Is RTW really that bad

[Mongoose]

Every one has such mixed results here...some people say that they are equal and others say that there are huge differences.

[ChaosLord]

Well alot of the variation depends apon how someone plays the game. The different tactics people use, army compositions, and wether someone will go to great lengths to exploit AI weaknesses. Such as mass HA or something similar. I like to make fairly balanced armies and my strategy is usually about maintaining a strong center so one of my flanks can wrap around theirs. Its the same thing I used in M:TW, pin their units on something with alot of defense while the others do the work.

Since this doesn't use mass archer fire/cavalry(things M:TW was never good at dealing with either) perhaps thats why my experiences aren't as bad as everyone elses. Theres also some people who will pull no punches when fighting the AI and use every exploit, trick, etc.. around to beat them and get mad when the AI loses badly because of this. But, its up to each person to decide for themselves how to play the game. I just don't understand why the people I just mentioned come to post about how its no fun when they do that, I mean what did they expect?

[Mongoose]

I am willing to not go out of my way to screw the AI, but i am not willing to go out of my way to not to exploit it.

[Satyr]

To be forced to use BAD tactics so that the AI doesn't get confused is against everything I want in a game. Obviously we aren't at the point yet where AI programming can build a competent opponent but we should be able to get some sort of challenge. MTW was better at that the RTW is, but hopefully BI will fix a lot of this and make Rome into a good game too. At least I sincerely hope so!

[TheViciousChicken]

I am willing to not go out of my way to screw the AI, but i am not willing to go out of my way to not to exploit it.

True. I just play with the tactics I that seem realistic to me, having fun at that and takind advantage of some weird AI situations. I know that routing on bridges make the unit run into the enemy but that doesnt make me avoid bridge battles. Still I´ll fight the battles to the best of my skill/tactical creativity and have fun while demolishing everything the AI has to throw at me.

To compensate I mod my game giving the AI economic bonuses, larger cities and better starting units making it so much more fun to get through the realtively difficult first part of the game when my armies are always at aa disadvantage forcing me to be tactically better in order to win. Finally this is a game and I find it quite fun and entertaining this way.

[Red Harvest]

Have you played MTW recently?
Maybe you feel MTW AI is better because you were not so good when playing it, and when playing RTW you were a veteran.

You don't give the vets enough credit. We have gone back and made some comparisons.

[Red Harvest]

My advice to you would be to not base your buying decisions on messageboards.

Actually, the best buying advice I've ever gotten is from messageboards. Doesn't take much reading to see both the beauty and the warts. It is far more reliable than a review.

[econ21]

Actually, the best buying advice I've ever gotten is from messageboards. Doesn't take much reading to see both the beauty and the warts. It is far more reliable than a review.

Absolutely. I used to regularly read usenet (e.g. comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic) and it was amazing how quickly and accurately you could gauge a game from the posts. By contrast, reviewers tend to get caught up in the hype, focus on how up to date the graphics etc are or hide flaws under diplomatic language. It's a little riskier to rely on message boards dedicated to a particular game, but often you can tell if there is depth and enthusiasm there. I seldom buy a game without trying to get user views on the internet, unless the company has a track record of making games I like.

[drone]

Actually, the best buying advice I've ever gotten is from messageboards. Doesn't take much reading to see both the beauty and the warts. It is far more reliable than a review.

Posters on message boards are not influenced by advertising income, unlike gamer mags. As long as you can sort through the flames and obvious fan-boys, you are way more likely to get an unbiased review on a message board.

[Mongoose]

Actually, the best buying advice I've ever gotten is from messageboards. Doesn't take much reading to see both the beauty and the warts. It is far more reliable than a review.

I agree

Reviewers are too busy sucking up to the developers to see any real flaws.

This is the worst RTW review i have ever seen... 4/5 stars!? for how DIFFICULT the game is!?

Intelligence & Difficulty:4 Stars - Good AI controlled characters are above the standard fare for the most part, but the AI has some critical failings, mostly when it’s controlling things for you in a battle. When you have other armies around the site of a brawl, these extra forces are considered reinforcements to the fray and they are controlled for you by the computer. That’s great in theory, but since you have no say over how they act, you can easily lose seasoned units or important generals because they run blindly into a conflict seemingly without thought for anything more than brute force. When you’re in control, your men do exactly what you tell them to, even if they do have to pause occasionally to get their ranks realigned in order to feel up to the task. The AI in the turn-based map screen fares much better, and so the computer ultimately seems more adept at civics than it does at combat.

