Patch Wish List

PATCH WISH LIST


I thought I'd kick off this thread to give everyone a place to list any non-bug related items they'd like to see included in a patch. This thread is not to indicate that RTOW is anything but a great game (I think it's spectacular), but merely tol give CA a central location to see those things that the community would like to see changed or added to RTW.

If you add something, please provide just a brief description... no stories please.

I'll start the ball rolling :

• Battle Speed : We all know all the complaints about this. Most people would like to see this slowed down. Battles are just too fast.
  
• Unit/Agent Micromanagement - it's be nice to have displayed on the agent/unit/fleet lists whether a unit has moved or not or whether it has a movement path set already. It's a real pain to click through each unit on the list to see if you've given it orders yet or not.
  
• Carthage weakness - Why isn't Carthage stronger??? It seems the main nation capable of standing up to Rome is the egyptians, and where's the histprical accuracy in that? Carthage gets wiped out by Rome way too fast... no challenge at all.
  
• Grouping Problems - Issues with giving orders to groups have to be fixed... It seems orders given to one group often also get given to other groups whether they are selected or not. (Yes, you could maybe consider this a bug)

Please feel free to add more.

Colt.

• Ability to save replays in campaign battles! PLZ!

• Improved pathfinding in fort/city battles

• reduce the chance of many repeated attacks by
  smaller forces on the same region by the AI.

My wish list (by increasing order of importance) :

• A toggle option for being able to play all the factions right from the start.
• A toggle option for the battle timer.
• Killing speed reduced.
• Speed of running reduced.
• Cavalry power reduced.

Akka if speed is reduced I dont think Cav need to be. I can take them out easily with Hastarri (spl) and they masacare if they get on ur flank...but they should be able to do that.

Fix the damn AI general and tactics for ally's ai battle's.!

Killing speed *only* reduced.

A ton of MP improvements (like try putting back the stuff taken out from MTW). See MP) wish list thread.

AI sally forth bug fixed.

AI enemy reinforcements should link up and attack you as a whole group, not willy nilly.

Retinue members should be transferable to other family members without having to be in the same settlement. Either make them agents that can move, or have the AI handle the transfer to account for distance.

Ability to hire retinue members like mercs. You build an academy and overtime a lot of intellectual retinue start gathering there. If you're popular some will join as they do now. Or you can hire them outright.

After the Legion reforms, 'old' units should be upgraded automatically. Even if it means a loss of experience or size or some other penalty. They should be upgraded, or forced to upgrade in x amount of time. Whatever the case they should not be allowed to persist in the game. That's the whole point of a wholesale reform of the military.

Hostage option in diplomacy. Often to secure alliances or treaties, family members were taken hostage.

1. Slower charging/running speeds.
2. Faster unit responses to command (especially Cavalry).
3. Reduce friendly fire by Units and Structures (Archer towers etc.)
4. Disappearing Spies and Diplomats without notices.
5. Disappearing ships although not sunk.
6. Ability to retreat friendly AI reinforcement commanded by another general.
7. Ability to manually escape through the redline during complete ambush.
8. AI retreats in battlemap must be a "Clear Victory" not "Narrow Victory"
9. Archers/Slingers ability to shoot over low walls disabled after initial shots during siege.
10.My generals easily die while flanking or charging behind enemy back ~:eek: or just by merely grazing some troops while trying to flank or position.
11. Units especially on loose formation hug buildings and get trapped while being shot to pieces by huge archer towers. Like STW units hug hills and walls or MTW units get stuck on bridges.

That's all for now ~:) ~:handball:

These are early impressions, so a number of them might be off target.

1. Reconsider some of the charge bonuses, especially against defensive types (like spears, phalanx) that should absorb charges well or actually inflict heavy casualties at initial impact.
2. Reduce elephant unit size, increase upkeep cost and/or make them a bit more vulnerable to proper tactics like thrown pila, etc.
3. Reduce tendency of units to engage in devastating friendly fire--particularly shooting their unit mates in the back of the head. This might come at the expense of allowing only the front rank to fire when the rear ranks would kill their own unit mates.
4. When turning off fire at will, make the units stop firing. They get off too many rounds into friendlies when I have to grab multiple units, "cease" fire at will, THEN issue a halt "command." Movement and action is so fast that I lose a lot of men this way. Especially when my cav is chasing down routers.
5. Make it a bit easier to get decent Carthaginian infantry early. The early infantry can't really stand up to much. This might be part of why Carthage collapses early for many.
6. Reconsider some of the the missile effectiveness. They have high killing power at the moment, even when shooting frontally at range vs. armoured and shield equipped units. My impression is that while this might be seriously morale sapping, it probably wouldn't be so deadly.
7. Don't allow attack of ships in port, or limit it to lower level ports, or make some port modifier to the defender's defense/offense stats.
8. Make it more likely for Numidians to ally with Carthage. It is counterproductive for them both to be at war with one another, because of trade and defense issues.
9. Get rid of the "no pila pause" for Roman units ordered to charge.
10. Allow the player to select which army they will control when there is a reinforcing army.
11. Fix the suicide daimyo problem. :charge:
12. Add some sort of group command that will send infantry against all nearest units, or all nearest infantry or something like that. We need some sort of overall "CHARGE" command or "ENGAGE" for our armies when the AI orders everyone at us at the same time. Perhaps even an "advance, then charge" type of command. This is certainly higher level AI, and it was something I was hoping to see so that units could fight more legion style. This could end the need for so much micro management.
13. Fix the black hole in the plaza--where units trying to cross the edge suck toward the enemy unit in the middle.
14. Make ship battles more likely to result in some lost boats, rather than heavily depleting all/many boats. Change the "ships sunk" to "ships lost."
15. Make routing happen a bit more slowly when flanked. The flanked unit should become very ineffective offensively immdiately, but should not rout so quickly.
16. Add more weather (at least in the south where all my battles have been so far.) It was way too stormy in MTW/VI, but RTW has been monotonously perfect fighting weather in the south. After MTW/VI's rain every day, I have to wonder if I should really ask for this ~D

