Beginner's Guide to RTW - Question Collection

Can someone pin this, please? Things are moving so fast in here.

Yes, I am going to do a beginner's guide. The flood of questions, the craptasticness of the Prima guide, the way people keep asking ... ok, I'm convinced.

This time things are going to work slightly differently:
-Firstly it will take longer to write than MTW's because I only got the game yesterday. I'm also doing/writing other things. I am willing to put other things on the backburner for the few days of writing time it will take; research and upkeep are the two main drains aside from, and perhaps far above, that and they will be handled differently. Research is, well read number 3. Upkeep will be taken care of later when there is an actual guide to upkeep; I have a few ideas.

-Secondly beginner's is the key. This is not a unit guide, combat stat guide or anything else.

-Thirdly the game is going to have a patch, and patches tend to alter quite a bit. I am not going to spend forever building a detailed guide for 1.0 only to have it made redundant by the patch; design will be different to take this into account.

What you can do: collect beginner's questions, common questions, handy details like how to mod away the green arrows and other FAQ solutions and post them here. I am not going to do all my research for the initial research myself; I shall use the plebs (:tongueg:) in the forum. You'll end up in the credits ...

I am highly interested in 'official' information, you know the old "CA guy X said command stars are worth ...". Collect it, bring it back with the dev's name and a full, proper quote. If any of the CA people want to volunteer information to fill our blind spots I would be very grateful indeed.

Yes, well that is it for now.

Our worthy blossom embarks on another dangerous, long and tiring journey for the benefit of our Total War community. I bow in respect and worship! :bow:

Though I have no questions - yet - I wish you luck and a lot of patience in this enterprise.

OK, here's some stuff I would like explored in a guide (from the point of view of a STW/MTW player new to RTW):

- How to make money: apparently, you can trade without trade buildings. And don't need ships for sea trade? Dorkus has done some research and come to the conclusion that the economic upgrades (not ports) are not so remunerative. Victoria pushes them in the early game though.

-Friendly fire: I fought a battle with the Gauls where I lost about 50 men but the Gauls only killed 8. The rest must have come from my archers and velites that were trying to fire over the heads of my front line, MTW style. EDIT: velites may best be used to skirmish in front of your lines; they may prompt an enemy charge, but the velites can withdraw allowing a counter-charge (in MTW you only got a charge bonus against the unit you targeted, so AI charging escaping velites may have lost their charge bonus). But beware - cavalry can catch skirmishers. Archers have greater range and so could be put further back, but ideally should have clear sight of the enemy.

-Roman pila: this is the primary weapon of Roman heavy infantry. Order them to attack and they will try to throw pila. Two problems: (a) if charged, the enemy may be on them before they get a shot off; (b) if out of ammo, they may waste time looking for it. Pressing alt-right click gets them to use their secondary weapons, swords. Dorkus says post-Marian units get their pila off more quickly. [EDIT]: setting hastati etc. to "fire at will" and keep them stationary should allow them to get off a volley before enemy infantry close.

-Dogs: seem to be like missiles; they regenerate after use.

-Marian reforms: seem to come after the Imperial Palace is built by any Roman faction (or is it just a city of 24000 population?).

-Squalor: something on how to deal with this would be nice. Some folk at the .com are saying use enslave or exterminate to avoid large captured cities with loyalty problems.

-Unit types: something on the importance of pikes (of varying lengths), spears, light vs heavy infantry (does it matter that hastati are light and princeps are heavy), heavy vs light weapons (does this mean AP?) etc would be good.

EDIT for some new stuff:

- Agents unlike MTW, they are not rent-free - 100 dinari upkeep per turn. Border watch towers are more economic ways of keeping an eye on a static frontier.

- Mercenaries unlike MTW seem to have no lower upkeep than comparable regular troops, but have a premium initial price. This means they should not be cannon fodder as in MTW, but are more worthwhile generally if they are superior or fill a niche your faction currently lacks. The type of mercenaries you depends on location - e.g. Dacia can give very tasty heavy cavalry (Samartian) and 2HP infantry (Basternae or some such).

