How do you solve a problem like Tanais?

[Vincent Butler]

The RTW AI is pathetically timid......

I am still not convinced, but whatever. We each get to make our own inferences. I would just say they are stupid. Does the autocalc really give Rome an advantage? I know I read that the Amazons in Themiskyra get an autocalc advantage, they are supposed to win with up to 5:1 odds against them, I think it was. The AI did seem more aggressive in EB, that was when four Lusotannan units of Lusotannan Spearmen would attack my armies of fourteen units, with ten of them medium/heavy infantry, Hastati/Principes/Triarii. Needless to say, I owned them. You keep talking about Shogun-it is not considered abandonware yet, is it, ie, nobody has a legal free download available? I don't think I have seen it in the stores.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Does the autocalc really give Rome an advantage?

How many times have you ever seen an AI-led faction attack an AI-led Roman faction and win? Very, very rare even at odds stacked in favor of the non-Roman faction. I once saw a full stack of Gauls best led by their 10-star faction leader lose to a minor Roman general and a half-stack of Auxillia, Light Auxillia, and a few Cohort I's I shouldn't state it as fact that auto-calc is skewed towards the Romans, but set up a few custom battles (AI vs AI) against Roman troops and see how many times the Romans lose.....

Shogun I publishing rights are owned by a company called Sold Out Software. Don't know if they are still producing discs for the game. IIRC, CA re-released the game with some sort of Shogun "Gold Edition" but don't quote me on that....

I still prefer it to RTW despite the "Risk-style" campaign map. You have to do far more planning on how to develop your infrastructure (with four seasons, payday only comes in the fall) or you may find yourself out of money. The battles are much, much tougher than RTW, and repelling a multi-stack invasion can take 1 1/2 to 2 hours....real time. It's just epic, at times. You will fight some battles where you absolutely have to win or face extinction. Now if that doesn't add excitement to a game I don't know what will.....The AI is smart and as aggressive as a mad hornet. Most people don't care for it much because unit selection is slim, and the campaign map is 2-D. But oh the tactics involved......

I remember when a year had gone by after the release of RTW, players were coming back to the STW forum and whining because they were getting their asses kicked by the Shogun AI. Things they could get away with in RTW, were not so in STW. Weather actually means something on the battlefield (fighting in dense fog is a blast), and the music tracks by Jeff VanDyke are awesome. If you can find a copy, and get it to run on your rig, it's worth the experience.

[Vincent Butler]

I once saw a full stack of Gauls best led by their 10-star faction leader lose to a minor Roman general and a half-stack of Auxillia, Light Auxillia, and a few Cohort I's I shouldn't state it as fact that auto-calc is skewed towards the Romans, but set up a few custom battles (AI vs AI) against Roman troops and see how many times the Romans lose.....

Well, if there are a lot of Warband, start one routing, the rest rout. Same with Eastern Infantry. The pila alone can do a lot of damage. I have had a full (minus the men lost from the siege), rested unit of Phalanx Pikemen, in my own huge city, rout just from two volleys of pila, their first engagement of the day. I'm not sure, but I think it was from Praetorian Cohort. Still, without even getting involved? Good thing they were supported by another unit. But even Auxilia and ELC are nothing to sneeze at, they will hold up to just about anything anybody else has, barring elite units such as Praetorian/Urban Cohort, Sacred Band or (I wouldn't call them elite) Pharaoh's Guards.

I will have to check out Shogun sometime, though it probably won't happen anytime soon. There is a Shogun 2 as well, right? So in that, would you recommend using real-life tactics? I try to do that in Rome anyway, but depends on who you are, it is not always feasible, ie, my Greeks hitting a pinned enemy with Greek Cav is not the same as doing it with Companion Cav like Macedon or Seleucia can.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Well, if there are a lot of Warband, start one routing, the rest rout.

Not the case here. I said 'Gauls best' which means Foresters, Chosen Swordmen, etc. With a 10-star general against a neophyte, the Gauls should have won IMO....

The pila alone can do a lot of damage

As is in RTW, Roman infantry get too many pila volleys (four or five, IIRC). Historically, they carried two pila

I've modded out any Roman infantry past Cohort I. The Lorica Segmentata armor (the main difference between ELC and Praetorian/Urban) did not appear until around 100AD. And that means when I play a Roman faction, Cohort I is the best I get. I've removed Pharaoh's Guard and Pharaoh's Bowmen from the Big E's roster (really bad run-on with the whole 'mummy' look for Egypt...they were Ptolemaic Greeks for cryin' out loud), and made numerous other changes (like disabling Red Sea ports so Egypt doesn't waste money creating fleets where they can't participate in the game), and many other balancing changes.

To play Shogun I, you pretty much have to have a liking for the period, and prefer strategy and tactics over fluff and graphics (although the battlefields are 3-D and can be awesome to fight on). Shogun II has more diverse unit rosters, naval battles, and complicated tech trees. CA did a very nice job with the sequel, unlike Rome II.

Play to have fun rather than emphasizing historical aspects, IMHO

[Vincent Butler]

As is in RTW, Roman infantry get too many pila volleys (four or five, IIRC). Historically, they carried two pila

I've modded out any Roman infantry past Cohort I. The Lorica Segmentata armor (the main difference between ELC and Praetorian/Urban) did not appear until around 100AD. And that means when I play a Roman faction, Cohort I is the best I get. I've removed Pharaoh's Guard and Pharaoh's Bowmen from the Big E's roster (really bad run-on with the whole 'mummy' look for Egypt...they were Ptolemaic Greeks for cryin' out loud), and made numerous other changes (like disabling Red Sea ports so Egypt doesn't waste money creating fleets where they can't participate in the game), and many other balancing changes.

