Is RTW really that bad

[Budwise]

I am more of a FPS fan myself but I fell in love with MTW because I love the Medieval era of time where battles lie in numbers and you can see your enemy and know who your fighting.

I never bought RTW because to be quite honest, I NEVER FOUND THE ROMAN PERIOD interesting WHATSOEVER. Kinda like how I see ancient Egypt or ancient asian culture, a complete waste of my studying time.

Athough I don't like the period though, I always thought about buying the game and infact lost three bids to it on eBay, outbidded on the last minute or outbidded with more than I wish to pay for it. Now, I read here and its pretty much common knowledge that the game sucks more than Michael Jackson in a boyscout meeting.

Well, is their any redeaming qualitys in RTW. I know that I am posting this in the MTW thread but I want veteran TW players and not ones that focus on eyecandy.

[Soulfly]

It's not a bad game, in fact, if you can look past the stupid AI and the countless bugs, it's a very good game but with oh so much more potential. I just got very bored of it after one campaign. Its main pitfall for me is the exclusion of the RISK board. I loved this in Medieval and really, really did not latch on to the new Board. Maybe it's the fact that armies are so sparse on the board, and they tend to miss each other alot because there's so much room to move, that I barely have any non-Siege battles. Siege can be fun, but when 70% of my battles are sieges, it gets to be a tedious routine.

Of course, there are many great mods coming out for the game, and I never played the vanilla version of the game (downloaded RTR right after I got the game), but these mods will never fix my main gripe with the game - the Board. And, unfortunately, eye candy really doesn't do it for me. Graphics are not a factor at all when I buy a game.

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

For me Rome is just not as addictive as medieval was and is. When i first played Shogun and then medieval i just couldn't leave the computer but Rome just didn't have the magic for me. I still love playing it and its a great game but i feel CA went for graphics over gameplay.

[Mongoose]

For the first 6 months i had it...it was great...now i have to force myself to play it...

I was at the point where i was spending 10 minutes a day on it and i had to force myself to do it...then i stoped. :dizzy2:

Not really sure why it got so boring, though. ~:confused: I think it was the AI. ~:handball:

I don't have MTW but i assume it had a worse AI (Since it's alot older) so i would guess that it was even more boring.

[Martok]

For me Rome is just not as addictive as medieval was and is. When i first played Shogun and then medieval i just couldn't leave the computer but Rome just didn't have the magic for me. I still love playing it and its a great game but i feel CA went for graphics over gameplay.


You've pretty much summed up my feelings on all 3 games, although you probably still enjoy Rome a lot more than I do--I barely play it anymore.


To mongoose: The AI in the first two games is actually much better than in Rome, both on the strategic level, and in battle. In both Medieval and Shogun, the other factions are generally better at developing their infrastructure and training their more advanced troops (although both games still could've been better in the latter area). And the combat AI in both previous games is far more competent than in Rome. In Shogun and Medieval, the AI forces me to actually fight for my victories, which makes battles far more enjoyable--what's the fun in fighting a battle where you're virtually guaranteed to win? In Rome, combat was a cakewalk; the only battles I ever lost were ones where I was ridiculously outnumbered (by at least 3-to-1 or worse). Most battles in Rome can be won by a simple frontal assault, whereas in Shogun and Medieval you often have to use actual tactics to beat the AI--which I find to be a most welcome change. ~:cool:

[_Aetius_]

I never bought RTW because to be quite honest, I NEVER FOUND THE ROMAN PERIOD interesting WHATSOEVER. Kinda like how I see ancient Egypt or ancient asian culture, a complete waste of my studying time.

Roman history leading into Byzantine history is some of the most interesting and important periods in european history, if you dont like Roman history its hard to see how you could like history at all.

RTW is a massive disappointment alone its a 7/10 at best but due to all the hype it got it doesnt even deserve 5/10 total letdown.

[King of Atlantis]

Considering mtw was my favorite game ever i would have to say rtw was a let down. Way to many battles are sieges. But rtw is still a great game, but it doesn't have the replay value. I played mtw of and on for about two years and never got old cause it had a way of making you feel your in history but rtw just doesn't have that. I have stopped playing it and waitng for some good mods to come out. With all of that said i wouldd still buy it. It is certainly worth its money.

And one thing to rember, mtw was a lot worse until its expansion came out. The expansion really added a lot of features that made the 100 times as fun, so if you dont want to buy it now wait and see what people say about the expansion.

~:cheers:

[Zarax]

Exactly my thought, i think we should wait for EB before pulling the plug on RTW... Another thing i found quite annoying is the fact that RTW is more difficult to mod on the basic things... The unit management system is just awful, and even properly changing ownerships is a pain compared to MTW.

Other than the AI what i can't really stand is the lack of depth on factions outside the roman ones and its replacement with often fantasy units... Plus the fact that many of the ones in the games are quite redundant and doesn't really add fun to the game (try the MTW mod in my sig to see what i mean).

[Martok]

And one thing to rember, mtw was a lot worse until its expansion came out. The expansion really added a lot of features that made the 100 times as fun, so if you dont want to buy it now wait and see what people say about the expansion.

~:cheers:


I have to disagree with you on this. Yes, the Viking Invasion expansion pack improved MTW in a lot of ways, but Medieval was still a fun game even by itself. I honestly doubt Barbarian Invasion will be able to do the same for Rome, as the game has too many fundamental flaws--especially the poor AI and faction imbalance.

And hey, if it turns out I'm wrong about that, I'll be more than happy to admit it, believe me. But until I read the reviews and see what other Org members have to say about it, I won't even consider purchasing Barbarian Invasion. Shogun and Medieval are both superb, but Rome has made me very leery of buying anymore Total War games.

[King of Atlantis]

I know mtw was good without the expansion but the expansion really added alot to the game. CA seems to left out a lot of stuff from rtw so that they could make more money on an expansion. The one thing i would like to see in the next total war game is the return of the risk board. It is a lot less realisticc as a feature, but in turn it makes for more realistic gameplay

*faster(realistic) troop movements
*battles in the province instead of constent siege.

~:cheers:

[Martok]

Ah, well than I stand corrected. Sorry for misinterpreting your words; my bad! :oops:

I have mixed feelings about returning to the old Risk-style map, but I know where you're coming from. As you pointed out, it's not as realistic as Rome's 3D map, but you're also right in that Medieval's gameplay was probably better because of the Risk-style map.

I like Rome's map because it offers a lot more possibilites as far as placing armies, forts, watchtowers, etc. Unfortunately, this makes Rome's AI (which of course isn't the brightest to begin with) have an even more difficult time coping than it would otherwise. At least with Shogun and Medieval's maps, the AI has far fewer locales on which it has to form a battleplan. On Rome's map, there are literally thousands of different battlefields the AI has to deal with.

Now I actually prefer Rome's army movement system, although I do believe they should be able to cover a lot more ground per turn than they do now. (An army can only make it a couple hundred miles per season?? Come on!! Unless you're traversing mountainous terrain the whole way, even the slowest army could move 500 miles in a month.). It's always seemed a little silly to me that an army in Medieval can only move one province per turn, no matter how small it is. That said, I also agree I've fought far too many city battles on Rome's 3D map; castles seiges don't happen nearly as often in Medieval, which I think is as it should be.

In the end, while both maps have advantages and drawbacks, I think I'd ultimately prefer the Risk map. It's simpler to manage my provinces and my armies on the 2D map, and it's definitely easier for the AI to manage its provinces and armies! If getting rid of the nice-looking (and strategically open) 3D map improves the gameplay overall, then so be it. ~:cool:

[Satyr]

Well, I think the answer to the map issue is pretty simple. Keep the 3D map but have the same response (battle ensues) whenever an army crosses into a province. Thus you can keep the beauty of the Rome campaign map and also have a situation that the AI can handle whereby armies always meet when a province is invaded (and all armies in the province meet the invader).

I can play a battle in RTW and more or less only lose the men killed by friendly fire. This often leads to 10 to 1 or even 100 to 1 kill ratios. In MTW a great battle would have about a 5 to 1 kill ratio (especially if playing with a Mod that turned peasants off). What's more, there are lots of battles that are really close, especially when the AI (which moves last) unexpectedly reinforced. I don't think I ever lost a battle in Rome once I learned how to play. I lose battles all the time in MTW. Also having many different factions to choose from in MTW is really good because it keeps the game fresh. I think that if CA can provide a decent AI and can put speed sliders on both the campaign and battle maps in BI then I would give Rome a second chance. Otherwise I will just wait and see if they can regroup and get it right in the next game because RTW really did miss the mark.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

The only problem I see with RTW is that I can send out 2 units of any type of HA and completly destroy a 15 unit army.

[edyzmedieval]

RTW completely sucks!!!(sorry for the language, mods... How's about a beer to calm down??? ~D ~:cheers: )

I can kill a whole army with only the general!!!!

[SirGrotius]

Yes, it really is that bad. It's not addictive at all. The only thing that I got a kick out of was naval battles (that's right). For some reason, everything seems tedious. For instance, you move an army, it doesn't go in the right spot, and you're just sort of stuck there w/ all these multicolored lines around you (I suppose if you haven't played it this doesn't make sense). I concur it's just not that fun, and the AI is absurd, not to mention the bugs which expose CA's difficulties. To think I used to admire the British. ~D

I do like population limits, however.

[kiwitt]

I have a copy of RTW installed. Don't play it. Enough said.

Actually I am more interested in the Medieval Period of History and I blame Age of Kings for that. MTW solidified that interest.

[Budwise]

Excuse me, but what the hell does CA stand for? Like I said, I don't play RTW so I don't know the acronyms

[Zarax]

CA stands for Creative Assembly, which is the Total War series developer.

@kiwitt: if you liked AOK you might want to try the mod in my signature, it tries to bring a bit of the old gameplay style inside MTW...

[Productivity]

Re. the first post, yes, yes R:TW is really that bad. The AI is horrendous, I've given up on my game as Spain. I can't feasibly play more than about five turns at a sitting, so the save/load bug kicks in. I've watched the Julii try to take one settlement from Gaul for the last~35 turns. The gauls are down to about 60 men in there, against maybe a couple of thousand romans. But they never take it and they never will. Whats more, until they take that settlement, I know they aren't going to come for me, which is leaving me free to smack the Scipii around in N. Africa.

This talk of smacking the Scipii around in N. Africa leads me to my second point. I have taken Carthage in my game, but am surrounded on all sides by the Scipii, and their fleet is stopping me from getting reinforcements in. Every turn, they march up, siege Carthage and I go to sally out. Inevitably they have taken ~1000 men to siege my 1200 man army in Carthage, and their army again gets smacked around. I've done this for 10 turns in a row now. It always plays out the same way. You would think they would actually save up their troops, and maybe siege me one time with an overwhelming force.

When I sally out, the AI does a quick calculation and realises it's outnumbered and withdraws away from the walls. Fair enough, let me come to it. It inevitably draws up a battle line, and then as I approach said battle line, it will spontaneously decide that it needs reorganization. This means that my battle line inevitably hits the AI's when it is in the middle of a reshuffle, and it turns into chaos, where my superior numbers always win. If it could just pick a line and stick with it, it might stand a chance. As it is, the legions can't throw their pila because they are usually moving, they get moral penalties because I tend to hit them in the flank (I'm actually hitting them in the front, but since the AI has decided to run it's central troops out to the wide areas, they are running sideways to me) and within about 20 seconds the whole line collapses and I win the battle. A trained monkey could take my job. If it wasn't for Australian quarantine laws, I might get one to do so, it certainly would be more efficient than having to do it myself every time.

The AI breaks the game. It provides no challenge whatsoever.

[edyzmedieval]

First of all, many things at RTW are completely upside-down!!!!

1.) AI sucks!
2.)Spain was called Iberia!!!
3.)You can win a battle with only the general!!!
4.)TONS OF BUGS!!!!
5.) AND MANY MANY OTHER ANNOYING THINGS....

[econ21]

Out of the box, RTW has a number of flaws. The basic one for me being that it is just not challenging enough. The combat/movement speeds are also a bit souped up if you are not fond of the pause button.

However, it is still very recognisably the same kind of game as STW and MTW, so I don't understand how people can like those early games and not see redeeming qualities in RTW. The heart is still the battles. You have essentially the same choices about deployment and tactics as in the earlier games. The tactical engine has not been dumbed down in any way in my observation. The strategic level is also similar to the earlier games - the economy may be better than MTWs broken trade model - and the more free form campaign map opens up some interesting possibilities.

Recently, I tried the Rome Total Realism mod and it transmutes RTW into something very close to an ancient MTW. This has renewed my interest in the game and also illustrates my point that RTW is very much the same kind of beast as STW and MTW. I even tried the Roma mod for RTR and saw how someone has transformed an unchallenging SP game into something that most of us MTW vets can't handle.

Of course, RTW improves on a number of features in STW and MTW. I like the Senate better than the Papacy - having missions and rewards is a nice way of giving direction in such a potentially open game. I think the different faction armies are more distinctive and play in more different ways (eg legion, phalanx, barbarian, horse archer), whereas MTW and STW tended to produce clone armies. The graphics are obviously better. With the slowed down combat of RTR, I now really enjoy zooming in combats and watching the clash of arms. The campaign map feels much more like a real wargame than a gamey Risk thing. Sea warfare is better done, while sieges are greatly improved. The balance of arms is potentially more interesting - cavalry and missiles are ahistorically more powerful than in MTW - although I think some modding (such as RTR) is needed to get that right.

I think RTW has the potential to really attract those interested in ancient historical warfare. The EB and RTR v6.0 mods with new units skins and orders of battle are a joy to contemplate - the previews are more informative than most books on the subject. [Strangely, I have not found equivalently rich and ambitious historical mods for MTW]. I guess this is irrelevant to the original poster, but personally, if it is well done, I find military history of any period fascinating.

[Mongoose]

Roma mod is only hard because it nerfs the romans. Add that to the way that the AI cheats in the first place and the enemy are super soldiers.

If you modded it to let you play as the greeks it would be painfully easy.

*EDIT*

Have you tried the BKB or XL mod for MTW?

[Satyr]

Simon Appleton, if you understand that the heart of the Total War games is the battles, then I don't understand why you can't see what is broken in RTW. There is NO CHALLENGE. What is the point of a game that takes no effort to win. Maybe that is ok when you are 8, but soon after it loses all appeal. I would hesitate to suggest that maybe you are a lousy general, but that is the only way RTW would seem ok.

[Martok]

First of all, many things at RTW are completely upside-down!!!!

1.) AI sucks!
2.)Spain was called Iberia!!!
3.)You can win a battle with only the general!!!
4.)TONS OF BUGS!!!!
5.) AND MANY MANY OTHER ANNOYING THINGS....


Hmm, I can think of a few other things.....such as all the "fantasy" units in the game (Arcani, Gladiators, etc.)--yes, they're fun to play with, but certainly not historically accurate. And what about the fact that certain factions (especially the Romans and Egyptians) are way overpowered? Or that you can't play as other factions until you've won as the Julii, Brutii, or Scipii?

That last feature really bugs me; I don't think I'll ever understand why Creative Assembly did that. It would have been like forcing Medieval players to win as the Byzantines, Egyptians, or English in order to unlock the other factions.

That said, I still have great respect for CA, and I really do admire what what they were aiming for whey they developed RTW. Unfortunately, that still doesn't change the fact that IMHO, they dropped the ball with Rome. I simply hope they're able to correct their mistakes in the next Total War game.....

[econ21]

Simon Appleton, if you understand that the heart of the Total War games is the battles, then I don't understand why you can't see what is broken in RTW. There is NO CHALLENGE. What is the point of a game that takes no effort to win. Maybe that is ok when you are 8, but soon after it loses all appeal. I would hesitate to suggest that maybe you are a lousy general, but that is the only way RTW would seem ok.

You are right (not necessarily about the lousy general bit ...). There is no challenge to a competent general in the battles out of the box. But it is fairly easily corrected by mods. The Rome Total Realism mod makes the battles about as challenging as MTW. The Roma mod makes them insanely challenging IMO (ok, you might be right about the lousy general bit). ~D

[Mount Suribachi]

Simon Appleton, if you understand that the heart of the Total War games is the battles, then I don't understand why you can't see what is broken in RTW. There is NO CHALLENGE. What is the point of a game that takes no effort to win. Maybe that is ok when you are 8, but soon after it loses all appeal. I would hesitate to suggest that maybe you are a lousy general, but that is the only way RTW would seem ok.



