Where are the cities I yearned to crush under my Latin sandals?

[KRALLODHRIB]

I anticipated RTW like no other game for about a year or so prior to its release. I envisioned my legions moving across Italy, Spain, North Africa and the Near East, slaughtering and smiting as they marched, poetry on sandals, if you will. I dreamt of city after city falling to my seasoned troops-but what I'm experiencing is a handful of the larger cities with NOTHING in between.

There are so few cities in the game that I am left wondering about the commitment of the developers? I mean, yes, they do have the big towns and cities, but what about the smaller but historically important population centres? What about Pisae, Cumae, and Brundisium in Italy and Panormus in Sicily? There are a host of cities in the Near East that are conspicuously absent, where are they? Inclusion of these towns would have added to this game enormously. I find that I feel exhausted ( ) attempting to gain the last 15 or so regions in the game--something I never anticipated, and something easily alleviated by the inclusion of intermittent smaller population centres, something that would have given the game the type of depth and strategic replayability that TW fans have grown to love and expect.

Population growth is incredibly unrealistic in the towns that are available to conquer. Thus, we must contribute much too much time micromanaging the available towns to offset growth while balancing the need for financial growth. This was historically a non-issue. In RTW it assumes legendary proportions. Bring back reappearing factions and many, many more to begin with!

Also, Spain and Northern Germany are WAAAAY to easy to conquer (my experiences with the Near East and Africa are too limited to comment upon). This area (N.Germany) was virtually impenetrable to the Romans north of the Danube (where they tended to build townlike forts), who never really succeeded in a persisting strategy there anyway. Spain is similarly pathetically easy to dominate. More rebellions and uprisings would better simulate the vacillations of the Romans in these areas.

But overall, while I love the feel of the battles (why the speed slider was discontinued I'll never know) and the glorious legionary with his bright armour, scutum and gladius, the lack of smaller population centres critically flaws this game. More towns in Italy and elsewhere might have precluded the necessity of compromising historical accuracy for immediate financial returns provided by temporary enthusiasts.

If there is to be an add-on, add more towns and make the AI more potent in terms of rebellions. Add more factions and make them more difficult to squash as well as resilient. One thing, I pray to Jupiter above that CA does NOT create an impotent add-on like the Viking expansion which creates a whole new geographical area without integrating it both timewise and geographically with the original product.

[Grifman]

This is silly. I mean you already have what, 50 cities or so? That is not a handfull. What in heaven would more cities add, other than more micromanagement? Questionning CA's commitment just because they didn't put in as many cities as you would like is silly. The cities are representative, representing the capital of a province. Control the city, you control the province. Adding more than one city would render that paradigm ineffective, leading CA to invent some other way of measuring provincial control. Given all the things you could ask to be improved, this is a nit.

Grifman

[Sin Qua Non]

Please, I besiege enough as it is. Think of the farmers! Won't you please think of the farmers!

[jjnip]

I suggest you:

A) Try mods, there are currently several rather big MODs in progress. These mod makers take suggestions and are eager for feedback. Discuss ways, learn to mod, to create aspects of the game you feel are lacking. There are quite a few smaller mods you can download and try yourself. Play them give, post feedback so the modders can make changes to improve game play.

B) Play Vanaillla RTW or RTW with a mod and do this:

The org has a post called "Ironman R:TW Rules - Post em if you got em" in single/colosseum regarding the understanding of the limitations of AI and how to create a challenge.

The idea is start a new campaign, give it a theme, specific objectives, and you use these rules to limit and define the game. This is a educated, thoughtful, attempt to do something constructive.

Now start your new campaigns and attempt to do something that illustrates a specific aspect of RTW strategy relative to a specific Faction using these rules and then post your experience in these forums.

Determine level of difficulty, etc. Define the parameters of your campaign. I posted some themes in a different thread, at another forum, for example:

How about:

Druids Vision
You play Brittania, and backstory is you one of your Druids gets a vision and you must exterminate Rome. To win you to need to create a contiguous line of territories too and exterminate/occupy Rome. Can not ask for ceasefire or alliance or accept them nor tribute, nor sell maps. The vision says, "According to the Druid you must do it alone."

Greek Revenge
Play Greek City States. Must hold at end all Greek City States. Must defeat Macedonia and Thrace any rebel faction terrioties in Greece and then exterminate/occupy Rome. Can not accept or ask for ceasefire, or alliances or tribute nor sell maps. "Its Revenge, Zeus said so."

Alexanders General's Son
Play Seleucid. Must unify old Alexander Empire. Need contiguous territories connecting original, beginning Seleucid Empire with Thebes, Alexander. Contiguous territories to western coast. Contiguous means connecting territories, to shorten the campaign, not have to conquer everything. From here you sail, to finish off Byzantine, Macedonian Capital, Athens individually, these 3 territories do not have to be contiguous. Once you exterminate Rome and occupy it, the world will proclaim Alexanders Rebirth.

More ideas:

Spanish Glory
Take Spain get get rid of Carthage and Gual, to unify all of Spain. Create contiguous northern border up to and under England then take England/destroy Brittania. Create contiguous territory to Italy from Spanish territory, take out Rome. Can accept alliances, cease fire, no tribute, no selling maps.

Barbarian Warcry
As Germania create contiguous territory up to and take out England/Brittania. Create contiguous territory, up to and take out Macedonian capital. Take out Rome. Can accept alliances, cease fire, no tribute, no selling maps.

