Realism vs gameplay balancing?

[Urnamma]

Guys, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, and Romans are no different. But we must all remember that humans are made, not in batches, but as individuals. You can have people like M. Claudius Marcellus that can defeat a Gallic king in single combat without breaking a sweat, then you have people like Varro who lead their armies into hell. I'm sure there were some Romans that could beat the living hell out of an Iberian soldier, just like there were Iberians that could do the same to a Roman soldier. The point is the creative tactics used by the generals and officers. That is what wins a battle for you.

The Roman units will not be nerfed, and they'll be strong enough to assume their proper place in history. Prom is speaking emotionally and unconvincingly, but we must all concede that he has a grain of truth in his words. There is an unfortunate bias against Romans and Greeks here, which I find odd seeing as how these two peoples did manage to sweep all before them except one another. That said, no one is really more powerful than anyone else (speaking of the factions), because creative generalship is the key to winning any battle or war.

[Steppe Merc]

I think their's more of a bias against Roman's than against Greeks... some Greeks knew how to ride horses at least!
And Romans didn't conquer all in their path. It took very many years for them to do what they did. Besides, most of the Generals were politicians, so it's not pure military in what they accomplished.

[Vinsitor]

So Romans were crap... but ruled the ancient world, strange

I believe that Roman's soldiers' strenght was in tranining and "faithful" on the general and their "warmate" (like Greeks Oplites).
Barmarian warriors' strenght was in the individual skill. This is the point IMHO

[giorgio666]

All the antipathy against Rome by the americans here is just based on envy. At the times Romans built a huge empire and beautiful buildings you were living in caves or tents, the more civilized. U got no history and u quote the few battles where the romans were defeated...what about the other thousands they won? You know why anyone remembers them ? because they were just the exception that confirms the rule, id est the roman army and his generals were superior. It's like quoting general Custer being crushed by Crazy Horse at lil big Horne. Hope u get the point.
As for the other european here you might have had good warriors but they lacked of discipline.
Hat's off to Alexander the Great and his Macedonian army, his only misfortune was that he died too young and no one was great like him to manage his huge empire.

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

All the antipathy against Rome by the americans here is just based on envy. At the times Romans built a huge empire and beautiful buildings you were living in caves or tents, the more civilized. U got no history and u quote the few battles where the romans were defeated...what about the other thousands they won? You know why anyone remembers them ? because they were just the exception that confirms the rule, id est the roman army and his generals were superior. It's like quoting general Custer being crushed by Crazy Horse at lil big Horne. Hope u get the point.
As for the other european here you might have had good warriors but they lacked of discipline.

Please restrain from commenting things you do not know about. Nobody is bashing Romans. And most of the realistic non-biased comments are made by non-americans and are also perfectly justified.

On another note. Rome hadn't the best generals. They had some good ones, but most of the times Romans wer poorly commanded. Their great capabilities were organization, logistics, adaptability, great trainning and discipline. They weren't individually better skilled than many other warriors.

BTW, Custer, like so many Americans of those days, was an asshole. And I'm not saying this because of envy. The politics of the American goverment of that era were responsible for one of the greatest genocides in History: the slaughtering of the North American Indian populations. 5 million across North America in the end of 17th century, less than 500000 at the end of the 19th century. And nobody talks about those dispicable actions. Like the American Governmental policy of incentives to kill all praire bisons. This to destroy the food resouces of the greatest obstacle to colonial expansion in the great plains area: the Sioux. Like the random genocidal attacks to villages implemented by the "glorious" US Army. Or like every other promisse made by the white men and always broken.

Parapharasing one American Indian Chief:

"...what promisse have we made that we've not kept? None. What promisse the white men made they have not broken? Not one..."

[Big_John]

it's just us americans that are bashing rome?? i never woulda thunk it.

i'm no fan of denegrating the ancient romans, but you'd do well to remember, giorgio, that rome often 'out-diplomacied' her enemies long before beating them in battle.

