BI Demo Comments

[Mr Frost]

The second time I played Chalons I put my infantry into guard mode and made two large groups of cavalry placed far out on each flank. I waited until the AI engaged my infantry and then I swept both groups of cav in by double clicking on the ground. I didn't use any individual targeting. I just did mass cav sweeps, and I won a huge victory. I didn't write it down, but I think my kills were about 10:1.

Sounds like classic horse army tactics to me .

The {later} Byzantines actually favored it if I remember my history correctly .

I just D.L.ed the demo myself and won a heroic victory™ at Chalons . I placed my infantry in line as was {best spears flanks , then swords and weak spears middle I think} , grouped and marched them to wait on the slope behind us . Then I grouped all my heavy cavalry with my general in line , grouped and placed them behind the infantry whilst my horse archers {which I again grouped} engaged the enemy line to draw them in whilst causing them casualities and my light cavalry I left in the woods on our left flank .
The enemy mauled and broke one of my horse archers with balista and their own horse archers {and somewhat reduced the other units} , but took quite a few casualities and more importantly , broke up their line chasing my lads whom they had no hope of catching . I simply left the horse archers to their own devices {C/A seemed to have fixed the old problem of horse archers skirmishing to the redline then getting cornered} which worked nicely .
The foe threw himself at my infantry {not all at once , but beggars can be choosers} and I sprung my ambush of light cav and my heavies at their right flank {my left} and basically rolled their line .

Silly romans :p



Edit : spelling , bet I missed some still .

[TheBigN]

Uggg I downloaded the Demo and Extracted it to a new folder i made. But when i start it up the background on the Menu is White and whenever i start a battle it CTDs. Does anyone know what the problem is?

[Mordred]

Havent played the original Rome for a while, only mods. Seems tome it is still hilariously fast, I think running speed and killing speed are even faster than original Rome. Units still do not listen to commands given. Cav trash through everything. Havent played the second battle. Waste of money, unless a good mod is being made for it.
Kenchi Mord

[Puzz3D]

I just D.L.ed the demo myself and won a heroic victory™ at Chalons . I placed my infantry in line as was {best spears flanks , then swords and weak spears middle I think} , grouped and marched them to wait on the slope behind us . Then I grouped all my heavy cavalry with my general in line , grouped and placed them behind the infantry whilst my horse archers {which I again grouped} engaged the enemy line to draw them in whilst causing them casualities and my light cavalry I left in the woods on our left flank.

You don't have to do any of that. I took the units the way they were placed. I didn't need high ground. I didn't have to place the line units in any particular order. I didn't have to group the cav in any specific way; light cav and heavy cav mixed was fine. I didn't have to give a single unit specific order or target any specific enemy unit. I only gave a single order to each of the two cav groups, then I sat back and watched.

It works because the AI doesn't defend against it. Individually, it appears that spears work against cav, but I can't tell how well they work yet. They are going to have to be able to stop massed cav attacks to pull multiplayer out of the cav spam type of gameplay that exists in RTW.

[Red Harvest]

Sounds like more of the same. Is speed really untouched? (Both combat and movement.)

[asilv]

Is speed really untouched? (Both combat and movement.)

Combat is maybe little slower, but movement speed is unchanged.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Played Chalons and on the whole the AI seemed a bit more robust even if I'm puzzled why it favopured a reverse slope defense, leaving me to chuck javalins down onto the Huns. Gave the AI a sound thrashing, ofcourse wiping out nearly every Hun, leaving under a hundred alive, losing 46 men myself. Yawn.

Still could've been worse. All my Chariot Ballistas healed themselves. How did they die, you ask? I'm not entirely sure. I was moving them in to engage heavy hun cavalry, they took aim through their front, fired... and instantenously dropped dead, all but two of them, who died on their next volley. That's right, THEY KILLED THEMSELVES!!!! I couldn't quite catch what happened as my new place hasn't got curtains yet and the sun glare made it difficult to see what happened in detail but they all dropped dead on the very same moment, just as they fired. Still killed nine enemy men according to the AAR, surprisingly.
Anyone else seen this?

[SpencerH]

Sounds like more of the same. Is speed really untouched? (Both combat and movement.)

Very much so. I played Badon Hill and it was very reminiscent of a good RTS.

[SpencerH]

A couple more points.

A funny blue bar appears on the unit cards when they are swimming. It took me a few seconds to figure out what it was since I noticed it during a bit of a tense moment'.

Its a big mistake to try to swim missile units across a river with skirmish on. Not having played in a while, I forgot to turn off skirmish mode for foot missile units- thanks for leaving that as default CA- so they swam back and forth across the river and were totally useless.

PS swimming archers is totally bogus. Natural bowstrings become useless when wet.

