BI issues answered... Got it

[The_Doctor]

How does the horde thing work?

If you lose all your cities you get a horde?

Or is it a button that you press and you get hordes from all your cities, but you then lose them on the next turn?

[Kraxis]

How does the horde thing work?

If you lose all your cities you get a horde?

Yup. Your entire population turns into Peasants primarely, but also a lot of interesting units. Some are specifically for the Horde others are merely copies of real units (but weaker in general).

Btw, the Hounds of Culann are also giants and have the same whirling attack. So beware of the Culann and the Berserkers. Kill them from afar.

Now I think I will go and start a real campaign (the last one I really neglected everythough outside the battlezones).

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

just wondering:

how many units does each faction get?
are there new units for vanilla RTW?

Also, have you had a look at the Romano British yet? what sort of units do they get?
Did they end up being made playable or not?

[Kraxis]

Ok... Just to show the Berserkers in action against some Comitatenses.

The evil men...


Contact! Or rather right after contact.


Kickass!


Seconds before victory... Just after the unit got its chevron.


And a few answers:
Orda, I haven't got an ID for Gamespy, never played MP for RTW (never felt like it), so I don't know.
And I wouldn't say the game is perfect, not at all. But a lot of stuff just seems better now. Also the speed of combat is slightly lower since most units are now much strong in defence than in attack.

Taffy, the Romano-British aren't playable on the campaign map, their territory is held by the Western Empire (363AD remember). But they might come forth from the darkness soon enough.
They are playable in MP and Custom Battle though. Their selection of units is rather balanced I would say. They have it all more or less, but the selection is rather limited.

[TB666]

How would you grade BI so far ??

[Steppe Merc]

The archers, are they nerfed to do a hard coded thing, or are their stats just lower?

[Red Harvest]

The archers, are they nerfed to do a hard coded thing, or are their stats just lower?

I did some posts on this way back in RTW. Someone might have to dig those up and do a comparison in custom battle. The archers should indeed not have much impact vs. armoured units. We have to keep in mind the various upgrades as well...in RTW, +1 experience gave +1 missile attack, and then there were upgrades available. Vanilla archers should be largely useless vs. armoured/shielded units. It should take advanced units and/or considerable upgrades to start knocking those guys down. Now archers on high ground/wall etc. should have a bit more impact.

[Kraxis]

I have experienced a few sieges and sallies now, though no sieges as the defender.
The sad fact is that the AI isn't particularly adept at it still. But at least its better normal capabilities does make up for a very small part of it in sallies.

Having tried the archers out some more in other battles it is clear that they should indeed not be used against armoured enemies. Those Veteranii took another full round with only one man killed (they are not Legionary Cohorts, just comparable in strength to their own time, and they are extremely popular among the generic rebels). But even Levy Spearmen are hard to kill from afar. So it has become a game onto itself to shoot at the right unit at the right time.
They still gain +1 to ranges combat with each experience point, but my feeling is that they are now far less accurate than before. So it seems they have been hardcoded a bit towards lower accuracy, but their stats are also quite a bit weaker.

I'm having real trouble hanging on to a settlement I captured from the Western Rebels (Salona). It is almost fully pagan, and I'm christian, meanwhile my governor there is pagan too. That is one bad mix. Even with daily games, low taxes and a large garrison it still only has 25% loyalty. GAH! Religion is quite important it seems (now the explaination that pagans and christians dislike each other in the manual makes sense). And it seems that my christians (orthodox) aren't too friendly with the Arians and the papists either. I'm beginning to wonder if I shouldn't have chosen paganism, their temples are way better.

Some things have come to light with more battles:

The enemy general do at times charge in, but only when there are archers out front. Have only experienced it with rebels with the Rebel General unit.

There are actually jumping horses, but they are very far between. I ahve in fact only seen it twice (meaning two horses) by now, and in both cases it was charges into the rear. So I guess it has been nerfed seriously, to the point where it might serve the eyecandy it was supposed to have been.

Something people will also like. There are no more 2 meter charges, meaning no more cavalry charging with full power from short to no distance from target. The charge needs distance to work at all.

You can retrain a unit to a higher experience level. If you advance the barracks to a higher level and that level grants a bonus you can retrain said unit for a hefty price. I can't remember if you could do that in RTW, but I know that it didn't cost money. So it seems that free experience is over.

Sadly I found the first bug already. It is nothing special really, nor problematic. The Scholae Palatina has a graphical or model glitch. When they turn their heads in idleness or during the speech, only the top half of the head turns. It looks rather disturbing from afar.

