R:TW - Good points and Bad

[HighLord z0b]

As an avid player of M:TW, I was thinking of getting R:TW. However I have seen quite a few people on these boards and others saying how disapointed they are, especially in the battle department. So I was hoping I could get some brief and sucinct points on the good, the bad and the ugly parts of R:TW.

From what I've heard so far:

the good: building roads and trade
the bad: very short battles
the ugly: the Egyptians

[econ21]

The good:
- RTW graphics are a leap above those of STW and MTW.
- The open campaign map feels more realistic than the risk style maps of STW and MTW.
- The Roman campaigns have some nice features - eg the Senate missions and long pre-battle speeches. The game has more "chrome" and atmosphere than MTW, although maybe less than STW.
- The armies feel more differentiated than those in MTW - you have Roman-style, phalanx, horse archer, barbarian and various hybrids. They all play and feel very different.
- Has a more substantial and interesting add-on campaign (VI is ok, but limited - BI is almost a RTW2).
- Has larger and more impressive "realism" mods that massively improve the game (no disrespect to STW and MTW modders, but there is nothing to compare with the massive team efforts of RTR and EB).
- Siege battles are more interesting with more options.

The bad:
- Some of the vanilla campaigns (especially Roman) are unchallenging.
- Some of the units (e.g. wardogs) are ahistorical, as are some of the faction orders of battle (the Egyptians).
- The battle AI has some limitations e.g. it is more prone to charge with archers and seems less good at keeping the high ground. The phalanx AI was awful pre-BI (breaking battle lines too easily, exposing multiple flanks): not sure where it stands now.
- The siege AI is pretty awful: AI defenders behind wooden walls will run around getting shot to death; AI attackers do not bring enough of the right siege equipment to take defended stone walls.
- The campaign AI has perhaps not fully adapted to the new campaign map. Often the AI does not use "double team" attacks with large stacks - it attacks sequentially and is defeated in detail, rather than attacking simultaneously - so you are less often outnumbered on the battlefield than in MTW.
- Before BI, the balance of arms (Cavalry, phalanx, swords, archers etc) was badly out of whack IMO: cavalry and missiles were too strong, the phalanx too weak. In BI, things feel much better - I confess I have not played vanilla RTW since, so I don't know to what extent the patches have improved the original game.

Bottomline: RTW 1.0 was disappointing to MTW vets. But I think BI or modded RTW (e.g. RTR) gameplay is about as good as MTW. In looks, of course, RTW is a treat.

[Mount Suribachi]

Well, as a longtime STW and MTW vet I finally got RTW this Christmas - my opinion on the game?

Well, lets just say I've been playing RTW 1.5 non-stop since Christmas Day

I think Simon sums up the communities general feelings on the game, but I have to say I don't think its as bad as a lot of people have made out (maybe thats cos I've only played the fully patched game).

My biggest problem with the game is that I find the battles are over far too quickly - even with the use of the pause button, something I never needed with MTW after a while, battles seem to come and go in 5 minutes. And I've not (yet) had one of those epic, OMG I must share this battle with the folks at the Org battles.

OTOH the campaign map is light years ahead of MTWs. Graphically beautiful, so many more options, so much better organised. Family tree is excellent.

I'm thoroughly enjoying it and I haven't even tried any of the mods yet.

[Scurvy]

I think one of the reasons that rtw gets a slighly negative opinion from many on these forums is that a lot of the people here played shogun and medieval total war's and they are a "different" type of game however many people were expecting something closer to the two previous....

[Andy Shadows]

That might be true since im more used to RTW and MTW feels strange and actually very very clumsy.

[dagiz]

having also gotten rtw in the last month, here's what I like:

the campaign map is more intricate. there is more to do now than there was in mtw. a lot more involvement on the agent side which adds a whole other dimension to the game. something that it has takena little while to get used to, but it does make it more interesting.

battles are a bit disappointing as has been noted. I have yet to run into a truly epic battle. I got all excited when I had two stacks (egyptians) attacking my forces while sieging and was very disappointed that the battle maybe lasted 15 minutes. if that. really may have been closer to ten.


the interface takes a little while to get used to. Especially in the campaign map as there is a lot of information that gets tossed at you.

Hopefully in the next one they are able to combine the good and the bad from both mtw and rtw and make a truly great game.

with the 1.5 patch I have not noticed a lot of things that have been mentioned - especially in sieges. I have face upwards of 8 rams in defending a wooden palisade. so that seems to have been fixed. have yet to have a stone walled city sigeid so I don't know if that would be the same.

since this is the first run through I did start with the romans just to get a feel for the game. next time through I may pick another faction adn see how that goes.

[x-dANGEr]

The good:
- RTW graphics are a leap above those of STW and MTW.
- The open campaign map feels more realistic than the risk style maps of STW and MTW.
- The Roman campaigns have some nice features - eg the Senate missions and long pre-battle speeches. The game has more "chrome" and atmosphere than MTW, although maybe less than STW.
- The armies feel more differentiated than those in MTW - you have Roman-style, phalanx, horse archer, barbarian and various hybrids. They all play and feel very different.
- Has a more substantial and interesting add-on campaign (VI is ok, but limited - BI is almost a RTW2).
- Has larger and more impressive "realism" mods that massively improve the game (no disrespect to STW and MTW modders, but there is nothing to compare with the massive team efforts of RTR and EB).
- Siege battles are more interesting with more options.

The bad:
- Some of the vanilla campaigns (especially Roman) are unchallenging.
- Some of the units (e.g. wardogs) are ahistorical, as are some of the faction orders of battle (the Egyptians).
- The battle AI has some limitations e.g. it is more prone to charge with archers and seems less good at keeping the high ground. The phalanx AI was awful pre-BI (breaking battle lines too easily, exposing multiple flanks): not sure where it stands now.
- The siege AI is pretty awful: AI defenders behind wooden walls will run around getting shot to death; AI attackers do not bring enough of the right siege equipment to take defended stone walls.
- The campaign AI has perhaps not fully adapted to the new campaign map. Often the AI does not use "double team" attacks with large stacks - it attacks sequentially and is defeated in detail, rather than attacking simultaneously - so you are less often outnumbered on the battlefield than in MTW.
- Before BI, the balance of arms (Cavalry, phalanx, swords, archers etc) was badly out of whack IMO: cavalry and missiles were too strong, the phalanx too weak. In BI, things feel much better - I confess I have not played vanilla RTW since, so I don't know to what extent the patches have improved the original game.

Bottomline: RTW 1.0 was disappointing to MTW vets. But I think BI or modded RTW (e.g. RTR) gameplay is about as good as MTW. In looks, of course, RTW is a treat.

I must comment on this post, as I think BI is really one of the poorest exapnsions I saw coming to any game (Haven'y played many :P )

About the balance of arms before BI: You say it is now quite fair in BI, or after BI. If you mean by that that it's balanced in BI, I must disagree... A cavalry units costs as much as twice of a normal infantry unit and still loses to it. They made infantry too cheap and put loads of armor on it, making missile and cavalry almost useless. (The made cavalry even more expensive and threw another time more armor..). If you mean it gets balanced with BI (E.I. 1.3/1.5) then I agree. As the phalanx counter charge bonus that was bugged has been fixed and some fair more things about it.

Hordes in BI.. Really annoying, all peasents, all horsearchers.. With skirmish.. What a pain I liked the religion conflicts in BI though, I must admit.

[econ21]

A cavalry units costs as much as twice of a normal infantry unit and still loses to it. They made infantry too cheap and put loads of armor on it, making missile and cavalry almost useless.

Well, preferences vary. When I was referring to a good balance of arms, I meant one where the relative effectiveness in the game corresponded to that in history. We all may have different views about the history, but to me BI seems pretty reasonable.

I remember in pre-BI RTW, as a Roman faction, I could rout other full stack Roman armies with just auxiliary archers on a hill - they were like machine guns, cutting down swathes of hastati etc. As Carthage, my cavalry alone could destroy full stack Roman armies. Cavalry and archers were just too powerful, IMO. It was the age of the heavy infantry, afterall.

I think BI gets it just about right. I've played a fair amount as Roman factions and I will always take 3+ archers if I can. They are not useless. The battle may be decided by other arms, but the archers reduce my casualties and give my heavy troops a slight, but useful, morale edge. I find cavalry often decisive - far from useless - if used in what I take to be a historical manner - ie thrown into a fray at the critical point, from the flank, to cause a chain rout.

This is all from a SP point of view. I have no idea whether it is balanced from a MP point of view. The costing seems fine. If anything archers seem a little cheap, but the expensive cavalry is worth every penny. As WRE, I disband my cavalry at the beginning to save money, but as a result my battles are far less decisive than when I can afford a couple. Was it Napoleon who said that without cavalry, a victory cannot be decisive? Hoovering up routers has always been the primary function of cavalry for me in TW games, but I like how RTW and BI also give it a useful shock function.

Hordes in BI.. Really annoying, all peasents, all horsearchers.. With skirmish.. What a pain I liked the religion conflicts in BI though, I must admit.

I haven't seen a peasant in a horde. And I believe some - eg the Huns -were mainly horse archers and horse archer armies were a pain. I do feel sorry for the Huns when they try to assault a defended Roman city without good infantry of their own, but maybe that is a fault of the AI - they should just starve them out.

[Cowhead418]

Well another bad thing is that I've had RTW for well over a year now and still haven't played it because it won't work on my computer!

[Kickius Buttius]

To second Simon, historically cavalry was substantially more expensive to create and maintain than infantry, and it was practically useless in actual battle until one side broke (at least during the time period in RTW and BI). Cavalry then chased down and slaughtered fleeing troops. Cavalry also was of great use in various raids, but it had no chance of defeating infantry in open battle (save for horse archers, of course, which are a completely different type of unit).

BI is thus balanced in this regard.

I'm sure there will be others who disagree with my opinions on the history of cavalry, though.....

[KukriKhan]

Well another bad thing is that I've had RTW for well over a year now and still haven't played it because it won't work on my computer!

Sorry Cowhead418. I assume you've sought help in our tech forum (the Apothecary), to no avail?

[teja]

I haven't seen a peasant in a horde. And I believe some - eg the Huns -were mainly horse archers and horse archer armies were a pain. I do feel sorry for the Huns when they try to assault a defended Roman city without good infantry of their own, but maybe that is a fault of the AI - they should just starve them out.

Mostly true. I saw peasants in a horde. In the starting horde of Vandals there are some (if I remember right). When you force a fraction into a horde, it's composion is related to the last cities status. A poor city may add peasants into a new rising horde.

Battle system:
Only one point I want to add now. Battles are faster, because units will easily rout when flanked. This is the main reason for the shorter battles.


...many points to add, but most my conclusion: RTW with BI is a great game and I like it! I agree with most of Simons statements.