1.3 RTW Comments

[Puzz3D]

I did the same test with 3 AI Cretan archers (3/6/4 chg/att/def) vs 3 hastati (2/7/14) abreast on flat map. The hastati have not had fire at will enabled in any of these archer tests so they don't throw the pila.

In the first test there was a glitch where the Cretan archers turned 90 degrees and marched off to my right. At about 45 degrees to my right they got stuck and couldn't move although I could hear orders being given by their commander. After 5 minutes of that, I turned my hastati line 45 degrees to face the archers and they started to move as soon as my hastati started to move. After some indecisive right/left movement, the archers organized one behind the other and advanced into firing range. They distributed their fire so as to reduce the hastati evenly by shooting at the unit with the most men. When my hastati were down to 45 men the first archer attacked my left hastati (the general's unit), but was routed. It rallied, made a second attack and routed again with 21 men rallying off to my left were it set up to shoot. At this time the second archer attacked the two hastati on my left while the third archer shot my right hand hastati. The 21 man archer then made a flank attack and my general died. All 3 hastati routed quickly after that.

In the second test, the Cretan archers moved directly forward one behind the other into shooting range. Once again they fired until my hastati were down to about 45 men. This time the first archer attacked my right hand hastati which only had 43 men. The archer routed and the second archer then attacked my lefthand hastati (the general's unit) which had been weaken further by archer fire, although my right hand hastati was the weakest one except it was set slightly bechind the line. The first archer rallied with 36 men and also charged my lefthand hastati while it was engaged and routed it on contact. The third archer (the AI's general) was shooting my right hand hastati this whole time and had it down to about 20 men. The first and second archers engaged the center hastati and routed it, and then quickly defeated the right hand hastati.

It all seems pretty reasonable except that the AI charges when it can't win.

Note: I forgot that I turned off fatigue.

[Jambo]

Puzz, who's the defender and who's the attacker in your tests? Worth remembering that if the cretans are the attackers then the onus is on them to attack.

Furthermore, it's a custom battle as opposed to a campaign and there's little point in retreating to fight another day. It's win or lose on one battle and that might explain them charging and fighting even though they can't win. I've regularly seen horse archers retreating (not routing) in campaign battles where they can live to fight another day...

[Puzz3D]

I don't see any explicit attacker/defender designation in custom battle. I was at the top of the mini-map with the hatati in the tests. I repeated the 3 archers vs 3 hastati test with the hastati at the bottom of the mini-map, and the AI didn't do anything different. Since I have fatigue off now, the AI was able to rally more and make more attacks, but the archers still didn't win. Sometimes the AI would attack frontally and sometimes it would set up a flank attack. I tried the same test in RTW v1.2, and it was essentially the same result except the AI archers were more reluctant to charge the hastati. Archer kills with the arrows were less, but the AI set up to shoot from further away.

[Red Harvest]

Note: I forgot that I turned off fatigue.

That might have some impact on the decision making later, since it would effect "weighting"--which you can observe changing on the bar, but not for individual units above 1v1. However, that doesn't make it invalid as far as seeing what the AI tries to do.

The result with fatigue would likely favor the hastati: since the archers were working before charging, while the hastati were stationary (correct?), they would have reduced combat effectiveness and take higher casualties, as well as suffering from loss of morale. It could/would tip the result most likely. I haven't kept track of how winded (or not) archers become from firing in RTW. In MTW it was significant. I used to pull some of my arbs off of FAW and rest them while doing defense vs. multiple waves. And those duels with desert archers and horse archers...much more memorable than RTW.

The test still illustrates the root problem though: meleeing unnecessarily with arrows still in the quiver.

[player1]

There is big difference in custom battles when AI faction is acting like attacker or defender.
If you don't set anything in custom battle they act as attacker, and are playing agressively.
If set to defender, if weaker they will camp on nearby hill, and wait your forces.

P.S.
Yes there is an option, just near team markings (I, II, etc...), the red thing.

[Puzz3D]

There is big difference in custom battles when AI faction is acting like attacker or defender.
If you don't set anything in custom battle they act as attacker, and are playing agressively.
If set to defender, if weaker they will camp on nearby hill, and wait your forces.

P.S.
Yes there is an option, just near team markings (I, II, etc...), the red thing.

Thanks player1. Yes it does say clicking the shield so it lights up red makes the team defender. I clicked the shield next to my faction in the last test, and that's why there was no difference in the AI behavior.

I made the AI archers the defender in another 3 archer vs 3 hastati test, and the archers didn't move. They stood with 2 in front side by side and the general centered behind. When I advanced the hastati, at a certain distance the 2 front archers moved forward to what looked like max range and started shooting. I stopped the hastati and the 2 archers fired all their arrows at which point they moved back to their original position. I moved the hastati forward somewhat and the AI general moved forward and fired all their arrows and then moved back to its original position. The hastati each had about 40 men left.

I advanced to about 50 meters away and the front 2 achers charged. This attack was repelled with the archers having 47 and 45 men left which rallied and returned to approximately their original positions. After that, the archers didn't want to attack and gradually shifted to the sides with the general moving back when I advanced. Eventually, the 47 man archer made a flank attack on my left hastati, and it was repulsed. I sent one hastati forward, and the AI general's unit ran around behind my hastati line near the 45 man archer. Using the hastati on the right, I moved toward the general, and the 45 man archer attacked and was repused. It rallied and came back and attacked the hastati again, and this time the AI general charged in support and routed the hastati. The AI general pursued and ran into my other hastai and lost after some fighting.

