Faction Heirs - new family members

[turbohacker]

Ok, this might sound a bit stupid, but im wondering...

if my generals are always in battle, will they still produce new family members? or do i have to put them in a roman city, or roman capital...

Or is it that there is more chance if they are in a city...?

Just curious.

Cheers

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Generals seem to produce kids regardless of where they are in the world - city or away on the field. There is a difference though - if they are in a city, their children will appear with them in the city, but if they are out of the field, their children will emerge at the capital.

It's an odd system really - perhaps the wife is busy having affairs at home resulting in these children emerging. She can't be with the army itself - if it's destroyed, the woman is never killed with it.

[RLucid]

Hmm, actually I was beginning to suspect the Brutii were gay, as there was so little action on replication front. Probably too busy counting their money.

The Generals generally seem to be able to marry and breed, and take Senate office even when on campaign, a bug perhaps? it was not unknown for families to go on campaign, so it's actually not unreasonable for children, but I do wonder how a fighting General gets hitched when he's out in Gaul, conquering. Of course, 6 months is a long time and they could ship home & back in reality withing a game turn.

Early in game, Jullii has Ceres which increased pop. growth and seems to increase chances of little generals to be, which can help later on, when there's harder to govern more populous places.

[turbohacker]

ok, how about marriage? do they marry out on the field too?

a lot of my generals are 40+

only one is young (20)

and no hiers below him yet...

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Yep, they also marry on the field.

The Ceres temple is good for general reproduction and seems to trigger fertility boosting traits if generals stay in a city for a certain length of time.

[RLucid]

Unusual. Brutii to? If you're Jullii then try Ceres Temple line early in game.
They have been married off, whilst fighting in my games. In general, I have kept the economic/influential types in major cities (partly to gain growth benefits from enslavements and have discounts on recruitments, building).

The "Man of the Hour" seems to give me field Generals, when I've lots of settlements and few governers. But make sure the army has a decent edge, you don't want large tough battles as an under-dog without General benefits, that's way to have your army torn up.

[turbohacker]

ok thanks for the help... btw... the funniest thing just happened...

the greeks just said please "dont attack us".... "accept... or we will attack" :-S

anyone come accross this ?? lmao

[Praetor Rick]

ok thanks for the help... btw... the funniest thing just happened...

the greeks just said please "dont attack us".... "accept... or we will attack" :-S

anyone come accross this ?? lmao

Yes, happens fairly often. Most recently, in my current Germania game, the Britons have made the offer at least a half dozen times, usually after they send a massive stack at me and I butcher it with my spear warbands. IIRC, it's pretty much just a fancy way to propose a ceasefire - and probably a very diplomatically risky one at that.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

the greeks just said please "dont attack us".... "accept... or we will attack" :-S

anyone come accross this ?? lmao

Like Praetor Rick said, that's a very common, and ridiculous, diplomatic proposal.

I've only ever see the Numidians do it though, however I've seen screenshots of almost every faction on the map making a proposition they don't really need to make - it's quite obvious that if you attack them, they will fight back against you.

[RLucid]

The Diplomacy is broken. Accept if you can't attack, decline if you're going to.

The AI tries to get you to miss a turn of attack by making peace offers.

Similarly when it is desperate for peace, you'll get a negotiation which starts :

We offer Ceasefire, we demand our settlements back.

You make counter, offering ceasefire, trade and demand tribute to weaken them, if a pause in conflict suits. Make the tribute shortish term, with enough to be useful. They're very likely to renege on the deal and not see much of the money, once they feel stronger.

Just don't try to find much logic in the AI.

Senate missions against Greeks & Carthage, can be made profitable, by the money extorted, selling a ceasefire. Just make sure the deal is short-term and steep enough so that when the Senate, diverts your navy again, that the ships are paying for themselves.

Contrary to documentation, dealing honourably doesn't seem to make much difference. If you're strong, and win battles then other factions seem less likely to attack you. If you get over-stretched and lose a few, factions are more likely to gang up, and the rebels also seem to spawn, in homelands when it's most inconvenient.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

As well as an overall lack of logic in the AI's choices, there also does seem to be some form of detachment somewhere. In other words, the diplomatic AI and military AI do not talk to each other very well.

For example, the Greeks asked me to be a protectorate of their, and, when I accepted, in the same turn they chose to attack one of my navies, essentially declaring war again.

This detachment seems to occur when a force has been ordered to attack, yet cannot reach the target in the turn. In the meantime the diplomatic AI chooses to offer a ceasefire of some sort. Despite this, the orders are not withdrawn, and the force attacks anyway.

This is probably the most intolerable bug in the diplomacy and is extremely annoying for the player.

[RLucid]

This is where the lack of a multi-player strategic game shows.

