Ceasar, The Hoplites have Turned Against Us!

[ToranagaSama]

Quote[/b] ]Of course, the game was named "Total War" for a reason. Rome: Total War will let you recruit armies composed of soldiers entirely unique to your faction--siding with one of the Roman factions may let you recruit legionnaires or praetorians, siding with the Greeks will let you recruit hoplites, and so on. Just like in the previous Total War games, you'll need to carefully choose your troop types and formations in order to succeed. You'll want to look for opportunities to lower their morale, possibly by pulverizing them with artillery or another powerful unit (like war elephants, which will crash right through infantry ranks and toss enemy soldiers into the air). You'll also be able to demoralize your enemies by defeating their commanding officer--the game will actually render a different-looking character model on the battlefield for each commander. These powerful units will make for critical targets, as they'll not only let you issue specific formation orders to your battalions, but they'll also grant various bonuses (such as morale) to nearby friendly troops.

--Content Courtesy of GameSpot


[Minikiller posted the above preview in the Colliseum.]

Reading it and the throught occured to me regarding TW:Rome and Alliances. So, from the preview, it seems that a player can "recruit" troops that are inherent to other factions by "siding"/allying with a particular faction.

As in the preview's example, ally with the Greek faction and gain access to "Hoplites".

Hmmmmm....I wonder what happens, for example, say you have a couple of units (or more) of Hoplites in your Eygtian army, and then you happend to go to war with Greece....will your "Hoplite" troops stay Loyal? Or, will they revolt, or become increasingly disloyal?

If would be TRULY super-cool, IF, in battle you're facing (keeping the above example) the Greek line and all of a sudden *your* Hoplites turn on you and join the battle on the Greek side.

Woooohhooooo

Is it realistic for CA to make Rome w/o such an AI capability?

---

Gosh, I really hope they make Rome a truly STRATEGICALLY challenging game....sigh....

[frogbeastegg]

I hate to be a kill joy but when I read that quote I think they mean siding as in picking a side rather than siding as in allying with. I guess they mean that you as the player have to choose a faction to play as, and when you pick one you could be said to have sided with them. (Sounds like a playground fight )

I imagine that we will still be able to get other factions troops as mercenaries and your ideas for deserting and rebelling troops could come into play there. It would certainly make life interesting...

[ToranagaSama]

Doh I do believe you are correct. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

Must be a Gamespot UK article.

The term "siding" and the way its used in the paragraph isn't commonly used in American english, hence my confusion.

In America, siding is usually preceded with the word "aluminum" http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[RisingSun]

The word siding is used all the time in America. Ya know, when we accuse people of siding wth the terrorists? Lol.

[WesW]

I have posted in the past about how unit loyalty and morale need to be affected by where they were recruited from and whom they were fighting. These factors were some of the most crucial for generals to consider when placing troops before battle, and mutinies and betrayals were especially common in the Medieval era. I may be hard to make the AI capable of dealing effectively with this, but it would be a real step up in strategic and tactical realism.

[ToranagaSama]

Probably not that difficult to induce "Betryal" behaviour. Might be possible to mode the "Rebellion" code to effect a single or multiple units. The effect must be "progressive", though.

Its likely a great deal more difficult to create code governing behavior after a unit or units are in a rebellous state. So many variables to consider, probably too many w/o a MAJOR effort.

Hmmm...thinking a bit more...I guess behaviour could be really simplied by providing a limited range of behavioue, e.g.,

: Unit in State of Betrayl
: Unit runs towards "enemy" line
: Control of unit immediately given over to player
: End Subject

Definitely doable IMVHO.

Now, if only Rome will give us acess to the AI code...sigh....

Total War needs a modable AI. CA let us create our own AIs, both battle and campaign.

Any of you CA guys ever played Total Annihilation? Have you seen all the User created AIs?

[TS has yet to try Mattsori (sp?))

[Kraxis]

I don't know if that should be an issue considering many mercs of those days fought against their own countries/factions. Specifically the best force to oppose Alexander was a large group of about 10,000 hoplites at Grannicus and the general of that force actually went on to coordinate the defense of the land (which he did superbly, and he had advised a hold-back strategy where Alexanders lines of communication was be cut).

It seems only the Romans had too much of a national identity to go out and become mercs.

[The_Emperor]

Shouldn't this RTW post be in the Colosseum?

[Catiline]

Rome's economic situation meant there wasn't really a need for threm to serve as mercenaries, unlike many of the Greek states.