Patch Wish List

[Colt374]

PATCH WISH LIST


I thought I'd kick off this thread to give everyone a place to list any non-bug related items they'd like to see included in a patch. This thread is not to indicate that RTOW is anything but a great game (I think it's spectacular), but merely tol give CA a central location to see those things that the community would like to see changed or added to RTW.

If you add something, please provide just a brief description... no stories please.

I'll start the ball rolling :

• Battle Speed : We all know all the complaints about this. Most people would like to see this slowed down. Battles are just too fast.
  
• Unit/Agent Micromanagement - it's be nice to have displayed on the agent/unit/fleet lists whether a unit has moved or not or whether it has a movement path set already. It's a real pain to click through each unit on the list to see if you've given it orders yet or not.
  
• Carthage weakness - Why isn't Carthage stronger??? It seems the main nation capable of standing up to Rome is the egyptians, and where's the histprical accuracy in that? Carthage gets wiped out by Rome way too fast... no challenge at all.
  
• Grouping Problems - Issues with giving orders to groups have to be fixed... It seems orders given to one group often also get given to other groups whether they are selected or not. (Yes, you could maybe consider this a bug)

Please feel free to add more.

Colt.

[Thoros of Myr]

• Ability to save replays in campaign battles! PLZ!

• Improved pathfinding in fort/city battles

• reduce the chance of many repeated attacks by
  smaller forces on the same region by the AI.

[Akka]

My wish list (by increasing order of importance) :

• A toggle option for being able to play all the factions right from the start.
• A toggle option for the battle timer.
• Killing speed reduced.
• Speed of running reduced.
• Cavalry power reduced.

[MiniKiller]

Akka if speed is reduced I dont think Cav need to be. I can take them out easily with Hastarri (spl) and they masacare if they get on ur flank...but they should be able to do that.

Fix the damn AI general and tactics for ally's ai battle's.!

[d6veteran]

Killing speed *only* reduced.

A ton of MP improvements (like try putting back the stuff taken out from MTW). See MP) wish list thread.

AI sally forth bug fixed.

AI enemy reinforcements should link up and attack you as a whole group, not willy nilly.

Retinue members should be transferable to other family members without having to be in the same settlement. Either make them agents that can move, or have the AI handle the transfer to account for distance.

Ability to hire retinue members like mercs. You build an academy and overtime a lot of intellectual retinue start gathering there. If you're popular some will join as they do now. Or you can hire them outright.

After the Legion reforms, 'old' units should be upgraded automatically. Even if it means a loss of experience or size or some other penalty. They should be upgraded, or forced to upgrade in x amount of time. Whatever the case they should not be allowed to persist in the game. That's the whole point of a wholesale reform of the military.

Hostage option in diplomacy. Often to secure alliances or treaties, family members were taken hostage.

[Quietus]

1. Slower charging/running speeds.
2. Faster unit responses to command (especially Cavalry).
3. Reduce friendly fire by Units and Structures (Archer towers etc.)
4. Disappearing Spies and Diplomats without notices.
5. Disappearing ships although not sunk.
6. Ability to retreat friendly AI reinforcement commanded by another general.
7. Ability to manually escape through the redline during complete ambush.
8. AI retreats in battlemap must be a "Clear Victory" not "Narrow Victory"
9. Archers/Slingers ability to shoot over low walls disabled after initial shots during siege.
10.My generals easily die while flanking or charging behind enemy back or just by merely grazing some troops while trying to flank or position.
11. Units especially on loose formation hug buildings and get trapped while being shot to pieces by huge archer towers. Like STW units hug hills and walls or MTW units get stuck on bridges.

That's all for now

[Red Harvest]

These are early impressions, so a number of them might be off target.

