Timid response yet again from CA's Wikiman

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Originally Posted by IceTorque

I also agree that RTW is too big, not in size but micro-management, just too many pieces on the board.

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Why the need for all of these "strategic units" anyhow? The game doesn't need diplomats. Once you've made contact with another faction, you should just be able to call up an audience with that faction, like you can do in Civ. Diplomats just clutter up the game.

Most of the functions of these strategic units could probably be abstracted in a similar way. IMO, they add nothing but tedium to the gameplay.

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Originally Posted by Perec_Dojo

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but the look and feel of the game was always intended to be based on Kurosawa, and this was stated many times by developers in these forums and elsewhere. Anybody familiar with Kurosawa's films can see this.

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Well, I agree that they have always tried to ride the coattails of a successful movie. They just happened to pick a great director in Kurosawa who tried to maintain a considerable amount of realism and historical accuracy in his movies. There is no Kurosawa in the west making movies about medieval or ancient warfare. Instead they have followed directors like Ridley Scott (Gladiator) and Mel Gibson (Braveheart) who are good directors but who are certainly not interested in realism or historical accuracy. Now I suppose we are going to get Ridley Scott (Kingdom of Heaven) again for MTW2.

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Originally Posted by Puzz3D

Now we have exploding rocks, stuff moving around at unrealistically fast speeds, arrows that have the velocity of small rockets, men and horses leaping way up into the air, elephants throwing men 50 meters or more, fire arrows that incinerate man and horse in 5 seconds, skirmishers that run nearly as fast as horses, units that have the acceleration characteristics of a school of fish, cantabrian circle that's invulnerable to arrows, cavalry that can circle so fast that an infantry unit can't even rotate in place fast enough to maintain facing and battles that last about as long as a battle does in a movie such as that battle at the beginning of the movie Gladiator.

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Yeah, *sigh* I can only agree.

I think what I hate most about the "new" TW though is the battle speed. There is just no longer any sense of engagement there. There's no sense of coming to grips with solid resistance, a physical body, an opposing will. It's more like a game of tag. You just touch the enemy and either he or you is running in the opposite direction. This is supposed to be fun?

How CA could possibly imagine that these tiggy-touch battles are an improvement over the previous games I still just cannot comprehend. And whenever I think about it, it makes me very uneasy about the future of the series.

All the same, I'm hoping that the new Aussie team are going to be bringing a fresh approach to the game. I just have to keep telling myself that this is going to be different from all the substandard Aussie product I've encountered in the past, LOL.

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There is just no longer any sense of engagement there. There's no sense of coming to grips with solid resistance, a physical body, an opposing will.

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While this is partly caused by the fast combat the greater factor IMO is how units are so independent. Play a battle in RTW and once units start to rout on both sides it becomes a chaos that has little to do with the real thing. You will have islands of combat all over the place. The result is that 1/4 of a battle manuevring, 1/4 is a battle between the 2 frontlines, 1/4 is multiple battles between individual units and 1/4 is mopping up. If I look back at the battle I do not remember a battle as I read about them in the books, it is too quick and too fragmented.

Chainrouting seems to be reduced in R:TW and I think it helped avoiding the above. In historical battles or even in movies there were was usually a long hard fought battle that lasted until one side gave way. In R:TW you do not have that.

M:TW2 allows more variety within units so I will experiment with battles composed of just a few huge units. It should result in a less fragmented battleline in which you have the time to zoom in and wait for that moment were the battle is decided. It would restrict the use of tactics but I have long given up to look for a challenge in SP games and I am looking for immersion instead.

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Originally Posted by Puzz3D

They just happened to pick a great director in Kurosawa who tried to maintain a considerable amount of realism and historical accuracy in his movies.

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The Nagashino battle in Kagemusha is not realistic.

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Originally Posted by TosaInu

The Nagashino battle in Kagemusha is not realistic.

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Which just goes to show that you shouldn't use movies as the model for the combat. It's a bad idea. The combat in STW wasn't based on a Kurosawa movie, but the combat in RTW sure looks like it was based on something like the opening battle in Gladiator.

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Originally Posted by screwtype

Why the need for all of these "strategic units" anyhow? The game doesn't need diplomats. Once you've made contact with another faction, you should just be able to call up an audience with that faction, like you can do in Civ. Diplomats just clutter up the game.

Most of the functions of these strategic units could probably be abstracted in a similar way. IMO, they add nothing but tedium to the gameplay.

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Realism over ease-of-use. They didn't have phones back then (although it would have made things easier ~D) So diplomats had to be sent everytime they wanted to make contact. Although perhaps a better way would be to send a messenger with a message.

"I will be attacking Isle-de-France next spring please support me" etc. Sending automatic messengers that do not clog-up the map would perhaps ease the micro-management.

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Originally Posted by Trajanus

Realism over ease-of-use. They didn't have phones back then (although it would have made things easier ~D) So diplomats had to be sent everytime they wanted to make contact. Although perhaps a better way would be to send a messenger with a message.

"I will be attacking Isle-de-France next spring please support me" etc. Sending automatic messengers that do not clog-up the map would perhaps ease the micro-management.

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It's not realism. They didn't have telephones, true, but then it didn't take them five years for a diplomat to march to his next door neighbour and ask if he wants to be an ally.

It's the height of absurdity for a diplomat to take literally years to consult his neighbours. When turns are measured in years, of course you should be able to just "dial up" the opposition and put your offer to them.

Adding further insult to injury is the way in which your diplomat actually has to search for the other faction leader. Apparently, no-one can tell him where the leader is actually hanging out, so he has to go on a "Where's Wally" headhunt. I found it extremely frustrating in MTW trying to just FIND the opposition leader, let alone the tedium involved in marching my diplomats around in the first place.

At the very least it should work the same as in Civ - you can contact a faction leader just by initiating an encounter with any of his units.