I tried this mod and I've lost interest about half way through my first game, a Julii short on normal/normal. The game has dragged on for several weeks because I could barely motivate myself to play it. At least I managed to finish my handful of vanilla short campaigns in a timely manner.
For every change I like there is one I do not like. The main killers for me are the reduced move and kill speeds in battle; I play MP as well now and I am finding it incredibly hard to switch between the two different speeds all the time. I also find it profoundly tedious; I keep playing my battles on full speed acceleration while I wait for the melee to *end* already.
The second killer blow comes from some design decisions I don't like; fair enough, there are plenty in the vanilla game I don't like either. I find having to work through three (count them 3) different versions of the pre-Marian units is every bit as annoying as not being able to use all three units at the same time from the start. Every time you upgrade your barracks your existing armies become obsolete, for what real bonus I can't tell. Maybe a couple of extra points on attack/defence.
I don't like the smaller archer units; I liked the vanilla game’s archers.
I don't like the slowed down building speeds; I now find myself skipping turn after turn while I wait for buildings to finish. I never did that in the vanilla. For the record I don't expand quickly so it's not that I am a rusher wanting new toys *now*. In fact after about 35 turns I had only gained 4 cities because I was playing slowly.
I have also encountered some bugs, nothing bad and I know it's a work in progress, but they are enough to harm my already wavering interest. I hate hearing my slingers with the archer sound effect, for example. I also get CTDs, something I have never, ever met in the full game. The already irritating pathfinding bugs in large cities are worse in this mod.
I do like the larger map, I like the increased movement ranges on the camp map, I like a few of the new unit skins, and other things too. I know I could mod many of the things I don't like but I just do not have time.
I am not entirely happy with either version of the game at the moment. Roll on 1.2 and RTR 4.0 so I can try again.
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