RTW AI same as MTW AI

[sapi]

Your love of the MTW AI does not mean that MTW's AI is superior. I'm not saying RTW AI is better, but it does handle more features, so must be more advanced.

I completely agree. RTW is an improvement; people are talking of post-vi mtw ai, rtw hasn't had an expansion yet; who knows what it may bring.

If you're complaining about balance go play a mod like rtr to pass the time.

[Red Harvest]

Puzz3D is correct, especially about the MTW AI staying on high ground and moving to maintain its advantage. That is probably the biggest deficiency in RTW's AI. It lets you flank it and take high ground without responding. It has either a "camp in place, do nothing" or "ATTACK!, ATTACK!, ATTACK!" as its approach. The MTW AI *marched* across the map. RTW charges to its death, fatigued.

The camping approach makes perfect sense for the MTW AI when it has inferior forces. It is the same thing I do in its position. Move to forest or elevation (or both) or to a bridge, etc. and defend. That's the way real generals did it too...

The archery effect in MTW fit better with the game, especially rank depth effects. In RTW you can stack 16 men deep and not see a change in accuracy. In fact, distance attenuation on accuracy seems to be missing in RTW. What little I could detect appeared to be related to the terminal angle (and hence the smaller cross section at distance compared to point blank.)

RTW has no idea what to do with the phalanx, that pretty much makes the AI broken. MTW didn't have the phalanx but it used heavy/slow units like halbardiers better than RTW does its phalangites. Regardless, it is a serious deficiency that RTW has and for which MTW lacks an equivalent problem.

RTW tries to reorient its line far too close to the player's position. It doesn't analyze the match ups until it is too late or it tries to change them too late. This is absolutely fatal to phalanx warfare as it turns the flank at the most critical time. MTW was better at trying to achieve favorable matchups.

RTW uses it skirmishers better...when it actually uses them as skirmishers. Skirmish mode is improved, but the result is hampered by insufficient margin between javelin throwing distance and "flee" distance. Too often it just charges them into the line and fails to skirmish. The MTW AI was far better about sending out archers to skirmish and wear down the player, but it did suffer from doing things more piecemeal than a human, so the AI could use his/her archers much more effectively.

The AI still suffers in RTW because of the snowball charge effect. There is no real penalty to creating a rolling mass of units in a tight space. Kill rate is too high. Crowding and disorganization/loss of formation penalties appear to be absent.

[Shaun]

youre right, theMTW AI was better at controling different units, what shows up the RTW AI is its use of phalanxs and skirmishers, and its suicide generals.

[Ludens]

Excellent summary, Red Harvest. The only things I have to add is the AI's reaction to hidden units and reinforcements. In M:TW, the AI would actively search for them if the number of units he could see did not correspond with the numbers you have (at higher difficulty levels, at least). In R:TW he just ignores them.

Heck, once in R:TW I was approaching the AI through a forest, slingers at front, infantry behind. The AI did not dare to engage my infantry, but once my army stopped and my infantry went 'hidden', the AI charged. My skirmishers withdrew, the infantry rose to throw their pila, and lo and behold: the AI troops turn tail and run back to their original position. It is just like the AI forgets the hidden units are there as soon as they go 'hidden'.

I have never seen the R:TW AI spring tactical ambushes.

The R:TW AI goes after the primary attacker/defender and ignores reinforcements until they get into view. It is sometime since I played M:TW, but I remember a few battles were the AI would always go for the weaker enemy army and destroy it before the stronger was in a position to help.

There is only one occasion where I saw the R:TW AI do something I never saw in M:TW. This was in a bridge battle where the defending AI was taken on two sides by a smaller, weaker and bigger force. The AI initially ignored the bigger army and chose to defend the bridge against the weaker force, which was the primary attacker, but once it spotted the reinforcing army it setup a formation to protect itself from both armies. I have never seen the M:TW AI do this. Unfortunately, once the big army came close the AI lost its head, sent one unit over the bridge (which got slaughtered by my small army), threw its formation into chaos and was butchered. One famous last stand.

[sunsmountain]

It has either a "camp in place, do nothing" or "ATTACK!, ATTACK!, ATTACK!" as its approach. The MTW AI *marched* across the map. RTW charges to its death, fatigued.

Funny enough, so does Medieval, the only difference is that MTW does so at an army level, keeping everything together before engaging. Rome reacts a little jumpy on unit level, and easily charges towards its inevitable doom.

