Page 1 of 2 1 2 Last

I see a lot of people in this sub forum saying that they didn't like R:TW at all and that it was a step backwards from M:TW. I would just like to know what you liked more in M:TW then in R:TW...or what you liked in S:TW that you liked more than the other two. Looking at the series as a whole, I really like the evolution of the strategy map section...sure, R:TW did have a lot more micro-management, thats about the only thing I would like to see reduced a tad, but overall I like the extra work that went into it. In S:TW it felt like an afterthought almost.

I'm just trying to remember what I liked about M:TW, and I cannot come up with much. I much prefer roads/travel times as opposed to the plop armies here method. I love the forts/watch towers options, and how the forts go away if abandoned. I love the intricate city building similar to a Civ series where you can make choices as to what type of city you have. I just can't remember ever playing more than 2 o r 3 campaigns with M:TW...just didn't feel good...

Reply

Too many battlefield issues that made multiplayer a mess.

Reply

The battlefield AI in MTW is in my, and many others´, opinion superior to the one of RTW. In RTW, the enemy tends to charge your position, no matter whether he´s defending or attacking, and regarles of the terrain. In MTW the AI tries to get onto higher ground at least in the defences. When attacking they´ll come straight up on you as well, however. Slower battles, both movement- and kill rate-wise also make them less hectic and stronger relying on maneuvering and tactic.
On the other hand, the strategic AI of RTW tends to produce better balanced armies, in MTW you can occasionally encounter armies that only consist of arbalests.

Reply

I think the new Campaign map system is generally better than in MTW. Unfortunately, the AI isn't good enough to cope with it.

I think most people's problems with RTW are with the battle AI and battle gameplay rather than the campaign.

Reply

Well, I really tried to like R:TW, somehow I couldn't. On the other hand I just can't stop playing M:TW, now that I installed it again - it's just too much fun.
I suppose my main gripe with R:TW are the historical inaccuracies. The pharaonic egyptians, the three roman factions, german phalanxes, british battle chariots, and all the other fantasy units. While M:TW is far from representing medieval times correct it is much closer to a simulation, R:TW always felt too gamey to me, I'm a history nerd. Of course R:TW has many areas where it is superior, especially the graphics and battle speeches, but it misses something that creates the enjoyment for me. Of course that does not mean that I hate R:TW or don't want others to enjoy it.
There were other things I disliked: the (imho relative to M:TW) weak battle AI, the rebel hunting, the movement of lot's of small armies and reinforcements, there is much more micromanagement involved, playing large empires got tedious. The huge, epic battles of M:TW are rare in R:TW. Thus RTR and BI didn't really catch me either.

I'm curious if it will be like that with M2:TW too, it does look gorgeous, but the visual alone wears off fast for me... Of course I will give it a try.
Cheers,
h


Edit: I just read the CA bashing and part of the 'whining' thread, I haven't been around for some time.
So please don't understand this post as bashing or whining, it's not meant that way. I just tried to explain (also to myself) why I prefer M:TW. I have no gripe with CA, I enjoy M:TW too much for that.

Reply

Personally, I had aso much more fun playing MTW it wasn't even close. I lived on that game, where I forced myself to like RTW. For starters, in MTW the battle AI seemed a bit better to me, and the campaign AI seemed way better. The new campaign map for rome, while superior, didn't have the AI backing to make it a challenge. The risk style map of MTW was a lot easier for the AI, so it was a lot more of a challenge. I also love the medieval period.

Rome had vastly superior graphics, and some nice options such as choosing your heirs (although that may have been because of the era), pre battle speeches were nice too. Somthings I am dumbfounded why they left out like governors titles, dread ratings, killing prisoners and probably more that I forgot.

In all technicality RTW is a better game overall, but MTW was a lot more challenging and a lot more fun. Anyway, thats my 2 cents.

Reply

I just started playing RTW for the first time yesterday. Didn't do too well in the Prologue (I was spread out too far with too few troops and I had two huge enemy armies attacking (one in the north, one in the south)). Currently playing the regular campaign as the Julii. Doing better, but I'm running into a wall in the North called the Brittons, and in the west the Spanish and Gauls. It did take me a little while to get comfortable with the campaign map. There are some things I like about it, some things I miss, but nothing that really bothers me.