RTW is just a bit too big for me. I'd prefer simpler more limitted campaigns, that are challenging, but not so time consuming. Probably faction v faction scenarios, would make it easier to develop a competitive AI.

The Historic battles are set up too close to engagement, so there's not much chance to experiment and re-deploy much, or try out tactics.

The Prologue, has far cities rebelling, and forces a march on Rome when you are quite near, but of course you can't alter any of the playing options, and it sets RTS camera, rather than the Total War style with height adjustment, which I find essential. You also get a more realistic starting army, but over-powered thanks to the onagers, and archers.

Some board wargame ports to computer, played respectably (V for Victory Series for example, despite it being a make orders in advance, simulataneous movement game). Battle for Wesnoth, uses a very basic battle AI, units try to kill target, in range then lock on; but the scenarios and campaigns can be designed for balance, and require particular approaches; which may include temporary withdrawal for terrain and day/night timing advantages.

Competitive chess, is mostly about establishing a small advantage, increasing it, to exchange into a won position; and then carefully exploit that advantage technically making no mistakes. So alot of moves, lack dramatic tension and require mistake avoidance against, players who don't know when to resign or agree draws.

RTW just gets the same, you solve the main problems, but now face a huge long grind, of very repetitive play, spending hours and hours capturing places you don't care about, and enemies who are mad to attack but can't be pacified. This grind goes on and on for much longer.

I think the AI is just set up to give a fun, apparently challenging game for starters. It was really exciting the first Imperial campaign, when I got hit by German Horde of spearmen, in woods (where I struggled to see what was going on); who'd do things like withdraw when I had the better of them, and fight another day.

Would a fixed game, have bigger sales? I'm afraid I think the answer is no. So we'll continue to be seduced by graphics and gimmicks.

[Quirinus]

It would, actually.... I know many people who were put off M2TW because of bad word-of-mouth (about the AI) and prior experience in RTW.

Though you do know that there are mods for the kind of game you're looking for, right? I haven't actually tried any mini-campaigns, but they look good: Sicily, Britain, Iberia.....

Or, I'd say the short campaign is pretty useful is preventing boredom-- it sets a relatively short-term goal (destroy so-and-so) which you can focus on instead of the conquer-50-provinces empire-building. I almost never play up to the long campaign end unless I'm playing the Romans (or, more specifically, the Julii). I just get a kick out of making little Romans out of them barbaric little brats. For the lulz, nothing beats building an academy in, say, Trier or Mogontiacum.

[RLucid]

I want to try a mod, but removed Bugfixer to be Online play compatible. Loaded EB but didn't like the strategy colours, and all the overkill on foreign names and such. Discussion of rebel full stacks in towns, made me all the more dubious. Lots of effort to make it challenging, but at strategy level, as Battle AI is unfixable.

Prefer one with more realistic cavalry ie. you have to charge and rest it, rather than treat them like tanks! The horse should suffer badly under javellin fire when not moving to.

Asked in mod discussion for suggestions but didn't get one.

Because I bought a cheapo RTW Anthology, I have BI & Alexander to try. I'm meaning to finish off short Brutii campaign (just Rhodes to capture), and try a barb. faction.

Have grown to appreciate the flexibility of the Roman armies though, it might drive me crazy to see the AI mishandle them!

[Quirinus]

You might want to check this thread out.

The AI in BI is slightly better, and you get a few minor features like swimming units and night battles. So you may want to try BI out when you're bored with RTW.

[RLucid]

Thanks, that was interesting.

I reinstalled clean, and try to unlock factions fast, but got bored of Jullii short campaign (yet again), fancied try Brutii (but I'm kinda bored and not progressed it last night with only Rhodes to bag). Did do a quick sack & destroy everything I could of Dacian capitol to see if I could hand it off to my loyal allies Thrace, who no longer trust me, it seems. You need an army to hold the place, or it rebels and reverts, but if you have it, they accuse you of immediately capturing it back, so very, very dumb.

All solveable if you could transfer to take over garrison, just holding a town with the changeover in 5 turns or something so your army can move on, may be town garrison of peasant unit locals, changing faction at same time.

The Vanilla PBM would add unpredictability, you may have noticed, how my game as Brutii progressed exactly as I suspected. Dacia only moved Westwards, eventually just building a Fort near ford into their territory after I moved an HC unit to hold the bridge as an early warning mechanism.

Rather spoils the fun, when you understand the rails that the opposition are running on.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

You might want to try Vanilla Balancing Mod if you find the predictability is getting a bit predictable RLucid. It evens the playing field, encouraging factions to expand more unpredictably.

I must admit that after a while the predictability got to me a bit. Britannia almost always taking over the entire Western side of the world, the Egyptians beating the Greeks back in Asia Minor and The Selcuids almost always ending up as the first dead faction made the rest of the world a little tedious to monitor.

