That's it, I'm giving up. Break out the alcohol.

[Colovion]

So my Greek campaign is in shambles. Why? No not because I suck at strategy or tactics. It's because of all of the freaking bugs in teh game. I can't handle it! I try to be understanding and think "well the Devs gave me one of the best games ever, they'll work it out" but I can't think that when I lose two cities because of retarded pathfinding, bugs and just overall stupidity on my unit's ability to do what they are supposed to do.

I'm not trying ot put the devs down but this is just beyond reason:

1) The Scipii attack my city, they have no archers so I think that burning up their ladders, ram and their tower will be no big deal - even if I just get most of them it'll give me an advantage and with my mass of phalanx in teh city streets I'll easily crush them. Yeah - good guess, it didn't work so well. The archers - get this - DON"T DO ANYTHING! I was swearing a lot when I realize my 50 archers strung across the wall didn't fire an arrow the ENTIRE. {insert explicative}. BATTLE! Perhaps this is a bug where when you set your archers to use Fire in teh deployment time there isn't a way in hell you can make them do anything other than what they first wanted to (wank off). So the archers don't do anything, which leaves me to have to gaurd the Gate area from the Ram which is now bashing it in, the burning oil doing surprisingly nothing besides killing maybe 12 guys.

I setup all my 3 Hoplits and 2 Hoplite militia in a semi-circle fashion around teh gate, easy to totally pwn the guys willing to walk into that, right? WRONG!! THeir Velites, Hastati and Cavalry just charge aimlessly in and totally work my guys! Mine had been in formation for the whole battle waiting for this moment and about 5 seconds after they engage in combat with the enemy they decide they've had enough of getting slaughtered and go running.... HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE!! If I could save replays in campaigns you'd think it was annoying just watching this unfold. Oops, looks like I accidentally forgot to deploy some Militia hoplites. So I set them up in a defensive formation in the streets, waiting for the Scipii hoard to just get totally skewered on my pointy bits. Yeah I think you know what is going to happen - after about 5 horses jump over and through their formation and their hastati get up and ... well yeah they lasted only long enough for me to watch them route - game over, loss of settlement.

2) Another defending my city - this time wood walls. THey have a butt load of rams - like 6. I have Cresshsan ARRrrsshers so I"m not too worried. Luckily these guys actually knew what to do with their bows and they burninated 4/6 of the rams which I was very happy with. I setup my hoplites and militia hoplites directly in front of the gaps which the rams will soon make. They had 3 units of Hastati and like 4 or 5 Velites. Long story short all my hoplites and militia hoplites route back to the town square. Not much combat - I think they as a unit had a "Sensitive" Vice where if they enemy calls them a bad name they start crying and can't fight anymore, running back to mommy. I have three units of half depleted hoplites back at the townsquare plus my General Cav. I plug the road which the enemy is going to soon be pouring through as a last stand. At first it goes well, but their Velites were just too much for my Militia hoplites, routing my entire army even after their General died and I had routed half of their army. Extremely disapointing that phalanx units can be beaten head-on by Vetlies and Hastati doing the Salsa, rowdy crowd of degenerates....

So my conclusion? I bought Far Cry and I'm going to play that until a patch comes out to give 200cc's of adrenaline to this game to maybe make the heart start beating again - but I"m not holding my breath. All in all I'm thoroughly disgusted by various flaws and glitches which destroy all semblance of enjoyment for me. All this coupled with the lack of a decent MP... I hope some of you still enjoy the game, but this is just utter idiocy.

[Basileus]

Exactly that has happend to me aswell, syracuse then thermon heh, so i stopped playing on har or very hard and i stick to medium difficulty now, i rather play medium then seeing my hoplites get charged by velites and rout.

[Colovion]

Yea - same exact cities too. I'm on Hard/Hard - which was cake with Julii vs Gauls.... now any kind of units which can stand up to mine on paper just roll over me - it doesn't matter if my units are setup perfectly - it's the mob, they can't be stopped in this game. Retards on paper.

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

It seems that, if I buy the game (still undecided), I'm going to wait for the first patch to see if CA can adress people's concerns and RTW's bugs...