The Clibanarii are nasty!!!! They are like upgraded and better Cataphract Archers. Sassanid generals have Clibanarii Immortals which are even worse with the highest missile stats for any archer as well as a strong charge, maces and 2 HP. Scary!

Don't think there are any new units for vanilla. Haven't seen any, and I think I saw a CA dev comment on it some time ago. I could be wrong, but to be honest that part hasn't got my priority right now.

[King Ragnar]

Man i cant wait formy copy, should be here soon got an e-mail from play.com :D

[Craterus]

What I want to know is will I need an install of original RTW to play it, or can I access it through BI? And can I access the RTW MP lobbies through BI?

[jimmyM]

I hope the AI can hold a phalanx line...reports so far are sketchy...

[Jochi Khan]

Man i cant wait formy copy, should be here soon got an e-mail from play.com :D

Heh...so did I today.

Jochi

[Steppe Merc]

Are all the factions usuable (like in a mod)?

[Dorkus]

Kraxis this is all really great info. Thanks for this. Anyone have any idea where one could get BI in the US? :O

Btw, can you comment at all on the strategic AI? Has the computer gotten a little more aggressive? (crossing fingers)

Thanks again.

[caesar44]

Please , BI needs 1.2 or not ?

[TB666]

Please , BI needs 1.2 or not ?

No it doesn't.
just like 1.2 doesn't need 1.1, 1.3 doesn't need 1.2.

[Doug-Thompson]

On a trivial note, the new "bronzed" look of the interface is nice.

[Pode]

I most humbly beg you to do a pair of test campaigns and confirm for us that the save/load monster is well and truly dead. 15 turns with just end turn, screenie of the minimap, then 15 turns with a ctrl-s ctrl-l end turn sequence and a screenie. If I can't tell which screenshot is which I'll be as happy as a little schoolgirl

[Kraxis]

I most humbly beg you to do a pair of test campaigns and confirm for us that the save/load monster is well and truly dead. 15 turns with just end turn, screenie of the minimap, then 15 turns with a ctrl-s ctrl-l end turn sequence and a screenie. If I can't tell which screenshot is which I'll be as happy as a little schoolgirl

That would not help much.
The Western Empire starts out with several cities far into the angry face, even at low taxes. Most often it gets the Western Rebels, and in different places. Then there are the Hordes that walk in different directions each time because they spawn in different places after being ousted.

I did notice in a Saxon testrun (before I realized all this) that there was indeed a massive roll of Hordes going on down south.
The Huns and Vandals each sent the Burgundians and Sarmatians running. The Sarmatians went to Constantinople and took it (gasp), while the Burgundians went for the Franks (but never got far enough). The Vandals and Huns now turned on the poor Goths, and gave them a good kicking, sending them packing further south. None, but the Sarmatians (Constantinople) actually settled anywhere, they just sacked each settlement (and they get a pretty big rebel army thereafter).

The map was full of horde armies plundering. The Eastern Empire was in shambles as the hordes fought among each other (to the future luck of the Eastern Empire I guess). It was beautiful to see history played out like this. I liked it very much.

[Kraxis]

It seems the AI is more aggressive now. In my primary campaign as the Eastern Empire, the Sassanids (enemies from the get-go) sent several armies into my territory at once. While I have good armies around, they simply can't match this (have to keep a lot at home because I have just reformed the statereligion to christianity) and I am forced to wait for them to get close so I can sally.

And after looking at the map without the FOW I can safely say that both the siege-bug and the wandering faction members are gone. Mostly they sit at home or are on campaign in foreing territory. A most prudent behaviour. I feared this lacked before, but now it seems it is indeed there.

I like it so far. The good certainly outweigh the bad at this point. But don't expect some kind of revolution. It is merely a better RTW, how much better is yet to be seen, but I have gotten my hopes up a bit.

The phalanx seems to be problematic still, but less so now. The AI as noted still has some problems in unit 1v1 but it doesn't reform the entire line within chargedistance, or perhaps I have been lucky so far.

Not only has archery been nerfed a lot, but it seems it has been nerfed perhaps too much.

I was trying to beat up some rebels containing 1 Veteranii, 2 Goth Spearmen an 1 Rebel General (the same as we remember). I had 1 Eastern Archers, 1 Legio Lanciarii (legionaries with spears, pretty good but certainly not as good as Comitatenses), 1 Equites Auxilia and a general.
I expected that the archers could weaken the Veteranii (suitably placed in the center of the enemy line) enough to make my Lanciarii get the upper hand on them. Well, that didn't happen.
They lost a grand total of 1 man, and that was the general's unit. I had exhausted my archers for no gain. And in the ensuing melee I lost badly, though I mauled the Veteranii (they are nasty mercs, imagine a unit of Legionary Cohorts as mercs and available right away).

