M2TW vs RTW

[BananaBob]

I am thinking of purchasing RTW, but just wanted to ask you all if it was worth it. I played and adored MTW but thought M2TW didn't have the same feel as its predecessor. Is RTW worth it? Will it disappoint me compared to MTW or is it better then M2TW? I know nothing about it so any help is appreciated.

Thanks for any feedback.

I should have posted this in the rome forums...

[PrestigeX]

I had shogun total war, and MTW ( the first one ) but when the demo for RTW came out, i just didn't like it at all. I hated the controls and that convinced me not to buy it...

then I got m2tw as a Christmas gift and I found that the controls were pretty good, graphics were nice everything. I have played RTW once or twice at my friend's place and I still found the controls lacking.

[St.Jimmy]

I dident notice much of a difference in controls between M2TW and RTW?
No matter what peaple say about it. If you have never played it before its definitely worth buying and playing yourself IMO. I still play it alot.

[FactionHeir]

Moved it for you

[Jxrc]

I am thinking of purchasing RTW, but just wanted to ask you all if it was worth it. I played and adored MTW but thought M2TW didn't have the same feel as its predecessor. Is RTW worth it? Will it disappoint me compared to MTW or is it better then M2TW?

Don't know the difference with MTW2 (never been able to play that one) but I am a great fan of MTW.

Honestly when RTW came out, I thought it was totally crap because once the thrill of the new graph had lapsed you could only see that the AI was terrible. Shelved RTW for many years and did not bother to give it another try or to check if any new patch had come out.

Out of boredom I tried it again a few weeks ago and I quite enjoy it. Battles are easier and shorter than in MTW (have played as the Romans and Carthaginians only so far though) but it's still good fun (donno how if BI or any mod makes things even better, only got the vanilla version). I'll probably run into trouble if I ever try to use the same basic tactics in a MTW campaign though.

Since you probably can get RTW at a discount price, I would say go for it, you'll probably not enjoy it as long as MTW but you'll have a few nice campaigns minimum.

Would suggest that you get Patch 1.5 (obvious sorry) and do reduce the spam rate for the rebels. Rebels are nice to get some easy battles at the start but they really become a huge bore once your empire gets large. It's pretty easy to change (I manage to do it and believe me it says a lot ...). Don't be as silly as me and think you can change the rate later cause reducing the rebel spam rate will not affect campaigns you've started before that.

[Quintus.JC]

Both are great games. MII is more complexed and has got much better graphics, but there isn't alot of difference between the two games, espeically in the battle mode. Anyway as the successor to RTW, MII possess the qualities of RTW and also had many extra goodies added to it. Although I still prefer RTW because of the time-frame of the game.

[Xipe Totec]

For me RTW is still the greatest computer game ever released. Even though I have played it to death for years I am still regularly inspired by a desire to try another campaign from a different faction with a brilliant strategy that only I have ever thought of. Or one that I have read about here. I love the time period. I love the variety of units each faction has, realistic or not. I love exploiting the AI's weaknesses. I love the impossibility of ever having peaceful neighbours even if you really want to be at peace for ages and some truculent jumped up nonentity insists on besieging your uber stack with a bunch of screeching women. I even love the fact that I have started a hundred games and only finished 3 cause as soon I as know I'm going to win easily I want a fresh challenge.

Almost every game I have bought since RTW came out has quickly been sidelined in favour of another RTW campaign.

M2TW I enjoyed for a time. The graphics are very pretty. There is a lot of depth in the gameplay. Yet every battle is a slugfest. You never emerge from a large battle with many men left alive - unless you just stand back and shoot the static opposition to bits with crossbows. The immense ranks of heavy cavalry and armoured knights charge, trip over a hedgehog and decide to mill about for ten minutes trying to recover their formation whilst they are decimated by a gang of ugly peasants they should be able to wipe the floor with - if they could just charge instead of mincing about like a bunch of hairdressers. If the enemy heavy infantry breaks and makes a run for the hills exhausted and broken and weighed down with armour you're lucky if your light cavalry can catch a handful of them, as they seem incapable of riding horses in anything resembling a straight line and seem to prefer to let them go. Even if they do manage to wipe out a whole army of dismounted knights you have to let them go again or lose your generals hard earned chivalry.

If my army has a lot of archers in RTW, the AI cavalry often attack the flanks and provide a challenge protecting them. In M2TW they charge at the spear waving peasants (or wooden stakes) in front and die like flies. In RTW you usually win but the enemy acts like it wants to. Tactics count. Victory brings satisfaction and a chance to exploit. In M2tw you win a great victory and before you can conquer anything a swarm of Milanese militia pop up from nowhere and shoot your heroes to bits. Victory and conquest is a boring grind. Assaulting a castle is more about not being shot by the towers you have already captured, because some cavalry has run within a hundred yards of them and somehow popped some flags back on them.

The Pope? As a christian he tells you to stop fighting whenever you gain the upper hand and are poised to conquer, or excommunicates you for breaking a siege on your capital. As a Muslim he sets in train a tedious crusade against you where a dozen pathetic stacks of crummy club-wielding peasants insist on marching into your lands to die in a repetitive and boring way.

If you keep going long enough you can look forward to being suddenly assaulted by absurdly large hordes of uber warriors from the Steppes or can fight the notoriously unbeatable Aztecs in America with their stone age clubs and imaginary armour.

