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Tamur
08-19-2004, 01:02
hi all,

Well, I spent a few hours doing a really basic battle up with maps/descriptions, see what you think:

http://www.mbc.umt.edu/sTemp/mtw/

What I'd like to do is get ahold of some GOOD replays (i.e. with commanders who have to deal with a bit more creative attack or defence) and do the same thing. Anyone know where I can find some?

Thank you,

Tamur

Louis VI the Fat
08-19-2004, 04:43
Hey man, that is the clearest visual explanation of some M:TW battle mechanics that I've seen. I take it that you've read a lot of military history books?

CA should hire you to do a tutorial on the forthcoming R:TW! It's the kind of stuff a newcomer would want to have a look at. Pretty basic strategic-wise, as you said, but great presentation.


To the point: I tried to find a link to the replay section, but it is dead indeed. Bummer. I could email you some of mine, but I'm neither a tactics-guru nor do I have a lot of extraordinary replays, just some stuff from my last campaign that I enjoyed. (Well, you could see Louis commanding his 100 men to a stunning victory over 1200 rebels...)

TonkaToys
08-19-2004, 09:06
Hey Tamur,

I tried to view your pages but it stopped after the following line:


1. high ground is a good thing,

Cheers

TT

VikingHorde
08-19-2004, 09:32
I can't see anything, is the page down or something? ~:(

Tamur
08-19-2004, 15:51
hi all,

Apparently they're rewiring the building the server is in... but I hear it'll be okay today. Let me know if you're still having troubles.

Louis, thanks and glad you liked it. I learn visually better than any other way, so I think I'll keep pursuing this.

I'd be happy to check out your replays, do you have them posted anywhere or should I PM you with my email addy?

Tamur

Louis VI the Fat
08-19-2004, 17:39
PM me an email adress.

BTW, your page is up again, or at least it's working fine for me.

Ludens
08-20-2004, 14:12
Very good Tamur. I have a few replay's from SeljukSinan in my Horse Archer guide: How to use Horse Archers (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=33313). Sinan is a pro when it comes to using HA.

Warning: I experienced troubles when trying to view these replays. They are non-VI replays and you need to change their extension to '.vrp' for them to work if you have VI installed. But Windows XP started threathing me after I watched those replays (and my computer chrased during one), so I would be careful. I cannot garuantee for 100% that it is safe (even though my computer suffered no lasting consequences).

Tamur
08-20-2004, 15:44
Great, thanks to Louis for the replays, and thanks Ludens! I'll take a look and work on putting a couple more together. I think I should be okay as I have a non-VI install going right now.

Puzz3D
08-20-2004, 17:37
Tamur,

That was a nice detailed analysis you made of the battle. If you are using MTW v1.1 as opposed to v1.0, you might want to take a look at two replays I have. The battles are named LaPucelle (http://www.mizus.com/hosted/Yuuki/lapucelle.zip) and Irresistable (http://www.mizus.com/hosted/Yuuki/irresistable.zip) . They are large multiplayer battles featuring good commanders from Dec 2002. They were played when spears were still utilized in online play which makes the tactics more interesting than what exists now in multiplayer under VI v2.01. They are probably too complex to analyze in great detail, but I'd be interested in what you thought of the tactics used in those batttles.

Concerning replays: for playback to work properly you must use the version of the game on which the battle was originally played. That is MTW v1.0, MTW v1.1, VI v2.0 and VI v2.01 are all different in their combat mechanics, therefore replays will diverge from the original outcome if they are not played on the correct version. Actually, replays didn't work properly and always diverged in MTW v1.0.

Colovion
08-20-2004, 18:16
very awesome walkthrough!

very concise and covers prettymuch everything. It would be great to have this kind of thing up for many battles. Keep up the good work!

Procrustes
08-20-2004, 18:51
Way cool! I really appreciated it - made me think about this battle that I keep loosing - want to try a couple things next time I try to refight it.

My very minor editorial comments are:

1) It's hard to distinguish the red English from the dark red Poles - is it possible to use another color for the Poles?

