New Battle Video - Skirmish = Macedon vs Rome

http://youtu.be/l_9qkAC4b5c

Video description:

"In our latest Let's Play video, Studio Communications Manager Al Bickham's Macedonian forces take on the might of Rome in a straight-up, open terrain skirmish match. He's playing on Very Hard difficulty, so it won't be an easy task to supress the Roman war machine.

We're playing from the defender's viewpoint, so it's very much a case of "Come at me, bro!" as the enemy assaults his position. See how they employ their abilities and hardened military tactics to wear down our very own hero's forces, with a sprinkle of cunning thrown in for free.

Will Mr. Bickham survive? Is this the end of the Macedonians? There's only one way to find out..."

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Two take aways:
- That VH AI seemed pretty handy to me but the Roman general did have quite a few (as in perhaps too many) buffs at his disposal.
- NO phalanx - only hoplites. I am getting very nervous about the lack of phalanxes in these previews.

...oh and happy to see that you can hide the big face square in the lower left corner. Takes up too much space and gets old quick IMO.

Craig from CA posted this elsewhere:

Phalanx fans - keep an eye out for the next Rally Point

...so this is something to look forward to.

Bark you are just great you once again saved me a lot of time. Thanks buddy.

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Originally Posted by The Outsider

Bark you are just great you once again saved me a lot of time. Thanks buddy.

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My pleasure.

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Our men flee the field of battle! This is a Shamefull display!

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I just had to laugh there :D

generally a pretty neat vid, however I would not consider 3 hoplites, 3 psiloi and 5 cavs a typical or balanced Macedonian Army ;)

he played shitty to let the ai look good -_-

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Originally Posted by The Stranger

he played shitty to let the ai look good -_-

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Agreed.

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Originally Posted by The Stranger

he played shitty to let the ai look good -_-

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As well as giving the Romans a bigger army.

No wonder the AI is bad if their target audience forgets about entire flanks of the battle while being massacred.

Or parks their cavalry in trees...

Two units of Thessalian cav completely wasted. It worries me that people like this have creative influence over these games.

I think something needs to be done about the foot speed of the infantry, there's hardly any difference between the lightest units and the mounted ones.

TBF, he's only the 'Communications Manager.' Which probably means he's forgotten the people in the back office and they still think they're working on ETW.

The battle is a sham and it was meant to hide something. Maybe the bad A.I. But in all honesty they cannot do wonders when it comes to battle A.I.
If they wanted to showcase a brilliant A.I the battle would be against an equal strength army beating a real mediocre player not a puppet player (sorry real person) and not on VH difficulty (aren't the enemy units getting buffed on morale and damage on VH difficulty?).

Al really needs to stop making gameplay vids or learn how to play properly.
He makes the game look bad with his ridiculously stupid tactics & poor unit control.

It is what it is
A promo video to show the latest eye-candy; doesn't look like anyone at CA honed their "chops" at a real time battle since Orda and Magyar faced CA in a MP battle.

I laughed out loud and then died a little when he first goes to look at the Roman force and they are turned towards the wood in a broken disorganized formation. We've all seen that every time we played a battle against the AI in RTW.

I really wanted to pre-order to get the Greek culture pack, but this game looks about the same at RTW. Sure the eye candy is better, but on max settings with the Res Gestate terrain, RTW is quite beautiful too...

The longer I watched, the worse it got... the Romans had a very splintered charge into his lines. And his one advantage, his cavalry superiority, he totally wasted. Then he spent more time pressing stampede and reforming skirmishers and his general into the diamond formation that actually flanking and trying to outmaneuver his opponent. Granted, fine, the AI isn't much better and he is a terrible player and this is just to show off the game. But then I saw this....

Attachment 10543

Why are they all looking at their feet? I thought it might just be the Triari, but it is everyone.... apparently someone lost their wallet, and they are all searching for it.

Attachment 10544

Oh well. Something tells me that's why they never focus on the closeup action, because the animations aren't where they need to be yet. I remain undecided... CA hasn't shown me anything that makes me want to move on from EB honestly, yet I keep looking.

Nice video I am considering whether to buy rtw2, is it worth it

Wow, the ai is much better than i expected

Hey it's George S. on the .Org!


Well this seems to be like the last bastion of criticism in a decently known forum. Twc is becoming more like the official forums now. :I

So anyways to be on topic: Eye of Sauron, jeeze that thing came make ambushes almost useless.

Let me sum up Rome 2 in this: Rome 1+Shogun 2 stuff, and some cool graphics. That's about it. (Plus some ai tweaks and some other stuff) I got Shogun 2 only a few months earlier so I can wait for this to hit bargain price.

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Eye of Sauron, jeeze that thing came make ambushes almost useless.

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Well they may actually work if you don't 'hide' your troops by walking them toward the enemy through the edge of the forest closest to the enemy.
I mean, seriously who fights with cav by frontally attacking Principes & Triarii in a forest?
Put the cav on the far side of the forest until the enemy has gone past, hide the left flank actually deep in the bit there but don't try to pretend that the AI finding those shallow hidden troops was a sign of great AI.

Worse, the Roman army when initially spotted seems to be moving toward the cav in the forest -> knows where the hidden units are & is heading for them, not 'trying to sneak some units through there'.

Back in Shogun1 initially the AI didn't know you had hidden troops & you could actually do ambushes which was good.
Then they patched the AI to count how many units were visible & if it couldn't see all the units it would go hunting forest bits for them -> ambushes became pretty much impossible.

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Originally Posted by hoom

Well they may actually work if you don't 'hide' your troops by walking them toward the enemy through the edge of the forest closest to the enemy.
I mean, seriously who fights with cav by frontally attacking Principes & Triarii in a forest?
Put the cav on the far side of the forest until the enemy has gone past, hide the left flank actually deep in the bit there but don't try to pretend that the AI finding those shallow hidden troops was a sign of great AI.

Worse, the Roman army when initially spotted seems to be moving toward the cav in the forest -> knows where the hidden units are & is heading for them, not 'trying to sneak some units through there'.

Back in Shogun1 initially the AI didn't know you had hidden troops & you could actually do ambushes which was good.
Then they patched the AI to count how many units were visible & if it couldn't see all the units it would go hunting forest bits for them -> ambushes became pretty much impossible.

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Well in multiplayer a decent player would notice if you attempt any sneak attack ( LoS avoiding etc, etc) and would be more careful of engaging fully.

I don't really like that the battles seem so fast paced.

Is it me or the "hoplite" phalanx doesn't even lock shields?

It uses this keep formation attribute (Not Guard mode) perhaps it looks like EB1 hoplitai with reduced radius tweaks.