BI Demo Comments

The BI demo is available on this thread https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=51712 (although it may take some while to download as the servers become busy). I thought it might be a good idea to start a seperate thread with comments on the demo since they seem to be cropping up on seperate threads.

I've only played Chalons so far and retired once my general got killed ~:eek: (course I havent played in months).

I had no problem starting the demo from King Ragnar nor have I had a CTD or any other glitches. Technically it worked as well as 1.2.

Part of the reason I lost was that I had problems controling the HA and light cav who tended to have 'minds of their own' i.e. giving new orders to units took a long time to have an effect or the ordered changes never happened at all. Of course, in the few seconds while you're trying to re-direct your 4 units of light cav who're chasing after 1 unit of enemy HA the battle is lost. So one thing for sure, the demo game speed is not slowed down. Battles are still way too quick even with pausing. I'm unsure whether the problems with my HA were caused by the 'parthian shot bug'.

Its possible though that my control problems were due to being out of practice.

Well, the AI seems now able to do coordinated charges against player's battleline (though the AI troops that were part of the frontal charge still routed on contact). AI should utilize their precursor javelins, as they currently don't.

On technical side, I'm getting the strobe effect in night battles described earlier.

nope

i saw that too

cav tend to keep going, or go after a different unit,

getting them back under control can take some doing,
(kinda historicaly accurate actually)
try clicking them onto the ground THEN get them to attack another unit

why should they go attack that unrouted unit when they have easy pickings right here, eh?
or maybe they just like "shiny things"??

B.

Perhaps you should mention that the link to the demo is on page 5 of that thread, 4/5's of the way down.

DLing right now, thanks for the link KR!

Crazed Rabbit

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Originally Posted by SpencerH

Its possible though that my control problems were due to being out of practice.

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I don't think that's it. I played Chalons twice. The first time I tried targeting individual units based on tactics such as cav beats missles, etc.. Well, it didn't work. The battle became total chaos very quickly, and I observed some units doing things contrary to the orders I gave them. I lost the first time as I couldn't get orders out to all of my cavalry units fast enough to keep them away from the AI's spear infantry which chased my cav relentlessly irregardless of what it did to the organization of their own battleline. That's the AI trying to choose advantageous matchups which is how it's designed to work. I wish I had time to do the same thing.

The second time I played Chalons I put my infantry into guard mode and made two large groups of cavalry placed far out on each flank. I waited until the AI engaged my infantry and then I swept both groups of cav in by double clicking on the ground. I didn't use any individual targeting. I just did mass cav sweeps, and I won a huge victory. I didn't write it down, but I think my kills were about 10:1.

Yes, cavalry blobs are still killers. And wedge works, too.

I won the second battle (heroic victory) but I had to keep much tighter reins on the cav (ie lots of pausing which takes away from the flow of the game) and still had units 'acting up'. If thats the way the game is designed -units close to the general will quickly and accurately do what they are told while units further away will tend to do 'their own thing' -thats fine by me, I agree its more realistic. I'd like to know (officially) though that that's the case and its not another 'feature'.

Two more points:

The bug where one must continually click on enemy routing units in order to pursue them is still in place. This was particularly annoying while being told by the voice-over that I should be chasing the enemy from the field (or words to that effect) while my units stood there as enemy units virtually ran through them.

The mobile ballistae totally demoralized one of my spear units in a very short time(which I hadnt seen before to the same extent) so ARTY anti-personnel effects may be more pronounced (which I agree with).

I'm pleased with the demo.
I tried BKB's battlepack and it seems that the AI is alittle better.
A few complaints tho.

1. The voices - There are no new voices, some of the romans heavy infantry(forgot their names) keeps saying legionary cohort, some don't have a voice at all. CA please tell me that you are gonna add new voices in the retail.
2. The skins- I guess that's what modders are for but please alittle more effort I mean the two romans heavy infantry units that I mentioned before look exactly the same.

Other then that no problem.
Watching a huge army like in the Frank ambush in BKB battlepack at night is really beautiful with the torches.

I noticed the voices too and imagine they will change. The priests don't even have one IIRC. The night battles are an amazing addition, should provide some great encounters.

I lost when I played Badon hill, and won decively at Chalons. How did I do well at Chalons you ask? Easy I fought it as if I was the Seleucids fighting the Parthians. I grouped the legionaries into a sorted single line. I grouped the Scholae palatinae and the fedeorati cavalry together (in hind sight I should have stuck in the Alan heavies too). I sent the Alan HA to keep their eyes and bows on the Huns, with the cart baliistae close behind. When the Huns settled on a place to form a battle line I ran all my army to the foot of the hill they chose. But as soon as my men got there the Hun cavalry start to flank, I was like no you don't either and sent my cavalry after them. Chased them off but they were just fighting lancers and heavies, the leites were holding back. Things really went my way when my Scholae palatinae killed Attila (hehe :evil:). The Hunnic lancers, HA, and heavies routed as soon as Attila's corpse hit the ground. Leaving the infantry and elite horsemen. My cavalry however had taken heavy losses (about 60% casualties) and the fedeorati had routed themselfs and the scholae were in the same shape. So the legionary's marched to battle. I ran them to the crest of the hills that the Huns had taken refuge on the downward slope. And let them loose their missiles. When they were gone I charged the Huns. Mean while I reformed my cavalry and moved the rest of my infantry into position (auxilia palatina, gold bands, and fedeorati infantry). As I expected the legionary's while good had some discipline problems. A unit of limitanei routed but the comitatense stood firm. The Hunnic elites were the only real pain. I needed to throw everythig close at hand at them to route them.

