You've got to be joking....

[DisruptorX]

Hey, this is my first thread in these forums, so I'd just like to say "hi" to everyone.

Anyway, I've been playing the Rome:Total War demo for a few days, and have downloaded several mods. Yes, fully armoured men run faster than omlypian sprinters with Nazi endurance, and yes the combat is *way* too fast paced. I still really enjoyed the demo though, and am looking forward to the full release, which I will probably buy immediately. Plus, it won't be too hard to turn off the annoying unit confirmations and green arrows, both of which scream "Warcraft 3". I'm sure that people will release mods that fix the pace of battle, which is not nearly as satisfying as watching your hordes of soldiers march into battle in formation as you pull off carefully placed moanoevers, impossible in the current version of rome.

However........on this site I have heard several people mention that "druids" will be a unit in the game. WTF? *inserts mandatoy joke about building an ancient of wonders to produce them* Please someone either tell me that this is indeed true or if this is just a sick joke.

[Papewaio]

Actually the Romans main political enemy in Britain where the Druids. As spiritual and community leaders they rallied the Celts against the Romans.

But they really should be part of the diplomatic phase.

They definitly should not be Getafix...

[McGowan]

Not just in Britain, if I remember correctly, the Druids were also an active driving force in the slow march towards unification and confederation in Gaul. As for units... I can't see them on the battlefield, though of course they did fight during the final showdown in Britain, (on Anglesey, I believe) where they were slaughtered.

Perhaps they will serve the same function as priests, bishops, and imams in MTW...

[Colovion]

[QUOTE=DisruptorX it won't be too hard to turn off the annoying unit confirmations and green arrows, both of which scream "Warcraft 3".
.[/QUOTE]

Welcome.

I agree.

here's a mod to get rid of those Green Arrows

Here's lots more

[DisruptorX]

Now, I know we have all heard the ridiculous "we hope to reach a broader audience" line which roughly translates to "we have seriously dumbed down what made our game good so that the common xbox user will understand how to play it". However, I don't see why CA felt the need to implement a slew of features from warcraft 3, such as the giant bar taking up most of the bottom of the screen and a different control scheme, when even the mainstream video game press (such as gamespy) thought that Medieval was better than warcraft 3.

[kchickenlord]

I couldnt agree more, people (not on this forum) have been giving me a right bashing when i say the unit confirmations destroy the atmosphere in the game (even when you switch them off theres still the warcries and celebration sounds which sound just as bad if not worse than the confirmations!!),
the green arrows could be helpful to people on samll screens or with bad eyesight and they can be turned off, theres a true/false statement in the preferences file in your demo directory, so no worries there.

Im hoping that the stupid voice acting and soldiers on speed are a function of the arcade mode.

As for the druids, if this game has spells or anything like it, its going back to the shop.
It really gets on my nerves when games are dumbed down to gather a larger player base.
Unless there is major optimising being done over this month i believe that CAs statement that RTW will run on any system that could run MTW is a blatant lie.

But its all a worst case scenario, im sure we will all be pleasantly suprised, like the people who cringed when they saw the vikings with the horned helmets on the viking invasion box!!

[sunsmountain]

Yeah I wouldn't worry about it.

You say Rome TW 'inherited' warcraft III controls, but the only thing i've seen is the sometimes irritating unit sounds and the ugly green arrows for n00bs.

If it's the casualty bar you're referring to that reminds you of wcIII, the casualty bar was there in Medieval TW, on the mini map (and is still there).

The control or icon bar with the cards you can group can be disabled, there are also a few lines in the preferences.txt:

CLASSIC_UI:FALSE
ICON_BAR:TRUE

So i'm sure you can set the old classic interface and hide that icon bar, if you insist. This hasn't been perfected in the demo yet, because not all options/flags have an effect. In the full game they obviously will.

Hopefully you can customize the way the mini map is displayed, i really like the old one better.

[DisruptorX]

Yea, I was referring to the user interface, not the casualty bar, which I actually haven't noticed yet. I don't want to see the Starcraft style interface, with a fourth of the screen taken up by a bar. In the left corner is your map, in the center the unit info, and in the right, unit commands.

Don't take my displeasure as warcraft III bashing, I enjoyed the game. However, Warcraft III is essentially the same game as warcraft II. 8 years of innovation brought the following changes: 2 new races, 3d graphics, heroes, unit groupings, build queus. Joy. Warcraft III was originally envisioned as a rpg/strategy hybrid, which would have given the game much more replayability. The whole command and conquer style resource gathering game has run its course, those type of games are now officially boring.

What RTW seems to share with warcraft is:

Controls. Left click to select units by "boxing" and right click to issue commands.

Confirmations and selection arrows: already been touched on.

User interface: see paragraph 1

Druids ~:p

I'll admit I was exaggerating, but I don't want to be reminded of what is quite frankly an inferior game while I play total war.

[sunsmountain]

well, aint nuffin wrong with boxing and right clicking... ~:p