Verdict of BI by a TW Vet.

[KRALLODHRIB]

I like it.
Why?
It's more of the same, generally.
The total war series is singularly unique because of its glorious emphasis on the tactical battles. The ability to zoom into those battles and engage in them directly and in an intuitive, intelligent manner is the hallmark of this series. In the BI those batles have come to life and are smooth flowing, almost as smooth as MTW.
My congrats to the developers!
I completed the Roman (western) campaign on M/H and found it to be an absolute delight; well ballanced, continually provocative, and requiring of reasonably judicious use of resources and management strategy. This is what games are supposed to do. It's what tabletop does and ADnD used to do for me.
The ability to fight against Christian cultural/religious elements and remain pagan could have been a bit more dynamic in terms of ways to do it, yes a happy contented apostate . Still, to be able to be Roman in the 5th century of the Common Era (C.E.) and WIN is what these games are all about, imo. Changing history simply for the sheer fun of it.
What would have happened if Rome had not adopted Christianity?
It would have created an EU 1500 years ago; and we would have skipped Christian inspired hatred, warfare and religous intolerance that lasted 1000 years and plunged Europe into a darkness called the Medieval period.
Well done CA!
PS-I dont care what the next TW title is or the period (I'd love really ancient history or the 30 years war or Napoleonic, -AHHHHHHHH-can't decide!) y0u have earned yourself a lifelong supporter in KRALLODHRIB.

[Kekvit Irae]

Religion is definately an enjoyable strategy part of BI. As the Romans, will you shun your Emperor and remain pagan, just for the experience/morale/weapon bonuses you gain from the temples? Or will you face the very real possibility of civil war by converting your settlements to Christianity and tearing down the pagan shrines?
Both, at the very start, are lose-lose situations. However, if you stick with it, Pagan rulers can produce better troops than Christian rulers, while Christian rulers will have happier settlements than Pagan rulers.

Choices like these make BI a fun, enjoyable experience.

[Nelson]

I like it.
Why?
It's more of the same, generally.
The total war series is singularly unique because of its glorious emphasis on the tactical battles. The ability to zoom into those battles and engage in them directly and in an intuitive, intelligent manner is the hallmark of this series.

Amen

[screwtype]

I completed the Roman (western) campaign on M/H and found it to be an absolute delight; well ballanced, continually provocative, and requiring of reasonably judicious use of resources and management strategy. This is what games are supposed to do.

I'm sorry but I have to disagree. While I'm sure that BI is an improvement over RTW (I haven't actually played it yet) it seems clear to me that as a strategy game RTW/BI still leaves a lot to be desired. The campaign game is pitifully shallow and glaringly silly in its logic, even to a casual observer. A single example will suffice.

You don't have to go any further than look at the way food and population are handled. Common sense dictates that the bigger the population, the more food you need to maintain it, right? You don't have to be Einstein to understand that.

And yet in RTW, you are actually rewarded for supplying the least possible amount of food to your growing populace. Unless you want a population explosion, you are never going to build any of those farm upgrades because you know what they do to the population growth rate. In RTW, people don't eat. And they still multiply like rabbits. Perhaps CA thinks the ancients could photosynthesize?

CA's food and population model is totally arsed about. You should have to supply MORE food to keep a growing population alive, not less! And food should therefore be the primary management task, not some loopy artifice called "squalor". If you can't deliver enough food, your population implodes. If you deliver enough, your population grows. And if the population grows too fast, you outrun your food supplies and the population implodes again.

Management should therefore be about maintaining the right balance between food reserves and the needs of a growing population. CA could learn a lot from looking at the old Impressions game Lords of the Realm II. They certainly don't need to implement an economy as complex as in LOTR, but it should at least be sophisticated enough to reflect basic reality.

[player1]

I'm sorry but I have to disagree. While I'm sure that BI is an improvement over RTW (I haven't actually played it yet) it seems clear to me that as a strategy game RTW/BI still leaves a lot to be desired. The campaign game is pitifully shallow and glaringly silly in its logic, even to a casual observer. A single example will suffice.

