Total Realism gone unrealistic...rant

[eadingas]

Sorry, but I think with 4.0, RTR has gone over the border of realism to simply 'more complicated'. This is from the readme:

"
- CARPENTER & CARPENTER'S WORKSHOP: It is now necessary to construct a Woodworking building in a coastal province in order to build any type of port. The first two levels of port buildings require a Carpenter, and the last level requires a Carpenter's Workshop.

- SOFT STONE QUARRY & HARD STONE QUARRY: These quarries are necessary to construct in order to build many of the large scale stone projects in the game. These include Large Stone Walls, Epic Stone Walls, the Imperial Palace, the last two tiers of temples, and the Coliseum. They require your province to have the Stone resource. If it does not, you must collect a large enough labour force in order to import it from afar. Check the in-game tech. tree for any further information. Right click a province on the campaign map to check if it has the Stone resource.

- LABOUR PARTY & LABOUR FORCE: These two 'buildings' are necessary in the case that your province doesn't have the stone necessary to construct the proper buildings. In this case, you must collect a large enough labour force in order to import the resources from a neighbouring province. They imbue a -.5% growth penalty, and a -1% growth penalty, respectively. See the in game tech. tree for any further information. "

Eh... this is getting silly. It's natural to assume that there WILL be a carpenter in a town. And if a city is big enough to have stone buildings, it WILL import stone or dig marble in a quarry. And, the slaves used for labour are not counted in the provinces population (they can't be recruited), so why would using them have any impact on population growth? Because the wives of good citizens have less hunky slaves to mate with? The game is beginning to look like Settlers. What next? A Woodcuter building necessary for Carpenter? A Butcher for provinces with 'pigs' resource and Baker for those with 'grain' resource, that produce food needed to build a mine? I'm already having my doubts about the Blacksmith building in vanilla, and here they're adding more useless craftsmen. Total Realism, indeed.

[anti_strunt]

Seems a bit silly, yes. The Emperor of Rome should hardly have to spend his time building carpenters' workshops, should he?

[Duke John]

IMO the whole techtree concept is unrealistic and should be seen as a game element. The RTR mod took that game element a bit further.

Since this thread is already a rant...

I would like to see a TW game in which you use policy and diplomacy to form your empire. With resources (be it treasury, recruits, etc) being the only restriction. R:TW already has the restriction with resources, so I wonder wether the building techtree can be somehow transformed into different policies. A shame that units cannot be restricted, if a player wants to make armies composed of Triari there is nothing that can stop him. It would be realism if that could be achieved.

:continues to dream:

[Myrddraal]

A shame that units cannot be restricted, if a player wants to make armies composed of Triari there is nothing that can stop him. It would be realism if that could be achieved.

If units could be made more speciallised, then this could be made possible. If Triari were helpless if outflanked / or be very vulnerable to archery. If all units had a big weakness, then any balance army would always beat an army of one unit type, as they would be able to exploit that weakness. But this brings up other realism issues. *Sigh*

[Duke John]

No, I meant something else. For example units that are made out of nobles. There is no unlimited supply of them, yet you can build them as much as you like. Or the fact that it takes years to train a proficient longbow archer, and when to many are recruited you are actually depleting the pool of longbow archers...

pool, mercenary pool, I still believe that the mercenary system is far better than the current uninnovative standard RTS system. In M:TW it was impossible to use it since the AI refused to hire them enough. But in R:TW this is no longer the case, but now we are left being unable to change the skin to suit the hiring faction. And we can't hire mercenaries inside settlements and buildings do not affect the rate of regeneration. If that was all possible and we could make buildings unique it would get pretty close to being realistic.

[Dead Moroz]

You are too strict, eadungas. All is correct. It's TOTAL REALISM mod. So it must have all these carpenters, labourist, masons, etc. I'm sure in next release they will have individual name for each soldier, management of salaries for different workers, food management, map scale 1:1 and requirement for iron to build any good troops.

[King Azzole]

You are too strict, eadungas. All is correct. It's TOTAL REALISM mod. So it must have all these carpenters, labourist, masons, etc. I'm sure in next release they will have individual name for each soldier, management of salaries for different workers, food management, map scale 1:1 and requirement for iron to build any good troops.

