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What other historical gaffs has CA made, specifically in STW and MTW?
(Note to moderators: this discussion transcends the individuals games, leaving it berift of suitable forum. As such, I am posting it in the Colesseum, where lots of people hang out. ~;) Also, this discussion may help people (including myself) from calling RTW utter crap compared to MTW based on historical accuracy. If this is indeed in the wrong forum, you may of course move it. :bow: )
Personally, I regard MTW units as rather less historically accurate than those in RTW. If you just blank out the Egyptians, RTW has a pretty decent representation of most factions. For example, I find the units of Romans, Gauls, Greeks, Macedonians etc. in vanilla RTW are not so far apart in concept from those in Rome Total Realism. You get your iconic armies based alternatively around legions, phalanxes, horse archers, warbands etc. The dogs, pigs etc. are relatively minor annoyances.
The historical inaccuracies in MTWs units that bugged me were:
(1) The whole "sword vs spear" distinction seemed specious. Most of the units would have had spears and some sideweapons like swords. It introduces an extra level of "rock-scissors-paper" gameplay unwarranted by history.
(2) MTW gives the Muslim factions infantry that is more heavily armoured than their Catholic counterparts in the early period - the AUMs and the Saracens. In both cases, this is incorrect but the fictious units really affect the gameplay (the units can be game winners in early). Also, I think MTW does not represent horse archer armies as well as vanilla RTW - they are rather unpowered.
(3) The Byzantine infantry and kataphracts were probably anachronistic - infantry with long spears and Latin mercenary knights would have been more appropriate substitutes. Again, these units are game winners in early.
(4) The restriction of Gothic armour to Spain, Germany and Italy is an artifice. The lancers get their Gothic armour a period too early in SP.
(5) Arbalests are a period too early in SP, where they are absolutely dominating against the AI.
Because of the above, I don't find MTW battles represent history as well as RTW. If you play Catholic, you are messing around with sword/spear interactions that are ahistorical. If you play Almohad or Byzantine, you are steamrollering your enemy with ahistorical swords. If you play high, the arbalest assumes an unwarranted prominence. etc. etc.
For all that, I can happily play MTW vanilla whereas for RTW, I find I can only have fun if I use the RTR mod.
For STW, theres the super battle ninja, T-800 in a Geisha costume, weird and wrong uses of kanji, emissary wearing kimono with the mon of their clan printed all over the place, throne room with a human head displayed, weird concept of seppuku, ahistorical units, wrong faction starting postition, only 7 factions etc.
Hehe, European knights in MTW sounded Japanese when they died. ~;)