Anyone here not really care too much

[ICantSpellDawg]

I never cared much for the battles in MTW, but it is one of my favorite games of all time.

i loved the single player game map and gameplay

does anyone know how the map and alliances will function or what it looks like etc?

id really appreciate any info/screens

i cant stand it that they only advertise the battles when IMO they are supposed to have a great campaign game and system

[Nowake]

OK, but read the FAQ from here and the .com. There are some interesting details over diplomacy. Or are you trying to snitch some tidbits from one of those wordmaglers from CA? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

[The Wizard]

Well, that's the first one I've managed to spot around these here waters... anyhoo, you are right. The "don't attack me before I'm ready to attack you or else" diplomacy of STW and MTW was pretty uninspiring. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Cobra]

I like battles.
The reason we hear more about battles than the strategy map, is that the strategy map portion isn't as ready and flashy yet as the battle portion of the game is. When time comes nearer, and the strategy map is more complete, they'll give us info.

[magnatz]

I like battles, but after a while I will probably end up playing just the most critical ones and autoresolving the other ones, like I do with MTW

As for diplomacy, I am playing Galactic Civilizations, and they have the best diplomacy I have seen in a game:

- you can give military or economic help to another faction, or they can can give help to you.

- you can enter in binding alliances, ie you are forced to join forces with your ally if he is attacked and vice-versa. Even if you don't do that you can still be more or less friendly with the others civs, which will react accordingly .

- you can threaten or bribe other factions into attacking or making peace with someone else.

- all your actions impact your relationships with the other factions, for example if you sell weapons to faction A then the enemies of A will be irked with you.

- surprise attacks are an exception, most of the time you get some form of warning before someone declares war on you.

- some factions will get along with you more than others, depending on your political or ethical alignment (which is not written in stone).

- factions act out of common sense, ie they will not refuse to sign a peace treaty when they are about to be destroyed, and they usually won't attack if you are vastly superior (this depends from their intelligence though).

Hopefully RTW will have all this and something more http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Voigtkampf]

Battles are the spice of this game. I turn on the R:TW clips I've downloaded from time to time only to dwell in all the possibilities. Well, for me, that is, would be no Total War without appropriate battles

The plain reason for strong "battle advertisement" is, IMHO, the fact that something like that has never been seen before, and pictures of barbarian hordes clashing against Roman legions are far more appealing than the talk about how great the diplomacy will be.

But I am sure the both features will be formidable presentations, each in it's own, unique way…

[chilling]

I think this is an area that the Total War series falls down on. The battles get all the attention because you can post nice shiney new screenshots of many many troops slugging it out. Which is nice if you play the battles.

I know a good few people who play MTW soley as a campaign game and auto resolve every single battle. Hey, I only fight those battles that are key to my campaign or look like they could be interesting. I can't be doing with a 3000 high era troops vs a bunch of peasants. There isn't much pleasure in that.

Hopefully from what we've seen so far the campaign map will take a much greater role in the single player game. It's difficult to know what CA are doing in this respect. I can't remember the last time we had an update on what they were doing with the campaign map and that side of the game. I'd like to see some stuff on how armies are marched across the real time map, how you start a battle and how that all works, now you can march an army physically across the whole map. How do we lay roads, build forts etc.


Actually I'd like to see some sort of update at the .com site. It's been a month since we got new stuff to gawp at.

Here's hoping for a bumper Christmas update...

[alman9898]

I love fighting out battles as much as the strategy involved on the campaign map. And I was extremely pleased when I heard about RTW's much-improved diplomacy features (MTW and STW's were pitiful overall).

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Spino]

I absolutely live for the tactical battles in the Total War series. I probably wouldn't play these games if I couldn't command my forces in battle. I'm a wargamer at heart but I'm royally fed up with the traditional hex based, turn based stuff that keeps the genre mired in yesteryear. The fact that you not only get to build an empire but command your very own custom built armies on a 3d battlefield really gets me going. When RTW comes along with its thousands of randomly generated battlefields (each of which are stored in your saved game file) I am going to be as happy as a pig in sh_t. I really don't get the obsession some wargamers have with fighting the same historical battles over and over again. Where's the thrill in fighting the battle of Waterloo for the umpteenth time? I'll take fresh armies and new ground to conquer anyday.

