Dissapointment

[The Stranger]

i hear people complaining about the bugs, unfinished features and other stuff. but the thig that annoys me most, are shutting of the game cuz i don't feel like playing the battle. i have 5 battles a year but i never feel like fighting them. know why, they never give me the kick like in MTW, i always know i'm going to win not only cuz i'm skilled but mostly cuz the battles sucks. when killing 6000 men and loose 0, that isn't fun. defitily when you have to fight this kinda battles every turn. it is so boring.

to clear this up.
i don't use overpowered armies, i use well balanced armies. i'm playing the rebel faction and the strongest unit i can get are the hoplites/hastati. now i never lost an real fight, while i've been facing cats, silver shields and companions. now this means there something not good. CA you dissapointed me, and not me alone i think.

[Mongoose]

Yeah, i wish the battles were harder to...almost ruins an other wise amazing game...

But is there really any point to this thread? A better place to let off some steam would be here IMHO.

[KSEG]

i hear people complaining about the bugs, unfinished features and other stuff. but the thig that annoys me most, are shutting of the game cuz i don't feel like playing the battle. i have 5 battles a year but i never feel like fighting them. know why, they never give me the kick like in MTW, i always know i'm going to win not only cuz i'm skilled but mostly cuz the battles sucks. when killing 6000 men and loose 0, that isn't fun. defitily when you have to fight this kinda battles every turn. it is so boring.

to clear this up.
i don't use overpowered armies, i use well balanced armies. i'm playing the rebel faction and the strongest unit i can get are the hoplites/hastati. now i never lost an real fight, while i've been facing cats, silver shields and companions. now this means there something not good. CA you dissapointed me, and not me alone i think.

I cant believe this.
I'll never be able to do that, if it IS true.
Am I just a noob?
Or are you some military genius?

[Mongoose]

Many RTW players can do it...

Just play for afew more months...you will be able to do it too.

[{SPID}thepig]

soe features of this game do annoy me but when the new version comes out its gonna be great

[Colovion]

I play on Hard and I have the same problems. I know in RTW it was supposed to be less battles but with more importance - but it seems totally the opposite. When the enemy can even get a full stack together they're most likely not led by a General, and he's just chilling in some valley alone not leading an army or governing a city. I believe that if the Generals began leading armies, gathering troops and then invading regions with full stacks - perhaps one full stack buffered by other stacks of troops - that would create the expectations which were set.

How it is now I agree - the battles happen all the time and are neither decisive (impacting on diplomacy) nor satisfying (yay I just routed their army without losing more than a couple skirmishers...). In MTW it was much harder fought prettymuch any battle - I think that with a couple tweaks to the battle engine and the campaign engine and we might have a winner.

One thing that has made me stop playing the game is that RTW is a combination of the worst possible algorithim you could hope to conjure for a buggy game which doesn't satisfy. I'll explain:

/1 - It's the revolutionary game. This means that nothing is honed or polished because it is the first incarnation of the game in this complexity and this amount of change. Imagine what the Evolutionary game will be like; probably much less bugs and will have features defined and working correctly. This TW game is the first to use 3d so that makes for more possibilities for error what with that large change.

/2 - The market for the sales are Hollywoodized kids who don't know a sarissa from a halberd. Perhaps in the future evolutionary releases we will be thrown a bone that will quench the fans at the Org who want more than the lowest common denominator for historical battles and empire building. It's likely, I think, that CA has not merely turned a blind eye to the rage, frustration and agony that RTW's release has caused the community. That's my hope and it's why I am still here.

That all being said - Age of Empires 2 went to Age of Mythology = 3D Revolutionary game for the series. After playing that for a couple months there were only minor problems with the game which were patched as soon as they could - at the moment there have been ten patches released - some of them merely to balance units so that they aren't overpowered and so that the battle system works more deftly. Oh yeah - and with AoM they released a brand new dedicated server to play online games on called Ensemble Studios Online. Right out of the box it worked great - but there were a number of patches released to enhance the experience. So can it be done? Yes. So don't dispair.

[The Stranger]

Yeah, i wish the battles were harder to...almost ruins an other wise amazing game...

But is there really any point to this thread? A better place to let off some steam would be here IMHO.

its stupid, the battles should be and were (in MTw and STW) the best part of the game

[BrutalDictatorship]

yeah...even my RTR buzz is wearing off at this point due to this very reason...

CA needs a wakeup call...and I think they're going to get it when the next wave of Strategy titles hit the market this fall.

[IceTorque]

One thing most of us agree on is that:

The 3d battles are the heart of the game ,the main feature, the reason TW games exist.

So if C.A. can't change too much in BI, Lets hope they concentrate on improving the best part in the next game.

Big beautiful scenic battle maps, and a return to Sun Tzu.

[BrutalDictatorship]

unfortunately, they've stated that this is not possible. They are not changing the size of the battlefields and are not changing any of the current "hardcoded" battle variables.

trust me...all we're going to get in BI is more eye candy (but nothing not already featured in the many mods already out there) and a few added campaign features such as "civil wars" etc.