To play Shogun I, you pretty much have to have a liking for the period, and prefer strategy and tactics over fluff and graphics (although the battlefields are 3-D and can be awesome to fight on). Shogun II has more diverse unit rosters, naval battles, and complicated tech trees. CA did a very nice job with the sequel, unlike Rome II.

Play to have fun rather than emphasizing historical aspects, IMHO

Asian history is not my interest. I just know not to get involved in a land war in Asia. As to the pila, I have only observed two volleys, at least from my own. If there are extra, it is because some of the legionaries are out of range. The amount is just given to the unit, so some may throw more, but then some will throw less. The computer probably gives their guys more.

since only we three are posting - I take it you're both US of A, I'm in Scotland.

Anchorage, Alaska. I hear Perth, I think Australia. Didn't know there was a Perth, Scotland. My family traces back to Kilkenny County, Ireland (though we were Normans who moved to Ireland), my avatar is my family coat of arms.

[williamsiddell]

Anchorage, Alaska

Bet you're sick of your mum saying 'wrap up warm'.

Didn't know there was a Perth

Aye. Google Perth and you get the Australian one. I suppose it would be huge city in RTW and my Perth a large town.

We're all mongrels. Armies have marched back and forth through Europe for millennia.

[Vincent Butler]

You said you modded out anything past ELC. Praetorian/Urban don't get Lorica Segmentata, do they? I thought they had the muscled cuirass? Technically, the Praetorians would have been your imperial bodyguard, so the way the game uses them is not realistic though the PC itself is (I know that is old news). Julius Caesar talked about having the tenth legion as his Praetorian Cohort when he went to fight Ariovistus. I don't know how realistic the Urban Cohort were, probably not the elites that they are in the game, more likely the garrison would have been the Urban Cohort. I never saw "The Mummy", so I will take your word that the Pharaoh's Bowmen/Guards were unrealistic. Egypt did have good archers, so it would be nice to replace PB with something more realistic instead of getting rid of them. Elite units are only moderately realistic anyway, the Silver Shield Pikemen were, Praetorian Cohort (not as used in the game), Spartan Hoplites are, Macedon should have Hypaspists and Agyraspids (Silver Shields) instead of Royal Pikemen.

[ReluctantSamurai]

You said you modded out anything past ELC. Praetorian/Urban don't get Lorica Segmentata, do they?

The question is certainly open to debate, and I am certainly not an expert military archaeologist. Most probably the Trajan-era cohorts used it (would be Cohort II in RTW).

I found this in an article at the Angelfire website:

It was once presumed that all legionaries wore segmented armor after its introduction in the early 1st c. CE, and that after that time, the lorica hamata (mail shirt) was worn only by auxilia. More recently, however, scholars such as Bishop and Maxfield have posited that there was a far greater diversity of armor within units. Legionaries and auxiliaries may have worn either segmented or mail armor based on personal preference or local practice. Like legionaries, Praetorians wore mail shirts, then gradually and not universally transitioned into segmented cuirasses, and later came to favor scale mail in the late 2nd and 3rd centuries CE.

So who knows

The biggest reason I modded out units for some of the more powerful factions was not for historical accuracy (or I'd have to get rid of such nonsense like Head Hurlers, Screeching Women, and Chariots) but to balance gameplay. I've said this before...if you let the AI play all the factions and then run a campaign, the Romans win every time. Maybe that's historical, maybe not, but this is a game not a historical simulator. I also play by my own rules as a Roman faction...no Praetorian Cohorts/Cavalry, no Urban/Cohort II. When you play Shogun, you can face any other clan in the final showdown to be the Shogun. Granted there are certain clans that get there more often than others, but any clan is capable to get to the "big showdown". Not so for RTW.

I never saw "The Mummy", so I will take your word that the Pharaoh's Bowmen/Guards were unrealistic.

By mummy I was referring to the Old Dynasty style depiction of the Egyptians. The Pharaohs were long gone to their ancestors in the sky in the timeframe of RTW...Ptolemaic Greeks ruled Egypt.

If you removed the Romans from the game (hypothetically) then the Big E wins every time. Despite my removing Pharaoh's Bowmen (and reducing their vanilla bowmen to 80 men from 120), removing Pharaoh's Guard, reducing the Desert Cavalry to 54 men from 80 (and placing them in a square formation like everyone else), you still get this:

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...man/BSS_13.jpg

As compensation for all the roster change to Egypt, I removed their capability to create fleets in the Red Sea. Nothing dumber than seeing several full-stack fleets sitting there and not being able to even participate in the game. Net result...the Big E isn't wasting money to create and maintain fleets they can't use. Egypt still has one of the better unit rosters in the game, despite my changes, and the screenie above shows that.

[Vincent Butler]

As far as the armour goes, I meant in the game. The Chariots are not unrealistic for Britannia, but they were used as fast transports, not fighting vehicles. Don't know about Egypt. I guess EB was kind of meant to deal with a lot of the inaccuracies, but it is harder, especially as Rome, because for a while you can't train your own units outside of Italy, and some levy barracks need to get very advanced before they can build some good units, some can't build any good units.