RTW and PBMs

[afrit]

HI everyone,
seems this board has gone quiet since last month's interruption. And now with RTW coming, I wonder what will happen to all the PBM's out there.

I for one am excited about RTW's potential for better PBM's. More V&V's, family trees, commanders visible individually on the battlefield. Lots of options for role playing.

What are your thoughts on how RTW will affect PBMs?

Afrit

[Tricky Lady]

Yes, RTW promises to add loads of new perspectives from which to write PBM stories...

:starts dreaming of a Carthagian PBM:

[lonewolf371]

I hope we'll start off with some good historical mod PBM's, I won't be able to stand flaming pigs, screaming women, and accurate artillery.

[The_Emperor]

If PBEM's do work with RTW I will probably start the first as soon as I get the game. I'm thinking a Scipii or Julii Campaign would be good to start off with.

[lonewolf371]

From what I've seen from the demo I think we might still have MTW PBMs, RTW is a TW game but it just doesn't have the same feel to me, it's so much more WC3 and C&C-like, people still played MTW when awesome graphical games such as WC3 games were around, so I don't think good graphics will make us automatically reject MTW.

[The_Emperor]

I don't either... But I can see a Rome TW PBEM being popular.

But given turns now happen in seasons as well as years, reigns may last longer. SO it remains to be seen if RTW PBEMs are viable.

[afrit]

Yeah, with the 2 turns/year "reigns" would get long. We'll have to see. I guess we will all play a couple of campaigns in single player before getting on with a PBM. Then we will get an idea on how long faction leaders live, whether they can "retire" before death etc..

It would be very interesting, though, to play a PBM for a faction that none of us has played before. Or better yet one that has not been "digested" on the org before. RTW gives us a new chance to play a PBM with an outcome very much in doubt. Maybe we should all "save" a faction to play as a PBM first (I would pick Brutii).


Afrit

[Tricky Lady]

Yeah, with the 2 turns/year "reigns" would get long. We'll have to see. I guess we will all play a couple of campaigns in single player before getting on with a PBM. Then we will get an idea on how long faction leaders live, whether they can "retire" before death etc..

It would be very interesting, though, to play a PBM for a faction that none of us has played before. Or better yet one that has not been "digested" on the org before. RTW gives us a new chance to play a PBM with an outcome very much in doubt. Maybe we should all "save" a faction to play as a PBM first (I would pick Brutii).


Afrit

Sounds like a fun idea. Saving one faction and then play that one for the first time in a PBEM game...

[The_Emperor]

I'd pick Julii, the gruesome greenies don't impress me much.

Anyway lets just play a campaign and see if it is viable first.

[lonewolf371]

Should we start a poll sometime soon? The RTW release date draws near...

[afrit]

I hear you lonewolf.
I vote for 3 simultaneous PBMs to start about a week or so after release, when we all get a bit familiar with it (and see whether it is even viable to PBM as Emperor pointed out). Then we start playing the 3 families (hmm, sounds like the Italian mafia ). We take turns with them and exchange save files. Would be neat to see which family makes it to Emperor first.


Because this is a unique chance to chronicle a first campaign with a faction, we should start organizing before release date.

I herefore sign my name up . Any other takers?

Afrit. Eagerly awaiting release day

[Tricky Lady]

I'm interested, yes. But I am not sure if I can get my hands on a RTW copy in its first release week.

I'll see.

[econ21]

Sounds like a plan, Afrit.

Why don't you start off as Brutii, the Emperor can start off as Julii? I would be willing to start a Scipii campaign, although as Lonewolf and TrickyLady posted an interest earlier, I would be happy if either of them wanted that responsibility.

I suggest other people should post here saying what faction they want to sign up for. We could keep all the admin in this thread and just create 3 separate threads for write-ups.

A contest to see who is first to be Emperor in Rome Total War time (not our time) adds spice to the proceedings.

[Tricky Lady]

Mmmyes, starting off as the Scipii sounds okay to me...
But as I said, it'll all depend whether I'll get a RTW copy in time or not. I'm not pre-ordering it, so it might take some time...
Are you all pre-ordering RTW or will you just run to the nearest game shop and buy it on the first day?

[econ21]

OK, TrickyLady, I don't think it is essential you start off the instant it's released - as soon as it is available in your local shop in Belgium would be fine. The important thing is that the people organising "their" factions are responsible and you, having successfully run a PBM, definitely qualify there. If you want to start off Scipii, I'll switch to joining the Julii game - like the Emperor, I'd prefer a gentler starting campaign! So let's switch that to:

The Julii
Emperor?
SimonAppleton

The Scipii
TrickyLady

The Brutii
Afrit?

Lonewolf - what faction do you want to sign up for initially?

