dose anyone play on generals cam?

[king hannibal]

hi dose anyone play on generals cam as I was thinking about trying it out and seeing what you do when playing with generals cam

[king hannibal]

started the campiagn in generals cam as pontics I take my first city by storm really fun and worrying as you don't know if you phalanxs are forming up right

anyway got away with 500 and something caustals and not to bad a victory

and I've been besiegeing every city since then with low caustals heres a pic of my empire as it's been growing :beam:

https://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i281/kinghannibal/EBpontic.jpg

I was justed trying to reduce there numbers :oops:

https://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i281/kinghannibal/EBpontic1.jpg

I'm also getting enogh money now :2thumbsup:

[keravnos]

All I can say is good luck. I tried doing it that way, and was really out of my league. Not knowing EXACTLY where your companies are and how they handle themselves isn't good at all.

[Empedocles]

I started playing with generals cam with my first game in EB 0.8. It's awesome IMHO.
You don't know exactly where your units are fighting, you have to check out in the unit roster their status of morale and you can't move your general too far from the battle as you loose perception.
It's the most near you can get in terms of realism in the battlefields. I highly reccomed it to every player.
I play on H/VH.
regards.

[Lord Gruffles]

I always play on General's Cam. If I get too far away from some of my units I group them up and put them on AI Control. If the general dies I put my whole army on AI and kiss my rear end good-bye. :skull:


I love it. Adds an extra dimension to my battles.

[Kull]

To be honest, it depends on your faction. It would be completely insane to try and play a steppe faction using the general cam, since successful horse archer strategies require wide area unit dispersal. And it's impossible to manage this with the general cam (and those factions are already hard enough as it is...this just shoots degree of difficulty up into the stratosphere!).

On the other hand it's definitely the way to go with most of the infantry based factions. Although if you have an infantry general (like the sweboz), it's very difficult to follow what's going on.

[Thaatu]

I only play with general camera, though I must admit it's not healthy. Or wise. Or fun. Don't know why I do it... It's got something.

[king hannibal]

that kind of what I'm wanting in battle a general could hardly ever know what was going on all over the battle field and so he had to use people to lead sertian part of his army

and so the fun is grouping say half your army together and putting it under the AI command and try and work with the AI to win the battles although I not had to do this yet I terrifed of putting anything in the command of the AI and will proply not try to although when I do I'm going to be leading my cavarly in the battle as it the smallest but most effective force plus the AI can't ever control them

plus I'm on Veryhard/Veryhard also anyone else got any pictures of there empires using generals cam

[DeathEmperor]

I don't play with general cam but whoa when I do it puts a whole new spin on the game.

Kudos and praise to anyone who plays with it. :2thumbsup:

[Sygrod]

It would be a more feasible option if
1. You could rely on sub commanders and
2. If AI would have intelligent initiative and common sense and some semblance of self preservation.

Too many times I have yelled out "What the H**L are you doing, you idiots", forgetting in my enthusiasm that it IS a computer game...

/Sygrod

[Lovejoy]

Try to assault an epic wall with general cam. Good luck! :laugh4:

[Lord Gruffles]

Try to assault an epic wall with general cam. Good luck!
I do it all the time. And, Guess what? Sometimes you have to attack the walls more than once. Seems alot more realistic to me, eh? :yes:

Oh, and PAUSE is a HUGE NO NO! :whip:

[Kugutsu]

What would be cool would be if you could multiplay and have your friends command units in the same army. Then you could have realistic subcommanders who would actually make human decisions... Of course you would run into problems if you get people with different ideas, eg. if your mate with the cavalry goes charging off after some routing units when you [I]really[I] want him to come and charge the rear of the units you are locked in battle with, but that sort of thing happened historically too!

I can but dream...

[DXL]

[QUOTE=Kugutsu]What would be cool would be if you could multiplay and have your friends command units in the same army. Then you could have realistic subcommanders who would actually make human decisions..QUOTE]
That you can do in Sid Meiers Gettysburg and the sequel Waterloo. It is really fun, more fun when you are a couple of friends who play and some of you are on one side and the other on the other.

