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.

[Zalmoxis]

I don't know, I liked the old map with the armies represented by wooden figures, made you feel like a general.

[Mooks]

Bad points on RTW:BI.

-Hordes, doesnt matter if you get the huns down to nothing, once you take theyre last city theyre automatically a superpower with 5 stacks of troops.
-Battles dont give you nearly enough cammand stars, bridge battles give you none.
-valour doesnt come easy, in fact I barely get any valour unless I do autobattle.
-diplomacy is nothing really, everyone will attack you if they got the chance.
-Barbarian generals have extremely bad admistrator skills, I almost never get past 2 scrolls.
-As stated before the battles go wayyy to easy, and theyre extremely easy, iv rarely ever lost a battle on VH:VH.
-Pirates, you cant have any ships out of your harbour for more then 3-4 turns without it being a huge fleet, the pirates have whole stacks of fleet everywhere on the map.
-Roman rebels, you can have a rebellion in siciliy and a rebellioin in britain (With the romans) And suddenly you have another faction to do deal with.

Well thats the bad side, dont have time for the good side.

[dkdnt]

well, i didnt play mtw, so i can not compare it with rtw. anyway i can say why rtw is great game, and why sometimes i must think this over.

good things
-really nice way of building your empire. it somehow reminds me of civilization serial, with bunch of improvements of different kinds. it allows you to calculate how you want your empire to looks, and how your empire will become an empire.
-batlles, cuz there never same.
-units, especially seleukid phalanx
-gameplay as it comes

bad(or stupid things)
-ai considering relations with other fractions, for example, i start blitz krieg against egipt(im sure this is only way of beating them on hard, and very hard diff), and i allmost destroyed them, leaving them nothing but city bostra. i offered them peace with trade rights(cuz they are very proud, and dont want to become protectorate), which is great for them, seleukid empire is only fraction they have borders with. but what they did, wll, they refuse it, and i was forced to destroy them, and i dont like destroying fractions. not to mention that their best army was way under my middle range army(phalanx pikemans, greek cavalry with high xp, chariots same). stupid.
-few units you can recruit. war dogs, those funny burning pigs(or something like that), and in BI cariage ballistas(i mean they look like dude on bike with heavy machine gun).
-batlles, there is no blood, and i hate that, like phisics considering kataphrakt strike etc.
-historical errors, but i dont realy care much about them.

[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?

[dkdnt]

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.....

well now i must disagree. first of all cavalry was expensive, but not that much, as you assume. another thing about actual use of cavalry units that you said is incorrect. use of uhis units was much more than, as you suggesting slaughtering fleeing troops. cavalry units were used in open field battles, even alexander magnus used them to break the front, and i`m not speaking only of heavy armored cavalry. thing is, that one horse, can run over a man(not a spearman though)and war horses in military nations usualy were trained to do so, all other tried to pass man while horseman attack him. war horse(there is better word for it, but i cant recall it) was powerfull enough in such ocassions, they even could break a spearman troop, if they were not goodtrained. i like to compare use of cavalry with use of tanks in WWII, cuz of their efectivness. one word cavalry units was very powerfull, not just heavy cavalry(like katafrakts) or horsearchers, but regular light or half armoured cavalry.

[x-dANGEr]

Agreed. I simply think it should be this way: Cavalry are deadly to Swordsmen but bad VS Spearmen. One other thing that's bad about BI, don't all factions have the same units? The 2 formations that are in BI are totally useless (Or I think so). Their is no variety for sure, look at ERE, don't they have it all? Some of the best cav, best infantry and best archers, what else do they need? And yes, they 'do' have HA, too.

About the peasents note, they all seem like peasents, those peasent cavalry, even those infantry units, they all seem useless just as peasents, I just don't know why poeple are scared of Hordes. For god's sake, my general alone slaughetred a horde in an assault. It's really troublesome to have all those HA skimrishing as enemy. I'd rather think of that as a negativity more than a positive thing. Same thing when you play Pontus VS Greeks.. Those militias just fool my head, espiecially early one when you have no archers. Thank god the A.I doesn't use centerbarian circle, or else a battle won't be finished.

[dkdnt]

yes, cavalry units should be effective against common armed infantry. spearman especialy phalanx type was in use becouse of their effect against cavalry, so about cavary penalty when fighting them should be no discusion.

and another anoying thing in rtw is militia hoplites, this is just logical error but i hate it anyway. i mean if they were soldiers enough to form a phalanx that should mean that they were welldisciplined, and that they had good morale, becouse morale come through the force of discipline. but no, they are weak as hell, they lose one bloody man and start fleeing, not to mention that light cavalry unit strike them from the front, and they are

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

suposed

to be effective aggainst cavalry. to form a phalanx u need some training, to do some training u must learn about discipline, and fact that it saves your life, through that lessons u are to become better troop, but no, they are weak, too weak and too useless.

