Alexander first impressions

I've installed Alexander with no problems and played a turn and a half. My overall initial impression is that it is going to upset a lot of critics of RTW but looks interesting to me. In an ideal world, I'd like the critics just to pass by but no doubt they will feel the need to vent.

Some specifics:

1). When it starts, you can only play Macedon. Persia is locked I guess. There are four "brown" factions that I think are minor - Illyria, Thrace, Scythia and Dahae. I suspect they are unplayable (upkeep=1 gold!).

2). The Macedonian unit roster is small, but with the phalanx and Companions as the "ultimate" units. Their stats are like vanilla, but Macedonian infantry seems half the upkeep of vanilla (I guess it has to be as they have about 2 full stacks of troops but only 2 settlements to support them).

3) The strange thing from an EB/RTR player perspective is that the hypaspists are lower down the tech tree than phalanxes and inferior to them. In stats, they are very like hastati (including two "pila") but with a large unit size, spears and less armour. They look nice and will no doubt be useful on the flanks of a phalanx but it's disappointing not to have some truly elite "foot companion" types.

4) Macedon has no archers - some "heavy peltast" type javelins is all the missiles they have. They don't fare well against archers. :embarassed: Well, at least I won't be relying on my Cretan machine-gunners etc to gun down the Persians. :2thumbsup:

5) The other units Macedon can recruit are hoplites, prodomoi (light cav but no missiles), Auxiliary Thracian Cav (like prodomoi in RTW), and Allied Cav (sub-Companion heavies). There are some interesting mercs - notably Thessalian cav, who are like Companions but less armoured.

6) I've only fought barbarians so far (Thrace and Illyria) - they are pretty generic from RTW. Their "chosen" type foot so far are sicklemen. Their generals' units are equal to Macedonian generals (better attack, lower defence) but also fast cav.

7) The initial couple of battles suggested that not much has changed from RTW. A barbarian general still ripped apart a phalanx head-to-head (47 dead vs 8). Javelins seem weak (one volley => no barbarians killed). It was very fast paced as we've come to expect.

8) The campaign map looks large to me and the campaign seems rather epic. You have 2 stacks of infantry, 2 cities and a pitiful fleet to take over the known world in 100 turns. Macedon is described as "hard". Sounds like fun. I must get back to it. Gotta find me some Persians.

Thanks for the information, econ21. It sounds good so far, though if the battles are very unbalanced I may pass this expansion.

Still, please keep us informed of your impressions :book: .

I would not say the battles are unbalanced - lack of missiles hurts the Macedonians and the barbarians have been tough, although that is largely due to their 2HP general units. Looking at the stats for the Persian generals, they are even more powerful (think BI Sassanid Immortals). I'm looking forward to fighting the Persians, as it should be rather asymmetric: the Macedon phalanx is ideal for killing infantry, but Persia's strength seems to be archers and cavalry.

I'm probably doing things all wrong[1], but the campaign so far is hard. It's very early days (only on turn 6) but money is very tight - I've waited 3 turns and not been able to build anything. Macedonian infrastructure is very basic so the troops you start off with are going to be all you have for a long time.

[1]Probably should have exterminated the first two barbarian towns I took and maybe disbanded some expensive units.

Illyria, Thrace, Scythia and Dahae are unplayable, are you sure? ~:mecry:

Yes, they seem to each be one province states - basically just like rebels. Illyria and Thrace are killed off by (my) Macedon very early. Dahae looks like it is falling to Persia on turn 8 or so. Scythia is too out of the way and may not be targeted.

This game will be a challenge. It is extremely balanced against Alexander. All of the barbarian factions are allied against you and you have only one small army already in Asia Minor. The Persian fleet looks like it's going to be a huge headache, but I think that once you manage to get Alexander across the Aegean you'll be set.
The Macedonians are very infantry-focused but have decent cavalry as well. What hurts you most, as econ said, is the lack of missile units. The Persians seem to be more cavalry/archer focused and are almost identical to the People of Pontus or the Parthians, except that that have HUGE armies and a seemingly infinite supply of men. It looks like I'm going to be forced on the offensive (both tactically and strategically).
Listen to Brian Blessed. His advice is works. :book:

But what is new tournament mode? I haven't noticed that before, and nothing is there when I try to pick battles. :help: Is this an invite to the modders to make battles? I don't get it.

