Idea! Rome Total Blitzkrieg

[screwtype]

Since everyone seems to be having Ideas! I think I'll have an Idea! of my own. Why should other people have all the fun? (And no, in spite of the tongue-in-cheek thread title, this post is not a joke!).

I've long disliked the RTW movement system where you can only move about one province per turn. Given that the turn is six months long, it's a ridiculously small distance. In six months, a Roman army in real life would easily be able to march from one end of the map to another.

Moreover, this limited movement system makes for a very predictable, trench warfare type of game, where it's pretty easy to anticipate all the possible moves and counter them. So you tend to slowly and methodically expand in a predictable way, secure in the knowledge that most of your territory is well out of harm's way.

What I'd much prefer is a "lightning war" type system, where units could move much longer distances and you never quite knew where the enemy might strike next.

In order to implement this, I envisage some sort of campaign where units can move an unlimited distance per turn, limited only by enemy zones of control and perhaps a few other limits. To make things a little easier, zones of control could be extended by one space, so that ZOC covered two spaces around an army instead of one.

All factions will then move simultaneously, and only when two enemy units ZOC's collide does a battle occur. This creates an element of unpredicability to battles that does not exist in the current game. You never quite know where the enemy is until you stumble upon him, or vice versa. You can however, take precautions such as guarding territorial chokepoints etc.

Now let's say that added to this it becomes possible to assault a city on the same turn you besiege it. Or at least, let's say that some siege weapons are available immediately, say ladders and battering rams. (Heck, would it take you six months to build a ladder???).

This means that now if you fail to defend your borders adequately, enemy armies may slip past and take one or more of your cities, perhaps deep in your rear, in a single turn.

Now, let's say that you can fight multiple battles with a given army in a single turn provided you win them all by a large enough margin. Let's say, you can keep moving as long as you get a crushing victory or better. Anything less and you can move no further that turn.

Now you have a mechanism for moving your army any distance per turn and fighting any number of battles, provided your winning margin is big enough, and of taking any number of cities (that can be taken by just battering rams and ladders), all in a single turn. And the enemy has the same capability.

The implications of this as I see it would be:

1/ You'd have to be sure to defend your borders and territorial chokepoints properly, to prevent the enemy slipping through. Failing to understand the terrain properly, like a chess map, could result in disaster.

2/ Coastlines would also have to be properly defended by ships to prevent seaborne invasions. There would obviously have to be some sort of upgraded mechanism for sea interdiction and combat.

(ie so now there's no more "oh x can only move so far this turn so I can forget about garrisoning these cities." Now safety lies entirely in the hands of your military and nothing else.)

3/ You can fight any number of battles and (theoretically) capture any number of cities in a single turn provided you win by big enough margins. Now those crushing victories can really make a difference to your campaign! Likewise, crushing defeats can lead to even more loss of territory or more decimated troops.

4/ Now other options for play become available, such as conducting raids on enemy territory specifically in order to ransack and decimate the populace to cripple an enemy's economy. Perhaps some AI factions could be programmed for such behaviour.

If you wanted to take things a bit further, you could also introduce a primitive communications system. So if you lost a certain province in your rear for example, your line of communications might be broken so orders (and maybe supplies) to outlying armies would be lost or delayed, further hampering your plans for expansion or your ability to respond to the attack in your rear.

I mean, the campaign could be a LOT more interesting than it is right now. I find the whole thing as it is a bit ho-hum. It's all so conventional and unimaginative, I've played this type of system so many times before - and it wasn't very engaging the first time around!

[iostream]

Gameplay issues aside, it is unrealistic. But it still bears thinking about.

[The Stranger]

the romans could only move that fast through their own territory (sp?). not on the sarmatian steppes or in the sahara desert.

[tibilicus]

Bearing that in mind Emperor Umeu its still really annoying the way it takes a whole year to get from one end of greece to the other (somethimes its to if your roads arnt max). At that rate Alexander the great would of never reached as far as he did. Also when you are in the Sahara your troops do move a lot slower even with good roads.

[Rodion Romanovich]

The slow movement is an addition to balance another thing that acts in the other direction. If you'd have more movement per turn you'd need more turns to get a realistic predictability of movements. But then it'd be boring as hell to play 200 years if every turn was a month, and in order to balance that the campaign would be changed so that conquests would be much faster, but that's a worse kind of unrealism. Therefore, I have nothing against the current system of momevent despite unrealism.