I like how the terrain plays a factor. There are only so many ways to get to a particular location, and that you can have a good defense setup at the choke points to protect your homelands. Of course with that comes travel times. I miss the ability to drag units from one province and move them half way across the map. Reinforcements can quite a while to get up to the front. Fortunately upgrading your roads can help speed things up. Then come training units and teching up. So much relies on your population level to get to the higher level buildings. Of course, with higher population comes greater squalor.

There is definately increased micromanagement. I like the idea of RTW's rally points. Where new units will then move to a location. It got tiresome in MTW when you have 30 provinces pumping out units to have to manually drag and drop them from one side of the map to the other. Ships work better. Now instead of a single ship blockading your entire chain of ships, the enemy has to send ships to your ports to setup a blockade. In MTW it always felt that you were always disadvantaged by the sea zones than the AI. Of course, ship combat is entirely random, though helped by having superior numbers, or better captains.

I don't particularly like how when you want to queue a building or a unit up, that you have to pay for it upfront, even if it won't be built for years. I would like for it to be easier to queue up multiple units in an integrated interface. For instance if I want to train a unit each of Hastati in each of the cities that I can train them in, a couple clicks should be all it takes to queue them up. It could be as simple as selecting a unit, select a number, and the game will queue them up in as many provinces as you need to. If you have say six provinces that can train Hastati, and you only have the money for 4, you can have the game prioritize where they get trained to say your frontier provinces first. In addition, you should have the ability to prioritize a province for particular units, so if I want Patavium to prioritize Hastati training, then when I queue up Hastati, it will fill up the provinces I've selected first, then other provinces afterwards. Just some ideas.

Another thing I found bothersome is that when you have a scroll open and you have to scroll down through a list, the scroll wheel on my mouse doesn't work. This means that I have to click on the up and down buttons on the window. The scroll window zooms in and out of the campaign map (not something I want or need to do when the entire screen is filled with building and unit description windows ;)

I don't much care for the real time battles. I usually autocalc, unless a particular battle may appear to be close, and I've had far too many where I'll have the number advantage, but just lose too many troops. of course, quality of troops makes a difference, but I've had heavy losses on battles that I might have actually won. That leads me to one thing I have noticed. Cavalry seem to just dominate when it comes to the real time battles. They are fast, and unless they are severely outnumbered by troops that can defend against them, can do quite alot of damage. With that said, I had a couple embarrasing battles at the beginning of my Julii campaign where I charged my faction leaders unit into what I thought would be a soft target, but in the intial charge or shortly thereafter my faction leader got himself killed. That was my very first battle... then two years later in my second battle Faction Leader #2 did the same thing. In any event, my faction leader stays back until after the battle has commenced and I can maneuver him into a better position.

So, for my opinion, I like both games. Unfortunately I have to do alot of reading to figure out the game, whereas I've had MTW for about a year or so.

Reply

dit u ply alexsander

Reply

Battlefield:

-slower, more tactical combat
-more (varied) units for every faction (not just limited to hoplites as infantry for instance)
-bigger maps (that's the way it feels anyway)
-more height effects
-more balanced units (no real super units, besides the jedi generals)
-AI could handle the battles better

Campaign:

-map easier to manage
-risk style map leading to BIG clashes instead of small brawls
-Buildings more focused on war, not all those 'city management' buildings
-AI could handle the risk map better


Other:

I just prefer the medieval period to the Roman one.

Reply

i rarely ever played the battles in either M:TW or R:TW, it was the Campaign I was interested in (except multiplayer).

the campaign in M:TW was fabulous, I still play it now four years later.

the campaign in R:TW was dull and tedious, i gave my copy away a month after buying it.

somehow CA got it very wrong.

Reply

Like myself, you may not have given the RTW campaign a chance. I must admit that when I first started playing RTW I saw the campaign map and was reaching for the sick bag. I hated it. I tried to get into it time and time again and failed. Eventually I sold off my RTW.

Now I intend to give it another go and try out some of the great mods that are out there. I also want to have a go at BI.