2) I don't see a link to a replay at all - was it dropped from the page, or is it something with my browser?

3) The page is a little too wide to fit across my big monitor - I have to use the left/right scroll bar to read all the text. Is there a way you could get it to wrap?

Again, these are just picky little editorial comments - very minor stuff. The content is great!

Thanks!

Tamur
08-20-2004, 22:43
Thanks for the comments all. I'm work on another and working to improve too!



1) It's hard to distinguish the red English from the dark red Poles - is it possible to use another color for the Poles?

Very true. I just hand-coloured the Poles to white. It's a bit ugly in places, but it is much clearer now.



2) I don't see a link to a replay at all - was it dropped from the page, or is it something with my browser?

Errr... there wasn't one! Sorry, forgot about that. I added a link near the top of the page to a zip file of the replay.



3) The page is a little too wide to fit across my big monitor - I have to use the left/right scroll bar to read all the text. Is there a way you could get it to wrap?

I cranked the screen width down to 770, see if that works for ya.

Tamur

Tamur
08-20-2004, 23:00
Puzz, where could I find those? I go to 3ddownloads, find MTW, and they have three subsections listed: Demos, Movies, and Patches. None of these have replays listed in them.

thank you!

Puzz3D
08-21-2004, 00:45
I uploaded those replays to my site, and put links to them in my previous post and in this post. You might check out the LaPucelle (http://www.mizus.com/hosted/Yuuki/lapucelle.zip) battle first because that's the more interesting of the two in terms of tactical play and varied terrain. It's a remarkable display of one commander, LadyAn a.k.a. [FF]Annie, providing support all over the battlefield at critical moments, which is not easy in multiplayer since you cannot pause the game, and personally finishing off the last defender at the end who was and is one of the best players to have ever played the game online. I've included a text file description of the attacker team's decision making and the logfiles in the zip archive. The Irresistable (http://www.mizus.com/hosted/Yuuki/irresistable.zip) battle is a more impressive accomplishment in that LadyAn sweeps the field of veteran opponents capturing or running off all four enemy generals in the process, but is less interesting tactically because it's a steppe map.

I'm sure there are many other good replays out there, but these two have never in my experience been equalled in the two respects I describe, and I've played thousands of battles online. Neither of these battles were won because of blatant errors by the opponent, and they took place in the early days of MTW v1.1 before players were aware of cheap tactics such as the "swipe", and before players knew precisely how to optimize their armies for maximum straight ahead combat power.

BTW, your incorporation of the battlefield images in the analysis is excellent, and was something several multiplayers were asking for fairly recently. I would like to see that LaPucelle battle properly and objectively analyzed because I think it's very instructional, and shows how to defeat the particular defensive strategy of one defender holding back on a hill which was a very effective defensive strategy in STW. If you watch teh replays and have any questions, I'll try to answer them. If the whole thing is just too much of a task to take on, I understand that, but I think those two battles are fun to watch anyway.

Tamur
08-21-2004, 04:53
Great, thank you so much! I'm off to bed at the moment, but looking very much forward to looking at these -- they sound like quite the impressive set. Thanks also for including the log files, that will really help breaking down the battle.

I'll keep you updated on progress, and may take you up on answering questions. Cheers!

Tamur

Tamur
08-21-2004, 05:01
There's another one up, by the way:

http://www.mbc.umt.edu/sTemp/mtw/

T

TonkaToys
08-23-2004, 14:02
There's another one up, by the way:

http://www.mbc.umt.edu/sTemp/mtw/default.html

T


It was worth the wait... look forward to seeing some more lessons.

:2thumbsup:

Tamur
08-23-2004, 19:19
Got another one up, using Ludens HA guide and one of SeljukSinan's replays. Thanks to everyone who has told me about or sent replays! It may be a while but I'll be going through them all and digging out relevant stuff for use. It's been great fun seeing the best of the best ~:)

I'll leave this thread alone now, will update everyone again in October or November when there's a solid amount of content there (and a few RTW replays to boot).

Tamur