RTW multiplayer is dead

[Morindin]

Well I must say, im having an absolutely blast playing RTW LAN (especially those historical battles! They're great).

Much more fun than I ever had playing MTW by a long way, so I'm figuring most of the problems are the pre-game state, i.e. the lobby, gamespy, etc.

Last night I played a 1v1 Romans vs Carthagians using Pre-Marius armies, I used the classic checkerboard formation (huge units, 8 deep formations) and we had a very long engaging melee of about 30 minutes.
I pulled my histari back when they were getting exhausted and sent in my Principes, and did the same with my Triarii, and it worked effectively.

If the pre-marius Romans wernt so strong the battle would have lasted a much longer time, as I mananged to keep reinforcing my front battleline, whereas the Carthagian general didnt support his frontline units quick enough due to the weaker early Carthagian infantry.

Anyway, in terms of the actual game itself (past gamespy and the lobby) these are my issues, I havnt tried post patch (so these may have been fixed).

Bugs:
Game sometimes slips out of sync
90% of Replays are different from the actual game.
Various other bugs that plague single player (group bugs, movement bugs, etc) plague multiplayer as well. Im sure CA is well aware of these by now.

Personal Issues:
Would love the ability to group a single unit into a control group of its own.
I.E. If I only have two units of cavalry + general, ctrl-5 for left group of cav, ctrl-7 for right wing of cav, and ctrl-0 for general. Right now you cant group a single unit into its own group
Camera needs to be a little bit less restricted, i.e. so you can move to a unit on the other side of a castle wall away from your main group more easily.
It would be nice to have different Denarii ratings for attacker/defender.
You need the ability to withdraw units from battle, so you dont get stuck with a small bedraggled unit on the edge of the map and you cant resign.

Balance Issues:
None so far, apart from the Barbarian races tend to get wasted. Perhaps they need more units per group, I dont know.
Some of the stronger races matchups, Romans vs Carthagians, Egyptians vs Numidians, Seculoids vs Greeks, have all been very close so far.
I didnt think Elephants were overpowered personally, but having said that Id wouldnt want to face them as the Gauls. :)

Specs:
GF4 5800 FX Ultra + GF4 Ti 4200 (game runs fine on max settings on both cards, well done I must say).
WindowsXP Professional SP2
Intel P4 3.0GHZ not overclocked
512MB Kingston 433MHZ Ram
ASUS P4-800 Delux Motherboard + Crappy Onboard sound provider.
256k Up/Down ADSL (Yet to try online play however).

Im sure the online multiplayer community will be able to add to this list in a structured and mature manner yes?

I also think you should post your system specs, so the devs can tell wether your problems of 'laggy gameplay' 'continual crashes' are due to your crappy computer/33.6k modem/outdated video card with 1980s drivers/66% overclocked CPU running at 70 Degrees C, etc