The basic one for me being that it is just not challenging enough

edit: Simon replied while I was typing :dizzy2:

[Zarax]

Hmm, I can think of a few other things.....such as all the "fantasy" units in the game (Arcani, Gladiators, etc.)--yes, they're fun to play with, but certainly not historically accurate.

Well, about most units you're right, but gladiators were actually sometimes deployed on the battlefield historically...

What also disappoints me is a lack of a decent mercenary roster...

For example you should be able to recruit barbarian swordsmen (not scutarii, the gallic ones!) as mercs (Hannibal did!) as well as other things around.

Another thing that pissed me off is the protectorates: you should definitely be able to use (most of) their units, as historically they gave a number of units to the "protector" army!

[_Aetius_]

Out of the box, RTW has a number of flaws. The basic one for me being that it is just not challenging enough. The combat/movement speeds are also a bit souped up if you are not fond of the pause button.

However, it is still very recognisably the same kind of game as STW and MTW, so I don't understand how people can like those early games and not see redeeming qualities in RTW. The heart is still the battles. You have essentially the same choices about deployment and tactics as in the earlier games. The tactical engine has not been dumbed down in any way in my observation. The strategic level is also similar to the earlier games - the economy may be better than MTWs broken trade model - and the more free form campaign map opens up some interesting possibilities.

Recently, I tried the Rome Total Realism mod and it transmutes RTW into something very close to an ancient MTW. This has renewed my interest in the game and also illustrates my point that RTW is very much the same kind of beast as STW and MTW. I even tried the Roma mod for RTR and saw how someone has transformed an unchallenging SP game into something that most of us MTW vets can't handle.

Of course, RTW improves on a number of features in STW and MTW. I like the Senate better than the Papacy - having missions and rewards is a nice way of giving direction in such a potentially open game. I think the different faction armies are more distinctive and play in more different ways (eg legion, phalanx, barbarian, horse archer), whereas MTW and STW tended to produce clone armies. The graphics are obviously better. With the slowed down combat of RTR, I now really enjoy zooming in combats and watching the clash of arms. The campaign map feels much more like a real wargame than a gamey Risk thing. Sea warfare is better done, while sieges are greatly improved. The balance of arms is potentially more interesting - cavalry and missiles are ahistorically more powerful than in MTW - although I think some modding (such as RTR) is needed to get that right.

I think RTW has the potential to really attract those interested in ancient historical warfare. The EB and RTR v6.0 mods with new units skins and orders of battle are a joy to contemplate - the previews are more informative than most books on the subject. [Strangely, I have not found equivalently rich and ambitious historical mods for MTW]. I guess this is irrelevant to the original poster, but personally, if it is well done, I find military history of any period fascinating.

Generally your right RTW is an advancement on earlier games and has raised the bar to what future games of this type should strive to meet.

However, RTW was built up with such unbelievable hype that even though we were bound to be let down abit, it feels we were letdown monumentaly, in simple terms I just dont enjoy playing the game. MTW was always fun and interesting ive never seen a game that can be so fresh after such a long time, RTW just didnt catch my interest in the slightest.

Its not just the bugs and glaring errors whatever is missing it seems to be the feeling of accomplishment, it doesnt feel like MTW did, I looked forward to playing MTW whereas RTW the first thing that comes to my head when I think about it is its a chore to enjoy. I never had to make life easier on the AI on MTW to feel abit challenged, but so many players have to do things they shouldnt have to do to make the game even relatively enjoyable on RTW, RTR is a definate improvement that is for sure.

That in itself is a problem though, if modders can make the game relatively tolerable why the heck couldnt the makers? Is it so hard to spot how stupid parts of the game were when it was tested?

The roman period is to me the most interesting part of history with the expansion BI its going into a personally even more interesting period of history to me, so its not the period that didnt interest its the fact the game doesnt do it justice, its hard to pinpoint exactly why Im just not interetsed in RTW but it just doesnt feel right.

[Mongoose]

You are right (not necessarily about the lousy general bit ...). There is no challenge to a competent general in the battles out of the box. But it is fairly easily corrected by mods. The Rome Total Realism mod makes the battles about as challenging as MTW. The Roma mod makes them insanely challenging IMO (ok, you might be right about the lousy general bit). ~D

Like i said before...any game is hard if you nerf your own soldiers badly enough.
Roma mod is good, IMHO, but it's not harder. It's more unbalanced.

And i am not quite sure how the RTR battles are supposed to be harder...the AI is the same.

Maybe your playing as the romans...they are nerfed alot in RTR...

[econ21]

Like i said before...any game is hard if you nerf your own soldiers badly enough.
Roma mod is good, IMHO, but it's not harder. It's more unbalanced.

And i am not quite sure how the RTR battles are supposed to be harder...the AI is the same.

Maybe your playing as the romans...they are nerfed alot in RTR...

Yeah, I'm playing the Romans in RTR. In your second paragraph, you seem to be implicitly defining "harder" as "harder because of better AI", whereas "harder because my troops have weaker stats and/or the AI has more troops" would also seem to qualify in my opinion.

Yes, I agree RTR seems harder in part because it tones down the Roman stats a little - or at least boosts the Greek civ. units a lot. The Romans also lose archers and powerful cav, which both were extremely (and ahistorically) potent against the AI in vanilla. Their heavy inf. can still get the job done, but you do have to try a little harder.

Perhaps more importantly, all non-Roman factions seem to have significantly larger armies and capacity to rebuild armies too. In vanilla, as Romans, you tend to have or two big opening battles against an enemy faction, then it's a mopping up operation. In RTR, I'm always pleasantly surprised when I stumble into another full strength army when I thought the faction was on its knees.

In terms of improving the cleverness of the AI, there are clearly limits to what the modders can do. However, I have not found myself so frustrated with the battlefield AI in RTR as I did in vanilla. In fact, I find it no more objectionable than I recall the AI in STW and MTW being (let's face it, it was never that great). Clever modders can make some ingenious compensating adjustments. For example, the powerful Greek type units in RTR nicely compensate for the AIs abysmal handling of the phalanx formation. In the Roma mod, I think the designer changed the starting formations (and maybe build priorities?) of the AI so they are a little harder to fight. I like the way in the Roma mod, your weaker Roman stats mean it pays to worry about things like an elevation advantage[1]. In MTW and STW this was tactics 101 - get on a hill or maneouvre the AI off one - but in vanilla RTW, I started not to bother. In Roma, it really pays and even in the RTR mod, I'm starting to do it.

[1]Or an even more extreme example, one RTR vet even advised me to flank from my left as the enemy units got shielding bonuses from the right!

[Mongoose]

Well, i agree. Having soldiers with awful stats does make the romans harder to play as.

The point i was trying to make was that the game is not harder, the romans are harder. Play as the gauls in roma mod and you will see what i am talking about. :wink:

[Mithrandir]

Let me move this into Hostile territory...the colloseum.

[Mongoose]

GAH! Not really sure what the point of this is...looks like an roman-arena style flame war in the making... ~:confused:


Their releasing some thin looking tigers over there... :help:

[ChaosLord]

I don't get these people who play M:TW and say they have a harder game then R:TW, both of them are easy. I mean I was brand new to the Total War series when I started M:TW and I was kicking the AI around on hard and expert in just a couple of days. Does noone remember the vast peasant/archer/spearman armies? How easy it was to lure the enemy into traps? How dumb the AI could be at times(I remember in the Almohad PBEM I was in, I killed the Spanish king with arrow fire while he sat there, unable to figure out what to do).

It took mods to get any sort of real challenge beyond the artificially induced mass rebellion trigger. Jihads and Crusades were a joke since 90% of the time they had no good general and would become rout fests. The Mongol hordes just needed you to kill their leader, then keep up mass routs and you could kill/capture 10,000+ in a single battle. Added to all this was the ease of mass hiring mercs to scare the AI into retreating or to use as expendable troops in sieges.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying I didn't like M:TW. I loved it, as I love R:TW. But M:TW was barely and just barely harder then R:TW when it came to battles, and it was brain dead when it came to the strategy map. R:TW like M:TW is slowly getting better as the mods are worked on, mods like R:TR and hopefully EB as well as Senjoku Jidai(sp?) and Zhao Total War in the future. I win a good portion of my battles in R:TR with the same ratios I did in M:TW mods, and often times the battles are harder(fighting phalanx civs with barbarians or such).

Oh and Simon, you should check out the MedMod for M:TW. Although it does focus alot on balancing things it also changes the lineups to be more historical as well as the factions. WesW and the people who have contributed to the mod have done an amazing job on it.

[econ21]

Oh and Simon, you should check out the MedMod for M:TW. Although it does focus alot on balancing things it also changes the lineups to be more historical as well as the factions. WesW and the people who have contributed to the mod have done an amazing job on it.

Yeah, RTR is making me realise this. I parted company with MedMod when it started changing the units in ways that made them not obviously more historical or defensible than those in vanilla MTW. I prefer the philosophy of the RTR and EB mods where I find I can't fault the history (not surprising as they seem to be led by real afficionados of the period). But I know the MedMod vastly improved the challenge.

[Azi Tohak]

Hey, I like RTW...but it is the same kind of like you have for those news shoes mom made you get. They are good, they work...but with just a little more time they could have been great!

That is how I feel about RTW anyway. RTR on the other hand...nearly everything is fixed (all that can be fixed is fixed). THAT is what a labor of love can do for you.

Azi

[katank]

To be honest, I did find MTW harder though.

Shoggy wasn't really harder than either. I fought tons of battles where I just used my faction leader's cav to lead the enemy in circles while my archers rained hell from above.

I kept winning battles of 5:2 odds in Shoggy except it came every turn and became annoying.

Vanilla RTW is even more a joke.

MTW still had some sense of tactics.

[Intrepid Sidekick]

[1]. In MTW and STW this was tactics 101 - get on a hill or maneouvre the AI off one - but in vanilla RTW, I started not to bother. In Roma, it really pays and even in the RTR mod, I'm starting to do it.

[1]Or an even more extreme example, one RTR vet even advised me to flank from my left as the enemy units got shielding bonuses from the right!

It's interesting that you atribute sheild bonuses, flanking and elevation bonuses to a mod when in fact they are features of RTW.
Of course modding units stats, as in RTR may very well have increased the noticeablility of these features and added value to them.

[HarunTaiwan]

Yes, in RTR the effects are noticeable and have added some value to the product.

[hoom]

Yep, thats right.
The shield effect is largely invisible in the basic game because there are other factors that have a larger effect on who wins.
The modded stats change this so that the shield effect is quite important.

A lot of the great features of the game are hidden like this by weaknesses elsewhere.

[Colovion]

A slower battle pace also adds to the effect of said features the game holds. In vanilla it's harder to notice such components to the battle system because the battles are over much faster. When the battles are drawn out longer it makes for a situation where you can really see what works because of the longer timespan to view the battle playing out.

[econ21]

It's interesting that you atribute sheild bonuses, flanking and elevation bonuses to a mod when in fact they are features of RTW.
Of course modding units stats, as in RTR may very well have increased the noticeablility of these features and added value to them.

Yes, that was my point. When you quoted from my post, you omitted the preceding line: "I like the way in the Roma mod, your weaker Roman stats mean it pays to worry about things like an elevation advantage". I was not attributing the bonuses to the mods, but the vanilla game means that some factions like the Romans can coast through their battles without needing to pay heed to them.

For the record, I'm not a fan of the Roma mod - I haven't given it a fair go, but from what I've experienced, it is so stacked against the Romans, you have to exploit the AI to win. Consequently, the battles & campaigns seem more "gamey" and ahistorical to me than those in the vanilla game.

But RTR does improve on the experience for the Romans, IMO. I suspect its largely by pumping up the size of enemy armies (boosting their economies?).

Even in the vanilla game, it can be a challenge fighting a faction with a strong economy and decent units like Egypt or a well developed Roman faction (e.g. in a civil war). But some factions such as Gaul and Carthage could do with a little boost in BI if CA can find the time.

I believe my basic point - in response to the thread title "is RTW really that bad?" - was that nearly all the great things about STW and MTW (e.g. the tactical bonuses and modifiers) are still present in RTW. I think it's pretty self-evident, but mods like RTR make it blindingly obvious. The slowed-down battles in RTR feel just like the MTW ones to me (without the tedium of dealing with waves of AI reinforcements).

I can't see how someone can love MTW and not find a lot of value in RTW. I'm still playing it SP and it's been out for the best part of a year. The negativity towards RTW in some threads seems excessive. I fear I may be the closest thing to a fan boy CA has here! ~:grouphug:

[Garvanko]

What I hate about Rome...

Odds completely in your favour.. 10:2.. You can't be bothered to slug it out at 3 am. You're tired. You need to sleep. You just want to win this one big battle.

You decide to auto-resolve.

You lose half your men.

Average defeat. ~:confused:

[Volstag]

It's not a bad game. It has a ton of potential... but, sadly, potential doesn't necessarily make for good gaming. The engine is absolutely fantastic. Massive kudos to CA on that regard.

That being said, however, the biggest detractors to (vanilla) RTW: glitches/bugs and the fact that it's relatively easy. Fixing the former might take care of the latter but, as it stands, there isn't a whole lot of challenge. Contrast that with a typical game of Civ III (for me): there will be games, and occasions within games, where I'm not sure if I'll be able to win, or not. There'll be occassions when I desperately do NOT want to go to war with certain civs, etc. There'll be occassions/games where I'm at the bottom of the leader board, trying desperately to claw my way to the top. In short: games where I'm periodically/perpetually getting my ass kicked.

In RTW.... that really hasn't happened. I've had a couple scares, but, generally speaking, it's not that difficult to obliterate everything in your path (but since I generally only get to play for 1 to 1.5 hours at a time, this might be a symptom of the save/load "feature")

-V

[TheDuck]

I don't get these people who play M:TW and say they have a harder game then R:TW, both of them are easy. I mean I was brand new to the Total War series when I started M:TW and I was kicking the AI around on hard and expert in just a couple of days. Does noone remember the vast peasant/archer/spearman armies? How easy it was to lure the enemy into traps? How dumb the AI could be at times(I remember in the Almohad PBEM I was in, I killed the Spanish king with arrow fire while he sat there, unable to figure out what to do).

It took mods to get any sort of real challenge beyond the artificially induced mass rebellion trigger. Jihads and Crusades were a joke since 90% of the time they had no good general and would become rout fests. The Mongol hordes just needed you to kill their leader, then keep up mass routs and you could kill/capture 10,000+ in a single battle. Added to all this was the ease of mass hiring mercs to scare the AI into retreating or to use as expendable troops in sieges.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying I didn't like M:TW. I loved it, as I love R:TW. But M:TW was barely and just barely harder then R:TW when it came to battles, and it was brain dead when it came to the strategy map. R:TW like M:TW is slowly getting better as the mods are worked on, mods like R:TR and hopefully EB as well as Senjoku Jidai(sp?) and Zhao Total War in the future. I win a good portion of my battles in R:TR with the same ratios I did in M:TW mods, and often times the battles are harder(fighting phalanx civs with barbarians or such).

Oh and Simon, you should check out the MedMod for M:TW. Although it does focus alot on balancing things it also changes the lineups to be more historical as well as the factions. WesW and the people who have contributed to the mod have done an amazing job on it.


I so agree with this. I have a very clear memory of M:TW reshuffling its troops during battles.. I'd normally walk my battle line up to arrow/bolt pusher distance and start wailing on them.. if the enemy army was significantly horse heavy they'd just mill about in range of my troops getting killed. The AI has no concept of certain tactical realities.

I've seen the R:TW AI do precisely the same thing. I think the AI is totally transplanted, with only a few changes to accomodate the new units and wierder maps. Just don't see that much that is different regarding how it organizes/decides what to do next. Both AIs are very susceptible to intelligent play, even in greatly outnumbered situations.

