Full General cam

I'm wondering, has anyone ever tried doing an entire campaign using only the locked general cam? I did a search and the last mention of it was about a year ago, and no one in particular was using it.

I ask because I'm currently running a campaign as Germania on hard/hard and it is VERY difficult, even with movement and kill rate speeds down to MTW standards (or slower in some cases), to command with only general cam. Keeping track of exactly what units are having trouble and what units I can send as reinforcements if a line is breaking, etc, is a major mental exercise. Galloping around the field to get a more detailed look than the info on the unit cards is horrible --- it makes me appreciate positioning myself on the sides of mountain ranges so I've at least got a decent view.

It would be very nice if one could give orders like "Go around the right flank of the enemy line, destroy any missile troops you find, then charge the back of the enemy line and break them." To attempt to simulate this, of course, I have to break from the general cam occasionally so that the unit commanders on flankers/cav units will act semi-intelligently.

All in all though, its turning out to be a fun challenge. Anyone else sadistic enough to use this extensively?

What do you mean by "General Cam" ?

That´s a camera option which locks the camera on the location of your general´s unit. You can rotate about, but you can´t move it freely. So whenever you want to see another part of the battlefield you have to move your general there.

Probably it´s a funny gimmick, but I doubt that even the most die-hard history freaks around here use it constantly, for all their whining.

i tried it. it was quite fun. but very hard.

I tried it once, at least a year ago. I remember as the Brutii I was just *barely* able to win a Hard battle, using the general cam, when I should have been able to trounce the enemy handily.

I finally stopped doing it because I figured each unit would, in "reality", have a commander of some sort who would give them individual directions -- they wouldn't just stand around because the general's eye was on another part of the field. Before battle, they'd all have some sort of plan which they'd be able to carry out with only minimal direction from the highest tier of command -- at least, I imagine that's the way it was. So when I'd go and order a unit of cav to outflank the enemy line, and then order my infantry to advance, and then forget about the cav and let them get charged when I wasn't looking, I figured it didn't make sense to play like that -- that unit of cav wouldn't depend on the general's attention for every movement they made on the battlefield.

Anyway, one thought I had at the time was using AI control for parts of the battlefield, depending on how well it worked, and keeping the camera locked on my general. Never tried it though; I just like too much control I guess.

Wasn't that one of the strengths of the Roman military, actually? That the centurions were quite capable of leading their centuries on their own with minimal guidance from the commanding officer?

When RTW first came out I though it was a cool feat and played several campaigns with it. It´s really tough and it gives you a feel for how hard it is to command an army this way. There are huge probs though, like the need to micromanage the rest of your units since they don´t behave logical or does the proper things at the right moment so this whole concept gets unworkable.

I assume it would work better to play with it if that ai control thing worked better. I once played a battle where I let parts of my army use it (specifically the light cavalry I had on my flanks). They charged suicidally straight into the enemys center. The only parts of my army with ai control that didn't make suicide attacks was the skirmishing units.

What I've started doing is laying out a battle plan via shift-clicking while way up in the air. Then I go into locked general cam. If as a general I can see there's a big problem with the plan I laid out, then I pause, pop back up in the air, and redo the shift-click pathing.

Much smoother battles now. I personally don't like to pause very much, so the less I can do that the better.

I had one battle on Saturday where two 60-man cavalry units got slaughtered by spearmen because I had left them where they stood after taking care of some routers, and then forgot about them.

It makes me wish one could put ANY unit on skirmish if being attacked by a certain type of unit (i.e. all cav units can avoid spears, spears can avoid sword units, etc). That is probably something I will have to wait for the afterlife for, though ~:)

Will only work well if you give the AI command of some of your units.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lofman

I assume it would work better to play with it if that ai control thing worked better. I once played a battle where I let parts of my army use it (specifically the light cavalry I had on my flanks).

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Just out of interest, how do you let the AI control part of your army?

I think he's just talking about the AI control button you can set on any group of units during a battle (the little computer icon in the units command area).

Yes, though I´ve noticed (using the DarthFormations) that this works only really properly if you give over the command of your whole army to the AI. They perform rather good then; of course, giving command to the whole army sort of defeats the whole purpose of AI control. Handing over the cavalry is something I don´t recommend, rather give the AI command over your infantry center and manage the cavalry yourself. That, of course, is difficult when using the Genereal´s camera only which again kind of defeats the whole purpose of AI control.

I played a full campaign in Rome Remastered and I don't think I can go back to normal. It was pretty amazing. I've grown to dislike the space god view of the battles. I tried the new Pharaoh and the camera went so high up that I had trouble comprehending distances, and it also took me right out of the entire game. I made a camera mod that put the camera down to around tree height. I removed all banners and excess markers etc. from the battles, and now it's almost the way I like it. The missing general camera can sort of be simulated by the unit camera though it's not the same, and the missing AI command for friendly units cannot be fixed, so for me that was the end of that game I think.

In my Remastered campaign, in cases where I would have to attack from different directions, I would give command to the units themselves and hope for the best. That was incredible, because it took away the upper hand we have as humans against the AI. If I had to chase people down after a battle I would also make the AI automate that. I played as Pontos, and I think my campaign ended when I conquered Rome. I was playing on normal difficulty and it became relatively simple to finish. It was the most fun I have had in a TW game since I first played Rome and Medieval II.