Time Commanders

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

Tell me everyone saw Time Commanders. It seriously kicked ass The Elephants, oh my god. They wrecked the Roman Legions I few other units i saw were:

Numidian Cavalry: Really cool, also kicked ass

Spanish Heavy Cavalry: Some got routed, still were good though.

Iberian Heavy Infantry: Seriously Hard men.

Balearic Slingers: Looked quite dangerous actually but we i didn'tn really see them in action.

I think another unit was called Numidian spears who really got into the fray and held there spears in a different manner to most.

Thats all i can remember. I'm still in shock The presenter needed a good beating though

[Mr Baine]

I caught the last 20 minutes (I was constructing an MFI flat pack) and it actually wasn't bad at all. R:TW is looking very good, I was very impressed and especially at this early stage, so what we should get when it goes Gold should be even better.

[Shahed]

I hope someone will get some screenies or the video in mpg for those who could not watch it. Sounds awesome Thx for the info.

[the Black Prince]

OMG it was sooo good,
can't wait for Rome now, or next thursday at least

[Revenant69]

Yeah i wouldn't mind taking a peek at what happened during that show. I dont get that channel here.

[frogbeastegg]

It was damn good TV, for once the licence fee wasn't wasted

On elephants - did anyone else hate the way they pushed the infantry back like they were on roller-skates? The elephants charge, a couple of men die and loads more just slide back across the ground without moving out of the ready stance. It looked more than odd.

What did other people think of the music? That was the real in battle music because Jeff Van Dyck was in the credits as doing it I thought it was quite good but I can't remember any of it now so it may not be as catchy as the Viking music, then again I haven't just fought a long battle to it

I'm going to post a more in-depth analysis later when I've watched my taped version several times. I shall put it in the coliseum but right now I'll talk Time Commanders anywhere

Any questions people want answering specifically? I will do my best to answer

[o_loompah_the_delayer]

The presenter was a prat, they could tried to get someone a bit more interested...also the fellow from Sandhurst was rather liberal with 'crap'.

Otherwise it was rather good, though looking at it I doubt my computer will be able to handle battles in Rome TW.

The elephants seemed very (too) effective, also the cavalry didnt seem to get too tired running around in the snow. As far as I remembre they didnt show the Belearic slingers except in the unit descriptions in the beginning. Its also I shame I think they didnt describe any of the Roman units like they did the Carthaginians, though I suppose they will do that next week (Mons Grapicus (sp?), Romans v Scots).

[Nowake]

how was the fog depicted? It should have been alot.

[Knight_Yellow]

any1 notice how the AI sucked?

i mean come on it was gay.

pit there wits against a machine with the knowings of a general

should be

luaghed there asses of at the vending machine with a RTW disc crammed into the coin slot

[frogbeastegg]

Quote[/b] (pr Fire @ Sep. 04 2003,22:01)]how was the fog depicted? It should have been alot.

Honestly I don't remember there being fog, maybe there was a little but nothing like Shoguns Pea Soupers (for non Brits that's a very thick fog which you can barely see through). I was paying more attention to the units though, I shall watch it again tomorrow and look for fog.

o_loompah - I noticed the fatigue too, the cavalry should have been exhausted after all the fighting they did at the start, in fact they should have been tired before the fighting began since they had to move a long way. Maybe they were playing with fatigue off?

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

I forgot to watch it NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Marshal Murat]

Hey can someone fill me in on the battle? Can't seem to find any info.

[ShadesWolf]

Totally Awesome.

The Carthagian units look very strong and quite varied.

I agree its a pity we didnt see the slingers in action, but I think that that was more to do with the morons playing the game.....

Those pike units looked very good......

Very interesting battle, it looks like it was almost two to one in number snad the cavalry seemed to be quite importants once they had removed the roman cav.

I also liked the river crossing, so u could almost say no more bridges, just hope the fords dont become bridges.

the battle terrain seemed to hide the units quite well, thus allowing for a nice ambush.

The AI did seem to suck a little....

[Pitt_Slayer]

yeah its brillant the AI sucks no surprise there i was LMAO at the routing spainish just like mtw
the elephants were cool

[Custor]

The programme was dreadful, but the Rome looked very nice.