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Originally Posted by Puzz3D

The second time I played Chalons I put my infantry into guard mode and made two large groups of cavalry placed far out on each flank. I waited until the AI engaged my infantry and then I swept both groups of cav in by double clicking on the ground. I didn't use any individual targeting. I just did mass cav sweeps, and I won a huge victory. I didn't write it down, but I think my kills were about 10:1.

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Sounds like classic horse army tactics to me .

The {later} Byzantines actually favored it if I remember my history correctly .

I just D.L.ed the demo myself and won a heroic victory™ at Chalons . I placed my infantry in line as was {best spears flanks , then swords and weak spears middle I think} , grouped and marched them to wait on the slope behind us . Then I grouped all my heavy cavalry with my general in line , grouped and placed them behind the infantry whilst my horse archers {which I again grouped} engaged the enemy line to draw them in whilst causing them casualities and my light cavalry I left in the woods on our left flank .
The enemy mauled and broke one of my horse archers with balista and their own horse archers {and somewhat reduced the other units} , but took quite a few casualities and more importantly , broke up their line chasing my lads whom they had no hope of catching . I simply left the horse archers to their own devices {C/A seemed to have fixed the old problem of horse archers skirmishing to the redline then getting cornered} which worked nicely .
The foe threw himself at my infantry {not all at once , but beggars can be choosers} and I sprung my ambush of light cav and my heavies at their right flank {my left} and basically rolled their line .

Silly romans :p



Edit : spelling , bet I missed some still .

Uggg I downloaded the Demo and Extracted it to a new folder i made. But when i start it up the background on the Menu is White and whenever i start a battle it CTDs. Does anyone know what the problem is?

I really like the new general model for the barbarian, and I like the roman one too. However, I saw a few graphical glitches with the models I hope they fix.

(1) Look at the Paladin Bodyguards in this picture:
https://img221.imageshack.us/img221/...nvasion3dt.jpg
One side of their body is falling apart.

(2) Look at the Scholae Palatinae:
https://img79.imageshack.us/img79/1308/invasion23aq.jpg
When they turn their heads they become mutants, the chin stays put and the top goes where it wants.

I hope CA sees these and fixes them, I think it would not be too hard.

Havent played the original Rome for a while, only mods. Seems tome it is still hilariously fast, I think running speed and killing speed are even faster than original Rome. Units still do not listen to commands given. Cav trash through everything. Havent played the second battle. Waste of money, unless a good mod is being made for it.
Kenchi Mord

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Originally Posted by Lysander

(1) Look at the Paladin Bodyguards in this picture:
https://img221.imageshack.us/img221/...nvasion3dt.jpg
One side of their body is falling apart.

(2) Look at the Scholae Palatinae:
https://img79.imageshack.us/img79/1308/invasion23aq.jpg
When they turn their heads they become mutants, the chin stays put and the top goes where it wants.

I hope CA sees these and fixes them, I think it would not be too hard.

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I don't have any of those glitches.
Probably hardware related.

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Originally Posted by Mr Frost

I just D.L.ed the demo myself and won a heroic victory™ at Chalons . I placed my infantry in line as was {best spears flanks , then swords and weak spears middle I think} , grouped and marched them to wait on the slope behind us . Then I grouped all my heavy cavalry with my general in line , grouped and placed them behind the infantry whilst my horse archers {which I again grouped} engaged the enemy line to draw them in whilst causing them casualities and my light cavalry I left in the woods on our left flank.

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You don't have to do any of that. I took the units the way they were placed. I didn't need high ground. I didn't have to place the line units in any particular order. I didn't have to group the cav in any specific way; light cav and heavy cav mixed was fine. I didn't have to give a single unit specific order or target any specific enemy unit. I only gave a single order to each of the two cav groups, then I sat back and watched.

It works because the AI doesn't defend against it. Individually, it appears that spears work against cav, but I can't tell how well they work yet. They are going to have to be able to stop massed cav attacks to pull multiplayer out of the cav spam type of gameplay that exists in RTW.

Sounds like more of the same. Is speed really untouched? (Both combat and movement.)

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Originally Posted by Red Harvest

Is speed really untouched? (Both combat and movement.)

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Combat is maybe little slower, but movement speed is unchanged.

Played Chalons and on the whole the AI seemed a bit more robust even if I'm puzzled why it favopured a reverse slope defense, leaving me to chuck javalins down onto the Huns. Gave the AI a sound thrashing, ofcourse wiping out nearly every Hun, leaving under a hundred alive, losing 46 men myself. Yawn.