What little I could detect appeared to be related to the terminal angle (and hence the smaller cross section at distance compared to point blank.)

What you'll also notice if you stack them 16 deep is that not all of them are firing if they are not in range, whereas if they fired in MTW, all of them fired, even though "realistically" the ones on the back row would not be in range yet. (nitpicking, but still, realism fails against gameplay in this case i think).

This is absolutely fatal to phalanx warfare as it turns the flank at the most critical time. MTW was better at trying to achieve favorable matchups.

MTW never had to. It's unfamiliar with things like Phalanxes, and if you flank Chivalric Sergeants or Swiss Pikemen, the effect is no different from flanking Chivalric Men At Arms or even Chivalric Knights (remember Cavalry/Infantry doesnt matter in MTW engine), if their morale levels were equal.

The AI still suffers in RTW because of the snowball charge effect. There is no real penalty to creating a rolling mass of units in a tight space. Kill rate is too high. Crowding and disorganization/loss of formation penalties appear to be absent.

Loss of formation is definitely penalized, if only by Ludens' example of the bridge and the AI losing because it screws up its formations, which I agree, is irritating.

In general, unit AI still has a too strong a say in things on the field. It does try to match up with units it can handle, but as long as it can cause casulties, it doesnt really care about the type of troop its up against.

So a group of Principes will take any barbarian unit perhaps except cavalry if spearmen are on the field, it should of course aim for enemy spearmen, but that must be planned at an early stage in the battle, which is somehow removed from the game (armies do start close to each other).

Perhaps we can agree that at least the possibilities of the Rome AI are more numerous than in MTW, and hopefully, also the tactics (if terrain would matter that would add s/t already)

I have never seen the R:TW AI spring tactical ambushes.

Never had the unfortune of walking into germania and meeting a barbarian army hiding on the campaign map in the forest?

[Red Harvest]

What you'll also notice if you stack them 16 deep is that not all of them are firing if they are not in range, whereas if they fired in MTW, all of them fired, even though "realistically" the ones on the back row would not be in range yet. (nitpicking, but still, realism fails against gameplay in this case i think).

It varied from patch to patch in RTW. The ranged units would wait until the center of the formation was in range ir RTW before firing, that would usually get most individuals firing at an approaching opponent. It changed some with FF modification later. MTW didn't have everyone firing from what I remember, especially not in FF situations, where there would be only sporadic firing.

(remember Cavalry/Infantry doesnt matter in MTW engine), if their morale levels were equal.

MTW actually had anti-cav spears...something that is a real problem for RTW...broken counters. Cavalry rules them all, which is boring and unrealistic.

Loss of formation is definitely penalized, if only by Ludens' example of the bridge and the AI losing because it screws up its formations, which I agree, is irritating.

Problem is that stacking works and doesn't disrupt formations and reduce overall performance like it should. People build super phalanx walls by stacking. You are seeing the terrain bottleneck effect disrupting formation, that's different. That doesn't effect the snowball on the open field.

Perhaps we can agree that at least the possibilities of the Rome AI are more numerous than in MTW, and hopefully, also the tactics (if terrain would matter that would add s/t already)

There is more complexity available to the units (but yes, unfortunately less weather and terrain impact.) However, the AI is not sufficiently adapted to the nuances of RTW to handle it. There is more potential, but unless the AI can tap into it, it is more of a burden than a help.

[Ludens]

Funny enough, so does Medieval, the only difference is that MTW does so at an army level, keeping everything together before engaging. Rome reacts a little jumpy on unit level, and easily charges towards its inevitable doom.

Not exactly. For example, when defending a ridge in Medieval, the AI would change its formation according to how you approached, maximizing its defensive strenght. In the R:TW, the AI merely swivels its army around, oftentimes actually allowing you to get higher than they. I have forced many armies of an advantageous position simply by marching around them.

MTW never had to. It's unfamiliar with things like Phalanxes, and if you flank Chivalric Sergeants or Swiss Pikemen, the effect is no different from flanking Chivalric Men At Arms or even Chivalric Knights (remember Cavalry/Infantry doesnt matter in MTW engine), if their morale levels were equal.

It would mean disruption and loss of rank bonuses for the spearmen, but you've got a point.

