What is the single most important thing to be patched?

[Glycerus]

I see the AI is doing things such as building too many ships and not enough troops. It also does not concentrate its forces as I would, if I knew I were coming. But that is the point. The AI doesn't know when I am going to attack, or from exactly where. Nor should it know that navies should be minimized. I find it more realistic that some factions are naval heavy, because some actually were. Last night I saw a Greek general in my province deterring trade. I rushed out to attack him, since I was in a war with the Greeks anyway this would be the perfect opportunity to take out one of there generals who was there all alone. I found it odd that the AI would leave a general that exposed. I rushed out with a full stack, and was ambushed by the bulk of the greeks army. Being in a road march formation, I was completely vulnerable. I got my but handed to me and ran home whimpering, all because I the AI baited me with a general and I took it. Next time I shall stop and think about the fact that a general would not be out cutting off trade.

[jjnip]

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...2&page=2&pp=30 might be good read for people with problems with Phalanx unit.

They work as well as any other unit for me. Powerful unit.

[HicRic]

I'd vote for the AI making more troops and fewer ships (but more than in MTW!).

I faced a huge number of Greek ships in the game I'm halfway through right now. They didn't bother me, because I then just finished taking their last remaining cities. Having loads of ships didn't stop me sneaking one through with an army and wiping them out due to lack of men defending their empire.

Oh, that and I think it's weird that an army of Equites can beat anything I've seen so far. Even spears-charge in the front, stop short, have another unit charge in the back. When they start to turn, have the original unit finish the charge. Which ever unit is caught between the two routes and is cut down.

I really can't be bothered to mess around with phalanxes since I can just charge everything in the front and if that doesn't work, send some cavalry around the back. Works every time.

Let's not forget seiges, too. The AI loves to have units stand in the main town square and resolutely not move while being killed by archers.

[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.

[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.'

[Herakleitos]

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

I totally agree... allthough I try to maintain the same "house rule", when my not-so-well defended edge of my empire is attacked by three full stacks at the same time and I have 300K in my pocket it is just to tempting to make them 'disappear in a puff of denarii' (Freely quoted from the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy).

In S:TW and M:TW bribing armies was more expensive and there was no 100% guarantee they would accept the bribe. What if in R:TW there would be a chance that the army would accept the bribe and say: "Thank you very much, you're denarii went to my boss and I am still here... what are you going to do about it...?!"

[Turbo]

I would say the most important thing to be patched is the suicidal generals. I am fairly certain that they will be addressing this in the soon to be released patch.

[pyrocryo]

1. The secondary attack should be fixed. To me, it's still alea jecta est-ing whether i already asked my cavalry to attack with swords or lance.

2. rank bonus should be brought back, especially for spear units.

3. As i recall, No Barbarian Horde ever attack in a single line over a long distance (I thought that's why romans win all the time )

4. The testudo button should be fixed. i lost many idiot legionaries who insists to holding his shield testudo like. . .When he is ten/twenty paces OUTSIDE the box.

5. Bring back the at-will/hold formation button. Guard seem useless.

6. PLEASEEEEE give at least a simple animation of sea fight. I don't care if we can do the tactics but at least i want to see WHY two decere get beaten by 6 biremes.

7. Fix the family names. As I recall there is NO family group in Rome with the cognomen Brutus or Scipio. Change it to other. Cornelii and Aurelii is quite famous families. The Marii or the Pompeii also quite famous. The guys should check the family names of Roman Noble families . As I recall except Gaius Julius Caesar, the Julii family have never been considered except as second-tier Patrician.

8. Add some more interesting campaign and campaign maps. Caesar's Gaul Campaign, the Social (Italian) War, the campaign against Mithridates of Pontus (BTW where's cappadocia and what's-the-other kingdoms? I thought they are separate from Pontus until Mithradates came up?), Punic Wars, German campaign, etc.

Hope they here this

[anti_strunt]

IMHO: First the AI, all parts of it; then the silly friendly fire...

[Maltz]

I have a minor idea - to be annexed here instead of posting a new thread.

For some reason I feel RTW battlefield is not real enough - but I couldn't identify the reason. There are corpses lying everywhere already.

Now I suddenly realize it is the "blood". No corpse bleeds, they just lie down. How about bloods on the battlefield - a reasonable amount of blood stain on the corpse, also spilling to the nearby ground. Under very high unit details bloods are also spilled on warriors who achieve certain number of kills. If he killed 10 he would be soaked in dark red, not shiny heh.