[DisruptorX]

hahaha, the first time I played RTW, I posted a similar length rant on Penny Arcade, I figured I'd be kind enough to spare you guys.

My rant was about losing an entire campaign because my AI controlled men charged the enemy pikes and died. I also lost because this was un-fixed and the enemy light cavalry ignored my spears and killed everything.

Though Farcry is way more frustrating. Unlike RTW, which used to just make me quit to desktop(before I put in the slower kill rate mod), Farcry had me yelling obscenities at my screen.

Here you go, I dug up my rant just for you(censored for this board). You're not the only one who quit in disgust. Though I have been enjoying RTW now that I fixed it.

Ugh, I am finding myself extremely sick of this game. It seems that they added some great new features, like pre-battle speeches, seige weapons, and better atmosphere, and then took out everything that made medieval fun to me.

The battles are pretty much unplayable, footman move at a laughably fast rate. Skirmishers are running on foot at about 20 mph, it looks really stupid to say the least. Game speed is way too f***** fast, its not fun. Cavalry move like a f****** school of fish, and are pretty much unstopable, which wouldn't be too bad if the enemy didn't make more than half on each army out of them. I stopped playing the battles very quickly and just hit "autocalculate", as it saves me the frustration of actually having to play the battles on speed. RTW is the fasted rts game ever made, bar none. I do not find this fun at all.

Managing the world map is a chore. The new growth and trade system eliminate the pleasure I felt at building up my cities, as now cities grow really quickly then start to decay. The city pop up menues are a mess, convoluted, cluttered, and daunting. This used to be my favourite part of the game, but micromanaging now is too complicated and not rewarding.

The AI is god f****** awful. If you ever get stuck with reinforcements, the f****** AI controls them. This means that your other general immediately charges into the enemy spear wall, dieing horribly. This happens every f****** time. Allied "AI" is non-existant. Unless you consider a frontal charge with everything "tactics".

Half the factions aren't even playable, so I had to go in and change that in the text file. I played a bit with Pontus, and it was slightly more fun than the Romans.

I can say without a doubt that if ways aren't found to fix the battle speed, I will be back to MTW within a week or two.

[Colovion]

I like Far Cry's multiplayer more than Rome's - it's a no brainer.

I'm recommending FarCry to my friends - not Rome.

Oh and I was yelling many different assortments of swear words at my computer screen, trying to lull my men out of their probable hangover - there's no other way they shoudl act in such a way.

[Basileus]

Colovion just play on medium, you´ll see a big diffrence

Imagine me after i finished my brutii hard campaign and started my greek citys campaign on very hard, i saw makedonian light lancers charge my waiting hoplites and my hoplites routed heh

[Del Arroyo]

Still, I feel your pain.

[Colovion]

Medium is cake - it's no fun. I played MTW on Medium and I rolled over everyone no problem. I want to have a challenge when I messup and have the enemy beat my by strategy or tactics - not because Velites can beat my Hoplites head on. Hell, Hastati shouldn't even beat Hoplites straight on.

[Sethik]

In my experience if you follow up a Cav charge against a phalanx with an infantry unit the phalanx gets shredded. The horse will take loses but they have enough momentum and shock to weaken the formation. The follow up infantry should then have no problem finishing the job.

As for the archers part, it might be that the Romans either got too close or were too far, but I've never had that happen to me (then again I've never had archers while defending a seige.)

The only bugs I've experienced is randomly crashing to the desktop (usually when I'm in the Senate panel) and maybe some minor pathfinding glitches.

I haven't played the Greeks yet, but I starting to wonder if the Romans are a bit overpowered. They have more units than any other faction and get really good starting infantry. Later on in the game they become practically unstoppable.

Have you tried another faction? I personally don't like phalanx units as they are slow and become practice targets for missile units. Any horse missile unit will slaughter them. Archers and skirmishers won't do that bad either.

edit: If enemy infantry are spread far enough that they engulf your flanks, even slightly, then phalanx units are easily defeated.