And for the record, I really love both games.. I play them less now than before, but any game which clocks above 40 hours of interest in my book is outstanding (about 40$ for the game against 40 hours.. thats about 1$US per hour of play.. MUCH less $$/hour than going a $$ equivalent number of movies (4).. ). I've played both M:TW and R:TW to the tune of about 100 hours each.. what rockingly good games at a fantastic value.

[RomanCavalry]

not taking anything away from your 40 hours of gameplay, but I do not consider 40 hours of gameplay that much man.

the great games of today are having people log hundreds, and at times, thousands (and in some cases tens of thousands) of hours of gameplay.

look at MMO's...some people play those 35-50 hours a week for 5+ years.

sports games...for example, "madden football"...man, people log in THOUSANDS of hours on these games (which cost the exact same as RTW) over the course of the year.

look at online shooters: same thing, hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of hours put in on these games over the course of 6-50 months. Look at socom2 for example. Half life 2.

Strategy games? ...starcraft? warcraft? some people played warcraft for 7 years. I'm sure they put in hundreds, if not upper thousands of hours.

sorry, this just isn't the NES days...40 hours on a deep strategy game is peanuts. I personally think any game that can only keep someone's attention for 40 hours in this day and age is a total flop.

I myself have easily spent hundreds of hours playing RTW already and I know the majority of people who bought the game are in the same bought.

[RomanCavalry]

perhaps one day mods will realize that an "edit" button would save a tremendous amount of space...

I see now that you say you've spent around 100 hours on both MTW and RTW...ok cool. But that doesn't change your idea of the "benchmark" hours for a great game.

If you look at what kind of titles are hot sellers in this generation of gaming, it's ones with virtually unlimited replay value...obviously the reason online gaming took off the way it did.

Quake, Doom, Unreal...all those shooters were amazing because they were "real" as opposed to scripted 1 player vs AI events. Unlimited replay value.

Look at RPG's...they're almost dead...entirely due to the influx of great MMO's. These games provide infinite replay value.

Although I've already spent hundreds of hours on RTW, i've played in very very small clips lately. The absolutely silly AI just cripples the replay value.

My point is just that there are many many games out there that exist for the purpose to "keep us busy" and I do not consider RTW one of the "classics" in this sense.

Look at Halo2 for the xbox...there are people 40 years old who are traveling the country, paying out of pocket to do so, and playing 50 hours a week in prep for money tournaments. RTW just doesn't draw that kind of following....

(again, look back at sports games...mmo's, etc....even WARCRAFT in the same genre as this...others have accomplished high replay value, I just don't think TW has.)

fix the AI and it will...it has everything else...but the Ai is what separates this game from those others and makes the experience seem "phony" after a period of time. This is exactly why people want a multiplayer campaign: Rome's concept is sound, but the unconvincing AI just bogs it down.

[Productivity]

It's interesting that you atribute sheild bonuses, flanking and elevation bonuses to a mod when in fact they are features of RTW.
Of course modding units stats, as in RTR may very well have increased the noticeablility of these features and added value to them.

Nobody is saying the mods introduced those effects. Just the standard game is so easy that nobody cares about them.

Why should I bother to try and take a hill? I'm going to slaughter the enemy anyway, and it will just add another ten minutes to the battle.

As for those saying Rome is the same as Medieval in terms of AI, why then does the AI sometimes smack you round in Medieval? I've lost quite a few games with M:TW, and I'm not a particularly bad player, it's just the AI was better. I have never looked close to loosing in R:TW, no matter who I have played with. Armenia, Numidia, Pontus, standard Seleucids, Thrace etc. I've managed to come out on top iwth little difficulty.

Maybe you guys are just gods or something when it comes to strategy games, but Rome to me is stupidly easy, where as Medieval is not.

[Ab Urbe Condita]

My advice to you would be to not base your buying decisions on messageboards.

[Productivity]

My advice to you would be to not base your buying decisions on messageboards.

It is hard to do otherwise, when no demo is released for the strategic game, and the tactical demo is setup so you can't lose...

[KSEG]

Nobody is saying the mods introduced those effects. Just the standard game is so easy that nobody cares about them.

Why should I bother to try and take a hill? I'm going to slaughter the enemy anyway, and it will just add another ten minutes to the battle.

As for those saying Rome is the same as Medieval in terms of AI, why then does the AI sometimes smack you round in Medieval? I've lost quite a few games with M:TW, and I'm not a particularly bad player, it's just the AI was better. I have never looked close to loosing in R:TW, no matter who I have played with. Armenia, Numidia, Pontus, standard Seleucids, Thrace etc. I've managed to come out on top iwth little difficulty.

Maybe you guys are just gods or something when it comes to strategy games, but Rome to me is stupidly easy, where as Medieval is not.

Have you played MTW recently?
Maybe you feel MTW AI is better because you were not so good when playing it, and when playing RTW you were a veteran.

[Productivity]

Have you played MTW recently?
Maybe you feel MTW AI is better because you were not so good when playing it, and when playing RTW you were a veteran.

About three weeks ago... After giving up on ever seeing a challenge in R:TW

[Martok]

Have you played MTW recently?
Maybe you feel MTW AI is better because you were not so good when playing it, and when playing RTW you were a veteran.



I'm not a brilliant player by any stretch of the imagination, but I like to think I still qualify as a TW "veteran". I've had Shogun for over 4 years, which I still play it now and then. I've also had Medieval for over 2 1/2 years, and still play it daily. (No disrespect to the Shoggy players, I'm just more of a Jihad/Crusades kind of guy, that's all. :bow: ) And I've had Rome for almost 9 months (although by now I haven't really touched the game since early spring). So I think I can say with some authority that yes, battles in Medieval are still tougher than in Rome.

I discovered long ago when I first started to play strategy games (and the TW games in particular) that my military skills are very average--not terrible, but certainly not great--and even I steamroll Rome's AI way more often than not. I've stated in other posts that in Rome, the only battles I've ever lost were ones where I was ridiculously outnumbered. (Okay, I've also lost a few while drunk, but that's neither here nor there..... ~D )

I'm not saying the AI in Medieval was perfect; far from it. As other people have pointed out, Medieval's AI doesn't always know what to do with its calvary. It also isn't the greatest at fighting bridge battles or defending castles. But it's still far more competent than Rome's AI. When playing Rome, there have been very few battles where I felt like I was in any real danger of losing, even when playing one of the harder factions. With Medieval, I still get combat jitters if the enemy's forces are even remotely comparable to my own. Why? Because I know Medieval's AI can outsmart me--and it does.

I will credit Rome's combat with at least this much: The battle maps are beautiful with a lot of room to maneuver, and the pre-combat unit placement and battle controls are generally more user-friendly than in Medieval or Shogun. Unfortunately, it still does not make up for the lackluster AI. It honestly gives me no joy to say so, but it's the truth. Rome's AI is simply the weakest out of all three Total War games, and provides no challenge for me.

[Red Harvest]

It's interesting that you atribute sheild bonuses, flanking and elevation bonuses to a mod when in fact they are features of RTW.
Of course modding units stats, as in RTR may very well have increased the noticeablility of these features and added value to them.

Nothing new on two of them, never had much trouble flanking RTW's AI or taking away its elevation. However, my understanding is that some of the mods use higher ranges for shields. I've always thought RTW failed to give much credit for shields. And we've also learned that the charge is based on armour (I had it as part of defense, Kraxis ID'ed the armour as the specific contributor), with very little contribution from "charge bonus" or mass. Don't know if that was addressed in later mods.

[Quietus]

The AI of both MTW and RTW are essentially the same. In MTW, I just shoot the AI to pieces with my vanilla archers while they walk back and forth in front of my spears.

The battles are just too fast in RTW (due to kill-rates and running speed). That's the main difference.

[player1]

... and buggy VH battles, giving bonus to attack to both player and AI, making things even more faster.

[Little Legioner]

The battles are just too fast in RTW (due to kill-rates and running speed). That's the main difference.

Too fast right but also narrow too... Just try big/huge setting you will understand what i mean. Too fast, too narrow: TW for clickfesters ~:handball:

[HarunTaiwan]

Battles suck because of poor AI.

I remember being hard pressed in STW and MTW...now it's all formality.

[PyrrhusofEpirus]

I have first learn of TW series 2 years ago. A friend introduce me the M:TW( :knight: )!. I've stuck with this game, it's realism, the pioneer things that brought in my gaming life, and spend countless hours on LAN battles and SP games. Because of the M:TW, I looked at every other strategy game rather childish (no offence, I still playing EE, AOE2 and Civ series).

I remember myself being impatient and looking forward for R:TW, because that's one of my favorites historic period (Hellenistic Era).

When it was released I even bought an new PC so I can relish my whole new game! :charge:
I call my friend to share our views of the new game. I bought the game 2 months later after it released cause of the local dealers policy :furious3: !
He told me how disappointed was about the R:TW, the unbeatable war elephants, the continuous revolt of some cities, the unvaried flat battlefields, the unchallenging battles, the endless siege battles, the lack of replay campaign battles, even the new strategy map and how exasperating is that you can't call back slip movement etc.

He catch me by surprise! ~:confused: I argue :argue: that R:TW has a lot new features, like much more user friendly interface, a handy diplomacy, great variety of different troops (in M:TW factions was pretty much the same) etc, and for the rest, is matter of being unaccustomed. (but agreed with the annoying repeal thing)

I played the game for a couple of months. I finally get used with the new strategy map-I like it now-but at end find the R:TW far less enjoyable than the M:TW :disappointed: ! What was wrong? Is this because I'm getting older? NO! something else! I search the internet for TW discussing forums.
That how I find out the .org ~:cheers: ! I downloaded the 1.2 patch (until that time, I didn't realise that even exist :stupid: !)

So, farewell to unbeatable elephants, the continuous revolt of some cities, the endless bribing etc. :rtwyes:
But on the other hand I found out some very new to me bugs/issues: the notorious save/load issue, the Seleucid armoured elephants being available everywhere,and many other that player1 tries to handle (BTW player1 mnogu fala! ~:cheers: :bow: ).

Now I share most of my opinion with the majority of people in this community. I found not R:TW is a bad game, I found it simply inferior of its hype. :cry: Don't know what went wrong. Maybe the CA's transition among Activision to Sega. Maybe the CA's budget overrun. Maybe the deadlines. Maybe the whole project was unattainable. :sad2:

I wish all these sad things will change in BI.

This is my little(big) story. Sorry for being tedious. But I think this story could apply to many others besides me. ~:grouphug:

Thank you for time :bow:

[Red Harvest]

The AI of both MTW and RTW are essentially the same. In MTW, I just shoot the AI to pieces with my vanilla archers while they walk back and forth in front of my spears.

The battles are just too fast in RTW (due to kill-rates and running speed). That's the main difference.


Jeez, here we go again a gross oversimplification to hide the truth. If the AI were exactly the same (and I don't buy it) then RTW would get far the worst of it because the game changed so much that the AI should have changed too, this blows a hole the size of Texas in the "AI is the same" argument. There is certainly no analog of the phalanx mess we presently have. The scrambling of the the AI line before engagement handicaps RTW many fold with or without phalanx. Plus I found that MTW actually used its long range units rather than charging them into my line. The RTW AI improved a degree in skirmisher tactics, unfortunately, it also has tendency to charge them into infantry--again destroying the skirmish aspect of battle. I also found MTW rarely charged the general headlong into my line--until the main part of the army had engaged.

The MTW AI would not attack at times, true, and would be shot up. Much harder with vanilla archers in MTW, unless you were facing unarmoured rabble. In which case, the AI wouldn't attack because it could see it couldn't win. Once the human won the ranged missile duel it was over for the AI. Arbalesters were deadly, archers weren't worth much.

If on the other hand the AI had a good force it would hurl it at the player and was far more likely to overwhelm the player than in RTW. I've also seen the AI camp quite well on high ground in MTW, something it can't seem to do in RTW.

[Mongoose]

Every one has such mixed results here...some people say that they are equal and others say that there are huge differences. :dizzy2:

[ChaosLord]

Well alot of the variation depends apon how someone plays the game. The different tactics people use, army compositions, and wether someone will go to great lengths to exploit AI weaknesses. Such as mass HA or something similar. I like to make fairly balanced armies and my strategy is usually about maintaining a strong center so one of my flanks can wrap around theirs. Its the same thing I used in M:TW, pin their units on something with alot of defense while the others do the work.

Since this doesn't use mass archer fire/cavalry(things M:TW was never good at dealing with either) perhaps thats why my experiences aren't as bad as everyone elses. Theres also some people who will pull no punches when fighting the AI and use every exploit, trick, etc.. around to beat them and get mad when the AI loses badly because of this. But, its up to each person to decide for themselves how to play the game. I just don't understand why the people I just mentioned come to post about how its no fun when they do that, I mean what did they expect?

[Mongoose]

I am willing to not go out of my way to screw the AI, but i am not willing to go out of my way to not to exploit it.

[Satyr]

To be forced to use BAD tactics so that the AI doesn't get confused is against everything I want in a game. Obviously we aren't at the point yet where AI programming can build a competent opponent but we should be able to get some sort of challenge. MTW was better at that the RTW is, but hopefully BI will fix a lot of this and make Rome into a good game too. At least I sincerely hope so!

[TheViciousChicken]

I am willing to not go out of my way to screw the AI, but i am not willing to go out of my way to not to exploit it.

True. I just play with the tactics I that seem realistic to me, having fun at that and takind advantage of some weird AI situations. I know that routing on bridges make the unit run into the enemy but that doesnt make me avoid bridge battles. Still I´ll fight the battles to the best of my skill/tactical creativity and have fun while demolishing everything the AI has to throw at me.

To compensate I mod my game giving the AI economic bonuses, larger cities and better starting units making it so much more fun to get through the realtively difficult first part of the game when my armies are always at aa disadvantage forcing me to be tactically better in order to win. Finally this is a game and I find it quite fun and entertaining this way.

[Red Harvest]

Have you played MTW recently?
Maybe you feel MTW AI is better because you were not so good when playing it, and when playing RTW you were a veteran.

You don't give the vets enough credit. We have gone back and made some comparisons.

[Red Harvest]

My advice to you would be to not base your buying decisions on messageboards.

Actually, the best buying advice I've ever gotten is from messageboards. Doesn't take much reading to see both the beauty and the warts. It is far more reliable than a review.

[econ21]

Actually, the best buying advice I've ever gotten is from messageboards. Doesn't take much reading to see both the beauty and the warts. It is far more reliable than a review.

Absolutely. I used to regularly read usenet (e.g. comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic) and it was amazing how quickly and accurately you could gauge a game from the posts. By contrast, reviewers tend to get caught up in the hype, focus on how up to date the graphics etc are or hide flaws under diplomatic language. It's a little riskier to rely on message boards dedicated to a particular game, but often you can tell if there is depth and enthusiasm there. I seldom buy a game without trying to get user views on the internet, unless the company has a track record of making games I like.

[drone]

Actually, the best buying advice I've ever gotten is from messageboards. Doesn't take much reading to see both the beauty and the warts. It is far more reliable than a review.Posters on message boards are not influenced by advertising income, unlike gamer mags. As long as you can sort through the flames and obvious fan-boys, you are way more likely to get an unbiased review on a message board.

[Mongoose]

Actually, the best buying advice I've ever gotten is from messageboards. Doesn't take much reading to see both the beauty and the warts. It is far more reliable than a review.

I agree :medievalcheers:

Reviewers are too busy sucking up to the developers to see any real flaws.

This is the worst RTW review i have ever seen... 4/5 stars!? for how DIFFICULT the game is!?


Intelligence & Difficulty:4 Stars - Good AI controlled characters are above the standard fare for the most part, but the AI has some critical failings, mostly when it’s controlling things for you in a battle. When you have other armies around the site of a brawl, these extra forces are considered reinforcements to the fray and they are controlled for you by the computer. That’s great in theory, but since you have no say over how they act, you can easily lose seasoned units or important generals because they run blindly into a conflict seemingly without thought for anything more than brute force. When you’re in control, your men do exactly what you tell them to, even if they do have to pause occasionally to get their ranks realigned in order to feel up to the task. The AI in the turn-based map screen fares much better, and so the computer ultimately seems more adept at civics than it does at combat.

