What made M:TW superior to R:TW?

**Martok** · 08-24-2006, 22:57

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.