Pathfinding is well above average, mainly because there’s not much to run into on the maps, but the tight doorways of settlements can cause a traffic jam that rivals anything seen on the Los Angeles freeway system. The computer eventually gets itself sorted out, but there are moments during sieges that if someone wanted to start chucking artillery at the settlement doorway, they’d do more than a little damage to your troops.

Rome: Total War has four difficulty settings: easy, medium, hard, and very hard. As a nice feature, map mode and battle mode difficulty settings can be adjusted independently. Moving up the difficulty scale in battle mode increases the strength of your foes, making them harder to take down and harder to scare off. Going from easy to very hard in map mode isn’t as well documented as battle mode, but empirically speaking, enemies are more aggressive about attacking you militarily and diplomatically, and build up their troops more quickly, making everything just that much more challenging.

[Volstag]

Actually, the best buying advice I've ever gotten is from messageboards. Doesn't take much reading to see both the beauty and the warts. It is far more reliable than a review.

Amen. If you want to know what the game is really like, check the message boards. Some reviews are great, of course, but others appear to have been written w/o experiencing the "full" game.

[Slaists]

It's interesting that you atribute sheild bonuses, flanking and elevation bonuses to a mod when in fact they are features of RTW.
Of course modding units stats, as in RTR may very well have increased the noticeablility of these features and added value to them.

I think, the major difference between RTW and RTR, apart from modded unit stats, is the slower kill speed in RTR... which makes flanking achievable and worth doing... As to height advantage: i do not see much difference between RTW and RTR: it's negligible...

[Simetrical]

Posters on message boards are not influenced by advertising income, unlike gamer mags.

Your average reviewer doesn't know or care anything about advertising income. It's the execs who do, and except in the shadiest of mags, they aren't going to tell the reviewers to give a good or bad review to a game based on ad revenue. I think you greatly overestimate the corruption of review magazines—most are entirely independent.

In any case, the indisputable problem with reviews is time. An average reviewer, AFAIK, plays the game through once. This isn't enough to formulate an opinion on how well the game will hold up after ten plays through. And if you didn't like RTW the first time through—well, tastes differ, and it's as simple as that. Most people did like RTW their first time.

-Simetrical

[Little Legioner]

In fact without modding vanilla R:TA looking is a 3D war game instead of a strategy game. I think different design teams different design teams made the older series or they decided make a new stage. Unhistoric elements (vanilla egypt proves my point) , lowered reality (jumping horses) and simplified battles (basic frontal attacks without flanking or prepared tactical maneuvers - everybody knows why )some make-up on economic system... Anyway, result did not satisfy the hardcore TW fans.

Just remember guys what was the funniest and realistic core element in any TW game? Epic battles. Frankly, do you love RTW battles?

They made a great financial success and they reached the younger age level but they sacrificed too much things. First victim is they own made serious TW gamers, to us...

RTW is a good game "for me"? I don't think so "but" RTW's potential promises a classic an epic.

Excuse me but many times i pushed myself for play vanilla game. That's my confess. Everytime i missed the old days, so sad but true.

If they want to earn us again they should make very serious job again. It must be beyond a patch or an expansion as a philosophy and structure. I believe miracles. RTW was a miracle but it was a unholy one. If they did a miracle they can do it again. (but a good one ) There is no obstacle on their way. They have (if we make it simplified) money, experienced team, productive and constructive community and a glorious past...

What are you waiting for?

If they did again release time is not a problem money also... I pay easily 100 USD for it. Frankly i swear...

[IceTorque]

For Epic Battles.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=49919

Play a short Grogs campaign,
you will change your mind about the game.

And for the really hardcore,
AI's Revenge mod will be here soon.

[lanky316]

Relating to the "forums as a buying tool" debate. I think it depends on which forums you are looking at, yeah, some forums may be populated ith 14 year old fps loving kids, who generally don't like to play long hard involving games.

The best sources will be "fan" sites for a game, as the org is a TW fan site I would listen to what people say, personally I don't think RTW is THAT bad, there have been worse games made, but it is definately not wha I was hoping for either.