[SirGrotius]

So my Greek campaign is in shambles. Why? No not because I suck at strategy or tactics. It's because of all of the freaking bugs in teh game. I can't handle it! I try to be understanding and think "well the Devs gave me one of the best games ever, they'll work it out" but I can't think that when I lose two cities because of retarded pathfinding, bugs and just overall stupidity on my unit's ability to do what they are supposed to do.

...

So my conclusion? I bought Far Cry and I'm going to play that until a patch comes out to give 200cc's of adrenaline to this game to maybe make the heart start beating again - but I"m not holding my breath. All in all I'm thoroughly disgusted by various flaws and glitches which destroy all semblance of enjoyment for me. All this coupled with the lack of a decent MP... I hope some of you still enjoy the game, but this is just utter idiocy.

Ha, a hilarious post. I know everone's down on the pathfinding in battles, but sometimes on the campaign map I make the most serious blunders. I guess I'm not always paying attention to the whole red/green divide, and my units will take the most roundabout path to get from point A to point B, and that path will leave point A (generally a very valuable settlement) open to seige. jeez.

[Thoros of Myr]

I'm not trying to promote feelings of utter sadness and disappointment with RTW, it is possible after all to love a game and be frustrated with it at the same time.

That said, I'm waiting for a patch aswell before I play any serious campaigns.

Purely for the sake of consistancy (which seems to be a hard thing to get out of RTW, in ways both good and bad) I'm playing on medium battle diff. Now if only the AI at this level was a bit more tactically compotent.

There is still a great deal of fun to be had testing mods and other ideas till then.

[DisruptorX]

I like Far Cry's multiplayer more than Rome's - it's a no brainer.

I'm recommending FarCry to my friends - not Rome.

Oh and I was yelling many different assortments of swear words at my computer screen, trying to lull my men out of their probable hangover - there's no other way they shoudl act in such a way.

There you go, I put in my rant posted the day after I bought RTW, youre not the only one who was pissed off.

[Red Harvest]

I'm finding the Sacred Band infantry to be about useless on very hard. In fact, I think I'm going to mod the name to "Scared Band." It is telling that the units that suffer the most as settings increase, are phalanx... And it is also telling that my cav deals with hoplites fairly easily on very hard.

I started using the high end infantry as a test, because I was tired of fielding an 80% cav army. My first few major battles in campaigns had been more balanced with infantry and cav, but the infantry were so awful about routing at the sight of the enemy that I relegated them to 3rd string. Looks like they are going back to benchwarming again.

[Colovion]

In my experience if you follow up a Cav charge against a phalanx with an infantry unit the phalanx gets shredded. The horse will take loses but they have enough momentum and shock to weaken the formation. The follow up infantry should then have no problem finishing the job.

As for the archers part, it might be that the Romans either got too close or were too far, but I've never had that happen to me (then again I've never had archers while defending a seige.)

The only bugs I've experienced is randomly crashing to the desktop (usually when I'm in the Senate panel) and maybe some minor pathfinding glitches.

I haven't played the Greeks yet, but I starting to wonder if the Romans are a bit overpowered. They have more units than any other faction and get really good starting infantry. Later on in the game they become practically unstoppable.

Have you tried another faction? I personally don't like phalanx units as they are slow and become practice targets for missile units. Any horse missile unit will slaughter them. Archers and skirmishers won't do that bad either.

In these battles there were no Cavalry up front - they always streamed in through their troops and somehow they found the space to get a charge going and leap over my soldiers without sustaining many, if any casualties. The archers started by not doign anything and wouldn't do anything the entire battle - The Romans start off too far away and come closer - no arrows left any quivers no matter what kind of swears I uttered. I think I need to resort to voodoo or withcraft next time...

I played as the Julii - they were Gods of Gaul, nothing coudl stand up to them - that was on Hard/Hard.

In the Greek Campaign I was at war (unprovoked war) with the following:

1) All of the Roman Factions
2) Carthage
3) Macedon

Even after Carthage and Scipii were at war with eachother Carthage wouldn't Ceasefire - well no biggie there because Carthage is weaker than a little baby in RTW.

I wanted to LOVE the Greeks - they were supposed to be my favourite faction - no dice - the game totally ruins them. I made no mistakes with my unit setup in either of those battles, it was flawless - but they rolled over me like so much cookie dough...

