RTW creating units

[Acronym]

Anyone ever played the game Earth2150? This game was a 3d futuristic rts game, and they allowed you to custom build different vehicles. So I could have an assortment of different guns to chose from, diff vehicle types, etc.

Well why not do this for RTW? If not online at least sp. I mean realistically, kings and generals thought up new weapon designs and uses. It would be nice if we could get an assortment of infantry to chose from: heavy, medium, and light armored. So if I wanted to have a skirmish unit I would lightly armor him, then pick from an assortment of weapons(slings, javalins, pila, spears, bows) each with it's own stats. Or even have x amount of weapons a unit can carry, which romans will need to have anyways for their pila.

If in some way this could work online, imagine the possiblities. Each player can have an army custom built to his tactics and strategy. Balancing that would take work though, but everyone still has the opportunity to make or copy some elses unit.

[Monk]

yes i did Play Earth 2150 and i fully remember the Great customize system that was involved. If RTW had somthing Similliar that would make the game that much better. i hope that this is put into RTW,however it will probly not be added into the Final game. well i can hope cant i?

[muffinman14]

great idea, this would be awesome http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

[Monk]

now that i think about it, no 2 armies would be the same if this was in the game. not even if a Roman Civil War broke out, your troops would be differently customized than their troops. i like this idea very much. but i wonder if CA will take it seriously...

[Psyco]

I would love this to happen but im practically sure it wont

[Oberiko]

While it's not a bad idea, I was under the impression that Roman soldiers were fairly standardised.

[Acronym]

While it's not a bad idea, I was under the impression that Roman soldiers were fairly standardised.

Yes, but they went through many revisions over the years. Different armor, shields, pila enhancements, not to mention revisions of every other army. Even so, standardization should be left up to the king/general, and it would bring nearly unlimited tactical options.

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

But, from the historical perspective, surely you'd be able to create loads of units that didn't actually exist. Is this such a good idea?

[powdermonkey]

Yeah, I'm not so sure this would be a good idea.
You can already 'customise' units with extra armour, better weapons, valour, etc.
IMHO I think that unique units for every player would be too much. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

[71-hour Ahmed]

Also, it would be hard to tell how to respond to a new army that you encountered- the unit icons would be v. similar but might fight in different ways - not very realistic and extra hard.

i would like a mounted arbalester though with extra ammo and armour on the side though though. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Hakonarson]

Very few kings actually made significant cnahges to armies - most changes were incremental and involved "borowing" an idea from an enemy.

Truly "new" changes can be counted on the fingers of one hand even if you've lost most of them (the fingers that is) - Phillip II's (Alex's father) apaprent invention of the pike is probably THE outstanding one that we know of in all of history.

There were of course a few others that we can't attribute to anyone in particular - horses & gunpowder artillery mainly.

There have been more obvious developments tactically than equipment-wise - Epaminondas for Thebes, Hannibal, etc - right up to Guderian.

So sorry - but "designing" armies like you've suggested is historical nonsense.

There ARE examples of generals designing armies by choosing specific troops from what's available tho.

the example I'm thinking of here is the Romans vs Parthians in the last half of the 1st Century BC - Mark Anthony scoured the republic and allies for light infantry slingers, archers and javelinmen to counter the Parthian light cavalry and apparently marked with 20,000 such troops, and they were quiet successful in that job, although reading between the lines they seem to have suffered massive caualties.