Loss of formation is definitely penalized, if only by Ludens' example of the bridge and the AI losing because it screws up its formations, which I agree, is irritating.

I think Puzz3D was refering to unit formation while I refered to army formation.

Perhaps we can agree that at least the possibilities of the Rome AI are more numerous than in MTW, and hopefully, also the tactics (if terrain would matter that would add s/t already)

I can agree with you there, sadly this potential is not used at the moment.

Never had the unfortune of walking into germania and meeting a barbarian army hiding on the campaign map in the forest?

I've walked into ambushes a couple of times, but they always failed for some reason. I specifically typed tactical ambushes to indicate hiden units on the battle map, not on the strategic map. If the AI hides its units, it seems merely because they accidentally were in a forrest.

[Ryanus]

Well RTW is my first total war game, and the reason I got it was the promise of better/realistic tactics and the combination of Civilizations type strategy and real time tactical combat, so CA shouldn't think that more strategic depth will scare of new players because thats what probably attracted many of them to the francize in the first place.

As for longer battles, I would like it if I had more to do during the battle, but I don't think actually joining in battle should take half the time.

[Red Harvest]

Not exactly. For example, when defending a ridge in Medieval, the AI would change its formation according to how you approached, maximizing its defensive strenght. In the R:TW, the AI merely swivels its army around, oftentimes actually allowing you to get higher than they. I have forced many armies of an advantageous position simply by marching around them.

Yep, MTW was much better about this. RTW is just brain dead. It swivels when it should slide. It does a similar thing when you sally through the side gates. It will often pivot its army and sometimes pivot and withdraw *to lower ground.* It never just backs up onto high ground in the rear during a sally.

I specifically typed tactical ambushes to indicate hiden units on the battle map, not on the strategic map. If the AI hides its units, it seems merely because they accidentally were in a forrest.

Yes, tactical surprise is almost entirely missing in RTW. You know where your enemy is nearly all the time. RTW lost that suspense of trying to sweep acrosss the woods and valleys without fatiguing or being ambushed or defeated on one flank before the other could link up. It's missing from RTW.

[Deus ret.]

The R:TW AI goes after the primary attacker/defender and ignores reinforcements until they get into view. It is sometime since I played M:TW, but I remember a few battles were the AI would always go for the weaker enemy army and destroy it before the stronger was in a position to help.

AFAIK MTW didn't know several armies attacking from different directions, that was introduced in RTW by dividing tha camp map into tiles. So usually it didn't have to cope with more than one group of enemies.

I've never really been a fan of custom battles though, it might be different there.

It never just backs up onto high ground in the rear during a sally.

Yes it does. At least if you have onagers/long range attackers inside the walls, and sometimes also if you haven't.
However in general the RTW AI can easily be outsmarted especially during sally battles.

Instead of being unhappy with the lame RTW AI, you could as well ease the annoyance. There have been efforts to alleviate this state: Try e.g. the Darth mod. I even had fun while losing battles thanks to the nasty AI.

[screwtype]

The AI is better in MTW/STW. Archers, for example, never behave like melee units in the earlier games. And you don't get silly behaviour like AI units drowning themsleves.

AI armies in the earlier games maneouvre more as a group, and it's also harder to entice them out of position. In RTW there appears to be next to no co-ordination at all after the initial deployment. Units just go and do their individual thing. It's easy to get AI units out of position and pick them off one by one in RTW.

And the proof of the pudding is in the eating. In MTW/STW you will lose some battles, and even when you win, you usually take significant losses. In RTW you almost never lose, and your losses are usually negligible. Of course, this is also due in part to the slower combat and routing of the earlier games but it also has to do with the AI.

[Puzz3D]

And the proof of the pudding is in the eating. In MTW/STW you will lose some battles, and even when you win, you usually take significant losses. In RTW you almost never lose, and your losses are usually negligible. Of course, this is also due in part to the slower combat and routing of the earlier games but it also has to do with the AI.

The faster combat in RTW depresses morale more, and I don't think the AI considers that when deciding to send it's units in to fight. It appears to use morale in deciding whether to stay and fight or withdraw, and that's what I've observed in all the Total War games. After that, in STW and MTW, it will attempt to make direct attacks with units that are stronger than the target unit and indirect attacks with units that are weaker. LongJohn added some scripting to MTW to make cavalry flank more often, and stop the general from attacking.