[DisruptorX]

. I made no mistakes with my unit setup in either of those battles, it was flawless - but they rolled over me like so much cookie dough...

Actually, yes you made the mistake of thinking that RTW is an accurate battle simulator and tried real tactics. RTW makes you painfully aware that you are playing a video game(the starcraft interface doesn't help), and video game cheap tactics are the best way to win.

[Colovion]

Actually, yes you made the mistake of thinking that RTW is an accurate battle simulator and tried real tactics. RTW makes you painfully aware that you are playing a video game(the starcraft interface doesn't help), and video game cheap tactics are the best way to win.

whoops,. you got me there

d'OH!

I better freshen up my Warcraft abilities, I'm going to go online soon!

[Red Harvest]

These last two statements about not being a simulator hit the nail on the head. The units look terrific, they just don't act in a historical fashion. While unit characteristics might be patched, it is questionable how much the AI will be improved. Even on "expert" in MTW you could count on high end units holding out for awhile (even though a unit a generation or two below you might still win the one-on-one.) However, base level spears did well vs. even heavy cav (although they might slowly attrit away, or run if anything went wrong next to them, or a second cav unit hit, etc.) I'm having trouble controlling my brood...err...army. Those zerglings...I mean cavalry are everywhere at once.

[Colovion]

My Terrans can't control the zergling swarm no matter how many bunkers I build!!1 Guys! What am I doign wrong!?

[Thoros of Myr]

My Terrans can't control the zergling swarm no matter how many bunkers I build!!1 Guys! What am I doign wrong!?

When in doubt...peasant rush

[ElmarkOFear]

Your just not clicking fast enough! :)

[ChaosLord]

Maybe Hoplites are just too weak to begin with? I'm not sure why you're suffering so badly to them. I'm playing my current campaign on hard battles/very hard campaign and haven't noticed my guys being totally useless in combat. Which should say something, since Hastati have been the backbone of my armies. I've only been fighting Carthaginians though, about to wipe out their third king and their faction entirely. But whatever bonuses they get on hard it doesn't seem to be anything that ground breaking, it might be that the Roman factions are overpowered though.

[Colovion]

I'm putting my money on the Roman factions being overpowered

I could be wrong but since they are all attacking me, and only them, I haven't fought anyone else.

[Red Harvest]

Maybe Hoplites are just too weak to begin with? I'm not sure why you're suffering so badly to them. I'm playing my current campaign on hard battles/very hard campaign and haven't noticed my guys being totally useless in combat. Which should say something, since Hastati have been the backbone of my armies. I've only been fighting Carthaginians though, about to wipe out their third king and their faction entirely. But whatever bonuses they get on hard it doesn't seem to be anything that ground breaking, it might be that the Roman factions are overpowered though.

I didn't have much trouble using Romans to whip Carthaginians on very hard/very hard either...except when I ran into 4 units of elephants in a stack, backed by a a fair bit of cav. Took me four armies to subdue them. The Carthaginian infantry is very weak early on. The phalanx units later have problems that all but the highest quality (120 man unit) hoplites seem to share. There are some balance issues that the game speed amplifies, and "very hard" amplifies them yet again. Those 120 man units look awesome though...of course I thought that about the "Scared Band" infantry until I used them in combat on very hard.

[hoof]

I posted this in an earlier thread:

Don't play on Hard if you want a fair fight. Here are some stats from some controlled tests I did:

A few experiments (all battles fought until 1 side routs, large battle, syrian flats during winter, no weather):

first number is my troops left at rout time, second is theirs, lower number always represents the loser

Hastati vs Hastati:

easy level:
(the AI never threw pila on easy, but my troops did)
61/10
65/32
60/13
66/15
62/14

medium:
35/6
13/21
13/54 (my general died early)
18/2
5/22

hard:
6/41
5/52
2/39
3/52
4/48

very hard:
(on very hard, my troops broke and ran much earlier than on hard, which is why there are more of them left at rout time)
17/64
11/57
18/58
11/66
24/61

As you can see, Hastati vs Hastati, all else being equal, the difficulty level does appear to dramatically affect killing ability.