Problem is that until the battlefield AI, as well as the LOAD GAME SIEGE BUG is fixed, nothing else matters...at all.

[katank]

Bringing back civil wars will certainly be a big plus for me.

Having to watch loyalty etc. is great.

Keeping together an empire like HRE was so much harder with civil wars and made it really fun. If you didn't properly slaughter this wave of French knights, you know that half of your empire is going to turn gray.

[BrutalDictatorship]

again...what does any of this matter if they don't fix the load game siege bug?

[KSEG]

Igonore this post

[KSEG]

I just did 3 custom battle using

Greek City
6 militia hoplites
2 archers
2 greek cavalrys

against

Seleucid

6 argyraspids
4 archers
6 cataphracts

in "Praetor" difficulty using RTR 5.4.1.
They have abowt twice more men and better units which Umeu 1 said "not even a challenge".
And every time I get slaughtered.
I can kill about 200-300 of them but I always get routed.
And i'm not just charging without any thought!!
I try to outflank them, change the formation, hide the units, but none of them changes the tide of the battle.
Am I just a noob?
Is it possible for someone to post a replay track showing how to win in the same situation?

[Mongoose]

I just did 3 custom battle using

Greek City
6 hoplites
2 archers
2 greek cavalrys

against

Seleucid

6 argyraspids
4 archers
6 cataphracts

in "Praetor" difficulty using RTR 5.4.1.
They have abput twice more men and better units which Umeu 1 said "not even a challenge".
And every time I get slaughtered.
I can kill about 200-300 of them but I always get routed.
And i'm not just charging without any though!!
I try to outflank them, change the formation, hide the units, but none of them changes the tide of the battle.
Am I just a noob?
Is it possible for someone to post a replay track showing how to win in the same situation?

If you feel a question can only be answered by some iteration of 'Dude you're sh*t' then keep your opinion to yourself.

I have not played RTW in a long time, so please forgive me if the above is indeed an impossible battle. thanks

[HarunTaiwan]

That sounds like a hard one to win, especially if you are the attacker.

[The Stranger]

I play on Hard and I have the same problems. I know in RTW it was supposed to be less battles but with more importance - but it seems totally the opposite. When the enemy can even get a full stack together they're most likely not led by a General, and he's just chilling in some valley alone not leading an army or governing a city. I believe that if the Generals began leading armies, gathering troops and then invading regions with full stacks - perhaps one full stack buffered by other stacks of troops - that would create the expectations which were set.

How it is now I agree - the battles happen all the time and are neither decisive (impacting on diplomacy) nor satisfying (yay I just routed their army without losing more than a couple skirmishers...). In MTW it was much harder fought prettymuch any battle - I think that with a couple tweaks to the battle engine and the campaign engine and we might have a winner.

One thing that has made me stop playing the game is that RTW is a combination of the worst possible algorithim you could hope to conjure for a buggy game which doesn't satisfy. I'll explain:

/1 - It's the revolutionary game. This means that nothing is honed or polished because it is the first incarnation of the game in this complexity and this amount of change. Imagine what the Evolutionary game will be like; probably much less bugs and will have features defined and working correctly. This TW game is the first to use 3d so that makes for more possibilities for error what with that large change.

/2 - The market for the sales are Hollywoodized kids who don't know a sarissa from a halberd. Perhaps in the future evolutionary releases we will be thrown a bone that will quench the fans at the Org who want more than the lowest common denominator for historical battles and empire building. It's likely, I think, that CA has not merely turned a blind eye to the rage, frustration and agony that RTW's release has caused the community. That's my hope and it's why I am still here.

That all being said - Age of Empires 2 went to Age of Mythology = 3D Revolutionary game for the series. After playing that for a couple months there were only minor problems with the game which were patched as soon as they could - at the moment there have been ten patches released - some of them merely to balance units so that they aren't overpowered and so that the battle system works more deftly. Oh yeah - and with AoM they released a brand new dedicated server to play online games on called Ensemble Studios Online. Right out of the box it worked great - but there were a number of patches released to enhance the experience. So can it be done? Yes. So don't dispair.

eh, i don't have that, almost all battles i'm fighting are vs general led stacks. most of them are pretty balanced, but they just can't fight.

[The Stranger]

I just did 3 custom battle using

Greek City
6 militia hoplites
2 archers
2 greek cavalrys

against

Seleucid

6 argyraspids
4 archers
6 cataphracts

in "Praetor" difficulty using RTR 5.4.1.
They have abowt twice more men and better units which Umeu 1 said "not even a challenge".
And every time I get slaughtered.
I can kill about 200-300 of them but I always get routed.
And i'm not just charging without any thought!!
I try to outflank them, change the formation, hide the units, but none of them changes the tide of the battle.
Am I just a noob?
Is it possible for someone to post a replay track showing how to win in the same situation?

eh sorry i forgot to say that i'm an extremely defensive player, all my tactics are based on getting attacked. i have series of layouts that i can pick i different sircumstances. even when i'm on an offensive campaign i lure the enemy out to attack me by sieging their cities or place my armies infront of their stacks.

i've won 3 waves of battles in one turn without retraining. i had 2500 men and i had to face 15000. i lost 700 men but those sold their hide dearly, the ptolemaics lost 10000 men. not just men but alot of eles and elite troops.

i don't know if i can win such battles when attacking but i certainly can when defending.