By reducing kill speed and doing things like item 15, I don't think the cav will be so powerful as it is presently. It might not be necessary to alter their stats.

I've only heard (don't have the game yet :bidcry: ) that the user interface (in battle) is the same as that of the demo. I wish (since this is a wish list) that there would be an option to switch back COMPLETELY to the old user interface (eg left-click to move, right-click for camer... etc).

But does CA care about my wishlist?

Only CA can answer that.

That is, unless I'm completely wrong about not being able to switch back to the old STW/MTW battle UI. ~;)

Yep, 'fraid you are wrong, but never fear... There's three camera types you can choose from... RTS, Total War and General. Total war is pretty much the same as the old Medieval/Shogun Camera.

Colt.

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Originally Posted by Alexander the Pretty Good

I've only heard (don't have the game yet :bidcry: ) that the user interface (in battle) is the same as that of the demo.

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Don't get dissapointed about the interface until you've learned it and used it. Because honestly, I think it is pretty good and I prefer it over MTW. They have added some commands and formation controls that were absent before. Having said that, there are some tweaks in order.

Regardless, the old STW/MTW options are still there, so this isn't an issue.

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Originally Posted by Red Harvets

12. Add some sort of group command that will send infantry against all nearest units, or all nearest infantry or something like that. We need some sort of overall "CHARGE" command or "ENGAGE" for our armies when the AI orders everyone at us at the same time. Perhaps even an "advance, then charge" type of command. This is certainly higher level AI, and it was something I was hoping to see so that units could fight more legion style. This could end the need for so much micro management.

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Couldn't agree more!! Where's my line charge? The AI can do it, why can't I?

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Originally Posted by Red Harvets

16. Add more weather (at least in the south where all my battles have been so far.) It was way too stormy in MTW/VI, but RTW has been monotonously perfect fighting weather in the south. After MTW/VI's rain every day, I have to wonder if I should really ask for this

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I'm playing on hard/hard and so far I've seen it snow only twice in 40 turns and never rain. Definitely need some weather.

Another one...

Take Egyptian strength down a notch. They are way too powerful compared to what they were really like in History. And if you compare it with Carthage, their strength really seems out of proportion.

The game I'm playing at the moment has me fighting the Egyptians in Asia Minor... practically in the same place as Ancient Troy. I don't mind some variation on History, not at all, but if their strength in the game was a bit more balanced they'd never be able to expand that far north. It just doesn't seem right, at least not when compared to Carthagenian strength.

Colt.

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Originally Posted by Colt374

Yep, 'fraid you are wrong, but never fear... There's three camera types you can choose from... RTS, Total War and General. Total war is pretty much the same as the old Medieval/Shogun Camera.

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Not camera behaviour, but the command UI. The demo had one mode that was supposed to be old-style TW. It was closer to old-style TW than the default but still had many differences, very few of which were improvements. See numerous threads.

So, like Alexander and many others, I'd like the old-style back.

my biggest patch wish:

don't be afraid to rebalance factions if it is shown to be needed.

i know people whinge whenever a developer adjusts game balance with the classic; "eh, why have you nerfed my favourite unit?" but it would be worse for the rest of us if it were not done.

i realise that balancing is complicated, and i don't expect it to be perfect just after release, so make use of community testing, where a critical mass of opinion occurs investigate and adjust accordingly. :)

1. Inf run speed is too fast.

2. Unit (especially cav) turn speed (which gives us the fish schooling) is too fast.

3. For now, using agents and fleets is an exercise in micromanagment. We need a better way to scan through them all (and give orders).

4. Grouping bugs need to be fixed.

5. When attacking with 2 or more armies we should command the highest level captain or family member by default.

6. Ships/fleets should be able to attempt to retreat. That doesnt mean they couldnt be caught by a faster ship/fleet.

7. Because of the oblique zoom, it's very difficult to get the camera angles right when marching and fighting uphill and nearly impossible when heading uphill on a steep grade.

8. Roman units should not try to throw pila at close range (perhaps 1/2 max range). There should be an automatic (pauseless) switch to sword. Given the olympic run and charge speeds of inf this is especially a problem.

The ability to save battle replays in campaign mode.

I posted this over at the Com's official patch request thread but have changed it a bit for the Org's consumption...

