Rome - compares to MTW 1 how ?

[Alpha666]

Hi i bought MTW1 + Vik. Invasion some months ago and got hooked. Very detailed and fun game.

Questions:

1) I have 1400mhz, Win98SE, 512MB, ATI8500 (275/275), last Catalyst driver for 98/ME, last Dir.X.... I also have an ATI9600 Pro in 2nd PC, but on this comp (AMD 1600mhz+faster Ram PC 333 512MB) MTW doesn´t run as good as on the Intel system with the older 8500 even if the specs are worse.

Is it enough for Rome ( I know for MTW2 it isn´t ) ?

2) I read some people prefer MTW1 over RTW and MTW2. So how does RTW compare to MTW+Vik. ?

Thanks.

[Slug For A Butt]

1) That system will be OK for RTW.(Maybe beef up the ram a little)

2) It's a personal thing, but I much prefer RTW to MTW and STW. Part of it is the eye candy, part of it is the time period and types of soldier available and part of it is getting rid of that horrible Risk style patchwork map. Now I know I'm going to get flamed for speaking my mind by people talking about battlefield AI, diplomacy etc. but as I said it's a personal thing. I tried to go back to MTW to see how it compared and I found it horrible. Each to their own. Try it, even if you don't like it it will only cost you £5 at Amazon. It's cheap now, make your own mind up.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

I much prefer M:TW to R:TW (vanilla), the main reason being improved AI. XL is also a necessary mod for M:TW, that much improves it. The graphics are not a great loss, I find.

I only play R:TW these days for the mods. Namely N:TW2 and FA:TW.

[HumphreysCraig00]

How was the Ai better?

As my shogun total war battles were always just the enemy has a massed charge straight into me thats all it ever was, at least RTW the enemy tries to flank, even if hes inept at it

I am not flaming I want to know what makes the ai better.

[econ21]

How was the Ai better?

At a strategic level, the AI does better in STW/MTW - it tends to give you a harder fight. I am not sure it necessarily is better - it just has an easier job. The Risk style map is easier to program than the open RTW campaign map - less possibilities to compute (plus the STW/MTW AI cheated to a greater or lesser degree by reacting to your supposedly simultaneous move). The RTW strategic AI often would not form large armies and aggressively go for you - it got better with patches, but still tends to give less challenge than STW/MTW.

At a tactical level, Puzz3D has made several posts about the superiority of STW/MTW AI over that of RTW. However, I recall that many of his points did not seem that big a deal to me.

One I remember and agreed with was that the STW/MTW AI is more concerned about the higher ground - in RTW, it is easier to outmaneouvre the AI to get a height advantage and it will just accept it; in STW/MTW, it would find another hill or even race you for the heights.

A big flaw in RTW is with the phalanx AI - it just was not good at keeping a solid wall of pikes. Instead it would break off for the best unit -vs unit match ups, which was disasterous with slow moving pikes as they exposed themselves to being flanked and taken down piecewise.

RTW has a horrible thing with AI defences of wooden walled settlements - it runs hither and dither under your fire, so you can kill them with impunity. It also ends up exhausted.

I do know in PBM battles, I tended to suffer much higher casualties in MTW battles than RTW. Part of this may be the stats though - elite archers are more powerful in RTW, as is cavalry, and the 2HP general's bodyguards are just uber. Plus I often played Romans and these have an edge over most other factions (by contrast, in STW/MTW, the different arms were more balanced in a rock-paper-scissors fashion and the various factions more balanced - ie similar - in their unit line ups.

BTW, the good news is that M2TW improves on nearly all the above. I suspect the battlefield AI is better than STW/MTW. VH battles is indeed a challenge for vets, without blatantly nerfing your stats relative to the AIs.

[PapaNasty]

Greatest thing about RTW over MTW for me was getting rid of that darn "chess-piece" map. I enjoyed the battles in both games, but the variety of RTW gets the nod from me. I personally love the campaign type game rather than just battles, and RTW is by far greater than MTW in that respect :)

[Eltharon]

The AI is better in MTW because it can handle the map. It cant quite handle the 3D map yet (not even in M2TW). It cant fully react to armies crossing its borders, etc. On the tactical map, i'm not really sure. RTW looks better, and the deployment is better, but its been awhile since i've played a really big MTW battle, so I'm not sure about tactical AI.

[SSJVegetaTrunks]

Woah, someone has the same avatar as me! I saw the avatar and then thought "wait a minute, I didn't post here!" then realized it wasn't even me in the first place.

But to stay on topic, I've never played MTW, all I know is that this game is great.

[Alpha666]

How was the Ai better?

As my shogun total war battles were always just the enemy has a massed charge straight into me thats all it ever was, at least RTW the enemy tries to flank, even if hes inept at it

I am not flaming I want to know what makes the ai better.


First thanks. Second why can´t i edit my posts and the quoting seems not to work ?