Back to topic:
I love playing with Generals cam. I always autocalc when there aint a familymember anyways, and as a part of the roleplay I wanna play as the general. I mean in reality you really did not have much controll anyways once you given the order GO. The feeling of riding away to the far end of the line where everything is going really wrong and steer things up... I just love it.

edit:
I put units under AI controll only if the entire generals unit is dead or routed of the board. Sometimes I put my veteran units under AI controll since they have fought many battles and have been given the honor of elite status by the emperor/king/council of elders (in other words me) and therefor fight independently.

[Lord Gruffles]

The feeling of riding away to the far end of the line where everything is going really wrong and steer things up... I just love it.
Amen.

[CaesarAugustus]

I just tried my first battle on general's cam:dizzy2: ......... I both admire and feel sorry for those who play on it regularily.

[Dooz]

I had only tried general cam a few times in custom battles in the past, on RTW. It did have a certain flair about it, but for some reason I never really went with it consistently in campaigns or anything. This thread inspired to play with it again, and I did so on M2 in a custom battle. Great fun. A lot harder, lot more casualties. I'm continuing my current M2 campaign (with TLR mod) as the Sicilians with generals cam from here on out.

Man, this really forces you to make a lot more smaller decisions that you might otherwise overlook. Facing of battle when being attacked by two armies matters now. You have to figure out your best bet of laying siege when there are other forces close enough to attack before you storm the city. Do you make camp on the west or north-west of town? You might be attacked from behind one way and have to really move around, splitting forces and so on. The other option is bad terrain for your forces. You gotta' make tough choices. Wooo!

You know I think anyone who complains (and I suppose rightly so) about the AI being too easy and all that should play on general cam. It gives the game a whole new lease on life. Much fun. I'll definately be playin with general cam when .81 is released.

[CountArach]

I'm considering playing a full Roman campaign with roleplaying the generals. This just makes it more personal.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Nah, not me. I need to see where everybody is or I am doomed! When I first tried it I deliberately killed the general to see what I was doing, it was impossible :dizzy2:

[Dooz]

Nah, not me. I need to see where everybody is or I am doomed! When I first tried it I deliberately killed the general to see what I was doing, it was impossible :dizzy2:

Heh, you could have just changed the camera option and spared a fine leader...

[Meothar]

I played multiplayer battles on generals cam (both sides chose this) and really liked them. Every player tried to get onto a hill to see what your units are doing and sometimes losing control. Actually, with generals cam, you are able to surprise enemies.

[king hannibal]

Glad to have inspired some of you. you don't always have to play in generals cam you can use delete to get the generals cam on normal battle cam mode this give you the feel of more of a generals role and if your units AI is beening stupid you can come out of it a sort the mess out by double clicking on a unit
which get you out of generals cam

I also besieging all the citys I can on generals cam now as they come to you but you have to spend the time there which also put a historical side on it and makes you think about how and when to attack rathere than going in there with a half made up military power in the area and winning when the odds should be against you and so slows you expansion down

I've also played in generals cam on MP which is really fun

are any of you been interseted in MP?

[DXL]

Actually, with generals cam, you are able to surprise enemies.

Or in the case of singleplay, get suprised, and that is part of the fun.

*sire, do you hear something
- shutit I gotta get send a rider so we get the damnated hastati in position
*sire....

and when the conversation ends a group of savage barbarians have stormed up on the hill, concealed by the woods and the fact that the stupid general did not wanted to move away from the hill and since it was a rather steep hill he could not see what was coming from the foot of the hill where the wood ends....

[Tellos Athenaios]

I tried it a couple of times... and lost control completely. And I already am in a habit of creating complete chaos in battle...

[Thaatu]

I tried it a couple of times... and lost control completely. And I already am in a habit of creating complete chaos in battle...
...but it's fun, isn't it? :yes:

[Barigos]

I always play with general cam too,because the "God camera"(RTS) isn't very challenging.I also set the minimap to max zoom in just after giving some general order sequences using shift+right mouse click and the minimap to set some waypoints for troops.And then comes the Chaos!
Usually only my skirmishers are under AI control.When I give him an infantry group he always messes my formation up.
I also wish RTW had a system of commands like"All units 300 steps forward then charge" or "whole frontline charge"etc

[king hannibal]

that'll be very nice if that happened but I cann't see CA trying to do it:no: :sweatdrop: :wall:

how do you use that Tag thing if you can't all ways see to were your placeing it in front and haven't you got to do it for one unit at a time?

