I got the 450th post and I'm not even a member.
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I got the 450th post and I'm not even a member.
451st actually ~;)
Sorry about that. The battle had been announced in-character in the Senate and there was so much discussion about it I felt I had to respond to it in the Senate as well. I intentionally cropped those pictures way down and only did a few to keep it from cluttering the thread. Please do move it if you feel you want to make another storage area for them though.Quote:
Originally Posted by econ21
Both he and Luca Mamilius have been added. How does it feel being bald and 'flexible' at age 16? :laugh4: I imagine you can get some good RP out of those traits.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiberius
It seems that Verginus was the one who adopted Luca Mamilius so I am going to edit my ambush battle report to indicate that he saved my life in that battle. That would give a compelling reason for his adoption.
I would be honored to assume control of this character. I'll finish reading through all the posts I have missed while on vacation and get up to date on events.Quote:
Originally Posted by econ21
Luca Mamilius is quite a good character, and only 25. A good age for a new character and fits quite well his 4 years of military experience as a Tribune.
I like the idea. Further, perhaps the first post in such a thread could be used as a record of all the battles. Just name of the commander, place of battle, opponent, number of troops deployed, kills, casualties, outcome. In some sort of a list. I don't think it would be very difficult for the Consul to keep such a list during his term, then pass it to whoever is responsible for updating the record at the end of the term. The subsequent posts would then contain the reports of dramatic battles.Quote:
Originally Posted by Death the destroyer of worlds
Good ideas. I'll try to work something up for my reign. DDW - have you kept the above bare bone details of battles on your watch?Quote:
Originally Posted by FLYdude
And a big hello to our newest general, Luca Mamilius aka Marcus Camillus. ~:wave: Keep in mind the stepping down into the Lower House idea. The main implication is that the First Consul may give you a command and ask you to fight a battle or too. You don't have to wait until you want to stand for First Consul before you step down - you just have to have the mod installed and be ready to play out a battle within 48 hours. If you stay in the Upper House, the First Consul is more likely to make you a second general in a stack or a governor, as if you lead troops and get into a battle, it will have to be autoresolved. :scared:
Yes, I have. I will compile a list and send it to you/post it somewhere. Marcus, if you find the time to read the (endless) amount of posts in this thread, you will notice some questions about your most excellent mod. I would be obliged if you could answer them.Quote:
Originally Posted by econ21
SHut it about the hair :furious3:Quote:
Originally Posted by TinCow
Don't forget, I'm still your brother in law and as such you should respect the.. running family trait of.. more visible scalps. Keep it up and you'll get disowned, you will!
I'm liking the 'calm' and 'gladiatorial fan' though. Does draughtsman mean some kind of architectual fan, who likes building buildings?
Draughtsman - "This man's interest in architecture stands him in good stead when construction work is needed." 10% construction discount, -1 squalorQuote:
Originally Posted by Tiberius
Flexible - "This man is regarded as morally flexible. Somehow, doing the 'right thing' does not come naturally to him." 20% decrease to bribe, -1 to law
Gladiatorial Fan - "This man's fondness for the Games makes him a popular figure among the plebs." -1 unrest
Calm - "This man seldom allows emotion to influence his decisions or his pursuit of duty." +1 influence, +1 management
Gourmet of Life - "This man appreciates the better things in life." -1 management, 10% decrease to bribe
All in all, that sounds like the perfect Tribune of the Plebs!
TinCow - any chance you could edit the size of a couple of your screenshots in the Senate deliberations thread? I can then copy them and stick them into the battle reports thread; at the moment, they are putting the layout of the thread out of whack. I don't know how you do your screenshots, but I use Irfranview to reduce them to 75% size as per Ludens's recommendation before saving them as jpg.
The ones from my ambush? I thought I cropped those enough; they look pretty small to me. How low a resolution do you people run? Let me know what the max resolution size you want is, since 75% of my game res may still be too high if those crops are too large.Quote:
Originally Posted by econ21
Wikipedia : Technical drawing, also known as drafting or draughting, is the technique of creating accurate representations of objects for architecture and engineering drawings. A skilled practitioner of the art is known as a draftsman or draftsperson (or draughtsman, draughtsperson in the UK).
