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.

[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.

[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.

[Spino]

Forgive my lack of subtlety but the single most important thing that should be patched is the...

A.I.

With miscellaneous bugs, tweaks and balances a distant second.

AI is at the top of my list. For games like this AI is almost always at the top of my list! I love RTW but the more I play it the more I realize the game in its current state has little long term value. It all points to the inability of the AI, both tactical and strategic, to make sensible decisions. Now I did write 'sensible' and not 'brilliant'. I have a firm grasp of reality and unless a revolution in AI programming occurs in the near future I don't expect see Napoleon or Caesar in a home computer game until well after my demise. No matter which faction you play or how you mod it RTW's AI leaves alot to be desired.

I simply cannot overlook the fact that CA poured four years of sweat and toil into making Rome as pretty, feature packed and as grand as it is but gave AI development the red headed stepchild treatment. Why do the gaming gods forsake us?

[Swordsman]

Make bribing harder! Doesn't do much good for the AI to have large stacks with Captains getting bribed/disbanded for piddly amounts. As Seleucids, I had 300K and was bribing hordes of Greek & Brutii full-stacks for 2-3K apiece (sometimes even less). Probably could have won with a token army or two to fight the AI Generals that weren't easily bribed. Have since established a "house rule" to keep from over-using bribery, but the option is always there. Fix this, THEN enhance the AI, and I think you've got something...

Swordsman

[The_678]

Everybody has already made good points, but after the A.I. I want the phalaxes fixed. No dancing and bring back rank bonuses. What's the point of the phalanx really if there is no rank bonuses or kickass bonuses against cav that they should have. But especially the dancing. I've played as greeks only in custom battles and have found I've lost fights or got seriously wounded because my men were dancing and got flanked for no reason then had to reform the phalanx to attack the flanking enemy and lose 10 men in the process and had to switch to swords because while reforming the enemy got in close. I really want to play as greece or macedon or even selucids but it's really hard when the phalanxes are all messed up.

Also fix the damn time limit!

[Praylak]

Simon's #1 is probably my number one as well. I like the battles, but they are so frequent and silly they become boring. This is ruining it for me when I have to fight off the AI's waves of pathetic "militia captian rushers". Make a real army,... please. Don't be attacking my superfortress containing 1000 elite with a 3 unit militia hoplite, only to run for the red line when my first unit steps outside the gates. Gad, thats so frustrating. You can't autocalc, because of the Vices your general will get. So everyturn I fight all these wanna be battles.

It's compounded by my #2, "all AI attack the player, and ally with all other AI" cheese. Gaul and the Julii allied for 110 years. I mean, come on.

There is no AI. Anything the AI does is just scripted subsets that fail. For the now, I hold my faith in the mods, but I'll keep an openmind for the upcoming patch.

[Ellesthyan]

unit and faction limit!
They must be taken out, whatever it takes

[zhuge]

Help me, I really, really would like to see almost all of the changes mentioned above and can't decide.
I'm a bit greedy so I'll go with AI (both campaign and battlefield), unit balance and bribing.

I was a HoMM enthusiast for many years (all games before HoMM4) and thoroughly agree with Simon's suggestions. Building an uber stack and using that stack intelligently and aggressively would go a long way to making the AI much more of a threat.

Well, let's see if the coming patch for AI is any good... and if it isn't, it's time for yet more rant... mwahahahaha

[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.

[dismal]

I'd start with the campaign map:

- I'd also like to see something that forces the AI to concentrate power. I'd like to face big stacks of top of the line units. Maybe a resource bonus on higher difficulty levels to help them pull this off.
- It would be nice if the AI learned a little from experience. After it has seen my all cav archer army for the 20th time, it should stop making armies that are 80% phalanx or eastern infantry.

These seem fairly easy, and bigger and better stacks would go a long way to overcome the battle map issues.

On the battle map:

Cav or cav archer dominated armies seem to be a serious problem for the AI. This can either be solved by beefing up the counter-units, increasing the upkeep cost of cav, or improving the battlefield AI. It would be nice if it would recognize "Hey, I'm up against an all cav-archer army" and adopt approprate tactics.

[Zorn]

Remove the stupid map selling.
Or at least, make the AI pay much much less for maps.
I don`t sell maps in My games, but from what I have read in numerous guides map selling is much like a money-cheat.
If you need or only want some money, you can type in the cheat or sell your maps to the AI. Both works the same way and is equally easy.
As for the rest, I agree completely.
I would like to add that the AI should protect it`s flanks better. From what I read and from my own experience, most battles go the same way. Armies clash, player flanks with a unit or two and all AI units run away.

Lastly, I would like to have HA reduced in either range, power or ammo.