-Retinues die with your general; best leave your aged generals to spend out their later years in solitude (or with mad uncles, etc), giving their retinues to younger folk. Stripping aged characters of retinues may actually lead them to acquire replacements quickly (e.g. a replacement priest of the temple in the two he is governing - this opens up the possibility of priest farming!). 8 retinue per character is the maximum.

- Ballistae can shoot down gates of some low level towns, meaning you don't have to wait a turn for a battering ram. Downside is that they slow down your army on the campaign map. Unlike MTW, they can be moved (slowly) on the battlemap.

Thanks for the pin ~:wave:

Thanks, voigtkampf.

Yes, that's the idea Simon. Now if more people can do that ...

When I play the campaigne in RTW, the only factions I am able to choose are the three Roman families. Do you have to finish a Roman campaigne before you can choose the other nations?

play the game on easy and quick campaign (outlast certain factions, take over 15 provinces) - you'll win in some 15 years on average. And you'll unlock every playable faction. It's a good way just to learn the game.

Hey, Froggy is taking the quill again!
Offers fame and glory in exchange for the sapientiae.... looks kike a good deal, but I cant help you right now, coz RTW wont run on my auld PC, and I need a Power supply to complete the new one. I will hopefully get one next week and then we´ll see.

But I promise I will critisize your work. :book: :bow:

retinues Rentinues can be transferred from one character to another if they are at the same locale (just click, drag, and drop to transfer), but only between the same character types i.e. family members cant give to spies etc, and only if that character doesnt already have that rentinue type already e.g. a family member cant have two "drillmasters".

friendly fire II If a cav unit (maybe all types) moves through a missile unit while it is firing you will take friendly fire. So watch where units are going.

Battle timer The amount of time you have is dependent on the size of the armies. Dont delay your attacks with small forces, you may run out of time.

skirmish mode Unless you plan to use your missile units as skirmishers (given the speed of attacking units read 'suicide squads') turn off 'skirmish mode' before battle begins. Having your carefully placed cretan archers head for the rear as the enemy nears and contacts your front line troops is not conducive to victory.

Bridge Crossing Make sure bridges are clear of other units before sending chariots across. They are poor drivers and can fall off the side (I lost 4 of 9 chariots that way).

how do you bribe naval fleets... if you can?

and when i tried to bribe an army there was only an opinion for the army to disband i think and return to the fields or soemthing? i want to bribe them on my side.....

anyone? thnx!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by frogbeastegg

I am highly interested in 'official' information, you know the old "CA guy X said command stars are worth ...". Collect it, bring it back with the dev's name and a full, proper quote.

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Jerome Grasdyke has answered this very question quite comprehensively in the thread below, entitled "CA: what do command stars do?":

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=37001

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JeromeGrasdyke

It currently affects both morale and combat ability - we tried it for a while with just morale, but it ended up being not enough of a bonus. The combat calculations have changed so much from Rome to Medieval as to be unrecogniseable, so it's no longer easy to equate stars to experience.

As a rule of thumb it's one point of attack per command rank, up to a maximum of 10, and this can become negative for very bad generals. This combat bonus is applied to all troops under his command on the battlefield. Experience is one point of attack and one point of defense per chevron, plus a morale bonus as well.

The general's command also controls his radius-of-effect, which is set to 30 m + 5 m * command + 2 m * influence. This is used to award morale bonusses to nearby units (in addition to the combat bonus), and when testing which units are affected it tests the distance between the actual general's position and the centre-point of the unit being considered.

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Edits:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Simon Appleton

Agents unlike MTW, they are not rent-free - 100 dinari upkeep per turn.

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This is slightly inaccurate . Diplomats cost 50 denarii per turn, spies 100 denarii per turn, and assasins cost a whopping 200 denarii per turn!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by donnybrasco

how do you bribe naval fleets... if you can?

