had captured Larissa with the Brutii and Macedon besieged it and then assaulted. The problem was I was a little too good at stopping the assault. One unit broke while in the siege tower. Even if all other units had either fled or been destroyed on the walls and my army had suffered few casualties I had no choice but to exit the battle because I had no time limit and I couldn't find a way to kill the 5-6 enemies in the tower (i tried firing all my remaining arrows from outside the wall and attacking the tower with infantry). I also lost my best general there.

I guess this bug has since been fixed but I just don't want to repeat that immensely annoying experience so I always make sure to have a time limit.

[Silence Hunter]

Without. Everytime since that option became available. Quite often I fight battles where I'm attacking so I have to spend time on maneuvering, skirmishing, engaging and defeating the enemy, ohhh and chasing the routers. When you are playing as a Hellenic faction it consumes quite some time as phalanxes are slow. I don't like to be constrained, so that one more reason to play without the time limit.

[Aemilius Paulus]

I do not understand. Some people seem to be saying they switch the time limit on and off throughout their campaign. That is not possible, is it? You cannot change it in the middle of the campaign, just like you cannot change unit size or difficulty. Nevertheless, I have heard of a program that will allow you to change the difficulty/unit size midway. But not time limits.


As for time limits themselves, I play without them. I loathe being constrained by time, both in EB and RL. I prefer to do all my assignments slow, lengthy and steady, producing high-quality work. In EB my playing style is likewise slow and steady, very carefully measured to minimise the casualties to the absolute minimum. In my sieges (Large Unit Size), I almost never lose more than 50 men, no matter how large the enemy force is.

So anyway, I remember one time when four units of my Levy Phalangites formed a semi-square blocking off a road leading into one of the town plazas, in Sparte. Then I had a unit of Cretans fire at two silver-chevron Spartan bodyguards to draw them into my sarissas. So the dumb Hellenes took the bait and went for the archers, only to find themselves confronted with the pikes.
https://i560.photobucket.com/albums/ss49/Aemilius_Paulus/th_diag.jpg
(my phalangites in green, with the red arrows being the Spartans)

It took me a total of 28 minutes on triple game speed to kill off and rout those Spartans (I timed it out of posterity). I simply left the computer on and went along my business while my phalangites (one unit on top of another for maximum effectiveness) nibbled on those Spartans. Sure, a charge in the back of the Spartans could have been possible on open field, but their backs were facing the main central plaza, and there was another silver-chevron unit of Hoplitai guarding their backs, making a cavalry or an infantry charge in the back too costly.

So that is why I do not play timed.

[HunGeneral]

I do not understand. Some people seem to be saying they switch the time limit on and off throughout their campaign. That is not possible, is it? You cannot change it in the middle of the campaign, just like you cannot change unit size or difficulty. Nevertheless, I have heard of a program that will allow you to change the difficulty/unit size midway. But not time limits.

I found it out a while ago myself: just press ESC click on options and there should be something written like "no time limit for camapign battles" with a square next to it - if it has a tick next to it then there won't be any time limits, if there isn't then there will. All you have to do to change it is to click on that box (would add screenshot but I'm not near my comp with EB).

[mountaingoat]

lol i voted for yes , as in i play without the time limit .. then i read the rest of your post.

[Belisarius II]

I play with the time limit because of a very traumatic event back when I was playing vanilla (it was RTW 1.0, so all the bugs were still there):

I had captured Larissa with the Brutii and Macedon besieged it and then assaulted. The problem was I was a little too good at stopping the assault. One unit broke while in the siege tower. Even if all other units had either fled or been destroyed on the walls and my army had suffered few casualties I had no choice but to exit the battle because I had no time limit and I couldn't find a way to kill the 5-6 enemies in the tower (i tried firing all my remaining arrows from outside the wall and attacking the tower with infantry). I also lost my best general there.

I guess this bug has since been fixed but I just don't want to repeat that immensely annoying experience so I always make sure to have a time limit.