That's funny, I thought it was something to do with drinking alcohol or brewing beer or something. But then, that's what I'm usually thinking about ~:cheers:
By the way, if you're morals are low, you should throw some parties with my extravagant son Manlius :laugh4:
Sorry, I'm useless about technical stuff. DDW told me the page formatting depends partly on the size of your screen - I have a 17in screen and display it at 1024x768. I don't know if that's what you were asking.Quote:
Originally Posted by TinCow
But the two screenshots that push the page formatting out of line are the 2nd and 3rd. If you could make them the size of the 1st, there should be no problem. Cheers.
Sizing pics to fit 1024x768 is prefectly reasonable, since I believe that is the norm for most PCs these days. I personally run my desktop at 1600x1200 and RTW at 1024x768. I'd like to pump it up even higher, but I don't think I'll be getting a 21" until later this year.Quote:
Originally Posted by econ21
Take a look now and let me know if they fit. If they do fit, how much extra room is there? The resizes are at 600 pixel width and it would be good to know the max I can go to without distorting the thread.
Thanks - the screenshots are fine now. :2thumbsup: The first and the last are about as big as they can go without changing the page layout. One other point - do you really like the green arrows? I tend to agree with Froggy's guide, "green arrows must die!". I've also experimented with the minimal UI. I can't tell if you use it, but comparing my two battle reports - before and after I discovered it, I think it gives better screenshots.
On another topic - I've expanded the discussion of RTR combat and stats etc in the Senate library. It may interest newcomers to the mod - old timers may want to post any additional insights or disagreements in this thread, then I will integrate them over time.
I disabled green arrows shortly after that battle. I made a second install for RTR and had forgotten to turn them off.
In re: RTR combat, I disagree somewhat with your statements about Triarii. I know it isn't apparent in the stats, but there's something else to Triarii that makes them superior on the defensive to Principes. I often keep units taking the brunt of the attack on hold position and then flank with other units. I have found that Triarii hold a line far better than Principes and take far fewer casualties. Perhaps it is the spears keeping the enemy at bay, I'm not sure. Regardless, Triarii are like a mobile wall. Even when only 3 deep they can hold a line for nearly an entire battle without losing too many men. Even Principes will suffer casualties in such a situation. In fact, I've only ever seen one unit beat Triarii when used this way, Baesternai (sp?) Infantry. Those things carved through my Principes at an unbelievable speed and Triarii lost via attrition. You don't want to know what happened to the Italian Infantry I sent after them.
OK - that's good to know. I'll cut the offending line. I was largely talking off the stats. I confess I have not encountered basternae in RTR.
I also find triari disappointing in vanilla RTW. I don't think I am patient enough to use spears properly in RTW.
By constrast, triari in EB are gods (so good, Davy called them the "I win button"). They are about the only thing that can stand up to gestatae (basternae on amphetamines).
Can units swim across rivers in RTW v1.5 or is that only in BI?
There is one wading crossing at Massilia, directly in front of you as you enter the battle. I only have RTW 1.5, so it should work.
EDIT : Swimming only works in BI, along with shield wall and some other special abilities. Haven't looked into it further as I don't own BI. BUT, units can wade at a river crossing.
Some notes :
For those not in the know :
Edit your preferences.txt in the main and the prefences directory of your RTW install.
Set DISABLE_ARROW_MARKERS:TRUE for no more green arrows (units will glow slighly instead).
Set SHOW_BANNERS:FALSE for no more banners on the battefield.
Set UNLIMITED_MEN_ON_BATTLEFIELD:TRUE if you have a computer personally send to you by your diety of choice. (That's a no for almost everyone)
Set MINIMAL_UI:TRUE for the minimal interface. (Not a big fan myself).
On combat :
Spearman good against cavalry
Swordsmen good against spearmen
Cavalry good against swordsmen
After our last update cavalry has become a lot better again, so you can drop the line 'and fragile' in your first comment IMO.
Charging shaken-wavering-routing units is generally the wisest course. Otherwise never charge a unit in the front, and always retreat after the charge peters out. Regroup some distance away and charge again. Do not use the wedge formation as it is buggy. Your cavalry will panick almost at the instant your charge hits the enemy. Depth in a cavalry formation is the key for a succesfull charge.
Skirmishers have incredible morale, like nazi SS stormtroopers or something. This is my only big beef with RTR:PE. I hope this gets fixed soon.