Presenter lacked charisma, didn't say what they show was about, made the geeky contestents look sad and geeky.

The intelligence brief of you've got really good cavalry, they've got crap cavalry. What notes have ou made?
Erm I think our cavlary is a strong point....?

Saw nothing of the terrain and nothign of the deployment of the forces. The table and woods bloxks were somehting to put your tea on.
The division of command -
General - attack with the cavalry.
Sub General - erm attack with the cavalry please. All of them?
General - yes all of them.
Sub General - all of them please.

AI? Just A.

These noobs charged their Carthaginian cavalry into the Roman foot without even bothering to pin the infantry front line. Then withdrew them. Then erm attacked some more Roman cavalry. Combined arms past them by. Don't even bother to ask about skirmishing or ranged combat.

It did look nice though. Surprised the Elephants lasted so long. A face full of pilums wouldn't do much for the Ele's health surely. Triarii, now theres a tempting target.

[Shahed]

Is it reasonably realistic ?

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

I have just heard word from the BBC website that the presenter has been executed forthwith for his overdose on make up

Oh, and i liked the lady on the team saying Is Hannibal one of Horses?

[frogbeastegg]

Quote[/b] (SeljukSinan @ Sep. 04 2003,22:21)]Is it reasonably realistic ?

Yes....and no. It's about the same as the last two TWs in that it is obviously a game and not quite realistic but it wasn't too bad. I think really the best way to describe it is think medieval but with 3d units. The main problems I thought were with animation that will hopefully be sorted out later, rollerskating Romans had better not make the final release

Hannibal isn't one of the horses he's an earthworm on the left flank, it's perfectly obvious if you look

[Vacuity]

There wasn't any fog to talk of, I distinctly remember that the screen showed the terrain way, way off into the distance.
But my God It was gorgeous
I sat and drooled for the full hour
Can't wait for the game to be released...

Hopefully they'll improve the AI from its performance there, it didn't seem to do anything more than walk forward.
Also I was under the impression that Elephants were very effective in historical terms and as the Romans weren't equipped with fiery pigs in that battle of course the elephants did well

[Manji]

I dunno if anyone has already answered but here it goes:
Did anyone recorded it and put the show online? If no, is anyone intending to do that? I only have BBC Prime and BBC world and wish i could see it too...
If yes, just tell me where to get it

(Sorry for the crappy english)

[Miltiades]

I caught the show, and R:TW is looking sweet. Some dodgy graphics ( the horses ) but still plenty of time to iron them out before the release.

Gotta say I really liked the look of those pikemen. Holding opposing melee troops at a distance while slaughtering them, oh the fun I could have Elephants looked like a pretty effective unit as well.

As far as the AI goes, I'm guessing ( and hoping ) it was set to easy, but thats only fair. The team didn't have the many years of experience of Shogun and Medieval that some of us do High AI would have made for a pretty short show probably They were still outnumbered about 2 - 1 though, which even on easy AI is a fair challenge for an inexperienced player, and these were flung in at the deep end as far as battles go. ( When we were playing the games for the first time, usually small skirmishes came up before battles of that scale ) They used ( really ) basic tactics, sprung their ambush too early and stuff, but the basics were there, and if they were regular players they would probably do alright. We'll have to wait and see how the other teams do before we can really judge on it. Roll on Mons Graupius next Thursday ( Maybe the host will have changed by then )

[Kraxis]

How did the legionaries look? Fair enough? Hopefully no lorica segmentata... hopefully some Triarii were there.

The Numudian Cavalry, were they skirmishers or melee? If skrimishers, could they throw on the move?

How does that pike-holding-distance-thing work? Are they impervious to enemy melee attacks unless they can get udner the pikes?

[Red Peasant]

Quote[/b] (Knight_Yellow @ Sep. 04 2003,21:04)]any1 notice how the AI sucked?

Sounds like the AI was realistic then, cos the Romans sucked at the Trebia, they just forded the river and charged en-masse at the Carthaginians. No tactics, no brains. If that's what the AI did, then it got it right.