Pathfinding is well above average, mainly because there’s not much to run into on the maps, but the tight doorways of settlements can cause a traffic jam that rivals anything seen on the Los Angeles freeway system. The computer eventually gets itself sorted out, but there are moments during sieges that if someone wanted to start chucking artillery at the settlement doorway, they’d do more than a little damage to your troops.

Rome: Total War has four difficulty settings: easy, medium, hard, and very hard. As a nice feature, map mode and battle mode difficulty settings can be adjusted independently. Moving up the difficulty scale in battle mode increases the strength of your foes, making them harder to take down and harder to scare off. Going from easy to very hard in map mode isn’t as well documented as battle mode, but empirically speaking, enemies are more aggressive about attacking you militarily and diplomatically, and build up their troops more quickly, making everything just that much more challenging.

[Volstag]

Actually, the best buying advice I've ever gotten is from messageboards. Doesn't take much reading to see both the beauty and the warts. It is far more reliable than a review.

Amen. If you want to know what the game is really like, check the message boards. Some reviews are great, of course, but others appear to have been written w/o experiencing the "full" game.

[Slaists]

It's interesting that you atribute sheild bonuses, flanking and elevation bonuses to a mod when in fact they are features of RTW.
Of course modding units stats, as in RTR may very well have increased the noticeablility of these features and added value to them.

I think, the major difference between RTW and RTR, apart from modded unit stats, is the slower kill speed in RTR... which makes flanking achievable and worth doing... As to height advantage: i do not see much difference between RTW and RTR: it's negligible...

[Simetrical]

Posters on message boards are not influenced by advertising income, unlike gamer mags.Your average reviewer doesn't know or care anything about advertising income. It's the execs who do, and except in the shadiest of mags, they aren't going to tell the reviewers to give a good or bad review to a game based on ad revenue. I think you greatly overestimate the corruption of review magazines—most are entirely independent.

In any case, the indisputable problem with reviews is time. An average reviewer, AFAIK, plays the game through once. This isn't enough to formulate an opinion on how well the game will hold up after ten plays through. And if you didn't like RTW the first time through—well, tastes differ, and it's as simple as that. Most people did like RTW their first time.

-Simetrical

[Little Legioner]

In fact without modding vanilla R:TA looking is a 3D war game instead of a strategy game. I think different design teams different design teams made the older series or they decided make a new stage. Unhistoric elements (vanilla egypt proves my point) , lowered reality (jumping horses) and simplified battles (basic frontal attacks without flanking or prepared tactical maneuvers - everybody knows why )some make-up on economic system... Anyway, result did not satisfy the hardcore TW fans.

Just remember guys what was the funniest and realistic core element in any TW game? Epic battles. Frankly, do you love RTW battles?

They made a great financial success and they reached the younger age level but they sacrificed too much things. First victim is they own made serious TW gamers, to us... ~:handball:

RTW is a good game "for me"? I don't think so "but" RTW's potential promises a classic an epic.

Excuse me but many times i pushed myself for play vanilla game. That's my confess. Everytime i missed the old days, so sad but true.

If they want to earn us again they should make very serious job again. It must be beyond a patch or an expansion as a philosophy and structure. I believe miracles. RTW was a miracle but it was a unholy one. If they did a miracle they can do it again. (but a good one ~;) ) There is no obstacle on their way. They have (if we make it simplified) money, experienced team, productive and constructive community and a glorious past...

What are you waiting for? ~:grouphug:

If they did again release time is not a problem money also... I pay easily 100 USD for it. Frankly i swear...

[IceTorque]

For Epic Battles.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=49919

Play a short Grogs campaign,
you will change your mind about the game.

And for the really hardcore,
AI's Revenge mod will be here soon. :bow:

[lanky316]

Relating to the "forums as a buying tool" debate. I think it depends on which forums you are looking at, yeah, some forums may be populated ith 14 year old fps loving kids, who generally don't like to play long hard involving games.

The best sources will be "fan" sites for a game, as the org is a TW fan site I would listen to what people say, personally I don't think RTW is THAT bad, there have been worse games made, but it is definately not wha I was hoping for either.

[Servius]

IMO, no, there aren't any redeaming factors in RTW, or at least, if there are any, they certainly don't compensate for the failings of the game.

I, like most other posters so far, really liked MTW (and still do). Hell, I started a new campaign a few days ago. Personally, I think the only ways RTW is better than MTW is that the diplomatic options have been expanded, but honestly, that's the only improvement I see.

RTW is worse than MTW in many ways. The battlefields are super-bland. They are either devoid of any tactical land features (hills, woods, two-bridge maps, etc.) or there is one land feature that dominates the entire map (like one HUGE hill that runs the entire length of the map). The AI is terrible at almost everything. It makes semi-varied armies, but breaks them up into puny skirmishing units that just run all over the place and it rarely fields a consolidated army, with a general leading it, and sends it to attack a specific target.

They've also added in a lot of stuff under the guise of improved realism that really just makes the game more annoying. You can't build generals anymore, nor can you award titles or anything like that. The number of generals you have is linked to the number of provinces you have, so there's no realism to the family trees, and they die, which is more realistic but I think makes the game more tedious because you always have to be training new ones.

Basically many hardcoded factors in the game push you to constantly expand or die, but other factors (mainly tied to keeping the damn townsfolk happy) constantly works against your expansion. I find I spent the majority of the time micromanaging my cities, building buildings just to keep people happy over and over, rather than fighting battles. And the battles I did fight were skirmishes or sieges, and both were more boring and tedious than epic and fun.

Lastly, I feel a different customer service mentality with CA. Their attitude, I think, has been really crappy. They treat those of us unhappy with their game like jerks, they won't patch the game, even when they know things are broken, because the publisher won't pay for them to make the patches, and many of the things that have made the game worse are said to be hard-coded, so they cannot be improved upon by the modding community. It's just a bad attitude, a bad design job, and a bad support service. Since they seem to care more about money than quality, the only way to get through to them is to keep sales low until they become more responsive. So with that in mind, please don't buy any RTW stuff.

[Coldfish]

First of all...i don`t want to argue with anyone.....BUT,come on ....for those who think RTW is bad....let`s face it.....don`t tell that just because u got bored of RTW...that`s the problem i think...everyone started criticised RTW because they got bored of it.....how come at the beginning almost no one criticised the game.that`s the truth guys.RTW is a great game...and it always be a great game.peace!

[Little Legioner]

RTW is worse than MTW in many ways.

This is the motto of the many TW fans. Still don't understand that how they did RTW such as this bad? They had a great potential and experience for years. They gained many awards and they did a hybrid half TW/3D war game. Really strange. Are they aware from that i really wondering. Are they same people who did MTW and RTW?

Frankly i don't expect nothing beyond night battles (not new :embarassed: ) and swimmable units as a "improvement". They're on the edge. If they don't make a surprise a strong job if they surrender to the clickfester boys.

Amen
R.I.P :bow:

[professorspatula]

that`s the problem i think...everyone started criticised RTW because they got bored of it.....how come at the beginning almost no one criticised the game.that`s the truth guys.RTW is a great game...and it always be a great game.peace!

True to a degree. When a game is fresh, like RTW was, it's often more enjoyable, largely because you aren't expecting all the shortcomings that RTW offers over time. But that said, there were plenty of criticisms at the beginning, but we were mostly more forgiving back then. Sieges and AI were poor - but we believed a few patches or so would fix things nicely. Except they didn't. You'd have to be some kind of masochist to keep talking about a game after so much time if you didn't like it, so it ain't all that bad.

[ChaosLord]

I don't get these people who play M:TW and say they have a harder game then R:TW, both of them are easy. I mean I was brand new to the Total War series when I started M:TW and I was kicking the AI around on hard and expert in just a couple of days. Does noone remember the vast peasant/archer/spearman armies? How easy it was to lure the enemy into traps? How dumb the AI could be at times(I remember in the Almohad PBEM I was in, I killed the Spanish king with arrow fire while he sat there, unable to figure out what to do).

It took mods to get any sort of real challenge beyond the artificially induced mass rebellion trigger. Jihads and Crusades were a joke since 90% of the time they had no good general and would become rout fests. The Mongol hordes just needed you to kill their leader, then keep up mass routs and you could kill/capture 10,000+ in a single battle. Added to all this was the ease of mass hiring mercs to scare the AI into retreating or to use as expendable troops in sieges.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying I didn't like M:TW. I loved it, as I love R:TW. But M:TW was barely and just barely harder then R:TW when it came to battles, and it was brain dead when it came to the strategy map. R:TW like M:TW is slowly getting better as the mods are worked on, mods like R:TR and hopefully EB as well as Senjoku Jidai(sp?) and Zhao Total War in the future. I win a good portion of my battles in R:TR with the same ratios I did in M:TW mods, and often times the battles are harder(fighting phalanx civs with barbarians or such).

Oh and Simon, you should check out the MedMod for M:TW. Although it does focus alot on balancing things it also changes the lineups to be more historical as well as the factions. WesW and the people who have contributed to the mod have done an amazing job on it.


To go back on my statement, i'd like to say I was wrong. I actually need an advantage to get R:TW kill ratios in M:TW, whereas in R:TW it really doesn't matter. I'm actually having hard fought battles and even defeats after going back to M:TW. So it was my bad memory, and perhaps too many heroic victories in R:TW that had convinced me otherwise. After going back to M:TW i've since unistalled R:TW, no reason to go back now until the expansion. Where i'll optimistically hope they'll make the game somewhat challenging.

[screwtype]

First of all...i don`t want to argue with anyone

If you don't want to argue with anyone, you better not post here! :laugh4:


.....BUT....for those who think RTW is bad....that`s the problem i think...everyone started criticised RTW because they got bored of it.....how come at the beginning almost no one criticised the game.that`s the truth guys.RTW is a great game...and it always be a great game.peace!

Sorry old man, but a lot of folks were extremely critical of the game - even BEFORE its release - after they saw the demo. In fact heaps of longtime TW fans never even bothered buying the game, and just walked away...

I *did* buy the game, and was highly critical of it from the get-go. The initial release was so full of severe bugs that after a few days I gave up in frustration. Most of the bugs were eventually ironed out with 1.2, although some substantial ones, like the loadgame bug, the broken group commands, and broken pathfinding in cities still remain.

It was at least playable with 1.2 but that's when I found out about the incredibly lopsided battles and the missing-in-action battle AI. The game was quite frankly a bore and I reconsigned it to the shelf after a few days.

A few months ago I installed the RTR mod and finally managed to squeeze a bit of enjoyment out of it, but it was pretty shortlived as the underlying problems especially with the pitiful battle AI still remain.

I've never really understood the enthusiasm that so many folks had for the game, I can only suppose that most of them are people who never played the earlier games and don't know how much more challenging they were.

[IceTorque]

To go back on my statement, i'd like to say I was wrong. I actually need an advantage to get R:TW kill ratios in M:TW, whereas in R:TW it really doesn't matter. I'm actually having hard fought battles and even defeats after going back to M:TW. So it was my bad memory, and perhaps too many heroic victories in R:TW that had convinced me otherwise. After going back to M:TW i've since unistalled R:TW, no reason to go back now until the expansion. Where i'll optimistically hope they'll make the game somewhat challenging.


You will need to reinstall soon because the AI's Revenge Mod is almost done.
Humans should be very afraid.

Some features.
1.You will experience a level playing field
1.You will have consistently challenging battles the best that you have ever had.
2.you will suffer many defeats. (unless you are Alexander reborn )
3.You will experience a free flowing campaign. With the focus being on battles
and not micro management.
4.This is all possible with simple balancing, no cheats and no tricks.
5. I guarantee you will be humbled by the AI.

e.g. In vanilla you see a seemingly suicide cav charge.

Last night while playtesting I witnessed.
Two cav break from their advancing army and charge towards my frontline, The first cav charged one of my infantry, The second cav made a sharp turn before hitting my line and headed towards the first cav.
the first cav then withdrew forcing my unit to persue, The second cav smashed into the flank of my persuing unit. The first cav then charged again. Timed to perfection.
An obviously deliberate opening gambit.

Just one example of what you can expect. From truly the greatest TW game of all.

[Servius]

@ Little Legionaire: I think I read that the team that made RTW actually began working on it before MTW was done. If that's so, then it's certainly possible that two different teams were working independently on the games, which would help explain why the two are so different.

In general, I think that RTW definitely extended the potential of the game because there are more options in RTW (gameplay-wise, not modding-wise unfortunately), but the AI they built is terrible. So, when you compare AI skill with the potential of the game, the two are much closer in MTW (perhaps mostly because there were fewer variables for the AI to get distracted by) than in RTW.

IMO, CA could do nothing better for their game than to improve the AI, because it's the weakest link in the game overall. The next-best thing I think they could do would be to un-hardcode (if that's even possible) many of the variables in the game so that at least the modding community could make more if not all aspects of the game better. Lastly, cities should be less of a hassle to manage, and battlemaps should be more like MTW maps. Right now the hardest (and most annoying) part of the game is micromanaging the cities.

[Zatoichi]

Is RTW really that bad? No. It's just not as good as some people wanted it to be. I still enjoy playing it warts and all (that's the game's warts, obviously. My own warts are another matter entirely.)

[Little Legioner]

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v241/-[Scorpion]-/battlemap01.jpg

Just look that battlefield and honestly say it to me. Do you like it? and just remember MTW battlefields.

http://www.totalwar.com/community/images/bat10.jpg

http://www.totalwar.com/community/images/bat16.jpg

Put your hand on your heart say it to me which is better?

[KSEG]

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v241/-[Scorpion]-/battlemap01.jpg

Just look that battlefield and honestly say it to me. Do you like it? and just remember MTW battlefields.

http://www.totalwar.com/community/images/bat10.jpg

http://www.totalwar.com/community/images/bat16.jpg

Put your hand on your heart say it to me which is better?

RTW without a doubt.
And is it a deliberate thing that the troop number in RTW shot is fewer and in a forest compared to the MTW one?

[professorspatula]

Those screenshots remind me just how much CA need to work on the battlefield generator. How bland and featureless EVERY single battle is. Add some variation, and forests that aren't pencil thin or sparsely populated with trees. The historical battles have fantastic maps, because someone's put effort in designing them. These generated maps for RTW are boring as hell. Weee... another gently rolling hillside and 4 trees. The tactical options there are endless!

[IceTorque]

Absolutely awfull the terrain texture is.

[ToranagaSama]

Sorry, but I've looked at those screen shots, and to me certain things are evident.

One, the RTW screenshot is pretty lame as far as screenshots go. For a comparison, the shots s/h been on the same SCALE!!!

Though, it really doesn't matter.

The RTW shoot is rather bland and generic, with absolutely NO 'sense of place'. RTW maps have no sense of place.

Shogun maps felt like Japan!

MTW maps have a feeling of Europe! as well as, the deserts of north Africa. The desert felt like the desert, sandstorms felt like sandstorms; Fatigue in the desert felt like, *fatigue* in the desert!!

Granted, the first MTW shot *could* be either Japan or Europe; but the second, with its hedgrows is----Europe.

Overall, the MTW shots, simply are more REAL.

I look at the first MTW shot, and immediately my trained TW mind's-eye starts to, intuitively, determine the advantage I can take from the **elevations**. Immediately, I determine which side of the line I intend to *press* the attack for maximum advantage.

The second, the first thing I notice is that there is less *immediate* elevation advantage, at least for my foot troops. So, my eye goes to where best to place my Archers, and therefore the center of my line. Also, I note that Cav can play a pivotal role (note, I, ToranagaSama play with Hardcore Rules, limiting Cav units to no more than 4, including the General).

In fact, I REMEMER this map! Due to the rather open rolling nature of the terrain, battles tend to be rather losely structured affairs. Discipline is important. If you have your units running willy nilly all over the battlefield the AI will kick your butt.

A most significant thing to note, is the **distance** between the two armies. It is HUGE! Hardcore-type battles on this map tend, in my experience, to be battles of positioning and opening gambits. IMO, this one of those maps where the AI, with even or better troop strength and quality, has a good chance of victory, unless the Player is on top of his game.

I've had many an epic battle on this map.

Now, let's take a look at the RTW map:

My first thought is that as long as the AI isn't on top of that hill, then no problem. The AI, of course, is NOT going to be on top of the hill, we all know that!

So, at best, the AI will have a **slight** downhill advantage, but even that doesn't really matter much in RTW. So, frankly, the terrain doesn't bother me AT ALL!!!