- There needs to be an auto-sort function for the unit 'cards' on the bottom of the screen on the campaign map. Right now armies and navies look messy and you can easily overlook certain units if you're clicking through all of them and not paying close attention. In Medieval unit cards were automatically sorted by type, why was it done away with in Rome?

- Friendly Fire - Friendly fire is fine, SELF INFLICTED friendly fire is not!!! The fact that a unit can inflict casualties on itself is ridiculous actually. It would also be nice to cut down on friendly fire in general by making AI controlled units less likely to fire into a mixed crowd.

- Units that route should NOT be removed from a macro group in tactical battles. Often a unit will rally and then you have to track it down and re-incorporate it into your formations losing precious time. Routing units ignore orders anyway so why forcibly remove them from a group?

- Command Bonuses - Sizeable command bonuses are too easily earned for little skirmishes that have no meaningful impact. Taking a large army and pounding a much smaller, qualitatively inferior enemy army into dust (especially those consisting of brigands) is hardly a reason to give the victorious commanding general a generous command bonus. The reward should be proportionate to the ratio of troops involved, the overall 'value' of the enemy army that was defeated AND the type of victory achieved. Are some of these bonuses based on cumulative victories or on a per battle basis?

- Marian Reforms - Is the date which the reforms take place random or is it based on the construction of an Imperial Palace? If it is the latter I think that is a terrible idea! Whether it's random or building specific too many people (myself included) have had the Marian reforms take place before 200 BC! It sort of takes the fun out of the Republican era legions if they're obsolete so early in the game. I'd really prefer it if there was a random chance generator for the Marian reforms so that they didn't kick in until sometime after 175 or 150 BC or so. You could also greatly increase the chances that the reforms take place once the actual historical date has passed.

- Strategic AI - The AI does not understand that besieging a city with a garrison of equal or superior size is an exercise in futility! Countless times I've fought 'sally forth' battles with an inferior sieging force that 1) gets mauled by my army 2) retreats only to have me chase it down and kill it on the battlefield or on the strategic map or 3) retreats unscathed on and off the battlefield only to come back to repeat the process in a turn or two!

- Strategic AI - General Without A Cause - Too many times I've seen faction leaders, heirs and generals of AI factions wandering about in tiny armies, getting needlessly killed or beaten back by superior forces. I understand that wealthier factions are less likely to do this but considering how few and precious family members are in Rome this is completely unacceptable for any AI faction! AI generals should only be doing the following:

1) Governing a city
2) Leading FULL STRENGTH armies whenever possible.
3) Traveling to a large army or city where it will assume command.

And that's it! No more solo holidays around the Alps for Gaul's faction leader thank you very much!

- Strategic AI - Consolidation of force. The strategic AI lacks focus. Often its armies are too scattered, small and ineffectual to have any meaningful impact, especially against human players who like to keep fewer, well stocked armies on hand. The AI will often trickle small sized armies into enemy territory which are easily defeated, needlessly ruining their war effort and constantly boosting their enemy generals' command abilities to overinflated heights. Anytime there is an enemy army about the AI should consolidate ALL its forces in the immediate area into one army, put a general in charge (if possible) and either attack or wait to be attacked.

- Massive AI fleets. Just for the record I LIKE the AI's 'super sized' fleets. While they can get a touch too large for factions that don't really need them massive fleets are historical and more importantly, they keep human players honest. Naval battles in the ancient world were rarely small scale skirmishes but were massive large scale decisive affairs. I do have a problem with the ineffectual scattering of the AI's smaller fleets over a large area. Generally each of these fleets rarely has more than one or two ships and are therefore easy prey for an AI controlled super fleet or a human controlled naval campaign.

- Massive fleets or not the AI does a terrible job handling its navies. The AI should only use its navies for FIVE things:

1) Blockading enemy ports. The more trade routes connected to the targeted port the better.

2) Liberating friendly/allied ports from blockade by an enemy fleet.

3) Engaging enemy fleets near friendly ports or near or en route to its blockade/liberation target (unless of course, it's transporting an army which it should then avoid contact until the troops are unloaded).

4) Transporting armies and agents.

5) Staying PUT in friendly ports in times of peace or when at war with a nation that does NOT possess a port (unless of course, there is a need to transport armies & agents around).

Anything beyond that is an utter waste of time. There should be NO willy nilly, aimless cruises around the Mediterranean like there are now. The Aegean is cluttered with small fleets in my current Julii campaign (Hard difficulty). If the AI simply concentrated on the five points I mentioned then the main sea lanes wouldn't be such a mess and the average naval battle would be far more decisive.

- There needs to be a retreat function for naval battles. Early warning of an approaching enemy is common to sea battles. If a fleet retreats and is pursued by an enemy fleet with more movement points then combat will happen anyway. Why the do or die combat system for initial contact?

- Tactical AI - AI controlled reinforcements are almost completely useless. It's bad enough that they don't coordinate their efforts with other AI armies or with the human player but they should at least have the same AI routines as other armies instead of the current lemming rush mentality of the fatal kind. Give human players the ability to issue BASIC commands to our general led reinforcement armies (i.e. Attack, Defend, Probe/Harass, Retreat) and give the highest ranking general of all the enemy AI armies COMPLETE control over all of its forces on the battlefield. If this is impossible then dare I say do away with AI controlled reinforcements altogether and classify all reinforcements as being led by captains so we can call upon them as slots become available.