Still could've been worse. All my Chariot Ballistas healed themselves. How did they die, you ask? I'm not entirely sure. I was moving them in to engage heavy hun cavalry, they took aim through their front, fired... and instantenously dropped dead, all but two of them, who died on their next volley. That's right, THEY KILLED THEMSELVES!!!! :furious3: I couldn't quite catch what happened as my new place hasn't got curtains yet and the sun glare made it difficult to see what happened in detail but they all dropped dead on the very same moment, just as they fired. Still killed nine enemy men according to the AAR, surprisingly.
Anyone else seen this?

Seems like the same move and attack speed. And I get these weird flashing graphical glitches, and I had one blue screen of death and one CTD.

Crazed Rabbit

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Originally Posted by Red Harvest

Sounds like more of the same. Is speed really untouched? (Both combat and movement.)

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Very much so. I played Badon Hill and it was very reminiscent of a good RTS.

A couple more points.

A funny blue bar appears on the unit cards when they are swimming. It took me a few seconds to figure out what it was since I noticed it during a bit of a tense moment'.

Its a big mistake to try to swim missile units across a river with skirmish on. Not having played in a while, I forgot to turn off skirmish mode for foot missile units- thanks for leaving that as default CA- so they swam back and forth across the river and were totally useless.

PS swimming archers is totally bogus. Natural bowstrings become useless when wet.

Graphics wise everything went almost fine for me. Had one CTD at the start of a Bandon Hill battle.

Units as a whole seem to be less cohesive, spreading out over a large area... especially if you run them. Personally I think thats a good thing but it does mean you must be careful of running a unit (infantry or cav) to a point and then immediatly engaging. You need to give them some time to reform. That also makes running down routers more difficult as they're all over the place.

Did seem to have some problem with friendly fire. Lost Bandon Hill the first time as the king got killed by friendly fire. Wasn't terrible and not sure if it wasn't normal as that battle has allies in it and I think it was an ally that got me.

The red line is now the border. You come to it and its like hitting a wall. Only noticed it though while chasing routers.

Combat is still fairly quick. Basic RTW rules of whom should engage whom seem to still apply.

Infantry seemed very fast. Had an extremely difficult time maneurving my cavalry around/past enemy infantry as they'd turn and catch me very quickly. Trying to engage archers with a generals units of cav took almost have the battle map for him to catch them.

Overall seems very good. Looking forward BI whens its released. Unfortunately for me I'm more interested in the campaign map part of the game then the battles, but was still fun fighting with the new units. (Enjoyed the night battle with the glowing lights all around. ~:) )

Oh, and played the battles on Hard. Haven't tried very hard yet...

The speed seems faster - unless RTR6 actually did reduce speed. I was under the impression that it didn't, but I was shocked by the speed of the demo.

I'll have to give BKB's mod a shot, because I have no idea how to adjust scripts and the like.

Sorry to go over this again, but I really think the models for the “Paladin Bodyguards” and the “Scholae Palatinae” have a little glitch in them. I suppose it could be a hardware problem of mine, but every single time I load up the game the glitch is present and it exists only in those units.

Just compare the right side of the “Paladin Bodyguards” with the “Paladins.” You should see the Bodyguards (the Frankish general unit) have a shard that sticks out and the right side of their body is exposed allowing you to see into the opposite side of their torso. See pic above. The normal Paladins look fine from the right side and they are virtually the same model.

On the “Scholae Palatinae,” do this test: just zoom the camera down and leave the Scholae Palatinae idle, un-pause the game. You should see that every once in a while a soldier in the unit turns his head to look around. When this happens the lower head remains welded to the body but the top part of the model turns around normally, this creates the distortion effect in the pic above. This happens with no other unit that I know of.

I apologize for being obstinate, but I want CA to know about it so they can fix it for the full game

I don't think the battles are shorter. In fact, most of the fights that I have experienced actually last longer than in RTW. I have noticed that enemy units rout after taking heavy casualties, and they stick around on the battlefield a lot longer.

Oh BTW, call me a n00b, but how do you win the Badon Hill battle? Is divine intervention a prerequisite?

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Originally Posted by SpencerH

Very much so. I played Badon Hill and it was very reminiscent of a good RTS.

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Well, crud. I've not even been able to get my interest level up enough to download the demo. CA warned us that there was not much they could do about the speeds without rebuilding the game. And with the short time between the expansion pack and the game it was clear that they wouldn't have time to do nearly what was needed.

Maybe CA will be back on track when the 4th TW generation comes out.

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Originally Posted by Red Harvest

Maybe CA will be back on track when the 4th TW generation comes out.

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Next game and expansion will be using same engine as RTW. But we can always hope...

I havent touched RTW in 5 months and the demo did remind me of why I uninstalled it back then. At least some of the new stuff gives mods even more options.


CBR

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Originally Posted by CBR

Next game and expansion will be using same engine as RTW. But we can always hope...

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I figured that. STW and MTW were the same basic engine as I understand it, so I figured they would use RTW for "nexTW."

However, it should definitely be possible to fix the speeds. It really depends on the time they have and whether or not they appreciate this as being a BIG issue. If I had the tools to fix the skeletons even I could do it (and add more skeletons to boot.) The combat kill rates, missile kill rates and things like that are also relatively straightforward, but only if you can change those base factors that are presently out of reach.

