Are the Romans too Powerful?

[Noir]

Stuperman,

I recently managed to reach as closely as the engine of MTW would allow to the game i am describing, campaign wise, by making a home mini-mod of the MedMod IV by Wes Whitaker. The mod had already taken out many of the redundant units, simplifying the rosters and giving a decent dedicated unit in each role (shooters, cavalry, melee) at every faction, that makes the battles way more interesting IMO as they are challenging and fun, for me at least.

The result is that every faction plays to its potential and that superempires are very very difficult to form. Faction petentials are not the same ie larger factions such as France and the HRE have more potentialthrough having more homelands. Smaller factions such as for example Serbia or Sweden have less and they present a different challenge. It is not published, however it is available privately on request and i would be more than happy for anyone to try it and see whether its "simulating" to the point of boredom or not.

This is of course the gameplay i personaly like and i don't expect anyone else to follow through.

Note that i also mention nowhere the word "scripted" and that it is you that mentions it instead.

I dislike superempires contrary to you, especially in TW, because in my experience the game has little point past the stage that you struggle to establish yourself. The ideal situation would be that you stay in that stage for the entirety of the game as then every decision and battle matters. If you reach in TW the well known mid-game, that is you have conquered the local chalenge then the game is over - you have so much resources that you can swarm the opponents and the rest is IMO a futile and vain megalomanic exercise. All the changes i propose are relative to that.

Making a game about the Roman Empire and its era or one relative to Medieval Europe, while all the whilst largely ignoring most other things rather than the military aspect, is simplistic IMO and it ends with RTW and M2 being what they are, which is close to AoE, TW version. If this is what you enjoy fine - its just not what i do enjoy, and the reason i was attracted originaly to TW is because it offered strategy and tactics in depth rather than the candy in front of the donkey better units RTS principle. The fact that CA made the decision to follow the route it did does not make the gameplay necessarily better. Neither all other ways to do things, that now seem impossible for many would have been rejected as much as they are now if CA has walked another path IMO.

I will avoid the cliche that goes for "its all a matter of opinion" for the simple reason that if CA had chosen another way to do things, people would probably react also like "that was the only viable good thing to do" and just take it for granted, as i feel they did with RTW and now M2.

Originally posted by Stuperman
I'm also a bit confused, you critisize RTW for having too many 'micromanaged jingles' then ask for more?

More detail and simpler, more balanced unit rosters are polar opposites.

Not at all, i ask for detail if you read back where is needed in the campaign game and not in order to remember to do this or do that in an ineconsequestional click frenzy that characterises the vanilla RTW/M2 campaign as it stands.

The changes i propose would affect the way the campaign progresses, as well as strategic choices while playing it, and not how many little things you need to remember to do - that have no real effect actually- such as moving around retinues and the like.

Many Thanks

Noir

[Stuperman]

Admitedly I've never played STW or MTW, only Rome and on, and I supose I can only comment on how I interpert what you are describing.

The scripted thing was about KingdomsTW..It's looking like a map/mission pack instead of an expansion to me, I'm very disappointed.

I do know what you mean though about RTW, after 12-14 provinces are yours, the game can get very easy, especailly if you are rome, as one of your flanks(fronts?) is covered until the civil war. I like to 'turtle' my campaigns a bit to avoid this, Large factions (20+ provinces) can turn out full stacks way too easy IMHO

Making a game about the Roman Empire and its era or one relative to Medieval Europe, while all the whilst largely ignoring most other things rather than the military aspect, is simplistic IMO and it ends with RTW and M2 being what they are, which is close to AoE, TW version

Cheap arguement ON:

it is called Total War for a reason....

Cheap arguement OFF.

The mod had already taken out many of the redundant units, simplifying the rosters and giving a decent dedicated unit in each role (shooters, cavalry, melee) at every faction, that makes the battles way more interesting IMO as they are challenging and fun, for me at least.