The problem with the risk provincial map model is that it was so very limited. The RTW map may not have been the answer to the question, but it does mark at least some improvement. Hopefully the M2TW map can build on this and produce a better campaign game. The main problem I had with the RTW map was it's confusing layout and ugly RTS style graphics complete with animated slow walking giants. It just gave me a headache to look at it.

Reply

I can't argue with any of that. I can quibble that the "feel" of a bigger tactical map is because units don't race across it so quickly.

Tactically, M:TW was much better but the relatively slow pace of the battles must have been frustrating to many players.

On the campaign map, the potential of a much better game is there. It just hasn't been realized yet.

Reply

There was always the slider bar to fix that though (at least in SP). Implementing realistic speeds, but giving the option of a slider bar would have made everyone so much happier in RTW.

The gameplay was just better in MTW. The AI was better on the combat map, and the risk-style campaign map made it easier for the AI to cope. The RTW campaign map is a nice idea, but gives the AI too many options and the gameplay breaks down into lots of annoying skirmishes. The sequential turn mechanism allowed the player to exploit the AI weakness on the campaign map, this was not possible with MTW's move-at-once scheme (aside from a save/reload "cheat"). Empire management was slow and tedious (a better GUI would have helped here).

Rome just had a half-finished feel to it. There were lots of bugs and inconsistencies in the release version, and it just felt like another 6 months development would have created a much better game. I have higher hopes for M2TW, since this isn't a from-scratch effort.

Reply

I really disliked RTW from the first time i played it. I prefered the old STW and MTW control interface in battles and the game 'felt' more realistic - RTW felt more like an arcade game. I couln't get into the game at all and simply quit playing after only days.

However, the last few weeks ive started playing RTW in anticipation of MTW2 and found that I love it. Once I got used to the differences I realised what a quality title it was.

MTW felt more balanced than rome in that the Catholic factions were, to some extent, fairly equally matched and no one faction looked overpowered. In RTW I just feel that its too easy to win battles as the Romans and the challenge of beating a Roman army with a band of barbarians is the games best feature for me. But thats just the point, its Rome: Total War and i want the game to be more challenging when playing Rome. Even on harder difficulty sections not much will stand up to a Roman legion and after the reforms they are unbeatable. If the ai was better at teching up and building advanced units (especially on the huge unit sizes where population is at a premiuim early on) then the game would be more challenging as there are Rome beating units out there like the heavily armoured war elephants and sacred band of carthage, its just ive never seen the ai build them.
I suppose you could argue that MTW suffered from this but in the early game no unit dominated like Roman legions do.

Now I feel that RTW is a worthy addition to the total war series but, for me, the best in the serious was STW. It had more atmosphere than MTW and RTW put together in the way it drew you into the samurai culture. I found myself reading up on Japanese history just because I played Shogun. STW was also beatifully simplistic with its rock, paper, scissors mechanics. Other than WM there were not any really unbalanced units and even then the WM were incredibly vulnerable to the much more accurate archers that featured in the game. While the newer titles brought many improvements and greater variety of units this made it lose the beauty of outfoxing a bigger ai army composed of identical troop types of your own.

For me Shogun was one of the greatest games I ever played and the first online game I played. After the MI expansion pack killed the mulyiplayer game by splitting the foyer I lost interest in multiplayer and have not really played the others much in multi due to issues similar to those in Shogun.
If CA want a masterpiece then they must improve multiplayer and immerse the player in the medieval world in the way shogun did (and to a smaller extent rome) while paying attention to unit balancing particularly in the early game.

Reply

rome total war should be nicknamed siege total war.

sieges in rome total war become boring rather fast. once you figure out the layout of the towns they are all the same. once you figure a basic pattern they aren't dangerous like assaulting medieval total war castles.

in rome assaulting stone wall cities:
1- build 2 siege towers for the assault
2- in the setup pick a wall tower object of your assault one or two towers from the gate, clockwise from the objective gate. this is so if they have archers up on the gate they aren't hitting the siege towers and the 2 units pushing the siege towers
3- let the siege towers attack either side of the object wall tower
4- run the two units back counterclockwise on the wall to kill any units near the gate
5- with the gate secure run one of the units on the wall counterclockwise around the wall top about 1/4 the city circuit to capture all towers that can shoot up the main army.
6- march the rest of the army thru the gate and march counterclockwise 1/4 or so the circuit of the city to the street going to the city center and then take the city center

boring........

once you learn how to win sieges you have mastered 3/4 of the game as field battles are rarely big and decisive.

in medieval total war most of my battles are field battles and are often decisive.