Truly, there is little to no terrain considerations to consider--NADA! Terrain and the use of it will NOT determine this battle, and there's little remotely interesting either tactically or visually.

Now, thinking about this from a technological point of view, perhaps, the tactical and visual pleasures of STW/MTW maps was sacraficed, in order that we have RTW's *Dynamic* maps. Perhaps, but we haven't heard so from the mysterious ones in Britain.

If so, then, OK, one can understand what CA was shooting for. Though, I believe it s/h stayed in development with the game being released with the normal STW/MTW mapping.

[KSEG]

Sorry, but I've looked at those screen shots, and to me certain things are evident.

One, the RTW screenshot is pretty lame as far as screenshots go. For a comparison, the shots s/h been on the same SCALE!!!

Though, it really doesn't matter.

The RTW shoot is rather bland and generic, with absolutely NO 'sense of place'. RTW maps have no sense of place.

Shogun maps felt like Japan!

MTW maps have a feeling of Europe! as well as, the deserts of north Africa. The desert felt like the desert, sandstorms felt like sandstorms; Fatigue in the desert felt like, *fatigue* in the desert!!

Granted, the first MTW shot *could* be either Japan or Europe; but the second, with its hedgrows is----Europe.

Overall, the MTW shots, simply are more REAL.

I look at the first MTW shot, and immediately my trained TW mind's-eye starts to, intuitively, determine the advantage I can take from the **elevations**. Immediately, I determine which side of the line I intend to *press* the attack for maximum advantage.

The second, the first thing I notice is that there is less *immediate* elevation advantage, at least for my foot troops. So, my eye goes to where best to place my Archers, and therefore the center of my line. Also, I note that Cav can play a pivotal role (note, I, ToranagaSama play with Hardcore Rules, limiting Cav units to no more than 4, including the General).

In fact, I REMEMER this map! Due to the rather open rolling nature of the terrain, battles tend to be rather losely structured affairs. Discipline is important. If you have your units running willy nilly all over the battlefield the AI will kick your butt.

A most significant thing to note, is the **distance** between the two armies. It is HUGE! Hardcore-type battles on this map tend, in my experience, to be battles of positioning and opening gambits. IMO, this one of those maps where the AI, with even or better troop strength and quality, has a good chance of victory, unless the Player is on top of his game.

I've had many an epic battle on this map.

Now, let's take a look at the RTW map:

My first thought is that as long as the AI isn't on top of that hill, then no problem. The AI, of course, is NOT going to be on top of the hill, we all know that!

So, at best, the AI will have a **slight** downhill advantage, but even that doesn't really matter much in RTW. So, frankly, the terrain doesn't bother me AT ALL!!!

Truly, there is little to no terrain considerations to consider--NADA! Terrain and the use of it will NOT determine this battle, and there's little remotely interesting either tactically or visually.

Now, thinking about this from a technological point of view, perhaps, the tactical and visual pleasures of STW/MTW maps was sacraficed, in order that we have RTW's *Dynamic* maps. Perhaps, but we haven't heard so from the mysterious ones in Britain.

If so, then, OK, one can understand what CA was shooting for. Though, I believe it s/h stayed in development with the game being released with the normal STW/MTW mapping.

Tell me, why is the RTW one is just a
400 men hiding besides a tree.
and
MTW one is
hundreds of men fighting in a open field?
Don't you smell something deliberate?

[barocca]

Tell me, why is the RTW one is just a
400 men hiding besides a tree.
and
MTW one is
hundreds of men fighting in a open field?
Don't you smell something deliberate?


tell you what, other than ER's battlefield wonders mod (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=50149) (will be downloadable within the next 12 hours)

show me another RTW battlefield with a sense of "place/presence"

i have yet to find one in SP campaign that even begins to make me feel that i am "there"

now go and drool over ER's Battlefield Wonders
:-)
Cheers,
B.

[player1]

Well the thing is that RTW battlefileds are autogenerated from campaign map.

That means that there will always be some sacrifices since some location will just neve be interesting. While MTW are manualy made so higher level of detail on every location is expected.


But, I do like that I can see my ships or wonder of the world in vicinity. Or city in far distance. Or farms that are nearby.

That is the advantage of autogenerated maps.


P.S.
When we are at this, I think there is also one disadvantage of these maps. It's called saving battlefiled replays. I guess they are the reasons why you can't save battle in campaign (since replay engine is just saving troop momement and existing custom map).

[ToranagaSama]

Hmmm....

player1, I think you are the first that I've read that gives a good speculative explanation for why there are no replays. For the first time, I get it. Why CA hasn't explained it, technically, is beyond reason.

I suppose in order to have replays, the auto-generated map would, first, have to be *saved*, but then there'd need to be code similar to MTW made to locate, load, and incorporate the map and the battle specifics into an environment. The RTW engeine doesn't have this capability, since it created to auto-generate maps and incorporte battle specifics. Similar, but Significantly different in methodology.

You'd think that the RTW engine would be capable of detailing and saving map parameters along with battle specifics, incorporating the two and re(-auto-)generating a previously generated map.

You'd a thunkit, but ONLY if you thought it from day one, apparently they didn't; either that or they had HUGE issues in saving, incorporating and/or re-generating, and scraped it prior to release.

Anyway, enought of that!


That means that there will always be some sacrifices since some location will just neve be interesting. While MTW are manualy made so higher level of detail on every location is expected.


But, I do like that I can see my ships or wonder of the world in vicinity. Or city in far distance. Or farms that are nearby.

That is the advantage of autogenerated maps.

Yeah, I get *what* is SUPPOSED to be the advantage.

I ask you, is the supposed advantage a reality, and, is that reality a good trade-off. In comparison, has the Game Atmosphere been enhanced; and/or has Gameplay been been enhanced through *auto-generated* maps?

Sorry, there has to be a value judgment. Let's examine things:

The pre-conceived *value* of "auto-generated" maps would be in bringing greater DEPTH to TW Battles. Is there any other reason? Please articulate. I believe I summed it up.

Presummably, an unpredictable and unfamiliar battlefield will, generally, have a greater *tactical* challenge, again, presumably, as a result of a player unfamiliarity.

A legitmate issue re STW, because it had a smaller Campaign Map equaling fewer provinces, was that for a Player who played alot (note to CA: these people were the Hardcore!!!), battles soon became somewhat predictable as one tended to use the same or similar tactics on specific STW maps.

While STW maps are the most **tactically** challenging of ALL the TW maps, there is a limited number of them; and, once you've mastered the terrain, tactically, then predictability sets in.

To a similar, thouse substantially less degree, the same can be said of MTW. Though, if a Player plays enough, the same may, eventually, be specifically the same. Again, CA, these players are the HARDCORE!

[Why are you ignoring the Hardcore, now?]

So, CA, the great and innovative folks that they are, listened and came up with a solution---auto-generation. Ingenious and the right solution----simply NOT the **right-now** solution. Get it?

"Right-now" solutions, are those that provide a BETTER gameplay experience.

Is auto-generation *better* technology than non-auto-generated maps? Hell yes!!!

But, does auto-generated maps provide a better gameplay experience as yet? Sorry, NO.

ATMOSPHERE. ATMOSPHERE. ATMOSPHERE. ATMOSPHERE. ATMOSPHERE.

Since the announcement of the original Shogun: Total War, atmosphere has been an integral and definning feature of Total War. Crap, the ORIGINAL *Shogun* promotional site had more "atmosphere" than Rome: Total War (possibly excepting the Campaign Map, possibly not). This is Truth; and ONLY the ***true*** Veterans can know (or judge), as the original site, just before or just after the Shogun release the site was revamped to what exist now.

Shogun was ALL about atmosphere! The Creative Assembly went to great lengths to create and ensure a VERY certain level of (?) Atmospherics.... To an extent exceeding the development effort, in this respect, of ANY of game ever made before or since.

An extreme effort deserving of extreme respect and admiration.

Unless one has viewed the original site, and played Shogun you just don't know.

Things started going downhill with MTW. Much of the Atmospherics was dispensed with. Yet the detailed Maps were not.

I want to *feel* like a Damiyo in Japan.
I want to *feel* like a Medieval Lord.
I want to *feel* like a Roman General.

In order to *feel*, extreme Atmospherics are necessary.

In this regard, any *value* judgment in consideration of a Total War game, must succumb to the primacy of Atmospherics. Atmospherics are crucial to Gameplay, and Gameplay and Atmospherics are EQUAL. Neither should succumb to the other (other areas of the game can be sacraficed.

[The above s/b incorporated into the Mission Statement.]

As I've said the *Technology* is great! Kudos to those deserving.

Yet, in the overal scheme of the game, Technology should NEVER have supremecy over Gameplay and Atmospherics.

The auto-generation technology, at its present stage of development, does NOT enhance either Gameplay, nor Atmospherics.

The non-auto-generated maps are superior in both Atmospherics (visuals) and Gameplay (terrain).

Additionally, the fact that the technology does not, as yet, allow for ***Replays*** is a non-starter. No need to expand upon this much further, as CA has admitted their error in comprehending the value of the Replay feature.

The one thing I will say, is that Developers are Gamers, but, Developers aren't ***Players****. The time and effort that Developers put into Developing is equal and equivalent to that which *Players* put into Playing. Players could NEVER be developers and Developers could NEVER be Players. They are both Gamers!

This is WHY, we, the Hardcore, need to be CONSULTED and LISTENED too!

We know what *you* don't, just as you know what *we* don't. [Like why the heck we can't have MP Campaigns!! joking, joking....]

If Technology doesn't meet the Mission Statement criteria, it shouldn't make it into the game; and if the *Players* tell you that the Technology doesn't meet the, needs, wants and/or desires to the extent necessary, then the Mission Statement needs to be revamped---or, a new adherence applied.

I have absolutely no doubt that auto-generated maps will eventually meet and exceed previous standards of both Atmospherics and Gameplay. Just gimme back the original map styles until such time, thank you.

TS

BTW, Wonders and other eye-candy can never be a trade-off for Gameplay.

---

Oh yeah,


Tell me, why is the RTW one is just a
400 men hiding besides a tree.
and
MTW one is
hundreds of men fighting in a open field?
Don't you smell something deliberate?

Show me how it matters?

I wasn't looking at the *men* on-the-field, I was looking at THE FIELD!

---

P.S., to ANYONE who thinks *I* am looking through Rose-colored, think AGAIN! Proof is in the Maps, and beyond that, time will tell.

Who knows better, a Player who's invested his personal time in the game PLAYING; or, the Engineer who's spent his business time Engineering?

IMUHO, the Total War Mission Statement should incorporate the Tenets of the Hippocratic Oath-----you know, generally, "do no harm". Here is the last line:


If I fulfill this Oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot.

:bow:

---

Oh well, I understand Chris Taylor is back in the game, so the RTS competition has been--stepped up. Thank goodness.

~D

[edyzmedieval]

RTW is quite bad in my opinion.....

RTW is no longer Total War....

The Medieval times were a complete bloodhshed...Ruthless rulers assembled their huge armies and fought on the battlefield..... Thousands of men died.... This is Total War!!!! This is the true meaning of this game series!!!!

[Marcellus]

The Medieval times were a complete bloodhshed

And the Roman times weren't? Caesar killed a million Gauls in his conquests!

[Slyspy]

Yes but in RTW you don't get the struggle for territory seen in S/MTW but a mere slow slog around the map. The major problems are the pathetically slow movement rate (presumably the turn-based game is the limiting factor here) and an AI that is incapable of playing its own game. The AI was week in MTW (the scissors-paper-stone mechanic was weakened by the unit variety) but it really does appear to be the same AI code in RTW. This can be the only reason why it cannot follow the rules of its own game. Coupled with the diminished importance and effect of elevation and fatigue (try assaulting a hill top army in North Africa in both games and tell me which models the heat etc better) and tactic become unimportant. I stopped playing RTW when I realised I spent more time chasing routers then fighting. Mods bravely attempt to redress the balance, but the underlying flaws are still there. If I could return my copy of RTW then I would.

[Marcellus]

The major problems are the pathetically slow movement rate...

I'd agree with you there. Armies move around far too slowly.

But I still think that RTW is a pretty decent game, depite some of its flaws.

[hoom]

Regarding the auto generated maps.

I agree that the manually created maps for Shogun were very good & RTW maps are plain, tactically dull & generally uninspiring.
The 1.2 maps are somewhat better I think.
No replays is a bad loss.

But there is some advantage to the autogeneration though; 10,000 different maps on just the base game + the ability to make some comparitively minor alterations to text & graphic files to create a brand new strategy map with a completely different geographical focus.

If 1.2 showed progress & BI/2.0(?) goes further then the future could be bright, particularly since the modders have discovered the ability to place custom tiles within an otherwise auto-generated map.

Come to think of it, clever/well resourced modders should be able to craft good manual maps for certain chokepoints where battles can be expected to occur fairly often & specific areas of note as well as important cities & have them integrate with the autogeneration.
Hopefully we'll get there before China:TW or whatever full sequel comes out...

[edit]
You will need to reinstall soon because the AI's Revenge Mod is almost done. Need linkage! :jawdrop:

BTW, I saw something about BI having a new savegame format & really hope that means AI state + map randomness will be stored for savegame continuity & campiagn gam. replays :balloon2:

[HarunTaiwan]

Oh man, those MTW screenshots make me want to go play MTW again.

[barocca]

a little confused i am
(having just fixed the battle wonders download - it had a tile missing - ER emailed me detailed instructions on how to make the missing tile, he is away from his own pc for a few days - new version is 30 mins more to finish upload)

anyway that was my first foray into editing maps in rome and something does not add up

the map/tile i edited was centered on a specific co-ordinate on the campaign map

i "made" the map/tile 3 time to ensure i had put the model exactly where ER wanted it to be

and each time the map was the same
the trees and hillocks in the same places...

NOW
battle replays
dont we fight our campaign battles on a specific co-ordinate on the campaign map?
therefore could not the co-ordinate be included in the "campaign battle replay"?
as long as the "viewer" has the same modded/unmodded campaign map the battle should be on the same ground


where is my theory wrong?

[Duke John]

barocca
A custom tile has all the geography saved in a (3MB) file. As a result everything is the same time after time.

Non-custom tiles (the ones who are generated from the campaign map) have changes since the engine uses random modifiers/fractal noise/tolerance ranges to calcalute the geography of the land. As a result the tile will be different the next you play it, although the geography on a large scale will look mostly similar.

A possible solution for CA might be to save the tile upon which the campaing/mp/custom battle took place. The replay can then use the geography of the saved non-custom tile to make sure that the geopgraphy is the same as in the original battle. The downside is that replays will be 3MB more, but I guess that is a price most are wiling to pay.

[barocca]

....... the engine uses random modifiers/fractal noise/tolerance ranges to calcalute the geography of the land. As a result the tile will be different the next you play it, although the geography on a large scale will look mostly similar......oki, so these are numbers right?
the numbers are used by the engine to calculate the difference between what has occured in campaign against the base tile and generate an adjusted map

SO
since they are numbers, set values upon which the engine calculates changes,
then
simply save these values (random modifiers/fractal noise/tolerance ranges)
just like seed values in civ maps

B.

[Duke John]

Well, that was what I try to say in my 3rd paragraph :uneasy:

[player1]

One thing to remmber is that autogenerated maps keep track of things like nearby ships, or what buildings exists in some city.

Just having basic map is not enough.

[CBR]

AFAIK its possible to use all the maps in MP by just adding the coordinates to a txt file and the replays for it work too. So replays for campaign battles shouldnt have been that difficult to implement. It appears CA was surprised that people wanted replays ~:confused:


CBR

[Crazed Rabbit]

If you want to see good auto-gen'ed battles, check out Mount and Blade (http://www.taleworlds.com). CA should've made an auto-gen like that were the basic parameters of the map would be set (elevation of the four corners of the map, slope, hillyness, etc. then generated a unique map, so we could actually have some real terrain. The M&B one was designed by one guy, and the maps (still in beta!) are a lot better.

Crazed Rabbit

[sunsmountain]

It's interesting that you atribute sheild bonuses, flanking and elevation bonuses to a mod when in fact they are features of RTW.
Of course modding units stats, as in RTR may very well have increased the noticeablility of these features and added value to them.