[Servius]

IMO, no, there aren't any redeaming factors in RTW, or at least, if there are any, they certainly don't compensate for the failings of the game.

I, like most other posters so far, really liked MTW (and still do). Hell, I started a new campaign a few days ago. Personally, I think the only ways RTW is better than MTW is that the diplomatic options have been expanded, but honestly, that's the only improvement I see.

RTW is worse than MTW in many ways. The battlefields are super-bland. They are either devoid of any tactical land features (hills, woods, two-bridge maps, etc.) or there is one land feature that dominates the entire map (like one HUGE hill that runs the entire length of the map). The AI is terrible at almost everything. It makes semi-varied armies, but breaks them up into puny skirmishing units that just run all over the place and it rarely fields a consolidated army, with a general leading it, and sends it to attack a specific target.

They've also added in a lot of stuff under the guise of improved realism that really just makes the game more annoying. You can't build generals anymore, nor can you award titles or anything like that. The number of generals you have is linked to the number of provinces you have, so there's no realism to the family trees, and they die, which is more realistic but I think makes the game more tedious because you always have to be training new ones.

Basically many hardcoded factors in the game push you to constantly expand or die, but other factors (mainly tied to keeping the damn townsfolk happy) constantly works against your expansion. I find I spent the majority of the time micromanaging my cities, building buildings just to keep people happy over and over, rather than fighting battles. And the battles I did fight were skirmishes or sieges, and both were more boring and tedious than epic and fun.

Lastly, I feel a different customer service mentality with CA. Their attitude, I think, has been really crappy. They treat those of us unhappy with their game like jerks, they won't patch the game, even when they know things are broken, because the publisher won't pay for them to make the patches, and many of the things that have made the game worse are said to be hard-coded, so they cannot be improved upon by the modding community. It's just a bad attitude, a bad design job, and a bad support service. Since they seem to care more about money than quality, the only way to get through to them is to keep sales low until they become more responsive. So with that in mind, please don't buy any RTW stuff.

[Coldfish]

First of all...i don`t want to argue with anyone.....BUT,come on ....for those who think RTW is bad....let`s face it.....don`t tell that just because u got bored of RTW...that`s the problem i think...everyone started criticised RTW because they got bored of it.....how come at the beginning almost no one criticised the game.that`s the truth guys.RTW is a great game...and it always be a great game.peace!

[Little Legioner]

RTW is worse than MTW in many ways.

This is the motto of the many TW fans. Still don't understand that how they did RTW such as this bad? They had a great potential and experience for years. They gained many awards and they did a hybrid half TW/3D war game. Really strange. Are they aware from that i really wondering. Are they same people who did MTW and RTW?

Frankly i don't expect nothing beyond night battles (not new ) and swimmable units as a "improvement". They're on the edge. If they don't make a surprise a strong job if they surrender to the clickfester boys.

Amen
R.I.P

[professorspatula]

that`s the problem i think...everyone started criticised RTW because they got bored of it.....how come at the beginning almost no one criticised the game.that`s the truth guys.RTW is a great game...and it always be a great game.peace!

True to a degree. When a game is fresh, like RTW was, it's often more enjoyable, largely because you aren't expecting all the shortcomings that RTW offers over time. But that said, there were plenty of criticisms at the beginning, but we were mostly more forgiving back then. Sieges and AI were poor - but we believed a few patches or so would fix things nicely. Except they didn't. You'd have to be some kind of masochist to keep talking about a game after so much time if you didn't like it, so it ain't all that bad.

[ChaosLord]

I don't get these people who play M:TW and say they have a harder game then R:TW, both of them are easy. I mean I was brand new to the Total War series when I started M:TW and I was kicking the AI around on hard and expert in just a couple of days. Does noone remember the vast peasant/archer/spearman armies? How easy it was to lure the enemy into traps? How dumb the AI could be at times(I remember in the Almohad PBEM I was in, I killed the Spanish king with arrow fire while he sat there, unable to figure out what to do).

