STW,MTW,RTW - does play sequence matter?

**ichi** · 10-17-2005, 06:11

Shogun has a lot of interesting features, and MTW essentially built on the same principle. Rome is very different for either STW or MTW.

I've always had a fondness for STW, its fun and beautiful. MTW, especially VI, is a terrific game and still has a good online community (some diehards still play Shogun online but I recommend MTW VI for the best online experience). Rome has many interesting qualities and there's probably more folks playing it online right now than either MTW or STW.

Whichever you play (and I recommend them all) be sure to download the latest patches, get the expansions, and then try some of the mods.

Remember that while any of the three have fun SP campaigns, the most fun comes from battling online.

ichi

**Rodion Romanovich** · 10-17-2005, 08:37

MTW had a better tutorial for the battles, if you want to get into battle faster. I also personally think MTW has the best battle speed and balance, although the BI expansion to RTW has improved RTW gameplay a lot. RTW is essentially in gameplay the same game on the battlefield, although with different unit balance and battle speed, and different AI, but the basic principles about morale, fatigue, terrain, incline etc still haven't changed much. The campaign map is however different. I think it's good to play at least the MTW battle tutorials before playing RTW, as the RTW tutorial says very little.

**Sjakihata** · 10-17-2005, 10:03

Welcome

First of all - yes, a lot of things changed between the game (fortunately sometimes to the better). However, the controls are very different. Fx. in stw/mtw you use left mouse to move units, in rtw you use right mouse to move. And a lot of others things as well - so essentially, you will have to unlearn some to learn RTW, if you start with stw/mtw.

That said - both games rock! I can really recommend playing, as soon as you are tired of RTW, go play shogun, then advance to MTW. Mtw is a lot more difficult to manage than either RTW or STW. Stw is the simplest - yet it's waay cool, you get NINJA and SAMURAI

Hehe, anyway, have fun dude

**Ciaran** · 10-17-2005, 10:51

I don´t know STW, so I can only compare RTW and MTW, but, anyways, here goes:
The most important thing (the battles, hey, the name of the game is "Total War", so it´s all about that) are fairly similar, yet there are differences. Apart from the graphics, the RTW control is - in my opinion - somewhat more "foolproof" with the left-click select/right-click move setting, but somehow it makes for a bit harder controls, when it comes to unit facing and rank selection. On the other hand, you can arrange your units in RTW in the beginning of each battle, be it defensive or offensive. In MTW you can place the individual units only in sieges and defense battles, when attacking you have to stick to a selection of template formations. RTW battles move a lot faster (or so it seems to me), MTW leaves a bit more time for thinking - which is direly needed, terrain and Generals make huge impacts and mistakes are punished severly.
Sieges are not that much different, in RTW you have more siege equipment (like rams, siege towers, ladders and tunnels) than in MTW, where artillery is the only heavy equipment ever used.

As already mentioned, the biggest difference is the strategy map, in MTW it´s a bit like the board game "Risk", while in RTW you can move your units to any place - which can be used to gain advantages on the battle map, be it by blocking a bridge or maneuvering reinforcements into your enemy´s back. RTW also has more diplomatic options, in MTW you can be allied, neutral or at war, in RTW you can secure trade rights, become Protector of a faction, buy and sell map information, instingate attacks on third parties etc. RTW, however, lacks the religious aspect of MTW, unless you´ve got the Barbarian Invasion expansion.

I can´t really recommend one over the other, personally, I´ve started with RTW, but I´ve grown to appreciate MTW a lot, too.

**econ21** · 10-17-2005, 11:27

It does not really matter which order you play the games. The battle mechanics are virtually the same and take a little while to handle (managing the camera, coping with managing a dozen units in real time etc). RTW battles are faster, which can be good in terms of keeping the campaign going, but IMO requires you to pause a lot if you want to use tactics. STW and MTW have a "Risk" style map whereas RTW has a more open, movement point based one but none of them are particularly hard to master. The RTW one is probably more intuitive. The building elements to the games are fairly similar.