1. Reconsider some of the charge bonuses, especially against defensive types (like spears, phalanx) that should absorb charges well or actually inflict heavy casualties at initial impact.
2. Reduce elephant unit size, increase upkeep cost and/or make them a bit more vulnerable to proper tactics like thrown pila, etc.
3. Reduce tendency of units to engage in devastating friendly fire--particularly shooting their unit mates in the back of the head. This might come at the expense of allowing only the front rank to fire when the rear ranks would kill their own unit mates.
4. When turning off fire at will, make the units stop firing. They get off too many rounds into friendlies when I have to grab multiple units, "cease" fire at will, THEN issue a halt "command." Movement and action is so fast that I lose a lot of men this way. Especially when my cav is chasing down routers.
5. Make it a bit easier to get decent Carthaginian infantry early. The early infantry can't really stand up to much. This might be part of why Carthage collapses early for many.
6. Reconsider some of the the missile effectiveness. They have high killing power at the moment, even when shooting frontally at range vs. armoured and shield equipped units. My impression is that while this might be seriously morale sapping, it probably wouldn't be so deadly.
7. Don't allow attack of ships in port, or limit it to lower level ports, or make some port modifier to the defender's defense/offense stats.
8. Make it more likely for Numidians to ally with Carthage. It is counterproductive for them both to be at war with one another, because of trade and defense issues.
9. Get rid of the "no pila pause" for Roman units ordered to charge.
10. Allow the player to select which army they will control when there is a reinforcing army.
11. Fix the suicide daimyo problem.
12. Add some sort of group command that will send infantry against all nearest units, or all nearest infantry or something like that. We need some sort of overall "CHARGE" command or "ENGAGE" for our armies when the AI orders everyone at us at the same time. Perhaps even an "advance, then charge" type of command. This is certainly higher level AI, and it was something I was hoping to see so that units could fight more legion style. This could end the need for so much micro management.
13. Fix the black hole in the plaza--where units trying to cross the edge suck toward the enemy unit in the middle.
14. Make ship battles more likely to result in some lost boats, rather than heavily depleting all/many boats. Change the "ships sunk" to "ships lost."
15. Make routing happen a bit more slowly when flanked. The flanked unit should become very ineffective offensively immdiately, but should not rout so quickly.
16. Add more weather (at least in the south where all my battles have been so far.) It was way too stormy in MTW/VI, but RTW has been monotonously perfect fighting weather in the south. After MTW/VI's rain every day, I have to wonder if I should really ask for this

By reducing kill speed and doing things like item 15, I don't think the cav will be so powerful as it is presently. It might not be necessary to alter their stats.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I've only heard (don't have the game yet :bidcry: ) that the user interface (in battle) is the same as that of the demo. I wish (since this is a wish list) that there would be an option to switch back COMPLETELY to the old user interface (eg left-click to move, right-click for camer... etc).

But does CA care about my wishlist?

Only CA can answer that.

That is, unless I'm completely wrong about not being able to switch back to the old STW/MTW battle UI.

[Colt374]

Yep, 'fraid you are wrong, but never fear... There's three camera types you can choose from... RTS, Total War and General. Total war is pretty much the same as the old Medieval/Shogun Camera.

Colt.

[d6veteran]

I've only heard (don't have the game yet :bidcry: ) that the user interface (in battle) is the same as that of the demo.

Don't get dissapointed about the interface until you've learned it and used it. Because honestly, I think it is pretty good and I prefer it over MTW. They have added some commands and formation controls that were absent before. Having said that, there are some tweaks in order.

Regardless, the old STW/MTW options are still there, so this isn't an issue.

12. Add some sort of group command that will send infantry against all nearest units, or all nearest infantry or something like that. We need some sort of overall "CHARGE" command or "ENGAGE" for our armies when the AI orders everyone at us at the same time. Perhaps even an "advance, then charge" type of command. This is certainly higher level AI, and it was something I was hoping to see so that units could fight more legion style. This could end the need for so much micro management.

Couldn't agree more!! Where's my line charge? The AI can do it, why can't I?

16. Add more weather (at least in the south where all my battles have been so far.) It was way too stormy in MTW/VI, but RTW has been monotonously perfect fighting weather in the south. After MTW/VI's rain every day, I have to wonder if I should really ask for this

I'm playing on hard/hard and so far I've seen it snow only twice in 40 turns and never rain. Definitely need some weather.