LMAO

[ICantSpellDawg]

i dont understand why the bodyguards are late 1st millenium bc praetorians as early as 250 bc

i miss having that cavalry and it is totally unrealistic

[Mus]

i dont understand why the bodyguards are late 1st millenium bc praetorians as early as 250 bc

i miss having that cavalry and it is totally unrealistic

Apparently someone sold him on the idea that Roman Generals shouldnt have cavalry bodyguards.

Its really a baseless opinion and all it does is serve to make the Roman generals less mobile than other factions.

Generals are of the Equestrian class after all. Some of the other changes are pretty dubious.

Havent had a chance to see what I think about 4.0 yet myself. By the time I noticed it the link is apparently broken.

[tommh]

Apparently someone sold him on the idea that Roman Generals shouldnt have cavalry bodyguards.

Its really a baseless opinion and all it does is serve to make the Roman generals less mobile than other factions.

Generals are of the Equestrian class after all. Some of the other changes are pretty dubious


This irks me. Your opinion, being based on as stated nil experience with the mod and a complet adsence of knowlege as to the arguments involved is the one that is baseless.

Very briefly:

Roman armies did not feild effective Heavy cavalry throughout this period. At the approx rate of 1 man in the game being approx 15 men in reality the ROman General units represent complety unrealistic masses of HC and give the ROmans a completly unrealistic force structure.

Roman Generals (acually consuls and proconsuls with the occasional legate) were not of the Equestrian class but were of the Senatorial class. They were not placed at the head of cavalry forces ( a role filled by the Equestrian prefects) and did not lead massive cavalry charges (this was the Macedonian tradition). TO have them in this role is very unrealistic.

To the extent that Roman generals had a 'official' bodyguard unit, that unit was infantry. Their are numerous examples of this. Thier is no examples from history of Roman companion style HC charges by Roman Generals from this period.

Roman commanders only rarely engaged inc combat themselves. When they did they frequently engaged on foot (for example J. Ceasar) although their a few examples of them engaging on foot (although these are almost always examples of Devotio).

A case could be made for making the Generals equites and reducing or eliminating the production of equites in the early game. This would be a reasonable approach as well but runs into the "suicide General" problem. One advantage of infantry generals is that they do not suicide charge. This also means that attempts to make the General purely a command unit will also fall.

Overall, the Generals unit has to serve too competing purposes, a actual command unit, rallying troops etc, and a effective battlefield unit. While having them be cav served the first moderatly well it made Roman play unrealistic and less fun. Having to acctually play with the historic Roman weakness in cavalry makes the game both more realist and more challenging.

[tommh]

Normally I'd let Giaus answer for himself but I he's in the middle of a move so I thought I'd give it a try.

First off you have to keep this in context. RTR is striving to improve the realism in RTW, this does not mean that it will be a complete simulation of reality. Any element of the game taken in isolation without reference to it's level of abstraction will appear ludicrious.

For instance the "buildings" of total war do not of course represent single buildings anymore then the city in a province represents a single settlement. They represent a commitment to a specific aspect of a society ( temples for example) or a commitment to an infrastructure (blacksmiths - metal working, weapons creation, etc.). They are an abstraction.

By adding a lumber industry requirment (and the need for forests to support it) the realism mod has added more realism to the building of naval power. It this all of a sudden vastly more realistic then the existing system? No, but it is a modest step forward.

The Stone quarry labor system similarly deals with stone working. Quarrying stone and moving it is very labor intensive. Having to transport such heavy loads requires more labor. Again, a modest advance in realism.

As to why the "cost" of labor is pop. This is the fundamental underlying economic model of RTW. What this reflects is the fact that labor spent on shifting stone for large public projects is not labor spent on private projects that would increase quality of life and improve birth rate.

More importantly the out come is that some areas will naturally have less populated cities then others due to natural constraints.

[Dead Moroz]

Good ideas, tommh! So there is only one thing left - rename game from "Total War" to "Total Management". I hope it will be the best economic simulator.

[Boudicca]

I think I will continue to use it, until I find a better one...or Activision releases an AI - Fix. With the current AI, Rome ist not worth much more, than being an economic simulation. (allright, I am exxagerating, but this is a thing I really hope for)

[alman7272]

Good ideas, tommh! So there is only one thing left - rename game from "Total War" to "Total Management". I hope it will be the best economic simulator.

What's with the attitude?

[khelvan]

Sorry, but I think with 4.0, RTR has gone over the border of realism to simply 'more complicated'. This is from the readme:

Hey, why bother to comment on this? You're part of a mod team that will make things more realistic than RTR can hope to. No need to even talk about RTR ;)