What is the single most important thing to be patched?

[econ21]

I just wonder what one thing people here would realistically most like to be implemented in a patch? I know people have different issues with RTW as it is (fast game speed, ahistorical Egyptian units etc), but which one currently is most likely to deterr people from playing it much longer?

To start the ball rolling, I think for me it would be tweaks to the campaign AI so that the AI confronted you with larger stacks. As it is the game is in danger of just being too easy, unless you use the higher difficulty settings which just "feel" wrong. At hard campaign, I hate my navy always losing; hard battles are ok, but v.hard battles skews things too much to cav/missiles. Somehow STW and MTW managed to get the difficulty level at a more challenging level without absurdly overpowering AI units (actually, I suspect it was the transition from a Risk style campaign map to a more open that has undermined the AI).

There are various tweaks that together might achieve what I want:

(1) Some of this should be easy - get the computer to avoid going near clearly superior enemy (Heroes of Might and Magic 3 - Homm3 - was good at this). For example, as Carthage, I have had to confront almost annual pathetic Julii landings in Sardinia (e.g. landing 1 hastati vs my stack of 12+ top notch garrison troops). That is just braindead - Shogun did much better, the AI effectively doing a Terminator style "I'll be back" and not returning until it could do so in much greater strength next time.

(2) In addition, it should surely be easy to programme it so that the computer used two stacks to attack in mutual support rather than committing them sequentially to be defeated detail in the same turn.

(3) Other changes might be more subtle - eg as Julii, the Gauls never seem to concentrate their numerically superior forces enough. Again Homm3 was good at this, designating a "main stack" that the AI single mindedly pumped up and used much more aggressively.

(4) Tweaking build priorities might help. In MTW, neglect of the sea was the AIs Achilles heel - in RTW, it is overcompensating. Less ships, more troops, would serve most factions well.

(5) Finally, I would really rather see some Civ-style AI economic cheats. Make the higher difficulty levels give the AI more resources (or the player less) rather than weight the dice.

A little bit of tweaking along the above lines might do wonders for the game's shelf-life - to be honest, most of the other things on people's patch lists either don't matter too much to me or could be left to modders.

[Bhruic]

I'd also vote AI, but I'd vote for battle AI, not campaign AI. Admittedly, the campaign AI isn't the best. But it really doesn't matter much. It doesn't matter if it sends an underpowered stack to attack me, because underpowered or not, I'm going to massacre them. Make the AI tough enough to have a chance of winning a conflict or two, and I'd be much happier.

This would, of course, include fixes for all of the various brain-dead AI battlefield tactics, such as "stand there and get shot", and "look at the pretty pony".

Bh

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

Phalanxs need some serious work. I've stopped counting the times I've thrown my mouse at the screen while playing as the Greeks.

[Didz]

Friendly fire, we need the routines used in STW and MTW carried forward to RTW and the person who forgot them put up against a wall and shot.

[megger]

Friendly fire, we need the routines used in STW and MTW carried forward to RTW and the person who forgot them put up against a wall and shot.

I agree entirely!

[Colovion]

How about this:

"Fix things that were fixed in MTW"

I still can't get over the "step backwards" issue that RTW has next to MTW. If things were a problem in MTW, then fixed, then it seems incredibly astounding for the same problems to be here now. The game should play exactly like MTW on a control standpoint - unit grouping errors and friendly fire were never so prevalent in MTW, and thus shouldn't be a problem in RTW.

[Red Harvest]

Very hard to identify a single thing, there are several major areas that need work...I'll do it in general terms:
#1 Issue
Unit balance--historical counters should work, infantry shouldn't be the whipping boys for cav and archers in this period, cav should be good at running down archers, elephants should have historical weaknesses, cav shouldn't want to get near elephants, horses should avoid camels, rank bonuses/penalties should be important for phalanx, infantry, AND archers.

Runner up (but I could see reversing the order.)
#2 Battlefield AI improvement--especially with phalanx units.

I agree with you about the Strategic AI limitations. The AI likes to fight with one arm tied behind its back until it is too late to even untie the bound arm. I had a turn vs. the Gauls where I had a half stack army attacked by FOUR seperate Gaul armies in series on the same turn. It was easy. Combined they might still have lost, but there were enough that they would have caused a lot of casualties in the process and it would have been a strategic set back for this somewhat over extended force.

[Parmenio]

(1) Friendly Fire: The General don't take kindly to getting shot in the ass.

