MTW or RTW? Which is better?

[IceTorque]

a few brief reasons why i chose RTW over MTW.
and i have been a huge fan of the series since STW.

Without a doubt for me RTW is the best in the series.
the only problem is it needs to be modded to be appreciated.

eg. Remove all non elite units, then balance elite units to be equal.
and the result is a challenging battle A1.
But doing so does make for boring gameplay with so few units.

also the A1 will recognize the relative strengths of ranged units compared
to melee units and balance it's armies accordingly. (no all archer armies
as in MTW).
i.e. mod archers to be weaker and the A1 will have less archers per stack.

Also if we could mod the size of the battlefields perhaps the A1 would/could
use the terrain more effectively.

However being able to merge units together to form one uber unit,
is an absolute joke, and for me totolly destroys any chance
of being able to enjoy an online game.

now there are many more gameplay issues widely discussed throughout
the community.
But we must remember that RTW will not be complete untill BI.

Now we all agree the graphics are " cool ". but the gameplay, immersion and
atmosphere are somewhat lacking.
and in that department STW rules.

Lets hope that CA addresses this with the xpac.

[Puzz3D]

Remove all non elite units, then balance elite units to be equal.
and the result is a challenging battle A1. But doing so does make for boring gameplay with so few units.

STW had 14 unit types and every clan had the same units, but the gameplay was not boring in either SP or MP.

However being able to merge units together to form one uber unit,
is an absolute joke, and for me totally destroys any chance
of being able to enjoy an online game.

Don't expect this to be changed in the xpac. Mike DePlater already said that two men can't occupy the same space, and as far as he's concerned that's sufficient. Of course, that doesn't address the fact that in MTW units fought with 50% effectiveness if they overlapped another friendly unit because the men were "squeezed too tight". Also, units would not remain overlapped if stationary. They would automatically move to an open space.

now there are many more gameplay issues widely discussed throughout
the community. But we must remember that RTW will not be complete untill BI.

What CA considers to be "complete" is not what the players consider to be complete.

[Red Harvest]

What's more interesting is that more people actually play RTW than MTW.

What's more interesting to me is that you just made this up... It is a logical *guess*, but that is true of just about any ~9 month old game release versus a version that is several years old. From what I have been told more people actually own RTW than MTW. However, owning and playing are not the same thing are they? Given the same passage of time do you think as many people will still be playing RTW as are playing RTW? Doubtful. As one example MP has a big impact on the longterm playing community and RTW stumbled badly in this area.

[Red Harvest]

Speaking of which, in response to RedHarvest, here are all the units in RTW that are shared between factions:

-Peasants
-town militia
-Levy Pikemen
-Phalanx Pikemen
-militia hoplites
-Falxmen
-barbarian cavalry
-barbarian noble cavalry
-long shield cavalry
-round shield cavalry
-chosen archers
-chosen swordsmen
-warband
-companion cavalry
-greek cavalry
-iberian infantry
-War elehants
-elephants
-armored war elephants
-archers
-incendienary pigs
-war hounds
-slingers

...I think that's it, I probably missed one or two. Anyway, although that does seem lengthy obviously each faction only has a couple of those. I never played MTW so I don't know how that compares to it.

It was Titus that asked for the list, not me. There are more from what I recall. There are also quite a few units that share graphics, but not stats (especially mercs.)

I figured I would let Titus do his own homework, it would be good for him to be better informed before he posts. I no longer have the game installed, so I don't have the files easily at hand anymore (just my saved mod files.)

[Mongoose]

I have lost interest in RTW...for these reasons:


1: the AI is awful, i find games like Age of kings to be alot shallower but much harder

2:bugs

3:OMfGZ1!111 I PWNED1!1U!!11!!!111!!!ONE!!11!!11!!U R Z NoooBBBBB!11!!!11!!1 I rul RTW ONLNe U SUXXXXORZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!1!11!11!11! I M DA BEST AT TEH RTW ONLINE N I RUXXORZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ


or....


U R TEH CHETR CUZ U BEET TEH ARME WIT 20 DESERT CAVS!11!!1!111omFgz1!!!!u SUKKKKS11111!!!111!!!!111!!!