So you really get the gross feeling of the battlefield

[Mazoch]

The computer AI:

Campaign: Less small stackes, more big / high quality ones. I would much rather fight one big tough battle than 100 small meaningless ones.

The AI needs to be able to defend itself better somehow. Even on the highest difficulty its way to easy to outmanuver and slaughter armies 5 times the size of your own.

Battlemap

Pathfinding, this one really annoys me, especially in towns where theres a lot of narrow areas. Unis will stop in thier tracks (got a big army slaughtered today during a siege because none of my units were smart enough to walk through an open gate. Instead they all stoped up in a big group right in front of the open gateway.. just under that nice warm oil bath.), engage enemy units seemingly at random (just who would that unit of archers charge headling into a phalanx formation after thier general just told them to more around the phalanx formation?!)

I would love to see the units keep thier formation a lot better. I can understand a barbarian warband charging around with little order. But romes finest aught to more around in formation for the most part.

Movement speed, reduce the overall movement speed on the battle map. Futher reduce infantry run speed. Make battles more about choicing the right stragedy as opposed to having fast reflexes with the mouse.

General changes
Bribing really needs a reworking. It dosent take long before your income usually grow to a size where money matters little. Bring able to bribe great armies so easily is rather a problem. A possible fix might be to, rather then disband a bribed army its sent back to the nearest friendly city. That way you can still use money to buy you some time, but not kill off thousands of enemies.

Would be nice if sea battles was a bit more brutal / more losses on either side so you dont ahve to chase a single ship halfway across the world to sink it.

I would love to see fatigue, elevation and terrain have a greater effect.

I'd like to see a reduction of the moral bonus in a city square. Getting a solid bonus is ok, but currently it feels like its simply impossible for a defending unit to rout.

[Red Harvest]

5. Bring back the at-will/hold formation button. Guard seem useless.

I agree with that. First thing I do with every phalanx unit is to disable guard mode, wish that they didn't default to it. I have yet to find a use for guard mode. It is just an unwanted switch. RTW lost some depth here compared to MTW.

[DisruptorX]

Remove the Egyptians or make them look like they should, there is no excuse for the way they look. "Silly" would be an understatement.

No turning on a dime for chariots.

No Druids. This is NOT Warcraft 3.

Make every unit obey orders when you issue them the first time.

No dancing Phalanxes

SLOW DOWN THE GAME TO MTW LEVEL.

AI. No more zerg rush. Make them behave like actual generals.

No Suicide generals.

Fix Diplomacy.

Remove ALL fantasy units. Especially the Egyptian ones.

Fix the way that units move so that pursuing doesn't involve horses running
in front of the men they are supposedly "following".

Fix the way units get stuck in terrain and can't enter town squares. I have lost battles because my men refused to enter the town square. No excuse.

Allow spear walls with, you know, SPEARS.

And most importantly:
REMOVE the starcraft UI bar at the bottom of the screen. It takes up a third of the damn screen.

[dedmoroz]

Campaign AI - it is a joke right now with some major bugs. Game is unplayable right now. point.

[ToranagaSama]

I agree with that. First thing I do with every phalanx unit is to disable guard mode, wish that they didn't default to it. I have yet to find a use for guard mode. It is just an unwanted switch. RTW lost some depth here compared to MTW.

The Guard command works(, though I haven't a clue as to what's being "guarded"!!). It will keep your units from chasing enemey routers; and, if I recall correctly (haven't played in weeks!), units will hold position. Though the "hold position" part dosen't appear to be as effective as RTW's *Hold Position*. I tend to use it on the 3/4 units in the middle of my line.

---

To the poster that wanted blood on the battlefield, jfyi, there's a mod that attempts just that. Though, why you feel the need for it I can't fathom.

I'd prefer if the dead sprites(??) had more visual depth. They don't look like bodies lying about a field, but more like flat cardboard cutouts strewn about. Very unrealistic. STW's sprites were more effective in evoking post-battle carnage. I can recall in STW viewing the afterbattle with awe, not the same with RTW.

Yes, I do understand the need to manage system resources. To that I say gimme back my sprites!

[Drewman]

The Guard command works(, though I haven't a clue as to what's being "guarded"!!). It will keep your units from chasing enemey routers; and, if I recall correctly (haven't played in weeks!), units will hold position. Though the "hold position" part dosen't appear to be as effective as RTW's *Hold Position*. I tend to use it on the 3/4 units in the middle of my line.

The problem that many people have found is that on guard mode the phalanx unit does not properly "engage" the enemy unit that hits it. There often is no animation of spear/pike thrusts and the enemy unit takes no casulaties.

