Things I would have liked to have seen in RTW

**Excalibur Bane** · 10-10-2004, 21:36

- Captains. They function much the same as family members, with the following exceptions: They can not govern cities, they can not acquire retinue(s) or vices and virtues that would add to influence or manangement. They start with zero in those categories. They cannot affect your standing with the senate or the people of rome. They do not age, and are not represented on the family tree. This could be toggled off or on during campaign start.

- Squalor. Squalor should have been far less then it is. It's destroying the game. Not only for the player, but for the AI. From the start of a medium difficulty campaign, the AI lost more provinces to rebels then to any other factors. This applies to distance to capital, order, and other similar factors.

- Titles. I'd like to see a return of the provincial titles. I think they were a nice addition in MTW and I'm sad to see them go in favor of the senate.

- Senate power. Make the offices meaningful. Have the appropriate offices actually do something. Like evicting other family factions, determine policy towards foreign factions, etc. As it stands right now, the senate serves no real purpose except to give you a few perks for holding the office.

Well, I guess that's it off the top of my head. Add what you'd like to have seen. :)

**Hannibal_Barkar** · 10-10-2004, 22:05

Captains - I am not really sure what you mean. You can turn your captains into Generals when they marry one of the family tree females. Usually this happens after heroic victories achieved by a captain. Having to micromanage all captains (every unit) might be a bit much for the game.

-Titles - Agreed. I regional titels added to atmosphere. It was anice treat of MTW that you couldnt as easily get rid of a bad governor. Corruption problems tied regional governor titles could be an interesting thing.

-Squalor - Try the rome total realism mod v1.0. Pretty good. Squalor and pop growth is reduced there. It seems pretty balanced to me. Also the enhanced AI faction behaviour helps.

H.

**chemchok** · 10-10-2004, 22:34

Captains - They don't function like family members whatsoever, you even listed all the reasons why yourself. Personally, I'm comfortable with the system in place as is.

Squalor - I like the idea of cities becoming so disugstingly filthy and overcrowded that a plague is apt to break out or that you get a significant negative population growth. Public unrest from squalor is my real problem. I'd like to see the effect squalor has on unrest reduced (maybe to 50-75%). Another option might be improving the effect that throwing games has on public unrest (although then there are problems with factions that can't build collosseums or similar structures).

Titles - I'm alright with them being gone, the ancillary system is what I see as replacing them, not the senate.

Senate Offices - I like the idea of determining the overall Roman diplomatic strategy towards other non-Roman factions if you control several important offices. I don't know about evicting other family factions (or are you talking about evicting them from senate offices?). What about allowing it, but your success is modified by the amount of the people's support you have? For example; if you have low people's support and evict another faction you'll have a significant increase of unrest in your cities.

**Ptah** · 10-10-2004, 23:44

"Fighting retreat" command - when an infantry unit is pit against forces more powerful than itself, this command will enable the troops to fall back slowly as they are fighting. The commanded unit will retreat about the same speed as the enemy is advancing, instead of staying one place. This command is intended for units at defensive positions to be more flexible and lenient to enemy attack, while buying some time for the human player to issue orders elsewhere. Units under this command will be vulnerable when an enemy gains distance and consciously charges into the slowly backstepping units.

**chemchok** · 10-10-2004, 23:57

Originally Posted by Ptah

"Fighting retreat" command - when an infantry unit is pit against forces more powerful than itself, this command will enable the troops to fall back slowly as they are fighting. The commanded unit will retreat about the same speed as the enemy is advancing, instead of staying one place. This command is intended for units at defensive positions to be more flexible and lenient to enemy attack, while buying some time for the human player to issue orders elsewhere. Units under this command will be vulnerable when an enemy gains distance and consciously charges into the slowly backstepping units.

Excellent idea. On the flip side, I'd like to see a unified "advance forward and engage" command for infantry lines.

**Hambut_bulge** · 10-11-2004, 00:21

Senate: I would have liked it if elections, instead of being essentially random, could be 'influenced', whether by bribery or outright thuggery. Such 'irregularities' were quite commonplace during the final decades of the Republic.