4: AI diplomat = A
my diplomat =b

b: we want a cease fire
a: fine, but give us all of the settlements you took from us. plus 40,000 denarii
b:um, you only have one city left...we have 30...
a:THIS MEANS WAR!!!

You know the rest...

[Orda Khan]

You never saw comments like that in the MTW lobby?

The biggest problem in the RTW lobby is the lack of 'vets' who would at least play the game properly, thus helping to eradicate this behaviour....but I've said all this before

.......Orda

[Mongoose]

No, im sure stuff like that happens with MTW MP to. I didn't vote in this poll actually, as i have very little experience with MTW.

i think that RTW MP would much better if a larger number of people played with the mods like spqr.

back to the subject: why does MTW win at the .org polls and lose at the .com polls?

[Puzz3D]

The biggest problem in the RTW lobby is the lack of 'vets' who would at least play the game properly, thus helping to eradicate this behaviour.

The vets left because of the gameplay. Fixing things in the game engine that are not working properly is not, in general, a high priority for CA because, apparently, the majority of the people playing the game don't care if the game engine works correctly. I get this impression from the treatment that players who point out problems in the gameplay receive at the official site.

I'm surprised that you are not annoyed by the broken Parthian shot since I know you prefer eastern factions. As far as I can determine, CA has not confirmed that this or any other specific gameplay issue for that matter has been fixed in BI. There was a general statement from Jerome that many issues had already been addressed, but that's just the usual smoke and mirrors the community gets from CA. The community deserves to be told by CA exactly what's been fixed in BI before they buy it. It is after all the comunity who found most of the problems in the game for CA.

[The Wizard]

I based my choice on a simple fact, which, to me, represents the most important thing to a TW game: memorable battles.

In RTW, I have none.

In MTW, I have so many I end up going into a nostalgic state of mind where I sit about for about an hour or more thinking about this battle, that tactic and those great MP allies...

Enfin, it's quite clear to me. RTW is a game with a crapload of new features, but with the same AI as Medieval. While that AI performed fine in Medieval, in Rome it flounders and fails. I guess CA was too lazy to add in a new AI that could handle the new features...

Rome Total War: a public beta with a price tag.



~Wiz

[Hotspur]

MTW, I've played all the TW titles and expansions. Its still MTW + VI. An exceptional game with an epic quality that Rome has not recaptured.

Rome's OK but MTW was simply outstanding.

[Slyspy]

I quite agree with The Wizard. Neither game has a better AI because it is the same AI for both. The trouble is that the AI is incapable of handling the new features of RTW, hence the wasted potential. This may also be why RTW includes bugs which occured in the previous games but which were fixed in the patches for those editions. Also some incomprehensible decisions were made: why no fatigue, no terrain modifiersetc etc? The aging MTW may have its flaws, but RTW is a graphics engine looking for a game and, judging by what I have read, the expansion is unlikely to change that.

[jsteph]

Well I choose MTW as well. MTW was the first one I played, I need to find a cheap Shogun and try it.

Anyway, I played every faction in that game on the hardest settings, but I mostly let the battles sim out. It hurt me sometimes, but hey oh well. I really loved starting out with France and trying to finagle those provinces back from England without getting Excommunicated. Or takin on the Pope knowing that not even 20 years later they would be back full force. Or owning the Eastern European provinces and not realizing just how powerful those Huns were when they came in.

Owning the whole map and not having to worry about everyone province being yellow, gah I hate that. Ruling the known world as Denmark, little bitty Denmark. Those Long pole dudes from england owning calvary. Setting up huge trade fleets, only to have a Christian group start a war and send a ship to the Rock of Gibralter, there by cutting you trade in half. watching a treasury of several hundred thousand disappear to quickly when it happened. Knowing you could not take out all of the Christian ships in one turn or the fact they will not except peace and just build another. Knowing the Pope is watching.

Spreading Islam to all of Europe. Realizing just how close it could have been true if not for the bravery of some of the leaders of the era.

