econ21
01-24-2003, 12:17
I always thought the Total War engine was made for Roman warfare and now that CA are close to perfecting it, I am glad it is next.
I just had a thought - wouldn't it be fun if they modelled the effect of Roman javelins (pilum?) on enemy shields? As I understand it, the purpose of the javelin was not so much to kill the enemy as weigh down their shields, making them useless and causing them to be discarded. It strikes me that this would be very easy to model in TW, since the engine keeps track of each soldier AND his equipment (eg if some have upgraded armour etc). Against shield born enemy, the pilum would have a chance to destroy the shield - against unshielded enemy it would be like the MTW javelins.
This would not only be a nice piece of historical fluff, it would look rather cool if modelled graphically.
My other reaction to the PC Gamer article was the comment from CA that they will be emphasising each factions unique elites, eg elephants or Praetorians. I am rather less keen on this and would not like a game that encouraged you to have an army dependent on elites. Instead, I hope they model the primacy of the basic legion, at least against barbarian foot (I would not mind Kataphractoi, horse archers and late period Goth heavy cavalry giving them a hard time). I hope Gallowglass type infantry are toned down a little against spears in RTW, as I think the legionnaire was almost optimised for taking on such troops. One way of making the barbarians more challenging, apart from numbers, might be to introduce ambush style battles, where your legions are set up in exposed positions, effectively bushwhacked.
I just had a thought - wouldn't it be fun if they modelled the effect of Roman javelins (pilum?) on enemy shields? As I understand it, the purpose of the javelin was not so much to kill the enemy as weigh down their shields, making them useless and causing them to be discarded. It strikes me that this would be very easy to model in TW, since the engine keeps track of each soldier AND his equipment (eg if some have upgraded armour etc). Against shield born enemy, the pilum would have a chance to destroy the shield - against unshielded enemy it would be like the MTW javelins.
This would not only be a nice piece of historical fluff, it would look rather cool if modelled graphically.
My other reaction to the PC Gamer article was the comment from CA that they will be emphasising each factions unique elites, eg elephants or Praetorians. I am rather less keen on this and would not like a game that encouraged you to have an army dependent on elites. Instead, I hope they model the primacy of the basic legion, at least against barbarian foot (I would not mind Kataphractoi, horse archers and late period Goth heavy cavalry giving them a hard time). I hope Gallowglass type infantry are toned down a little against spears in RTW, as I think the legionnaire was almost optimised for taking on such troops. One way of making the barbarians more challenging, apart from numbers, might be to introduce ambush style battles, where your legions are set up in exposed positions, effectively bushwhacked.