Slingers are NOT just as good IMO. They tend to fire in a straight line and so have to be exposed in the front or they will slaughter your own men with 'friendly fire'. They also do not have the option to fire 'flammable' missiles (which are a good morale killer BTW). Give me cretan archers any day :) They are also very ineffective against units that are armoured, i.e. almost any non-barbarian infantry unit. Use them against barbarians and skirmishers and, very carefully, against cavalry.
On fire at will, be extremely careful, or you will kill more of your own troops than the enemy. I usually take units off fire at will once the infantry is in a general melee. It also prevents skirmishers from throwing 80 spears at a single soldier. Almost all the german units are armed with throwing spears, making them quite dangerous.
All the spearmen units have the 'phalanx' ability, meaning that they are really strong defensively if put on guard. I always try to let the enemy charge my spear-armed units on guard. Flank them with swordsmen off guard and hit them in the back with cavalry. When attacking with spearmen units take them off guard mode for best effects.
Basternae are really nasty and have 2 HP AND an incredibly powerful attack. They can chop up anything. The only unit which beats them is Hypaspitai with an incredible 3 HP AND excellent defense/attack.
Hypaspitai spearmen are horrible, but Hypaspitai Swordsmen are truly awesome. Unfortunately the AI tends to build them in large quantities, while they historically were rare, being the elite of the elite. They come in half-normal size units.
Both these units are supreme when it comes to storming heavily defended walls. Nothing can stand against them.
One thing I don't understand about this mod, DDW, is what has happened to the phalanx formation? You say all spearmen have it - do you mean they have some bonuses (short_pike)? I don't see a phalanx button on my Italian spearmen. Is there a phalanx button even for pikemen? Hoplites etc never seem to use that slow old formation from vanilla RTW.
It´s a bit wierd, I´ll grant you that. Basically the easiest way to workaround the new bugs in RTW 1.5 was to give all spearmen units the phalanx ability. There is no button, they have it automatically on guard mode. Historically hoplites didn´t walk, but charged running.
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/i...howtopic=20852
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/i...howtopic=20524
http://forums.rometotalrealism.org/i...howtopic=20098
To summarize, a spearmen unit with "short_pike" and "light_spear" can hold its line in organized pikeman formation with "guard mode" on.
Thanks, DDW, I will have to read those reports but it sounds interesting. In practice, does it mean that AI spears start deployed with "guard mode" on and so are phalanxes that can run? Yikes. I will have to strengthen my recommendation in the Senate library that they be flanked.
BTW, hasn't this campaign suddenly got really challenging? It is just like the other superb RTR Roman campaign I mentioned before where I ended up at war with almost everyone. With VH difficulty, factions that are weak in vanilla - Gauls and Carthage - can spam out full stacks of troops. With the RTR stats, these troops can still kill a lot of Romans. And with the campaign house rules, it's a struggle to make up our losses. Great fun! :2thumbsup:
EDIT: just seen Shifty157's battle report. Outstanding victory! Looking at the forces ranged against us, I think it was the best victory of the campaign so far. :bow: But I can't find the post-battle savegame - have you uploaded it yet? Also, can you reduce your screenshots by 75% so that the page formatting is maintained? Cheers.
I am not quite sure about what the AI does. If its takes its spearmen (hoplites, not REAL phalanxes who have 'long spear' or 'sarissa') of guard mode they will lose the 'phalanx' ability. If the Thracians join in, we will be in serious trouble. Luckily, they have their hands full with Macedon at the moment. With the naval invasions and M&N mod Carthage is very dangerous. You see why I reinforced legions all over the place.
Gah, the Achaeans are the father of the phalanx! Macedonian imitator :furious3:
So, does this mean that we should focus on the Carthaginian threat for now? No use in delaying an invasion, it will just make them stronger. We must act quickly while in character and come to a decision about who to invade.
Hi, I'd like to join this campaign as a member of the Upper House, if that's possible.
Certainly, I think there is a spare avatar, even if there isn't it doesn't matter. When econ21 come on, he'll sort you out.
We have a whole bunch of avatars. Three spies, an assassin and several general characters. I'll update the first consul reports tonight and then you can make a better selection (at work).
Actually, seeing as I'm in the upper house anyway, could I get a diplomat when one goes spare?
We have no spare diplomats, but several spies and one assassin.