Having the Inquisitions come to a province. There were a lot of nice things about MTW. I like RTW. One of the reasons, fights are not 45 minutes long. Now when the wife calls, I can so no more than 10 minutes most of the time. I know the AI is not as good and that quick fights in a way sucks. But I like it.

[Jambo]

Let's face it the diplomacy in ROme is really not much different to that in MTW. It's pretty basic with the useful addition of being able to extort some token money out of the AI.

It, like so many other aspects of Rome, could have been so much more.

[Mount Suribachi]

I need to find a cheap Shogun and try it.

Shogun TW + Mongol Invasion XP is available for £5 in Britain (dunno where you live though).

And for all those saying "hopefully BI will fix the issues", I hope so too, but going by CAs track record I doubt it. When VI came out yeah, it added a few neat features. But it didn't do anything about the many problems that needed fixing improving, and even worse it actually added a couple of huge bugs (reinforcements and kings dying at 56). Bugs that they weren't going to patch until there was uproar in the community, and we even had an "I will not buy RTW unless VI is patched thread". Eventually we got our patch. But my faith in CA, and Activision especially is not great.

[Wishazu]

i love all the games equally and found the AI to be equally easy to defeat in all of them. I cant go back to playing shoggy because all the armies are the same, it was great and i miss the lil cutscenes for the ninjas and the throneroom etc. but the ai wasnt that great. Medieval was brilliant, my favourite part of this installment was the faction diversity and all those lovely different units. Rome is easily my favourite now, for both SP and MP i cant agree with people that say the online aspect of rome is poor cos of the idiots spamming you etc. this was just as prevalent on medieval and shogun. Diplomacy is improved, as is trade, obviously the graphics are awesome for an rts game. The strategy side is 100% better than previous installments, you can ambush enemy armies and also pick your battleground. look at the sieges much, much better than the pathetic attempts before. anyways, I like em all but i voted for rome as its the only one i play now.

[Spartacus]

This is tough as Medieval felt more of a finished game then Rome. RTW Felt rushed but the campaign has to make me vote for RTW but it's close. I've been playing MTW Lately and the thing which makes me like MTW is the amount of units it has and the GA mode. RTW is all Brawn but no Brain with added amazing 3d Graphics. Also finally MTW was 1 year per turn in campaign which really annoyed me.

[caravel]

I recieved RTW as a gift 1 week ago and have since played for about 2 hours in total. I despise it.

The graphics are good within the battles, those in the campaign map are nothing special at all, and the campaign map system itself has been ruined with the removal of provinces and addition of clutter. I cannot bring myself to even run this game again. I simpy cannot see any point.

The battles, despite their looks are fast boring slaughter against pathetic AI. The AI doesn't seem to manouver or hold it's units in formation, and cavalry appear to wipe out everything to the extent that it is not worth waiting to bring your infantry up to the front.

Why do BCE Roman army troops have american accents?? (and I'm not saying they should have english ones either) This game lacks atmosphere and gameplay in favour of eye candy, sometimes cartoonlike graphics, (strategy map units) an overzealous help system, (if you bought the game then you'd have a game manual so why is this rubbish included?) and it seems to hold your hand throughout, not allowing you free reign to start any campaign you want initially.

It seems CA concentrated on the graphics and ease of use, aiming this at the kids games market, and in doing so, forgot the rest. There are too many unrealistic flshing markers and feedback indicators, that give this game the feel of an old RTS number, like WC3 or C&C. Yuck.

Back to my HRE/Early/Expert campaign I think.

[Ldvs]

MTW. I don't deny all the improvements made in RTW, but as many pointed it out, it's not challenging: you may lose one or two battles in a whole campaign, that is, if you do it on purpose.

[abrarey]

RTW has better gameplay and more options. But I will like to see a new MTW with the same engine game (or better) of RTW, i think the medieval age is more exciting to play. In RTW, Rome has many advantages over the other factions, but in medieval age the factions don´t have a superadvantage over others factions.
That will be a good idea a new MTW.

[Blacknek]

Gameplay wise - this is quite a retoric question I guess

although I think ROME is easy digestible fun; let's see what the add-on brings to gameplay.

