Unit replies

[Seasoned Alcoholic]

Okay, I'm a bit disappointed with Barbarian Invasion for several reasons, most of them being things like graphical glitches, MUCH higher system demands and, on the whole, much clumsier-looking soldiers. But what doesnt' seem to occur to anyone is that the new BI units don't answer with their unit names anymore! In vanilla RTW, each and every unit, when selected, answered with "Rhodian Slingerrrs", or "Principes!" or "Rome's finest" or something. Okay, the General still says "General!", but otherwise only the distinction between cavalry and infantry is left. This cool feature is entirely missing! I think this is an outrage, especially as I often play RTW with a friend who is blind, and for him much of the fun and immersion with the game came from the superb sound in RTW (the other half is through my frantic descriptions while simultaneously fighting battles. I don't blame CA, but I blame SEGA, who surely put much pressure on CA and didn't allow them to do new unit voices for BI. Grrrr.

Welcome

Yeah there are still errors / glitches etc present in BI. Kinda expected it though tbh, when you're up against sales & release deadlines, shortcuts are often taken, which usually means the product will suffer directly as a result. They could of fixed all the bugs and released it six months later, but as everyone knows, people get impatient quickly, lose interest, and start looking elsewhere after a while if they are not satisfied. Not that I work for CA / SEGA mind

IMO an annoying aspect of the voice packs in RTW & RTW: BI is the 'American' Roman voices / responses / pre-battle speeches etc. Why not use a Latin accent for general accuracy?

As for RTW, generic voices were used for various factions, e.g. Pontus, Armenia, Parthia, Egypt, Carthage and Numidia all had the same voice packs. Likewise did Britons, Gauls, Germans, Dacia and Scythia. Its all too repetitive and boring, if regional accents had been implemented it would have added something different, but it all takes time to code.

[CTW311]

Hi Alcoholic! Yes, I'm actually aware of all that you mentioned. And it's not the end of the world, but I was still a bit disappointed. But I'm getting over it.

About the Latin accent for the Romans: Yes, it is a bit far-fetched to have the Roman Generals talk in an American accent, but the problem is: How do you speak English with a Latin accent? We don't even know how the Romans sounded when they spoke Latin 2000 years ago. Otherwise, I'm quite happy with the voice acting in vanilla RTW. Barbarians sound barbarian, and everyone else is okay too, for the greeks and african factions. Having distinctive accents for factions like Pontus or Armenia sounds a little bit too much to ask for, in my opinion. By the way, I use the UK version of the game because the German version that you can buy here is definitely a bit on the lame side concerning the rousing speeches before a battle. The voice actors don't sound like an army commander trying to be heard above the din of thousands of men preparing for battle and screaming out half his lungs in the process, but rather like someone talking with a slightly raised voice to compensate for an OAPs busted hearing aid. The hearts of the voice actors were not in it when they recorded the german samples, and you can hear that.

[Ordani]

One thing I miss from Shogun:TW was the Japanese voice overs - by far the best Battle Announcer in any TW game and the only one I wouldn't have turned off. Would have been cool to have heard units name themselves in their native languages. I really liked that element in Imperial Glory, unit captains even gave out orders in the appropriate language most of the time.

[ZIM!!]

Allso what happened to Rhodes? its only got some logs there now..boy I had some great battles on Rhodes..ahhh memories