From the manual:

"The historical battles are also playable in the new Tournament mode. This mode
links a set of battles in a best of 5 or 3 map match against a human opponent
in multiplayer, or an AI opponent in single player. In multiplayer you have access
to all the tournaments and maps from the start. To get the option to play a
single player tournament, you first need win and therefore unlock, a suitable
number of historical battles."

The historical battles are pretty good. I've played a few of them and most of them were a good challenge.

I'm probably imagining it, but it may be that the battlefield AI is a little better in the game. In my last battle with the Persians, the AI when attacking form up a line of battle out of range while waiting for its reinforcements and moving its archers forward to fire on my (frighteningly vulnerable) hypaspists. This is sensible AI behaviour as I lack archers and so have no counter other than attacking. I haven't noticed this behaviour before, but then I guess I always have adequate ranged missiles in other games.

The AI is definetly better. It took me a fair while to beat and subdue the illyrians and thracians. I haven't had time to really play the alexander campaign i've been enjoying the historical battles which are very hard, i founf gaugamala and halicarnassus very hard, in fact the majority of them were difficult.

The AI also tries to encircle your troops now, and it makes much better use of ambushes.

The Battle of Hydaspes is nearly impossible to win :(
You're badly outnumbered, and the Indians have a lot of good archers, chariots, a lot of hidden troops, and 3 units of triple gold chevron heavy elephants.

There's only one historical battle on my download....do I have to beat that to unlock the others? Good luck on that since I've gotten massacred repeatedly. It's the one where you have 6 cavalry to wipe out 1500 phalanxes.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gardibolt

There's only one historical battle on my download....do I have to beat that to unlock the others? Good luck on that since I've gotten massacred repeatedly. It's the one where you have 6 cavalry to wipe out 1500 phalanxes.

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Yes, you do have win each historical battle to unlock the next one.
That one took me a few times also. There's a gap in the line soon after the start of the battle - you might be able to exploit that.

Any screens Econ?

now i really,REALLY want this game. cept i lost my :furious3: wallet.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by makkyo

Listen to Brian Blessed. His advice is works. :book:

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so advisors are usefull now, eh?

the first impressions:

good: the first few battles felt great. the AI did try to circle my troops. finally :) also, once my battering ram brought down enemy gates, the unit behind the gates attacked the rammers... never happened to me in the regular RTW.

on another note, in his first pre-battle speach, Alexander cheered his troops with ".... why we are the heirs of alexander..." :) what's up with that, CA? :)

also - on large unit size (medium difficulty), general cavalry units still appear to be able to rout phalanxes, charging head on... on huge unit size they are not able to do so, but my video card starts choking once full army sizes are fielded... hmm... and i'm not talking about harder difficulties, in which enemy cavalry appears to be able to wipe floor with any size phalanx...

I've played through the campaign and I don't think a general's unit routed any of my phalanxes charging head on.

I had one battle with my standard setup of phalanxes in the center with the cavalry on the wings and the Persians came at me with cavalry in their center and spearmen on their wings. Their cavalry center charged my phalanx center and they all died and/or routed.

Once my phalanxes gained a little experience, they were practically unbeatable. I would select all infantry, tell them to march straight ahead to a point past the enemy line, and then forget about them as I manuvered my calvaly. they pretty much routed anything the enemy threw at them.

I was constantly short on cavalry but usually had plenty of infantry (without hiring mercs).

Any tips for hysapdes? i repeately get 5 units of phalanxe routed after the first elephant charge. Then when thats over, i march my army toward the chariots where i knew they were weak against phalanx. Using alexanders cavalry charge tactic i kill the archers. Next when my phalanx hits the chariots, more men come out of nowhere and surround my army! when i bring alexander to encircle i get met with an ele charge and then more troops. It was a complete disaster. I thought Gaugamela was hard.


Excuse my spelling errors, it is late here in Athens

The historical battles are probably hard (with decent AI) because they're scripted more. The only time a true assessment of the AI can be made is during bog-standard campaign battles..

Yes, but a couple of people said they noticed the better AI during campaign battles - which is a promising development.

Question is, does this improved AI carry over to RTW & BI games? If so, the this may be a must to d'load.