Hey Intrepid Sidekick, glad you could join the discussion. Perhaps now, 1 year after release, somebody from CA would care to comment on:

- do you feel that all these ideas present in Rome: Total War would have been better justified with a non-deadline, non-hyped game?
- does creating a mood, a flavour, within a game, take time?
- once you have a lot of new ideas, dont you need time, instead of yet another preview/interview or a new idea?
- tell us hardcore fans what went wrong... c'mon you know we still love you.

Perhaps rephrasing:
- When you tried to set the balance the first time (with which some players disagree now), that was of course well intended, but was it rushed in any way?

Never mind you already answered it here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=721437#post721437

Oh, and to reply to the discussion: Hand on my heart, Rome looks better than MTW. But MTW feels more like a game, whereas RomeTW feels like a lot of new ideas & hype, and a bit of a game as well...

On a different note, are you excited about the possibilities Windows Graphics Foundation has in store? How will unified shaders benefit (rome) Total War? Does this mean dragons ~:) ?

[Productivity]

First of all...i don`t want to argue with anyone.....BUT,come on ....for those who think RTW is bad....let`s face it.....don`t tell that just because u got bored of RTW...that`s the problem i think...everyone started criticised RTW because they got bored of it.....how come at the beginning almost no one criticised the game.that`s the truth guys.RTW is a great game...and it always be a great game.peace!

You don't get bored of great games. You get bored of weak games. I am bored of R:TW. I am not bored of M:TW. One has been out a year, one has been out for four years. You work out which is the weak game.

[Krauser]

See I don't think its that bad because I don't get enough time to play it. 2-3 hours a day is the most time I ever get for games and that's split between multiple games so I never really get a chance to get bored of it hehe.

[Carth]

Reading this thread makes me sad, and think I should uninstall it after starting to play it :(

It isn't that bad, it's still a good game, you're just comparing it to a better one. Credit to CA for making games that are so hard to beat.

[Marcellus]

Credit to CA for making games that are so hard to beat

My sentiments precisely

[CMcMahon]

It's not so much that it's hard to beat, it's just that it takes forever to control the entire map. Getting 15 provinces with any province isn't very hard, and getting 50 is only a matter of time.

[Mr.Giggles]

I have been playing RTW for about 2 months now and I think by far its one of the best strategy games I've ever played mainly because theres actually strategy involved much more than people make it out for. I mean when you think about it most real time strategy games are just build up armies then send them to die (COUGH warcraft 3 COUGH). Even Command and COnquer is just a mass and kill game with some strategy involved by what unit to kill first and how to kill it.

So basically if you like the Total War series... get it and check it out besides they are coming out with the Barbarian invasion(an invasion? boy sounds familiar) expansion.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Originally Posted by Coldfish
First of all...i don`t want to argue with anyone.....BUT,come on ....for those who think RTW is bad....let`s face it.....don`t tell that just because u got bored of RTW...that`s the problem i think...everyone started criticised RTW because they got bored of it.....how come at the beginning almost no one criticised the game.that`s the truth guys.RTW is a great game...and it always be a great game.peace!

Your kidding right? ~:confused: Many of us veterans complained from the day we bought it. I didnt even keep it a week so you can hardly say I got bored of it. Maybe you didnt hear the critisism but those of us who stayed with VI and MTW sure had plenty ot say about its short comings. Im still in no rush to buy it again after reading this thread.

[Krauser]

I have been playing RTW for about 2 months now and I think by far its one of the best strategy games I've ever played mainly because theres actually strategy involved much more than people make it out for. I mean when you think about it most real time strategy games are just build up armies then send them to die (COUGH warcraft 3 COUGH). Even Command and COnquer is just a mass and kill game with some strategy involved by what unit to kill first and how to kill it.

So basically if you like the Total War series... get it and check it out besides they are coming out with the Barbarian invasion(an invasion? boy sounds familiar) expansion.

I think Warcraft III has a good amount of strategy in it. In RTW the AI is so bad you can train one unit and take on full armies without much trouble. Try to do that in Warcraft III, it won't work. Your force has to be a mix of units. Even in battle, you have to be quick about which special skills you want your units to use and make sure to target them right. When it comes to playing with the pros this "micromanaging" means all the difference.

RTW is more realistic than War3 so maybe you could say it has more realistic strategy but as far as the number of ways to go about a battle, War3 wins by far.

[Carth]

It's not so much that it's hard to beat, it's just that it takes forever to control the entire map. Getting 15 provinces with any province isn't very hard, and getting 50 is only a matter of time.
That's not what I meant lol. I was referring to RTW not being worse than MTW and hence NOT "beating" it. Credit to CA for STW and MTW being so good that it was hard to make a game better than them...

[Carth]

Damn I can't edit my post? I had one too many nots in there, should read "I was referring to RTW being worse".

[CMcMahon]

I think Warcraft III has a good amount of strategy in it. In RTW the AI is so bad you can train one unit and take on full armies without much trouble. Try to do that in Warcraft III, it won't work. Your force has to be a mix of units. Even in battle, you have to be quick about which special skills you want your units to use and make sure to target them right. When it comes to playing with the pros this "micromanaging" means all the difference.

RTW is more realistic than War3 so maybe you could say it has more realistic strategy but as far as the number of ways to go about a battle, War3 wins by far.

Strategy in Warcraft 3 (or Starcraft, or CnC, or any game like that) is a lot different though, because of the way the game is setup. Terrain makes a bit of a difference, but it's not a real case of who holds what ground or who's defending or whatnot, it's more of a case of who can click on what unit fast enough to kill their superunit(s) faster and then force him to react to you. In RTW, you can setup ambushes on a tactical scale, by hiding in trees or behind hills where the enemy can't see you, come around from behind and nail them, or divide their troops. It's rare that you see things like that in a traditional RTS, just because of the way the levels are setup.

[LestaT]

1. Is there anyone who plays to lose ? I pity them. :duel:

2. Isn't ancient battles are fought on flat terrain because of logistic in
moving large armies basically on foot ?

3. It's just me but I feel like 'Man of the hour' thing is better than simply be
able to appoint Generals according to own feels. I never appoint peasants
as generals in MTW eventhough they somehow were 'born' with 5-6 stars.

4. RTW maps simply better than MTW in term of realism. Well in MTM you
can't simply surprise your opponent right ? :charge:
With the chess board borderline you can always see there's a large stack
of forces (enemy or alies) next to you. Not like RTW if they're in ambush.

5. My personal experience : I have almost same ratio of battlefield and siege
battles. At least in RTW I can choose my battleground.

6. In RTW all are pagans so I don't feel 'miserable' if I'm sending crusades to
Moslem factions while playing as Catholics. ~:cheers:

7. The only thing I feel I like MTW better is that certain units can be built
after certain period has come.

8. I don't mind fantasy units. Haven't you guys paly starcraft ?

~:handball:

[Krauser]

Strategy in Warcraft 3 (or Starcraft, or CnC, or any game like that) is a lot different though, because of the way the game is setup. Terrain makes a bit of a difference, but it's not a real case of who holds what ground or who's defending or whatnot, it's more of a case of who can click on what unit fast enough to kill their superunit(s) faster and then force him to react to you. In RTW, you can setup ambushes on a tactical scale, by hiding in trees or behind hills where the enemy can't see you, come around from behind and nail them, or divide their troops. It's rare that you see things like that in a traditional RTS, just because of the way the levels are setup.

Yeah, but I think War3 requires more of a mix in armies than RTW. There are units in RTW that are strong enough to take on an army by themselves. This comes back to the bad AI. If the AI was really good I think there would be a need for a good mix of units but right now you could just build a bunch of heavy infantry and last easily. I think War3 is more strategic because there are more different types of units and you are forced to have a mix because there is no 'one' unit that can take everything. I agree that RTW is a different kind of strategy. The terrain makes a pretty big difference in RTW but not much at all in War3. As far as units go though, War3 has many different kinds of units each having a few special abilities to think about plus resources are harder to get so there are more factors to think about. Save up for a more powerful unit but possibly be caught off guard or churn out cheap units that die quickly. Through the course of the game one also needs to consider when to upgrade to that more powerful unit lest you get behind technology wise.

Back to the point, he was saying that War3 has almost no strategy. I disagree with this. I believe, if anything, they have equal strategy. RTW has more realistic strategy. How to manuver troops and where to place them. When to charge and when to stay back. War3 just has a lot of varied units where the strengths of each need to be used in order to be successful. Terrain and placement of troops doesn't matter much but there are so many different kinds of units and abilities that a lot of attention is needed to see what units the enemy has, what units would be best to counter them, and how to use those units best in combat(when to use their abilities).

Sorry for long post hehe

[CMcMahon]

That's mainly true, but you have the same problem with a lack of variety in WC3. Let's see, once you get her fully upgraded, and get your archers fully upgraded, you can use just a Priestess of the Moon and a sh1tload of Night Elf archers and wipe out just about anything. The same goes with tons of (semi-)upgraded wyverns for the Orcs.

Now that I think about it, pretty much the only time I ever really used tactics in WC3 was with massed wyvern attacks. Fly in from behind, take out as many people as I can, go to my healers that are in a corner somewhere, heal up, rinse, and repeat. With everything else, it's was always a matter of trying to keep ranged weapons at bay until the enemy infantry is dead.

[Norxis]

Look, I'm of the opinion that RTW is still the best of all three games. Graphics aside, many of the features of the game make it significantly better than MTW. I haven't been at the forum for that long, but there was still problems/faults with MTW too! Some annoying/strange things about MTW that in my humble opinion are better in RTW are:

1) arbitrary allocation of vices/virtues - ie, the coward one! Its not that cowardly in my opinion for your general who's army is getting annihilated and has fought to the extent that he's had chevrons increase to retreat, but the moment your general retreats in that game - bang! he's a coward! ANNOYING!
2) one little thing which I'm sure some other people did once or twice in MTW was the naval systems assisted conquest of the eastern world - in one turn!! It was quite easy to build up a massive military force and after destroying every muslim ship in the mediterranean conquer the entire north coast of africa, the middle east and turkey - IN ONE TURN!!!!!!!!!! not that easy in RTW thanks to the better naval system (and don't complain about, boo-hoo, it takes me several turns to get a fleet from england to antioch - deal with it) better than conquering the east in one foul swoop!
3) no diplomacy, whatsoever, and diplomacy didn't mean a damn thing - sure RTW isn't the best, but its still better than MTW, at least you can get squeeze money out of defeated enemies.
4) the whole annoying marriage issue in MTW, either get your heir a foreign princess (which wasn't possible once your powerful), or have the rest of your royal family ever after as drunks, fools and/or inbred!
5) the slow cumbersome battles.
6) not being able to deploy your own troops in attack.
7) sieges being so boring/useless that you autoresolve every single one of them.
8) on characters again, even though you get command stars a little too easy in RTW, at least you can develop someone from 0 stars to 10 stars, not that easy in MTW (unless you owned constantinople).
9) hardly any faction diversity in MTW, especially with the catholics!
10) little things we all exploited like the early period turkish ransoming of the egyptian sultan...... several times.......

As someone who only plays computer games relatively rarely, RTW does offer a challenge (if any computer game is ever reaaaaallllyyyyy challenging.....). As other people here have said, the publishers are making their games for people like me, not the hardcores who have played the TW series far to much and know exactly what nooks and crannies to exploit to make the game easier. In my opinon, if you want a challenge, go and climb mount everest or write a book or whatever, if you want a bit of simple fun, play a computer game, like the noble and fun RTW! so rome total war, is it that bad: I think not! ~D

[Colovion]

Look, I'm of the opinion that RTW is still the best of all three games. Graphics aside, many of the features of the game make it significantly better than MTW. I haven't been at the forum for that long, but there was still problems/faults with MTW too! Some annoying/strange things about MTW that in my humble opinion are better in RTW are:

1) arbitrary allocation of vices/virtues - ie, the coward one! Its not that cowardly in my opinion for your general who's army is getting annihilated and has fought to the extent that he's had chevrons increase to retreat, but the moment your general retreats in that game - bang! he's a coward! ANNOYING!
2) one little thing which I'm sure some other people did once or twice in MTW was the naval systems assisted conquest of the eastern world - in one turn!! It was quite easy to build up a massive military force and after destroying every muslim ship in the mediterranean conquer the entire north coast of africa, the middle east and turkey - IN ONE TURN!!!!!!!!!! not that easy in RTW thanks to the better naval system (and don't complain about, boo-hoo, it takes me several turns to get a fleet from england to antioch - deal with it) better than conquering the east in one foul swoop!
3) no diplomacy, whatsoever, and diplomacy didn't mean a damn thing - sure RTW isn't the best, but its still better than MTW, at least you can get squeeze money out of defeated enemies.
4) the whole annoying marriage issue in MTW, either get your heir a foreign princess (which wasn't possible once your powerful), or have the rest of your royal family ever after as drunks, fools and/or inbred!
5) the slow cumbersome battles.
6) not being able to deploy your own troops in attack.
7) sieges being so boring/useless that you autoresolve every single one of them.
8) on characters again, even though you get command stars a little too easy in RTW, at least you can develop someone from 0 stars to 10 stars, not that easy in MTW (unless you owned constantinople).
9) hardly any faction diversity in MTW, especially with the catholics!
10) little things we all exploited like the early period turkish ransoming of the egyptian sultan...... several times.......

As someone who only plays computer games relatively rarely, RTW does offer a challenge (if any computer game is ever reaaaaallllyyyyy challenging.....). As other people here have said, the publishers are making their games for people like me, not the hardcores who have played the TW series far to much and know exactly what nooks and crannies to exploit to make the game easier. In my opinon, if you want a challenge, go and climb mount everest or write a book or whatever, if you want a bit of simple fun, play a computer game, like the noble and fun RTW! so rome total war, is it that bad: I think not! ~D

It's interesting to see a post that solely justifies the current game's backsteps and shortcomings by pointing towards supposed past problems. ~:handball:

"...remove the plank from thine own eye...."

[Norxis]

As opposed to other people who nit-pick about every fault (no matter how minor) of the game after spending seemingly endless hours of research into the different aspects of the game! Only to then spend further hours expressing their extreme distaste to this game on a rome:total war forum. my advice to all the people that think RTW is REALLY that bad - play tennis, now thats fun and it gets you out into the fresh air!

[Enjoi_BlackHawk]

I rember fondly playing M:TW as the italians and do a "neo-roman empire" (that and i can get rid of the papacy quick) but the risk board just isnt as fun as the board is know in R:TW i rember in syria my huge twothousand (or was it twenty thousand?) army attacking the Muslim army (forgot the faction names) and had them flanked well when battle commenced we all fought head on, resulting in this huge running battle (all generals killed do to stupidity) and units that wouldnt stop pursuing, only to get whacked at the other end.....at least in R:TW you can flank armies on the board...

[Colovion]

As opposed to other people who nit-pick about every fault (no matter how minor) of the game after spending seemingly endless hours of research into the different aspects of the game! Only to then spend further hours expressing their extreme distaste to this game on a rome:total war forum. my advice to all the people that think RTW is REALLY that bad - play tennis, now thats fun and it gets you out into the fresh air!

Haha. You're describing yourself in context with MTW. It's been said; the fact remains that when MTW was hacked by critics - how many people ceased playing the title? Not many. RTW? Take a look at the history of the community and you'll be in for a severe reality check. And no, I don't play RTW, thankyouverymuch - haven't for months.

[Gaius Magnus]

I don't get these people who play M:TW and say they have a harder game then R:TW, both of them are easy. I mean I was brand new to the Total War series when I started M:TW and I was kicking the AI around on hard and expert in just a couple of days. Does noone remember the vast peasant/archer/spearman armies? How easy it was to lure the enemy into traps? How dumb the AI could be at times(I remember in the Almohad PBEM I was in, I killed the Spanish king with arrow fire while he sat there, unable to figure out what to do).