I am playing the RTR 6.0 mod and funny enough the moving around of your forces now looks normal graphic wise. No more ice skating of the the little fellas who are also running around like crazy in fast forward mode as in the original or barb invasion.
So it can't be all that difficult to change that. Me thinks that that it is a choice by CA to leave it as it is. It now resembles the standard RTS where little donkey kongs eat their way into enemies with lighting speed.
Given the fact that ALL mods reduced the killing and running speed proves that most players do not like it. RTR 6.0 had 80.000 downloads after the first day. It is about time somebody takes the developers by the ears and drag them behind a computer where 6.0 is installed to have a look how 'epic' the game could be.
Why all the trouble of the beautifull graphics if you do not have time to enjoy it during battle.
Kenchi Mord

Is there currently any way to slow down the movement speeds in the demo? I can't unpack any of the files to get to the relevant text files. I forgot how fast unmodded RTW was - the first thing I did when I bought RTW was to apply the very early movement and combat speed mods that came out when it was first released. That was the one good thing about having to wait a week or two before being able to buy it in England - those nice Americans made a fix for us 'slower is better' brigade!

This is an one time offer. If enough people wish to have slower running speeds for infantry and cavalry then please make a table of how fast the speed should be in % related to walking speed. There are normal and fast versions of most skeletons, so you can have different speeds for normal archers and fast archers. If you cannot get an agreement then stop complaining about fast movement. The solution that I will provide will work on all mods or original versions that do not have new animations (and those that do should be ashamed that they haven't touched running speeds).

Lysander
The graphical glitches that you see have nothing to do with hardware, some bits CA messed up other bits are just unavoidable when using low detail models. You should either set your unit detail (Graphical Settings) to high which will result in more detailed geometry in your models and thus better animation. Or if your computer is not able to handle higher detail then just do not zoom in :grin:

Edit:

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CA warned us that there was not much they could do about the speeds without rebuilding the game.

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That is BS.

Too much fast. When i had played the battles and tutorials after i said that. Faster then vanilla RTW faster than a Tie fighter. Faster in historic 2X2 km maps... Just imagine this example in 1X1 km standart camp battle maps.

Duke John

The BI demo has actually made me to think about playing RTW again, at least the BI campaign as I think it would be an improvement over old RTW campaign. But the more I think of it the more I also remember how many things I have to mod to have a chance of liking it. One thing is the damn running animations and then I thought of you ~:)

But getting an agreement on how much to reduce it with might not be easy. I know how intense a battle can be with MTW speeds and with 25% more units to control I personally wouldnt want faster running speeds than what we had in MTW.


CBR

I'd like to see three crosscountry speeds:

line (heavy)-inf:

marching 3mph

dogtrot 5mph

sprint 7mph (max 1 min, only fresh troops)

Lightly armed and armoured inf:

marching 3mph

dogtrot 6mph

sprint 8mph (max 1 min, only fresh and near-fresh troops)

No armour:

marching 3mph

dogtrot 7mph

sprint 10 mph

Routing troops should not run at sprint speed except for the time limits suggested AND if they were near-fresh when rout began

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Originally Posted by Red Harvest

Well, crud. I've not even been able to get my interest level up enough to download the demo. CA warned us that there was not much they could do about the speeds without rebuilding the game. And with the short time between the expansion pack and the game it was clear that they wouldn't have time to do nearly what was needed.

Maybe CA will be back on track when the 4th TW generation comes out.

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You should try it. If we have any hope of getting bugs fixed, we have to have experienced eyes testing it. They fixed the bug that Oaty found.

I just checked the stats for upgraded units and it appears armour/weapon upgrades are still shown to only give +1 on one stat (defense for armour and attack for weapon) but they are actually increasing it by +2. Would be nice if that "bug" was fixed too.

Edit: Or maybe they actually did lower the effect from upgrades.


CBR

The roman units i don`t like them at all....i said that first faction i will play is Western Roman....now after I saw the units...i changed my mind....now i`m looking forward for the Sassanid Empire.....i bet this faction has the nicest units

In what way did you not like them?


CBR

i was wondering should i make a new thread with the link to the download and a link to BKB's scripts then a mod can lock it. It will save people having to go through the other post.

I didn't like from demo. I played again and again it but evertime i bored that ultraspeed movement and high kill rates. They were so fast even vanilla RTW. Mates keep it your mind also standart camp 1X1 battlemaps plus BI speed. Result shall bring us a good thing. I hope CA find a solution. But however speeds must be lowered for balancing and maps should be 2X2 for better and serious gameplay worth to a TW game... :bow:

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Originally Posted by CBR

In what way did you not like them?