RTW seems similar, but a little more prone to make direct attacks against the weakest part of the enemy line while doing some flanking with cavalry. The timing of these attacks seems wrong, and is better in battles where movement speed and combat resolution are slower. In modded battles, where the fighting last longer you will even see the AI flank with infantry units, and it's effective. The number one cause of the AI failing in vanilla RTW battles is that its army routs. Obviously, the AI is underestimating the ability of its units to stand and fight.

CA could move away from an AI that tries to make individual unit matchups, and plays in a more grand tactical style which is actually more realistic. Have the army maintain the battleline, flank in force with a group of units that are suitable for that task and use a tactical reserve to block breakthroughs or exploit gaps that develop in the enemy line. Get rid of the low morale so the fighting can last longer. This means you won't be able to win with 10:1 or 20:1 casualties inflicted unless you have a much, much better general than the enemy.

The low morale is there for one reason, and LongJohn stated the reason during discussions about MTW. He said it's there so that you win when you rout the first enemy unit. I suggest that CA move away from that idea eventhough I know that some multiplayers want to keep it. The easy routing hurts the Strategic Campaign by allowing the human player to inflict massive attrition with practically no loss to himself, and in multiplayer it causes players to increase the money available so they can boost morale with upgrades, but that has the disadvantage of damaging what little RPS the units have in them.

[Red Harvest]

AFAIK MTW didn't know several armies attacking from different directions, that was introduced in RTW by dividing tha camp map into tiles. So usually it didn't have to cope with more than one group of enemies.

In both STW and MTW battles vs. multiple enemies happened several times a campaign. I've seen four large armies on the field before. In RTW this is almost entirely absent (it is one thing I really miss.) Fighting multiple AI armies in RTW is not challenging except in very specific circumstances (sandiwiched between two much larger forces for example.) The AI suicides itself most of the time when this happens.

Yes it does. At least if you have onagers/long range attackers inside the walls, and sometimes also if you haven't.
However in general the RTW AI can easily be outsmarted especially during sally battles.

Backing out of range is not what I was describing. It will back out of range, then pivot itself into a hole as my sallying force comes around.

Instead of being unhappy with the lame RTW AI, you could as well ease the annoyance.

I used the "Quit Playing Mod." I had done quite a bit of modding myself, but fixing battlefield AI deficiency was not really possible. As my sig says, RTW was a DIY project.

[Feanaro]

well you were a noob as well!

The hell you say! I came out of my mama with a Nintendo NES, swearin' at the dog in Duck Hunt. I was nursed on Commander Keen, Nexus 7, Betrayal at Krondor, Descent, and Super Mario Brothers. My friends had names like "Zelda", "Grue", "Threepwood", "Sir Graham", "B.J.", and "Kane".

Instead of being unhappy with the lame RTW AI, you could as well ease the annoyance.

Eh, what? You are saying that the people who bought RTW should stop whining and fix the AI(in so many words)? I always figured that was CA's job, since they made and marketed the durn game. I have tried to code before. It is tedious and boring. And to fix the AI in RTW... whew. More over, no player should not have to. Of course it sure would be nice to fix the AI but such an undertaking isn't easy nor short. It wouldn't be worth the effort to me and I think most players would agree.

For all the problems I can find with RTW, however, I still enjoy playing it. I just like gripin'.

[Slyspy]

I would agree that RTW and MTW have virtually the same AI. That is what lets RTW down so badly. The AI simply doesn't work with the new strategic aspects of RTW, while it was sufficient for the MTW Risk-style map. At least MTW saw massed armies not sad little stacks. At least the Risk-board meant that generals fought with their armies not by themselves. Certain flaws in the tactical AI keep reappearing in each release (suicidal generals, marching aimlessly around under a rain of arrows etc) even when some of them have previously been addressed in patches.

[antisocialmunky]

MTW never had to. It's unfamiliar with things like Phalanxes, and if you flank Chivalric Sergeants or Swiss Pikemen, the effect is no different from flanking Chivalric Men At Arms or even Chivalric Knights (remember Cavalry/Infantry doesnt matter in MTW engine), if their morale levels were equal.

Um. yes it did. Cavalry always gave infantry a morale and attack penalty. Spearmen are MTW phalanxes and the AI was good at lining them up and keeping them together.

