Simple Questions thread

[amore555]

Skirmish is a command for your missile troops, when activated, they will flee when approached by enemy forces, and stop to fire arrows/throw pila only when the enemy is out of range. Handy when you want to harass the enemy.

When Skirmish mode is turned off, your missile troops will stand their ground, which I find quite handy in defensive battles, though just keep an eye on them, because many missile troops can't hold their own against infantry.

Hope this helps :)

[Octavian_of_the_view]

Yes that does help but does that extend to horse archers? I was playing as Parthia and I had my HA's in skirmish mode but they didn't flee they held their ground and got massacred is this a bug or the way the game works?

[amore555]

Should extend to Horse Archers, the only I think of is maybe your HA's had guard mode activated?

[Octavian_of_the_view]

Hmmm thats a possibility I'll have to check, in any case thanks for all the help much appreciated

[Craterus]

A couple of technical questions.

I like to alt-tab out of game a lot, useful for chatting while playing, but my laptop really can't handle this. I can get away with doing it once, but after that, the screen just blacks out. Would windowed mode help this? If so, how do I do that?

Also, when occupying a foreign settlement, do I need to destroy all remnants of the previous civilisation (missile ranges and barracks seem to be designated a particular culture) or just their temples? If I don't do this, will I still be able to build my own tech tree on top? Again, sorry, once upon a time this was probably all second nature to me, but I'm struggling. Other than that though, it's going pretty well, blitzed pretty much everyone with the Brutii, footholds in Africa, the Aegean and Northern Europe.

[Octavian_of_the_view]

You can build on top of other civilizations the only thing you need to destroy to change to your culture is your temple. Sounds like your campaign is going pretty good, happy pillaging.

[Craterus]

Alright. My popularity with the Senate/People. I remember you need a certain amount of adoration from the people to be able to go for Rome, what's the point of the Senate one?

As for the campaign, North Africa's sewn up, left Carthage with Palma (the Balearic island) and that horrible province in the bottom left corner of the map. Should probably deal with them before I regret it, but they're so remote and out of the way. Allied with Numidia too, hopefully they don't get too big for their boots, I'm not in the habit of leaving big garrisons behind me.

I'm sending a small army to Spain, it's probably not big enough to take out an entire faction but we'll see what mercenaries are around.

The Gauls put up quite a fight for Patavium, I ended up killing three generals in one battle, still seem to be strong in Western Europe though. Which is good, if it slows the Julii down.

Greece have been banished to Asia Minor and Rhodes, will deal with them when I've finished off Macedon, who are down to 2 cities.

Thrace have abandoned their starting cities and have all of their units sitting in the former Dacian capital (Porolissum). I'm not sure why, as their old cities are rebelling and the Dacians aren't really threatening to take Porolissum back. I like to think they staged a huge party when they beat the Dacians and everyone forgot to go home Anyway, I'll probably go and take those Thracian cities and leave northbound expansion there. Start working away at Asia Minor before the Egyptians get too comfortable.

[Guyus Germanicus]

Yes that does help but does that extend to horse archers? I was playing as Parthia and I had my HA's in skirmish mode but they didn't flee they held their ground and got massacred is this a bug or the way the game works?

Skirmish mode doesn't help if your skirkishers (whether they be javeliners, peltasts or skirmishing cavalry) are backed up against the boundary of your combat area as marked by the red borderlines around your combat map. Many times I've had the misfortune of having jav-cav or horse archers pursued by an enemy unit, whether it be enemy cavalry or spearmen, and had them pursued to the border of the combat map only to be pinned. The AI for some reason doesn't handle this well. You can turn off skirmish mode and try to force them by the enemy unit, but if they make 'contact' with the enemy unit, the AI tends to have them commit to engagement. Then you have to repeat the command to flee a few times before they respond. You end up losing troops and may even unintentionally trigger your own troops to rout. It's frustrating.

I've also had occasions where the game just seems to get quirky. You give a command to move quickly and the troops just seem to be frozen in place. This often happens to me right after my unit has just finished killing off the last man of an enemy unit. You give the command for them to move and they unit doesn't repsond. Repeating the command to move eventually triggers them to move. But this too can be frustrating if you're trying to muster them to pursue fleeing enemies and the response delay is long enough that it allows the routing enemy soldiers to escape from the combat mapboard.

Try to keep your skirmishing cavalry away from the outer boundaries of the combat mapboard. This will prevent the entrapment scenario I described. But it requires micromanaging the movement of your skirmishing cavalry. Alas, this is one of the pains of playing those factions that feature horse archers, chariot archers and jav-cav.

Senate popularity is important to your faction. Being gifted Senate offices improves the management skills and influence of your faction members. Their authority and influence make them better governors increasing tax yields, discounting building costs, and attracting more benefits from the Senate.

As for city culture clash, you needn't destroy all your foreign culture buildings to end the culture penalty to your public order. Most of the culture penalty goes away after you've replaced the foreign admin building with the next level admin building. Usually the last of the culture penalty goes away when you have either eliminated all the foreign buildings or reduced their number to just one or two.

