Historical Accuracy: How Important Is It to You?

[Ludens]

I voted 3. because 2. was too strong, but I was thinking of R:TW in particular here. Even if the game was painstakingly accurate, the turbo-speed, cavalry-dominated battles still would not be enjoyable to me.

I don't mind fantasy in a game like age of mythology, but I do in a game that tries to recreate realistic battles. I bought this game to see history recreated, and, forgetting the Egyptians, the game does do a good job at this. But when it comes to the fine detail, and I am confronted with Screeching women, Bull-warriors and Head-hurlers, the fun pretty quickly goes of. This is not how it went. This is comic-book history, not what I was looking for.

I understand that we cannot have total realism, and that a game that drowns you in details for the sake of realism will be very boring indeed, but that does entitle the developers to add head-hurlers in my opinion. If they promise to deliver realistic battles, they shouldn't not add fantasy soldiers.

[Steppe Merc]

Ludens, that is what many see when they think of realism. We don't want (nor can we) and exact replica of history.
We want realistic units that existed, and we want to aproximate the military, social and political reality as close as possible the beggining of the period, and approximate as close as possible future unit, social and political evolution.

[caesar44]

and approximate as close as possible...social and political evolution.

Please , some examples if you can

[Ludens]

Ludens, that is what many see when they think of realism. We don't want (nor can we) and exact replica of history.
We want realistic units that existed, and we want to aproximate the military, social and political reality as close as possible the beggining of the period, and approximate as close as possible future unit, social and political evolution.

That's what I want too. So what are you arguing against?

[bubbanator]

Ludens, that is what many see when they think of realism. We don't want (nor can we) and exact replica of history.
We want realistic units that existed, and we want to aproximate the military, social and political reality as close as possible the beggining of the period, and approximate as close as possible future unit, social and political evolution.

I agree with Ludens, I would love a game like that if it would still be fun to play, however I can't see anything close to that anytime soon.

[LordKhaine]

I've always liked the mix of realism and fantasy that the total war series has had. And let's remember that previous total war games have also had their fair share of fantasy units (kensai anyone?) I really hate it when people bitch and complain about how fantasy RTW is and blah blah blah blah. It was never designed to be total realism!. It was designed like the previous games as a nice blend of realism with the odd injection of fantasy for fun. And I think it works very well.

[andrewt]

The Egyptians are still a jarring mistake to me, after all this time. Most of the other units are kinda minor to me but druids seem stupid to me even though I know next to nothing about old Celtic culture.

The inaccuracy most affecting gameplay for me is in the battle mechanics. Cavalry charges are way, way more powerful and the killing rate is too high. I took an around 6-chevron 45-man General's Bodyguards with Germania and defeated a Macedonian army with around 700+ units. Included in those units are around 300+ phalanx pikemen and around 150 or so of Macedonia's cavalry units. It was just basically charging and routing a cavalry unit immediately, running around and charging phalanx units while they're reforming and turning around, then disengaging and running away again.

[Puzz3D]

It was just basically charging and routing a cavalry unit immediately, running around and charging phalanx units while they're reforming and turning around, then disengaging and running away again.

I did that with a single Hun cavalry unit in the BI demo's Chalons battle, and I won the battle.