(2) Group command oddities: When The General shouts "Infantry advance!" He becomes vexed if the light horse take that to mean "Go jump on those pikes!"

(3) Lots of little army stacks: Dear AI, please concentrate your forces first, and then go hunting. Little stacks get eaten by the player and make for repeatative and eventually tedious battles.

(4) Suicide Generals: It is likewise advisable for all cavalry units to check whether light foot skirmishers have solid lines of horse eating heavy infantry backing them up. Galloping giddy oh into well ordered pointy things bad.

(5) Go easy on the boats: Disband a few unneeded ones now and then if you're not using them. But do use the ones you have. A great many ports go unblockcaded for no visible discernable reason.

(6) Standing still while archers shoot you down to the last man: Should only ever happen if you're Spartans on 'Defend' orders. The rest of you withdraw, charge or rout.

(7) Egyptians: Hey, let's not do the time warp again. Remember the Marketing Division will be first against the wall when the revolution comes.

(8) Assaults: Dear AI, don't bring a cavalry army to an infantry fight. Them horsey's no climb the ladders, chief. By all means seige the city until it falls or build saps - lots of saps before you assault.

(9) Carthage and Seleucids: Ah, the mighty and fearful empires of the... ...oh hang on, they're gone belly up again.

(10) Missions and goals good - Hojo horde bad: Other factions other than the Romans could use some objectives. For example: Reclaiming Alexander's Empire for the Successors.

[Pellinor]

Friendly fire, we need the routines used in STW and MTW carried forward to RTW and the person who forgot them put up against a wall and shot.

Couldn't he just be given a weapon and told to do what comes naturally?

[David]

(4) Tweaking build priorities might help. In MTW, neglect of the sea was the AIs Achilles heel - in RTW, it is overcompensating. Less ships, more troops, would serve most factions well.

Yes, that worked great. I think MedMod was so good, because the AI finally managed to build an army as advanced as the player's. No more fighting endless bunches of peasants/militia hoplites. Wouldnt it be easier if these units (like the militia hoplites) could be upgraded? So you have like lvl 1 spearmen lvl 2 ya know.

Besides that what I want in the patch is things that cant be modded easily (AI!). I dont worry too much about balance and textures and stuff, since these can be modded.

[Jagger]

I am surprised no one has mentioned the lack of movie replays for campaign battles.

Why weren't movies included? One of my biggest disappointments and surprises when I bought the game.

Hopefully in the patch.

[Duke John]

1. The numerous small (rebel) armies make the game tedious. Instead of enormous battles that can bring glory or the downfall of an empire we are stuck with lots 1-10 unit battles. Especially the small armies attacking settlements with large garrisons is silly.

Since the player most of the time has an edge (or I do hope so) over the AI, it would be pretty logical/easy (or so I hope) to change the code so that the AI checks the possibility of winning. I mean we have a little bar before the battle that says how much the chance is of winning when autocalculating. How difficult is it to code the AI in such a way that at normal level it always strives for 50%, on hard 60% and very hard 70%. If it is incapably of achieving that percentage then the AI shouldn't attack and instead try to merge with other armies.

If an enemy army invades one of the AI provinces, then he should form an army that can reach that percentage and try to intercept that army. If it cannot reach that percentage it will retreat to the settlement strengthening the garrison.

The computer is the ultimate machine for calculations, and the above is nothing more then tallying up combat values of units and compare it to another army within a certain area. Doesn't sound too difficult too me, but it would improve the game alot.

[Bob the Insane]

I agree the like of replays in campiagn battles is annoying but if I have to chose one thing...

Battlefield AI...

I find it hard to put my finger on it specifically but I find it too easy to beat with only minimal use of tactics. I can be being thrashed strategically, outmanuovered and out-numbered but I as long as I can bring the enemy to the battlefield I know things should be okay. Loads of other issues could be easily ignored if the AI was capable of savaging you on the battlefield.

[KiOwA]

Friendly Fire. Isn't.

Ok, I can accept that firing in a crowd of my guys engaging the enemy is inevitably going to cause some casualties. However, right now I'm killing alot more of my guys than the Huns, and I suspect this is because the AI focusing point for ranged fire (onagers included) is pointed directly at the enemy's front line, in the center. This may or may not be fine, but right now the arrows tend to hit my guys in the rear, particularly since they can't block with their shields in the rear. If I were an archer I would try to fire at the enemy's back when they're tussling with my guys.

