On realism and the kill rate - RTW is a game!

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Just slowing everything down might be enough to satisfy those who are also concerned about the kill rate, I don't know. Has anybody examined whether these are independent problems, or if the fast kill rate is just a function of how fast everything is moving?

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I remember several people talked about having a slider with 1/2 and/or 3/4 speed.

That would slow down the killing too. But it would also slow down marching speed and that hasnt been changed in RTW compared to MTW.

The run speed for all units was increased by 50% for RTW (based on my tests in RTW demo) And killing speed was increased too, dont know how much as we dont have the formulas for RTW.


CBR

Personally I find that the kill speed and movement speed mods already available, are doing a good job. The game still runs considerably faster then MTW, but you ample time to micromanage your units and sometimes to juct enjoy the show.

These mods are easy to install and seem to run smoothly for most people, so from that point this whole discussion is a bit moot.
H.

Sorry if I offended you, Bhruic, I guess I was a bit irked to see the exact same analogy that I referenced earlier as one aspect of realism I didn´t care about (time).

Nobody´s asking for "full realism".
I don´t think anyone has asked for that. Howerer, "believable" is another term altogether.

Everything about a game is unrealistic, if you take it that way.
But whether a game is a believable presentation of the real thing - that´s the crux of the issue.

I leave things related to user interface right out - time compression being one of them.

You just need to apply a bit of common sense in these things. It´s easy to say that "sure, to be realistic you need to model every aspect of ancient life" but really...is that relevant?

To me it's not so much the kill rate as how fast the units move. In MTW the speeds seemed okay, in RTW winded units run as fast as a horse in MTW. That just isn't right.

The Kill rate is okay in RTW to me because no longer do you have these super valor high hp troops that could get whacked 20 times and survive. Now, they got whacked once, and boom, down they go.

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Originally Posted by Scorpion

Sorry if I offended you, Bhruic, I guess I was a bit irked to see the exact same analogy that I referenced earlier as one aspect of realism I didn´t care about (time).

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No offense taken.

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Nobody´s asking for "full realism".
I don´t think anyone has asked for that. Howerer, "believable" is another term altogether.

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No, I wasn't implying anyone asked for it. However, I'm sure there's a (very) small percentage of people who'd actually like it. I don't find that to be a sufficient reason to include it in a game.

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Everything about a game is unrealistic, if you take it that way.
But whether a game is a believable presentation of the real thing - that´s the crux of the issue.

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That seems to be a bit of a semantic argument. Sure, we aren't actually being transported back in time to be the ruler of a country. But the concepts that are being used for this game are historical. So if one wished to, one could make the game "realistic" in the sense that it modeled history accurately.

My point is that accurately modeling history doesn't necessarily make for a fun game. I'd prefer to leave out historical issues that make the game less fun. And I don't think that historical accuracy should be used as an excuse and/or justification for the inclusion of something that isn't terribly fun. That's really the gist of it. Attempting to suggest that the combat speed is historically accurate doesn't in any way make it more palatable to me.

Not that I'm saying the game should conform 100% to my personal tastes (although wouldn't that be nice ~;) ). But I suspect that the viewpoint I'm presenting is shared by some of the other people who have posted along similar lines.

Bh

I am at a loss to figure what CA were thinking. There were a lot of things broke in MTW, but the pace and Rock/Paper/Scissors nature of tactical combat was never one of them.

More to the point, it was the whole REASON we bought and kept playing the game despite the fiddly campaign map, nonexistant diplomacy and random naval battles.

So why mess with it? I'm not a member of the .com forums, but has there been a constant level of complaint over there that STW/MTW battles are too slow and too complex, or something? (ive never seen anything like round here). Or is it the publisher forcing CA to dumb the game down to the usual RTS level of retardedness, in order to appeal to the lowest common denominator? Or are these just bugs which have been left unresolved in the rush to release the game?

I guess what i'm asking is : has anyone seen anything posted anywhere by CA staff that even acknowledges that there is a problem, or that attempts to explain why the fundamental gameplay dynamics have changed? I'd really like to know, because after playing and hating the demo i'm holding off buying the game until i'm fairly sure that these issues are at least scheduled for a fix in a patch.

Hi All. Long time player of the TW series. First time poster. I might rustle a few feathers but I will try to keep it tight.

On realism and the "kill rate". I think that people should realize, nobody has any idea what happens when 200 armed and armored men charge at each other from across a distance of perhaps a football field. We all know that carnage and chaos insue, but we don't know about the details. No historian has ever said "They were killing X amount of soldiers per minute and recieving X amount of casualties per minute" about any battle. The plain fact of the matter is that it has been about 400 years since the last time anything happened that was even close to what goes on in RTW. Even CA has to pretty much guess at what the "kill rate" is.

Further, the "kill rate" in this game is actually the casualty rate. A casualty is when you are wounded (including death) badly enough to prevent you from holding your sword and shield and fighting. That could be a hand cut off or a beheading. I don't think that the "kill rate" in MTW took that into account and I think that may be why the "kill rate" in RTW is quicker. I would not be suprised at all if I traveled back in time and saw a battle with 2000 men on the field last about 3 minutes. We are talking about vicious melee's here.