[Mooks]

I remember reading a book once that Philip of Macedon realized that The Theban army was mostly made up of ordinary civilians (While he was a political hostage) and they werent really that special. He went on to make a standing army in Macedon that wiped out the Thebans.

The morale factor in RTW needs to change, I remember in MTW you could have a front line battle change back and forth.

[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.

[Cowhead418]

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

Well actually I haven't but I just recently bought a new computer so hopefully there will be no problems there. It's not set up yet but RTW should work on there.

[Watchman]

I think the RTW cavalry is pretty OK, especially post BI. The light stuff does what it's supposed to - harries the flanks, picks on other light troops opportunistically, slaughters routers, and usually gets splattered if it tries to fight anything "heavy". Even heavy cavalry is not optimally used to charge decent infantry, nevermind now spearmen, from the front, all the more so if the footsloggers are "set" to receive the charge. Even far more powerful shock cavalry than the stirrup-less Antiquity era kind never did very optimally against solid heavy infantry. True "superheavies" - various Cataphract and Clibanarius permutations - and the elites are a different story, but then they should be - the Romans had a Hell of a time dealing with the Persian heavies, after all, and the Kataphraktoi were one of the more powerful shock elements in the Byzantine army.

Decent phalanxes seem to stop even them, though. I recall once having to kill those two Parthian Cata units with Seleucid Levy Pikemen - a fair few of them perished at the spear-wall, but the rest smashed through and caused quite some havoc before eventually routing.

That aside, I rather like the way RTW looks and handles compared to the earlier games. Cavalry in particular maneuver much more beutifully than in the past, and in general the battlefield troops look more... lively. I've bad memories of the seriously stupid-looking "file combat" animation of the MTW spearmen...

The campaign map is also a major thumbs up - I seriously can't imagine dealing with the rather crude STW and MTW ones after getting used to it. If nothing else it's by far more immersive and interesting, and allows for far more strategic chicanery.

Sieges also finally make sense. The STW ones were just bad; I seriously started doubting the usefulness of fortifications as a defensive measure in the game, aside from maintaining hold of the province while you massed a relief army of course. The MTW ones were just nasty; I never quite comprehended how exactly you were supposed to assault the bigger fortifications succesfully, at least without bringing in a full stack of artillery or something similar. RTW sieges are actually pretty fun, and at last proper siege engines are involved. The city scenes are also fairly interesting by themselves, and the street-fighting adds tactical factors.

And Jedi general are gone, thank God. Triple-gold upgrade bodyguards may be a terror, but at least the damn king isn't near-automatically the last one standing and doesn't rout half your damn army single-handedly before finally deigning to perish...

Easy modifeability is also nice. Even a layman isn't going to have much trouble carrying out simple edits that might be felt necessary, appropriate or whatever, and being able to look up detailed unit stats as is is nice.

On the negatives, the AI is still an idiot. That's probably the single biggest one.

The ahistorical units are a mixed bag. Personally I found some of them mainly amusing, such as the Arcanii, or characterful if silly such as the Egyptian chariots without which the faction would be pretty much just another collection of phalanxes. But I can see why many people might not be as generous, and the warhounds for one are odd and not terribly amusing.

[Gealai]

Cavalry in the West in the RTW timeframe was usually used to skirmish and to fight hand-to-hand, being armed with javelins beside the sword or the spear, in similar fashion to the infantry units which too were dual-armed.

The Romano-Celtic horned saddle was an excellent stable hold for throwing javelins - with the added weight behind it due the added velocity of the horse - and this art was heavily exercised, see Arrian aka Xenophon. It was also suited for sustaining the rider in a hard melee.

The Cavalry in RTW has indeed become better - meaning worse powerwise - with the progressing of the game, far from the sweeping Equites which could defeat whole Gaul stacks with annoying ease.

Gealai

[Quietus]

The difference between vanilla MTW and RTW, IMO,

Campaign Map:
MTW has low room for error.
RTW has large room for error.

Battle Map:
MTW has high room for error.
RTW has low room for error.

In STW, both the Campaign and Battle map has low room for error. :)

Room for error, meaning, you can make mistakes and make corrections without severe repercussions.

In MTW, if you are meticulous, it is a breeze. In RTW, if you are meticulous, it doesn't really make much of a difference in the Campaign Map (aside from gaining you a ton of florins). Edit: denari rather.