I suggest that we sign up for lists on a first come, first served basis (and members can only sign up for one faction initially) but be pretty ruthless in bumping people who are non-responsive down the list. However, if Emperor, Afrit and TrickyLady agree to take responsibility for their factions, I guess they should be free to set their own groundrules.

[afrit]

@simon,
welcome back.

I'll take the Brutii.

@Tricky Lady,
I have not pre-ordered. The day RTW is released in the US, I'll be checking daily on all 3 stores in my town. I have this feeling that the store I pre-order from will be the last one to get it : So I'm not pre-ordering.

The only rules I suggest are:

1. Medium or normal difficulty (we are all novices to RTW !)
2. The faction you play in the PBM should be the first time you play this faction (but not the first time you play RTW of course!!). In case you get off to a disastrous start, you can restart, but should summarize the failed campaign.
3. No reloads in an attempt to improve the outcome of a battle or because the AI surprised you. Honor system.
4. Writeups of course.

I fully expect that the campaigns will run into trouble, maybe even fail. And that's what excites me about them. Imagine looking at the writeups a year later and going "what were we thinking??".

What do you all think?


Afrit

[Chimpyang]

Put em last for the Julli

[Tricky Lady]

Okay, I'll probably go and look for the game one of the first days it's released. There's one good game shop in my town, and I suppose that they'll have a few copies of RTW pretty soon.
I'll try to launch a Scipii PBM then (and will cross my fingers that its difficulty level's not too high; isn't the Scipii faction the one in Southwest Italy/sicily?)
Gotta start practising to beat those nasty elephants!

[afrit]

isn't the Scipii faction the one in Southwest Italy/sicily?)
Gotta start practising to beat those nasty elephants!

You got that right!! I am betting the Scipii will be the hardest faction to play!


Afrit

[Tricky Lady]

Heh heh, and I bet that I will play even more cautiously than I already do now .... assuming that I survive my first reign of course, lol.

[The_Emperor]

Yes I am up for the Julii campaign.

Partly because I am in a rush to conquer Britannia and kick some naked barbarian butt! (oo-er misus!)

[King Edward]

Thats A bit scary Emp!

I'd be interested In a RTW PBM. I'll keep checking this thread when it finally comes out!

[jimmyM]

the greeks!
ahh only a few weeks ... my uni work will suffer, but yes, i'd be interested in any PBm RTW malarkey going on - had an idea as i was reading on a different length of a players influence - based on something like the athenian/greek system where i think it was every couple of years that a general would be "elected" by the people...just trying to think of a way to avoid a reign being "too" long- either that or have people sharing reigns - eg. the other person playing the part of the older, more curmudgeonly ruler, with rules to suit (eg. decreased movement speed to account for "shrapnel in me' leg", need to spend winter in warmer areas, stopping every so often to complain and be malicious to those younger than oneself )
of course it would be hard to decide when to cut off the first players go (when does one become curmudgeonly, anyway? - in some cases i'd say about 5...) so anyway, just some ideas

[The_Emperor]

The other thing is that the game can go on past AD14 if we want. There just won't be anymore historical events or tech tree advances past the highest tech level of the time.

So for as long as there is something left to conquer we can in theory keep on playing.

[afrit]

@JimmyM,
we probably will have to split reigns or something in RTW because of the 2 turns/year. But who knows. Maybe with the new campaign, you accomplish less per turn than in MTW and it can balance out.

@The Emperor,
chances are that by AD 14 there is nothing left to conquer!

[Ashen]

Count me in.

And if I see one more person compare RTW to C and C I will personally decapitate you. The only clickfest RTW seems remotely similar too, taking speed and everything into account, is Cossacks.

[YAKOBU]

Hi everyone

I was going to hold on a RTW PBM but what the heck I'm in

I just love the colour blue (was upset the English were red in MTW) but dislike the hotter climates but hey my good friend Tricky Lady is going to start Scipii so can I join her?

[Tricky Lady]

Hiya YAKOBU,
Welcome to the Scipii team.
Just watched the family introduction videos on IGN and it looks like the Scipii and the Brutii will become my favourite Roman factions.
One week to go, yay!

[econ21]

In the Colosseum poll on difficulty levels, one of the CA developers (Jerome) has said that the difficulty levels are different from those in STW and MTW. He said "normal" was now designed for the mass market and would not be a challenge to experienced strategy gamers. In the light of this, I propose we do these 3 PBMs on "hard, hard". Sibelesz on the TWC has said the game is long, so it would be a shame to spend a lot of time on something that was unchallenging.

I guess Afrit, Emperor and TrickyLady have the ultimate say on how they start their campaigns, but I am just alerting them to Jerome's post. Any reactions?

[The_Emperor]

A hard/hard campaign sounds good, given I have heard the AI is good in RTW I think that would be a good starting place for most of us.

Join the Julii, because Real Romans wear Red!!