When playing one of the Roman factions, I like to retain foreign temples if they offer some significant military benefit such as experience chevrons or upgrades to weaponry or armor. The British shrines of Andrasta, Macedonian temples or Artemis and Ares, the Greek temples of Nike are good choices for retention. But I eventually will destroy them once the Marius event occurs and these cities grow to the large and huge levels. I have modified the game so that the Ludus Magna provides a 20% public order benefit and two experience chevrons for units recruited in that city. The foundry gives me enough armor and weapons boost to compensate for the loss of the weapons temples. I usually destroy taverns in foreign cities where I tend to station governors so that my governor doesn't develop bad traits like 'drunkard.' I also retain the execution square and specialty justice buildings that are features of Carthage and Egypt. Their added public order benefit is useful, and whatever negative affect they may have on a governor is insignificant compared to the tavern series.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

A couple of technical questions.

I like to alt-tab out of game a lot, useful for chatting while playing, but my laptop really can't handle this. I can get away with doing it once, but after that, the screen just blacks out. Would windowed mode help this? If so, how do I do that?

Windowed mode will help. I use it to play RTW.
1. Open the Properties of your RTW shortcut.
2. Add -ne to the end of the target line.
3. So, it should look something like this:
"C:\...\Rome - Total War\RomeTW.exe" -show_err -ne

[Craterus]

Skirmish mode doesn't help if your skirkishers (whether they be javeliners, peltasts or skirmishing cavalry) are backed up against the boundary of your combat area as marked by the red borderlines around your combat map. Many times I've had the misfortune of having jav-cav or horse archers pursued by an enemy unit, whether it be enemy cavalry or spearmen, and had them pursued to the border of the combat map only to be pinned. The AI for some reason doesn't handle this well. You can turn off skirmish mode and try to force them by the enemy unit, but if they make 'contact' with the enemy unit, the AI tends to have them commit to engagement. Then you have to repeat the command to flee a few times before they respond. You end up losing troops and may even unintentionally trigger your own troops to rout. It's frustrating.

I've also had occasions where the game just seems to get quirky. You give a command to move quickly and the troops just seem to be frozen in place. This often happens to me right after my unit has just finished killing off the last man of an enemy unit. You give the command for them to move and they unit doesn't repsond. Repeating the command to move eventually triggers them to move. But this too can be frustrating if you're trying to muster them to pursue fleeing enemies and the response delay is long enough that it allows the routing enemy soldiers to escape from the combat mapboard.

Try to keep your skirmishing cavalry away from the outer boundaries of the combat mapboard. This will prevent the entrapment scenario I described. But it requires micromanaging the movement of your skirmishing cavalry. Alas, this is one of the pains of playing those factions that feature horse archers, chariot archers and jav-cav.

Senate popularity is important to your faction. Being gifted Senate offices improves the management skills and influence of your faction members. Their authority and influence make them better governors increasing tax yields, discounting building costs, and attracting more benefits from the Senate.

As for city culture clash, you needn't destroy all your foreign culture buildings to end the culture penalty to your public order. Most of the culture penalty goes away after you've replaced the foreign admin building with the next level admin building. Usually the last of the culture penalty goes away when you have either eliminated all the foreign buildings or reduced their number to just one or two.

When playing one of the Roman factions, I like to retain foreign temples if they offer some significant military benefit such as experience chevrons or upgrades to weaponry or armor. The British shrines of Andrasta, Macedonian temples or Artemis and Ares, the Greek temples of Nike are good choices for retention. But I eventually will destroy them once the Marius event occurs and these cities grow to the large and huge levels. I have modified the game so that the Ludus Magna provides a 20% public order benefit and two experience chevrons for units recruited in that city. The foundry gives me enough armor and weapons boost to compensate for the loss of the weapons temples. I usually destroy taverns in foreign cities where I tend to station governors so that my governor doesn't develop bad traits like 'drunkard.' I also retain the execution square and specialty justice buildings that are features of Carthage and Egypt. Their added public order benefit is useful, and whatever negative affect they may have on a governor is insignificant compared to the tavern series.

Windowed mode will help. I use it to play RTW.
1. Open the Properties of your RTW shortcut.
2. Add -ne to the end of the target line.
3. So, it should look something like this:
"C:\...\Rome - Total War\RomeTW.exe" -show_err -ne

Great posts. Thanks very much.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Your welcome!

[Craterus]

I recently noticed one of my up-and-coming generals had gone missing. You might wonder how I can lose track of a family member but I've got over 75 of them now. A check of the family tree, hovering my cursor over his picture, tells me he 'died tragically' 3 or 4 turns ago. I don't remember being told about this and I don't remember ever coming across this in the past.

Does anyone know what 'died tragically' refers to? A quick Google search tells me a family member will have this if they were killed when a town under their command rebels. I'm not sure he was even a governor at the time. Does this label also turn up when a character gets assassinated?

So, yeah, if anyone could explain what might have happened to my character, that'd be helpful. Also, are there any other death descriptions? 'Assassinated'? 'Natural disaster'? 'Died at sea'?

Thanks.