[Chuffy]

The hell you say! I came out of my mama with a Nintendo NES, swearin' at the dog in Duck Hunt. I was nursed on Commander Keen, Nexus 7, Betrayal at Krondor, Descent, and Super Mario Brothers. My friends had names like "Zelda", "Grue", "Threepwood", "Sir Graham", "B.J.", and "Kane".

Man that's awesome.

Wait, so the RTW ai is the same as the MTW ai?

I must've missed that part in MTW when the entire enemy army ran fowards in a incoherant mess, exposing it's flanks and not flanking itself.

Maybe I missed that part from playing the game for an entire year solidly?

[Volstag]

Having recently played a few rounds of MTW, I sorta have to agree with the OP. The TacAI might be marginally better than RTW but, in the end, it's not by a whole lot -- and I really think that with a few minor changes, the TacAI in RTW would be superior.

But as far as everything else goes: RTW wins hands down. The interface, the sound, the graphics, the empire management "tools", etc. The map change is way, way better than MTW. While the "risk style" movement of MTW isn't all that bad, the operational movement afforded by the RTW map is, IMO, totally superior.

If the StratAI in RTW would do a few simple things: attach good generals to big stacks, keep weak stacks out of harms way, etc, this would all translate into tougher encounters on the tactical map.

The one thing I wish they would add (since STW) is a simple city/general overview screen. For example: all the citites listed on one screen that you can sort by income, population, unrest, corruption, etc. Manage your recruitment/construction queues, etc. It's rather tedious to individually move through each city. An overview screen for generals/family members would be awesome as well -- sort it by command rating, influence, management, age, location, etc. As with cities, it's somewhat annoying to have click all over the map, hand examining every person, etc.

-V

[JJU57]

I've waited and read all the posts. Hee are some more comments. First off ToranagaSams, It was patched VI MTW and patched RTW. To say someone is inexperienced without kowning just means you like to draw conclusions without facts. I may not have played THIS game as long as others but that does not mean I'm not experienced.

I noticed a number of observations and conclusions. One conclusion was that MTW was harder then RTW. But the harder result wasn't due to AI but instead to gameplay. As you had to travel a long distance in MTW, when attacking, your troops were more tired. Right or wronf starting troops closer means different complexities and results. Also remember that on attack you had to accept MTW's setup but in RTW you determine placement.

Almost, but not all of the differences in difficulty mentioned are due to gameplay and not AI. I do agree that the general chaging in RTW is bad and a quick counter attack usually resaults in a mass rout. This is a claer difference.

As for archers it is gamepaly and actually poor gameplay that made MTW more difficult. On flat ground with tons of troops in front why are the first two rows accurate but not the others? After all these are not crossbows as they shoot in an arc at a piece of ground. This is unrealistic in my opinion. It also menas the game is harder because you have to stretch out the line, exposing flanks, and some might be too far away to attack. In a rectangle 10 men deep it is easier to control. But again this isn't AI.

And I think the single biggest issue is that in MTW the units retreat if outnumbered. There are almost no battles where you have a substantial superiority over the AI's armies. Let's face it, as humans we do most of the attacking in a game. MTW was structured to make it harder through gameplay like terrain, distance, formation management, etc. In some defensive battles I've achieved 10, 15 an 20-1 kill ratios in MTW just like in RTW as long as I've keep my units from charging off on their own. In fact RTW sometimes does better like in bridge battles. In MTW the Golden Horde attacked and I had 4 groups of X-Bows, one archer and two of the chivalric spearmen. The X-bows just decimated them. In RTW I had four archers and two calvery and two hoplites against four armoured hoplites and assorted units. The armoured units were in a second group. The first group did not attempt to cross the bridge and setup a defensive position in case I crossed. Then they sent the hevily armoured units across. My archers were almost useless and after losing both of my hoplite units they formed a defensive beachhead till they brought across the other units. I hoped they would move forward and my calvery woulod flank them. It was a good showing for the AI and I had to retreat.

The bottom line is that I've seen very bad decisions made by both AI's and once in a while both AI's surprised me. I started this post because I read many othe posts that said MTW had a better AI and as proof they described how the game was harder. I argree it is harder in most situations, but this is due to gameplay elements and not AI. Heck I can make all AI units have no morale problems while your troops are paper tigers. You are also exhausted after taking two steps while they can run 1000 miles carrying 500 punds and not break a sweat. I bet the game would be much harder and all my AI had to do is mass attack.

