Some prob's with RTW (demo)

This is my impression of the game as close to step-by-step that I can get, well not really, but detailed enough.

The first thing I noticed that I thought would have improved the user feel is the menu background seemed to be static. No moving Roman shadows battling in the background like in the first Total War game. Just a picture of some Roman legions. (Adding this would be a plus to the user)

The second thing I noticed is that for the control options it only allows "Total War Settings", not Midieval Settings or Shogun Settings, but rather "Total War Settings", which is only a little similiar to the Midieval settings, but not completely. (An improvement would be to allow a person to select "original defaults" or something to that effect that would set the game interfaces to the same setup as in the previous Total War versions)

In the actual battlemap there should be an option to get rid of the little menu selection that takes up 25% of screen in battle, its not little. This is no good, the complete battlemap visibility is what made Total War so unique opposed to most other stradegy games. All I should see is the unit cards, if I want, and the radar, if I want. (An improvement would be to make it an option to see the little command selection thing) I liked being able to just left click to select the unit and then attack using left click and/or right click to give it a special command or in RTW's case do a special formation or unit move. (I would also reccommend changing the camera viewing methods. I liked being able to just right click anywhere on the battlemap in the previous games and toggling the camera view to the exact position I wanted) Now I am restricted to just using the middle mouse button or the / and * buttons. This is also bad and should be added to one of the camera options or as part of the "Original defaults" for the controls.

I noticed that it I could not turn off fatigue, moral, and the other stuff. Sure this is unrealistic to have them off, but it was still a fun option because it allowed a person to watch straight frenzy warfare without having to worry about the armies personalities and weakness.

The horses I noticed took for ever catching up to men on foot. I tried using my calvary to chase down some Roman skirmishers and it took too long. The horses should have caught up to them imediately and slaughtered them. Instead I have to watch while they chase men that are on foot across the map. Horses are faster than men, this is a fact. It would be nice if they fixed the calvary speeds especially naked barbarian mercenary calvary who should be going even faster than calvary with tons of armor.

Those elephant units are sure small. I hope in the actual game one get more like 10 or something.

The redline for the borders I guess I could tolerate, but it would be nice if it was more concealitory or smaller in appearance instead of some bright red blotchy marker.

At the end of the battle I should be able to get out of the little statistical scroll thing and scroll the map viewing the battle field and my armies last position.

These are just a few whiny complaints that came to the top of my mind. Other than these few things the game was pretty fun and I enjoyed it.

I think theres an option in the preference file to get rid of the big menu.
The red borders could be modded out later if there isnt an option.
The foot soldiers should be slowed down as opposed to the cavalry being sped up.
Elephant units can be bigger, check out some of the demo mods.

I hate how CA put in the "Total War Camera" and yet it isn't even the way it used to be...

In preferences.txt set CLASSIC_CONTROL:TRUE to give you a mouselook on the right mouse button, which I think comes from MTW.

Ye gods man, how can you play Medieval:Total War, and then spell it Midivil not once but twice?

IRT Topic

Bah, I don't think a good game needs animated menus. A well-thought out user interface is much more important. Animated menus are superficial fluff, just like bumpmapping or pixel shader 2.0 support. The real meat of a game lies elsewhere.

You will also notice some other misspellings as well. I didn't try to take my time. Thanks for noticing though those errors, though. Also, I did mention that the animated menu interface would be a plus not a necessity.

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Originally Posted by Katana

Ye gods man, how can you play Medieval:Total War, and then spell it Midivil not once but twice?

IRT Topic

Bah, I don't think a good game needs animated menus. A well-thought out user interface is much more important. Animated menus are superficial fluff, just like bumpmapping or pixel shader 2.0 support. The real meat of a game lies elsewhere.

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