So ...

[Kraxis]

Well, even I'll acknowledge that the bright baby blue for the Sassanids is a fashion blunder.

Can't argue with that, but basically all other colours are taken. There will always be a faction that has a very ugly colour.

I'm not going to complain about the skins, if that was so, then why did I like either MTW or STW? Talk about blurry images.

And perhaps we are indeed a bit BI-happy now, but remember that most of us were in fact rather negative about RTW before. Aside from a short dabble with RTR 6.0 I hadn't played RTW since March out of pure boredom and lack of challenge.

Now tonight I won a massive battle against the Sassanids, but that was mainly due to me hiding behind a collection of big rocks and the Sass army was made up by Peasants for a great extent (though the Sughdans made a spectacular appearance). When I broke their initial attacks and felt it was time for a general infantry charge (my favourite tactic), it was due to the success but also because the AI had sent an escorted unit of Elephants behind the rocks. The escort tied up my cavalry (sacrificed themselves to let the eles past), then the eles deftly avoided combat before charging towards my infantry. I had my hands tied, it was do or die. One unit of infantry was sent to deal with the elephants while the other three attacked.

Is was a near disaster because the Sassanids let their Peasants break, then hit my infantry while they were chasing (enter the Sughdans). One unit of Comitatenses even got wiped out because the Sassanids surrounded it when it was alone. I only won becasue I had sent my general out to chase some spearmen off. He could then take the Sughdans in the rear (but they fought on).

Was I impressed? Yes! Was it a challenge? Yes! Did I ever feel outclassed or lucky to win? No. But I doubt that day will come soon. The AI used the correct tactics, but I was simply better and had the better army.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Playing medium-medium I've had some fun as the Saxons.

Diplomacy feels a little more solid than RTW, but that's just my limited experiances.

I've had just two good battles, and both we interesting, facing the diverse (and gimmicky) Celts. The first was a battle of about 1000 per side, I won taking about 50% casualties (they lost maybe 90%). They retreated to their town, where some more soldiers waited. So the siege assault was about 500 me vs. 450 them. Most of them were heavy cavalry, and I won using my spearmen's shield wall. Though I lost another 40%.

Now I have to face the Western Romans, and some powerful rebels.

Take the plunge, Froggy! The water's nice!

[Red Harvest]

Froggie pretty much stated my feelings on BI. I've been pleased to hear Kraxis and others are finding it refreshing. I'll hold off until the newness is gone and the game is less expensive. Since there are fewer folks testing this one thoroughly, I'm going to wait a bit longer before I draw a conclusion on it. I'll probably wait for the 1.3 RTW patch at least, and perhaps wait for the price to tumble.

[frogbeastegg]

Ah yes - seeing mention of the difficulties reminds me, are they now functioning correctly again? And is the hard battle setting still just a bunch of bonuses to the AI's troops combat power? Probably too early to tell, but worth asking ...

:crosses her fingers and really hopes that the harder battle settings are closer to MTW's with less stat boosting and more on the extra tactics front, but is not hopeful: I despise stat boosts in battle as a form of difficulty enhancer.

[Kraxis]

Ah yes - seeing mention of the difficulties reminds me, are they now functioning correctly again? And is the hard battle setting still just a bunch of bonuses to the AI's troops combat power? Probably too early to tell, but worth asking ...

:crosses her fingers and really hopes that the harder battle settings are closer to MTW's with less stat boosting and more on the extra tactics front, but is not hopeful: I despise stat boosts in battle as a form of difficulty enhancer.

Doubtful is indeed the way to go with that. The way the AI acts in my game a Medium I would simply be very hard pressed if it was better in two steps up. It acts mostly sensible now, I find it hard to believe it would be better further up, but that would be something...

[Garvanko]

Generals can now marry outside settlements. Was this ever possible in RTW? Don't think so.

[Puzz3D]

Ah yes - seeing mention of the difficulties reminds me, are they now functioning correctly again? And is the hard battle setting still just a bunch of bonuses to the AI's troops combat power? Probably too early to tell, but worth asking ...

:crosses her fingers and really hopes that the harder battle settings are closer to MTW's with less stat boosting and more on the extra tactics front, but is not hopeful: I despise stat boosts in battle as a form of difficulty enhancer.