CBR

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lets just say the "design"...i really don`t care how historic accurate are...i care about good looking units....those RTW legionaires style are and will be the best looking....i just love that red rectangular shield...anyway...i hope modders will change it...if don`t...i try to change it myself....i don`t stand the BI roman units...and 2nd thing i hate....is that the units are too coloured...too many different colours

but the whole idea here: is possible to make them realistic and good looking too....but CA considered the realistic factor is important

Itryed out the demo,and i liked it.The troops are moving still too fast,but the AI seems more co-ordinated.I tryed also Chalons playing the Goths and AI actually reacted when i first harassed the moving Hunnic Army by using its own horse archers against my one unit of them,instead chasing them with its infantry.When the Roman Army finally walked to the battle,i flanked The Hunnic army on the right with my whole force.When i got the flank AI throved Attila himself and two stacks of Hunnic elite warriors against my army of two heavy cavalry,one spearman stack and one horse archer unit.I had a hard work killing them but i succeeded.I won the battle but AI seemed better. :bow:

Judging by the demo, the first thing to do when getting the full add-on will be to mod the game so it's actually playable/fun. It's amusing to go from slow battles back to turbo paced blink-and-you'll-miss-it action. You look away for just a second and 3 units have routed and another skirmisher unit has decided to run towards the enemy instead of in the opposite direction. A minute later and the battle has ended. The AI is still hopeless I noticed, but hopefully it will have improved for siege battles a little when it's released.

Some of the new units look alright, others have been firmly beaten around the head with an ugly stick though. Interesting how many of the units are carrying missile weapons (throwing axes and javelins) but they aren't currently used. CA have used a surprising number of historical names this time around instead of virtually all generic titles previously, but it's still pretty much a dumbed down RTS game.

I'm not massively impressed by the demo, but I'll probably get the addon, but mostly because of the potential that can be unlocked with a bit of ye olde modding.

I haven't had a chance to dwnld the demo yet (my cable modem is broken & i'm waiting for them to bring over a new one, so i don't hav any internet right now - i'm on somebody elses cpu & it can't handle rtw), but I'm interested in the new Roman units. Specifically - what is the difference between the Eastern and Western romans' units? If I remember correctly, the eastern romans had started using more heavy cavalry while the western romans still relied mainly on infantry. Is this reflected in the available units or am I wrong?

BTW - what exactly is in the demo?

3 historical battles: 1 one is a battle tutorial, 1 is the Battle of Badon Hill, and the third is the Battle of Chalons.

Can a CA staff member tell us how old this demo is ??
Because so far it seem pretty old.
For example, some of the models are different like catholic priest who are carrying a knife instead of a club, the goth spearmen look different too.
Also no new voices and the schiltron seem to have a huge problem beating cavalry.
Also generals is just as suicidal as in RTW V.1.0 so you have taken a step backwards there.

I think a knife is better than a beatstick...

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Originally Posted by Duke John

That is BS.

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No, they did say something to that effect. Or do you mean that what CA said was BS? I agree with the latter, it was more a reflection of what they were *willing* to rework than what they *could* rework in my opinion.

first thing i noticed is that units seem faster, way faster, the actually battle only lasted me 1 minute tops, the AI seemingly have gotten better, in the hunnic battle i watched the friendly AI get horses in there rear that hid in the forest (where they hid another one....i found myself with a small unit of elite hunnic whatevers on my back) Horses still to powerfull and horses are also too dumb, in the description they say that some horses are afraid of spears, i wanted to see if they did it...they didnt....

Red Harvest, I meant it was nonsense that they needed to rebuilding the game. All that need to be done is taking all the running/charging animations and edit them a bit so that they cover less distance in a single animation cycle. As a result units will run slower.

I believe that there is a mod who adds an overhand hoplite animation. I can't understand why someone would make that animation but avoids editing running speed since that has a much greater impact on the enjoyment of the game. Editing descr_battlemap_movement is a bad fix IMO since it also means that units walk slower and that means fixing by breaking things.

Blackhawk i find it a very immpossible that a battle only lasted 1 minute. It would take one minute to get your army engaged with the other nevermind the fightinh taking place.

Ok so ive downloaded the file and unzipped it ive got a bunch of files. Now what do i do do i copy the files somewhere??

:help:

Ther should be a symbol like the old Rome one just click on that and the game should run.

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Originally Posted by Duke John

Red Harvest, I meant it was nonsense that they needed to rebuilding the game. All that need to be done is taking all the running/charging animations and edit them a bit so that they cover less distance in a single animation cycle. As a result units will run slower.

I believe that there is a mod who adds an overhand hoplite animation. I can't understand why someone would make that animation but avoids editing running speed since that has a much greater impact on the enjoyment of the game. Editing descr_battlemap_movement is a bad fix IMO since it also means that units walk slower and that means fixing by breaking things.

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If they slow down the animations this means they will have to rebalance the game after them, since the units die to fast it would unbalance the game,and example if you hide your cavalry away in the woods far away from the main army when they would arrive it would be to late if the anims are to slow, so it's not fully BS,but they could have gave us a way to to slow them down, an animation tool or something. As for the anims mod, what would be the use if you slow down a skeleton if all others are to quick, if you wan't to do it right then you must do all animations and this would take enourmous time to do. Anyway you should check the bi anim pack you'll see that they did started something, to little but still(maybe more in BI?!), here are some slow new anims:
bi/data/animations/fs_semi_fast_dagger_run.CAS
bi/data/animations/fs_semi_fast_javelinman_run.CAS
bi/data/animations/fs_semi_fast_swordsman_run.CAS
bi/data/animations/fs_slow_2handed_run.CAS
bi/data/animations/fs_slow_spearman_run.CAS
bi/data/animations/fs_slow_swordsman_run.CAS
bi/data/animations/horse/fs_cataphract_horse_run.CAS
Those just my thoughts and i do blame CA for making the units move to fast in the first place.