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Originally Posted by Red Harvest

16. Add more weather (at least in the south where all my battles have been so far.) It was way too stormy in MTW/VI, but RTW has been monotonously perfect fighting weather in the south. After MTW/VI's rain every day, I have to wonder if I should really ask for this ~D

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Just a note: I think it really must be a southern phenomenon. I've been playing as the barbarians in the north, and believe me, there's all kinds of weather. Fog, snow, rain, thunderstorms, blizzards...the whole shebang. But in my Brutii campaign, which was fought mostly in the south, I only remember sunny days...

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Originally Posted by LittleRaven

Just a note: I think it really must be a southern phenomenon. I've been playing as the barbarians in the north, and believe me, there's all kinds of weather. Fog, snow, rain, thunderstorms, blizzards...the whole shebang. But in my Brutii campaign, which was fought mostly in the south, I only remember sunny days...

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I agree, I think the weather model in RTW is great. The weather in Greece, Italy, Spain and Turkey is not exactly known for its 'mood swings'... ~;)

I posted this over at the Com's official patch request thread but have changed it a bit for the Org's consumption...

- There needs to be an auto-sort function for the unit 'cards' on the bottom of the screen on the campaign map. Right now armies and navies look messy and you can easily overlook certain units if you're clicking through all of them and not paying close attention. In Medieval unit cards were automatically sorted by type, why was it done away with in Rome?

- Friendly Fire - Friendly fire is fine, SELF INFLICTED friendly fire is not!!! The fact that a unit can inflict casualties on itself is ridiculous actually. It would also be nice to cut down on friendly fire in general by making AI controlled units less likely to fire into a mixed crowd.

- Units that route should NOT be removed from a macro group in tactical battles. Often a unit will rally and then you have to track it down and re-incorporate it into your formations losing precious time. Routing units ignore orders anyway so why forcibly remove them from a group?

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- Command Bonuses - Sizeable command bonuses are too easily earned for little skirmishes that have no meaningful impact. Taking a large army and pounding a much smaller, qualitatively inferior enemy army into dust (especially those consisting of brigands) is hardly a reason to give the victorious commanding general a generous command bonus. The reward should be proportionate to the ratio of troops involved, the overall 'value' of the enemy army that was defeated AND the type of victory achieved. Are some of these bonuses based on cumulative victories or on a per battle basis?

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Excellant point. It is way too easy to build up command bonuses for your general. Just after 4-5 battles, you can get bumped up 3-4 stars, perhaps more. You shouldn't be able to build up an uber-General fighting rebels.

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- Strategic AI - The AI does not understand that besieging a city with a garrison of equal or superior size is an exercise in futility! Countless times I've fought 'sally forth' battles with an inferior sieging force that 1) gets mauled by my army 2) retreats only to have me chase it down and kill it on the battlefield or on the strategic map or 3) retreats unscathed on and off the battlefield only to come back to repeat the process in a turn or two!

- Strategic AI - General Without A Cause - Too many times I've seen faction leaders, heirs and generals of AI factions wandering about in tiny armies, getting needlessly killed or beaten back by superior forces. I understand that wealthier factions are less likely to do this but considering how few and precious family members are in Rome this is completely unacceptable for any AI faction! AI generals should only be doing the following:

1) Governing a city
2) Leading FULL STRENGTH armies whenever possible.
3) Traveling to a large army or city where it will assume command.

And that's it! No more solo holidays around the Alps for Gaul's faction leader thank you very much!

- Strategic AI - Consolidation of force. The strategic AI lacks focus. Often its armies are too scattered, small and ineffectual to have any meaningful impact, especially against human players who like to keep fewer, well stocked armies on hand. The AI will often trickle small sized armies into enemy territory which are easily defeated, needlessly ruining their war effort and constantly boosting their enemy generals' command abilities to overinflated heights. Anytime there is an enemy army about the AI should consolidate ALL its forces in the immediate area into one army, put a general in charge (if possible) and either attack or wait to be attacked.

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Well said. About 50 years before the Senate foolishly ordered me to kill my leader leading to civil war, I had taken Crete (I think). Anyway, the Brutti house had two full stacks there -for some time- that never attempted to take the city from the enemy; so I took it. Then, for at least 50 years, they just sat there. When civil war broke out, they never attempted to take the city, even though they numbered 4,000 plus, and my garrison was only a few hundred.

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- Massive AI fleets. Just for the record I LIKE the AI's 'super sized' fleets. While they can get a touch too large for factions that don't really need them massive fleets are historical and more importantly, they keep human players honest. Naval battles in the ancient world were rarely small scale skirmishes but were massive large scale decisive affairs. I do have a problem with the ineffectual scattering of the AI's smaller fleets over a large area. Generally each of these fleets rarely has more than one or two ships and are therefore easy prey for an AI controlled super fleet or a human controlled naval campaign.

