crappy battle speeches

[GFX707]

Why do the non-roman factions always only have like 2 lines in their battle speeches? I loved the roman speeches before the battles....some of my generals would go on for like 5 minutes....but the other factions seem to just have 2 or 3 lines.

any explanation?

[Doug-Thompson]

Why do the non-roman factions always only have like 2 lines in their battle speeches? I loved the roman speeches before the battles....some of my generals would go on for like 5 minutes....but the other factions seem to just have 2 or 3 lines.

any explanation?

"To brave men, a few words are as good as many" -- a RTW quote.

Seriously, I don't know. I was really worried about the Parthians though. It seemed like every speech was a fatalistic warning of doom.

Then I realized: The speeches are tied to combat odds. If you're heavily outnumbered, you're more likely to get a speech telling the soldiers to do their duty before dying.

Never mind that you're a few horse archers who are just about to massacre several hundred peasants.

[d6veteran]

Then I realized: The speeches are tied to combat odds. If you're heavily outnumbered, you're more likely to get a speech telling the soldiers to do their duty before dying.

I love that about the speeches! One time when my Romans were greatly outnumbered *and* surrounded. I got a speech that went something like ...

" The Auspices ... well nevermind what they have said about this day ... "

LOL!

I think the battle speeches are great, and it is a shame to start a thread called "Crappy Battles Speeches" when really what you want it more of a good thing right?

[Grifman]

Why do the non-roman factions always only have like 2 lines in their battle speeches? I loved the roman speeches before the battles....some of my generals would go on for like 5 minutes....but the other factions seem to just have 2 or 3 lines.

any explanation?

Sure, you have only limited resources when developing a game, hence you put your money where you get your most bang for the buck. Everyone has to play the Romans, but they don't have to play the other factions. So you make great extended speeches for the Romans, less for the other. It may not be the answer you want, but did you really expect something else? Maybe a non-Roman conspiracy on the part of CA, maybe someone accidently deleted the non-Roman speech files?

Grifman

[Red Harvest]

I don't mind them that much, although I do get tired of the "Today...is a good day..." Sounds like he is sitting on the couch of some psychiatric doctor discussing his meds. It's the pause and the delivery that really cracks me up.

[GFX707]

Sure, you have only limited resources when developing a game, hence you put your money where you get your most bang for the buck. Everyone has to play the Romans, but they don't have to play the other factions. So you make great extended speeches for the Romans, less for the other. It may not be the answer you want, but did you really expect something else? Maybe a non-Roman conspiracy on the part of CA, maybe someone accidently deleted the non-Roman speech files?

Grifman

Was there really any need to be a smartarse? Don't you think I had considered this?

If this is the case couldn't they have got someone WITH SOME FREAKING TALENT to do the roman voice acting too perhaps? In the face of logic such as the above you shouldn't be surprised I am here asking this question....

[Medieval Assassin]

GFX707 I do not believe he was trying to be a smartarse, its just the truth, everyone needs to play as the romans, and not as the other factions, so why not make it better to play as the romans?
Also, _ALL_ the voice acting in Rome is horrible,
"The day is ouuuu-ou-oarsssssssssssssssss"
I can't believe it Shogun was great

"The enemy taisho has forsaken his honor! AND IS RUNNING LIKE A WHIPPED DOG!"

[Grifman]

Was there really any need to be a smartarse? Don't you think I had considered this?

If this is the case couldn't they have got someone WITH SOME FREAKING TALENT to do the roman voice acting too perhaps? In the face of logic such as the above you shouldn't be surprised I am here asking this question....

If you had considered it, you wouldn't have asked the question because the answer is pretty obvious. Seriously, what did you think the answer was going to be? Your question made no sense. Either it was a conscious decision by the developers due to limited resources, or else they screwed up somehow and lost the speech files or some other such nonsense. Or I guess you could say they were lazy or stupid or didn't care about the other factions, or some combination there of. What answer did you really expect?

Grifman

[Amon_Zeth]

The day is oooooowwwwwaaaaaaaarrrrz!

I have to agree about the crappy voice acting... the Carthaginians/Greeks/Macedonians/whatever have the most bizarre accent. They shouldn't have faked an accent, and should have instead gotten an Arab and Modern Greek accent instead, it might not have been historically accurate, but it sounds better and it's less irritating than what they have now. But I like the battle speeches in general, except that my troops keep cheering when the general says the enemy is going to wait in the forest to come out and slaughter them all, yet, when he says they vastly outnumber the enemy, you can almost hear the virtual crickets chirping.