It took mods to get any sort of real challenge beyond the artificially induced mass rebellion trigger. Jihads and Crusades were a joke since 90% of the time they had no good general and would become rout fests. The Mongol hordes just needed you to kill their leader, then keep up mass routs and you could kill/capture 10,000+ in a single battle. Added to all this was the ease of mass hiring mercs to scare the AI into retreating or to use as expendable troops in sieges.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying I didn't like M:TW. I loved it, as I love R:TW. But M:TW was barely and just barely harder then R:TW when it came to battles, and it was brain dead when it came to the strategy map. R:TW like M:TW is slowly getting better as the mods are worked on, mods like R:TR and hopefully EB as well as Senjoku Jidai(sp?) and Zhao Total War in the future. I win a good portion of my battles in R:TR with the same ratios I did in M:TW mods, and often times the battles are harder(fighting phalanx civs with barbarians or such).

Oh and Simon, you should check out the MedMod for M:TW. Although it does focus alot on balancing things it also changes the lineups to be more historical as well as the factions. WesW and the people who have contributed to the mod have done an amazing job on it.

To go back on my statement, i'd like to say I was wrong. I actually need an advantage to get R:TW kill ratios in M:TW, whereas in R:TW it really doesn't matter. I'm actually having hard fought battles and even defeats after going back to M:TW. So it was my bad memory, and perhaps too many heroic victories in R:TW that had convinced me otherwise. After going back to M:TW i've since unistalled R:TW, no reason to go back now until the expansion. Where i'll optimistically hope they'll make the game somewhat challenging.

[screwtype]

First of all...i don`t want to argue with anyone

If you don't want to argue with anyone, you better not post here!

.....BUT....for those who think RTW is bad....that`s the problem i think...everyone started criticised RTW because they got bored of it.....how come at the beginning almost no one criticised the game.that`s the truth guys.RTW is a great game...and it always be a great game.peace!

Sorry old man, but a lot of folks were extremely critical of the game - even BEFORE its release - after they saw the demo. In fact heaps of longtime TW fans never even bothered buying the game, and just walked away...

I *did* buy the game, and was highly critical of it from the get-go. The initial release was so full of severe bugs that after a few days I gave up in frustration. Most of the bugs were eventually ironed out with 1.2, although some substantial ones, like the loadgame bug, the broken group commands, and broken pathfinding in cities still remain.

It was at least playable with 1.2 but that's when I found out about the incredibly lopsided battles and the missing-in-action battle AI. The game was quite frankly a bore and I reconsigned it to the shelf after a few days.

A few months ago I installed the RTR mod and finally managed to squeeze a bit of enjoyment out of it, but it was pretty shortlived as the underlying problems especially with the pitiful battle AI still remain.

I've never really understood the enthusiasm that so many folks had for the game, I can only suppose that most of them are people who never played the earlier games and don't know how much more challenging they were.

[IceTorque]

To go back on my statement, i'd like to say I was wrong. I actually need an advantage to get R:TW kill ratios in M:TW, whereas in R:TW it really doesn't matter. I'm actually having hard fought battles and even defeats after going back to M:TW. So it was my bad memory, and perhaps too many heroic victories in R:TW that had convinced me otherwise. After going back to M:TW i've since unistalled R:TW, no reason to go back now until the expansion. Where i'll optimistically hope they'll make the game somewhat challenging.

You will need to reinstall soon because the AI's Revenge Mod is almost done.
Humans should be very afraid.

Some features.
1.You will experience a level playing field
1.You will have consistently challenging battles the best that you have ever had.
2.you will suffer many defeats. (unless you are Alexander reborn )
3.You will experience a free flowing campaign. With the focus being on battles
and not micro management.
4.This is all possible with simple balancing, no cheats and no tricks.
5. I guarantee you will be humbled by the AI.

e.g. In vanilla you see a seemingly suicide cav charge.

Last night while playtesting I witnessed.
Two cav break from their advancing army and charge towards my frontline, The first cav charged one of my infantry, The second cav made a sharp turn before hitting my line and headed towards the first cav.
the first cav then withdrew forcing my unit to persue, The second cav smashed into the flank of my persuing unit. The first cav then charged again. Timed to perfection.
An obviously deliberate opening gambit.

Just one example of what you can expect. From truly the greatest TW game of all.

[Servius]

@ Little Legionaire: I think I read that the team that made RTW actually began working on it before MTW was done. If that's so, then it's certainly possible that two different teams were working independently on the games, which would help explain why the two are so different.

In general, I think that RTW definitely extended the potential of the game because there are more options in RTW (gameplay-wise, not modding-wise unfortunately), but the AI they built is terrible. So, when you compare AI skill with the potential of the game, the two are much closer in MTW (perhaps mostly because there were fewer variables for the AI to get distracted by) than in RTW.