- Massive fleets or not the AI does a terrible job handling its navies. The AI should only use its navies for FIVE things:

1) Blockading enemy ports. The more trade routes connected to the targeted port the better.

2) Liberating friendly/allied ports from blockade by an enemy fleet.

3) Engaging enemy fleets near friendly ports or near or en route to its blockade/liberation target (unless of course, it's transporting an army which it should then avoid contact until the troops are unloaded).

4) Transporting armies and agents.

5) Staying PUT in friendly ports in times of peace or when at war with a nation that does NOT possess a port (unless of course, there is a need to transport armies & agents around).

Anything beyond that is an utter waste of time. There should be NO willy nilly, aimless cruises around the Mediterranean like there are now. The Aegean is cluttered with small fleets in my current Julii campaign (Hard difficulty). If the AI simply concentrated on the five points I mentioned then the main sea lanes wouldn't be such a mess and the average naval battle would be far more decisive.

- There needs to be a retreat function for naval battles. Early warning of an approaching enemy is common to sea battles. If a fleet retreats and is pursued by an enemy fleet with more movement points then combat will happen anyway. Why the do or die combat system for initial contact?

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Can't disagree.

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- Tactical AI - AI controlled reinforcements are almost completely useless. It's bad enough that they don't coordinate their efforts with other AI armies or with the human player but they should at least have the same AI routines as other armies instead of the current lemming rush mentality of the fatal kind. Give human players the ability to issue BASIC commands to our general led reinforcement armies (i.e. Attack, Defend, Probe/Harass, Retreat) and give the highest ranking general of all the enemy AI armies COMPLETE control over all of its forces on the battlefield. If this is impossible then dare I say do away with AI controlled reinforcements altogether and classify all reinforcements as being led by captains so we can call upon them as slots become available.

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True.

A big problem is I have not ONCE seen an enemy commander, Roman faction or non-Roman commander with a command rating higher than 2. With the above mentioned problem of gaining command ratings to easily fighting puny battles, the AI stands little chance.

Now, I'm still playing my first campaing, 120 B.C or so, and no one is a theat. The Scipio (sp) is about to be tamed, while the Brutti/Senate/are no more.

-Fix the suicide diamyo problem too. The only thing that last shorter than the battles is the life of the enemy commander.

Those naval comments are spot on! While the AI is using its fleets tactically, it is doing very little strategic. Fleets are about controlling & blockading ports and landing or preventing the landing of invasion forces. Surely the AI could be programmed with these objectives in mind?

One thing to fear...if the AI learns how to use its boats, Carthage will be helpless almost immediately.

1. Ships shlould still be able to move when you add a land unit that has used all of its movement points. I mean how does that reflect to reality?

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Originally Posted by petska

1. Ships shlould still be able to move when you add a land unit that has used all of its movement points. I mean how does that reflect to reality?

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No, they shouldn't. Each 'turn' represents 6 months. If an army has taken all its move points to get to the ship, then it didn't arrive until the 6 months are over. The ship can't move because it spent the entire 6 months waiting for damn army to arrive. ;)

Speaking of AI fleets, I have yet to have a port blockaded. Because of that, I haven't blockaded any of my enemy's ports, unless instructed to do so by the Senate. This action on my part is based entirely on fear. ~D I started my first campaign, which has been going for a week now, concentrating on naval build-ups, as I did in MTW, thinking I would need them. I had some really large fleets. Didn't quite know what to do with them until war broke out with the other Roman factions. My fleets withered quickly, and I lost control of the seas, but I never lost ANY trade income that couldn't be contributed to merely losing some trading partners. So this little wormy voice says to me, hey, wait a minute, Dude. If the AI ain't blocking your trade, and you can't really protect your coast because of the area involved, what are you doing in a naval arms race with the AI? Everything you build gets sunk, but nothing changes. The AI fleets only hit your fleets. If you don't have fleets, they just sit there. Cool. Put all the money in infantry and smash their cities. If you need to scoot some troops over to an island or whatnot, build a quicky boat. Soooooo, I'm currently doing this, and it's working. The AI is still producing boats, though. Many, many boats.

In MTW, you HAD to maintain fleets to protect your coasts, and to eliminate any threat to your trade. Just ain't so in RTW. One only seems to need a few boats for transportation. Since this is my "get to know you" first campaign, I have the campaign set only on hard, but I would think it wouldn't matter. Anyone else seen this? I haven't read anything else on these fleet points.

The current naval battle resolving system is so bad, although still better than MTW's "winner take all", that I'm not sure it's possible to ever eliminate every little dingy with one or two guys in it. It's also very annoying to have admirals pop out of your ports, but you can't add them to your fleets. WHY NOT? I can put two generals in the same army. So, you end up with a fleet under a three star, and a half dozen single boats with one or two stars. Not only silly, but then it's impossible to protect admirals who are needed. Also, fleet travel is rediculously slow. Sorry, but it wouldn't take me five or six years to row a canoe from Ireland to Rome. Unless I stopped for lunch. Maybe if I stopped for lunch.

Only have one more whine for now, mainly because everyone else has covered my others. My MOUSE is tooooooo slow. There's no way to adjust the speed. I'm used to a quick mouse for gaming. Anyone know how to tweak it?