Hmmm...


P.S.
If game leaves a lot to be desired, that doesn't make bad game. A lots of games leave a lot to be desired.

Food system in Civilzation games was far more absurd, but that didn't made a bad game. It make a great game.

[screwtype]

If game leaves a lot to be desired, that doesn't make bad game. A lot of games leave a lot to be desired.

True. I was just objecting to the other guy's implied conclusion that the game is rich in a strategic sense. On the contrary, I find the RTW game world to be shallow, one dimensional and emotionally unengaging.

That's not to say the game can't be fun to play. RTW is kinda fun, in a beer and pretzels sort of way. And BI by all accounts provides more challenge. I just think the game could be so much more than it is. So it remains a disappointment to me.

Food system in Civilzation games was far more absurd, but that didn't made a bad game. It make a great game.

What was absurd about the food system in Civ? I don't remember it in that much detail, but it never struck me as absurd.

[player1]

That population growth depends from the extra amount of food produced.
The bigger the extras, the bigger the growth.
If that was true in real world there would never be hunger.

[dismal]

If there's not as much food, the population doesn't grow as fast.

Don't see why that's a big problem.

If you that want something more complicated should try Rome:Total Agriculture.

[Hurin_Rules]

What would have happened if Rome had not adopted Christianity?
It would have created an EU 1500 years ago; and we would have skipped Christian inspired hatred, warfare and religous intolerance that lasted 1000 years and plunged Europe into a darkness called the Medieval period.

That 'darkness' called the medieval period saw the harnessing of wind and water power, an agricultural revolution, the invention of the university, the development of gunpowder, the discovery of the New World, and the begninnings of parliamentary democracies. Without the Middle Ages, the Europe of today could well have been a repressive totalitarian state that openly practiced slavery.

But I guess that's a topic for another thread.

[Puzz3D]

That population growth depends from the extra amount of food produced.
The bigger the extras, the bigger the growth.

Maybe extra food draws people from the countryside to live in the city.

[Lord Armbandit]

Actually, i reckon the Civ food system was as simple as it could be without being absurd, which made it very effective given the number of cities you ended up controlling.

One thing to remember about the Civ system was that it allowed the city to grow to the size of the food supply. there is nothing unreasonable about this. Improving your land, or setting up food trades (with caravans) allowed you to grow your population. The population would start to fall if the food supply was inadequate, whether this occured through enemy interference, lack of workforce etc.

The only absurd thing about the system was the size of the granary (food store) so that when food supply ran short it took too many turns for poipulation to start falling.

A similar system could easily work in Total War, which does have a truly bizarre system at the moment. Doesn't stop it being a great game though!

[screwtype]

Actually, i reckon the Civ food system was as simple as it could be without being absurd, which made it very effective given the number of cities you ended up controlling.

I agree. I thought the Civ food system was quite logical, albeit a bit clumsy. It certainly didn't offend common sense the way the RTW system does.

[screwtype]

That population growth depends from the extra amount of food produced. The bigger the extras, the bigger the growth.

But that's exactly how it *does* work in the real world! Modern agricultural techniques have allowed us to sustain a far larger population than at any time in history. But stay tuned, because the world population is now growing at such a rate we may soon discover that Malthus was not wrong, just ahead of his time...

If that was true in real world there would never be hunger.

Hunger occurs in the world today not because of insufficient food, but because of unequal food distribution caused in turn by political factors. There's enough to feed everyone today, it just doesn't always get to the places it's most needed.

[screwtype]

If there's not as much food, the population doesn't grow as fast.

Don't see why that's a big problem.

Why should the population growth rate change just because there is a food surplus? A food surplus just means a bigger sustainable population, it doesn't mean a change in the actual rate of growth of the population.