[Red Harvest]

About the map selling...I only do it with the very hard factions like Spain, Scythia, etc. where I have no money even though I start out building econ stuff, not armies. I don't game it by asking incredible sums for the map, I take the first offer, and I don't try to sell again. With "early" maps on hard or very hard campaign I'm getting about 600 to 1000 denari--enough to build a structure. Poor factions have given me as little as 400 and split it into two turns. Not unreasonable. So I see it as something to do when you have no money or are in the hole. I don't use it with an already robust economy, that would be gaming it for sure.

[econ21]

Lots of interesting responses. Going a bit off topic for a moment - anyone care to explain map selling to me? I always try to trade maps early in my games but get almost always get rejected and so give up. Anyone care to explain how to sell them? (I hope you are not saying factions will buy maps but not trade them? that would be wierd)

I actually like seeing more of the map for fun - but is it also true that you can only trade with cities that have been revealed?

[Maltz]

I've only succeeded to trade military access, not maps.

I have tried to buy maps from AI, but they sell their map for very high prices, way higher than the amount they would pay for mine. (except if I ask them to pay 99999 turns of 2000 denari tribute, though ) So if I want their maps I usually ask for something else in a combo - for example, trade rights + trade map. This way the AI usually loves to say yes.

***

Diplomacy works fine so far. I already expect to see everybody attacking me in higher difficulties - it was this way since STW. I really want to see AI put lower priority of seeing other's maps. Selling map is a bad result that comes from some overvalued map information.

Does the program let AI not be able to invade you if they don't knwo your map? I don't think so. Pontus usually invades Thrace's Tylis with no diplomat around. Thrace also don't send diplomat to Asia minor. So AI is capable of seeing the map without map info anyways. Then why does AI want your map? Maybe sell it 1/10 of the current value is enough.

The AI does let family members to lead full-stack army - but only if they have "extra". I think the AI puts its priority to have family members in the settlement. If that's changed - combined with much-increased bribing cost of settlement & army - then it's flawless.

For diplomats I think the current bribing price is fine. Sometimes I also want to bribe spies...

***

In terms of battlefield AI I have some specific wishes:

(1) Overpowered cavalry? Neh.

AI controlled units now doesn't really change their mind easily. I wish to see them more flexible, more open-minded... you can call that "intelligent" I guess.

For example, now when AI see an enemy's (humna's) shock troop passing them on the left, they keep charging forward only to be soon charged in the arse. Experienced human players never do that. Whenever I see something advance to my back, I back off my entire line to finish these potential threats first, sandwich them between my front line and my reserves. Yummy.

Many people complain cavalry (HA is another issue) to be too powerful - only partly true. In one setence: AI fails to stop their advance and prepare for human's cavalry's, or any shock troop's flanking action.

Therefore, may I call it "shocking troops" over powerful. Cavalry stands out only because they shock faster than infantry. However, shock troops is powerful in human's hands only, not in AI's 100-finger-yet-dumb hand.

I'd cry to see AI do respond to a potential flanking threat, like a real human competitor does. If they suddenly turn to face your cavalry and charge you, leaving your absorption slow spears waiting like idiots, if you find your cavlry's first 2 lines row to the ground at the moment of contact, nobody will ever complain cavalry too powerful. :)

(2) How'bout horse archers? how about less arrows over the walls...

Horse archers are insanely powerful now - not in the shock value, but in their speed. Nobody can touch HA while they are in skirmish. However, historically HA do run over Europe like that in my limited knowledge, so it's fine as long as the sieges are reworked.

Horse archers should have its lethal weakness of siege - but now they are superb in sieges. We just line them up outside the gate and enjoy a shooting festival. The AI might have tons of missle units to counter, but most of the time they just run them around to become live targets.

Except there are height advantages allowing soldiers to see thorugh the cities, no missle units should be able to shoot through the wall, in or out, unless they are ordered to fire at a specifc area. That will balance the HA issue out a lot. :)

[Colovion]

Here's another vote for the AI to be fixed

[LordKhaine]

AI. Mainly the battlefield AI though, that's the worst part of the AI right now by far.

[Unseen Potato]

The phalanx has to fixed!!!!!

I hate it when my phalanx start to walk right when they are engaged, so that the enemy can flank them from the left

[nokem]

[QUOTE=Zorn]Remove the stupid map selling.
Or at least, make the AI pay much much less for maps.
QUOTE]

Agree - way overvalued.

Eg: I've just kicked Egyptian ar$e all the way down the road from Antioch, but I'm being diverted from my real purpose elsewhere. So I send in my top diplomat to arrange a truce.

In a single negociating session I establish a ceasefire, trade rights and an alliance - with a faction whose heir I just routed!

Pharaoh is a wuss! So I slip in a quick money-maker request to sell a bit of map info. You would have thought I'd demanded his daughter's virginity. Alliance cancelled, trade rights shredded and the next few turns wasted chasing chariots all the way to Alexandria. Does my dip lose points for that? I can't work it out.