[The Storyteller]

7. Fix the family names. As I recall there is NO family group in Rome with the cognomen Brutus or Scipio. Change it to other. Cornelii and Aurelii is quite famous families. The Marii or the Pompeii also quite famous. The guys should check the family names of Roman Noble families . As I recall except Gaius Julius Caesar, the Julii family have never been considered except as second-tier Patrician.

I don't have any problems with the family names, but maybe I haven't played long enough. In my game as the Brutii, I keep getting names like "Vibius Brutus", which means that Vibius is the praenomen and Brutus is the nomen. The character either doesn't have a cognomen yet, or is simply not being addressed by it. There is no cognomen of Julius, either.

It was quite common for a Roman to be addressed by his cognomen and nomen alone. Thus, Gaius Julius Caesar was often called Gaius Julius.

In the case of Publius Cornelius Scipio, Publius is the praenomen, and Cornelius Scipio is the nomen. In other names like Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Gnaeus is the praenomen, Pompeius is the nomen and Strabo is the cognomen.

The Julii always thought of themselves as being very aristocratic, as they were descended from the Gods themselves. Their fortunes were on the decline because of monetary issues, but they were revived with the marriage of one of their daughters to Gaius Marius.

[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.

[ToranagaSama]

The problem that many people have found is that on guard mode the phalanx unit does not properly "engage" the enemy unit that hits it. There often is no animation of spear/pike thrusts and the enemy unit takes no casulaties.

Ah so!

Maybe one of these days I'll be motivated to push through the game and learn of, what!, even more issues. Something to look forward to....

[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.

[Herakleitos]

There's one thing I'd like added to the diplomacy; when besieging a city there's no possibility of negociating. You should be able to go to the gate and say: 'Surrender now and we won't deflower your women and daughters, enslave the able bodied and massacre the remaining population!'

[ToranagaSama]

Hmmm....don't know about all the deflowering and stuff, at first the idea seems a bit half-baked, but thinking about, you're right!

There s/b a "surrender" option. The likelihood of success might be tied to the ratio of the number of to the number of defenders; having a Spy or the number of Spies within the City; and, very importantly, how far or near another same faction City may be, how near/far a same faction Stack might be (meaning the likelihood that help is on the way); and, the general state of the besieged Faction within the City and without.

Enough negative factors for the besieger, and Surrender would be triggered.

Interesting.

---

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.

Don't know if I'm good enough for that yet! Hahaha.

Puzz, funny, just last night I started pursing Barocca's thread. All this RTW disappointment has given me strong hankering for some good ole SHOGUN.

[Herakleitos]

OK, let's skip the deflowering bit...

I agree with the underlying mechanics; if there is no hope that a siege can be lifted the people would be more inclined to surrender. It would be nice if you could negociate, something like this:

Diplomat: Surrender!
City: No way!
Diplomat: Surrender and we will let you live...
City: Hmmm, OK...

[Spino]

The problem that many people have found is that on guard mode the phalanx unit does not properly "engage" the enemy unit that hits it. There often is no animation of spear/pike thrusts and the enemy unit takes no casulaties.

I use Guard mode all the time for my phalanx units and my victories are still lopsided. I don't see what the problem is. I rarely tell a phalanx unit to actively engage the enemy by clicking on the enemy unit. I usually put them in phalanx mode and tell them to move to a spot beyond the enemy unit. Once enough of their spears come into contact with the enemy I hit Stop to keep them from 'morphing' and walking around the enemy unit. Since they're in Guard mode their formation stays nice and neat while they poke away.

[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.

[Mikeus Caesar]

I would love to see fatigue, elevation and terrain have a greater effect.

I would like that too. On MTW, i found it incredibly cool, watching as my men chased after the slow moving enemies. Much better than on RTW. It was also realistic how your men would go slowly up hills when you charge to the enemy, so it would be difficult to attack if they were at the top of a hill and you the bottom.

Remove ALL fantasy units. Especially the Egyptian ones.

Could you please give me an example of fantasy units? The only ones i know of are the british head-hurlers.

[Red Harvest]

I use Guard mode all the time for my phalanx units and my victories are still lopsided. I don't see what the problem is. I rarely tell a phalanx unit to actively engage the enemy by clicking on the enemy unit. I usually put them in phalanx mode and tell them to move to a spot beyond the enemy unit.

That is the key. I did the same for quite awhile. The problem came when I routed a unit and tried to alter my attack by clicking on the next target (rather than ordering a "march through." The phalangites often just stood there doing nothing. Of course, if the AI charges you, this is not really a problem either.