Myself I think M2tw was a tragic disappointment. A few basic errors in gameplay and an otherwise magnificent achievement was spoiled. Gah my great army of uber warriors takes an eternity to hack through some peasants meanwhile being shot to pieces by archers I cant get at and eight years later they are so tired they run away from a unit of girl guides pulling rude faces. Give me a unit of falxmen crashing into the back of a phalanx any time, or a chariot general crumpling against a spear line. It's just more fun at the end of the day.

BI would have been interesting if almost every faction hadn't exactly the same units and after you destroyed their last village in an orgy of looting and burning they spawned an immense horde of highly trained horse archers and heavy infantry from out of the ether.

If its pretty pictures and clever animations you're after I heartily recommend M2TW. If you want a gripping and immersive game in which your decisions however small have ramifications for years to come, and your cavalry understand the meaning of the word charge, then RTW is still the better game. I like the experience chevrons giving stats upgrades too. You can follow your units progress with grim satisfaction as they keep getting better and better with every battle. In M2TW they may as well be raw recruits, as veteran killers of many years of carnage are not significantly tougher than green noobs. Hardly authentic. Rant ends.

[Fate]

I've gotta agree with Timoleon the Brave, RTW is an absoloutely fantastic game, i bought it about 3 years ago, and havent stopped playing it since. In all seriousness ive completed about 50 campaigns on it (but still never taken themyskyra, or however the hell its spelt, the amazonian settlement). And many many more on some of the fantastic modifications for the game.
My view is however biased by the fact that i have never played M2TW, solely because i didnt wanna waste money on a highly buggy rushed out game. Im glad to see the CA have dropped by Empire again. More time = better game!

Still, even if you dont really enjoy the time period of Rome, its worth a play for the hours of enjoyment it will give you at what is now an absoloutely bargainous price.

[Flying Pig]

The best games in the world are RTW mods, although with EB2 that may change. Still, LOTRTW won't port (to my knowledge) and FATW is still a BI mod for the forseeable future. Also, Hplites and legionaries are something that few other changes can really replace.

[Xipe Totec]

I should perhaps add that I consider M2TW to be the second best game ever released, and would probably play it endlessly if I hadn't already got bitten by the RTW bug. It's also true that there are many flaws in RTW, but I know that if I had to choose between never playing RTW again and never playing every other game I have ever bought (that's a lot!) again, I'd keep the RTW without a moment's hesitation.

In the final analysis I am more interested in the time period RTW is set in. The flowering of classical civilisations clashing with barbarian cultures in Europe is more interesting to me than the nauseating religious conflict between Church and Mosque which drags on interminably even in the modern world.

Like any good general I like to go to any lengths to minimise losses to my men in the pursuit of victory, as if they were real people (don't mock - it's all part of getting the most out of the game for me). I find it much harder to keep casualties down in M2TW and more difficult to pull off an unexpected victory defending a settlement against the odds. Victory is inevitable most times you fight, as it should be if you are doing it right, but I still get much satisfaction from winning with lighter casualties than expected.

I have played and enjoyed many campaigns of M2TW and Kingdoms but I never develop any love for my generals and usually tire of the mutual annihilation battles and annoying heretics / inquisitors / merchants / assassins / heck even princesses steal my King's favourite sons and turn them into enemies! I prefer the gameplay of RTW even if M2TW is more sophisticated and realistic. Many of the added features are maybe just needless distractions and delays to the progress of the game. Maybe one day we will see an R2TW or an S2TW so I can tell if I just don't like being Medieval?

Apologies to die-hard fans of M2TW for all the negatives, but elephants with cannons on their backs is just too silly to be true!

[Quirinus]

My view is however biased by the fact that i have never played M2TW, solely because i didnt wanna waste money on a highly buggy rushed out game.

lol, to offer an understatement, the 1.0 version of RTW isn't exactly bug-free.......

[G^2]

Personally, I like M2TW better than RTW. To me there essentially the same game, one just has better graphics, more agents, and is in medieval rather than classical times. I really enjoy the merchants, princesses and even the diplomacy involved with M2TW. I also enjoy the by-play between the Catholic factions and the pope, which I feel does a reasonable job of capturing the tension between the Church and the emerging nation states. Although, I will say that M2TW didn’t shine for me until Kingdoms and moding. Vanilla Grand Campaign is simply too dull without mods to better AI and diplomacy (which is why I play Stainless Steel).

As for Rome it’s the same game without some of the features. I played EB, which was pretty fun and made the game a lot more interesting, but at the end of the day I would rather see my armored knights than legions of hopolites (sp?). I simply find medieval times more interesting than classical which is why I probably like M2TW better.

So I guess if you are interested in classical times get Rome. It’s cheap now and worth the money, mod it to EB or one of the other great mods for it. MTW and STW were better games for their time though in my opinion. I played MTW with almost every faction and no mods because it was that good and challenging of a game.

[Rhyfelwyr]

There's not a huge difference between M2 and RTW, it just depends which timeframe you prefer.

M2TW has much better diplomacy, significantly better graphics, and many more features such as Crusading, the Pope, the Mongol invasion etc.

But I've just returned to RTW. It feels nostalgic for me since I used to just muck about on it when I was younger, managing battles as if it was Age of Empires.

But now I am playing it more properly, it is a very fun game. Although the lack of significant events (eg Mongol invasion, discovering Americas etc), means that campaigns can drag on. Also it seems to take longer to get high level units since I can't just stick a high chivalry governor in a castle.

But characters age properly in RTW (and live longer and don't all die between 60-62), which is good.