[Germanvs]

That would not help much.
The Western Empire starts out with several cities far into the angry face, even at low taxes. Most often it gets the Western Rebels, and in different places. Then there are the Hordes that walk in different directions each time because they spawn in different places after being ousted.

I guess you could do the testrun on the old RTW. If the load/save bug is fixed, it should become visible there.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Can somebody explain to me how BI works? Is it something that you buy to add on to RTW or what? How much will it cost? Sheesh, I'm lost...

[Zatoichi]

Can somebody explain to me how BI works? Is it something that you buy to add on to RTW or what? How much will it cost? Sheesh, I'm lost...

Now, I detect a certain amount of sarcasm there... However, I do actually want to know (yes, a whole 3 days before I get the game and find out for myself) where it installs to, seeing as the default RTW directory is under the Activision name, and I'm guessing the BI add on will not live there. So does this mean that unlike MTW:VI, RTW:BI will need to swap disks to play each game? Not a huge issue, but I'm interested by odd things...

Edit: Hmmm - and one of those odd things I find interesting is how comes my quote marks above came out all German? A Hun invasion of the org?

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Now, I detect a certain amount of sarcasm there...

Not meant...

[Zatoichi]

Not meant...

Oops! My humble appologies sir! I guess I just assumed everyone has been as obsessed with all this BI stuff as me from the get go!

As for the bizarre disappearing Germanic quote stuff in my previous post... well, maybe I should have me a little lie down! It was there, I hit refresh, it was back to English. Well, it matters not.

[econ21]

Not meant...

Um, in that case I wish I could undelete my post.

Barbarian Invasion is an expansion pack that you can buy to add on to RTW. It will give you a campaign covering the period when the Roman Empire fractured into two in the face of various barbarian invasions TM (Hun, Goth, Vandal etc) and Rome itself ultimately fell. In addition, it will patch the existing campaign, changing some of the game balance etc in rather significant ways judging from b]Kraxis's[/b] early posts.

A preview is here:

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/...w_6132682.html

As to the price, best to look at amazon.com. They were selling it for around £26 in the UK, IIRC, when I preordered it.

[Viking]

If it hasn`t been mentioned already, the AI automatically now turns on their siege towers to 'fire at will'. This only worked for missilie uinits in RTW wich already has 'fire at will' as a standard setting, and has a devastating effect on your soldiers if they are standing on a Large or Epic stonewall. Also the AI now doesn`t wait until the first unit has been completely exterminated before sending up another in the same tower\ladder.

My battle experience is on Medium; does the Hard and VH settings now work properly? And does they add to AI intelligence?

[Ldvs]

First off, thank you for this thread Kraxis, it's very informative and I trust your fair judgment.

I'd like to know a few extra things, though. Does the AI withdraw from battle often? Do its units run back and forth endlessly until they're exhausted. Last but not least, do you confirm that AI units who aren't set on FAW by default won't throw their javelins?

[Kraxis]

First off, thank you for this thread Kraxis, it's very informative and I trust your fair judgment.

I'd like to know a few extra things, though. Does the AI withdraw from battle often? Do its units run back and forth endlessly until they're exhausted. Last but not least, do you confirm that AI units who aren't set on FAW by default won't throw their javelins?

I have not experienced a single withdrawal yet, I mean a withdrawal without some form of combat.
Units do at times mill back and forth, but not so much in front of your units as going from their lines and back again if you position yourself close but not close enough. This happens mostly with rebels as you are often stronger than them. The unit will charge to get rid of that ranged unit, AI sees it has no chance and pulls it back, ranged unit is once again a priority, AI oncve again sees the futility... ect ect. That happens, but it seems the faction armies are less likely to do this.
Yes, no unit other than siege equipment, that is set to FAW off will fire at you. It has always been like that I think. At least I remember the few rebel Hastati of RTW never threw their pila at me. Hopefully this will be noticed.

Ok, a few questions and false information from me earlier:

RTW units have the new spear attribute as well, it just wasn't mentioned in the explaination for the file, meaning those that have it can resist cavalry charges to some degree. That is good.

Ranges and ammo for ranegs units are far more diverse than in RTW. Nothing can be said with certainty. Most horse archers have 40 arrows, but a few have only 30 (generally the better ones, or rather those that can fight in melee).

[Ldvs]

Yes, no unit other than siege equipment, that is set to FAW off will fire at you. It has always been like that I think. At least I remember the few rebel Hastati of RTW never threw their pila at me. Hopefully this will be noticed.

That's worrying because units with javelins in vanilla RTW do throw them before charging. Hopefully, it's not hard-codded and modders can fix this bug.