RTW demo conclusions: a full summary

I support all the suggested tweaks listed here. But I fear it's more than just tweaks that are being asked and required. That in itself is an indication of the direction they have chose for this game. Sure, you can argue that this is "only the demo", or "we'll get our patch by early next year", but I smell some upsetting brand of coffee when I play this demo. I appreciate and respect those that are optimistic, and I do hope your right. I personally can't handle another.. Lords of the Realm 3, StarFleet Command 3, or MOO3 inquisition. If you were there, you know what I'm saying. Quite depressing.

What is it with the number 3? It must mean "curse it" in some ancient dialect. Ya know, like how the number 4 means death in chinese. Or was it Japanese?

Coming back from experimenting with the demo I have observed a few things I didn't know or had noticed before.

I decided to test out a number of bridge battles as both carthies and romans against the gauls.

The first thing I noticed was how people fell off the bridge as soon as they routed. Nice... Maybe too many but still highly cool.

Then I tested with elephants (I mean come on, a nice long lane filled with enemies that can go nowhere). It was an absolute slaughter. The gauls never even got close to getting across. The elephants ran through the first three units and then bogged down, and then it happened, they panicked... That just made them much worse as they panicked in the gauls direction. 9 elephants plowed down hundreds, tossed dusins and threw even more off the bridge, absolutely precious. They alone routed the entire gaul army (save three units). When I did it the second time the gauls managed to kill a number of them before they panicked and one elephant got stuck (the bodies of the dead elephants kept it in place).

That one elephant gave me a precious look onto how a panicking elephant acts. The mahout sits there and bangs the elephant in the head as if trying to force his will into its head... COOL!!!

But I also noticed that the units sometimes kill themselves when trying to charge onto the bridge. In fact almost an entire unit of Warband archers comitted suicide trying to halt me as Romans. They ran into the river and vanished... A few got to the bridge and instantly routed as the others vanished. A few of my poenis and sacred band inf did much the same thing, but luckily not with the same disasterous results.
Definately not cool!!!

So add to the list, cool small details, fix 'suicide at bridge'.

Medieval Assassin: units falling off bridges and drowning is not a bug, but a feature. Seriously, now ;) They told us about it in several inverviews, and that is supposed to happen that way. Now I don't know to what extent this should be happenning, but I do know that units are supposed to fall off bridges and drown (which is pretty cool, imho). But to get back to the point, I don't think we should put it in the bugs section, since it's a feature ~;)
Thank you for mentioning it, though.

Spino: added the AI issues you signaled; let's hope they are merely due to the possibly crippled/incomplete demo AI.

cugel: we have already posted that we'd like a more customizable UI, including the possibility to turn on/off various things on screen; also the ability to make screen captures from within the game.


Hmm, can you guys elaborate on the units drowning issues ? I haven't experienced them myself yet; even though units falling off bridges and drowning IS supposed to be a feature, the AI should be somewhat careful not to just throw its units into the water. Can you tell whether the AI's actions were perfectly logical, but perhaps the problem was some lack of synchronization or coordination between various troops ? Or perhaps its plan was good, but other factors (you) intervened and it couldn't stop them in time, or something like that ?
The point is to figure out whether it's a feature, or a feature that wasn't tested carefully enough, and in enough circumstances.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by d6veteran

CA has been billing this game as a tactical battle simulator

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This is what the game is for many of us it's true, and certainly what many of us want, but AFAIK CA has NEVER said that Rome is any sort of simulation. Quite the contrary. It's a nudge, nudge, wink, wink sort of thing.

The "sim" word connotes complexity and threatens to take a game into the Land of Modest Sales. (The Sims being the exception :wink:)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nelson

This is what the game is for many of us it's true, and certainly what many of us want, but AFAIK CA has NEVER said that Rome is any sort of simulation. Quite the contrary. It's a nudge, nudge, wink, wink sort of thing.

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The E3 developer interviews clearly represented the game as a realistic simulation of ancient warfare. Nevermind all the press surrounding the TV shows Time Commanders and Decisive Battles.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Blodrast

Hmm, can you guys elaborate on the units drowning issues ? I haven't experienced them myself yet; even though units falling off bridges and drowning IS supposed to be a feature, the AI should be somewhat careful not to just throw its units into the water. Can you tell whether the AI's actions were perfectly logical, but perhaps the problem was some lack of synchronization or coordination between various troops ? Or perhaps its plan was good, but other factors (you) intervened and it couldn't stop them in time, or something like that ?
The point is to figure out whether it's a feature, or a feature that wasn't tested carefully enough, and in enough circumstances.