Overall view of RTW? So far, it's superior to any other I've played. Congrats to CA. And knowing them, they'll be patching all the bugs possible.

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- Strategic AI - Consolidation of force. The strategic AI lacks focus. Often its armies are too scattered, small and ineffectual to have any meaningful impact, especially against human players who like to keep fewer, well stocked armies on hand. The AI will often trickle small sized armies into enemy territory which are easily defeated, needlessly ruining their war effort and constantly boosting their enemy generals' command abilities to overinflated heights. Anytime there is an enemy army about the AI should consolidate ALL its forces in the immediate area into one army, put a general in charge (if possible) and either attack or wait to be attacked.

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I would amend this point I made earlier. Apparently this isn't as big an issue with the larger, wealthier AI factions who don't have problems making large armies in a short period of time. However, I've seen this occur countless times with the barbarian factions. The AI should know to not do this with the relatively low tech barbarian factions who need weight of numbers to maximize their effectiveness.

Im my seleucid campaign, the Armenian faction leader I just killed was 5 stars. He also had a 3 star heir, Egypt before they became extinct had a couple 3 stars as well. I think the reason you rarely see high rank raction members is they are frigging suicidal. I rarely commit my general units untill the turning point. They often lead with them, or commit them in horrible ways.

One thing that I think is rediculous is that an attacked naval fleet that lost has a sudden speed burst that leaves olympic rowers in the dust. You can never attack the same fleet twice (with your own 1 fleet, you need a second fleet which is a bit in the path of the escaping naval fleet so you can attack it with that second stack).
Even more rediculous is that a defeated trapped fleet can escape PAST your ships into clear territory. And with the few boats actually sinking, there is a really good chance that your blocking is never effective. I even once had a 2 boat army (biremes) with 5 land units escape the wrath of 7 (triremes) and put them ashore next turn where they were needed.
The outcomes are also completely random. I had a naval battle of 2 triremes, both 3 valor and shield and weapon both bronze ugrades, have a clear defeat against a 1 unit (12 men only) bireme with nothing, only to reload and have a heroic victory.
There should be SOME consistancy in naval battles, because right now, it's even worse then roulette.

I'm not too far in the campaign yet, but I'm already loathing the sea battles.

I don't think CA will be addressing many of the patch ideas being posted on here, at least not initially.

Rome apparently has significant bugs that prevent people from playing the game. I am referring to the Memory leak bug and the mouse lag problems for people with the Geforce cards. You can read about these problems on the official site. There are a significant number of people reporting game crashes, failing to install, and lock ups.

Some additionnal points for the wishlist :

• Not being thrown out of the game when we win. I became Emperor and SLAM, game finished. Hey, perhaps I wanted to finish to conquer it all ?
• Less fleeing in naval fighting. It's REALLY tiresome to spend all the time to chase these ships in every corners.
• People of Rome are quite demanding. I had to conquer the whole Gaul, Germany, Spain, and good chunks of Britain and different island, before being allowed to take on the other Roman factions. The possibility of starting a civil war comes too late in the game, I think.

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Originally Posted by Turbo

I don't think CA will be addressing many of the patch ideas being posted on here, at least not initially.

Rome apparently has significant bugs that prevent people from playing the game. I am referring to the Memory leak bug and the mouse lag problems for people with the Geforce cards. You can read about these problems on the official site. There are a significant number of people reporting game crashes, failing to install, and lock ups.

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I agree. Usually patches that are released immediately after a game's release are small and deal solely with 'show stopper' bugs, bugs in general and game breaking imbalances that can be fixed and tested in a short period of time. Anything that requires serious tweaking and/or balancing is usually left for a more substantial patch later on. However, the fact that RTW is extremely playable right now and doesn't seem to sport any show stopper bugs means CA might decide to wait and release a large, bug squashing/tweaked/re-balanced patch sometime this winter.

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Originally Posted by Turbo

I don't think CA will be addressing many of the patch ideas being posted on here, at least not initially.

Rome apparently has significant bugs that prevent people from playing the game. I am referring to the Memory leak bug and the mouse lag problems for people with the Geforce cards. You can read about these problems on the official site. There are a significant number of people reporting game crashes, failing to install, and lock ups.

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Maybe so, but if we dont mention em there's no way they'll be changed/fixed. I'm only on my second campaign and clicking through the character/agent/fleet interface over and over and over again in the same turn so as not to miss anyone is becoming a BIG turn-off. Once that happens I'll stop promoting the game (in my small way) and start suggesting that people not buy it until things are fixed.

Shouldnt this thread be stickied? It is (potentially) useful.

Speed! Speed!

The bizarre speeds has to be fixed and the enormously long responstime to commands. Whats the fun with not being abel to react to AI tactics. When a cavalry charge is initiated you wont be able to do anything until after your unit has been devoured.

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Give diplomats an option to demand that another faction remove his armies from your territory. :toff:

Advance would be sweet have some buttens

*Advance* ( Men go forward in formation in line*
*Advance 100* ( 100 steps)
Advance 50 (50 steps)
Advance 25 (25 steps)

Can't this thread by made as sticky by a moderator? Surely, this would be the next obvious step rather than creating a new one.