Anyhow, I might be wrong or right about a couple of my above points. However, I know I am right when I say that nobody on this board knows how fast Romans could kill Gauls or Greeks or whatever and how fast Romans would die as a result. The idea is silly and people should give it up.

Hi guys

I've been playing around with the stats for the units for about a week now and have tested anywhere from 2 extra health points to 4 extra health points, the 4 extra health points is nice, long battles, but, quite a hit to archery kills since there is more "wounding" now instead of drop dead figures with each volly. And when units throw pilums or spears it's sort of rare to see a unit drop at all.

But, when I decreased the health to 2 hit points, things got a lot better with archer and javalin/pilum throws, but, of course the battles increased in speed.

So, now I'm leaning more towards the middle 3 hit points, this does fair archery, javilin, pilum kills per shot, usually 1 or 2 a shot and of course the rest are wounded, and the battle speed feels just about right like MTW battles were.

I also played around with the archery/javilin/pilum stats, but, since units have 3 or 4 hit points the wounding is still more prominent than actual drop dead figures and I found out 63 is the maximum one can use on an archer or javilin/pilum thrower atk value. heh Even at 63 atk value, there wasn't significant change on the "drop dead" figures after the toss, it would seem they average the hits out amonst "all" the units and it's rare to drop more than 4 units even with a 63 atk value with 4 health points per unit. Obviously they are all hits since the defense of the units hardly gets anywhere near a 63 atk value, and I suppose they even have that occassional 1 roll that is always a miss and that 20 roll that is always a hit with critical damage in some calculations, though I can't be sure, you know they love to keep their inner workings so secret.

Slowing the battle death down was pretty easy with just increasing health points, increasing the staying power of each unit before routing was solved by increasing the mental points.

What I discovered from playing the vanilla RTW stats with units only having 1 health, placing two exact units "Hastati" vs "Hastati" that the average kill rate per pilum throw per round was 9 units, these were 80 men groups also. So near abouts 1/9th kill ratio per toss. Archers were a little bit less in some cases and more in others, of course it depended on their stats, some archers have low atk values and others have some pretty high ones.

Even with higher attack values doubled, tripled and quadrupled after raising the health of the units by 2, 3, and 4, I never saw the death rate that I did using the vanilla RTW stats with 1 health point. There's a lot more wounding going on, but, it does look kinda funny when you have volley after volley of arrows and javalins and hardly anything drops until the 3rd volley.

So this is my delima, to have longer lasting battles with 3 or 4 health points, I must give up the "graphic" of seeing units drop like rain as in the vanilla RTW version. I enjoy the longer battles, but, I hate that I lose that "graphic" of a rain of arrows decimating a whole unit in a couple to three volleys.

Right now I'm still using the 2 health points setting and gave all archers, javilin, pilums a +4 to their atk values, and it LOOKS realistic enough, but, of course it makes archers, javalins, pilums a little more powerful than vanilla RTW stats, though you wouldn't know it from the graphics of the kills, but, of course the wounding is still happening within each unit. But, a 1 minute battle from vanilla RTW is now lasting 3 to 4 minutes, so that's a significant difference to me. Decisions, decisions.

I like where you're going with that but doesn't increasing the defense of a unit negate the need for changing projectile stats? Let us know if you ever perfect your mod - I'd be interested in downloading it.

hm archer units are insane enough with the default stats...


CBR

Just wanna put my two bits in, i think the speed and kill rates are fine, i feel that you play the game and adjust your tactics accordingly. Speed and kill rate are part of the game and its enjoyment. i love fast and furious combat's that make you break a sweat. MTW did have a problem of battles sometimes taking forever to resolve and i feel that Rome is made for the attacker player ,and the tactician, not the guy who sits behind a wall of spears and shield defending all day. I also use the dealt unit size because it makes for a more attacking game, were as larger unit sizes makes it more a defender's game. Its easy to defend but much harder to attack.

In MTW battlelines will crumble within a few minutes if the AI actually have good units so I dont see how MTW took forever to resolve as you say. Main reason for long battles was because of endless reserves and if we had that in RTW it would take a long time too.


CBR

Medieval: Total War -----> Rome: Total War

Age of Empires: Age of Kings ------> Age of Mythology

Both switches were exactly the same and exactly the same response was brought up by the core multiplayer fans:

The new game is way faster and is built specifically for the person who can click the fastest. Reaction time needs to be extremely high or you won't have a chance. Games are over way faster (instead of having 30 minute battles being an average, now it's 10 minutes if you're lucky).

Are all games going from slower paced, methodically tactical games to super-fast-paced-ADD games? It certainly seems like it. Sure, both Rome and AoM are fun games, but both were spawned from games I loved because of their deliberate need for some kind of knowledge of tactics and ability to cope with what is thrown at you - and you had time to react to those changes in time to counter them. Now it seems like anyone who wants a game like this is left wanting.