[ChaosLord]

Oh yeah, the off-timed cheers are funny. "The enemy will try to use the woods to hide their troops and ambush us." *cheer* I'll watch them cheer about being outnumbered, lacking proper counters to elephants/cav, its pretty funny.

[Orvis Tertia]

I don't think that all of the voice acting is horrible. At worst, I might give it a C, but come on--think of what "horrible" could mean, and then tell me you really can't stand the voices in RTW!

[Medieval Assassin]

Theres completly horrible yes, but I still can't stand the "Victory is owwwooou-ourrrsss"

[GFX707]

Blame it on america.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Thanks alot.

Anyhoo, I get a kind of sick pleasure from hearing the Roman anouncer say that "The day is ours!" because it sounds like he is about 12 years old and choking on a pretzel.

Though I haven't unlocked any of the non-Romans (I'm trying to earn it, short campaign, Julii, hard/medium), I have loved the speeches. Can't wait to hear the others... even if they are shorter.

[Akka]

Hu, well...

Actually, I found the Roman voices quite good.

Just wait to hear Carthage. Just wait, I tell you.

[Steppe Merc]

All non Romans have shorter speaches? Damn, I thought all factions just had two lines....

Again, the non Romans got jipped.

[crazyviking03]

I love the "your sword arms will ache from over use!"

and, "a better soldier could be found in the latrine bucket!"

[ChaosLord]

Heh, the British speeches focus on one of three things. Gods, blood/killing, or drinking. They have been generally shorter then the Roman speeches, which is kinda annoying but I started skipping all the speeches anyway if it was an old one. One funny thing is one of the times the enemy general routed the narrator/announcer goes "The enemy general runs like a frightened goat! We should catch him and eat him, for goats are tasty." -Or something along those lines.

[Psyco]

"The enemy general runs like a frightened goat! We should catch him and eat him, for goats are tasty." -Or something along those lines.

It's, "The enemy general runs like a frightened goat! We should pursue him.... goats make good eating!".

[The_Emperor]

Yeah thats a good one. I like this one, "the enemy runs... this is now a hunt, No a Coward chase!!"

I actually really like the Briton speeches though, I got one when I was assaulting the Gauls that started off saying "The Gods know we didn't ask for this war..." It was true because the Gauls kickstarted the whole thing by blockading the port at Londinium.

The Barbarians rule.

[Lonewarrior]

Fowarding this from a junior patron

Voice actors aside, I find the speeches to be a great part of the game (they should have been recorded in Latin, for the sake of accuracy). I think one of the reasons non-roman factions do not have as many speeches, besides the previously mentioned reasons, is that there are tons of records of Roman speeches. I recall having read that CA used historical speeches in the writing, and it would have been fairly difficult to recreate speeches from cultures whose records have not survived as well. I mean, what kinds of records do we have from Gaul or Brittania from 200 b.c.? Probably only Roman records, and they surely didn't record the speeches of vanquished barbarians very well. Then again, I suppose CA could have just made some up?

My personal favorite speech: one of my family members had the VnV "hiding from the world" which later turned into "unhinged loon." His crazy line was something like " the enemy are very angry because I have eaten all their bees. They have not tasted honey for many months and are very angry." Of course he's my best general, who cares if he's an unhinged loon?

[Lemur]

I was also put off by the American accents with the Romans, but only initially. I guess I've had one too many viewings of I, Claudius, and I was expecting some generic Royal Shakespeare Company accent.

The more I thought about it, the more apt it became. Of course we should have the Romans talking like us. America may not be the New Rome, but we're the closest thing in the world today, and the accent is entirely appropriate because of that. And it's not a little sly of CA to make us yanks into centurions.

My only sadness with the voices is one imposed by the system -- real oration would have much more tonal inflection, varied pacing, and well-placed climaxes both of rhetoric and vocalization. The system they used of individual phrases strung together must have been hell for the voice actors, since the end of every bit must match the beginning of the next. Totally prevents real oration.

Hey, I'm not really grumbling, I just wish I could hear some hard-core oratorical skill. This is Rome, after all. It would have been interesting to sit in on the voice-over sessions, and see if they could have worked in more variation in the pitch and inflection of the orators.

And BTW, the Carthiginian voice sounds exactly like Borat.

[GFX707]

Rome had an empire....america has....well the US. Unless you count McDonalds restaurants. Britain was more akin to Rome than the US....but this is a silly argument. Just pointing that out.

and lol, yes! I totally agree on the Borat observation

[Jango Fett]

can anyone send me a save file of an unhinged loon general? im dying to here his battle speeches.. please post so i can private message you my msn address.