Reply

5. should have been the opposite clock direction, sorry, as a junior member i can't edit my posts.

Reply

I don't have MTW so RTW was my first go with the series. however, I don't get how ppl compare them. there is sooo much difference between the 2. never mind the fact that there's over a millennia in warfare advances, tactics and weaponry between RTW and MTW.
why the battles in RTW feel faster paced? IMO that is because you don't have full body armor units with huge shields. instead, low morale hunters/farmers without proper trainin' or weapons made up most of so called barbarian armies in the days.. whenever ya encounter more "elite" troops that present some challenge and can match yours the battles suddenly don't feel hectic anymore.
RTW AI will try to take advantage of the terrain such as high ground everytime it's at disadvantage. but only at the beginnin' of the battle. it won't maneuver its army to a higher ground after the battle commence. why? because it's a waste of time/strenth and it makes 'em exposed/vulnerable to the bulk of light/fast troops in RTW.

if that's not enough. I can explain how suicide generals make perfect sense...
in RTW era it wasn't uncommon to see the general unit engage first. Alexander the Great comes to mind.... his cavalry unit was always first to engage the enemy army. but it was a poison(disease?) that killed 'im not the suicide general tactics...

my advice to your RTW haters is to get a fresh from scratch install of RTW updated to v.1.5 and try to play a few small campaigns on med/med and higher settings. then come back and see if half of the points you complained 'bout still hold true.

Reply

Better still, run it with the BI exe, it seems to make a difference, and I'm finding Gaul less of a walkover... (still pretty easy, but not nearly as much so as it was)

Reply

The atmosphere.

Reply

the online community... stw and mtw had a much more fun online community imho. rtw brought the munchkins out in droves, and forced the older, more respectful players to the sidelines.

the majic was lost for me the first time i logged into the lobby and couldn't talk in private, and couldn't tell what the hell was going on...

luckily there is still an old guard presence in the mtw foyer. i don't expect them to carry over to mtw2

Reply

MTW provided better topics to discuss and more in-depth tactics to ponder. The players didn't change, the subject did.

For instance, one MTW thread that went on for more than 100 replies, all on the proper use of javelins. Roman infantry unit in RTW has javelins but, by the time you line up a proper shoot, the battle's over.

Again, though, I think RTW's strategy map shows great potential. If the battlefields are bigger in MTWII, I'm encouraged about tactics, too.

Reply

I echo Hermano and Yoko Kono in regards to their comments about the TW games' atmospheres. Now of course neither Medieval or even Shogun were perfect, but they both still provided a wonderful level of immersion that Rome simply does not have.

It's not any one thing, either--it was a combination of factors. Rome's anemic AI is at the heart of a number of problems I have with the game, but it's not the only feature that was lacking. The 3D map is overly bright, almost garishly colorful, and has overly-exaggerated physical features (especially mountains). All these things give the map a rather cartoonish look.

The voice acting--particularly during battles--was mostly poor. Unit speed was way too fast, and is part of the reason why battles rarely lasted more than 5-10 minutes. Battles are generally too short, and there's no "realism" mode you can enable to fix this. Units are more unbalanced than ever before (overpowered cavalry, archers, etc.), and so are the factions (Romans and Egyptians overpower everything;, yet Greece and Carthage are far weaker than they should be). Yes I realize the Romans should be somewhat stronger than the other factions, but they were still overdone.

Rome has an over-abundance of fantasy units. (Yes, Shogun and Medieval had them too, but not nearly as many.) The Senate assigns missions that often make little sense--ordering the Julii to blockade Sparta, ordering the Scippii to conquer a Gaulish city, etc. There are too many minor skirmishes with small armies consisting of just a couple units, and not enough decisive battles with larger armies (an AI problem).

