CA and BI Decision Making

[Barbarian_King]

I am very worried abut the future of TW games.
My understanding is that the IP still belongs to Activision, but CA is sold off to Sega.
I agree with the those who thinks that RTW is or could be a beginning of a new chapter for TW games.
For Rome I think CA did great, considering they had to concentrate a lot of effort in the development of the engine, and still create a highly complex gameplay. I just hope CA can realise that look isnt everything. But in today's gaming market, keeping up with the technology is almost like a key to success, look at Doom3. And sadly a developer would never make a game aiming at the small hardcore fan market. I guess getting a good balance between technology and gameplay is something developers strive for. In my mind a strategy game should concentrate on gameplay more.

[amazon77]

Another thing about RTW.

In the TW series, there were 2 AI. One for the map, one for the battles.

We all know the AI is a bit slow to make decisions, so that's why we beat, cos no human can possibly calculate as fast as a pc can, let alone the intricasies of the game that the ai knows and we don't (it runs them).

Now, in STW and MTW you had a strategic map with regions. So when the ai did eventually attack you, u had to fight the battle at that exact turn. Also, when u send an army to attack a region, there was no calling back from the battle (u could withdraw from battle, but that's not what i'm talking about).

However, in RTW the world map is more linear. I mean, when i send an army from Julii aretium to attack mediolanum, i may run into a gaulish invading force thus fighting them before they have a chance to invade me. Also, when the ai sends an invading army, you can spot them on several occasions and fight them back. Another thing is that even if they manage to siege your town, they have to actually take it (which requires a turn for building siege equipment), thus you have another chance to bring an army and save the city, whereas in MTW (& STW) when they invaded your region, you would loose it, and with it some buildings which cost money and time.

This difference brought by the change of the strategic map means that a human player can go on the offencive much faster in RTW than in MTW or STW, thus crippling the pc factions much faster and easier. Oh and of course, in the previous games, an army in a region no matter how big it was could attack in 1 turn all surrounding regions, thus u had to not only built an invading army, but also defensive armies. For example, when playing as teh Byz in first era, your georgia army couldn't leave the region to help u against the Turks, or the Khazar rebel army would attack and take georgia. Now, this isn't possible for these 2 regions (georgia= atropatene or colchis and khazar= tribus alanni). The result of this is that the more determined human player has an advantage over the AI, in that he does use his troops, while the AI doesn't.