Exodus
Take Thracia, burn, destroy all city buildings for gold. Set tax rate highest. Take all family members and army and go up to northern most eastern territory and "make new start". You want these original territories to Rebel, so set tax rate highest and collect money till they do. Once there, create contiguous territory that goes from here to south of Black Sea and connects to Med Sea.

Eye of Seti
New Pharoh is born. Create contiguous territory up to and take out Carthage. Create contiguous territory up to and under Byzantine. Take out and occupy Byzantine, Athens, Macedonian Capital, and destroy their temples. Enslave all these 3 and occupy/enslave Rome all non contiguous.


You can make your campaign more unique, specific, by restricting units used, etc. For example, could a army of Peasants and Archers conquer Rome? Imagination is the key. Another example, how about restricting yourself to only 2 faction units per Army and the rest have to be mercenary units to make up a Army, whatever. You just have to create the parameters, conditions (rules) and a theme and then you attempt to meet it and you describe your experience.

[RZST]

i too agree, i had hoped that RTW would have Crusader Kings style strategic map while retaining the real time battles it had =(. although im not complaining i was just a bit dissappointed at the "regions" theyre just too damn big and as you said, few cities.

im still hoping that CA would try to implement crusader kings style campaign map in future games =)

[Uesugi Kenshin]

The regions have to be big because with some of the more arid regions there is not much farm land, also with too many cities many people would feel like they were just slogging through city after city in a monotonous game, not burning great cities in an epic campaign. Not all cities in the ancient world had epic walls or even stone walls. This game needed to be delivered before next century. Let the game be fun,if you try to criticize the game too much you will just end up seeing all of the faults, look at the high points, good graphics, large but manageable battles, large unit variety and such. Give the game the benefit of the doubt for a while assume it is good and let time tell if it is overall an enjoyable experience or a worthless piece of metal and glass.


Like this is a simple but great game, bounce the ball of the wall, what is better than that???

[KRALLODHRIB]

Couldn't agree more about enjoying the simple perfection of games.

I would suggest that there should be an alternative "paradigm" to the whole "regional" orientation of the game. It should be more local history and culture magnitude oriented. Cities that historically vehemently resisted Roman colonization or settlement should be incredibly difficult to retain-with or without population massacres and mass crucifixions. That being said, there are limits to the realism that any game can aspire to and still be both enjoyable and time efficient, this is self-evident and althogether too hackneyed to discuss once again.
And RTW is largely without peer in the world of rts/empire building, even with the unfortunate emphasis on spys, diplomats and ACHHHHH, assassins! For myself I can testify that the battlemaps of RTW and especially MTW are breathtaking and have occupied a great proportion of my attentions for the past two years or so.

Still, these (an increase in the number of cities, mostly SMALLER towns that will NOT increase population EXPONENTIALLY-a cancerous type of growth in the game that needs to be remedied ASAP) are not unimportant and petulant criticisms that are being made here. The ungainly distances between some cities is a valid criticism as it both slows the game down and provides an unreasonable and unfounded level of aggravation. Certainly Italy was not filled with barren stretches between the handful of cities that are represented? Neither was Spain nor the Near East. Keep the strategy map the same size, but add more towns. And I do wish to see MORE unit variety, more factions as well as more cities. Shogun showed what innovative developers could do years ago within a limited geographical area, I planned on the same innovation here with RTW. I'd like to play in a smaller area of the grand map and still win, without (insanely) owning 3/4 of the known ancient world by 150-100 BCE!

It is directly because of my particular love for this game that I make such criticisms. Like most of us, I want the developers to not only surpass their closest rivals but leave them trailing behind in another universe; let them bounce the ball off the wall, TW is a series for the clever armchair strategist with an exacting taste.

[lancer63]

It would be interesting to be able to take enemy ports and fortify them against your enemy. even build some facilities there and create 'special' units like the genoese sailors. After all many ports became cities on their own in RL.
But we must remember that Rome's time was one where city states ruled the world and to me the game is superb as it is, I'm sure it will improve with the expansion as it happened with VI.

[Tamur]

B) Play Vanaillla RTW or RTW with a mod and do this:
...
The idea is start a new campaign, give it a theme, specific objectives, and you use these rules to limit and define the game. This is a educated, thoughtful, attempt to do something constructive.

Wow, this is an absolutely great idea. It would be great fun to incorporate these into custom campaigns.

[nokhor]

KRALLODHRIB,
are you talking about
a) smaller cities with no major or political importance where it would just add flavor to the game if within a province there would be multiple places to besiege? if so then i feel there would be too much of an emphasis on siege warfare and less on battlefields.

b) if these other cities do have political and economic importance like the ones in the game currently do, then i think you are arguing for basically just more provinces but of a smaller land area than the current ones. which is fine, but then you would need to capture maybe a quarter of the map as opposed to roughly the half that you need to now to win. which means that 75% of the campaign map would be basically not relevant for your campaign. if all i needed to win the game was to take italy and gaul, i'd feel kinda jipped.

i think the number of cities picked was predicated upon the size of the map, and the size of the map was predicated on what the romans knew of the world.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

What Rivals????

[Lord Ovaat]

Personally, I don't want MORE cities to have to siege. I'm really getting tired of sieges. 'Bout the only battles I fight in the field are against rebels. And usually, one or two of those each turn. It does get a bit monotonous. Aaaah, what a thrill it would be to watch my cavalry run down routers who weren't "gray".