I would start with the one whose period interests you the most. Personally, I found STW had the least interesting strategic game and the battles quickly got exhausting (maybe another way of saying the campaign was rather challenging). In MTW, there are more strategic possibilities and the glorious achievements adds a nice role-playing angle. RTW is handicapped by being the least challenging of the three, but has some nice mods - Rome Total Realism and the forthcoming Europa Barborum - that bring it up to MTW quality.

An important thing when starting off is to choose a faction that is not too daunting. In STW, Shimazu is a good one - it has a defensible corner position. In MTW, England has a similar quiet starting point. In RTW, I would go with Julii (or another Roman) as you get some strong directions from the Senate and start off with a small base but great potential. Read some of the guides here for tips to get you started.

**Dutch_guy** · 10-17-2005, 15:13

play MTW first, that way you won't get let down by the graphics that RTW has.

That is my advice,

I had bought RTW before I bought MTW, since everyone here kept on saying it was so much better-and MTW was for sale for about 5 euros :D

I bought MTW , installed it, patched it, and played it , but the graphics turned me down , nothin gnear the eye candy RTW has.
However, in the end I played MTW just as much as I did Rome, when the eye candy doesn't bother you anymore , you'll appreciate the gameplay and strategy part where in MTW exels in.

Can't comment on STW , since I haven't played it.

**C-F** · 10-17-2005, 15:21

Whow,
1st, thanks for the warm welcome and the quick, detailed responses

Since I'm coming from the 'opposite' side of the universe (citybuilding (Caesar3, Pharaoh, et all) & CRPG (BG-series)) I played (snooping)RTW1.2 - Julii as such, meaning always autoresolving the battles just to get the strategic map aspect down

Believe it or not, it is possible to win - took me until 134bc to do so (full campaign) since I suffered quite high losses in each battle (some 300+ total IIRC)

Win or lose this way turned out to be like playing (russian)roulette ( I won some where the odds were 4:1 against me and lost were I had 5:1 favour) so I assumed there must be some 'scripting' involved to develop my empire as intended...
Now, the battle part of the tutorial in RTW is very confusing, I played it min 5, 6 or 7 times trying to keeping track of the events and its implications - to little avail

.
Summary, cavalry good against archers; spearmen good against cavalry; archers good against spearmen. Now, where does that leave all the other units that you can build (arcani, hastatii, town watch to name a few) and which of the categoties do they fall into ??? And what about the formations and tactics - oh my...

@LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix,
thanks for the tip of the tutorial in MTW being more 'in depth' - I'll give them a try then...

PS, I came to love assassins

- they took out quite a number of 'stars' especially down in the Egypt (near east)area (60 years old, 6 or seven proficiency 'Eyes'?) heck, I sent him in against ? marks and he came back victorious

Again, thanks for the input and all the info to be found on this great site

- I think I'll try to 'master' RTW and/or BI first (after coming to grips with the battle tutorials in MTW), so maybe I'll get to contribute a little to the knowledge base since it seems the least resolved and very wide angled with all these possiblities.

**Shambles** · 10-17-2005, 15:40

Personally I would not play STW or MTW before playing RTW,
Becous to me The other 2 games Made me relize how Bad RTW was,

So d im,agine Play RTW 1st If you want to actualy play it and not complain alot.

**econ21** · 10-17-2005, 16:43

Originally Posted by C-F

Summary, cavalry good against archers; spearmen good against cavalry; archers good against spearmen. Now, where does that leave all the other units that you can build (arcani, hastatii, town watch to name a few) and which of the categoties do they fall into ??? And what about the formations and tactics - oh my...

I guess I left out a category of troops you could call "swords" - ie heavy infantry such as hastati and princeps. They are good against spears; fair against cavalry.

Arcani are a novelty "commando" style unit - I don't build them.

