STW,MTW,RTW - does play sequence matter?

[Ludens]

Objection! IMO, STW has the better battle engine. It's smoother and faster and easier to control. And skirmishing actually works in STW, where it doesn't work reliably or at all in MTW.

I think if there's one improvement to the MTW battle engine over STW, it's that the kill rate isn't as fast so battles tend to last longer and there's more time for tactical maneouvres, or for correcting mistakes. But in every other way, STW's engine is better.

M:TW's battle model features rank bonuses, push back and a tweaked morale system. Cavalry depend more on their charge and less on the following melee to win. I didn't think S:TW that much smoother than M:TW, but I agree the battles were more of a challenge and the A.I. could skirmish better. It had too, though, because IMO M:TW's skirmish units are no match for their S:TW equivalents.

S:TW was more of a challenge in the initial stages of the campaign, but once you had half of Japan you could steamroller the rest. This is less present in M:TW, especially if you install MedMod.

Objection! I think STW is the "prettiest" game of them all. Except of course that RTW has more detailed units. But the landscapes, the weather effects, the in-game movies - they are better and more atmospheric in STW than in either of the later games.

I couldn't agree more .

Now, I took the advice, and played through half(so far) of MTW battle tutorial and can already tell that I'm going to face a 'rocky road' - or, 'it won't happen overnight' - even though I was 'victorious' in the battles, it just 'kills' (no pun intended) me to see my little men being slaughtered and all I can do is sit back and watch and wait for the outcome - or am I missing something? I am aware that casualties will happen, but once the units are engaged, there is nothing else I can do, right?

I suffered from that too when I started S:TW. Unfortunatly, there is nothing you can do. Well, you could turn on hold formation (+2 defence, -2 attack) if you are planning a flank or rear attack: it will keep your men from dying so quickly. But if you can't support them, I advice you to use engage-at-will. Your troops will die faster, but so will theirs.

How do you do all this? Specifically 'banners and radar map'?

BTW, what does "Can sap" mean - sounds like a pine tree

Go the the R:TW folder, open preferences.txt and change minimal_UI and disable_arrow_markers to true, and show_banners to false. I don't know how to disable the radar.

"Can sap" means that a unit can function as a sapper. In game this means it can use sap points constructed during sieges to bring down walls from a safe distance by undermining them.