If Only

If you could change one thing in RTW (we're talking vanilla here), what would that be?

For me it's a tossup: either the trait system, which is abysmal at best, or the battlefield mapping system.

The system of assigning traits, as designed, is simply asinine. By the time a family member reaches 60 years old, he could acquire 15-20 traits, some of which are direct opposites. And who's to say that spending extended time in a city almost always leads to a slew of undesirable traits?

In reality, there are really only a small handful of traits that define a person. Type "A" vs Type "B" personality which could loosely correspond to a city governor vs field commander; one's religion (or lack of); one's attitude towards money (big spender vs penny-pincher); one's attitude towards the opposite sex (playboy vs good husband).

I would assign no more than about eight traits, two of which a 'coming-of-age" family member will have at the start (Type A or Type B traits). The rest he can acquire along the way depending on how and where he's used. Much more streamlined and sensible, IMO:shrug:

The choice for starting positions on a battlefield map can be very annoying. How many times have you had a battle commence where, on the campaign map, the icon for your army stands head and shoulders above your enemy's, yet when the battle map opens you are at the south end of a north-bound kangaroo:furious2:

There are 1800 different battle maps, IIRC, and the AI has a list of them all. Why not show them in a scroll-like manner in the lower right corner where the world map is shown? And make the Good Ambusher trait actually mean something by giving a general with this trait (and at least one cavalry unit), the choice of where to start on a battlefield. Starting position is one of the very few things in a game that cause me to reload when I judge by campaign map positioning that I should get the higher ground. when in fact, I end up having to climb.

What say you......

Good question. My main issues are dealing with realism, but I guess it would have to be the awesome armies that kick me out of towns, the units with two gold chevrons, silver sword, gold shield. If you have phalanx it is not a big deal, perhaps, because you can back into the corner of the map so they can't flank you. It is extremely hard to get units to two gold chevrons, and you need a top level or special temple to get silver sword and gold shield, and most factions can't even get to gold shield. Make the revolt a gladiator uprising:help:, and things get even worse, especially if it is one with elephants or a lot of Rebel Generals:hide:. The ones with gladiators aren't bad all the time, because a lot of them are half peasant. But the awesome revolt armies would be my biggest beef with the game.

Actually, two things come to mind; time would be six months per turn with all build times, aging, etc changed to reflect this and the Roman civil war would happen when one played non-Romans too.

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Originally Posted by LordK9

Actually, two things come to mind; time would be six months per turn with all build times, aging, etc changed to reflect this and the Roman civil war would happen when one played non-Romans too.

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Related to the Roman civil war, how about if one of the other factions starts it, the Senate outlaws them instead of outlawing all three families. Now, the only time I saw it happen, the Scipii attacked me. Had they attacked the Senate maybe it would have been different.

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But the awesome revolt armies would be my biggest beef with the game.

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Yep. That's a good one. But ZPG takes care of that:boink:~D What I would've done is this: any occupying army that gets tossed out of a city or town suffers losses according to city or town size; the larger the city, the higher the losses up to half your army size. The resulting enemy garrison would be composed of militia-type troops, with some regulars thrown in (how many regulars depends on the amount of time you occupied). A general might be possible in a very large city. Militia troops would be vanilla with no upgrades, any regulars or general present might have an experience chevron or two, but no armor/weapon upgrades.

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time would be six months per turn with all build times, aging, etc changed to reflect this

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Actually, three months per turn is even better. Essentially the Shogun system of four seasons, with income paid only at fall harvest. That system added an additional layer of strategy because you had to plan your infrastructure builds and troop recruitment much more carefully. You also had to keep a reserve for bringing damaged units back to full strength. There were many times I had to field an understrength army for lack of retraining funds. Lesson learned the hard way:embarassed:

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and the Roman civil war would happen when one played non-Romans too.

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That would've been fun and interesting. Having an alliance with one Roman faction, while fighting another.~:smoking:

My suggestion would be that when a faction is destroyed the conquering faction gains the money the destroyed faction held. It would keep the AI honest about boosting Roman coffers as a corrolory.

in terms of things you can mod the two i always change (apart from trying to fix campaign map path finding) are:

1) unit stats, increasing defensive stats to make the battles last a little longer

2) trait system, the current system is clever but I prefer characters to start with a dominant personality trait and other traits to cascade from that. I use the "humor" part of the existing system (blood humor, choleric, phlegmatic, morose) as the base. I also like to make the trait system both safer for the AI and more active for the player i.e. leaving a general in a city gets safe but average results while actively training them can get better results.

in terms of things you can't mod

faction diplomats asking for a ceasefire and then one of their armies attack immediately afterwards

so as you can mod the others yourself i'd guess it would have to be that (although the gold chevron revolts are annoying as well especially as when playing a barb faction i liked to conduct looting raids where you destroy all the buildings and then leave the city to revolt back).

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Originally Posted by nikolai1962

so as you can mod the others yourself i'd guess it would have to be that (although the gold chevron revolts are annoying as well especially as when playing a barb faction i liked to conduct looting raids where you destroy all the buildings and then leave the city to revolt back).

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If there wasn't the chance of gold-chevron revolts happening you could destroy the buildings, occupy/ enslave the population and then reconquer and repeat. (OK each go gets you less, but it would still be a nice little earner.). Normally I only destroy buildings when a) they serve no purpose e.g. military barracks with scythians b) when you need to reduce the cultural penalty and c) when I have no chance to hold onto the city.

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It would keep the AI honest about boosting Roman coffers as a corrolory

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If there is a hidden economy for the Romans, it's hardcoded and can't be changed or affected:shrug:

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leaving a general in a city gets safe but average results while actively training them can get better results

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:2thumbsup: That, and reducing the overall number of traits that can be accumulated.

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If there wasn't the chance of gold-chevron revolts happening you could destroy the buildings, occupy/ enslave the population and then reconquer and repeat

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Learn the ZPG system and those worries go away:deal2:

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Originally Posted by weejonnie

If there wasn't the chance of gold-chevron revolts happening you could destroy the buildings, occupy/ enslave the population and then reconquer and repeat. (OK each go gets you less, but it would still be a nice little earner.). Normally I only destroy buildings when a) they serve no purpose e.g. military barracks with scythians b) when you need to reduce the cultural penalty and c) when I have no chance to hold onto the city.

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good point - i never actually thought of that as my reason for doing it was a scorched earth tactic to weaken a faction for a while so i could focus on a different one.