Town watch are just garrison troops, like peasants, to maintain order but not fight.

In terms of tactics, you are best looking at frogbeastegg's guide. Perhaps the key concept is flanking - hold them by the nose, kick them in the rear as the centurion advisor put it. I tend to form a line of swords/spears backed by missiles and when the enemy is engaged, try to work my cavalry round the flanks and fall upon their rear. For that to work, you have to neutralise the enemy's cav - e.g. waiting until it is committed or smashing it with your own cav.

**Puzz3D** · 10-17-2005, 17:51

I'd suggest playing an RTW v1.3 campaign on large unit size with M/M difficulty as Scipii. Remember to CTRL-S and CTRl-L before hitting end turn. Use minimal_ui, remove the green arrows and banners, turn off the radar map and keep the camera low for a nice battlefield experience. Auto-resolve battles against rebels to avoid the tedium of eliminating them, but play all the other battles.

STW and MTW/VI use a different battle engine than RTW. MTW/VI has some enhancements to the morale system, but it still works fine in STW. MTW/VI also has the smartest general in terms of not getting himself killed, and cav flanking is enhanced over STW. The STW/MTW engine has a stronger rock, paper, scissors system, and stronger terrain effects. The AI is smarter about using terrain in the STW/MTW than it is in RTW. Also, the units don't run as fast as they do in RTW, and they fight longer especially in STW where the rout point is lower. STW uses smaller maps, but this size is actually what the earlier battle engine is optimized for along with normal unit size. MTW went to larger maps, but the fatigue rate was not re-optimized for this larger size and tends to be a little too high. Strangely, eventhough the fatigue rate is lower in RTW and the maps are smaller than MTW, the AI units get exhausted if they have to cross the entire map which is apparently due to all the extra running around the AI does with it's units. The combat penalties due to exhaustion are fairly strong.

The reinforcement system in STW/MTW is problematic. You can get long streams of reinforcements entering the battle as depleted units leave. This wasn't too bad in STW because the maps were small and units always rout directly back to a single entry point, but on the larger MTW maps the reinforcements have a longer distance to travel and routing is away from the threat so battles can end up being very long. I've had many MTW battles that lasted over 1.5 hours and a couple that lasted 3 hours when lots of reinforcements were involved. I think my longest battle in STW was 1.5 hours. In RTW v1.3, the time spent fighting battles and spent doing things on the strategic map is more equal than in STW or MTW. Re-inforcements are handled differently. The longest battle I've had in RTW v1.3 is about 30 minutes.

STW is interesting because it has guns and no artillery. MTW, set in an earlier period, has very weak guns and artillery that doesn't move. The AI doesn't use artillery very well in MTW, and it brings artillery to field battles which isn't appropriate. You often see the AI when on defense move it's units to high ground in MTW leaving the artillery which can't move unprotected. When the AI is the attacker, all you have to do is keep your units back out of range. In RTW, the artillery can move and the AI makes good use of it.

STW has guns, but they are very strong in STW/MI v1.02 and they dominate any battle in which they are present. Some players like it that way, but they are definitely too strong for the battle system. It is possible to substitute STW v1.12 gun stats for those in STW/MI v1.02. Also, the battlefield ninja and kensai are questionable because they can't be adapted to the battle system very well. The system was not designed to model small but powerful units. For instance, I've spent many hours trying to balance the kensai in the Samurai Wars stat for STWmod for MTW/VI, and can't do it. In this sense, original STW v1.12 which didn't have battlefield ninja or kensai and had weaker guns gave better balanced battles. The weather system is a lot more varied and tactically important in STW than it is in MTW, and the seasonal turns impact the battles and require more planning in your ecomomics.

In general, as the number of unit types has increased in Total War games the playbalance in battles has deteriorated. This isn't so much of a detriment in SP because better units have higher support costs and you have to build up a tech tree to get those units, but it's a major issue in MP since there are no support costs and all units are available for purchase.