[giorgio666]

My post wasn't actually directed to you but more to Zanderpants. Have you ever wonder why so many ppl are now bashing the Americans ?? Same reason, cuz of envy and cuz your the richer and more military advanced nation. That said in the period covered by RTW Romans were the most unmatched military advanced faction and that's not my opinion it's just History.

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

My post wasn't actually directed to you but more to Zanderpants. Have you ever wonder why so many ppl are now bashing the Americans ?? Same reason, cuz of envy and cuz your the richer and more military advanced nation. That said in the period covered by RTW Romans were the most unmatched military advanced faction and that's not my opinion it's just History.

It's also History that you should read more about. Contrary to what is depicted in RTW, Romans had no siege engines up until the 1century BC.
Hellenics were much more advanced than Rome until about 100BC. The Celts sacked Rome in 390BC because the Romans were defeated, by the Celts, in battle. Celts considered Romans uncivilized because they wouldn't wash with soap and didn't shaved their body hair, etc... I could go on for hours.

The "barbarian" term is used by a winning civilization to classify the populations that they defated. Greeks considered all non-greeks "barbarians", even Romans. Rome did the same. If the Celts had defeated Rome and occupied all of Italy, RTW would be called CTW (Celtic Total War). It's just that the adopted morale is the winner's morale.

[SwordsMaster]

Another bit about Cannae and roman battlestyles

Romans were taught to fight in formation. i.e. Either the whole line moved forward or noone moved forward. If they did, you can imagine that an individual soldier one step further forward than the rest of his line is a much easier target and can be taken out easily. All roman equipment was designed to fight as a block. Thus the big shields, and short swords. (One would imagine that a smaller round shiel is better for 1to1 fighting).

In Cannae, the romans had no possibility of moving forward, thus expanding the circle as they were surrounded by spearmen with much longer reach and have lost their momentum as someone pointed out before. The celts, with longer swords and charge momentum had also a good advantage as they could charge-retreat-repeat for as long as they wanted.

I would say that the few romans that escaped, managed to do that in the last moments of the battle, as their group would become smaller and smaller everytime, and thus more maniobrable, and they could chose a direction towards which to move, a thing that a 70k men army could not.

My 2cents

[Zanderpants]

Hahahaha, This is the best post I've ever gotten.
giorgio666:

I was not bashing the Romans, I was saying that they are men, and men are basically the same. I also said that with incompetant leadership, no army will triumph. Does that remind you of anything in our current date and time? Iraq? You're a fool, and if you'd PMed me, you would've seen that I am no fan of America. To put it nicely. I myself greatly admire the Romans as they were the civilization that got me interested in history when I was a little kid.

[QUOTE=BTW, Custer, like so many Americans of those days, was an asshole. And I'm not saying this because of envy. The politics of the American goverment of that era were responsible for one of the greatest genocides in History: the slaughtering of the North American Indian populations. 5 million across North America in the end of 17th century, less than 500000 at the end of the 19th century. And nobody talks about those dispicable actions. Like the American Governmental policy of incentives to kill all praire bisons. This to destroy the food resouces of the greatest obstacle to colonial expansion in the great plains area: the Sioux. Like the random genocidal attacks to villages implemented by the "glorious" US Army. Or like every other promisse made by the white men and always broken.

Parapharasing one American Indian Chief:

"...what promisse have we made that we've not kept? None. What promisse the white men made they have not broken? Not one..."[/QUOTE]

Exactly!


Oh, and by the way, most of the people "bashing" the Romans, are not Americans, and guess what? I'm not American, I'm French. I'm in Los Angeles becasue I'm going to school here. Oh, and I disagree. I think that everybody is bashing Americans because the ruling party (Republicans) tend to be bigoted, ignorant, overly-opinionated, assholes, and the world thinks that all of America is like that. I find Democrats to be quiet good-natured, albeit lacking leadership. Also, my ancestors were not living in tents and huts when this happened as my ancestors were most likely to be living in South Eastern Gaul at this time. One question: Why are you so damn jealous of America?