[LittleRaven]

16. Add more weather (at least in the south where all my battles have been so far.) It was way too stormy in MTW/VI, but RTW has been monotonously perfect fighting weather in the south. After MTW/VI's rain every day, I have to wonder if I should really ask for this

Just a note: I think it really must be a southern phenomenon. I've been playing as the barbarians in the north, and believe me, there's all kinds of weather. Fog, snow, rain, thunderstorms, blizzards...the whole shebang. But in my Brutii campaign, which was fought mostly in the south, I only remember sunny days...

[Spino]

Just a note: I think it really must be a southern phenomenon. I've been playing as the barbarians in the north, and believe me, there's all kinds of weather. Fog, snow, rain, thunderstorms, blizzards...the whole shebang. But in my Brutii campaign, which was fought mostly in the south, I only remember sunny days...

I agree, I think the weather model in RTW is great. The weather in Greece, Italy, Spain and Turkey is not exactly known for its 'mood swings'...

[petska]

1. Ships shlould still be able to move when you add a land unit that has used all of its movement points. I mean how does that reflect to reality?

[LittleRaven]

1. Ships shlould still be able to move when you add a land unit that has used all of its movement points. I mean how does that reflect to reality?

No, they shouldn't. Each 'turn' represents 6 months. If an army has taken all its move points to get to the ship, then it didn't arrive until the 6 months are over. The ship can't move because it spent the entire 6 months waiting for damn army to arrive. ;)

[Lord Ovaat]

Speaking of AI fleets, I have yet to have a port blockaded. Because of that, I haven't blockaded any of my enemy's ports, unless instructed to do so by the Senate. This action on my part is based entirely on fear. I started my first campaign, which has been going for a week now, concentrating on naval build-ups, as I did in MTW, thinking I would need them. I had some really large fleets. Didn't quite know what to do with them until war broke out with the other Roman factions. My fleets withered quickly, and I lost control of the seas, but I never lost ANY trade income that couldn't be contributed to merely losing some trading partners. So this little wormy voice says to me, hey, wait a minute, Dude. If the AI ain't blocking your trade, and you can't really protect your coast because of the area involved, what are you doing in a naval arms race with the AI? Everything you build gets sunk, but nothing changes. The AI fleets only hit your fleets. If you don't have fleets, they just sit there. Cool. Put all the money in infantry and smash their cities. If you need to scoot some troops over to an island or whatnot, build a quicky boat. Soooooo, I'm currently doing this, and it's working. The AI is still producing boats, though. Many, many boats.

In MTW, you HAD to maintain fleets to protect your coasts, and to eliminate any threat to your trade. Just ain't so in RTW. One only seems to need a few boats for transportation. Since this is my "get to know you" first campaign, I have the campaign set only on hard, but I would think it wouldn't matter. Anyone else seen this? I haven't read anything else on these fleet points.

The current naval battle resolving system is so bad, although still better than MTW's "winner take all", that I'm not sure it's possible to ever eliminate every little dingy with one or two guys in it. It's also very annoying to have admirals pop out of your ports, but you can't add them to your fleets. WHY NOT? I can put two generals in the same army. So, you end up with a fleet under a three star, and a half dozen single boats with one or two stars. Not only silly, but then it's impossible to protect admirals who are needed. Also, fleet travel is rediculously slow. Sorry, but it wouldn't take me five or six years to row a canoe from Ireland to Rome. Unless I stopped for lunch. Maybe if I stopped for lunch.

Only have one more whine for now, mainly because everyone else has covered my others. My MOUSE is tooooooo slow. There's no way to adjust the speed. I'm used to a quick mouse for gaming. Anyone know how to tweak it?

Overall view of RTW? So far, it's superior to any other I've played. Congrats to CA. And knowing them, they'll be patching all the bugs possible.