Don't even get me started on archers shooting the bowman in front, from all of 2 yards. If I can see my arrow would spilt my compadre's head in two, I would NOT fire. Repeat, NOT fire. Only those with a clear line of sight to the enemy should be allowed by the engine to loose arrows.

[Red Harvest]

We've been focusing on game killers...stuff that must be fixed to get the interest level back. But the next big issue is battle enjoyment. That one hangs on battle speed for the majority of us. Slow down the kill rate and you fix some of the unit imbalance (cav) and AI issues. Charges will lose some of their tremendous punch. Players will get back a sense of control where an action is ordered and they get to watch it carried out. At present the player is too busy issuing rapid orders to watch any of the fighting. And pause is a necessity. It's like watching a movie with alternating 4x speed and "still" with no 1x and no rewind.

[Lonewarrior]

For me, the problems with connecting to games in MP, since I can't connect to any games

[Tricky Lady]

For me, the problems with connecting to games in MP, since I can't connect to any games

Sounds familiar to me. I have tried to sign up for some MP battles too, but the few times that I tried it never worked. When I tried to set up a MP game with a fellow Org member, he couldn't even see my MP game.
So even when MP might not be the reason why I bought RTW, it still would be nice if this feature worked properly.
There are more important issues to be fixed though (nearly everything that has been mentioned already ad nauseum at these boards).

[ToranagaSama]

For my money, if CA were to focus mainly upon a single goal, it would be to SIGNIFICANTLY reduce the number of inconsequential and meaningless battles. There are just toooooo many battles, and I've kinda lost interest.

Also, fully re-incorporate the tenents of Sun Tsu back into the game (to the level that existed in STW).

In both STW and MTW, a player had the capability of out-maneuvering the AI on the Campaign Map with well thought-out chess-like movements of one's Stacks. In this way it was possible to take a Province W/O fighting a battle(s). This capability has been COMPLETELY lost in RTW. I don't recall, specifically, but there is a Sun Tzu quote that directly states the goal is to win a battle w/o actually fighting it.

---

To the forum, think about this:

Virtually, if not literally, every post represents a truly legitimate, want, need or desire. Think about it, take all the legit requests of this thread, and add all the legit issues we've all been discussing since the Demo release, it all adds up to one helluva revamp. Beyond I would think the limits of a "Patch".

Given the above, and CA's *Patch History*, do you all really think we'll be seeing a Patch anytime soon?? How long did they take to do the MTW patches??? Compare what was needed, desired, and requestd regaring MTW to that of RTW. NO WAY we'll see more than a *single* patch. One might wonder if there'll be any patch whatsoever; and if so, it'd probably behoove CA to keep it simple, and focus upon such things as, "Path Finding", "Friendly Fire", and the like more normally subscribed to Patch Fixes. Along with some Stat and Balance tweaks.

What more could be expected in what would be considered a "reasonable" time period?

[Pellinor]

AI, the dodgy grouping and friendly fire need sorting out, but the one significant change I would like to see is about capturing cities.

At the moment the general policy is to exterminate the inhabitants of a city as soon as you take it. Compared to simply occupying the city this gives you a load of cash and significantly reduces the unrest; on the down side it means the city won't grow for a while, and the income form it is reduced a bit. With very small cities you may also be unable to build new units if the population goes down to the 400s. This makes conquest a no-brainer: you pile into the enemy territory and loot it, and the city is still standing to allow you to retrain units and carry on - you don't even need to leave much of a garrison.

The change I would like to see is for cities to operate at the level of their population, rather than the level of the government building. That is, treat buildings as if they were a lower level if the population reduces.

For example, if a city gets up to 12,000 population it can grow to level 4; the level 4 barracks can build Triarii, the port has 3 trade routes and can build quinqueremes, and so forth. If you sack the city and take it down to 3,000 people, it should be treated as a level 2 city. It can therefore only build hastati and biremes, and has only one sea trade route, until the population rebuilds itself.

You could of course go halfway and enslave the city, taking it down to 6,000 people (level 3), but if you want the benefits of a nice income and production capacity you would need to suffer (or be prepared for) the problems of a newly conquered city with lots of angry people.

The effect of this would be to make the strategic game rather more complex, and it would almost certainly slow the player's expansion down enormously (assuming he is a blitzer, like me). The AI tends to expand slower anyway, and so would not be hampered.