This is the reason I don't play without the time limit also. I had 5 units hold off a full stack, but there was 2 archers in a tower. I was forced to quit and be defeated. https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/images/smilies/gc/gc-wall.gif

[mountaingoat]

you can always alt+ctrl+delete , terminate rtw.exe and load the battle again ? =P

[julius_caesar_the_first]

:laugh4::laugh4: I never thought of that:laugh4::laugh4:

good idea

[Glaurung]

Never used time limit.
I like to take my time when sieging.

[Cute Wolf]

I play with time limit... In defensive battle, I can hope to keep superrior enemy at bay until time runs out, and in agressive siege assault it was funnier, and more realistic challange to rape a huge city in just 30 mins (med battle difficulty)... than facing a halfstack of pantodapoi in vh battle difficulty...

[Jebivjetar]

With time limit. Its more than enough. Time limit is especially good when enemy attacks you when youre on the bridge and then they just stand there, walk and dont attack. :no:

[Maion Maroneios]

If Yes means I do play without the limit, then that's my answer.

Maion

[Tarkus]

Now I don't know how I answered!! I voted "NO", intending to say that I play without a time limit. Such a limit seems ahistorical to me...gamey, even.

[Alsatia]

For me, it depends. If I got a big empire of an faction to start with, I leave time limit on purely so that my inferior militia troops in my cities can get a victory against a pumped up stack of elites. Normally, the arrows on the towers kill off 70-90% of them anyway.:laugh4::inquisitive:

On the other hand, if I start off with 1 - 3 regions , I turn it off so I can have as much time killing the enemy(:beam:). No pressure there.

[Ravenfeeder]

I voted Yes meaning I play with a time limit. All those sally's would last forever otherwise. I never run out of time anyway so there's no point.

[Jebivjetar]

For me, it depends. If I got a big empire of an faction to start with, I leave time limit on purely so that my inferior militia troops in my cities can get a victory against a pumped up stack of elites.

Ive done that too. Once, enemy attacked my city and smashed most of my H/As, so they went to city-square and wait there. I entered on the edge of city-square and when time ran-out, ive won :dizzy2:

[Nachtmeister]

Ive done that too. Once, enemy attacked my city and smashed most of my H/As, so they went to city-square and wait there. I entered on the edge of city-square and when time ran-out, ive won :dizzy2:

Now that is what basically amounts to - cheating. :laugh4:

[Jebivjetar]

Now that is what basically amounts to - cheating. :laugh4:


As saying goes: "Player has brains, AI has money" :beam:


(ok, i admit: ive cheated. but only once, nevermore.. :shame:)

[Nachtmeister]

As saying goes: "Player has brains, AI has money" :beam:

True, very true.

BTW, I believe there must be by now more than 10% votes that got confused because of the phrasing of the poll-question... So, can the poll still be counted as representative? And could a moderator maybe change the phrasing of the question or put a hint to read the first post (with the explanation) before voting into the thread title?

[TheStranger]

I'm really embarrassed of the phrasing. I saw it after I had posted the poll that it's not clear, but there is no possbility for me to change it. Next time I should not do other things beside that.:oops:

[Nachtmeister]

Hey such things happen, no need to feel embarrassed (at least that was not what I wanted to cause with my last post) - I think I got the latin wrong in the "cave sarissam" thread... :sweatdrop:
But the forum moderators / admins might be able to change the phrasing or thread title, which would fix the problem.
If the site allows that. And if they have the time. And if they are not angry about such a proposal. Sorry about the third-person usage btw but I really don't know who's domain this is. Ludens? TosaInu? ... Bovi? :shrug:

Off topic, but somehow interesting: the word "embarrassed".
em-barr-ass-ed.
em="put-in-to (situation, fluid, any means of containment)"
barr="bare"
ass=colloquial noun for part of human body
ed="rendered (in any tense of the past)"
=> Etymology/philology-specialized historians? Is this feasible?
:shame: sorry, couldn't resist - this has really piqued my curiosity and I do not own a book to look it up in.