When it comes to tactical battles games like the Combat Mission and Total War series really put a smile on my face. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Cobra]

One thing I wonder, is if Activision is at least partly responsible for the silence. Last sety of questions I sent off for CA, they said they had to send it to Activision, and then Activision said they we're busy. "needs to go through them" it says. They said they'll release more info as it gets closer.

Either way, they'll release info on the campaign map when its nice and flashy looking and has plenty of nice sounding features they can rattle off. Its just not done yet, you saw those last pics of it, well, they didn't look to spectacular, and CA knows that. Its improved since then, and thats probably whats taking the most attention at the moment. My bet would be for some campain map info by march.

I usually play every battle, unless its 5000 to 200 or some other thing when loading up the battle engine isn't even worth it.

[Math Mathonwy]

I personally enjoy the battles alot more than the campaign part, not to say it isnt fun, its very fun, but i cant even imagine myself playing a game and auto-resolving every battle. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif

Dont no if youve seen this, it might be interesting.
campmap screen (http://www.kgfs.org.uk/images/RTW/16.jpg)

P.S. hey Cobra, see ya get around. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Cobra]

Que? Where else have we met?

I love them both. They complement eachother so well. From the dribble of features we know about the Rome campain map now, I can wait till they turn the faucet back on, and we start to really hear what the campaign is about.

[Math Mathonwy]

o its me JOE http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif ya no the warmonger who used to post at the TWC and who posts on RoNR sometimes. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

[Cobra]

Ah yes. Well, hello. Now, why aren't you at RoNR making intellegent discussion? *Cracks whip*

Um, this is going off topic. No more. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

So, I hear battles in Rome won't have silly hill hopping like in Medieval?
I mean, I had a battle tonight, the computer split it self, the map was a valley with very high peaks on both sides, and the PC went to both peaks.
So, I go up one side,to the side so that we meet level, rather than me charging from the foot, but then they just scoot like a U, up to the top of the map, then back to the other side, and unit as one army, this is just silly, and killing my stamina I scoot to the other side, and they're hiding behind an impassable peak, and then I take rediculous losses just because they're slightly higher and out side of where my troops will go, too close to the edge.
Does any one else notice that highly variated elevations maps the PC just runs in circles and appearantly has no stamina? I won, but the troop lossage was rediculous.

[Math Mathonwy]

*choses to ignore Cobra's comments on his RoNR intellect.*

yes they do that to me all the time, everytime you out manuvre them they move to the next hill http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif i take care of it by posting cav on nearby hilltops and coming at them with the rest of the army, they usualle realize that they cannot run. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif ... sometimes they find a lil hill i over looked. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif

[Cobra]

Maybe I'm historically ignorant, but did many real battles just dance from hill to hill?

[Ludens]

Many battles were just two armies on opposite sides off a field, charging at each other. Even after the invention of "strategy", this continued for a long time.

In reality, many armies were just to big, and communications/control were (are) just not good enough to "Dance around the hills".

But when you ask it to me personaly, these "Dancing Queens" annoy the hell out of me too.

[Nelson]

Battles are the sine qua non of Total War. There have been other good strategy games but only one series with great tactical combat.

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (Nelson @ Dec. 24 2003,23:09)]Battles are the sine qua non of Total War. There have been other good strategy games but only one series with great tactical combat.
I second that.


But that isn't to say that I only want battles.

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

Quote[/b] (Spino @ Dec. 23 2003,19:46)]I absolutely live for the tactical battles in the Total War series. I probably wouldn't play these games if I couldn't command my forces in battle. I'm a wargamer at heart but I'm royally fed up with the traditional hex based, turn based stuff that keeps the genre mired in yesteryear. The fact that you not only get to build an empire but command your very own custom built armies on a 3d battlefield really gets me going. When RTW comes along with its thousands of randomly generated battlefields (each of which are stored in your saved game file) I am going to be as happy as a pig in sh_t. I really don't get the obsession some wargamers have with fighting the same historical battles over and over again. Where's the thrill in fighting the battle of Waterloo for the umpteenth time? I'll take fresh armies and new ground to conquer anyday.

