Miscellaneous Observations (Take 2)

So, I forgot to log in before posting this and the system apparently nuked my post. I'll try again...

I've noticed a few things while playing and tinkering with RTW. Note that I use version 1.2, the latest patch (unless I totally spaced out and missed a patch).



1. Since it happened twice in my most recent campaign as Parthia, I think I know how to reproduce the "victory screen doesn't show up even if I kill the entire enemy army" situation. Note that this happened on two separate occasions within 5 or 10 turns of one another. First, siege an enemy town (in my case they were both towns or large towns owned by small groups of rebels -- I don't recall, but they were definitely small and had either palisades or wooden walls) with an army containing no artillery and no elephants. Second, do not build any siege weapons (I had no infantry, but it probably doesn't matter so long as you don't have any siege weapons built). Third, wait for the enemy to sally. As far as I know, they'll only sally if you have a reasonably small army. So don't bring your 20 unit monstrosities against wee rebel buggers. Fourth, kill every last enemy *in the field*. Do not let any retreat into the town (I had an all cavalry army against all infantry, so I led them far from town and destroyed them before anyone could reach the town gates) and do not take the gates. Avoid letting any of your men walk through the gates (so once they close you have absolutely no way of taking the city -- no siege weapons, no elephants, no artillery, gates closed and still belong to the enemy) and do not let a single enemy unit flee into the city. Once they're all dead, you'll be fighting nobody and the only way to end the battle will be to withdraw or, I assume, let them die to arrow fire from the enemy towers.

On both occasions I won but saw no victory screen I was using pure cavalry armies and all those above conditions were true. I suppose the same thing could happen when you assault a town IF the game didn't have that check that says "if you have no more siege weapons/elephants/artillery you automatically lose the battle." So, in the unlikely event that my game is wonky, can anyone confirm that you have to breach the walls or whatever to win a siege? If someone can manage to assault a city and kill all defenders without breaching the walls/gates, does it grant you victory or do you not win until you manage to make a hole in the wall or get a unit inside?





2. I've seen a number of people mention the +5 missile weapons bonus in the Pantheion level of the Temple of Artemis line of buildings. I've seen the +5 listed in the game itself and I've seen the +5 in export_descr_buildings. However, you do not seem to gain a +5 bonus. I've screwed around with the temple_of_forge (or whichever one grants +1 to weapons and armor) and noticed that, regardless of the size of the bonuses and how many buildings are granting bonuses, the maximum weapon and armor bonuses you can get from buildings is +3. Gold weapons and armor are always +3.

Build an archery range in a city with no blacksmith and no temple. Note the missile attack value listed when you right-click the Archer icon in the Unit Recruitment screen (the one that pops up on the right when you double-click a city, just so nobody checks an archer unit in their garrison instead, who may or may not have upgraded missile weapons). Now build a Pantheion of Artemis and a foundry in the same city. You should get a +7 bonus to missile weapons, right? Check the Archer icon in the Unit Recruitment screen again. You'll see the missile attack value has gone up by 7. Wow! Isn't that great?

Now build an Archer. Next turn, when he's ready, right-click his icon in the garrison list on the bottom of the screen (you know, the list of units actually defending the city -- NOT the recruitment screen on the right). Uh oh! His missile attack is 4 points lower than the Unit Recruitment screen still says it should be!

Now bring in a vanilla, NON-upgraded Archer from another city and upgrade him in your Artemis/foundry wonderland. Uh oh! His missile attack only increased by 3 points.

This consistently happens to me. The maximum missile weapon bonus is +3. Now, as I said before, I screwed around with the temple_of_forge building capabilities to further test this. Guess what? All the other weapon bonuses as well as the armor bonus all seem to be capped at +3.

So, what all that seems to mean is the Temple of Artemis is worse than the temple_of_forge line of buildings (Zalmoxis, Hephaestus, Vulcan) once you build a foundry. A foundry plus Pantheion of Vulcan/Hephaestus/Zalmoxis will give you the same missile attack bonus as well as an extra point of melee attack and armor.

Once again, in the unlikely event that my game is borked, can someone confirm that a maxed Artemis temple "says" it'll grant a +5 bonus but only actually gives +3 to units you build/retrain?