Anybody else fight at troop eye level or have to use arial views to win.

[ericostermann]

Some joker made some comment about waiting till I am an expert and good a tactics which after 15 years as a Combat Soldier and the Tactics Training I find amusing. Yet I only deploy at arial view and after that run the battle at troop eye level. It is why the graphics were invented...I think it is easy to move icons from above, but the game captures well the loss of visibility and chaos that occurs on the battlefield where you can't see and everyone hardly does what you wanted in the way you wanted. You think your good never losing a battle? Try it without pausing the game at troop eye level only. Hearing horses and trying to see them. Watching those screaming Barbs coming at you. Not sure what is behind a building or down the street. Waiting in ambush as they march closer and then thankfully miss you or find you, ugh!. Jeez! Anyone can be an expert with the pause key and an arial balloon view. All or 90% wins, no loss claims....Yeah Right! No fight like a man!

[Shottie]

I use both, when I want to get down and dirty in the fight I zoom in and I control that way, but when Im in trouble and I need a way out, I zoom out and I use birdeye's view, it doesnt mean you suck at the game, or you have to play it that way its just the way you play.

[Akka]

I use both.

I give orders in the aerial view, and then I go down to the eye level to follow the action ^^

[Quillan]

Same with me. I've been playing tabletop miniature wargames for years, so I tend to play that way in RTW, but I like zooming down to low level to observe.

[Ulstan]

I usually deploy my men and then give initial orders from up above, then zoom in to watch the pretty show :)

With pause breaks every now and then to manage my missle units so they stop shooting my legionares in the back and to prevent 4 adjacent cohorts from burying a single engaged cohort in a pile of javelins.

[zhuge]

I also play with the aerial view camera. I do however agree that the general's camera is more realistic and a tougher view to play well, especially in city sieges. Having tried the general's view a few times, I could never really get used to it though I did win most fights comfortably (mainly fought on plains).

As for the pause button, players don't have the benefit of being able to react simultaneously as the computer AI does when giving orders. There are also certain things that individual unit commanders should know of such as to avoid friendly fire which you would have to order on the spot.
I've heard of players using lots of hotkeys and groupings when playing without pause but it certainly sounds tough and would demand really good reflexes and camera control.

[The Scourge]

I only use Generals view ,and never use pause.(Never have.)
As far as single play goes ,I couldn't go back to aerial .Just doesn't do it for me anymore.
Often use the command control feature as well ,which takes a little getting used to ,but you have to learn to use it effectively playing this way.

[EatYerGreens]

I think it's worth noting that, in the battles, the player is actually having to act at the unit commander level, as much as at corps commander or general level.

Or rather, they have to perform all of these things at once - overall strategy and individual maneuvers, what to attack, where, with what and how. To be able to do so, you HAVE to lift the restriction on only being able to have the general's eye view, to have a hope of keeping your AI-controlled units doing what you are expecting them to do, or at least be able to react to "local conditions" in a sensible way - such as deviating from the general's 'grand plan' in order to deal with a local threat which that plan had not taken into account (eg large numbers of concealed troops suddenly emerging into the open, making the original objective impossible, irrelevant or just plain suicidal, to attain).

Now, if a player lost a battle because of a massive ambush like this which they hadn't actually witnessed for themselves during the battle, thanks to their chosen viewpoint or self-imposed viewing restrictions and the game software didn't, by default, provide a post-battle analysis (say an overhead-view animated replay of unit movements) to help explain to them what went wrong, the average player would be left thinking there was some kind of program bug or a 'cheat' going on. Such is the power of disbelief, particularly where it concerns software. They have to be able to see it happen for themself and at least get a chance to react to what is going on. The friendly-AI unit control does respond to stuff like this happening but not always in a way that seems best - hence the frequent need to leap in and micro-manage.

As much as I think that general's viewpoint restriction is realistic and that things going expensively awry without your knowledge adds an extra layer of challenge, I also think that, for the purposes of playability and assisting players with less military experience in the learning process, the elevated, scrollable viewpoint and the overhead map (STW and MTW I'm referring to) are undeniably useful.