Anyway, patch requests:

Ships:
Instruct the AI fleets to be more intuitive with regards to blockading the player's ports.

Slightly tone down the imbalance when autocalculating human and AI sea warfare

Fix the blinking trade incomes when building a shipyard or dockyard.

Campaign:
Fix devastation. At the moment devastation doesn't appear to be factored into income.

On the VH campaign setting most of the successful diplomacy only involves bribing and sleezing the AI out of large amounts of money for map information. Suggest making the AI more responsive as to the amounts one would need to complete the deal rather than simply dismissing it. Forming ceasefires and forming an alliance and asking a faction to mutually attack another faction never seem to work.

On a related note, suggest including an option allowing a diplomat to ask a unit to leave its country's borders?

Marian Reforms seem to happen a little on the early side, quite often before Triari are even buildable by the human player.

Suggestion to boost Carthage a little.

AI currently never seems to build assassins.

Increase the likelihood of the AI getting high star generals.

Slightly increase the likelihood of ambushes occurring.

Battle:
Instruct the AI to be more careful with general units to avoid suicidal generals.

Siege AI: When attacking stone walls the AI should deploy outside the missile range of the battlements. If against a lot of archers AI should endeavour to bring more than 1 battering ram, OR, attempt sapping more often.


More to follow as I find them.

What everyone has said plus sort out why some units at some times won't do as their told. Was fighting Germans at Trier, they were beseiging my relatively meager forces with spear warbands and screeching women. Knowing the AI would lose I took control myself, slowly worked my way up and surrounded them, taking out both women units but then when I went to strike the killer blow the velites who had used up all their missiles and were now meant to come in on the left flank DID NOT MOVE!!! I am convinced I could have won that battle if they had been in place. It's worst because there is no pattern to this failure, it's totally random so you have no idea when it will happen.

If those units were on skirmish-mode they probably wouldn't engage? Should turn that off automatically if you order them to charge though.

My biggest wish is a tool to go through all agents and armies outside cities with movementpoints remaining. I've forgotten to move units too many times to count. It's too much like work to go over every inch of map to check all units. The existing tool takes you on a tour of all your garrisons too and that's just too annoying.

Yeah, finetune Cavalry Charge Power and make SPEARS / PHALANX UNITS really worthwhile counters! :angel:

Besides that, I completely agree with RedHarvest . :2thumbsup:

Please, please, please don't force a battle speed adjustment in a patch!!! I am really happy with the battle speed, it makes battles worth fighting. In MTW battles took soooo long I usually auto-calced the battles out of fear of boredom. In RTW I play every battle. I understand I'm probably in a minority here, but I'd like to see battle speed as an option rather then just nerfed. I also think that the response time from ordering troops to move and them moving is a good thing - keep it as it is. After all, it's realistic. You have to imagine yourseelf as a general barking orders at people in the heat of a battle; they'd take time to respond. Instant response isn't realistic and it means you have to plan a little ahead and try to anticipate the opponents moves.... ~:)

But I would also like the ability to save replays of SP battles. If only I could play back my historic victory of the dangerous, mad and hairy-beyond-reason Gallic army! ~:cool:

I've got a few more suggestions:

Movement on the strat map
I waste a lot of time moving units and then moving them again when I discover that I can squeeze a little more distance from them. I blame the fuzzy lines indicating limits of travel and the laggy interface. Even worse is when I mis-click and irretrievably lose that distance from my movement this turn.

suggestion:
Allow me to hold down the right mouse button and drag it around the valid travel area. Releasing the button would commit the move, ESC or the left mouse button would cancel it. This would solve errant clicks and also allow me to efficiently make the absolute farthest move in a turn.


save game
Quick save brings up an animated scroll and a small 'OK' button in the center that you need to click to acknowledge the save.

suggestion:
Why do we need to a acknowledge the save at all? Can't this just be a sort of tooltip message; something that pops up indicating you've done it and then goes away? The other option would to let me press space or ESC to remove this window.


turning off special effects for the strat map
My campaign map is laggy. I guess this is due to owning an older CPU or videocard because others don't seem to have the same problem. It makes all actions on the map pretty tedious.

suggestion:
Let me turn off some of the special effects when viewing the map. We have the option to customize the battle map settings to get the best possible gameplay experience, let me do the same with the strat map. Currently the lag is so bad on my pc I would gladly give up unit animation, go to a lower resolution, or turn off animated scrolls to help the lag.


update: apparently I'm not alone with my mouse lagginess see mouse speed problems

While I realize the "Powers That Be" probably won't see this, but I need to vent. TONE DOWN the number of rebels/bandits! It's a joke. All I do is fight rebels. Not only do you have to have at least peasant garrisons, but you have to maintain standing combat troops spread around your trade routes just to kill off the rabble. Way too expensive to maintain, but you can't afford not to.

Again, why isn't the pause key, pause? It's sooooo much easier than hunting for P or trying to hit the button with your lethargic mouse. No, I don't have a Nvidia; I'm using ATI 9800Pro. Still sucks.

How about some explainations of trade? Nobody seems to really KNOW anything; we're just guessing through trial & error.