We cannot play the game if it shall be same like the demo. Infantry like marathon runners and cavalry like kawasaki bikes ~D in game. Kill rates are still same, movement speeds faster even RTW, cavalry like unstoppable panzers... Our hopes still bounded to the modding possibilities of BI. I really understand at the moment what was the mean of "tightening" and "polishing" of the tactical stage of BI. Don't miss the point we shall play this battles on 1X1 standart maps this means double the speed of game. Half a minute later our battles will be shut. :embarassed: At the Chalons war was ending in 2 minutes when the battle has started. Just imagine tiny ones ~:confused:

Hello everyone

Just a few points:

Walking speeds are the same as RTW and actually very realistic. (They are motion captured from a real person walking and are to scale)

Infantry Unit running speeds have been slowed for armoured troops by about 10%. (BTW They are also from motion capture)

Skirmishers move only very slightly slower than before.

There are also different cavalry movement speeds between light, medium and heavy cavalry. :charge:

The AI has been improved.

The game unit movements and kill rates haven't sped up, at all, in any area of the game. :dizzy2:

Perhaps this perception to the contrary is either as a result of playing modded versions of the RTW game? i.e. where speeds and kill rates have been significantly reduced or a mistaken recollection of the original game speeds?


Intrepid Sidekick

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Originally Posted by Intrepid Sidekick

Hello everyone

Just a few points:

Walking speeds are the same as RTW and actually very realistic. (They are motion captured from a real person walking and are to scale)

Infantry Unit running speeds have been slowed for armoured troops by about 10%. (BTW They are also from motion capture)

Skirmishers move only very slightly slower than before.

There are also different cavalry movement speeds between light, medium and heavy cavalry. :charge:

The AI has been improved.

The game unit movements and kill rates haven't sped up, at all, in any area of the game. :dizzy2:

Perhaps this perception to the contrary is either as a result of playing modded versions of the RTW game? i.e. where speeds and kill rates have been significantly reduced or a mistaken recollection of the original game speeds?


Intrepid Sidekick

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Glad to see y'all responding. I hope some of the thread comments are helpful.

The walking speeds etc may have been taken from motion capture but the actual speeds are in no way realistic. All you need to do is ask an ex-grunt (such as myself) how fast modern inf units move cross-country while carrying weapons etc. Staying in massed unit formations (such as in TW) will slow things down yet further.

To some extent though, the walking speeds are a moot point. Its a game. If the battles were played with realistic movement speeds many players (especially those who've not had the pleasure of 'humpin their ass through the grass') would complain that they are too slow.

I think the real culprit is the infantry running speed. The last time it I saw a discussion, running inf were clocked at 10mph!!!!! To put it in perspective, thats the speed of an elite modern marathon runner (who is obviously not burdened by helmet, shield, spear etc). Most importantly though, the inf running speed is way too fast in comparison to the cav running speeds. One only has to watch routing inf units outrun pursuing cav to know something is wrong.

No, Intrepid, its merely because of comparing RomeTW to MedievalTW. Medieval units behave like slow moving blocks... they can be easily manipulated and give the AI plenty of time to react, with fewer options to flunk.

I care about a good AI. I dont have doubts you can improve this. But the actual fighting is over pretty fast. Perhaps realistic, but i like a prolonged fight more than a fast one. It allows you to enjoy the fruits of your strategic labour.

I can always increase the hitpoints, so soldiers fight longer & i can enjoy that more, it does theoretically make units like gladiators, arcani, etc less useful.

ps.: Running infantry speeds are indeed quite fast. Consider jogging instead? How long can a soldier run anyway? Was their endurance better back then?

The infantry marching speed for MTW and RTW is the same: around 6 km/h. Yes it is actually too much for a line trying to keep its formation but it works fine for a game. For that matter running/jogging/trotting, or whatever we are gonna call it, doesn't have to be realistic either but its more a question of control.

For standard infantry in MTW "running" speed is 66% faster than marching speed while in RTW its nearly 3 times as fast as marching speed. Overall units in RTW run about 50-60% faster than MTW. Sometimes MTW battles could be a fast clickfest but in RTW its guaranteed.

It is certainly not realistic nor fun for me with so much chaos and clicking.

Funny thing is, at least from the numbers I have, is that in RTW infantry running speeds was increased more than cavalry run speed (60% increase for infantry and only 50% for cavalry)


CBR

well infantry can run mighty fast in RTW, making battles not very long.

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Originally Posted by Intrepid Sidekick

The game unit movements and kill rates haven't sped up, at all, in any area of the game. :dizzy2:

Perhaps this perception to the contrary is either as a result of playing modded versions of the RTW game? i.e. where speeds and kill rates have been significantly reduced or a mistaken recollection of the original game speeds?

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I play an RTW mod where the movement speed is slowed by 10%. My impression of the BI demo was that at least heavy cavalry was moving about the same speed as in the mod which would be slightly slower than vanilla RTW.

Remember, LongJohn made the argument in MTW that movement speed determines the effective size of the battlefield. Slower movement making the battlefield effectively larger. He refused a request to increase the running speed of cavalry in MTW, which was set at about 15 mph, by even 10%, and he even argued that 15 mph was historically accurate. I can dig out the post if you want it.

