Unit speed in RTW is indeed WAY too fast

[Underhand]

A man in combat would probably be able to fight for around 12-15 minutes (and that's a trained fit man, with some generosity. I'd probably tire after 5 minutes of straight combat, provided I didnt die in the process) before becoming exhausted. If there is no second line to pull back behind it doesnt matter how big your army is, you'd rout or die.

However, the other side would also tire at a similar rate. Fair enough to say that if one side has reserves and the other doesn't, the side with reserves will likely win, but I doubt that in battle it was wise to replace your front line as soon as the men there became tired. I think that combat took quite a while before reserves were employed, and short periods of fighting were interspersed with slightly longer periods of resting and heckling for both sides. It appears from reading accounts of battles that the side which commited its final reserve last had the advantage, so there would have been a certain skill in judging how late you could leave reinforcement. Too long and your army routs. Too short and your whole army tires.

Indeed, I believe the Romans, in one of their early battles against their fellow latins, concealed their triarii by having them kneel to trick their opponents into committing their final reserve, thinking the Romans had already used theirs. The Romans won that one.

So it's not simply a case of fighting for ten minutes and then being rotated. You'd have to fight for longer than that (provided as you say that you didn't die in the process).

[Tim]

Well, I'm at about 145 B.C, and have fought 50 plus battles. Once we are engaged, every battle last no more that two minutes, and that's being generous. It is too fast. And, I hate to do it, I'm going to violate one of my posting rules, i.e. taking issue with another's view of the game. Someone posted that their battles (non-sieges) last 25 minutes or so I find that hard to believe. This game is great, but the battles have got to be adjusted. They are just too short.

And yet the major problem, as I see it, that has plagued the Total War gamesis present here too; poor Campaign Level AI. As was the case with Medieval, I'm moving into enemy countries totally desolate of any meaningful technology. I'm not talking about barbarians either. I'm mopping the floor with the AI. My BIGGEST problem is managing my cities. If you forget about one for one or two turns, you've got a rebellion on your hands.

[d6veteran]

I have to wonder if some of you are playing larger battles yet.

I played a large siege last night with many reinforcing armies on both sides and the battle went into the night.

I'm enjoying the single player as much as I hoped for.

[Kraxis]

I have to wonder if some of you are playing larger battles yet.

I played a large siege last night with many reinforcing armies on both sides and the battle went into the night.

I'm enjoying the single player as much as I hoped for.

And pausing was at a minimum?

I'm really joining in on either side here, just making certain you guys don't talk past each other...

Ohhh... How replays could have helped here. Both sides could come up with 'proof' within a second almost. Then it would just be a matter of determining which proof was the strongest.

[Puzz3D]

I played a Roman vs Carthage custom 1v1 battle with huge units, 10K denari and a 20% reduction in movement speeds. This put a total of about 5000 men in the battle. The major fighting lasted about 10 minutes, and each side got about 1500 kills. I spent an additional 10 minutes chasing remnants, and exhausion did slow down that process. The movement animations looked fine except for some noticable slipping on walking infantry at times. I didn't notice any lag, but I never had all the units in my field of view at once. For some reason the camera was restricted to the general's view, even though I had selected unlimited camera in the options. I'm going to try more battles with huge units and the 20% speed reduction. BTW, there is no tax for more than 4 of one unit type, and upgrades are very limited at 10k denari as are the better unit types. You can't just load up on all the best units at 10k by a long shot.

[Psyco]

What unit size are you playing on? I'm doing Huge, and the killing and rout speeds, as well as the movement speeds, seem fine. My battles usually take around half an hour, even when there's only about 3000 men on the field. When you get into the bigger battles (4000+), its hard to finish before the timer runs out (still cant find a way to turn that off. Anyone know?). The movement speeds are a bit faster than Medieval, but the fields are larger, so it doesn't make much of a difference. The killing speeds, although quicker than Medieval, feel better than Medieval. With the larger units (160 for most infantry, but up to 220[?]) the difference in killing speeds is negligable.
Thats my 2 cents.

[Red Harvest]

I have to wonder if some of you are playing larger battles yet.

I played a large siege last night with many reinforcing armies on both sides and the battle went into the night.

I'm enjoying the single player as much as I hoped for.

??? With the game imposed timer, how do you get a battle to go into the night? How do you get it to go more than 20 minutes? I've never seen the actual fighting last more than 10 minutes (and most of that is chasing routers.) A long battle with two full stacks usually has less than 60 seconds of melee before the cavalry runs everyone down.

[Morindin]

Well, I'm at about 145 B.C, and have fought 50 plus battles. Once we are engaged, every battle last no more that two minutes, and that's being generous. It is too fast. And, I hate to do it, I'm going to violate one of my posting rules, i.e. taking issue with another's view of the game. Someone posted that their battles (non-sieges) last 25 minutes or so I find that hard to believe. This game is great, but the battles have got to be adjusted. They are just too short.

And yet the major problem, as I see it, that has plagued the Total War gamesis present here too; poor Campaign Level AI. As was the case with Medieval, I'm moving into enemy countries totally desolate of any meaningful technology. I'm not talking about barbarians either. I'm mopping the floor with the AI. My BIGGEST problem is managing my cities. If you forget about one for one or two turns, you've got a rebellion on your hands.

Playing on Hard/Hard the AI is richer and more advanced than I am, and giving me quite a struggle.
Steamrolling the Gauls made me think this game was easy - how wrong was I.

Tweaking the speeds to a 10% reduction works good I find. It takes that edge off and units dont move ridiculously slow when they are fatigued.

I will happily post replays of combat lasting longer than 2 minutes - all multiplayer battles.

[d6veteran]

And pausing was at a minimum?

I haven't paused yet.

[d6veteran]

??? With the game imposed timer, how do you get a battle to go into the night? How do you get it to go more than 20 minutes?

I was refering to a single player battle.

[Red Harvest]

I was refering to a single player battle.

Ahhhh...OK. Some of the descriptions by folks are so contrary to what I've seen that I'm beginning to wonder if CA randomized our installs...

CA Installer (for Customer 1): "OK, he installed in the afternoon on a Thursday, so he gets 20 minute timer, no weather, units rout easily, cav are set to turbo."

CA Installer (for Customer 2): "This person filled out the registration form on a Friday, so they get no timer, lots of weather, and infantry that fight real battles."

[Nigel]

Tweaking the speeds to a 10% reduction works good I find. [...] - all multiplayer battles

Just for my information (dont have the game yet).
You mean to say that you can reduce the overall speed by 10% and go and play MP games with those settings with anyone? Or do both players need the same patch ?

[Morindin]

All my multiplayer games have been prior to tweaking with the config files of course :)

[todorp]

Thanks a lot for the speed mod!