When it comes to tactical battles games like the Combat Mission and Total War series really put a smile on my face. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
Ah, another combat-missioner. I had only played Beyond Overlord, but I recently saw Barbarossa to Berlin for a fiver and picked it up, and I'm planning to buy Afrika Korps soon. Do you have it? And if so, is it as good/better than the others? I love the game though...even if I am massively bad...

[Cobra]

I had the BtB demo, but was having technical troubles, and there was no palce to go to fix the very simple problem, so I just deleted it. They look fun, I wish it'd worked.

[Math Mathonwy]

the ai hill jumping can quickly be turned to your advantage, if you can predict were they will go, and lay an ambush. i often do it, with great success. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Cobra]

Yeah, but it gets wierd and annoying.

[The Wizard]

Yes, that can be extremely annoying.

But laying some berserkers or hashishin in wait on the other side of the mountain can be great fun. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Cobra]

Whats even more annoying is when about 5,000 or more troops get locked into one province, and they just start skipping around provinces instead of fighting. You just have to lock them in, and bring in more armies to attack them.

[Spino]

Quote[/b] ]Ah, another combat-missioner. I had only played Beyond Overlord, but I recently saw Barbarossa to Berlin for a fiver and picked it up, and I'm planning to buy Afrika Korps soon. Do you have it? And if so, is it as good/better than the others? I love the game though...even if I am massively bad...

I haven't picked up Afrika Korps yet. I understand they've added some more features and made some minor improvements to the game engine but nothing huge. It's certainly not as big as Barbarossa to Berlin but it's still a Combat Mission game http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

My biggest complaint about the Combat Mission series is the dated graphics and the developer's refusal to address their games' lack of compatibility with the latest Radeon's full screen anti-aliasing. It really ticks me off that I have a pretty high end rig and have to endure jagged lines on games that look several years old http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif

[LordKhaine]

That hill hopping is a great advantage if abused right http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif. You can tire the AI out greatly by making it sprint around the battlefield for a while, before you enter combat.

[Cobra]

I suppose you just use one or two of your units, so as not to tire your army?

[The Wizard]

I hate it. I also hate enticing it to do so. So I use two units of horse archers, preferably the throw-away type, to lure the enemy army down onto the flat, or even onto the opposing mountainside. Most of the times, the entire enemy army descends down upon the two mere units of horse archers after two or three times of "come and get me if you can". Then, it's chop-chop, as Nowake would state it. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif And when they run, the horse archers that lead them to their doom run them down as well.

[MiniKiller]

Quote[/b] (magnatz @ Dec. 21 2003,19:48)]I like battles, but after a while I will probably end up playing just the most critical ones and autoresolving the other ones, like I do with MTW

As for diplomacy, I am playing Galactic Civilizations, and they have the best diplomacy I have seen in a game:

- you can give military or economic help to another faction, or they can can give help to you.

- you can enter in binding alliances, ie you are forced to join forces with your ally if he is attacked and vice-versa. Even if you don't do that you can still be more or less friendly with the others civs, which will react accordingly .

- you can threaten or bribe other factions into attacking or making peace with someone else.

- all your actions impact your relationships with the other factions, for example if you sell weapons to faction A then the enemies of A will be irked with you.

- surprise attacks are an exception, most of the time you get some form of warning before someone declares war on you.

- some factions will get along with you more than others, depending on your political or ethical alignment (which is not written in stone).

- factions act out of common sense, ie they will not refuse to sign a peace treaty when they are about to be destroyed, and they usually won't attack if you are vastly superior (this depends from their intelligence though).

Hopefully RTW will have all this and something more http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
To add to this and a very big thing to me.

You can go through allies lands w/o going to war

you can also make allies pay tribute to u or vica verca if ur smaller then they are.

[Ashen]

im buying that tomorrow actually. its only £15 in a shop near where I live on sale. Definatly worth it