I did seem to gain a bit of pleasure from somehow trying to break up this predictability though. For example, once, as Egypt, I simply left the Selucids to their own devices, only defending against them rather than attacking, and moving Westwards into Western Africa. The Greeks eventually managed to overrun them, but they survived a lot longer by any rate.

[RLucid]

Britains got booted off the continent, when I was Julii. Trouble with that was, that meant I had to roll over the Germans, which then caused me to have to roll over the Dacians to, and so on and so on...

RTW really needs a way to establish a friendly border alliance, where both factions can turn outwards on enemies. If you ignore diplomacy, and just know which bits to avoid, you have effective peace, and can leave areas very lightly protected. AI just too slow moving.

Better diplomacy would also have enhanced unpredictability, as small events could significantly alter course of history, with a working Diplomacy system.

The Vanilla PBM does seem hopeful. I really ought to "fairly" unlock all the factions again, and finish off current campaigns. Perhaps give BI a go, had been thinking Alexander though, once I'd given a Phalanx faction a try. So far only used merc Hoplites, which I am very underwhelmed with, as they seem too slow and ineffective compared to other methods (even in the breaches they should excel at).

Meant to try Online battles, which was my reason for dropping bugfixer, and going back to a clean vanilla 1.5.

[RLucid]

It would, actually.... I know many people who were put off M2TW because of bad word-of-mouth (about the AI) and prior experience in RTW.

You're right some are put off. I already changed my mind about M2TW, which I looking out for.

Reading the Q&A totalwar blog about Empires, there doesn't seem to be much hope. What you get is new features, of things that can be displayed and shown. At same time these features are supposed to be easy to pick up and usable and fun after a minute.

They still have a 20 unit restriction, due to control issues, when my big gripe is multi-army battles (where I can't control all forces predictably, and the 20 unit restriction). It makes sense for big armies to merge up units, into larger formations. But no as "mere mortals" find 20 too many to cope with, they just excuse need to develop anything which makes the game campaign scale better. I'd basically like an Army/Wing Tab with own leader that you could flip between, to manage the complexity and add realism.

This focus on features, does not suggest that any real strategic depth improvement is aimed. Just more factors, that give the illusion of depth. Why design an AI with understanding of threat and potential, when most of the market is more interested in whether ppl will be shown falling off masts and stuff? It must be lots easier to give ppl effects than have an elite programmer team, able to simulate intelligence.

Pictures of animated action, will get shown in mags, web and in demos, to generate the buzz; stir those impulse buys. Many others with series will buy the update more or less out of habit.

The review sites give RTW and M2TW strong 92-96% ratings, despite all the very frustrating issues, that occur even in RTW 1.5, early reviewers were obviously having too much fun, and needing too much time to complete a game for the review to start seeing the failings.

Still been a great immersive game; just under inspection the core is rotten. I think an older game like Civ II had an AI that was more convincing, yet still beatable.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

You sound like the type that may be interested in Medieval: Total War or Shogun: Total War RLucid. The older games generally had a much better AI and improved strategic depth on the battle map compared to M2:TW and R:TW.

I wrote a post a few weeks ago about the pros of the older games. You may want to take a look here.

[RLucid]

Thanks, that was an interesting little read.

RTW would probably have been better, if the Strategy map part, had been a "parchment style old map" in unknown areas, becoming more detailed and accurate in observed areas where you benefit from local knowledge. A 2D map with 3D symbols for buildings and armies, and terrain features. Similar I guess to the Risk-style map you mention.

Then a terrain scenary viewer, could let you fly around prospective battle fields in "surveyed" areas and your towns to, so you could see the buildings developed if you want. That would have re-used the Battle map code, just show the landscapes without armies, and free the camera with an "Exit Landscape" to go back to Strategy map.

The 3D strategy map, sounds like a marketing brag feature, "RTW is 100% 3D!". Frankly the fun of seeing men walking about, and clashing swords last about 2 30s moments when beginning the game.

All the development resources saved, could have gone into keeping the Battle AI, and Strategy AI better players. Concentrate on the 3D battle development, which was the real killer feature of the game, inspiring Time Commanders and Decisive Battles.

All this "Strategy AI" line of sight nonsense on it's development paths, path finding problems, and it's basic cluelessness about effective naval play, would be avoided and the game would be easier to have produced to schedule.

It just sucks that basic playability features like undoing mouse slips when movement gets messed up are impossible, as is adjusting the speed of those characters motion.

[Quirinus]

You can, I think, by pressing the space bar, if that's what you're referring to.

[RLucid]

That just move figure to destination immediately, and you have to do it every time. If you're in habit of doing it, and the figure goes on a multi-turn round the houses trip, heading off in opposite direction to that you expect, then you lose your whole move, no chance to hit <Back Space> and cancel order.