It's not over yet; if the Battle-AI gets decent, this one is a sleep-killer all the way

[Spino]

Medieval is better than Rome.

Rome wins by a landslide in terms of graphics, sound and 'ambience'. No matter how you slice it Rome simply looks and feels 'epic'. The campaign map looks great and plays well and the tactical battles are positively divine to behold. Rome also allows you to do more within any given game, it possesses enormous scope or breadth. However, while Rome makes an incredible first impression once I discovered that it was all breadth and precious little depth it failed to hold my interest. Once the luster of doing all that there is to do wears off one is confronted with the realization that there is tragically little meat on Rome's bones. The abysmal AI is the main culprit, no matter how little or much it has to do it always does a terrible job of it.

Medieval gets points where it really counts. First of all it possesses more 'depth' than Rome. Civil wars, faction revivals, three separate eras, the cuddly Mongols and especially the Glorious Achievement campaign are HUGE bonuses in my book. More importantly, Medieval is simply far more challenging than Rome. In Medieval I would sweat out the decision making process on the strategic map because I knew there were only so many sensible moves I could make and sometimes there was nothing I could do to prevent the AI from taking advantage of a weak position. Massive enemy stacks amassing a few provinces away or worse, on my borders, never failed to put me in a tizzy and get my blood flowing. In Rome I can pretty much play in a semi-comatosed state because you can count on the AI self destructing on both the strategic map and the tactical battles. Rome's shockingly inept tactical AI has provided me with more lopsided victories than I care to count. I honestly can't remember the last time I sweated out a massive battle in Rome the way I did in Medieval. Medieval's tactical AI consistently offered a greater challenge, most of it had to do with it's greater penchance for attempting a massive flanking maneuver, especially when in conjunction with cavalry. I don't recall a single battle in Rome where the AI marched and countermarched its entire army in order to gain an advantage on my flank.

Even in terms of modding Medieval's mods have a much greater impact on gameplay simply because they are more successful in affecting the AI thus making the game more challenging. The ability for modders to actually change the AI's build priorities in MTW had an enormous impact on the challenges presented to the player, especially in tactical battles. In contrast while Rome's mods are far more impressive to behold they do absolutely nothing to make the AI more effective. Even those mods that try to introduce new 'features' still cannot circumvent the fact that the AI will not be able to stop the player from walking all over it.

[Blodrast]

wow, so many things have been pointed out about the differences, that I don't think I can bring much of anything new...or even if I did, it would not make much of a difference anyway.
To make things clear, it's MTW for me as well, no contest there. As the poll actually shows...

edit: I have actually read all the posts from the beginning of this thread up to here, and I find it interesting that _many_ of the older members on this board (older as in having been here for a long time) have not posted at all...
Food for thought (not too much thought, though...).
(hint: could that be an indicator of how many of the people who have experienced STW and MTW come to the RTW forum often enough ? )

[professorspatula]

Medieval is better than Rome.

Rome's shockingly inept tactical AI has provided me with more lopsided victories than I care to count. I honestly can't remember the last time I sweated out a massive battle in Rome the way I did in Medieval. Medieval's tactical AI consistently offered a greater challenge, most of it had to do with it's greater penchance for attempting a massive flanking maneuver, especially when in conjunction with cavalry. I don't recall a single battle in Rome where the AI marched and countermarched its entire army in order to gain an advantage on my flank.

Amen to that.

Tactical manoeuvring was a big part of MTW, and you could spend the opening five minutes of the battle moving your army to the best defensive position, only for the AI to try and go around your position and gain the terrain advantage for themselves, all whilst their missile cavalry attempt to flank and cause you more problems. You feel like you're in a battle even before the first arrow has been fired and the first blood is shed. I remember being led around the Scottish Highlands by rebel Clansmen who wouldn't engage until my army was exhausted; and battles where I was desperately defending hilltops from numerous directions, all whilst the AI tried to draw my men away from the main defensive position. In RTW the enemy tends to just march or sprint directly towards your army, with a few very slow and far too obvious flanking manoeuvres where the flanking unit sometimes doesn't even bother to get involved until it is exhausted and the rest of the army has routed. Heroic victories are far too common and numerous to mention, even when you fight on flat landscapes and with an identical army to the AI.

