Opinions on Rome Total Realism?

[Brave Sir Robin]

I would recommend RTR to everyone.

I'm on my first campaign, as the Romans, and after playing for a week (i manage about 2hrs each day- computer game playing that is) i'm still hooked.
The bog standard game (is that what people call vanilla?- is that after original icecream?) very rarely held my interest after this time as i would normally be on the ascendency with very few competitors and the game would just become a dull process of going through the motions - a bit like a day at work with Mr Grey making grey goods for the grey people we all know and wish to shoot electrical charges into their grey cells to give them a shot of life.

Anyway getting back on track, in the game i was initially confronted by the Greeks and in their army a band of elephants (where was my cohort of mice when i needed them?). Eventually i repelled the feta cheese brigade from mainland Italy and turned my attention to the North and the hairy men with the stripey trousers (or pants if you prefer - but i always think of people in y-fronts when people say that term). I've now pushed them back to modern day French borders and have set my armies on freeing the mafia in Sicily, and then i'll show the Greeks who's the big cheese - well i view myself as a wensleydale - crumbly but a bit tasty.

RTR is worth it although if you only have 56k connection learn to knit as the time it will take to download you will be able to master the art and create a scarf Tom Baker would be proud of.

[Divinus Arma]

RTR is a good solid mod and adds a new flavor to the game. It is an excellent "stop gap" (as someone else referred to it) until EB comes out.

I am very pleased with having downloaded it, even though I was reluctant at first.


Gragh

[antisocialmunky]

I would recommend RTR to everyone.

I'm on my first campaign, as the Romans, and after playing for a week (i manage about 2hrs each day- computer game playing that is) i'm still hooked.
The bog standard game (is that what people call vanilla?- is that after original icecream?) very rarely held my interest after this time as i would normally be on the ascendency with very few competitors and the game would just become a dull process of going through the motions - a bit like a day at work with Mr Grey making grey goods for the grey people we all know and wish to shoot electrical charges into their grey cells to give them a shot of life.

Anyway getting back on track, in the game i was initially confronted by the Greeks and in their army a band of elephants (where was my cohort of mice when i needed them?). Eventually i repelled the feta cheese brigade from mainland Italy and turned my attention to the North and the hairy men with the stripey trousers (or pants if you prefer - but i always think of people in y-fronts when people say that term). I've now pushed them back to modern day French borders and have set my armies on freeing the mafia in Sicily, and then i'll show the Greeks who's the big cheese - well i view myself as a wensleydale - crumbly but a bit tasty.

RTR is worth it although if you only have 56k connection learn to knit as the time it will take to download you will be able to master the art and create a scarf Tom Baker would be proud of.

Have you tried the Legionary pilum? Do they tear apart a formation like a phalanx like in real life?

[econ21]

I've got a little further with my first RTR campaign as Romans (267BC) and I must say this mod is absolutely brilliant. The Greek in Italy have put up a real fight, including shipping a full strength army of reinforcements! The Senate has dragged me into a cold war with Carthage and the Gauls have invaded the north while I am in a life or death struggle with the Greeks.

I've had a few pitched battles against the Greeks and think RTR has gone a long way to compensating for the AIs weakness when handling phalanxes. RTR seems to have pumped up the hoplite stats - they are better than Triari - and although they do still tend to fall apart due to meandering then being flanked etc, their high stats compensate. I agree the campaign is a bit of a slog, due to more provinces and slower battles, but I have adjusted to the latter. One battle where the Greeks had a lot of cavalry and reinforcements was particularly frenetic.

I really like what has been done to cavalry (and archers) - greatly toned down from vanilla, but still very useful in their proper roles.

The only slightly strange thing I've observed was a Greek scorpion battery, which seemed like some a WW2 155mm artillery battery, the way it wiped out half of my general's spearmen in a couple of shots. If ancient artillery was so good in reality, I think all armies would have relied heavily on it.

A really excellent mod. I can't see myself going back to vanilla after this. It may even make RTW better than MTW and STW. It allows you to keep the much improved campaign map (which feels like running a real war, rather than playing Risk) and unlike vanilla still have a challenge.

[lars573]

My opinion of RTR? It's crap, will always be crap, and can never be anything but crap.

[Brave Sir Robin]

My opinion of RTR? It's crap, will always be crap, and can never be anything but crap.

lol, don't sit on the fence now lars573!!

[caesar44]

rtr - the best mod until now
had a few bugs but v 6 is almost out so...

[Ianofsmeg16]

dont agree with 6.0's legionaries, round shields?????blah!!!

[econ21]

dont agree with 6.0's legionaries, round shields?????blah!!!

Round shields? Yuck. As a small "c" conservative, one thing I was pleasantly surprised about RTR is how much of the vanilla game it retains. For the Romans at least, most of the buildings and units in RTR 5.4 are very familiar. It really is RTW as it should have been. I very much admired the MedMod for MTW but lost interest once it rewrote every unit from the ground up and became unplayable without learning a new set of (not necessarily better) unit stats and tech trees[1]. I was disappointed to learn that 6.0 will be dropping the Senate, as I thought that was one of the big improvements of RTW over MTW - sort of a development of the Glorious Achievements. It gives some direction and rewards to the Roman player, making the single player game more fun IMO.

[1]I may be persuaded by EB, whose unit previews look glorious.

[IceTorque]

dont agree with 6.0's legionaries, round shields?????blah!!!

1. they are historically correct.
2.they look really cool.
3.you won't be dissapointed.

[BrutalDictatorship]

well thank for the input Lars :)

as for installing the mod...I have a question about RTR...i want to install it and play it (and am at the official site now) but I'm a little hazy on one issue: How exactly do I do this? Do i have to install RTR1.0, then RTR2.0 etc etc or can I just download and install the latest patch of rtr?

although the mod and the website look fantastic, they fail to explain this anywhere...and it's needed.

[BrutalDictatorship]

never mind...i see now, i have to start with 5.2 and go from there...sorry about that

[caesar44]

Some one said (above) rtr is crap...

Why is that ?