Only thing I'd maybe like to see improved is an increase of movement speed in friendly-controlled provinces. On the other hand the current system is challenging because it requires more planning ahead. But still... perhaps... if they'd increase momevent in friendly territory that'd be nice.

[tibilicus]

Good point i think i shall change my mind.

[Kekvit Irae]

The only faction I've been able to successfully turn into a blitzkrieg is the Scythians (and that's pretty much a requirement for them) in vanilla.

Personally, I dont like the idea of unlimited movement in the game, for the sole reason that it totally unbalances the game. What's the point of setting up a superior defense if the enemy can travel through three provinces to bypass it (ALA Megino Line, WWII)? I do not want to be playing Armenians and suddenly see my cities attacked by Germans or Carthage on the first turn.

I think the best thing for the game is to change the game turns from half a year to a single month. More realistic, and doesnt screw up defensive strategy.

[screwtype]

what's the point of setting up a superior defense if the enemy can travel through three provinces to bypass it

You don't get to set up a "superior defence". You use forts and screening forces to try and slow down any potential attacks, making maximum use of terrain chokepoints etc. That way you hopefully buy enough time to counter enemy thrusts with your main forces. That's pretty much what was done at the time, ancient civilizations could not field big enough armies to be everywhere in strength at once.

I'm not saying a system like this wouldn't need work to get it right. I'd just like to see a more flexible movement and combat system, that's all, one that rewards good results and potentially allows you to take more than one province a turn with an army if you're good enough - or to be defeated in a turn or two if you make a bad enough strategic error. After all, how long did it take Alexander the Great to conquer the known world? It certainly didn't take him fifty or a hundred years, which is what you're looking at to conquer the world in RTW.

Obviously a system like the one I've outlined would have to be refined and playtested to get the balance right, but I think with a bit of work it could be done, and would potentially make for a lot more excitement than is to be had with a more conventional system.

Not that I ever expect to see this kind of system in RTW though. Really this is just wishful thinking on my part

[nidpants]

actually, i could definitely see this as a fun and interesting way to play the game. i don't know if making movement *unlimited* is a good idea (i could see myself abusing this by having armies doing "horses" across the map, literally streaking from one end to another and back and back and back and back...) anyway, just a vastly bolstered movement would be nice. i don't like having powerful cavalry from the heart of my empire arriving to battle on the frontiers in two years!

this thread (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=46353) has an interesting idea. deal with transgressions in a manner of your choosing. you just find where the two armies make contact (your responsive army from a city or camp would need time to allow for a scout reporting from the watch towers), and you could even randomize actual encounter, like one of the armies being in camp with tents set up in the early morning while the enemy arrives in column. a scout shouts back to the general that there's a camp up ahead, but you don't know what sort. your army breaks march and assumes formation, and only then do you see that it's an army nearly five times your own size and with a legend of a general. you could send in your cavalry as raiders in the midst of night, you could duck back behind a hill and hope their scouts never actually saw yours, turning tail in hopes with coupling with a much larger and formidable army, or you could choose to set up camp just a half-mile down the way, and attack at dawn and surprise their marching column.

if you're the one being snuck up on, you'd be thrown into battle with your castrum still set up and your men lounging around in their cots with the enemy just a short distance away. you could form up your legions quickly just outside of camp, but their cavalry may already be upon you. alternately, you could be interrupted mid-march and the enemy is within eyesight down the road, already bearing down on you as you struggle to assemble your forces and dispatch the horse retainers and slaves to the rear to avoid the fight.

[screwtype]

actually, i could definitely see this as a fun and interesting way to play the game. i don't know if making movement *unlimited* is a good idea (i could see myself abusing this by having armies doing "horses" across the map, literally streaking from one end to another and back and back and back and back...)

Yes, you'd probably need to limit it to a degree. There are really three principles I'd like to see at work:

1/ Movement limited more by enemy resistance than by distance (should be able to move long distances where there is little or no enemy resistance);

2/ Simultaneous movement of all factions (as in real life);

3/ A more realistic command and control system.

I haven't really worked out a coherent system for implementing these, but I don't see why with a bit of work it couldn't be done. It would certainly make for greater realism, the real question I guess is whether there would be an adequate payoff in terms of gameplay. But let's face it, we're not going to see a radical overhaul like this in a game like RTW anyhow.