Realism vs playability

[CBR]

Well even if we assume that the Roman factions are the only factions that are balanced to play so what? In Shogun you only had one culture to play with and enemies where of the same culture.

Lots of people have complained about how MTW didnt have the same detail/feel as STW had. RTW looks like it will have the same feel as STW but now comes with a lot of other factions to fight on a much bigger map than STW.

If I disliked Japanese culture and wanted to play the Portuguese I would have been out of luck by buying STW. But from what I see in some posts, some people hate the Romans and want to kill them (but Im sure some of the other factions will be strong enough to do that) in a game called Rome: Total War.

We just cant expect the same level of detail for all factions compared to how the Romans will be.

In STW Multiplayer lots of players and clans took Japanese names and some became interested in the culture and language but I guess Latin isnt in these days..


CBR

[Blodrast]

aww, come on, CBR, don't be sad !
I'm sure _most_ of the people on these board will thoroughly enjoy RTW, and even for those who don't (at least in the beginning) I'm sure there will be mods to satisfy even the most demanding guys/girls
I'm sure it's gonna be huge fun, and I can't wait for the freaking demo to come out (even though I'm swamped with work)
So cheer up and enjoy the chills of anticipation, 'cause is coming early this year, even in Denmark

[CBR]

Oh dont worry Im not sad

I only bought MTW for the MP (finished a few campaigns but thats it) but RTW looks very good and Im actually looking forward to trying out the campaign..hell I have hyped myself up so much expecting that I will actually enjoy the campaign lol


CBR

[Scipio]

I think Nelson made a good point. The Romans didn't "walk" over the world, in many cases it was skating on thin ice for the Romans. Rome has had a huge amount of humiliating defeats; Cannae, Lake Tresimene, when the gallic sack of Rome for the first time are but a few... And also as Nelson said we have no evidence to say that Rome will be invincible. I don't think Rome will be over powered because historically, Rome didn't have a good cavalry and from MTW most mp players now the importance of a good cav and how devstating a proper flanking is.

[Oaty]

Well there may be 2 big game balances thrown in, Spartacus and Hannibal. Now hopefully in wo'nt be as predictable as the Mongols are in MTW. Hopefully there will be a 50 year timeframe that they show up and would make it near suicide to camp out for them. Also they could have spartucus pop up at a random location so there would be no way to camp out waiting for him.

Giving them a random timeframe in a way is more historically accurate in a way. Because the Europeans were'nt camping out waiting for the Mongols it was more of oh crapola what do we do. So if they make there appearances random we can not be fully prepared for them.

1 thing that is definately not historically accurate and not to many have really mentioned is unit sizes. Do a custom battle in MTW with small unit sizes, then do 1 on huge unit size. With the huge unit size you will notice a big difference in maneuverability. Now if we could just have units with an average size of 1000 it would represent battles much better with 1 being maneuverabilty and 2 those 1000 men will last a lot longer to allow you to do a major flanking manuever.

Well I do'nt know much about the sacred band but as I wrote this I came to the conclusion that the reason there were always 300 men in it (no more no less) was it gave them enough men to be an effective unit but not too many to allow them to manuever much better than there regular phalanx units. A little help would be appreciated here to either contradict my conclusion or to further emphisize at what I wrote.

I play with huge units in single player and found you are much better off not giveing the center of your line any orders unless they all are marching in formation. This reduces the effect that every other unit is flanking another unit (both the A.I.'s and mine) and makes it more of a true battle where there is a line and then misaligned units on the flanks doing the job of trying to break the flank of the enemy.

Well just the basics of the game where the units are small makes the game arcade style from the beginning IMO.

The only problem with 1000 or even 5000 man units or bigger and all 70,000 (graphics permitting) men on the battlefield is how long would the battle last. theres pros and cons to this. I figured I'll start a new topic for this but 1 big pro is you would not have to wait for reinforcements and the morale penalty for being flanked could be way higher (as most units were next to another unit and did not turn giving the enemy onle a few units to hit on there flank). This would emphasize the need to protect your flanks while trying to flank down on the enemy rather than decimating 1 unit at a time

[HicRic]

With units that big, you'd be looking at an absurdly large battlefield, or a very zoomed-out view, both removing the Total War "feel". Not to mention battles would be more strategic and less tactical. (Could you hide a unit of 1000 in a forest for an ambush?)

[Oaty]

With units that big, you'd be looking at an absurdly large battlefield, or a very zoomed-out view, both removing the Total War "feel". Not to mention battles would be more strategic and less tactical. (Could you hide a unit of 1000 in a forest for an ambush?)

Heres a little hindsight. Decisive battles and Time commanders. Of course the option for smaller units should be there if you want battles over quicky.

Also Hannibal hid his whole army for an ambush against the Roman Army. So I hope that clears up any questions you have.

The battlefields are already big and I have a feeling they can already and easily support this

As far as feel of the game, theres a historical feel, the "totalwar feel" and then theres the feel like your actually there, like Shogun was able to with there short cinematics and great music(at least for me)