Ulstan
09-27-2004, 17:24
I love the way the terrain you fight on is directly taken from the campaign map. That helps so much in feeling like it's the actual battle. Great idea !
I like the rousing speeches by the generals and the pilum throwing prior to charging by the legions.
I *love* the new seiges. Best improvement so far I think. The towns look like towns, you can station archers on the walls (instead of them milling about uselessly in the courtyard like in MTW) you can throw up ladders, sap, seige towers, mines, all kinds of great stuff.
One fight I had a spy secretly unlock the gates for me to Tarentum, and thought it would be an easy victory - alas, most of my army got incinerated by oil dropped on them as they walked in.
There's just something really cool about seing guys fight on the walls themselves.
Wish: that the defenders could mount small ballistae on the walls (as was ofen done) to fire down.
The fighting in the streets is pretty neat too. It would be neat if the enemy could somehow hide units in streets (lose the flags, not show up on minimap or something) and launch surprise attacks down sidestreets. The way the buildings you actually have (or are constructing) shows up in the city is a great touch.
The way damage to the walls carries over *exactly* to the next fight is also very very nice. (One attack on a town failed, but left the N wall in ruins with all the towers destroyed - next attack felt like I was picking up where I left off with all that damage still there, instead of starting over fresh).
Now, on to things I don't like as much
Interface issues:
-Where is the time slider bar? I want to be able to go from slow to medium to fast: not from fast, to super fast, to I-blinked-and-missed-the-fight
-Where is the toggle for the timer? I dont' always want a timer- certainly not for seiges where I am trying to sap the walls. But I do want to be able to put the timer on because sometimes the AI won't always fight well without it
-Where is my unit's morale?? I can no longer hit f1 or whatever to bring this up and see how my morale is playing out. Very frustrating. I just have to guess who has what morale - I don't even get the 'happy for flanks protected' 'happy for general' 'wavering because of enemy in rear' etc notices.
-Where are the fatigue bars? In MTW, I liked being able to see a units fatigue at a glance. Can't do that in RTW. I have to click on lots of men to find a fresh unit to throw into a hole in the lines.
-Camera controls: How do I 'tilt' the camera view? The listed buttons in the manual do not work.
-Rotating men: how do I rotate the men in a unit? (Not the unit itself). Easy to do in MTW, seeminly impossible in RTW. In MTW, I could have any old bunch of men change their facing and turn around in place to face a new threat. In RTW, I can't even get my triarri do that. I can only get the entire formation to slowly swivel around. Doing a 180 is a sloooow and laborious process. Sadly, that's pretty much always needed because of super cavalry (see below)
These are all interface issues which should help so much and should be easy fixes :)
Design issues:
-Men run/charge too fast. I do not feel the walking speed is too fast at all - but charging running is super super fast. Fleeing men seem as fast as horses !
-Horses walk too slow, charge/run too fast. Horses take forever to get somewhere unless you tell them to run or charge, then they get there instantaneously.
-Charging on a whole is far too deadly. Instead of tactics, it's more of a 'who clicks charge first' game. In MTW, a well set up line with anchored flanks and the genearl providing morale could take a charge (even from an enemy outnumbering it) and hold on for quite a while in a melee brawl while your elite units tried to pierce a flank.
In RTW, they fight for 20s and then one side is fleeing off the map. O.o I can't really get the 'infantry line' to stand and fight for any decent length of time
-Cavalry ahistorically powerful. Milita light cav even, and my own light cav, go through infantry like butter. Whammo, men scattered everywhere.
- I think units need to get worse and worse morale from just fleeing and fleeing from the enemy. In MTW, if your unit spent too long running away from the enemy, they eventually got scared and fled.
In RTW, I chased one unit of skirmishers (who move at light speed forever) around 3 sides of the map, never catching them, and them never turning tail and fleeing.
I like the rousing speeches by the generals and the pilum throwing prior to charging by the legions.
I *love* the new seiges. Best improvement so far I think. The towns look like towns, you can station archers on the walls (instead of them milling about uselessly in the courtyard like in MTW) you can throw up ladders, sap, seige towers, mines, all kinds of great stuff.
One fight I had a spy secretly unlock the gates for me to Tarentum, and thought it would be an easy victory - alas, most of my army got incinerated by oil dropped on them as they walked in.
There's just something really cool about seing guys fight on the walls themselves.
Wish: that the defenders could mount small ballistae on the walls (as was ofen done) to fire down.
The fighting in the streets is pretty neat too. It would be neat if the enemy could somehow hide units in streets (lose the flags, not show up on minimap or something) and launch surprise attacks down sidestreets. The way the buildings you actually have (or are constructing) shows up in the city is a great touch.
The way damage to the walls carries over *exactly* to the next fight is also very very nice. (One attack on a town failed, but left the N wall in ruins with all the towers destroyed - next attack felt like I was picking up where I left off with all that damage still there, instead of starting over fresh).
Now, on to things I don't like as much
Interface issues:
-Where is the time slider bar? I want to be able to go from slow to medium to fast: not from fast, to super fast, to I-blinked-and-missed-the-fight
-Where is the toggle for the timer? I dont' always want a timer- certainly not for seiges where I am trying to sap the walls. But I do want to be able to put the timer on because sometimes the AI won't always fight well without it
-Where is my unit's morale?? I can no longer hit f1 or whatever to bring this up and see how my morale is playing out. Very frustrating. I just have to guess who has what morale - I don't even get the 'happy for flanks protected' 'happy for general' 'wavering because of enemy in rear' etc notices.
-Where are the fatigue bars? In MTW, I liked being able to see a units fatigue at a glance. Can't do that in RTW. I have to click on lots of men to find a fresh unit to throw into a hole in the lines.
-Camera controls: How do I 'tilt' the camera view? The listed buttons in the manual do not work.
-Rotating men: how do I rotate the men in a unit? (Not the unit itself). Easy to do in MTW, seeminly impossible in RTW. In MTW, I could have any old bunch of men change their facing and turn around in place to face a new threat. In RTW, I can't even get my triarri do that. I can only get the entire formation to slowly swivel around. Doing a 180 is a sloooow and laborious process. Sadly, that's pretty much always needed because of super cavalry (see below)
These are all interface issues which should help so much and should be easy fixes :)
Design issues:
-Men run/charge too fast. I do not feel the walking speed is too fast at all - but charging running is super super fast. Fleeing men seem as fast as horses !
-Horses walk too slow, charge/run too fast. Horses take forever to get somewhere unless you tell them to run or charge, then they get there instantaneously.
-Charging on a whole is far too deadly. Instead of tactics, it's more of a 'who clicks charge first' game. In MTW, a well set up line with anchored flanks and the genearl providing morale could take a charge (even from an enemy outnumbering it) and hold on for quite a while in a melee brawl while your elite units tried to pierce a flank.
In RTW, they fight for 20s and then one side is fleeing off the map. O.o I can't really get the 'infantry line' to stand and fight for any decent length of time
-Cavalry ahistorically powerful. Milita light cav even, and my own light cav, go through infantry like butter. Whammo, men scattered everywhere.
- I think units need to get worse and worse morale from just fleeing and fleeing from the enemy. In MTW, if your unit spent too long running away from the enemy, they eventually got scared and fled.
In RTW, I chased one unit of skirmishers (who move at light speed forever) around 3 sides of the map, never catching them, and them never turning tail and fleeing.