Where I said that the player is acting at unit commander level, I am also referring to the fact that orders are acted upon instantaneously, with the aid of the point and click interface. I still own copies of Waterloo and Austerlitz, plus the battered remains of the 16-bit Atari 1040 they ran on, which used a simulation engine developed by Dr Peter Turcan. In that, you actually issued your orders IN WRITING. This is directed at a corps or division commander and the game simulates the delegation of that order down the chain of command to the unit commanders, who then act upon it... or decide that they know better, or have more pressing needs to deal with and do something completely different instead The view of the units and terrain was somewhat overhead but the actual battlefields were something like 5 miles from one side to another and you had to move your general about from place to place if you expected to see everything, but never all of it at once. If the general was placed too far to the rear, the enemy were not even visible on the horizon as the visibility distance was restricted in that direction too. Sit and spectate while your right flank did an attack and you could easily miss the enemy counter-attacking on your left (and receive the messages about it too late) because you couldn't see that far.

These games even simulated the time delay inherent in a messenger travelling, on horseback, a distance of a few miles to reach the corps commander the order was directed to and thence down the chain of command, so it could be 15 to 30 minutes of elapsed battle time before you would see units even begin to do what you just asked them to (turn based game, 15 battle minutes per turn), so there was a lot of sitting back and waiting to see if your plans worked out as expected. There was even a slight risk of the messenger falling victim to enemy fire on the way there so that orders didn't get through at all.

In return, you would receive back reports about objectives being achieved, or attacks being repulsed, prisoners and cannon taken, casualties suffered, requests for artillery or cavalry support and so on, with corresponding time lags between their occurrence and your notification of them. It's then up to you to decide what was relevant and what was too late to bother reacting to etc. Real 'fog of war' stuff.

By contrast, the battlefields in the TW series are so small that - I'm guessing - the general's orders are being telegraphed by trumpets or some such and reactions are thus instantaneous. Luxury.

Remarkably, given that these games date from 1990, the AI control of the subordinates was actually very good and they were well able to act independently with minimal interference from yourself as the general, yet staying within the parameters of the pre-battle orders in which you'd set out your 'grand plan'.

Even more remarkable is that, since then, someone has seen fit to reinvent the wheel with regard to battle AI (highly possible that Turcan Research's work is still under patent though) and that, perhaps as a result, there are comments about daft things which it does being made here.

There is nothing fundamental, at the software level, preventing the AI control of more than 16 units at a time, per side, in a simulation either. These games could do it back then, the difference being that the TW series simulates right down to the man-level events rather than the unit level and that graphics and processor power can only cope with so much activity in 'real time' and they had to draw the line somewhere, such that the game would be at least passable, on an 'average' system. Given time, the artificiality of the reinforcements system for armies >16 units will become a moot point, as systems will be able to handle armies of 2000+ all on the field at once.

[Lord Ovaat]

It's entirely the player's choice. I use the aerial view (mostly) for two very good reasons. First off, I have NO subbordinant commanders. My troops are not lead by captains or anything else. If not ordered to do something, they will do nothing. If not ordered to move five feet to avoid being totally destroyed by one arrow tower, they will stand there unto death. This game is all micromanagement, like it or not. Secondly, I really enjoy being able to "watch" the battle. Since I really don't care how much enjoyment the computer gets out of the game, I place my priority on my personal enjoyment. The AI hasn't once complained about it, even while issueing multiple orders to each and every unit simultaneously. In all honesty, I'm still waiting for someone to truely unlock the camera, ie, MTW's -ian command line addition.

[solypsist]

what is General's view? is this a feature I'm missing out on? Or do you mean you just leave the camera ontop of the general's unit for the battle?

I only use Generals view ,and never use pause.(Never have.)
As far as single play goes ,I couldn't go back to aerial .Just doesn't do it for me anymore.
Often use the command control feature as well ,which takes a little getting used to ,but you have to learn to use it effectively playing this way.

[Satyr]

Being one of those that purports to win battles with few or no losses I guess I should answer this.

I direct my troops from above for the reasons already outlined here. If I don't do it they aren't going to do anything. This is especially egregious in city fights where my cav archers suddenly decide to run around outside the walls (and get shot to pieces). But once everyone is directed I zoom in and watch the battle. However, if my idiots start doing idiotic things I am not adverse to zooming back out and giving further direction. Now if I actually had troops that kept their and their fellow troop's best interests always at the top of their agenda then I might consider your philosophy. Until then, I will slaughter while you will be slaughtered!

Does this make me less a commander than you? I would argue that you are missing out and letting a poor AI decide that your troops should get slaughtered needlessly, and that is not being a good commander!