[Colovion]

eh, i don't have that, almost all battles i'm fighting are vs general led stacks. most of them are pretty balanced, but they just can't fight.

oh yeah, I don't notice much a difference when Generals lead the armies anyway - they're so inexperienced from never fighting that when a miracle occurs and they wander into an army and give battle to me it's only an advantage to kill a family member rather than a disadvantage to be fighting a General led army.

[The Stranger]

i'm having an army on a bridge in india, 4 eles, 4 archers and 2 HA and 6 sparabara (eastern infantry). the seleucids are attacking me every 2 turns, almost all their armies has a general, but one has 4. while i kill their whole bodyguard those B*tches stay alive. not cool, one general surviving 1000 arrows in one volley. i win every battle with 0 casualties and always kill 2000 out of 4000-6000. normally i pursue the routers and retreaters, but to make it fun i dont do in these battles. also in almost every battle i fought vs the AI in RTR were full stack, well ballanced and general led. so great job RTR team. but i doesnt help, i still wipe their asses witthout even using any advanced tactics. i don't have to flank cuz their dead before i even reached them.

[Colovion]

I've never played RTR.

[The Stranger]

yuo should try it. or wait for eb.

[KSEG]

i'm having an army on a bridge in india, 4 eles, 4 archers and 2 HA and 6 sparabara (eastern infantry). the seleucids are attacking me every 2 turns, almost all their armies has a general, but one has 4. while i kill their whole bodyguard those B*tches stay alive. not cool, one general surviving 1000 arrows in one volley. i win every battle with 0 casualties and always kill 2000 out of 4000-6000. normally i pursue the routers and retreaters, but to make it fun i dont do in these battles. also in almost every battle i fought vs the AI in RTR were full stack, well ballanced and general led. so great job RTR team. but i doesnt help, i still wipe their asses witthout even using any advanced tactics. i don't have to flank cuz their dead before i even reached them.

Have you tryed darthmod?

[The Stranger]

no cuz i don't like the units

[econ21]

I've never played RTR.

Why not? I think it's just what you are looking for. I hadn't tried any RTR mods until about a couple of weeks ago. But I had become pretty disaffected with RTW for much the same reasons as you've posted about in the Org. Then someone mentioned RTR and I thought "why not?". There are 3 main benefits:

(1) Most immediately obvious - slower battles. We are talking about back to MTW style here. At first, I thought "what's the point of waiting?" as I had got used to the fast pace of RTW. Then I started to savour the battles as I used to do in MTW. This is partly because of:

(2) More pumped up non-Roman armies. In RTW, you'd have one or maybe two really big battles when you first started to fight an enemy faction, then it would often degenerate into a series of mopping up operations. In RTR, I keep thinking I've won the decisive battle when I stumble on another full stack. This is most obvious with the Greeks. The Gauls and Carthage are not great, but better opponents than in vanilla (Carthage is said to be getting a boost in v6.0)

(3) No noticeably ahistorical units (bye-bye Eygptians, wardogs, Roman archers, legionnary cav etc).

Perhaps my only gripe with RTR is the one this thread started with - too many battles! They've made more provinces, so it can feel like even more of a grind. They are more worthy battles than in vanilla, but if you play competently, you're going to win most without really trying.

You should also try the Roma mod for RTR just to see what the engine can do (too tough for my tastes, but I've copied the idea of recruiting Romans only from my starting cities to boost the challenge from RTR).

[Mongoose]

Also, RTR is very easy as most factions. Not as easy as vanilla, but still easy.

The Greeks, in the words of an Ex-team member, are absurdly over powered due to lack of play testing.

[The Wizard]

No noticably ahistorical units indeed -- but let's not spark up the mod vs mod debate here, lest we try Catiline's patience for once ;]

It's quite simple really, the explanation. You put an outdated AI into a totally new environment and it will flounder and fail horribly. Add to that horrible balance issues regarding such things as cavalry and you get not only a campaign map full of new features that don't work, but also a completely inaccurate tactical system.



~Wiz

[Mongoose]

I was being too harsh, the mod is alot better then vanilla. I just think it would benefit alot from a little playtesting.


What really does not help is people over at TWC screaming "RELEASE IT NOW!"

[ChaosLord]

Its alot easier to win defensive battles Umeu 1, you pick your ground and can force the AI to attack where you want. And its 10x, maybe even 100x easier to win a defensive bridge battle. I can see why playing like that would mean you get little or no challenges. You should try being the attacker more often, or trying to attack rather then defend a bridge.

[Mongoose]

Well, that is hardly cheating. It's like saying "you should not flank the AI, it makes the game harder"

Just my 2 cents.