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I don't think that you can.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by donnybrasco

and when i tried to bribe an army there was only an opinion for the army to disband i think and return to the fields or soemthing? i want to bribe them on my side

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You can only keep units you could, in theory if not in practice just yet, train yourself. So if you are a Roman faction, you can keep armies from other Roman factions. You can't bribe an army/city led by a Faction leader or his heir. Similarly for barbarian factions, where you can keep barbarian units that you could train. Romans can bribe Roman peasants (say from a revolt in one of their cities), but not barbarian peasants and vice versa. If you want units from another culture, e.g. elephants as a Roman faction, they must be mercenary troops, either hired by a family member when he is outside a settlement, or given to you as a gift by the Senate.

Hope that answers your questions!

Ok, thanks people.

I've handled everything I can from this list and it seems no one has anything to add, so you can unpin this now.

Retraining - From a dev at the .com (From his .com profile Dutch, Occupation :: Rome: Total War Lead Programmer, and he holds moderator status). Sorry, no original link, threads barely last a week before falling off the boards at .com.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dutch

Dutch
Moderator
Posts: 141
(10/5/04 1:55 pm)
Reply | Edit | Del Re: What's the go with retraining?
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Retraining can do two things:

1) if the settlement can produce that type of unit, it will replenish the unit with new soldiers *at the units average experience level*; these soldiers are subtracted from the settlement population as normal
2) if the settlement can produce armour or weapon upgrades for which the unit is eligible and which it does not already have, retraining will add these to the unit being retrained

If the settlement can do both, it will do so. Replenishment costs a proportion of the unit's cost in denari, while retraining for upgrades costs a nominal amount per upgrade. You can retrain as many units as will fit into the recruitment queue in one turn, although you end up paying for all of them. Hence it is often better to retrain a lot of old units if you need troops quickly, rather than recruiting new.

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Academies
Originally from here.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JeromeGrasdyke

How does the Academy bonus work?

The Academy generates ancillaries for characters which are inside a settlement which contains an Academy. If you examine export_descr_ancillaries.txt you will be able to spot them, together with a lot of other ancillaries which are linked to the presence of buildings.

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Culture and Unrest Penalties
From here.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JeromeGrasdyke

Culture penalty has a maximum of 50%. As a general rule of thumb, the amount is determined by the proportion of buildings in the settlement which have been built by factions of your culture - for example, if you're playing the Julii, and you take over a Greek city which is split 50% between buildings built by the Greeks and the Brutii, you should see something like a 25% culture penalty. Then when you replace the buildings built by the Greeks, the culture penalty disappears. Who last built a building-of-governance has a substantial influence as well.

Turmoil on the other hand has quite a few causes; it includes unrest after a city has changed hands (which dissipates over time), problems due to a Governor's unpleasant habits and a bunch of other things. It can vary quite a bit.

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Protectorates - broken. To be fixed in 1.2
Acknowledged as broken by dev here.

Excellent information, motorhead. Thanks.

can you get retinue that prevents corruption when governing a settlement?
and how do you go about affecting the settlement details screen? besides building health facilities, improving agriculture and building buildings and having a competent govenor in place.

one thing that got me when i first played, i kept on running out of money because the settlements that were being automanaged were spitting out troops that i didn't want be careful about the AI assistance for managing towns people... better off turning it off entirely otherwise you'll have many extra unwanted Velites or somesuch unit

Ok, thanks everyone. Version 1.0 of the guide is about ready to go gold; it should be up tonight.

This can be unpinned now, thank you.

is it possible to make a group of units simply rush in a general direction without staying in formation?
i almost lost a battle because my cavalry went into formation before charging the gateway i was fighting to control

how do you have the type of game where unit sizes are larger, that is, footmen more than 41 soldiers per unit, and cavalry more than 27 soldiers per unit?

i've tried different difficulty levels, but they are all the same in terms of unit numbers...??? :help:

Thanks Froggy. Found it very helpful

I started the tutorial but had to stop after over an hour. I was surprised to see that the save game was greyed out. I didn't feel like going over it, so i took the plunge. :embarassed:
Now I'm currently playing the game and doing quite well, but I've just found out that i've been missing on something, and that's creation of forts and watchtowers (and possibly other things). I've spent some time looking around but couldn't find any documentation on how to create these. Can you help please? ~:confused:

:help:

I love your guides. I even sleep with the MTW one under my pillow to inspire me. ;) I would like you to elucidate us pleebs on what all of the stuff in the options section does. Like antialisine and stuff like that. Is that just something to keep Alice from playing the game. It is all Geek to me. Thanx

i've gotten the hang of the game since i got it a week ago but theres still some stuff bothering me.... help is appreciated.

questions:

a) when i have a nice line of troops waiting to engage, how do i get them to charge in one straight line instead of rushing in different directions. some veer off to the left and others to the right and theres a big hole down the middle... exposing weaker troops.


b) when defending a siege, where do i position my onagers? placing them just behind the wall doesnt allow them to fire it seems.


:charge:

A very quick assortment of answers:

The only way to move a group of units forward (or indeed in any direction) without losing formation is to re-drag the formation at the location you want them to move to. Yes, this is annoying.

Watchtowers and forts can only be built by generals. Move the general to a suitable site then click on the upper of the two big circles just to the right of the centre of the main interface. That should bring up a sheet offering the build choices.

I can add a bit about the technical bits to the next version, which will appear to cover the 1.2 patch.

I haven't used onagers in a siege with high walls yet. Try placing them a bit further back; if they are too close the projectile presumably won't gain the height to make it over the wall.




Can I request all future questions are posted in the guide thread please? I am having a hard time keeping up with all the work this guide is generating, and needing to check just one location less will make my life that little bit easier. It also makes it more likely you'll get an answer in a timely manner. I'm currently working with something like a 2 day lag between receiving a message or post and actually answering it.

Hello. I was reading the Beginner's Guide and thought I would share this. Incase noone has mentioned it before.

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Originally Posted by A Beginner's Guide to Rome: Total War

Remember how you used to set your army up in a nice, pretty formation, then select them all with ctrl+a then hold alt and click to move them, and they kept that nice, pretty formation and facing? Well, not any more. Tragically the ‘move but retain facing’ command is gone and there is no substitute. Moving your army even a few paces forward invites them to slant the line and present a nice vulnerable flank to the enemy. When dragging out a collection of units into a new formation you will only get a single line if you put them in the single line group formation (default shortcut is shift+1), whereas before this was not necessary.

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There is a way to keep your custom formation, unit proportions and positions and have them all facing the same way when moving them. If you organise them in the custom formation you want, then select all (this also works with small groups of units), then put them in a group, they will keep their exact formantions. If you try and right drag the group to a new position you will notice that the units keep their formations and unit width.

Note: If you want to change the formation in any way or change any units width you must first remove that particular unit from the group, make the changes then put them back into the group.

I hope this helps and saves some frustration. I know it annoyed me when all the units would try and run to the exact same spot or be streached in 1 long line after all my hard work getting them how I like them ~D .

how do i get better units?is there a tustedo formation? :duel:

I'd forgotten this thread :embarrassed:

PickledGecko, thank you. That is not quite the feature I was speaking of, perhaps quite similar but not so user friendly. Fortunately the 1.2 patch has restored the old system where you simply hold down 'alt' while giving a movement order. This works with all units, including single ungrouped ones.

jullii caesar, the testudo formation in in the game. It is useable by all types of Roman legionaries, i.e. the units Rome gets after the Marian reforms. I think some of the factions with imitation legionaries, such as the Seleucids, can also use testudo with their copycat legionaries.

New units are gained in two ways:
1. Building a better barracks/stables/archery range. As each city grows you have access to better buildings in that city; when you upgrade one of the three troop producing buildings you gain access to better units and well as the original ones you had before.
2. The Marian reforms. This only affects the four Roman factions. It is based on a historical event and person, and 1.2 has altered the trigger quite a bit. Suffice it to say when the Romans have at least one very advanced city and it is past a certain date (220BC I think it it supposed to be now) then the Romans will get a whole new army system. Their old units, like the hastati and triarii, will become obsolete and you can't build or train them any more. Instead you have access to the new Roman legionary and their supporting units.

thank you.