[Spino]

- Strategic AI - Consolidation of force. The strategic AI lacks focus. Often its armies are too scattered, small and ineffectual to have any meaningful impact, especially against human players who like to keep fewer, well stocked armies on hand. The AI will often trickle small sized armies into enemy territory which are easily defeated, needlessly ruining their war effort and constantly boosting their enemy generals' command abilities to overinflated heights. Anytime there is an enemy army about the AI should consolidate ALL its forces in the immediate area into one army, put a general in charge (if possible) and either attack or wait to be attacked.

I would amend this point I made earlier. Apparently this isn't as big an issue with the larger, wealthier AI factions who don't have problems making large armies in a short period of time. However, I've seen this occur countless times with the barbarian factions. The AI should know to not do this with the relatively low tech barbarian factions who need weight of numbers to maximize their effectiveness.

[Osbot]

Im my seleucid campaign, the Armenian faction leader I just killed was 5 stars. He also had a 3 star heir, Egypt before they became extinct had a couple 3 stars as well. I think the reason you rarely see high rank raction members is they are frigging suicidal. I rarely commit my general units untill the turning point. They often lead with them, or commit them in horrible ways.

[Soulflame]

One thing that I think is rediculous is that an attacked naval fleet that lost has a sudden speed burst that leaves olympic rowers in the dust. You can never attack the same fleet twice (with your own 1 fleet, you need a second fleet which is a bit in the path of the escaping naval fleet so you can attack it with that second stack).
Even more rediculous is that a defeated trapped fleet can escape PAST your ships into clear territory. And with the few boats actually sinking, there is a really good chance that your blocking is never effective. I even once had a 2 boat army (biremes) with 5 land units escape the wrath of 7 (triremes) and put them ashore next turn where they were needed.
The outcomes are also completely random. I had a naval battle of 2 triremes, both 3 valor and shield and weapon both bronze ugrades, have a clear defeat against a 1 unit (12 men only) bireme with nothing, only to reload and have a heroic victory.
There should be SOME consistancy in naval battles, because right now, it's even worse then roulette.

I'm not too far in the campaign yet, but I'm already loathing the sea battles.

[Turbo]

I don't think CA will be addressing many of the patch ideas being posted on here, at least not initially.

Rome apparently has significant bugs that prevent people from playing the game. I am referring to the Memory leak bug and the mouse lag problems for people with the Geforce cards. You can read about these problems on the official site. There are a significant number of people reporting game crashes, failing to install, and lock ups.

[Akka]

Some additionnal points for the wishlist :

• Not being thrown out of the game when we win. I became Emperor and SLAM, game finished. Hey, perhaps I wanted to finish to conquer it all ?
• Less fleeing in naval fighting. It's REALLY tiresome to spend all the time to chase these ships in every corners.
• People of Rome are quite demanding. I had to conquer the whole Gaul, Germany, Spain, and good chunks of Britain and different island, before being allowed to take on the other Roman factions. The possibility of starting a civil war comes too late in the game, I think.

[Spino]

I don't think CA will be addressing many of the patch ideas being posted on here, at least not initially.

Rome apparently has significant bugs that prevent people from playing the game. I am referring to the Memory leak bug and the mouse lag problems for people with the Geforce cards. You can read about these problems on the official site. There are a significant number of people reporting game crashes, failing to install, and lock ups.

I agree. Usually patches that are released immediately after a game's release are small and deal solely with 'show stopper' bugs, bugs in general and game breaking imbalances that can be fixed and tested in a short period of time. Anything that requires serious tweaking and/or balancing is usually left for a more substantial patch later on. However, the fact that RTW is extremely playable right now and doesn't seem to sport any show stopper bugs means CA might decide to wait and release a large, bug squashing/tweaked/re-balanced patch sometime this winter.

[SpencerH]

I don't think CA will be addressing many of the patch ideas being posted on here, at least not initially.

Rome apparently has significant bugs that prevent people from playing the game. I am referring to the Memory leak bug and the mouse lag problems for people with the Geforce cards. You can read about these problems on the official site. There are a significant number of people reporting game crashes, failing to install, and lock ups.

Maybe so, but if we dont mention em there's no way they'll be changed/fixed. I'm only on my second campaign and clicking through the character/agent/fleet interface over and over and over again in the same turn so as not to miss anyone is becoming a BIG turn-off. Once that happens I'll stop promoting the game (in my small way) and start suggesting that people not buy it until things are fixed.