I WANT TO SEE SCREENSHOTS!!!! :furious3:

I managed to fight my way through Darius and several stacks of his boys last night. I was a little intimidated by their number of concentrated stacks, so I fell back on a bridge defence. Maybe a little lame, I know, but it is good that the tough strategic situation makes you want to rely on ambushes and bridges etc to claw an advantage. Due to the large Persian fleet, I have not yet been able to reinforce Alexander. This would be a very challenging campaign played RTR style, where you can't recruit and retrain in newly conquered settlements.

The battles are starting to get easier though. Maybe it is because Alexander is now picking up command stars; maybe it is because I am learning how to use a Macedonian army (essentially phalanxes + companions). I am routinely killing 1000+ for under 100 dead. It's not that the AI does anything very stupid - they seem to form up decent long lines before attacking, rather like the barbarian AI of RTW. Part of the problem is the low morale. The Persian line just seems to crumble within a few seconds of making contact with my phalanx line. My Companions are able to rip through them too - perhaps a reflection of cavalry being so powerful in RTW. The Persians don't use their many archers to get a significant advantage - they really should wait and shoot it out, waiting for low ammo before attacking (I swear the MTW AI did that). Most of their cavalry folds when hitting a phalanx (it is only the 2HP general units that seem able to penetrate them and only the Barbarians have them - the Persian generals have missile chariots that are nasty against cav but not good against pikes). Companions are not that superior to some of the heavier Persian cavalry but the charge bonus is a big deal and you are usually able to fight to your advantage. The biggest disappointment are the hypaspists - the AI archers target them mercilessly; even the Persian infantry mobs them and I am regarding them rather as redshirts from Star Trek: any encounter, you know those guys are going to get it.

However, I'm looking forward to an Alexander: Total Realism and am almost inclined to make one myself. The strategic situation is challenging and if you Alexander's recruitment was more limited, it would be very interesting.

I'll try and get some screenshots but one of the big problems with RTWs high battle speeds is that you don't really have time to savour the action and the graphics. Darius died in a second, almost unnoticed.

Even though its a far cry from historical realism, this game sounds interesting. Keep tellung us more econ21 :2thumbsup:

A good indication of whether there has been any improvement made to the AI in Alexander would be to find out whether or not the large siege towers are still bug-ridden when attacking large stone walls? i.e. do the troops still sometimes fail to climb to the wall and instead mill about the bottom of the siege tower as they do in the most recent RTW patch (1.5)?

Here are some screenshots. I'll post more after work. I've already fought this battle(heroic victory), but I didn't take any screenshots. I'll fight it again and take some more shots.

[IMG]https://img143.imageshack.us/img143/8334/00011pw.th.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]https://img139.imageshack.us/img139/8003/00023xz.th.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]https://img139.imageshack.us/img139/3151/00030wo.th.jpg[/IMG]

Wow, you're playing aggressively, phred, attacking three stacks! What difficulty are you playing on? I'm just trying M/M to see how it plays, but even so I'm also meeting multiple large AI stacks.

Alexander the Butcher? :inquisitive:

This is on M/M. Alexander's command stars and virtues combined with veteran units make for a formidable army. I haven't been limiting re-training and this is the core army that started in Macedon. I've been merging, retraining or resupplying this army since I started and they've taken every province (except for 4 or 5) that were off the beaten path, so they have a lot of experience.

As for "Alexander the Butcher" - that's from chasing down routing units after the battle's over. As soon as I noticed "the Butcher," I stopped chasing routing units and it soon changed to "Alexander the Brave."

Here are some battle shots.

enemy army no. 1
https://img101.imageshack.us/img101/1494/00043nk.th.jpg

enemy army no. 2
https://img99.imageshack.us/img99/4812/00053oe.th.jpg

enemy army no. 3
https://img99.imageshack.us/img99/5906/00061hx.th.jpg

Alexander
https://img74.imageshack.us/img74/529/00078ie.th.jpg

Phalangists
https://img221.imageshack.us/img221/1691/00085uy.th.jpg

the battle starts
https://img74.imageshack.us/img74/5126/00113xe.th.jpg

I move my line forward
https://img221.imageshack.us/img221/8747/00129ek.th.jpg

I missed taking pictures for a while
here's the aftermath
https://img143.imageshack.us/img143/774/00146vz.th.jpg

https://img151.imageshack.us/img151/6319/00158jo.th.jpg


https://img76.imageshack.us/img76/3300/00168dw.th.jpg

LOL alexander has a catamite vice. Does anyone know what that is? Its a boy that has sexual relationships with a man, in other words a pevert :laugh4: . I know alexander was a homosexual but thats stretching it...

