Should I get RTW?

[Byzantine_Fury]

I currently own MTW 1.0 not viking invasion ( i'm saving up for it); should I buy RTW? Is it as good as MTW? any comments would help alot.thnx
:knight:

[lordrune]

I love RTW myself. The interface is a bit cleaner than MTW, and trade/developing your empire is a lot more fun. The graphics are much better, and the pre-battle speeches are neat. I think there are some complaints that it's not realistic, or that the AI is too easy to beat... personally, I'm not a history student so the realism doesn't worry me too much, and the AI provides quite enough challenge for a player of my calibre.

[Ludens]

There is a very lively discussion going about the same subject in the Colosseum here (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=57296). The short version of my position is: R:TW is a good game with many improvements over M:TW, but it lacks challenge on both strategic and tactical levels. I would recommend buying VI and perhaps trying several of the better modifications out there.

[Monarch]

In addition to gameplay comments, it is only £10 on www.play.com with free delivery, so even if you do not totally like it its not a big investment, or if you hate it (unlikely) then you could always send it back I suppose.

Or possibly get the demo?

http://www.3dgamers.com/dlselect/games/rome/rometw_demo_5.5.zip.html

(Warning: I've personally not downloaded that file, but I got that URL from totalwar.com so I'm pretty sure it's clean.)

[UltraWar]

i find that medieval total war has the best campaign engine...
I was brought into R:TW by a mate and his dad rules at it...
i think you should start by getting VI then RTW...
RTW:BI is v.hard for me~:mecry:

[econ21]

Yes, definitely buy RTW. It's a massive game, with lots of content and very high production values - a worthy successor to MTW. Out of the box, it does ultimately lack challenge and you might find the battles play out frenetically fast after MTW. I'd really recommend installing the Rome Total Realism mod - to my mind it brings RTW back up to MTW standards (and surpasses them in terms of historical accuracy).

Look out for cheap offers on RTW plus BI - the expansion is really worth it too.

[Rilder]

Fast? i dont understand this , in my RTW battles they usualy last up to like an hour sometimes, and it doesnt lack challenge to me i get my arse kicked around sometimes

[Puzz3D]

Fast? i dont understand this , in my RTW battles they usualy last up to like an hour sometimes, and it doesnt lack challenge to me i get my arse kicked around sometimes
The units run 50% faster in RTW than they did in MTW (the walking speed is about the same in both games), and there was some kind of bug in the way the game engine handled the charge bonus which could cause units to rout very quickly. The charge bonus problem was fixed in RTW/BI which means the units fight longer. You therefore have a little more time to make tactical maneuvers with individual units during the height of the fighting.

[econ21]

First impressions count and my first impression of RTW was the Trebia battle demo. Things happened so fast in that, that it was like a totally different game to MTW. It was over before I really knew what was going on. I admit I have not noticed that problem so much in the BI. I think they raised the defence stats, which is what some mods such as RTR ave also done.

Some of the slowness of MTW was caused by the "reinforcements coming on in waves" problem, which was a big pain and thankfully a thing of the past in RTW (although you do sometimes get subject to consecutive attacks by AI armies that really should have attacked in tandem).

[Kickius Buttius]

I have never played MTW, so I'm not sure how RTW appears to an MTW vet. Coming from a sort-of general interest in strategy background, I have been delighted with RTW. The battles were rather challenging at first. I now win about 90% of them on the "hard" setting, but find that the morale bonus given to the AI on "very hard" simply serves to make the battles difficult in unrealistic ways.

The campaign game is interesting and seems to play out quite a bit differently with each game. Factions that disappear early in one of my games sometimes dominate in another. There are exceptions (Egypt is always a power), but gameplay does seem to be different enough to make each campaign interesting.

I am extremely happy with RTW and highly recommend it. I've put in way more hours than I would have considered sufficient to offset what I paid for the game. Heck, I've probably played about twenty hours a week for the six weeks in which I've owned it.

I will probably give MTW a try at some point, although I am disappointed to hear that the position of armies on the campaign map when attacked does not translate to the battle map with the same precision that it does in RTW. This seems to me to be a key part of the game and I would miss it quite a bit.