Just how much are provinces worth? In MTW, there were some provinces you couldn't even give me. Certainly wouldn't have fought over them.

We desparately need a "screen" or "key" for finding your navies and provinces as we did in MTW. Remember "shift" and "v"?

Under no circumstances should it take three years to sail across the Med! Nor should it take a governor five or six years just to reach his province. He's almost too old by the time he gets there.

I also can't get screenshots taken, no matter what I try.

Now that I've had my chance to vent, I haven't seen anyone post about two very positive new aspects. One, a single Danish rowboat can no longer paralize the trade and aspirations of an entire faction that's sailing a hundred carracks. Neat. Secondly, I just LOVE the year-end construction board, and the fact that I can address each province while it's still available. I no longer have to keep making lists of what was constructed. You didn't? Better memory than mine, I guess. IMHO, this is a far superior product, with a few exhasperating glitches. Patch, please.

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Originally Posted by Lord Ovaat

TONE DOWN the number of rebels/bandits! It's a joke. All I do is fight rebels.

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I did have a LOT of them in my Julii campaign. I don't have any in my Greek Cities campaign.
I think that they appear in places that are far to any troop/watchtower, and the Greek having very small and densely populated area, there is no suc place here, while Julii expand in Gaul, which have few cities and very large provinces, with plenty of space to hide.

I suppose that if you build lots of watchtower, you'll have much less of them. I agree they were a major pain in the *bip*.

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Again, why isn't the pause key, pause? It's sooooo much easier than hunting for P or trying to hit the button with your lethargic mouse. No, I don't have a Nvidia; I'm using ATI 9800Pro. Still sucks.

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Weird. I have a mere 9700 (non-pro), and I don't experience any mouse lag.

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Under no circumstances should it take three years to sail across the Med! Nor should it take a governor five or six years just to reach his province. He's almost too old by the time he gets there.

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I strongly agree. The ships are barely faster than ground units. Half more of even double speed would be good. After all, it's because they were able to sail fast and easily that Greeks occupied most of the Mediterranean coast.

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I also can't get screenshots taken, no matter what I try.

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Use the old method : print screen key, pause the game, then alt-tab to paintbrush and Ctrl-V.

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Now that I've had my chance to vent, I haven't seen anyone post about two very positive new aspects. One, a single Danish rowboat can no longer paralize the trade and aspirations of an entire faction that's sailing a hundred carracks. Neat. Secondly, I just LOVE the year-end construction board, and the fact that I can address each province while it's still available. I no longer have to keep making lists of what was constructed. You didn't? Better memory than mine, I guess. IMHO, this is a far superior product, with a few exhasperating glitches. Patch, please.

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Strongly agree :D


Some other points I wish to raise :

- Not important and just about graphic pleasure : an option to switch off the borders on the map. There are provinces that are so small, we can practically only see the color of the border and not the province itself (Sparta comes to mind, as Illyria).
- Really, make the naval battle more decisive. Ships-based, and not men-on-ships-based. Please. Hunting ships down on half the sea during several turns is seriously TIRESOME.
- For God sake allow us to TURN OFF THE DAMN TIMER ! It's INCREDIBLY ANNOYING to "loose" a battle where there is only 25 enemies left against your hundred of soldiers, just because the *ing thing has run out. Especially siege, where the time is ridiculously short.
- Again for God sake, allow us to TURN OFF THE DAMN REINFORCEMENT AI ! I had a full army of 1300 men STANDING IDLE FOR THE WHOLE BATTLE while there was huge opening in the palissade ! I WANT TO CONTROL MY OWN TROOPS !
- There is an option "arcade battles". I would like an option "realistic battles", with a slightly slower kill speed, and slightly slower charge/run speed.
- The game suffers, though to a less annoying point, of the same problem as MTW : the enemies are insanely agressive. I had Carthage, reduced to their single city in Sicilia, breaking its alliance with me to attack Syracuse, which was stuffed full of veteran soldiers, while I'm military as powerful as the three next factions combined. That's just stupid, and should never happen.
Samely, factions I have crushed, which has lost nearly every single of their battles against me, which have had many of their provinces conquered, and suffered huge losses on the battlefield, still say me they don't see the point with making a blank peace with me. Hu ?
They should be BEGGING me for peace.
Same problem that in Civilization and MTW : factions react too much like a "video game", and not enough like "faction leaders".

And a major point :
- Tone down the rebellious temper of people. What we have now, is that basically everyone slaughter the population each time they capture a city, and never build any farm upgrade. Why ? Just to keep the population low, because it's simply a nightmare to manage big cities, which are constantly revolting, and require a huge level of tedious micromanaging. I keep the taxes as high as I can not for the money (I'm bathing in denarii right now), but just because it slow down the population growth.
I LIKE the fact that a big city isn't as easy to handle as a small one, and that big empires have to deal large part of their ressources to keep themselve running. It's realistic, it's good, and it partially avoid the snowball effect.
But right now, it only make players dread the growth of their cities, which is somehow absurd.
Edit : I can imagine that making buildings requiring a upkeep, would have the same "drain the ressources from the player", without being as incredibly annoying as to have to constantly fight off the population grow.