One other side effect is that plague or revolt in your home cities would become a much greater danger. At the moment they are almost more of a blessing than a curse, being cheesy (IMO) ways to cut squalor; this way, they would stand a chance of punishing the careless player.

The treatment of some buildings (or perhaps the rationalisation for it) might get a little complex: stone walls should still resist sieges better than wooden, but perhaps the arrows could be reduced (fewer people to man the towers); roads should still be as straight, but perhaps the trade bonus could go down (fewer inns and ostlers along the way); temples with fewer worshippers have ceremonies which are not so grand (or something); aqueducts and sewers leak; armourers can't get the wood; circuses can't get bums on seats; etc.

Cheers,

Pell.R.

[ToranagaSama]

[Old Reply I just got around to posting:]

At the moment the general policy is to exterminate the inhabitants of a city as soon as you take it.

General to whom? Not me!
I rarely exterminate, preferring to Occupy for precisely the reasons you imply---its harder!

For example, if a city gets up to 12,000 population it can grow to level 4; the level 4 barracks can build Triarii, the port has 3 trade routes and can build quinqueremes, and so forth. If you sack the city and take it down to 3,000 people, it should be treated as a level 2 city. It can therefore only build hastati and biremes, and has only one sea trade route, until the population rebuilds itself.

You could of course go halfway and enslave the city, taking it down to 6,000 people (level 3), but if you want the benefits of a nice income and production capacity you would need to suffer (or be prepared for) the problems of a newly conquered city with lots of angry people.

Very interesting.

The effect of this would be to make the strategic game rather more complex, and it would almost certainly slow the player's expansion down enormously (assuming he is a blitzer, like me). The AI tends to expand slower anyway, and so would not be hampered.

Couldn't the same effect be had, by simply refraining from the use of Extermination?

All in all some interesting thoughts.

---

Didz,

Thanks for the quotes, though neither is the one I was thinking of. I believe the gist of it was something along the lines of (paraphrasing), that actually fighting a battle was the greatest risk, and represented the failure of more clandestine efforts (including diplomacy, etc.); but, this one suffices quite adroitly!:

'To subdue the enemy's troops without fighting is the supreme excellence.'

My sincerest hope is that, now that they must be a bit flush with profits, and have what I presume to be stronger backing, they go back and re-visit the original planning document for Shogun. Using it as a guide along with modern tools and technology re-create Shogun evoking all the elements of Sun Tzu.

---

TS, finds it amazing the amounts of money some of you have at your disposal. Some things never change.

[Puzz3D]

I rarely exterminate, preferring to Occupy for precisely the reasons you imply---its harder!

Another thing the player can do is restrict himself to retraining only one unit at a time in a city, and require an empty recruiting queue to do it as well.

[Pellinor]

Couldn't the same effect be had, by simply refraining from the use of Extermination?

You're implying some degree of willpower

You're quite right, of course - you could easily replicate most of it by choosing what you do, but it's not quite the same.

Cheers,

Pell.R.

[Didz]

In both STW and MTW, a player had the capability of out-maneuvering the AI on the Campaign Map with well thought-out chess-like movements of one's Stacks. In this way it was possible to take a Province W/O fighting a battle(s). This capability has been COMPLETELY lost in RTW. I don't recall, specifically, but there is a Sun Tzu quote that directly states the goal is to win a battle w/o actually fighting it.

Perhaps:

'To subdue the enemy's troops without fighting is the supreme excellence.'

or

'Generally the best policy is to attack the enemy's strategy. Next best is to disrupt his alliances by diplomacy. The next in order is to attack the enemy's army in the field, and the worst policy is to attack cities.'

[avesta]

1) you sally forth to meet an ai army that is besieging you. you send one unit of yours towards him and lure him into the range of your gatehouse/towers and he sits there getting killed by the arrows from the gateshouse/towers one by one until he retreats. and his siege equipment isnt with him for some reason (even though he built it)

2) ai builds one ram, and one siege tower. he approaches the walls the ram gets burnt, while the siege tower reaches the wall. he then retreats.
when i was playing as parthians in one campaign the brutii would litterally do this EVERY SINGLE turn. im sitting there waiting for a good fight and he runs away!! very frustrating.

one thing that would be a nice addition would also be if sometimes the ai would defend the city center instead of the walls (this would make for some interesting fights) For example if the walls had been damaged a lot the ai would know the city center has less entrances than the walls do, and would accordingly adjust its defense strategy to blockades the entraces to it.