[Barigos]

You can set waypoints(via shift+RM click) for a group of units as well as for single unit.I usually create 3-5 groups of units which represent e.g.:"left flank","center" and "right flank".When battle starts I select my "left flank" group,hold shift and right click just on the appropriate places on the minimap to set their path,then holding shift I order this group to attack some unit of enemy's right flank(by clicking on it's banner).So my"left flank" will move to places I ordered and then attack enemy.

[Barigos]

Those movement and attack settings may represent some sort of prebattle planning(though it is only possible to set them after the battle starts).And you can always control your center in real time,while waiting your flanks move according to your tasks and then rush to enemy's flanks,as you have planned...Of course it often goes wrong,and it is not easy to get used to such a system of commanding your army but it is very fun.Also you can perform some good outflanking cavalry maneuvers with this shift orders.

[Lord Gruffles]

I also set the minimap to max zoom
Word. Someone else that does that also. :beam:

[PseRamesses]

I always played the gen´s cam when playing the Romans in RTR since their formations was pretty reliable. Tried it in EB too but had to let it go. I kinda like the concept though as it makes it painfully obvious how hard battles was to fight back then.

[CountArach]

So, a question for those who have used General's Cam, did you zoom it right into the General? I've tried this before and it was INCREDIBLY hard.

[king hannibal]

no I don't although this could be consided cheating in a seens we have some areas that they had and we didn't. like messages or the sound of troop fighting, trumps for signals and the sences of danges behind or near you :skull:

anyway that my view

[Barigos]

I zoom the cam right to the general in most cases.But sometimes it is impossible to give some even simple orders with such zoom due to the way of army controlling in RTW.
IMHO ,RTW wasn't designed to play with general cam,it simply doesn't have proper interface for that and we can only imagine some things as king Hannibal says.

[Kugutsu]

In real life the general would not have to personally control his army. Before the battle he would probably meet with his capitains, and tell them what he wants, but during the actual fighting the decisions would be taken by unit capitains. It would simply be impossible to micromanage a battle. There are too many factors involved, and the time delay needed for reports to reach, and orders come back from, the general, would probably see the unit dead before it knew what to do. Obviously large scale decisions like when to charge, when to withdraw, when to flank could be ordered from the top, but telling the units where to charge would be down to them, as no one else can accurately gauge the enemy at that point.
Was it Sun Tzu who said 'a battle plan only works until you make contact with the enemy' (or words to that effect)...
Since the units in RTW dont think for themselves, I believe that trying to act as a limited general does not really give an accurate battle. Without control they will blindly walk into suicidal situations, or miss obvious weaknesses in the enemy army...

[Lord Gruffles]

In real life the general would not have to personally control his army. Before the battle he would probably meet with his capitains, and tell them what he wants, but during the actual fighting the decisions would be taken by unit capitains. It would simply be impossible to micromanage a battle. There are too many factors involved, and the time delay needed for reports to reach, and orders come back from, the general, would probably see the unit dead before it knew what to do. Obviously large scale decisions like when to charge, when to withdraw, when to flank could be ordered from the top, but telling the units where to charge would be down to them, as no one else can accurately gauge the enemy at that point.
Was it Sun Tzu who said 'a battle plan only works until you make contact with the enemy' (or words to that effect)...
Since the units in RTW dont think for themselves, I believe that trying to act as a limited general does not really give an accurate battle. Without control they will blindly walk into suicidal situations, or miss obvious weaknesses in the enemy army...
In my case I'm not trying to make it more 'real'. No, I'm trying to make up for the 'thick as a post' AI and have some fun. Plus, I still control my whole army except in rare cases when I'm a mile away from a few units (in which case I group them up and put them under AI control). This all falls into the 'to each their own' category. :2thumbsup: