MTW folk RE: RTW

[Red Harvest]

Speed - Im not sure if its realistic or unrealistic historically, but I get annoyed when I see historians talking about the Velites or Javelin infantry being out front of the main line. Its rediculously impossible to do that as by the time the enemy are in range of the javs - they dont get to throw one cos the enemy inf or usually the cav will charge and close the distance too fast.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Velites and javelins DID fight out in front and from the flanks. The problem is that the way the game engine works, skirmishers cannot really run up release and skedaddle, they get caught. In real life, it didn't work that way. It is a game engine problem. In real life skirmishers would engage for a long time before the battle lines actually met, trying to drive each other's skirmishers away, and disrupt deployment of the battle line. It wouldn't just be 10 or 15 seconds and a single missile volley hurled.

The bigger problem with the skirmish mode is that the AI does not have any concept of how to actually skirmish and conduct ranged attacks. Exchanging missiles and trying to disrupt the enemy line is something it should be striving for. Instead it wants to melee with its skirmishers or charge the line with a few infantry or cav. It skips the traditional first phase of battle with javelin skirmishing. It is particularly obvious when it has a substantial advantage in missile units, but not in melee, when it still pushes for early melee--playing to its weakness rather than its strength. What it tends to do is charge its skirmishers forward hoping your ranged units will skedaddle. If you turn of skirmish for your men, it will CHARGE into them rather than stopping to trade vollies, which is assinine since its men are unsupported, while your infantry will rip them a new one.

If the AI was programmed to actually treat part of the battle as a skirmish phase it would be a lot different. Instead the AI acts brain dead when it comes to skirmishing. Therefore, because the AI only seems to understand CHARRRRGGGGE! you are reaching the conclusion that armies could not skirmish.

This problem was apparent in the original RTW demo, despite the scripting that had been done to get the AI to deploy properly for the Romans.

[Kaldhore]

Im talking about the game speed being and issue of RTW, and as I explained a good example of that is the velites not being able to fire out in the front before theyre charged. I agree its an engine issue - I was just pointing that out.

[KRALLODHRIB]

I feel that MTW was so far ahead of its time, but to be fair I think it is an extreme disservice to oneself to ignore RTW because of some rather minor criticisms. RTW (and BI) is an absolutely wonderful game that I still find addictive! Go for it Roark.

Audaces fortuna iuvat.

[Just A Girl]

you may or may not know About how easily RTW agrivates me,

But it will eventualy grow on you given time,
I find my self playing a hour or so of the stratagy part of rtw every week or so now,
So it cant be all that bad,
However MTW still dominates my Single player game time,
And STW just takes almost all of my mp gaming time,

So although i dont like RTW, and Initialy hated it,
I do ocoasionaly find time to play a hour or so here and there,
The stratmap really is quite good,
The economics of the game is quite like MTW with taxes and stuff,
I personaly Aprove of the way You are deployed in a battle Depending on where you were on the strat map when you were engaged.

The Naval part is difrent to mtw, But not that much difrent (id say MTW was better with that part)

The Ai is prety sleepy in battles if you compare it to STW, if your comparing it to MTW, Its not that bad.

It may not be your fave game in your pile of games, But i doubt it will be your worse,

One word of warning though i think that the minimum display For battles is 1024x768 and min for Strat map is 2048x1536

Im prety shure thats the case But i may be wrong,
This causes a problem for me as iI use a tv set not a monitor,
So the writing is To small to read on the Stratagy map,
(kind of agrivates me a little 2)

If you find it for a reasonable price i dont see why any 1 would not buy it.

Hope this helps your decision

oh
P.s
Cavalry can bearly catch fleeing archers In RTW,
The things are broken or something

[lars573]

RTW is an improvement in everyway over MTW. The best changes are the AI and the battle interface.

[Red Harvest]

RTW is an improvement in everyway over MTW. The best changes are the AI and the battle interface.

Most MTW vets will say the exact opposite of this 2nd sentence is a better representation of how it plays. I still prefer the old interface (it worked better in battle.) The AI is so much weaker in RTW that it really pales next to MTW. There are many things that have potential and look great in RTW, like the strategic map. But the battlefield AI is one of the things pulling heavily into the negative category for RTW. A few things have been fixed in 1.3 but other things have been broken. The slow down made in movement speed for some units does help in 1.3 vs. 1.2/1.1/1.0.

The best indication of just how weak the RTW AI is: 1 vs. 1 match ups against identical opponents on the flat grassland map. You should win easily, even when trying to make it an even test. With 1.3 1vs1 unit testing doesn't even work properly anymore. The basic things the AI neglects, like its pila or warcry...or charging/running when it clearly should all weaken it considerably. Then at 40-50% casualties it tries to retreat 30 yards and gets slaughtered? WTF?

With ranged units the RTW AI is utterly hopeless. The MTW AI wasn't brilliant with them, but it wasn't brain dead, and at least could inflict some attrition.

MTW is more of a challenge on the battlefield, this carries over to the strategic map because army management is more challenging when you actually take some casaulties. MTW has more campaigns and distinct era's that actually have some meaning in decisive parts of the game.

[lars573]

The only thing I hated about MTW were the battles. Horrible interface. Bad controls, and the AI didn't help. I sucked at them so bad it hurt. I stoped battles all together after playing MTW for a day of two. I got better results (as in less casualties) with auto-calc.

[Red Harvest]

The only thing I hated about MTW were the battles. Horrible interface. Bad controls, and the AI didn't help. I sucked at them so bad it hurt. I stoped battles all together after playing MTW for a day of two. I got better results (as in less casualties) with auto-calc.

I think we've hit at the heart of the matter then. You didn't like the controls of MTW and found the battles too hard. Fair enough. However, if you only gave it a day or two, then it is really hard for me to accept that you know much about MTW's AI at all.

I'm trying to see how someone so unfamiliar with MTW's AI could come to the conclusion that RTW's AI as better? In fact, quite the opposite would appear to be true based on what you said. It appears you found the MTW battlefield AI harder than RTW.

[Slug For A Butt]

Most MTW vets will say the exact opposite of this 2nd sentence is a better representation of how it plays. I still prefer the old interface (it worked better in battle.) The AI is so much weaker in RTW that it really pales next to MTW. There are many things that have potential and look great in RTW, like the strategic map. But the battlefield AI is one of the things pulling heavily into the negative category for RTW. A few things have been fixed in 1.3 but other things have been broken. The slow down made in movement speed for some units does help in 1.3 vs. 1.2/1.1/1.0.

The best indication of just how weak the RTW AI is: 1 vs. 1 match ups against identical opponents on the flat grassland map. You should win easily, even when trying to make it an even test. With 1.3 1vs1 unit testing doesn't even work properly anymore. The basic things the AI neglects, like its pila or warcry...or charging/running when it clearly should all weaken it considerably. Then at 40-50% casualties it tries to retreat 30 yards and gets slaughtered? WTF?

With ranged units the RTW AI is utterly hopeless. The MTW AI wasn't brilliant with them, but it wasn't brain dead, and at least could inflict some attrition.

MTW is more of a challenge on the battlefield, this carries over to the strategic map because army management is more challenging when you actually take some casaulties. MTW has more campaigns and distinct era's that actually have some meaning in decisive parts of the game.

Personally, STW bores me to tears. It's so limited.
MTW is a good game, but I still really don't understand why people rave about the AI in MTW/VI compared to RTW, remember jedi generals? How sick were they? Just because the battles are faster in RTW(low def ratings-easily modified)
I honestly think the AI in RTW is just as good, but lots of people like to wear rose tinted spectacles and bang on about how wonderful the AI was in STW and MTW when really it wasn't. Anyone remember chasing STW units all the way round the battlemap and having to corner them them before they would even fight you? Wonderful AI huh? Noones bitching about that now though are they?
Let's all wake up and smell the coffee, the AI is as adequate as the other TW games.

*EDIT: The strategy map in RTW is soooo much better too, I hated the STW/MTW/RISK style of map. I much prefer the strategic map in RTW, it's 3D instead of 2D. And I don't mean that visually. Where you place your armies actually affects where you fight your batles, such as defending in mountains is a good thing.

[Red Harvest]

Personally, STW bores me to tears. It's so limited.
MTW is a good game, but I still really don't understand why people rave about the AI in MTW/VI compared to RTW, remember jedi generals? How sick were they? Just because the battles are faster in RTW(low def ratings-easily modified)

You can change some settings, but there is only so far you can go with it. Movement speeds can't be modded decently. 1.3 improves some of these issues. However, RTW requires MASSIVE amounts of modding to give the same quality of battle experience as MTW. Hence, my sig.

I honestly think the AI in RTW is just as good, but lots of people like to wear rose tinted spectacles and bang on about how wonderful the AI was in STW and MTW when really it wasn't. Anyone remember chasing STW units all the way round the battlemap and having to corner them them before they would even fight you? Wonderful AI huh? Noones bitching about that now though are they?

That was a lot smarter of the AI than watching you flank it onto high ground and then kicking its butt, like RTW does. Sheesh. And actually it made some sense...since your fatigued men were in worse shape for the chase. Horse archers were a handful if you were not mindful.

The AI was never perfect, but it was far more of a challenge than RTW puts up.

Let's all wake up and smell the coffee, the AI is as adequate as the other TW games.

Smelling salts might be in order rather than coffee if you believe that. In MTW I wasn't winning battles inflicting 1600 casualties while suffering 10 versus a superior quality force on the hardest settings...I am in RTW.

*EDIT: The strategy map in RTW is soooo much better too, I hated the STW/MTW/RISK style of map. I much prefer the strategic map in RTW, it's 3D instead of 2D. And I don't mean that visually. Where you place your armies actually affects where you fight your batles, such as defending in mountains is a good thing.

The new strategic map would be great if the AI had a better idea of how to use it. That has improved from 1.0 to 1.2, and 1.3, but it still is not sufficient. In some ways the AI could pick its moves better in MTW, although it still fell into traps. The AI certainly managed its stacks better in MTW/STW than in RTW.

And in case you didn't know you *could* and did pick where you fought your battles in MTW to some degree. The adjoining borders were used to select the map types. Just like as in war, there were some uncertainties as to where you might actually make contact and take the field. It wasn't a bad solution at all for a Risk style map.