Finally, RTW was probably the buggiest release out of all of Total War titles. Not that there's a PC game in existence that hasn't needed some patching after release (and Medieval was definitely no exception!), but Rome felt like the most unfinished out of all the TW games. It seemed like it could've used another 6 months or so of playtesting and hammering out bugs.

All of these things combined together to deliver a playing experience that was less than satisfying. As I've said elsewhere, Shogun and Medieval both had a terrific atmosphere that truly made me feel like I was there in the world. Rome, however, just feels like a "game". Newcomers to Total War might not know what they're missing, though, if Rome is all they've ever played. If that's so, I both pity and envy them. I played Rome for about three months before I finally gave up on it. I tried very hard to enjoy the game, but in the end I had to admit that it just wasn't fun for me--something had been lost from the first two games.

Where I'm verbose, you are succinct, my friend.

Reply

Such an easy answer: MTW was an intellectual and cute girl with glasses, RTW was a hot gorgeous blonde bomb who thinks New York is the capital of London. You can spend a lifetime with the first girl, but you wouldn't like to remember the name of the second one after you had a hot night with her.

MTW had soul, RTW had flesh. And in the video game industry, soul matters. And I'm sure that CA knows what to do in MTW 2.

Reply

What's funny LEN, is that's almost word-for-word how I describe those two games to my friends. Reading your post really gave me a sense of de'ja vu.

Reply

I actually like the old style Risk map compared to that of RTW, it just seemed easier. Yes, the AI did handle the MTW campaign map better that RTW's, and it also delt with battles better too. Moving to higher terrain when defending, flanking with cavalry when attacking etc, all made the game that bit harder. I only play RTW when I want some eye candy, what keeps me playing MTW is the unbeatable gameplay. Hopefully, MTW2 will live up to its name.

Reply

Best analogy of the month award goes to LEN , hope that cheeres you up a bit after Fenerbahce's failure to get into the CL.

Reply

I am suing LEN for breach of copyright[1]:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...3&postcount=32

[1]Only kidding.

Reply

Thanks. However I wish it could change the fact that that I'll be double-clicking the MTW icon on my desktop in minutes, while, although there is an amazing and outstanding mod named Blue Lotus out there, RTW is reserved on CDs.

Martok, it seems you are not the only one having a dejavu. Watch the post above how dear econ21 cries out for my copyright infringements.

Dutch Guy, you know what? I won't be watching Fenerbahçe 's domestic matches this season, even ones against Galatasaray. Because I'm sick of supporting a team that double-folds the teams in his "mother's league" (that's how we call it) but is a well-soaked kitty when it is an international competition. Before this thread turns into a footy one, I should stop because next analogy for Fenerbahçe will be rather tasteless.

Reply

I've been playing RTW for about a year now, and i've played some XGM and EB mods. Recently I went back to playing MTW as a result of the discusions in the .org.


In my opion:
Campain Map:
RTW campain is better than MTW
--1- The map has better graphics,
--2-Its more realisticit in terms of using Geography to your advantage.
(u can place forts or units along choke points or manuver to the top of a hill so that once the battel starts you start on the High slope) (An army can only advace a few steps instead of being able to jump 1/2 way accross the entire map in a single move) (Its is more micromanaging involved, than in MTW's, but I like it)
--3-Ships, interms of transporting troops and blocking ports.

Battle Map:
MTW's AI is better at tactical battle than RTW's AI.
--1- In MTW AI will position itself in better ground, and will RARELY initiate the engagement if you your troops in better ground with the flanks covered.
--2- In RTW units move too fast and kill too fast. To win most battles just make sure you have better troops and the enemy army will rout in 2 mins withough flanking.
--3- Poor use of skermishers and archers.

I also had MAJOR beef's with RTW due to Historical unaccuracies, but I don't know that much History during medieval perdiods so I won't compare it. Also a MAJOR beef I have with RTW is the AI's use of Phalanx (just form a solid line), but in MTW there were no Phalanx units so I won't compare it.

Oh and for the record. I like the RTW time period better than MTW.

Ave to Ancient History.

Reply

MTW made me feel like I was in medieval times. Rome did not have the immershun factor like MTW did. There are to many reesons to create immershun to list.

Reply

Page 1 of 2 1 2 Last