It took mods to get any sort of real challenge beyond the artificially induced mass rebellion trigger. Jihads and Crusades were a joke since 90% of the time they had no good general and would become rout fests. The Mongol hordes just needed you to kill their leader, then keep up mass routs and you could kill/capture 10,000+ in a single battle. Added to all this was the ease of mass hiring mercs to scare the AI into retreating or to use as expendable troops in sieges.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying I didn't like M:TW. I loved it, as I love R:TW. But M:TW was barely and just barely harder then R:TW when it came to battles, and it was brain dead when it came to the strategy map. R:TW like M:TW is slowly getting better as the mods are worked on, mods like R:TR and hopefully EB as well as Senjoku Jidai(sp?) and Zhao Total War in the future. I win a good portion of my battles in R:TR with the same ratios I did in M:TW mods, and often times the battles are harder(fighting phalanx civs with barbarians or such).

Oh and Simon, you should check out the MedMod for M:TW. Although it does focus alot on balancing things it also changes the lineups to be more historical as well as the factions. WesW and the people who have contributed to the mod have done an amazing job on it.

I agree wholeheartedly.

I played STW and MTW before playing RTW.

I vividly remember the problems of the AI in MTW, such as reshuffling their stack right as I approached, or sitting just out of their range with Pavise Arbalesters, causing them to run back and forth in a small area until they were exhaused. I remember defeating the Mongols with a fraction of their strength even though they just showed up one turn with multiple stacks in each of my Eastern provinces. Oh, and the ever popular 'MTW Parade' where the AI would send units in a long string one-at-a-time.

Oh yes, and I also remember the Peasant Armies. Wow, those were challenging. ~:handball:

I just don't understand the desire to return to the boardgame style map. That's what Risk and checkers are for.

I think RTW is a great game and I will continue to play it. (I also enjoyed STW and MTW) I have now begun playing RTR 6.0 and it is a great mod.

I really don't understand why some people spend so much time on an RTW forum complaining about a game that they don't like. ~:confused:

[kongxinga]

Boy am I glad that I was right about sitting this incarnation of TW out. It seems most of the vets found the game dissappointing. The demo raised enough doubts for me to wait before purchasing, and after the game was released the fact it got high reviews from gaming sites, and complaints from hard core players just set off more warning bells ringing. When has a serious wargame ever gotten good marks from a mainstream review site? The large number of complaints after so many months is probably enough for me to pass a verdict on this game, although I might pick up the bundled pack in the end if BI fixes the complaints.

Oh and to the original poster. If you found Roman, Ancient Egyptian and Ancient Asian (that's a word I loathe. Asia is too big a place to generalize) history boring and not worth your time, that is most likely due to you not having studied them deeply enough. It is also better not to disparage other people's history, as some people may take offence.

I might have to migrate to Legion Arena and Legion 2 by Slitherine. The funny thing is that there is already a lot of TW vets there already. Now if these low budget games get better gameplay then RTW ......

This is a perfect example of the stagnation, leadership and coordination problems of larger corporations. For example, if IBM was not that closeminded, there will really be no Bill Gates today (may be good or bad according to your POV).

[Slyspy]

The attraction of the Risk-style map is that the AI actually functions on it. The free space of the RTW map merely highlights the AI's weaknesses.

I too remember those aspects of MTW. In fact I was astonished to find many of the same problems (features?) in RTW as well. That is why I consider the uncluttered simplicity of STW to be superior to both the sequels.

The AI has barely changed since STW while the game itself has changed a fair bit, and that is why RTW is flawed and a waste of potential.

RTW is no longer on my hard drive.

[Silver Rusher]

I think that whilst the AI is quite bad, the advent of mods for the game will bring more and more replay value every time one comes out. EB looks like it will be a treat for us, doesn't it?

The way to enjoy RTW is to use your imagination. Imagine being some Macedonian general, and attempt to recreate the Macedonian empire to its fullest. Once you star using your imagination and stop playing the game for the sake of completing it in the smallest time, it will become a fun and enjoyable game.

[FURRY_BOOTS]

I think that whilst the AI is quite bad, the advent of mods for the game will bring more and more replay value every time one comes out. EB looks like it will be a treat for us, doesn't it?

The way to enjoy RTW is to use your imagination. Imagine being some Macedonian general, and attempt to recreate the Macedonian empire to its fullest. Once you star using your imagination and stop playing the game for the sake of completing it in the smallest time, it will become a fun and enjoyable game.

Deffo!!! i role play this game as much as i can, abiding by certain rules you give yourself, ie, 1 general per army, slows the game down & makes it harder, im actually enjoying this game again, with the aid of rtr 6(gj guys)

[VikingOfThule]

I used to be addicted to MTW when my cousin bought it. I fell in love with it and being that he was borderline retarded I got to play it most the time. The megalomania, the sheer scale and depth of the game had me hooked. I had very high expectations for Rome, and they were greatly surpassed. I cannot play MTW anymore no matter how hard I try because RTW made it obsolete. Wonderful game.

[JR-]

For me Rome is just not as addictive as medieval was and is. When i first played Shogun and then medieval i just couldn't leave the computer but Rome just didn't have the magic for me.
agreed.

[Puzz3D]

The way to enjoy RTW is to use your imagination. Imagine being some Macedonian general, and attempt to recreate the Macedonian empire to its fullest. Once you star using your imagination and stop playing the game for the sake of completing it in the smallest time, it will become a fun and enjoyable game.
I agree, but there's a problem because my suspension of disbief is shattered as soon as the battlelines meet. I'm immediately thrown back in front of a keyboard looking at an unbelievable sequence of events as the battle unfolds. At this point, RTW screems at me from the screen, "I'm only a silly game!". The goofball antics happening on the screen seem out of place because I don't play the game to get comedy relief. I've read interviews given by CA where they joke about the comical, unrealistic elements in the game as though they are great features.

[LittleRaven]

Rome: Total War is easily one of the best games to hit the market in the last two years. A little perspective is in order here.

No, it will not make you coffee and massage your feet. Obviously there is room for improvement. But to call it anything less than a fantastic achievement is simply ludicrous.

It's not the best game of all time. Whether it's the best game of the TW series probably depends on your taste. In many ways, it completely blows its predecessors away. However, it's also much more complex than Shogun or Medieval, and that does make the shortcomings of the AI, which has always been the weakest part of the TW series, even more obvious. It has it's share of bugs and quirks, though that was true of all the old ones as well. It's also pushed the TW series into really cool territory that's never been seen before. After Shogun, I thought the castle sieges in Medieval were great. Rome has made all that obsolete in a moment. I can't wait to see where things go from here.

All things considered, you'd have to be crazy to miss out on this game. Not only do you get the vanilla game, which is a pretty phenomenal value for $50, but you get access to more mods and skins and units than you can shake a stick at. CA deserves massive kudos and money for the bang up job they did on this game, and polite reminders of the things they still need to fix. After all, we all want them to make more. ~;)

[Crusader4thepeople]

Rome: Total War is easily one of the best games to hit the market in the last two years. A little perspective is in order here.

No, it will not make you coffee and massage your feet. Obviously there is room for improvement. But to call it anything less than a fantastic achievement is simply ludicrous.

It's not the best game of all time. Whether it's the best game of the TW series probably depends on your taste. In many ways, it completely blows its predecessors away. However, it's also much more complex than Shogun or Medieval, and that does make the shortcomings of the AI, which has always been the weakest part of the TW series, even more obvious. It has it's share of bugs and quirks, though that was true of all the old ones as well. It's also pushed the TW series into really cool territory that's never been seen before. After Shogun, I thought the castle sieges in Medieval were great. Rome has made all that obsolete in a moment. I can't wait to see where things go from here.

All things considered, you'd have to be crazy to miss out on this game. Not only do you get the vanilla game, which is a pretty phenomenal value for $50, but you get access to more mods and skins and units than you can shake a stick at. CA deserves massive kudos and money for the bang up job they did on this game, and polite reminders of the things they still need to fix. After all, we all want them to make more. ~;)

I agree completely. Id played Medieval for a long time and was considering getting rome but was reading so much bad stuff about it. but i gave it ago and it blew me away. Seriously dudes put everything into perspective, rome is a brilliant game, and the variation of mods just blew me away. Ok the AI is worse than in Medieval Total War but so what. The beuty of the game blew me away and the shere effort put in by creative assembly is awesome. I mean you can look at your settlement on the map, your army is placed where it would be on the campaign map, the campaign map is in sync with the battle map ( i.e forests, bridges) and you can use the campaign map to your advantage. The sieges are awesome, you can use ladders rams and siege towers without a special unit for it. I dont care if one unit ever existed, the TW series has taught me more about history then most of my complete book collection.

So please put it into perspective dudes it might not be perfect, but its an awesome game

[Red Harvest]

Rome: Total War is easily one of the best games to hit the market in the last two years. A little perspective is in order here.


I disagree. It's not the sort of game that I will go back and play for kicks/immersion. It is not a game that hooks most of us (historical/strategy gamers--NOT RTS.) It isn't a challenge on the battlefield. The other TW series games are better.

[Doug-Thompson]

I'm just a fool for almost any game with horse archers in it.

But seriously, folks, the strategic game's movement system and other features are a marvel. I look at R:TW as a very good game that clearly within reach of becoming a great one — which makes its shortcomings harder for many folks to take.

The bad word of mouth from the hard-core base and the massive modding done on the game are sending clear signals to CA. If anything, I think the criticism is much too harsh. I'm going to give Barbarian Invasions a whirl.

How can I not love a game with Huns? (See first sentence.)

If BI messes the Huns up, I'll get the mod.

[LittleRaven]

I disagree. It's not the sort of game that I will go back and play for kicks/immersion. It is not a game that hooks most of us (historical/strategy gamers--NOT RTS.) It isn't a challenge on the battlefield. The other TW series games are better.Maybe. But even if you believe that, Medieval was released in 2002. Shogun in 2000. What games were released in the past two years that were better than Rome? Are you seriously going to maintain that it's not one of the best games since 2003?

I can appreciate that you don't like it as much as its predecessors. I agree that in some ways it is weaker. (I don't think the AI is actually worse, but the system is more complex, so it seems worse.) But the game has its strengths as well. It's a very promising start for a new engine and I'm very hopeful about where the series could go from here. And at $50, it's still a heck of good entertainment value.

[LittleRaven]

But seriously, folks, the strategic game's movement system and other features are a marvel. I look at R:TW as a very good game that clearly within reach of becoming a great one — which makes its shortcomings harder for many folks to take.
Bingo. Last night I fought a battle on a road near the sea where I had built a guard tower. Not only did I see the road and my guard tower on the battle map, but I could see my fleet in the distance! Holy crap! The potential here is enormous.

For what it's worth, I do think that Rome misses it's full potential. Battles ARE too fast. The AI IS lacking. And the grouping bug is REALLY REALLY annoying.

But even firing at 90% power, Rome is a huge, HUGE step forward for the series and the genre in a lot of ways. There's a lot to like, and very good reason to be excited about the future.

[edyzmedieval]

RTW is quite bad.

The AI sucks, tons of bugs but the big plus is the graphics.
MTW is better made, although bad graphics.

[sunsmountain]

At least 5000 Gamespot members disagree with you. Most newbies notice nothing of the AI.

It's only STW and MTW seasoned vets that notice and compare it at all.
I have yet to find the first RTW-owner who thinks it's crap without owning MTW/STW.

[Doug-Thompson]

RTW is quite bad.

The AI sucks, tons of bugs but the big plus is the graphics.
MTW is better made, although bad graphics.

I see why people would think that, edyzmedieval, but I think it's wrong to look at RTW as a prettier, dumbed-down MTW.

I've been a major whiner about graphics wagging the gameplay dog on many forums, including this one. What I like about the strategy map is not the looks, but the mechanics.

For example, just today I sent a Roman general with an all-mercenary cavalry force deep into the steppes. They surrounded an enemy capital city, which was lightly held, and besieged it. The enemy faction leader and his heir are inside, as my agent informed me before the raid.

After the siege began, the Roman general hired some mercenary infantry to build the rams and such. My plan is to take the town next turn, killing the two leading members of the royal family, then exterminate the capitol city population and demolish all the buildings I can, then leave.

You couldn't do those sorts of things in MTW.

Which means that you can beat up on the poor old AI on the strategy map even more than on the battle map. RTW greatest new feature is also the one that most highlights the deficiencies of the AI.

To repeat for emphasis, the MUCH better strategy map with the MUCH wider array of options makes it that much easier to beat up on the poor old AI. RTW's greatest new feature made the game too easy.

I've yet to see the the AI ever launch an amphibious invasion. Come to think of it, does the AI ever hire mercenaries?

The much richer array of strategy options all go to the human player's benefit.

I'd like to see on-line play of the strategy game. Relatively short, limited campaigns. Now that would be tough. And I'm not even an on-line player.

[econ21]

I've yet to see the the AI ever launch an amphibious invasion. Come to think of it, does the AI ever hire mercenaries?

I am re-playing Rome Total Realism v6 as Roman on VH campaign. The Greeks have bought a fair number of mercenaries (Samites, Etruscans etc) early on. They have also landed several large (one full stack) armies in south Italy to try to reclaim their lost cities.

In the previous game, right up to the 50th province (and accompanying CTD :rolleyes:), the Ptolemics and the Seleucids were repeatedly coming at me with powerful stacks, bolstered by mercs, sometimes shipped by sea. I was fighting perpetual to and fro sea battles while Greece, Macedon, Numidia, Carthage and Iberia were also warring against me. It was great fun - best end game of a TW game I've played.

I think some of the apparent AI deficiencies in vanilla are actually just reflections of weak AI starting positions. Aside from the Romans and Egyptians, most factions in vanilla start rather weak. Given them a lot of money (by VH campaign & rich provinces) and some decent starting armies plus good recruitable units, and you get a more competitive game.

[Doug-Thompson]

Sounds like I'm going to have to go with the Total Realism mod. It sounds great.

I'm going to take advantage of my computer crash though. I'll have a fresh (except for patches) install of RTW. No "no horse jumping" mod. No fix for horse archers post patch. I'll install BI right over RTW and have a pure vanilla sample to work with.

[Red Harvest]

Maybe. But even if you believe that, Medieval was released in 2002. Shogun in 2000. What games were released in the past two years that were better than Rome? Are you seriously going to maintain that it's not one of the best games since 2003?

I can appreciate that you don't like it as much as its predecessors. I agree that in some ways it is weaker. (I don't think the AI is actually worse, but the system is more complex, so it seems worse.) But the game has its strengths as well. It's a very promising start for a new engine and I'm very hopeful about where the series could go from here. And at $50, it's still a heck of good entertainment value.

Lower the bar enough and squeeze the range enough and you can claim anything you want about it or any other game. I compare RTW to similar style games that I have and its own siblings. As for better games, Civil War Bull Run is much more interesting on the battlefield and at about $20 IIRC when I bought it, soon after release. It is actually an opponent worth playing. Haven't bought many others lately, I wasted a bunch of time on RTW, can't say that the game itself was satisfying. I did expand my knowlege of period warfare and history greatly trying to figure out why the game didn't give the right feel. That's hardly a ringing endorsement of a game...it made me want to acquire more history books instead of playing. In that regards it has been an extremely expensive purchase.

[LittleRaven]

Lower the bar enough and squeeze the range enough and you can claim anything you want about it or any other game. I compare RTW to similar style games that I have and its own siblings.I'm lowering the bar by saying Rome is one of the best games in the last two years?

Holy cow. That's one heck of a standard you have. A game can't be a success unless it's what, the best game of all time?

Rome blows away it's siblings in lots of ways. The strategic map opens up options that never existed under the old games. The expanded family tree and traits system is a huge step over the Medieval system. The new engine allows battles on walls and in towns, something we could never do before.

I appreciate that you don't particularly enjoy these advancements, or at least that other problems overshadow your enjoyment of them, and that overall you prefer the old system. That's fine. I quite understand how someone could prefer Shogun or Medieval or Bull Run to Rome. What I can't understand is people saying Rome is a terrible game. It isn't. Not by any reasonable standard whatsoever. And I should know, because I spend entirely too much of my life playing computer games. (and hanging out with people who spent even MORE of their lives playing computer games) MOO 3, now there was a terrible game, and a disappointing sequel to boot. Age of Sail II, yeesh. Or heck, even Black and White, which was a technical marvel and a complete dud as a game. Trust me, in the wide world of computer gaming, Rome is a masterpiece, even considering the footsteps in which it must follow.