As it stands now, you cannot expect your troops to hold their own vs equal enemy types. If that is how you like to play, that's great, but especially since Generals no longer improve unit killing/surviving ability, I don't like the fact that a unit of AI hastati might be really a unit of AI principles or heavier stats-wise on hard or very hard. I want to fight the best AI tactics, but on equal terms, unit wise. Why couldn't CA have stuck with MTW's model of leaving the stats the same, but increasing morale?

I first noticed this problem when I saw what should be equal/lesser troops walk right through hoplites defending a gateway. Now I know why.


Next I tried Cataphracts (the regular horse type).

Again the first number is my guys left, the second is the AI's, and each side starts with 54 horsemen.

Easy:
45/11
44/12
42/8
47/12
47/18

Medium:
30/20
27/18
5/29
1/18
24/11

Hard:
1/32
16/52
3/45
18/50
15/48

Very Hard:
(again, like with the Hastati, my men broke much quicker than on Medium)
22/47
19/49
20/50
19/47
17/48


I think people don't really understand how much of an edge Hard gives the AI in combat. Maybe MTW spoiled us, but I think a lot of the frustration going on is due to the artificial combat bonuses the AI troops get.

[Longasc]

I share your pain.

Hoplites are among the worst troops, really.

They are cut down by Cavalry, Archers, Roman Infantry. Especially if they are caught from the sides, but upfront, too.


This needs balancing!

Colovion brought up another example how far RTW's battle system is from historical accuracy or playability.

Storming a settlement is hard to control, but CTRL-A just works. I am such a tactical genius...

[Akka]

Not to do the little fanboy, but I'm somehow always astounded to see people who purposedly chose a difficulty level where their units takes big moral penalties and ennemies take big fighting bonuses, who are STILL surprised to see the ennemy rolling over their units

If there is one thing to complain, it's the pathetic AI during battles, that's all. All the rest of the complains I see here are only people who play on hard and wonder why the enemies are hard. This is simply giving the game a bad name on a point where it doesn't deserve it.

[The_Emperor]

Sounds like another example of the AI Cheating to win on higher difficulty levels in a strategy game. I never liked the extra bonuses that the AI got on MTW but at leats it was beatable...

Probably be best to have a Higher campaign map difficulty and a lower battle one.

[buujin]

Personally i've never noticed huge advantages u guys say the computer has on hard settings, this may sound patronizing but are u sure the armies ur fighting agaisnt don't have higher experience/weapons/armour values than your troops. I do however agree with the statement about the bad ai.

Im playing my first campaign as the juleii hard/hard and somtimes a find a full on barbarian charge hard to deal with, particularly if the troops have lots of experience or a general with a high command rating. But so far nothing has struck me as... unfair.

If u guys are disappointed with the ai or the combat advantages that the computer receives on the harder difficulty settings , then i would suggest u all try Multiplayer !. "multiplayer, whats that ??" i hear u cry.

I find in mp the units are much more balanced ( the way theyre meant to be ) and that theres no shoddy ai doing stupid or predictable things, its also far more satifying defeating a human player than a computer.

[King Azzole]

I managed to smash the oncoming romans with my hoplites the last few days, but only if you position them perfectly and pray the AI didnt bring cavalry, cause they somehow magically transport them selves over my spear points, onto my troops, and then some charge hard enough to break through 6-8 rank deep hoplites and come up froim behind. This is on Very Hard difficulty. To be honest, I thought the greek position was a hopeless one, I learned that if you immediately reinforce syracuse and attack macedons city of corinth from round 1, you have a chance. It appears once I took corinth and sieged Athens macedon was willing to make an alliance against the oncoming brutii. I love playing as the greeks except when i see the BS charges that somehow get through all those spear points magically, or the crappy "dancing" when you fight other phalanx.

To be honest guys I dont think this game will ever be fixed. 4 years to develope and they never noticed this stuff? Never realized they needed to fix this stuff? I think they either were not able to fix it without redoing some major part of the engine which they refused to do, lost enough funds to fix it, or simply had chimps in QA.