Is the AI dumb though? I notice for every casuality you have theirs 10+ enemy casualties. The morale thing can be modded though cant it?

those barbarian armies aren't equipped to deal with phalangists, and all my infantry had lots of experience plus weapons upgrades. The AI has been fairly decent - it'll attack and defend in a nice cohesive line, but most of the infantry is no match for pikemen with experience.
And Alexander is a near unstoppable force. He can pretty much attack any unit and survive.
I'd like to play that battle from the barbarian side just to see how well I would do. I think it would be a challenge.

What the ****? :furious3:

Alexander - 863 casualties INFLICTED, 16 casualties SUSTAINED

What is he? God? :inquisitive:

Well to be fair, you probably got those results in Rome vanilla / BI too you know ~:).

:balloon2:

With what? Drunken monkeys? :inquisitive:

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Originally Posted by edyzmedieval

What the ****? :furious3:

Alexander - 863 casualties INFLICTED, 16 casualties SUSTAINED

What is he? God? :inquisitive:

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Most of those were light infantry or archers or light cavalry.
In that battle he was (almost) the only heavy cavalry unit I had, and I used him to destroy cavalry, then flank any infantry and then destroy archers (and he ran down a lot of archers - there were 720 archers on the map and I used Alex to rout most of them).

That was a pretty messy battle with lots of enemies and slow phalangists and Alex running around putting out fires.

Note: I ended the battle when I got the popup asking to continue or end the battle, so he probably could have gotten over 900 if I had continued.

Has anyone got any tips for winning the Battle of Issus. My Phalangists are getting just won't hold the centre long enough for my Companions to do enough damage. Have tried charging them straight through at Darius but he runs so quick that the rest of my army has been destroyed by the time I can get Alexander back into the battle.

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Originally Posted by Black Prince

Has anyone got any tips for winning the Battle of Issus. My Phalangists are getting just won't hold the centre long enough for my Companions to do enough damage. Have tried charging them straight through at Darius but he runs so quick that the rest of my army has been destroyed by the time I can get Alexander back into the battle.

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I had to drop down to the easiest level for that one and still it took me a few times. I had to rout almost the whole army, then rout Darius. I put my army into 2-3 groups and ganged up on enemy units until they routed, then moved on to the next unit. When I finally won, it was only by the narrowest of margins. I think I had two units left and they were down to about 10 soldiers per unit.

Hmmm - enjoyable so far but for one serious bug....just having to start a new campaign after Alexander managed to die of old age with some 40 odd turns left. Definitely not killed in battle, Babylon was not plague infected, no other explanation other than old-age.

Anyone else had this? Bit of a game killer....

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Originally Posted by past caring

Hmmm - enjoyable so far but for one serious bug....just having to start a new campaign after Alexander managed to die of old age with some 40 odd turns left. Definitely not killed in battle, Babylon was not plague infected, no other explanation other than old-age.

Anyone else had this? Bit of a game killer....

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Yikes! Sounds like they have not reset the clock for character death to allow for switch from years to turns. I think you should post about this on the CA forums and send an e-mail to customer support. It sounds like a serious bug. With distribution by download, they should be able to patch it easily.

I think it says "died of natural causes" if he's killed by a really good assassin.

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Originally Posted by Conqueror

I think it says "died of natural causes" if he's killed by a really good assassin.

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Unfortunately, I don't post here enough to be sure whether the above is intended humourously or as serious comment, but if the latter.....Alexander did have a level 4 spy in tow. Which means that I should have at least been able to see the assassin, surely?

@ econ21 - I was intending to do that...thankfully, I've got the savegame too.

I have a question for A:TW owners. Is it true that A:TW is designated 1.9? This would suggest that R:TW and BI have been upgraded as well, but I have read nothing to confirm this. Has anyone played R:TW or BI after A:TW and noticed any difference?

I have another bug to report.
I am in the middle of the campaign and have saved just before a battle with some rebels. After the general's speach, the camera just moves back all the way to the end of the map. I hit "Start Battle" and everything is ok, until I move the camera left, right, up - I get a CTD. Tried about 6 times and have restarted the pc, same thing. I will just retreat from the battle and see if it will happen in the next battle, I wonder what might be causing this problem. All in all A:TW is a waste of money.
P.S. Ludens A:TW is indeed 1.9 ver. I have played R:TW and have not noticed any difference.