IIRC, there were some 40,000 Romans at Trebia, yet unlike the later debacle at Cannae they did eventually manage to break the Carthaginian centre, but only after their defeat was assured. Only 10,000 escaped.

[Pitt_Slayer]

the AI was crap like mtw if they tried them tatics on mp they wouldnt last 2 mins BUT remember its a tv program about tatics and what we are all forgetting about is: in real battles orders take time to be excuted not in split seconds.
i was pissed off cos i thought it would be 2 teams playing each other not 1 team vs AI
the tea board thing looked crap to us BUT how many people watch time commanders and how many play the game?
the game its self looks good and its going to be big
i can just see it now noobs on mp rushing with elephants hehe wheres my spear units
anyway its good for TW and thats good for us

[Fearless]

I've got the video. Got the digital camera. See what I can do over the weekend. Thought the river crossing great. Waist deep in water.........that needs to be photographed

http://www.kgfs.org.uk/rtwpics.htm
http://www.kgfs.org.uk/rtwpics2.htm
http://www.kgfs.org.uk/rtwbodicea.htm

[Dr_No]

must admit RTW looked sweet- can't wait for this one to hit the shelves-- imagine if they'd brand the show with the engine think of the marketing potential- as it is only people who visit this forum know the link....

the battle was cool - except the roman AI was absolute pants- we could see huge roman infantry columns just standing around waiting to get charged.. thoughts the humans only pulled it off cos the AI was so dumb

in a nutshell they sent hanibals cavalry to either wing and hid them behind tress, waited for the romans to march through the gorge and then charged way to early.. saved by the elephants who charged through the middle and took on the heavy infantry- didn't it seem like they picked the best unit to charge out of luck? (my view is that those two people sitting at the screens actually did all the hard parts identifying which unit to charge and at what angle)

was nice to see the triarii stay to the bitter end, but the romans legionnaires looked good but fought like pansies...(also they made it sound like the roman soldiers would've only won by supperior numbers) no units supporting each other, no cohesion in the unit columns...makes me want to play the carthaginians with all their cool new units rather than the romans...

There should be team from the .org that they play against- lets hope BBC set up a load of custom battle releases for RTW as a little for the people who buy it

next week Romans Vs Woad Warriors of Britain

[Lord De Moray]

Quote[/b] (Kraxis @ Sep. 04 2003,18:59)]How did the legionaries look? Fair enough? Hopefully no lorica segmentata... hopefully some Triarii were there.

They were there and NO segmentata.

The Numudian Cavalry, were they skirmishers or melee? If skrimishers, could they throw on the move?

They looked like they could throw javelins then go in hand to hand.

How does that pike-holding-distance-thing work? Are they impervious to enemy melee attacks unless they can get udner the pikes?

One shot certainly showed them holding the legionaries back at the length of the pike.

Elephants, great on impact but looked silly when they just pushed men around as if they were on ice. Well it was winter

[o_loompah_the_delayer]

There was no fog, but it wouldnt make much sense to have a white screen a la shogun on tv now would it?

The numidians looked a bit like jinettes in terms of waht they did (not appearance).

In defence of the lady she asked if Hannibal was a horse - ahe obviously meant if Hannibbal was one of the cav units, and I thought she was better than the two generals (please send the inf forward/ charge the cav), the two sub generals seem to have done most of the actual work of deciding what to attack with what unit.

The AI was poor, I doubt it would have done this even in MTW, I suspect that it was either on easy, or they were trying to play it like the Romans actually did - march up like a bunch of Daleks without any scouting.

[Kraxis]

Thank you De Moray.

So did you see how the legionaries killed pikemen?

[Lord De Moray]

Quote[/b] (Kraxis @ Sep. 05 2003,04:52)]Thank you De Moray.

So did you see how the legionaries killed pikemen?

No just saw the legionaries falling at pike length. Bloody good touch though. I have to wonder if they were caught pikes up just what would happen. There was a scene when the cavalry flank charged the legionaries and needless to say wasted them, but charging on to a second unit they were ready for them a lowered their spears, at which point the players gave the order to withdraw, just in case........wise.

Hope this helps