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The best way for you to see it is by playing a bridgebattle with plenty of troops. By the time you have beaten your way towards th enemy shore his archers and skirmishers will come to the rescue... Well your rescue it is. The archers will normally line the shore so when they attack your unit they have to advance perpendicular to the bridgehead, but not fully. They will advance in a direct line towards your unit, meaning some of the men will march into the water and die.
I have now seen this with practially every unit in the demo, I only need the general now.
This is horrible.

Another bug I have found is even worse.
It also includes bridges. It happes when a unit routs on the bridge, I have now seen many times a unit simply die. Every single man in the unit that routs run about 20 meters and then they all fall over dead. NO FUN! I want to kill them. Experienced on my own troops when I tried tp push a unit of Sacred Band inf away with my 4 units of Warbands. Of the 720 troops I sent at them, only 6 (from the same unit) returned to tell the tale. While the Sacred Band is powerful and the Warbands aren't exactly heavy hitters, such losses were impossible as the Warbands had an escape route.

:goes Aah !:
thank you, Kraxis.

So it's not that they are _falling_ into the water from the bridge, it's that they are simply _walking_ into the water ?!? man, that is really stupid then...
I'll add that to the first post. Thank you for pointing it out and explaining it.

uhm, I must be tired or something, but I'm not sure I understood the second one.
So when routing on a bridge, they run and fall into the water like dummies ?? without any obvious reason (like, I don't know, being followed by a significant unit of cavalry forcing them to jump into the water: think of the last desperate charge of the defenders of Hornburg on the narrow ledge, when they came out and were throwing all the orcs in the chasm...)

They don't fall off the bridge, like in STW and MTW if you ordered a unit to cross a bridge you click on the other side, they would line up and cross the bridge, No, no no, here they just run in a straight line and vanish, I've seen it every other game


----------------| |---------------------
..BRIDGE->........| |
______________| |__________________




./ \
.|
XX CORPS
.|
XXXX ................+++
XXXX.................( In oppose to moving here
XXXX..................then crossing, they assume
XXXX..................a staright line into the river and all die...... ALL)

And they all die, in medieval they would stack in front of the bridge, apperntly they dont here... :S

You should wrap your diagram of sorts in a code block so it stay formatted how you intended.

How?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Blodrast

uhm, I must be tired or something, but I'm not sure I understood the second one.
So when routing on a bridge, they run and fall into the water like dummies ?? without any obvious reason (like, I don't know, being followed by a significant unit of cavalry forcing them to jump into the water: think of the last desperate charge of the defenders of Hornburg on the narrow ledge, when they came out and were throwing all the orcs in the chasm...)

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Heh, that is entirely understandable...I dudnt understand it myself and I was watching it. ~:confused:
What happens is not that they jump into the water, that is cool, if somewhat stupid.
No, they rout and at some point they all just die. They fall over and die all at once. That is quite strange when you watch it. I couldn't understand what was going on when my Warbands at first slowly dribbled away (men falling into the river and getting caught by the enemy) then suddenly the entire unit vanished from my unitlist. ~:confused: ~:confused:
Now, I'm looking for it more closely, it doesn't happen nearly as much as the 'Suicide-by-Bridge', but it happens. I can only say you should try to play a couple of battles with some Sacred Bands protecting the bridge and some weak attackers trying to take it.
2 SBs (the 2nd is only there to take over if the first somehow managed to get itself into trouble) vs 6 Warbands should be good.

ok, now I think I got it. hmm, it's really weird. :dizzy2:
man, that makes no sense at all... I suppose nothing similar happens when they rout on land, right ? And they die because they all fall/jump into the water (for reasons unknown), they don't die _on_ the bridge, right ?

No, they die where they run (stand is such as bad word to use ~;) ), that is the wierd part. I could to an extent understand if they said to themselves "guys, lets end this, you don't look exactly pleasing from the rear."

heh, oki, that clears it up. thanks for the clarifications. It's been added to the list. ~:)

"And Alex said, 'Let there be bump', and there was bump. And Alex saw that it was good, and on the seventh word, he rested".

Now let's see how many of these issues were addressed satisfactorily in the final release.