Shouldnt this thread be stickied? It is (potentially) useful.

[Gustav II Adolf]

Speed! Speed!

The bizarre speeds has to be fixed and the enormously long responstime to commands. Whats the fun with not being abel to react to AI tactics. When a cavalry charge is initiated you wont be able to do anything until after your unit has been devoured.

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[Medieval Assassin]

Advance would be sweet have some buttens

*Advance* ( Men go forward in formation in line*
*Advance 100* ( 100 steps)
Advance 50 (50 steps)
Advance 25 (25 steps)

[Jambo]

Can't this thread by made as sticky by a moderator? Surely, this would be the next obvious step rather than creating a new one.

Anyway, patch requests:

Ships:
Instruct the AI fleets to be more intuitive with regards to blockading the player's ports.

Slightly tone down the imbalance when autocalculating human and AI sea warfare

Fix the blinking trade incomes when building a shipyard or dockyard.

Campaign:
Fix devastation. At the moment devastation doesn't appear to be factored into income.

On the VH campaign setting most of the successful diplomacy only involves bribing and sleezing the AI out of large amounts of money for map information. Suggest making the AI more responsive as to the amounts one would need to complete the deal rather than simply dismissing it. Forming ceasefires and forming an alliance and asking a faction to mutually attack another faction never seem to work.

On a related note, suggest including an option allowing a diplomat to ask a unit to leave its country's borders?

Marian Reforms seem to happen a little on the early side, quite often before Triari are even buildable by the human player.

Suggestion to boost Carthage a little.

AI currently never seems to build assassins.

Increase the likelihood of the AI getting high star generals.

Slightly increase the likelihood of ambushes occurring.

Battle:
Instruct the AI to be more careful with general units to avoid suicidal generals.

Siege AI: When attacking stone walls the AI should deploy outside the missile range of the battlements. If against a lot of archers AI should endeavour to bring more than 1 battering ram, OR, attempt sapping more often.


More to follow as I find them.

[Drake]

What everyone has said plus sort out why some units at some times won't do as their told. Was fighting Germans at Trier, they were beseiging my relatively meager forces with spear warbands and screeching women. Knowing the AI would lose I took control myself, slowly worked my way up and surrounded them, taking out both women units but then when I went to strike the killer blow the velites who had used up all their missiles and were now meant to come in on the left flank DID NOT MOVE!!! I am convinced I could have won that battle if they had been in place. It's worst because there is no pattern to this failure, it's totally random so you have no idea when it will happen.

[Magraev]

If those units were on skirmish-mode they probably wouldn't engage? Should turn that off automatically if you order them to charge though.

My biggest wish is a tool to go through all agents and armies outside cities with movementpoints remaining. I've forgotten to move units too many times to count. It's too much like work to go over every inch of map to check all units. The existing tool takes you on a tour of all your garrisons too and that's just too annoying.

[Longasc]

Yeah, finetune Cavalry Charge Power and make SPEARS / PHALANX UNITS really worthwhile counters!

Besides that, I completely agree with RedHarvest .

[Orvis Tertia]

Give diplomats an option to demand that another faction remove his armies from your territory.

[maestro]

Please, please, please don't force a battle speed adjustment in a patch!!! I am really happy with the battle speed, it makes battles worth fighting. In MTW battles took soooo long I usually auto-calced the battles out of fear of boredom. In RTW I play every battle. I understand I'm probably in a minority here, but I'd like to see battle speed as an option rather then just nerfed. I also think that the response time from ordering troops to move and them moving is a good thing - keep it as it is. After all, it's realistic. You have to imagine yourseelf as a general barking orders at people in the heat of a battle; they'd take time to respond. Instant response isn't realistic and it means you have to plan a little ahead and try to anticipate the opponents moves....

But I would also like the ability to save replays of SP battles. If only I could play back my historic victory of the dangerous, mad and hairy-beyond-reason Gallic army!