I enjoyed the thread and all the posts.

[bodidley]

There are some pretty essential differences between gameplay in M:TW and R:TW, but the AI also tends to behave differently. In Medieval the terrain is more varied, as opposed to the very generic R:TW terrains, and the effects of terrain are very noticable. The AI can successfully position itself on the highground and defend that position in Medieval, whereas in Rome the high ground is so broad that the AI tends to reposition itself off the highground as you approach. I suppose that doesn't have as much of an affect as it should anyways, because the affects of terrain in Rome are very slight compared to Medieval. What's really unfortunate about the AI in Rome is that it often breaks up its army to attack from many directions at once. That means that the player has to start a click-fest to counter, but in the end it's fairly easy to destroy the enemy in detail. In Medieval the AI had more of a tendancy to keep its units together.The problem with less depth of gameplay in battles is that you end up fighting a large number of battles that are short and similar; that gets old pretty fast.

[sunsmountain]

... and i hope this thread is far from over! Hurray to your initiative!

Your conclusion agrees with CA in the sense that they focused a lot of their development time into making the gameplay easier.

And this is indeed misunderstood by many here, me included initially. For example:

Originally Posted by Red Harvest
It has either a "camp in place, do nothing" or "ATTACK!, ATTACK!, ATTACK!" as its approach. The MTW AI *marched* across the map. RTW charges to its death, fatigued.

Originally Posted by sunsmountain
Funny enough, so does Medieval, the only difference is that MTW does so at an army level, keeping everything together before engaging. Rome reacts a little jumpy on unit level, and easily charges towards its inevitable doom.

Originally Posted by Ludens
Not exactly. For example, when defending a ridge in Medieval, the AI would change its formation according to how you approached, maximizing its defensive strenght. In the R:TW, the AI merely swivels its army around, oftentimes actually allowing you to get higher than they. I have forced many armies of an advantageous position simply by marching around them.

I'm not saying that the MTW AI's approach isn't effective, like RTW AI's sending units in fatigued.

The point i was trying to make was that an army in MTW was only able to only march as one and maintain one formation, not as individual units. This is part of the possible gameplay, and not part of the AI. It certainly allows for less options for the AI to choose from.

The fact that you can "Push the enemy army out of a corner" is due to a new approach to location in the game, so also part of gameplay. The MTW army was located where the general is, and the general is on the back row. He knows his position can only get worse if he moves. If he doesn't move, his army doesn't move.

In Rome units are allowed to "think" & move for themselves, which leads to some units thinking: Hey, it's slightly better for us over there, while their buddies stand still and think: Noooo....

I conclude that gameplay in MTW was more limited, and thus it's harder for the MTW AI to make mistakes: limited choice means a higher chance of choosing the right thing (logic). It also means you need to write less rules for the AI when options are limited.

Now we all know how overboard CA went with 'ideas' (read any developer diary) during development, so you can imagine the compounding problem for writing an AI to cope with all that!

So let's hope CA succeeds in this (better late than never).

[Puzz3D]

Now we all know how overboard CA went with 'ideas' (read any developer diary) during development, so you can imagine the compounding problem for writing an AI to cope with all that!

CA has lots of great ideas and they keep putting them into the game up to the last minute, but at some point all these features have to work properly and together to make the game function up to or at least near its potential. I would say it's better to have less features which all work properly than to have more features which don't work properly. Just look at the primary/secondary and charge bonus bugs for two examples of things which should never have gotten out the door. The number of things that were fixed in RTW v1.2 is mind boggling, and charge bonus still escaped detection with the pri/sec problem just getting in under the wire and that was found by a modder over at TWC.

The past games, STW and MTW, were simpler, and v1.0 of those games was in better shape than RTW v1.0. That allowed those games to be effectively brought up to a status you could call finished with the patches although a few problems still remained. RTW is in danger of having major issues preventing it from operating near its potential still unresolved after the game is end of lifed. The Total War game system has become more complex than the earlier efforts, but it would be to CA's benefit to find a way for v1.0 of the next release be in better working order than was RTW v1.0. Then the community could better contribute with suggestions to fine tune the gameplay rather than spend a year doing bug hunting.

[Red Harvest]

The fact that you can "Push the enemy army out of a corner" is due to a new approach to location in the game, so also part of gameplay. The MTW army was located where the general is, and the general is on the back row. He knows his position can only get worse if he moves. If he doesn't move, his army doesn't move.