[Veresov]

My unhapiness with RTW is that it is not challenging. The AI in battle is very easy to beat even with mods! It also has the very bad save/load bug that breaks its strategic game.

At this time I am not sure I want to buy expansion after reading that very little of the game is going to change. I am not talking about added features but instead CA fixing the problems with this engine. I can get a very good mod - Darth mod or RTR for free.

[Red Harvest]

I'm lowering the bar by saying Rome is one of the best games in the last two years?

Holy cow. That's one heck of a standard you have. A game can't be a success unless it's what, the best game of all time?


It doesn't make my list unless it is something I want to play again; RTW isn't, unlike its siblings. I have many old games that can't hold a candle to RTW based on looks, but they are ones I still like to play (and I'm still doing scenario development on one from 1998.)



Rome blows away it's siblings in lots of ways. The strategic map opens up options that never existed under the old games. The expanded family tree and traits system is a huge step over the Medieval system. The new engine allows battles on walls and in towns, something we could never do before.


It has the *potential* to blow them away, but it fails due to sloppy execution. That potential was why I spent time on RTW in the first place. The gameplay isn't as satsifying in RTW for me.

The strategic map looks great, and has potential, but the AI is so weak strategically that it doesn't really carry over into gameplay. The AI doesn't employ its armies well, so it adds an extra dimension of weakness to gameplay. It also results in some weak tactical maps. I could go into some detail here as to why this is so...I'm working on something related at the moment, concept development trying to figure out how to work around this, just back burner project I've been thinking about. MTW handled it by making detailed maps that used the border crossing to determine which ones in a pool could be generated. RTW is using a sort of smoothed surface of the entire strat map as a starting point, and this does not allow as much of a realistic countour/vegetation effect as is really needed. The RTW battlefield terrain doesn't come into play sufficiently when compared to STW or MTW.

Unfortunately, the traits system is so badly bugged that it is a hindrance to the game. It gives you 10 star generals in no time by double counting, etc. It could have been a step forward, but a badly bugged implementation made it a step backward gameplay wise. I would prefer to play without the current RTW traits.

[KSEG]

If you don't like RTW so much why are you still here?
No one is pointing a gun at your head and saying "play this game, or else".

[Hold Steady]

Indeed. 'Is RTW really that bad'? Hell no

[womble]

"...its pretty much common knowledge that the game sucks more than Michael Jackson in a boyscout meeting..."

It's not without its flaws, but I spent 36 hours straight playing it when it first came out, and I am not an eyecandy fan, except in as much as clear graphics helps me see precisely what is going on (troop facings, etc.).

The AI isn't much of a challenge. Some people reckon it's the same AI as MTW, others think it's worse. I suspect that it's the same AI, but put in a more variable tactical situation, where some unit types need to maintain inter-unit cohesion to even survive, it does a worse job. the new freeform nature of the map doesn't do the StratAI any favours either. Casual MP is broken because units can stack one on top of the other and the uber tactic (sans self-imposed restrictions) is the blob-of-all-your-cavalry-charging. The challenge for me is to achieve my conquests with the minimum loss of troops possible, and win battles by the maximum margin.

I dispute the assertions that "you only get siege battles". I've fought over 120 battles in my Julian campaign, and less than 50 of those were sieges. Some of the field battles were reliefs of sieges, but the cities are what the strategy is all about, so this is hardly surprising. Personally, I despise the concept of a province-based map.

If you don't care about history, you won't care about the liberties that have been taken in the name of 'game play'.

As a game, it's better than EU2, my previous addiction and has held my interest far better.

[TB666]

If you don't like RTW so much why are you still here?
No one is pointing a gun at your head and saying "play this game, or else".
Yeah very true.
Sure they have the right to express themselfs but most of them have already done that, several times even.
Say how you feel one time and then move on.
Stop beating on a dead horse because CA won't change the game to your liking.
The majority of the buyers like the game(with or without mods) so CA won't do anything.

Me, I love the game.
I bought it the day it got out and I still play it and is having fun still.
I say I got my 40$ worth of fun so I'm very happy with my purchase.

[caesar44]

The sad thing is the fact the RTW is the best strategy game (ever?) , but only 8 out of 10 .
Again , it is a good , almost very good game , but the bugs , the bugs , the poor AI , the poor diplomacy system , the Generals storming like idiots...the ...the , well , it was said before .

[womble]

"...the Generals storming like idiots..."

People have maundered on about 'suicide generals' on the various fora... and I'd never seen it happen, more often finding the General sat idle at the back while I devastate his formations. Then, last night, for the first time, the general came at me on an ill-considered charge. I was a bit worried that the weak (8 men) EL cohort which I'd forgotten to leave out of the fight would crumble before help could arrive in the form of a Legionary Cavalry pincer. Imagine my surprise when, after the enemy's bodyguard disintegrated and the general's blood mingled with that of his failed defenders, there were still 8 men left in the cohort. Tough guys.

[Doug-Thompson]

The reason people who don't like the game keep posting here is because RTW is just about the only historical strategic simulation game in town. They're hoping the series will veer back. I think some of the criticism is overly harsh, but can see where it's coming from.

First and foremost, RTW lost much hardcore fan support because the attempts to make battles more exciting, cinematic and less time-consuming misfired badly. The "Flying Horse" or "Pegasus" problem is my personal favorite: Horses charge a wall of spears and go flying, landing in the middle of the spear formation and disrupting it, resulting in the spear unit's defeat and rout. It might look cool to somebody who never ridden a horse, I suppose.

The second major reason is, RTW is a strategy game where the strategy is pretty obvious and settled. That's the biggest difference between it and MTW.

I bought RTW. I installed it. I took one look at the map and faction descriptions and realized I wanted to start with the Brutaii, conquer Greece, use that as a base to capture Asia Minor and then sweep down into Egypt before conquering Rome. Within days, I wrote a strategy guide for the Brutaii that still stands with little refinement and tweaking.

I could play the Turks or the Almohads in MTW over and over again, because there was a randomness and variety to the games: Crusades and what-not kept you on your toes. You'd try one strategy, get burned and try another. Opening moves and general strategic direction were known, but less predictable in execution. Furthermore, you discussed that strategy in the forum. Stategy discussion was meatier and more enjoyable. One of my favorite threads on any forum was one on how to defend Naples as the Byzantines. In that one, we came up with the idea of just abandoning Naples, deleting all the buildings and invading Sicily. Nobody had ever posted that, and MTW was years old at that point.

The second time I played a Brutaii campaign, there was a definite "been there, done that" feel that wasn't there in MTW. The game's attempts to introduce some inpredictability ranged from ineffective to annoying. You can ignore many Senate missions, for instance, or just pre-empt them. I routinely wipe out factions rather than negotiate Senate-ordered protectorates, and often conquer cities rather than blockade them.

As for the RTW diplomacy system, it isn't broken so much as over-elaborate for this game situation. It's like having a toolbox when all you need's a hammer.

It was all a Catch 22. The strategic obviousness of the game would have been all right if it gave us great tactical battles. The flashier combat would have been tolerable if all those new strategy tools, including that wonderful map, had more purpose and use.

All this is why I'm very hopeful that "Barbarian Invasions" will add more fluidity and impredictability to the game. The barbarians should provide the creative chaos that RTW lacks.

[LittleRaven]

It doesn't make my list unless it is something I want to play again; RTW isn't, unlike its siblings. I have many old games that can't hold a candle to RTW based on looks, but they are ones I still like to play (and I'm still doing scenario development on one from 1998.)And herein lies the source of our disagreement. (which isn't nearly as large as the size of our posts would suggest.) You aren't comparing Rome to computer games as a whole. You're comparing it to a tiny subset of games: your favorites from almost a decade of game development.

I'm quite sure that in that company, Rome may not fare so well. Heck, I don't think Rome would make my top 10 games of all time, and it certainly wouldn't make my top 5. Rome has great potential, but you are correct when you point out that the execution did not quite live up to the promise of the engine. From double-counting victories to charge bugs leading to the 'mob of cavalry WIN,' Rome has been haunted by flaws that prevent it from being a truly great game.

However, go to your local Gamestop, and pick out 9 games at random plus Rome. Come home and play them each for 20 hours. Then tell me that Rome isn't one of the top 2.

I play a LOT of games, from a lot of genres. And believe me when I say that Rome is not a terrible game. Very, very far from it. Even with all of its shortcomings, it's still one of the best games released in recent years. You can, I suppose, view this as more of a statement on the quality of video games in general rather than Rome, but the fact remains regardless.

And finally, for those of us that enjoy historical strategy, I don't think pushing the idea that Rome is a terrible game not worthy of purchase is going to be very productive. If we do a very good job of that, we may just convince the suits at CA that the Total War line is not worth continuing. But that's about as good a result as we're going to get. Something about Pyrrhic comes to mind.

[Red Harvest]

If you don't like RTW so much why are you still here?
No one is pointing a gun at your head and saying "play this game, or else".

Who says I'm playing the game? I gave up on it back in March. Doesn't mean I can't come in here and give an honest review of it.

I've pointed out where it needs work. I spent a lot of my own time trying to fix what I could. However, there is NOTHING I can do to fix broken AI.

[Colovion]

I've played incredible amounts of video games in my day. Too much, some would say.

I've never come across a game with such high superficial accolades as RTW with so many bugs and so many broken features.

The whole game reeks of mellowdramatic conclusion to a revlotionary change.

[Red Harvest]

And finally, for those of us that enjoy historical strategy, I don't think pushing the idea that Rome is a terrible game not worthy of purchase is going to be very productive. If we do a very good job of that, we may just convince the suits at CA that the Total War line is not worth continuing. But that's about as good a result as we're going to get. Something about Pyrrhic comes to mind.

I'll take a Pyrrhic victory over an outright loss. Simply walking away is the only option open other than maintaining pressure to fix the problems. I've walked away from ones like this before: Age of Sail II is an example.

Frankly, if they are not going to do any better than RTW, I would rather they hung it up or sold out to someone who wants to make better strategy games. Trying to move historical strategy gamers to the wrist flicker market hurts us as a whole. Right now historical strategy gamers are on the losing side either way.

[screwtype]

People keep saying what a heap of potential the game has, but I don't think there's sufficient recognition of the fact that the game is as CA wants it to be.

What they have basically done is dumb down their earlier format to the nth degree to try to appeal to a wider audience. The superfast battles, the ridiculous kill rates, the breaking of the earlier rock/paper/scissors paradigm in favour of flashy horse charges - it's all been done to make the game easier to beat.

We even have the ridiculous situation that CA won't provide any more than the most basic options for fear of confusing the dummies. You have other games like Imp II or Civ III which have literally dozens of different settings which impact the difficulty rating so you can adjust it to exactly how you want it - with RTW you just get easy, normal, hard and that's it. And we see that sort of dumbing down in every area.

RTW is a crap game because there is no challenge in it, particularly when it comes to the battles which are just a walkover. But probably the biggest disappointment for me was the lack of development of the strategy game. Like the previous titles, there is no real economy to play with in RTW - just the ability to set tax levels at different levels and that's about it. I wish CA would take a look at a great old game like Lords of the Realm II to see what a sophisticated economy can look like - but we are never going to see that in the TW series. It might be too hard for the kiddies to figure out.

[Mongoose]

Screwtape

I suggest that you download SPQR 4.0.

1:slow battle sppeds

2:Slow run speeds

3:Not a push over(for the roman at least...)

4:Higher morale, but units still rout.

5:Fixed the broken trait system

6:new formation settings. the AI no longer send units at you one at a time.

For more details, see the official forum at Totalwarcenter....

[Puzz3D]

People keep saying what a heap of potential the game has, but I don't think there's sufficient recognition of the fact that the game is as CA wants it to be.
True, but let's hope they change load/save, suicide generals and the difficuly settings to something they don't want them to be. Those three things combined with the improvements to charge and phalanx, which have apparently already been done, would constitute a major improvement to the game, and I don't see how it would cost them any of their RTS market. However, it all has to be carefully debugged, and that means checking the whole game. We saw how the v1.2 patch inadvertantly broke the Parthian shot. They certainly don't want the release date for BI to slip, so I would hope they have closed the window on feature changes by now and are debugging at this point.

Multiplayer is a hopelessly lost cause, but in SP mods can be used to slow down the gameplay which helps the battlefield AI provide more of a challenge and gives the player more to do during the battle. It puzzles me that CA chose parameter values that doesn't show off their AI to best advantage.

[Veresov]

Yes, Rome is pretty bad. The AI provides minimum challenge and the hard settings are messed up :furious3:

Knights of Honor is a much better game. There are many more countries to play. It has much much better strategic play. The battle system is more simple than RTW but the AI gives a pretty good fight.

[screwtype]

I suggest that you download SPQR 4.0.

What I should probably do for a challenge is mod the game myself to my taste. I should probably start by giving every unit two or three hit points.

However, I've been discouraged by the fact that even the modders complain that they haven't been able to do much to fix the quick battles. I did play RTR for a while, which was a better experience than vanilla RTW certainly, but the kill rate in that is still pretty unchanged.

[Mongoose]

LOL. You should play one of the current SPQR mods as the bruti...battles with phalanxes can be very long. Lt got very long battles by using huge defence values. Example: a spear warband has 20+ defence ~:eek:

Some battles can still be a little too fast(but still nothing like vanilla RTW). the trick is too let the AI build up for about 10 turns or so.

[screwtype]

True, but let's hope they change load/save, suicide generals and the difficuly settings to something they don't want them to be. Those three things combined with the improvements to charge and phalanx, which have apparently already been done, would constitute a major improvement to the game, and I don't see how it would cost them any of their RTS market.

Yes I'm hoping the changes are going to improve the battles, but I wasn't too impressed by the comments about the demo. Maybe the changes that have been made will give the modders something better to work with. I'll wait and see what sort of reception the xpack gets.


...mods can be used to slow down the gameplay which helps the battlefield AI provide more of a challenge and gives the player more to do during the battle.

Yeah, what I should probably do is go back to the RTR mod and add a hit point to every unit. But I don't know, all this fudging has caused me to lose interest. I haven't really got the time or inclination to work on trying to fix things. As the saying goes, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, and there are plenty of people who've spent far more time than I ever could trying to fix it and ended up expressing their frustration.


It puzzles me that CA chose parameter values that doesn't show off their AI to best advantage.

Me too. I simply can't understand why they think this absurdly fast combat is a good thing. I can't understand why *anyone* would think that. And yet, the game got rave reviews and sold by the truckload. Go figure.

[screwtype]

Knights of Honor is a much better game.

Yes although people say the combat isn't much of a challenge in that either.

All the same I will probably take a look at it at some stage. I did actually try to download the demo a couple of weeks ago but it's 400 megabytes in size and after I dl'd it the darned thing turned out to be corrupted.

[Puzz3D]

Yeah, what I should probably do is go back to the RTR mod and add a hit point to every unit. But I don't know, all this fudging has caused me to lose interest. I haven't really got the time or inclination to work on trying to fix things. As the saying goes, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, and there are plenty of people who've spent far more time than I ever could trying to fix it and ended up expressing their frustration.
If you want the best battlefield gameplay try MCM-v0.11 English (http://files.filefront.com/MP_Community_Mod_Eng_v011_/;4024601;;/fileinfo.html) This mod also makes improvements to the SP campaign, and it doesn't overwrite your vanilla RTW install. The mod doesn't make major changes to the game, but it does try to balance all aspects of the battlefield gameplay and I think it does it as well as can be done given the limitations of RTW v1.2. I've played the SPQR mod, and the fighting time in that was increased so much that fatigue becomes excessive.

[screwtype]

Thanks for the recommendation Puzz. I might give that or SPQR a go, but quite honestly, I feel I've had my fill of the game for the time being and have no desire to fire it up again to try out something new. I'd rather go play another campaign of Shogun :). Or at least wait and see what BI adds to the fray...

[Daveybaby]

I really like the new campaign map. The trade mechanism is much better, naval combat is much better, and the AI can actually put up some kind of a fight at this level (load/save bugs aside).

But i dont enjoy the combat as much. Too fast paced, the AI isnt as much of a challenge as in the previous games, and cavalry is overpowered.

Its still a good game though, and well worth the money. Hopefully the BI addon will improve things further and fix some of the bugs.