Relatively fast movement means you have to separate units by a greater distances, and it therefore takes more time to scroll the camera which makes it more difficult to control all of your units. The Battle of Chalons devolves into total chaos very quickly if you try to make individual unit matchups as the AI is doing. You were able to play by making individual matchups in the Total War games prior to RTW.

The way I got around this fast pace, and the way virtually everyone in multiplayer is coping with this is to use what CeltiMordred calls "snowball" tactics. For instance, as the Huns in the Chalons battle, I put my infantry line in guard mode and put my cavalry into two groups way out on the flanks. Once the Romans charged my line, I swept in with the two groups of cav on each flank. I didn't target any specific enemy units or give any unit specific commands. The battle is effectively reduced to 3 things to control, and that's how you keep up with the speed at which things are happening. In multiplayer, it's even more simplified as players are mostly using only two "snowballs"; one to engage frontally and the other to flank. In singleplayer, you have an AI that's trying to make individual matchups, and doesn't recognize the threat from massed groups sweeping in from the flanks.

At least with mods which slow fighting and movement, you can get back to a gameplay that allows giving orders to the individual units at the height of the battle. The mod I use only slows movement by 10%, but when coupled with a slowdown in fighting speed it allows a player to issue more movement orders to individual units which makes maneuver of individual units more important and increases the tactical complexity of the game. The AI copes well with this because it's trying to do the same thing.

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Originally Posted by Puzz3D

Remember, LongJohn made the argument in MTW that movement speed determines the effective size of the battlefield. Slower movement making the battlefield effectively larger. He refused a request to increase the running speed of cavalry in MTW, which was set at about 15 mph, by even 10%, and he even argued that 15 mph was historically accurate. I can dig out the post if you want it.

Relatively fast movement means you have to separate units by a greater distances, and it therefore takes more time to scroll the camera which makes it more difficult to control all of your units. The Battle of Chalons devolves into total chaos very quickly if you try to make individual unit matchups as the AI is doing. You were able to play by making individual matchups in the Total War games prior to RTW.

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That's the point! Balancing the speeds crucially bound with battlemaps effectiveness. Ta da! :duel: Thank you PUZZ 3D! You expanded the critical subject.

An please mate dig it and post it the message. I guess we need some a succeed reference to get a clear stance. :book:

Ive unzipped the files/folders now they are sitting on my desktop where must they go or was it automated for you lads???

Just open the folder and launch the bi_demo.exe. Doesnt need to be installed.


CBR

With the Demo disc the instal created its own folder in
Program Files/Rome-Total war/Barbarian Invasion and also put a shortcut on my desktop.

You could create a folder in Program Files called Rome-Total War/Barbarian Invasion and put all the files in there. Then create a shortcut to your desktop.

Jochi

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Originally Posted by King Ragnar

Blackhawk i find it a very immpossible that a battle only lasted 1 minute. It would take one minute to get your army engaged with the other nevermind the fightinh taking place.

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im talking about the actuall fighting, where my units engaged there units

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Originally Posted by CBR

The infantry marching speed for MTW and RTW is the same: around 6 km/h. Yes it is actually too much for a line trying to keep its formation but it works fine for a game. For that matter running/jogging/trotting, or whatever we are gonna call it, doesn't have to be realistic either but its more a question of control.

For standard infantry in MTW "running" speed is 66% faster than marching speed while in RTW its nearly 3 times as fast as marching speed. Overall units in RTW run about 50-60% faster than MTW. Sometimes MTW battles could be a fast clickfest but in RTW its guaranteed.

It is certainly not realistic nor fun for me with so much chaos and clicking.

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I agree. It doesn't have to be 100% realistic, as long as it's controlable. One of the things I enjoyed about M:TW and S:TW was the slow pace of the battles, whereas in R:TW once combat is engaged it's over so fast that there is little you can do to influence it.

Melee killing rates may be the same as in M:TW, but that does not explain why I always manage to annihilate the enemy army. Once the battle lines are joined it is too easy to roll up the enemy line with cavalry charges from the flanks. And routing units, especially infantry, lose men very quickly.

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Originally Posted by Puzz3D

I play an RTW mod where the movement speed is slowed by 10%. My impression of the BI demo was that at least heavy cavalry was moving about the same speed as in the mod which would be slightly slower than vanilla RTW.

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You have mentioned this mod before. Where can it be found?

Most mods lower the movement speed by 10%. It's not done by actually lowering the unit's movement, but by editing the terrain modifiers so that units move more slowly over different types of terrain. Somewhere in the data folder there should be a file for terrain modifiersm all you have to do is decrease the number for each terrain type. (for example, it will say grass- 1.0. Change that to .9 to make units move 10% slower over it) The animations will remain the same, so it will look a little funny.

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Originally Posted by BobTheTerrible

Most mods lower the movement speed by 10%.