If CA can manage to salvage the disasterous AI and make it better than MTW's (which really is what you'd expect it would be before RTW was released) then with the extra features of the expansion pack, maybe it'll be more difficult to compare which game is better. But vanilla RTW by itself is certainly an inferior game.

[Quietus]

What's more interesting is that more people actually play RTW than MTW.

What's more interesting to me is that you just made this up... It is a logical *guess*, but that is true of just about any ~9 month old game release versus a version that is several years old.

LOL. Actions speak louder than words! See my quote above!

From what I have been told more people actually own RTW than MTW. However, owning and playing are not the same thing are they?

You just assented it was a 'logical guess' .

Given the same passage of time do you think as many people will still be playing RTW as are playing RTW? Doubtful. As one example MP has a big impact on the longterm playing community and RTW stumbled badly in this area.

Time will tell. See, much of the mods haven't even been released yet. Much less the Barbarian Invasion expansion pack!

I'd like to hear the in-depth properties of MTW that is superior to RTW. Please make a list.

[Kull]

Spino captured my feelings perfectly. Maybe the difference between MTW and RTW fans comes down to what we each rank higher. For RTW, it's accuracy of the map and the settings and the gorgeous gameplay. For MTW, it's all about white-knuckles and uncertainty and the never-to-be-forgotten 3-4 hour battles that swayed back and forth between victory and disaster.

To each their own, but for me, MTW.

Note: Both games are affected by the "late-game-tedium" issue.

[Samurai Waki]

STW and MTW own RTW in terms of battle strategy... in terms of Campaign Modes, one thing that really bothers me in RTW is that agents are still represented as gamepieces, which doesn't really add up on a map obviously not set like a board game... RTWs diplomacy aspect would have been much better if you could send agents to different locations without actually moving gamepieces. The Computer would calculate the distance to go from one place to another in matter of turns. So you would give your diplomats missions, say to sue for peace... while at war with sed faction and when you're diplomat recieves the message to sue for peace, it still takes awhile to get your message back to you, so you and your enemy would still be fighting until you recieve a message from your diplomat saying that your factions are now at peace for the moment. Of course assassins and spies from other countries can try and steal or kill the rider relaying the message which would screw everything up and you'd have to start from page 1. Politics should take a deeper meaning, in this time, wars were fought through diplomacy before battle... so you couldn't surprise attack an enemy, unless of course you were a barbarian faction. You could set terms and agreements of the war, you're enemy would have to accept or give you their terms as well. Wars fought with surprise attacks and such would greatly affect the dissent in your population, or the population that you are trying to usurp. Of course some enemies will never agree to your terms or you to theirs, but if you persistantly harry your adversaries for war, and they continue to disagree, then their population will become restless... war in these times were fought with a different mind set then in modern times... honor your enemies. If you reach the objective of your war (which could be anything from usurping a territory you rightly believe is your's to all out total war) then the war would essentially be over. Major belligerent nations (such as Rome) would also have a lesser view in the eye's of the people they are conquering if they do not set terms of war.

[Zatoichi]

It's interesting to note that the BI expansion is bringing back quite a few of the core goodies from MTW - loyalty, civil war and religion to name but 3. Now, if they can improve the AI as well in line with what we've seen before in MTW, I think RTW will come out top over all. But what do I know?

[Daveybaby]

RTW campaign map is better by far (except for the bugs and AI stupidity).
MTW combat is better by far.

[sapi]

I come back to this thread, and i find it sad....MTW by 30 votes.

People, think of what a game rtw is, not of the bugs...you cannot deny that it was a step foward, albiet a bug-ridden one

[drone]

I come back to this thread, and i find it sad....MTW by 30 votes.

People, think of what a game rtw is, not of the bugs...you cannot deny that it was a step foward, albiet a bug-ridden one

It is both a step forward, and a step back. What CA/Sega needs to do now is build on the Rome engine, and create the ubergame that Rome should have been. I think they just released RTW too soon, it needed at least another 6 months of work (and probably another 3 months in QA/public beta).