So, the AI's behavior is quite different in this testr when it is the defender. I've observed this in my campaign battles as well, but I have had campaign battles where I was the attacker and the AI defender acted aggressively and attacked me.

[Jambo]

THat's what I thought would happen. From your tests custom battles do appear to be different from campaign battles - in campaign battles missile units will retreat without necessarily resorting to melee, as they can fight another day. Like I said, in custom there isn't this option and it would be frustrating to play custom battles where the AI always retreated.

[Red Harvest]

16. Wardogs still pose absurd difficulties, because they still can't be targeted directly. So on VH, where they have plenty of morale they just keep killing and killing in AI hands. They are non-sensical anyway, so it looks like I need to mod them out once again. GRRRR!!!!

[player1]

Interesing.
I thought that first time in BI factions that have them make sense.

[Veresov]

Is 1.3 RTW even worth playing. Reading all these issues discourages me.

In BI this seems also to be an issue right? I have been decimating hordes with just 4 units of archers covered by com's. Even horse archers don't seem to help.

[Puzz3D]

I have a challenging RTW v1.3 Julii campaign (M/M difficulty) going in 142 BC. I made some mistakes managing my cities which has made it harder, and I might not be able to win now. I find the battles to be much better in v1.3 than in v1.2 where I played a Julii campaign out to 166 BC, but never finished it. My last battle in this RTW v1.3 campaign was with 1487 men under a 3 star general against 1404 Brutii under a captain. It lasted 15 to 20 minutes, and I was just able to win with each side suffering over 1200 casualties. I only had about 50 men on the field at the end. I never had any battles like that in RTW v1.2 except when using Mordred's Community mod, but the broken sieges when reloading and the suicide general killed RTW v1.2 for me. Overall, most of the battles in this campaign have been good with some exceptions. In my next campaign, I will play with fatigue off because the AI doesn't manage its fatigue and is therefore at a big disadvantage. I'll also have to play as Scipii because that faction's strategic AI is not working.

[Red Harvest]

Is 1.3 RTW even worth playing. Reading all these issues discourages me.

Tough question. I'm asking myself the same thing. There are some aspects that are better, but CA has broken quite a few bits as well. Another very mixed bag.

Some of the good stuff:
A number of the unit stats and misc. mistakes are corrected, command stars work better (you don't end up with max stars after 6 or 7 battles), and the AI does a better job of combining its forces. Traits seem to work better overall. (They were so badly bugged in 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2 that it would have been better had they not existed at all.) The save bug seems to be fixed. Coastline bug is gone. Speeches are more varied and interesting (wonder if fixing the traits had some impact there.)

Some of the bad stuff:
The memory leak is a killer. Perhaps it would be acceptable for a beta release before the game is published, but not up to snuff for anything else. If I wasn't running XP I would expect the machine to lock up during shut down. As it is, it takes several minutes just to get out of the game and shutdown after playing for a few hours. So RTW 1.3 fails on technical grounds.

The AI still has trouble expanding. It seems to have lost the ability to conduct naval invasions more than once or twice. (Carthage is much easier as a result.)

Britain and Egypt still are powerhouses. Carthage/Spain still get the short end of the stick infantry wise until fully upgraded.

The AI combines its forces, but still attacks/sieges with undersized forces far too often, when additional troops could be added.

AI can't use many of its units' abilities properly: pila, archers, slingers, javelins, even war cry at times. Ranged combat is about half broken.

Conclusion: Neither good nor bad, just different. Too badly bugged to really feel it is complete. There are some fundamental improvements, but new bugs take the luster off of this patch.

[Kraxis]

The memory leak is a killer. Perhaps it would be acceptable for a beta release before the game is published, but not up to snuff for anything else. If I wasn't running XP I would expect the machine to lock up during shut down. As it is, it takes several minutes just to get out of the game and shutdown after playing for a few hours. So RTW 1.3 fails on technical grounds.

See this is strange for me.

I experience the leak once in a while, but I can leave the game for hours (or play for that matter) and it is still good when I return. So for me it is at worst a limited nuisance as I have yet to only experience a single battle becoming affected by this (in fact it CTDed).

How much RAM are you running with?

[MulusMariae]

Kraxis... my Yeah, it's perhaps a "limited" nuisance, but it's a "real" nuisance nevertheless.
For what it's worth, I used to just fold down my laptop screen as a "screensaving" move and leave the game running, sometimes overnight. I would swear that even with no actual play that the "memory leak" continues to build up. I have 512MB of memory and I think I have seen BI showing MORE than that in Task Manager when I am forced to kill BI (so I don't have to wait many minutes just to get the GUI up so I can exit more gracefully).

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
I have 512M RAM too and the leak is the rule with no exceptions.
.

[Red Harvest]

See this is strange for me.

I experience the leak once in a while, but I can leave the game for hours (or play for that matter) and it is still good when I return. So for me it is at worst a limited nuisance as I have yet to only experience a single battle becoming affected by this (in fact it CTDed).

How much RAM are you running with?

512. Since you have 1 GB, this illustrates that it is indeed a memory leak. It just keeps using more and more space.

[Papewaio]

512 MB and I have seen it CTD just at the launch of one battle so far.

[Kraxis]

512. Since you have 1 GB, this illustrates that it is indeed a memory leak. It just keeps using more and more space.

Yeah... I will add i to the bug-thread right away. Should have done it earlier but nobody mentioned it and I didn't experience it much myself.

[EDIT] DOH!!! I had already added it...