IMO, CA could do nothing better for their game than to improve the AI, because it's the weakest link in the game overall. The next-best thing I think they could do would be to un-hardcode (if that's even possible) many of the variables in the game so that at least the modding community could make more if not all aspects of the game better. Lastly, cities should be less of a hassle to manage, and battlemaps should be more like MTW maps. Right now the hardest (and most annoying) part of the game is micromanaging the cities.

[Zatoichi]

Is RTW really that bad? No. It's just not as good as some people wanted it to be. I still enjoy playing it warts and all (that's the game's warts, obviously. My own warts are another matter entirely.)

[Little Legioner]

Just look that battlefield and honestly say it to me. Do you like it? and just remember MTW battlefields.





Put your hand on your heart say it to me which is better?

[KSEG]

Just look that battlefield and honestly say it to me. Do you like it? and just remember MTW battlefields.





Put your hand on your heart say it to me which is better?

RTW without a doubt.
And is it a deliberate thing that the troop number in RTW shot is fewer and in a forest compared to the MTW one?

[professorspatula]

Those screenshots remind me just how much CA need to work on the battlefield generator. How bland and featureless EVERY single battle is. Add some variation, and forests that aren't pencil thin or sparsely populated with trees. The historical battles have fantastic maps, because someone's put effort in designing them. These generated maps for RTW are boring as hell. Weee... another gently rolling hillside and 4 trees. The tactical options there are endless!

[IceTorque]

Absolutely awfull the terrain texture is.

[ToranagaSama]

Sorry, but I've looked at those screen shots, and to me certain things are evident.

One, the RTW screenshot is pretty lame as far as screenshots go. For a comparison, the shots s/h been on the same SCALE!!!

Though, it really doesn't matter.

The RTW shoot is rather bland and generic, with absolutely NO 'sense of place'. RTW maps have no sense of place.

Shogun maps felt like Japan!

MTW maps have a feeling of Europe! as well as, the deserts of north Africa. The desert felt like the desert, sandstorms felt like sandstorms; Fatigue in the desert felt like, *fatigue* in the desert!!

Granted, the first MTW shot *could* be either Japan or Europe; but the second, with its hedgrows is----Europe.

Overall, the MTW shots, simply are more REAL.

I look at the first MTW shot, and immediately my trained TW mind's-eye starts to, intuitively, determine the advantage I can take from the **elevations**. Immediately, I determine which side of the line I intend to *press* the attack for maximum advantage.

The second, the first thing I notice is that there is less *immediate* elevation advantage, at least for my foot troops. So, my eye goes to where best to place my Archers, and therefore the center of my line. Also, I note that Cav can play a pivotal role (note, I, ToranagaSama play with Hardcore Rules, limiting Cav units to no more than 4, including the General).

In fact, I REMEMER this map! Due to the rather open rolling nature of the terrain, battles tend to be rather losely structured affairs. Discipline is important. If you have your units running willy nilly all over the battlefield the AI will kick your butt.

A most significant thing to note, is the **distance** between the two armies. It is HUGE! Hardcore-type battles on this map tend, in my experience, to be battles of positioning and opening gambits. IMO, this one of those maps where the AI, with even or better troop strength and quality, has a good chance of victory, unless the Player is on top of his game.

I've had many an epic battle on this map.

Now, let's take a look at the RTW map:

My first thought is that as long as the AI isn't on top of that hill, then no problem. The AI, of course, is NOT going to be on top of the hill, we all know that!

So, at best, the AI will have a **slight** downhill advantage, but even that doesn't really matter much in RTW. So, frankly, the terrain doesn't bother me AT ALL!!!

Truly, there is little to no terrain considerations to consider--NADA! Terrain and the use of it will NOT determine this battle, and there's little remotely interesting either tactically or visually.

Now, thinking about this from a technological point of view, perhaps, the tactical and visual pleasures of STW/MTW maps was sacraficed, in order that we have RTW's *Dynamic* maps. Perhaps, but we haven't heard so from the mysterious ones in Britain.

If so, then, OK, one can understand what CA was shooting for. Though, I believe it s/h stayed in development with the game being released with the normal STW/MTW mapping.