Back on topic:
The argument of "bridge battles get tedious/annoying without time limit" does not convince me - both AI and human player should be able to take their time if a battle is to be realistic. The limited size of battlefields provides enough constraints on realism as it is. As soon as I say "I want the AI to come run into my pikes rather than act smart and let me wander into their horse-archers' range if I want to win", I might as well say "I WANT BARTIX" or "give_all" or "godmode".

[Drewski]

I dunno. A lot of "battles" from that period were very indecisive and relatively casualty free. When the ai is the aggresor, and then has second thoughts, e.g. just stands there, then if I'm going to obviously take large losses by attacking first, why should I have to make what would be a tactically stupid decision?

In those (admittedly rare cases) I'll just triple the gamespeed and let the timer run out while watching TV :laugh4:---let's call it an honorable draw.

Then there are the occasional bugs, where part of a unit gets lost etc.

Abusing the timer isn't right though, I totally agree.

Personally, I only ever once had the timer run out in a siege battle, but that was my own fault for fighting a lazy battle. Imho, large garrisons should be generally sieged for at least a while before attacking.

[Poggleit]

Off topic, but somehow interesting: the word "embarrassed".
em-barr-ass-ed.
em="put-in-to (situation, fluid, any means of containment)"
barr="bare"
ass=colloquial noun for part of human body
ed="rendered (in any tense of the past)"
=> Etymology/philology-specialized historians? Is this feasible?
:shame: sorry, couldn't resist - this has really piqued my curiosity and I do not own a book to look it up in.

Embarrass comes from the French word embarrasser, which means, 'to obstruct,' according to O.E.D.

~

On topic: I play with time limits off because I've had more trouble with light cavalry skirmishing away from my forces until the clock runs out than I have had with the A.I. doing nothing when it should be attacking me.

[Tenebrous]

I don't remember which campaign it was, it was one of first EB campaigns. A full stack attacked a city I needed to hold. I was completely broke, and HAD to hold the city or my campaign would've been ruined (already in the red, and holding other fronts that were under attack as well, losing a city would've been very bad indeed). I had a half decent, but small garrison. By some miracle I managed to hold the city, but lost every single infantry solider doing it, and had only cavalry left. I couldn't figure out why the battle wasn't ending.

Finally I saw it. Two, that's right TWO, individual soldiers from a routed unit where hung up on top of one of my walls. Since all I had where all of 20 melee cavalry left, I could not win the battle. No battle time limit was on.


I play with time limits now.

[Celtic_Punk]

i cant believe anyone said yes. You can't fight an EB battle within the time limit. Especially on huge.

bupkiss. I don't believe 53 of you.

[Andy1984]

I too can't imagine how one could fight a battle in just 30 min. If you need to fire all your arrows, rest your cavalry and then charge (after forming the necessary formations, trying to outmanoeuvre your opponent,...) my 30 min are way over. And then I didn't even mention the slow phalanx movements, having to fight off massive AI reinforcements or trying to climb a mountain (and resting every now and then) in order to have at least some decent ground to fight on.

A considerable part of my battles last longer than the timer would allow. Having to stop fighting because my soldiers consider their job done (when it's obviously only half-done!), sounds a little unrealistic to me. Needless to say, I play without time limit.

kind regards,

Andy

[Zett]

i cant believe anyone said yes. You can't fight an EB battle within the time limit. Especially on huge.

bupkiss. I don't believe 53 of you.

I have no problem with the timelimit, even if I use Phalangitai. Only siegebattles, when I attack a city with a fullstack garrison and walls are a problem, but I never fight this kind of siegebattles, starvng them out is more realistic in my opinion. Ceterum censeo Romam esse delendam.

[Chris1959]

Always use time-limit, a throw back to Close Combat where both sides exhaustion could mean the infinate battle.
Anway the AI is so dumb that if I can't beat it in 45mins I deserve to loose.

[Sabazios]

I play with the timelimit off, but lately i find more and more AI forces to be reluctant to attack or even get out of the city walls when they sally.:furious3:

What would be great is a 1 hour timelimit.