**Excalibur Bane** · 10-11-2004, 00:46

The point of captains would be to have for all intent purposes, the immortal generals that were present in MTW. I despise it to have to work a guy upto 10 stars, only for him to die off 50 turns later.

I suspect I'm in the minority here, but this is one instant were a sacrifice of realism for the fun factor would be good thing. It could just be an option anyway, allowing the player to choose.

**AngryGerbil** · 10-11-2004, 06:43

Titles were annoying in MTW if you ask me. I much prefer the way RTW does it.

Squalor. Hmm.. not sure yet how I feel on this one. A big part of me gets pissed when I have a massive army garrisoned in a city, it is on low tax rate with daily games, has already had it's population exterminated twice, all old temples replaced with new ones, and still....the squalor kills me no matter what I do.

This is the city of Patavium on my Gaul campaign. Julii took it from me early on but I took it back a bit later. True to form, I exterminated the populace, destroyed the heathen Roman temples and replaced them with my own. I held this city for quite a while, to the point where I had built all the Gallic buildings availiable to it. During its Roman occupation, they built an Arena (which is a good thing). Eventually, I had a full garrison, low tax rate, all possible building upgrades, no rebels anywhere near me, a good govenor, and daily games at the arena and it was still in the blue (%75). At that point I moved the garrison out, let the people rebel and take the city, then took it back and exterminated the populace again. This bought me some more time with the city but now it is getting to that boiling point again because of the squalor.

It seems to me that the only way to truly defeat squalor is to let the plebs take the city, then retake it and kill them all. In my ever-so-humble-opinion, this is poor game design. The game should let me keep my city if I can manage it. Well, I'm at a loss as to what else exactly I'm supposed to be doing in Patavium to keep the people happy.

EDIT**

And more on topic, one thing I'd like to see added: Let me keep playing! Am I missing something or is there no way to keep playing after you've won a campaign? It sucks. My Julii were above and beyond anything the world could throw at me, but my Gauls still had some fun times awaiting them in Egypt. Let me keep playing!! Yes, I know it won't "count" but so what?

I guess the only way to really conquer the map in RTW is to park an army in Rome to constantly beat back the Senate whilst you take on the rest of the map. I admit, it's a minor thing, but still, all the more reason the option should be there, it's no big deal! Put it in CA!

**Mr. taxi** · 10-11-2004, 09:43

Naval warfare would be pretty fun. Don't know how they'd have to work it out but that would be awesome.

Good pathfinding with larger unit sizes. Apparantly it suffers when you have larger unit sizes which is kinda bad since this encourages the use of smaller unit sizes which kinda takes away the epic feeling of battles.

**DisruptorX** · 10-11-2004, 19:34

Originally Posted by Excalibur Bane

Things I would have liked to have seen in RTW

The battles. You have to put in a modded text file just to view them while you play.

**Mayfield The Conqueror** · 10-11-2004, 19:43

#1. A "realistic" squalor model. Hmmm if they city is getting too dirty then you know what, you put the 10 legions you have parked in the city to work and get it better organized. Or better yet give you an option for "forced migration" besides building peasants. Make those small towns into small cities in a few turns!

#2. Like in M:TW, a screen to keep track of my family members (and their locations, something different than the family tree), navys, as well as a screen to keep track of my agents. I do not know where all my diplomats, spy's, and assasins are and having a list you can easily reference each turn will help me to keep em all busy!

#3. A way to "get rid of" bad family members.. I am sorry but I do not want to keep "Oppitus the Cruel" around with his negative management, poor influence, and -50% price to bribe. Let me assasinate the bast***!

**Hambut_bulge** · 10-11-2004, 19:53

Originally Posted by Mayfield The Conqueror

#3. A way to "get rid of" bad family members.. I am sorry but I do not want to keep "Oppitus the Cruel" around with his negative management, poor influence, and -50% price to bribe. Let me assasinate the bast***!

Just send him off to war.... alone!