In Rome units are allowed to "think" & move for themselves, which leads to some units thinking: Hey, it's slightly better for us over there, while their buddies stand still and think: Noooo....

But that is not how it is happening. It isn't individual moves doing it. The whole army changes face as a unit. This is not unit match ups from what I see. MTW would change facing, but it also tried to prevent flanking through parallel moves. MTW/STW should have had a harder time of doing this because *the terrain was more varied.* There was usually a point that was better suited for defense, but that was not within the allowed placement zone.

The RTW battlefields are fairly bland. Huge slopes with few intervening hills and ridges. Very little forest or other terrain on battlemaps.

[Feanaro]

On flat ground with tons of troops in front why are the first two rows accurate but not the others?

Ostensibly because the back ranks cannot actually see what they are shooting at. I don't know if the archers could or could not see, I don't have a bunch of Medieval bowmen on hand to ask. But it does makes sense if you assume the back ranks cannot see. They are aiming without any kind of sight. Whether or not this is realistic is up in the air an,d in a game that is only loosely based on reality, I doubt it matters.

[Shaun]

well thats cos the battle maps in RTW are so small!

[JJU57]

Ostensibly because the back ranks cannot actually see what they are shooting at. I don't know if the archers could or could not see, I don't have a bunch of Medieval bowmen on hand to ask. But it does makes sense if you assume the back ranks cannot see. They are aiming without any kind of sight. Whether or not this is realistic is up in the air an,d in a game that is only loosely based on reality, I doubt it matters.

But the first two rows wouldn't be able to see either! They are standing right behind a bunch of spearmen yet there is no accuracy penality for them. My point is that these are all tricks that you had to learn in MTW. Once you did learn these tricks then the battles were very easy.

[ToranagaSama]

@antisocialmunky

Just read your sig:

Fighting isn't about winning, it's about depriving your enemy of all options except to lose.

Who is the author of the quote? Sounds like Sun Tzu.

I love it, that's precisely the way I approach the Campaign.

[Grey_Fox]

Who is the author of the quote? Sounds like Sun Tzu.

I believe it was a WWI admiral speaking of how to defeat the German nation.

[Yawning Angel]

And the proof of the pudding is in the eating. In MTW/STW you will lose some battles, and even when you win, you usually take significant losses. In RTW you almost never lose, and your losses are usually negligible. Of course, this is also due in part to the slower combat and routing of the earlier games but it also has to do with the AI.

This I entirely agree with. I have played since STW, and the easier battles in Rome is the major reason why I put this down mid-campaign several months ago and have not played since. (Waiting to see what the consensus on BI is like )

I felt that it was always possible that I could (and did) lose the occasional important battle in the early to mid stages of STW/MTW campaigns, but have yet to lose a significant RTW battle. (The only losses have been the lone units/small stacks I have forgotten about that subsequently get attacked by large AI stacks). The seeming inevitability of the campaign in RTW, for me, makes it more boring to play.

[econ21]

The seeming inevitability of the campaign in RTW, for me, makes it more boring to play.

I agree that I find it hard to return to vanilla RTW because the lack of challenge makes it boring. However, the AI is not so brain dead - unlike, say the AI in Homm4 or CTP2 - that the game can not be fun if modded. Part of the reason that the vanilla game is unchallenging is because most factions (aside from Roman ones and Egypt) are weak. If you play a mod where you have a weak faction and the AI has strong ones, then it can be very challenging. The Roma mod for RTR comes to mind here - Romans are so nerfed, you have to exploit the poor AI to win. If you play RTR 5.4 in a less cheesy way, the game can still be fun as Rome.

I am having a blast in RTR v6.0 as Romans with a handful of self-imposed rules (one only missile per stack, half the stack non-Roman allies, historical proportions of 2V/2H/2P/1T, few mercs etc). On VH/H, a pitched battle with a full strength stack of Seleucids leads to my men suffering pretty high casualties. Three such battles have virtually destroyed my initial invading stack - I am having to send it back to Rome to be retrained up to full strength. Coupled with the need to garrisons large towns far from home, conquest is slow. Overall, I think the game is more challenging than vanilla MTW (which was very handicapped by weak AI troop picks). The RTW AI is a little worse, but I can't say it makes modded RTW feel that qualitatively different from vanilla MTW.