The problem with the model in RTW is that there is *always* a food surplus, no matter what. You begin with a food surplus that enables you to sustain a growing population. And that food surplus remains regardless of how many people you have, or how much you neglect your agriculture, or natural disasters, or warfare and pillage, etc etc.

The problem you're met with in RTW is not one of providing enough food to sustain a growing population, which is how it should be, it's about deliberately neglecting your agriculture so as not to trigger unsustainable growth rates. That's just silly.

If you that want something more complicated should try Rome:Total Agriculture.

I've already tried it . It's called Lord of the Realms II, and it has a far better and more engaging economic model than RTW. But I don't really want a replica of the LOTR II model in RTW. All I want is a model that's challenging and that conforms to common sense.

And BTW, I agree that not everyone would want a more complex economic model. But that's easy to fix - you just give players the choice between simple and complex economic model in Options. Then those who want to manage a realistic economy in order to bash heads can have it, and those who just want to bash heads, period, can also have it.

[Mongoose]

i think i agree with Scretype. The RTW campaign is so bland compared to SMAC or Civ


Though i admit that i haven't played BI. maybe it changed something to make the campaign if not much more complex, more interesting.

[HarunTaiwan]

In RTW, as Screwtype mentions, you sometimes will not supply more food to your people in order to control population growth rates.

That's plain silly and completely ahistorical: in ancient Rome one of the problems was supplying the people of Rome with food, not starving them.

Grain fleets were very important and many political issues were about grain...who controls Sicily, protecting Egyptian grain fleets, etc. They even had elected officials (quaestors) who had to go on foreign grain buying missions.

In RTW, there could have been Senate missions to secure grain, and if you let too many pirates exist, you would run into grain issues.

[Butcher]

I agree, the fact that building farms is counter productive is daft.

[Puzz3D]

I agree, the fact that building farms is counter productive is daft.

It isn't counter productive if you want to increase the population faster. I actually don't care what the game calls it. It's just a trigger to get more people to come to the city. But you are right, the unrest isn't being caused by a lack of food. It's being caused by overcrowding, lack of water, lack of entertainment, lack of organized religion, etc.

[SpencerH]

I wasn't impressed with RTW and I'm not impressed with BI. So far (playing my first campaign as the Saxons) I see very little difference between the two. Some technical problems have been fixed but new problems have been introduced. I also have to wonder where some of the 'eye-candy' glitz (that I enjoyed a little) such as 'weather effects' have gone? Hordes are an interesting idea, but when my strategy for dealing with them is not to eliminate their last city (so as to avoid spawning a much much larger enemy), I have to be critical of the ideas implementation.

So far, the challenge in BI has been to manage money. Tactical combat, the essence of TW, remains poor in BI in comparison to STW and MTW.

[dismal]

I wasn't impressed with RTW and I'm not impressed with BI. So far (playing my first campaign as the Saxons) I see very little difference between the two.

I think, when it comes down to it, the only major difference in game play between BI and RTW is the hordes.

If you play as a horde, the game plays very different than RTW.

If you play as Romans, the primary difference is dealing with the hordes. My ERE game felt very much like a vanilla RTW game most of the time, particulary the long war in the east vs. the Sassanids.

I imagine the Saxons aren't affected much by hordes (they tend to like to go south), so playing them will feel a lot like playing RTW.

[SpencerH]

I imagine the Saxons aren't affected much by hordes (they tend to like to go south), so playing them will feel a lot like playing RTW.

Actually I have had two hordes to deal with, the Franks and the Vandals (who are again 'hording' right now). I came up with my "no final elimination strategy" after fighting the Vandals for many turns.

[dismal]

Did they attack you or just mill about?

[Nelson]

I also have to wonder where some of the 'eye-candy' glitz (that I enjoyed a little) such as 'weather effects' have gone?

I too wish the Rome weather was like it is in Shogun but my suspicion is that weather effects went by the boards because rain, fog and snow become too intense graphically now that so many polygons are getting tossed around. As it is virtually no one can play with all options maximized and use the largest unit size. At least I have yet to see anyone claim that they can while still enjoying a smooth frame rate at all times.