My first impressions: Not worth the price to download.

"Out of the box", only the Macedons are available to play. I played through the campaign with 20 turns remaining, conquered the Persians, Sythians, and the northern Greek barbarians, but when I got to the epilogue, I was extremely disappointed to see that Macedons were STILL the only available faction to play when restarting. Yes, I know the name of the game is ALEXANDER, but sometimes I just dont want to play Alexander, I want to play against him.
Historical battles.... I was very disappointed to see only one available, until I read up that you can unlock the next series of battles by completing the one prior. What annoys the heck out of me is that the first battle is almost virtually impossible for me, even on Easy mode. The Golden Band (or whatever) are just too strong for my cavalry. Even at full charge to their backs, I cant get the same results as I would a normal phalanx. Help please?

The only things I like about the new campaign is the updated UI (did anyone else try right-clicking on the ground and seeing the info?), voice acting (what little there was), and a new XBOX HEUG map to play around with.

Hmmm. Looks as I suspected. I might it buy it for $10 USD. I wouldn't spend a nickel more on this pickle.

well, it is an Alexander campaign after all... supposed to be challenging playing as Alexander. what's the point of playing Persians who own most of the world already at the beginning of the campaign? the rest of the factions are kind of "generic rebels"... I suppose it might be interesting to try something with those.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kekvitirae

My first impressions: Not worth the price to download.

"Out of the box", only the Macedons are available to play. I played through the campaign with 20 turns remaining, conquered the Persians, Sythians, and the northern Greek barbarians, but when I got to the epilogue, I was extremely disappointed to see that Macedons were STILL the only available faction to play when restarting. Yes, I know the name of the game is ALEXANDER, but sometimes I just dont want to play Alexander, I want to play against him.
Historical battles.... I was very disappointed to see only one available, until I read up that you can unlock the next series of battles by completing the one prior. What annoys the heck out of me is that the first battle is almost virtually impossible for me, even on Easy mode. The Golden Band (or whatever) are just too strong for my cavalry. Even at full charge to their backs, I cant get the same results as I would a normal phalanx. Help please?

The only things I like about the new campaign is the updated UI (did anyone else try right-clicking on the ground and seeing the info?), voice acting (what little there was), and a new XBOX HEUG map to play around with.

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I was having the same trouble with the first historical battle, but I eventually beat it on M by sending most of my cavalry at the rightmost Golden Band unit, from the front, while slipping Alexander past it with some tricky micromanagement, then repeatedly slamming Alex into the back of them, withdrawing and hitting them again. Then just work your way down the line. If you do it right the band doesn't seem to reinforce each other, which seems like an exploit, but there it is.

The next battle, at the river is tricky too. I haven't beaten the 3rd one yet.

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Originally Posted by Slaists

well, it is an Alexander campaign after all... supposed to be challenging playing as Alexander. what's the point of playing Persians who own most of the world already at the beginning of the campaign? the rest of the factions are kind of "generic rebels"... I suppose it might be interesting to try something with those.

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I was thinking more along the lines of said generic rebels and the Sythians. Would give an interesting challenge to try and survive the horde of Persia and the eventual coming of Alexander

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kekvitirae

(did anyone else try right-clicking on the ground and seeing the info?)

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This is in the orginal R:TW as well. If you right-click and hold you get an info pop-up at your cursor showing the region name, the symbol of the owning faction and what sort of terrain it is.

Or do you mean there is more info now...?

Said info was absent in BI, which is why I confused

I was hoping when we got, say, as far as India, we could recruit some Silver Shield Phalangists or Hypaspists. Sadly, this looks not to be the case.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ludens

I have a question for A:TW owners. Is it true that A:TW is designated 1.9? This would suggest that R:TW and BI have been upgraded as well, but I have read nothing to confirm this. Has anyone played R:TW or BI after A:TW and noticed any difference?

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It is true that Alexander reports itself as v1.9. However, intalling it does not upgrade either RTW or BI, they remain 1.5 and 1.6 respectively. I guess at the time Alexander was released, one further patch for each version was planned. Maybe they still are, and will be released whenever they decide to patch Alexander (to 1.10?)
Havin said that, TW: Eras I believe contains RTW 1.5 and BI 1.6, and you would have thought they would release that boxed set with the final versions of everything. So perhaps the patches have been cancelled.