[magnum]

Graphics wise everything went almost fine for me. Had one CTD at the start of a Bandon Hill battle.

Units as a whole seem to be less cohesive, spreading out over a large area... especially if you run them. Personally I think thats a good thing but it does mean you must be careful of running a unit (infantry or cav) to a point and then immediatly engaging. You need to give them some time to reform. That also makes running down routers more difficult as they're all over the place.

Did seem to have some problem with friendly fire. Lost Bandon Hill the first time as the king got killed by friendly fire. Wasn't terrible and not sure if it wasn't normal as that battle has allies in it and I think it was an ally that got me.

The red line is now the border. You come to it and its like hitting a wall. Only noticed it though while chasing routers.

Combat is still fairly quick. Basic RTW rules of whom should engage whom seem to still apply.

Infantry seemed very fast. Had an extremely difficult time maneurving my cavalry around/past enemy infantry as they'd turn and catch me very quickly. Trying to engage archers with a generals units of cav took almost have the battle map for him to catch them.

Overall seems very good. Looking forward BI whens its released. Unfortunately for me I'm more interested in the campaign map part of the game then the battles, but was still fun fighting with the new units. (Enjoyed the night battle with the glowing lights all around. )

Oh, and played the battles on Hard. Haven't tried very hard yet...

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

The speed seems faster - unless RTR6 actually did reduce speed. I was under the impression that it didn't, but I was shocked by the speed of the demo.

I'll have to give BKB's mod a shot, because I have no idea how to adjust scripts and the like.

[Lysander]

Sorry to go over this again, but I really think the models for the “Paladin Bodyguards” and the “Scholae Palatinae” have a little glitch in them. I suppose it could be a hardware problem of mine, but every single time I load up the game the glitch is present and it exists only in those units.

Just compare the right side of the “Paladin Bodyguards” with the “Paladins.” You should see the Bodyguards (the Frankish general unit) have a shard that sticks out and the right side of their body is exposed allowing you to see into the opposite side of their torso. See pic above. The normal Paladins look fine from the right side and they are virtually the same model.

On the “Scholae Palatinae,” do this test: just zoom the camera down and leave the Scholae Palatinae idle, un-pause the game. You should see that every once in a while a soldier in the unit turns his head to look around. When this happens the lower head remains welded to the body but the top part of the model turns around normally, this creates the distortion effect in the pic above. This happens with no other unit that I know of.

I apologize for being obstinate, but I want CA to know about it so they can fix it for the full game

[Afro Thunder]

I don't think the battles are shorter. In fact, most of the fights that I have experienced actually last longer than in RTW. I have noticed that enemy units rout after taking heavy casualties, and they stick around on the battlefield a lot longer.

Oh BTW, call me a n00b, but how do you win the Badon Hill battle? Is divine intervention a prerequisite?

[Red Harvest]

Very much so. I played Badon Hill and it was very reminiscent of a good RTS.

Well, crud. I've not even been able to get my interest level up enough to download the demo. CA warned us that there was not much they could do about the speeds without rebuilding the game. And with the short time between the expansion pack and the game it was clear that they wouldn't have time to do nearly what was needed.

Maybe CA will be back on track when the 4th TW generation comes out.

[CBR]

Maybe CA will be back on track when the 4th TW generation comes out.

Next game and expansion will be using same engine as RTW. But we can always hope...

I havent touched RTW in 5 months and the demo did remind me of why I uninstalled it back then. At least some of the new stuff gives mods even more options.


CBR

[Red Harvest]

Next game and expansion will be using same engine as RTW. But we can always hope...

I figured that. STW and MTW were the same basic engine as I understand it, so I figured they would use RTW for "nexTW."

However, it should definitely be possible to fix the speeds. It really depends on the time they have and whether or not they appreciate this as being a BIG issue. If I had the tools to fix the skeletons even I could do it (and add more skeletons to boot.) The combat kill rates, missile kill rates and things like that are also relatively straightforward, but only if you can change those base factors that are presently out of reach.

[SpencerH]

Well, crud. I've not even been able to get my interest level up enough to download the demo. CA warned us that there was not much they could do about the speeds without rebuilding the game. And with the short time between the expansion pack and the game it was clear that they wouldn't have time to do nearly what was needed.

Maybe CA will be back on track when the 4th TW generation comes out.

You should try it. If we have any hope of getting bugs fixed, we have to have experienced eyes testing it. They fixed the bug that Oaty found.

[CBR]

I just checked the stats for upgraded units and it appears armour/weapon upgrades are still shown to only give +1 on one stat (defense for armour and attack for weapon) but they are actually increasing it by +2. Would be nice if that "bug" was fixed too.

Edit: Or maybe they actually did lower the effect from upgrades.


CBR