[SpencerH]

Did they attack you or just mill about?

The Vandals migrated through my lands and they eventually attacked me and took a city. Later, after beating off their attacks at other cities, I took back the weakly defended city and I was lucky that the much more powerful horde migrated further west. Thats when I realized it's better to let 'sleeping dogs lie'. Hordes are much less hassle when they are no longer hordes. If they control one small city they are no risk.

[SpencerH]

I too wish the Rome weather was like it is in Shogun but my suspicion is that weather effects went by the boards because rain, fog and snow become too intense graphically now that so many polygons are getting tossed around. As it is virtually no one can play with all options maximized and use the largest unit size. At least I have yet to see anyone claim that they can while still enjoying a smooth frame rate at all times.

I miss those effects too but I was refering to the flooding, volcanos, storms etc that I had with RTW. I havent seen one with BI.

[dismal]

My first campaign I was ERE and had about 7-8 hordes swing by. I cobbled together a couple armies and put them on the bridges and this was enough to get most of them to pass on by.

I had to fight only 2 hordes.. One was a goth horde that appeared inside my borders that I had to scramble to break on the walls of Constantinople. The other was a Lombard horde that sent a stack after one of my bridge armies, was beaten badly and never tried again.

Other than the extra attention paid to the hordes, like you, I mostly played the same way as I did in RTW and got basically the same outcomes as I did in RTW.

Playing as a horde has been very much different. I tend to be a builder by nature, and the hordes are all about plundering.

[ChaosLord]

I keep hearing "Farms are unproductive" being tossed about again now that BI is out. I must be crazy, since I always build them. They do indirectly increase squalor, but squalor decreases population growth. So a balance can be met. Their only use isn't just growth as farm income can be quite nice. In any case I don't think extra food represents the primary reason for city growth, but rather economical growth.

More farms=more trade, more jobs, etc... This is why Markets and the like also increase population growth, but not on the same scale as farms since they're smaller in scale. Eventually growth becomes too much for the city to handle though(as is seen in any major city) and squalor becomes a problem. But if you prepare for it(with health and happiness buildings) you can go for max growth and still end up with a manageable city.

[dismal]

I keep hearing "Farms are unproductive" being tossed about again now that BI is out. I must be crazy, since I always build them. They do indirectly increase squalor, but squalor decreases population growth. So a balance can be met. Their only use isn't just growth as farm income can be quite nice. In any case I don't think extra food represents the primary reason for city growth, but rather economical growth.

It's probably fair to say that in the original pre-patch release squalor was out of balance and you needed to be careful not to overbuild farms. There were cities that would grow beyond your ability to control. Some people seem to have been horribly scarred by the experience.

Now, I think most cities can be kept in balance even with farms.

I still tend not to build buidlings that add to pop growth in cities that have high pop already (> 24,000 or close to 24,000 with growth) just because you're going to lose the extra value of doing it by having to garrison more, build very expensive order buildings, hold games, or lower taxes (which perversely causes more growth). It's also just extra hassle. At some point your time is better spent going out and winning the game than tweaking your cities.

In cities that aren't going to make it to 24,000 farms are the first thing I build. More income and faster growth - what else could you want?

[CountMRVHS]

In some of my cities, Squalor is the only negative factor of civil order. No unrest, no religion problems -- just the place is so filthy, apparently, people are ready to take up the pitchfork and shake it at their governor if they get the chance.

Not really sure what sort of buildings can counteract the effects of squalor... Happiness buildings, obviously, but there's only so many of those you can make. With Health buildings, I don't really understand how they work. Building the Sewer line of buildings, for example, won't decrease Squalor. Does it decrease the chance of plague or something?

CountMRVHS

[player1]

Thye couter-effect it.
5% of squalor reduce both growth and pulbic order for 5%.
Health gives 5% to both growth and pulbic order.