Don't all the factions 'feel' the same then? (it's a genuine question, not trying to be an ass)

As you said, as cliche as it is it's all down to a matter of opinion, I for one think the Mundus Magnus (sp) map with 197 provinces adds TONS to the game, but it sounds like you would disagree with me.

[Noir]

Stuperman
first please receive my thanks for making this very nice and rich if i may say debate possible.

May i also suggest that you try the older games - for the simple reason that they are great fun - and not for comparison pusposes or anything else.

IMO they are more than worth it and at the time it stroke the market as something radical with their gameplay, style and depth, to the point that i guess the game industry didn't knew where to categorise them and CA how to make the best commercial use of them IMO, which led to RTW that comes accross as a more "conventional" RTS.

While M2 doesn't appeal to me, i would suggest not to judge Kingdoms from the size of the campaign, but by the actual gameplay.

STW started as a "restricted" scenario by today's standards with only 11 units. All of them were generic and almost all other units with few exceptions that we saw in later TW games are more or less variances of those 11 basic units:

a cheap, low morale, anticavalry only spear
a higher morale, half melee, anticavalry spear
a cheap shock attack, vulnerable to missiles, low defense, sword
an expensive good all around,vulnerable to missiles, best melee sword
a moderate price slow, well armoured, high defense, decent melee sword
a moderate price archer, moderate morale, no armour, moderate melee
cheap gun, with very low morale and melee
better gun, with better missile damage, better morale

a fast anti cavalry, high charge, moderate morale moderate melee cavalry
a fast missile cavalry, moderate morale, low melee, cavalry
a slow, high morale, high charge, high melee, well armoured heavy cavalry

These were available to all factions. Contrary to common belief the battles were better by far as the AI army composition and the AI unit use was better, and what mattered was army use through match ups and flanking maneuvers while accounting for terrain and the weather effects and not any sort of uber unit winning the day. All units had their counter and to win you would have to use them in combination.

Do not believe that making a skin x10 or x20 skins give better gameplay - at least i dont. They are basically the same thing, the nly added extra is the capturing of the imagination through graphical means. This is fine and nice, however, if the game is poor or just a "enjoy the view" thing then it has little value as a game other than an interactive phantasy projection.

As for factions feeling all the same, then i would say this: not necessarily - in the MedMod IV that i mentioned all factions have peculiarities in their roster and specific styles, for example the Byzantines are professional but expensive and few, the Catholics are tough to kill but slow and impetuous, the Muslims have better morale and attck and are faster. However and despite their styles nobody lacks in any area as many faction do by a lot in MTW vanilla or in RTW vanilla - everyone has strengths and weaknesses but nobody has gaps in their rosters.

The baeuty of TW games IMO is in this relative to the battles and in the way that the battles interact with the strategic choices you make in the campaign. IMO this beauty was abandined to a certain extent once attention to graphics and to the "more factions/more units" princple was introduced.

And yes it is called Total War which is the principle to waging war between countries with a countries full resources. However, if the setting of the game is to be expressed properly and capture the era that is supposed to be portraying then additional things in the campaign may only add to the warmaking.

*edit* by additional things i mean things that affect the strategic choices not little micromanegement/role playing games.

There is a circle that needs to be expressed in the campaign game that is defend, attack, expand, consolidate and this is repeated. There are blank points in that circle that may cause you set backs such as civil wars for example, or such that other local factions resist your expansion or put you under pressure.

If its Total War all the time, then the gameplay ends up with the linear result that exists in RTW, that says: "rich becomes richer, poor becomes poorer" end of the day. This is neither realistic neither good for the gameplay as you have also observed.

The Mundus Magnus map is great and i agree that it adds to the game - it is the fast conquest rates that accelerate even more the ascention of few faction to the state of "superempire" that i dislike and the fact that game mechanics do not allow factions on the up to descend or factions on the low to ascend. The map is very good - however is how the games on it progress that matters to me.

Many Thanks

Noir