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But simply lowering the movement speeds is not enough. This mod raises morale and defense slightly so that units fight longer, it reduces lethality of all non-spear units to 0.75, and increases the anti-cav bonus of spears. There are a few other minor changes like better javelins and longer range slingers. The result is better RPS gameplay, and the time to make use of it during the fighting. It typically takes 2 to 4 minutes for the fighting on the battleline to be resolved depending on the units involved. The AI benfits from the improved RPS as well. I've seen the AI counterflank my flanking units, it's flanking units now have time to seriously threaten your general, archers have more time to inflict damage and the AI is very smart about choosing good matchups. The suicide general is still a problem, as is the AI's tendency to use one unit at a time in certain situations.

I'll post the link to Mordred's mod here when I get home. He has a new version v0.11 which reduces the anti-cav bonus slightly because online experience with the mod was showing that infantry was beginning to dominate the battles.

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Originally Posted by Puzz3D

Remember, LongJohn made the argument in MTW that movement speed determines the effective size of the battlefield. Slower movement making the battlefield effectively larger.

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Yes, and there is always going to be a scaling problem until the game can support tens of thousands of men on each side at a time. The scaling problem is "aspect ratio" and the difficulty of turning large formations. The typical RTW formation is about 1/5th to 1/10th as wide as it would need to be. Running laterally accross the field should be incredibly difficult to do mid battle. Rotating would have similar limitations, since the folks on the outside of the formation must walk much further, thereby limiting formation turning speed.

The scaling aspects present trouble for using a full motion video capture approach to the game.

Played a few battles choosing sides depending on wether there were interesting units. I played casually and did use the pause button. I did not not use overly clever tactics and was able to win the battles. Perhaps I didn't pick the hardest sides, but as I got 2 CTDs already (never happened in normal R:TW) I got fed up with it already. Not impressed by it.

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Originally Posted by Ludens

Melee killing rates may be the same as in M:TW, but that does not explain why I always manage to annihilate the enemy army. Once the battle lines are joined it is too easy to roll up the enemy line with cavalry charges from the flanks. And routing units, especially infantry, lose men very quickly.

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Well the formula used for RTW combat has indeed increased killing speed but that is compensated by increased defense stat. Of course when using barbarian units that doesnt have enough defense the killing rate is higher.

I cant remember if a general's command rating increases both defense and attack stats or just attack stat...

But one thing for sure is that killing routers is now done a lot faster than STW/MTW and cavalry can get huge amounts of kills and IMO its too much.


CBR

Frankly, the units move far too slowly to suit me. It's duller than dishwater to wait for units to creep slooooooooowly across the battle field to engage. I always end up running things on triple game speed because otherwise I'm bored to tears during the movement phase.

It's a good thing that cavalry can get kills on routing units, because units on foot can never catch up with routing infantry units, which seems absurd.


And on another kind of movement, why does it take 4-5 years to sail from Spain to Egypt? It certainly seems like sailing ships should move at least as quickly as men can walk in formation, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

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Originally Posted by gardibolt

Frankly, the units move far too slowly to suit me. It's duller than dishwater to wait for units to creep slooooooooowly across the battle field to engage. I always end up running things on triple game speed because otherwise I'm bored to tears during the movement phase.

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This isn't a game where you are supposed to have constant non-stop action. The speed control is there so you can speed up the initial movement of the armies and the final stage of chasing routers.

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Originally Posted by gardibolt

It's a good thing that cavalry can get kills on routing units, because units on foot can never catch up with routing infantry units, which seems absurd.

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I wouldn't expect infantry to catch infantry since they both run at the same speed. Routers do slow down once they tire, but the chasers are going to get tired as well.

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Originally Posted by gardibolt

And on another kind of movement, why does it take 4-5 years to sail from Spain to Egypt? It certainly seems like sailing ships should move at least as quickly as men can walk in formation, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

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I think it's a game balancing thing because of the turn based nature of the strategic campaign. Even the land movement takes longer than it would have in real life. This gives the enemy a chance to interdict your movements since the game doesn't allow that in mid-turn. MikeB said they experimented with longer movement distances, but the gameplay became a blitzkrieg. There are traits which increase the distance a fleet moves per turn.

in the Demo i am finding things happen slower

if you give the guys an experience point or two and it makes them stand that little bit longer

movement speed seems to have been reduced for units,
get close to a routing infantry, it is moving across the ground slower than it's animation,
which, unless you get in real close, matters not one little bit because you cannot see it from a distance.

it still seems that all cav travel at same speed,??

i am seeing Heavy cav stay ahead of HA's.
and HA's getting caught by Heavy Cav

can anyone confirm? perhaps it was the unit matchups, or just me.

B.

well i havent noticed much cav speeds, but inf seem to run alot faster!
and cav are more powerful now, so they can actualyy breal formations!

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Originally Posted by Ludens

You have mentioned this mod before. Where can it be found?

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You can download it from here:

MCM-v0.11 English

Enjoy

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Originally Posted by barocca

it still seems that all cav travel at same speed,??

i am seeing Heavy cav stay ahead of HA's.
and HA's getting caught by Heavy Cav

can anyone confirm? perhaps it was the unit matchups, or just me.

B.

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I did a quick and dirty test in Chalons. I simply lined up three units in extended lines then I double clicked an equidistant point for each unit to race to. Fresh Hunnic archers were definitely faster than Hunnic Heavy cav and Hunnic elite cav (the last two were the same speed)