In a v1.3 medium Jullii campaign, I had a dead even matchup againt a Gaul army. Both generals were 4 star and both armies had 850 men. Julii had all hastati with two equite cav. Gaul had warband and a few skirmishers with two or three barbarinan cav.

Julii was in the standard single line formation that is more or less impossed on you by the AI with one equite on each end. I was attacking and moved out of a forest onto a gentle downslope where the Gaul army was waiting. I had the hastati in guard formation, but I didn't have fire-at-will turned on. Gaul had a more balanced army than mine, and their skirmishers inflicted a fair amount of casualties on my units on the left. I used my equite on the right to attack two barbarian cav on that side, but the equite lost and the enemy cav counterattacked. I moved my general to the right to hold that side, and the Gauls then attacked along the whole line. My attention stayed on the right side fighting for about a minute or maybe slightly longer. When I looked back to the left, Gaul was routing the entire left side of my line. My right side fought on for a while longer, but eventually lost. I killed 400 Gauls and lost 800, and my general was killed. It wasn't very good play on my part, and the AI took advantage of it winning decisively at medium difficulty with even odds.

Back on the strategic map, this Gaul army of 500 men stayed put at the entrance of a mountain pass. I was able to assemble a 1500 man army under a 2 star general in a few turns, and returned and eliminated the Gaul army. I lost 200 men doing that.

One very good thing now is that the AI puts its good generals into large armies, and he doesn't charge forward right away. This helps the AI to be a lot more competative in the battles.

[Terry]

But, but... frogbeastegg, if you don't get the expansion, whimper whimper, who will write the Strategy guide?

Terry


Yours are the cream of the cream.... I print them all out for my "huge" 3 ring binders....

[Turin]

Oh no! If Frog buys the game and starts writing strategy guides, what will happen to poor Eleanor?

LOL anyway, the AI is slightly better in that it no longer does totally pointless manuvers. However, the AI still cannot attack in a cohesive way. It's infantry line breaks apart before contact and the cavalry is rather haphazard.

Oh and the harder difficulties simply mean combat bonuses for the AI, they aren't actually smarter.

[SpencerH]

Froggie pretty much stated my feelings on BI. I've been pleased to hear Kraxis and others are finding it refreshing. I'll hold off until the newness is gone and the game is less expensive. Since there are fewer folks testing this one thoroughly, I'm going to wait a bit longer before I draw a conclusion on it. I'll probably wait for the 1.3 RTW patch at least, and perhaps wait for the price to tumble.

what he said

[Terry]

If it helps, I see that Best Buy has BI on sale for $24.99...........

[Pode]

I bought BI and have yet to play it, spending all my time with RTW 1.3. I flattened the tech trees to make good units available earlier and set training times to zero, adding a pop growth bonus to small towns to help make up for the larger armies that allows. My observations:

-Load-save has been addressed. I'm not sure if it was truly fixed or if probability of AI lifting a siege was just set to zero, but the net effect is that 10 turns in, there are only a handful of rebel territories left.

-Tactical AI (unmodded, haven't tried the DarthFormations yet) is improved to the level of minimally competent. Doesn't sit still under archer fire, tough to bait out of defensive positions, passable at picking spots to defend, devotes a a fair effort to flanking when it has the chance, etc. It has satisifed my expectations of an AI opponent. I don't think it's as challenging as STW's, but I suspect that it's just that I'm not as green as I was when I played STW.

-Cavalry need to fear spearmen (as they should). I've lost my faction leader to green Gaul warband (green warband!) three times already. I'm unlearning my bad habits of generals bulling through most anything.

Summary: RTW 1.3 is what I thought I was buying a year ago when I got RTW 1.0. I'm not pleased with having to wait another year for it, but I am quite pleased with it now that it's here. I expect I'll enjoy the new features of BI as well, so I would recommend that it occupy some space on the froggy hard drive.

Edit: Frog, you posted while I was at lunch, and I left this post in mid creation. Oops.

[hrvojej]

Froggie pretty much stated my feelings on BI. I've been pleased to hear Kraxis and others are finding it refreshing. I'll hold off until the newness is gone and the game is less expensive. Since there are fewer folks testing this one thoroughly, I'm going to wait a bit longer before I draw a conclusion on it. I'll probably wait for the 1.3 RTW patch at least, and perhaps wait for the price to tumble.

Likewise...