Third: I think the AI in some tactical battles in MTW/VIk/XL ( This is what i play ) is quite surprising. I remember a battle from saturday, were they really surprised me. The enemy divided his force in 2 a) all the cav b) ranged units + swordsmen + handgunners. I was outnumbered but thought my 133men unit of chiv men at arms could handle the cav charge while the rest of my troops hide in the woods to then flank the cav while they battle my spears. I took into consideration the losses from the enemy ranged units which i wanted to ignore first to handle the cav. I forgot about the enemies swords btw. :(

Well my plan didn´t worked: The enemy cav just waited out of range and didn´t charge my spears in formation. Meawhile the ranged units attacked from a hill which i didn´t occupy since i wanted to settle my right flank of the spears at a wood. As the cav didn´t move i swung my spears in direction of enemy ranged units also let some helberdiers and woodsmen charge them out of the woods. (Remember these should counter the cav in original plan)....

Well i quite killed some of them. But meanwhile the enemy swords (i forgot about) sneaked in the woods attacked my spears from behind. I had to set them to "engage at will" since formation was broken. Then the enemy cav charged my broken formation :( Not a bad action from the AI i would say. I lost the battle, but killed much of the swords and ranged units, but the enemy cav chopped my fleeing units to pieces :)

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

The AI just seemed harder to beat in MTW, in a battle level as well as a strategic level, I thought.

[Eltharon]

AI goes for the hills more in MTW, and also attacks downhill while you try and prepare your attack up hill, which is annoying as hell for getting your battle line in position. They also use horse archers much more effectivly. I've lost my last 3 battles in MTW. You know how many I've lost in Rome, with moderatly even odds? Like 2. The camera sucks in MTW though.

[econ21]

They also use horse archers much more effectivly. I've lost my last 3 battles in MTW.

That's not my memory. Horse archers got a big rise in power in RTW, with the Parthian shot, Cantabrian circle and bows that match footbows in range. The RTW AI is no slouch with horse archers - fighting the Huns in a field battle is painful. In MTW, you can just shoot horse archers to death with the longer ranged foot archers or easily chase them down with fast cav. Neither is a painless option in RTW. Maybe I am not talking about AI as opposed to unit power - I don't recall differences in specific AI. But AI horse archers are much more of a threat in RTW than MTW IMO.

[caravel]

As my shogun total war battles were always just the enemy has a massed charge straight into me thats all it ever was, at least RTW the enemy tries to flank, even if hes inept at it
The STW AI never behaved like that. It always goes for the high ground, uses the woods for cover and tries to outmaneuver your formation. The MTW AI is slightly better flanking but worse at ambushing. AI armies in STW/MTW wil often retreat off the battlefield once they've surveyed your ranks. I've often seen large AI armies that have refused to fight my three units of honour 4 Warrior Monks. The AI also never charges it's cavalry onto spearpoints, in RTW it does. Horse archers are better managed and much more evasive. The AI in MTW handles them very well, so well in fact that they are notoriously difficult to pin down and if you've turned up with an army of nothing but heavy infantry to fight four or five units of HAs you may as well withdraw. Horse archers in RTW can fire on the move and perform the cantabrian circle, but as far as the AI's management of them goes, they're not as effective as they should be. When I as the player deploy HAs in RTW, they are ridiculously overpowered. I've often deployed nothing but HAs as the parthians, left them targetting the enemy, moved over to managing other units on another front, came back to the HAs and thought, "where did the enemy go?".

As to the "chess board" or "patchwork" map, it's all a matter of taste. To many of us that started out by playing STW, this map combined with the real time battles, is "Total War". I suppose it depends on what you're used to. Personally I dislike the feel and appearance of the RTW campaign map and it's animated giants. If feels more like a civ or AoE game than a Total War game. There is too much tedious micromanagement. Diplomacy is poor, agents movement rate is too slow, etc etc. Overall it's imbalanced and poorly implimented. The AI cannot use it effectively either. The MTW/STW map also has it's pros and cons, but overall it's much more manageable and less involved. Some people possibly compare this game with RTS type games they've played in the past. I compare it with STW and MTW, as I don't play RTS games.

[Ciaran]

I agree in part with you on the strategic map - the "poorly integrated" one. On the whole, I rather like the strategic maneuvering for the better terrain, or the possibility of multiple-stack armies; rather than the three-hour battles (for which I simply don´t have the time) of MTW, with one batch of reinfocements coming after the next, in RTW you can have a couple of army stacks on each side and a terriffically huge battle (once, in the Civil War, I had a 5vs5 battle - purely epic, though quite the strain for my system), if only the AI would somewhat better manage to keep its armies close together and coordinate the attacks of it´s stacks. I also happen to like the greater variety of diplomatic maneuvers, again something which sadly doesn´t work quite as well as it could.

Anything else, like the better use of terrain in MTW, has already been mentioned. Oh, and I like the medieval setting better. But that´s a personal taste.

[redriver]

I remember when I was playin' chivalry mod the AI didn't do too bad against me.. it's not the AI that is weak it's the units that are in comparition to MTW perioud. same goes for tactics and strategy on the battlefield.. it's apples and orangers to compare the 2. however, that said I remember how me had a big army defendin' a bridge and AI split their army leavin' missile units on one side and sendin' the rest across the ford where I didn't have any defences sat up. in the end I won the battle but with heavy casualties. it was a nice surprise.
I've never played mtw though. only the demo.
btw, AI will always try to flank or get behind with their cavalry if they have any. and it won't just seat and eat your missiles rather send cavalry forward to engage the archers. the high ground is also used by AI in RTW but only when they are outnumbered and at a big disadvantage. I've seen AI constantly movin' their armies to a higher possition when me attacked and they were on defensive.