RTW: Barbarian Invasion

[Darth Wong]

Another note on the carriage ballistae of which no doubt you are tired of hearing by now: One unit of carriage ballistae (12 men on 6 chariots) scored 393 kills in a battle yesterday. I know you've probably seen killscores like this before, but they usually come from routing units, particularly when densely packed enemy formations route and are slaughtered by cavalry en masse as they flee. This was different; virtually all of the kills scored by this unit were scored against attacking enemies, not fleeing enemies. It was a city defense and I parked the carriage ballistae a moderate distance inside the gates because I knew I couldn't hold the walls. As the enemy army tried to rush through the open gates of the city, the carriage ballistae poured fire into the densely packed mass of men at the natural chokepoint. It was awe-inspiring, entire units of spearmen were literally blown apart. And unlike old RTW ballistae, they could just run away when the enemy got too close.

[Ace Pace]

Did you get pictures?

[Admiral Valdemar]

Well, someone likes their artillery I see. My copy should be here tomorrow, so it better be as good as you people say. And it better fit the Gladiator OST as I play.

[Dartzap]

Argh, I suck at multiplayer online... I tried playing as the Romano Brits and i failed. Misrebly

Argh

[Stravo]

It's really frustrating when you could master the previous game, have the damn Selucids or Egyptians up as far as Britannia in some of your games and then come to this and get curbstomped so thouroughly in this game. Mind you I just haven't been able to sit down in front of this game and truly tinker and experiment like I did in RTW but getting off to a real bad start so quickly is never fun.

[Darth Wong]

It's really frustrating when you could master the previous game, have the damn Selucids or Egyptians up as far as Britannia in some of your games and then come to this and get curbstomped so thouroughly in this game. Mind you I just haven't been able to sit down in front of this game and truly tinker and experiment like I did in RTW but getting off to a real bad start so quickly is never fun.

You probably want to try simulating some of your key defeats in custom battles in order to tweak your tactics and try different approaches. I've always been a "save the game before the battle starts so I can get a do-over if it all goes to hell" kind of player, so I've had to play quite a few battles more than once in order to develop my tactics. And it's also important to learn which units are the most effective in any given situation. In RTW, while you supposedly needed spearmen to deal with enemy cavalry, that wasn't really the case in practical terms: an army composed almost entirely of legionary cohort could easily shrug off cavalry charges. But in this game I find that you really do need those spearmen.

[Fire Fly]

The Barbarians don't rout so quickly as they do in RTW, I love it. I had my Legio I Italica under the command the emperor fight against two half stacks of Sarmatians, each about 700 against my 2700 consiting of a 1st cohort, 9 comitensei, 3 foederati calvary, 2 sarmatian auxullary calvary, 1 horse archer unit, 2 archer, and 1 carriage ballistae (alont with my general's body guard). I won but I walked away with 800 causalties. That's a 30% causalty rate when I had a 2:1 advantage! And don't even get me started on the retraining...when I'm fighting tooth and nail and taxing all of my cities to the brink of revolt just to pull in a measly 6000 denarii and then to have to retrain my legion....oy ve, H A R D !!!

Game Update:

I'm finally pulling in a decent amount of money each turn that I can start to build up a decent army. I've got the Legio I Italica under the personal command of the Emperor, starting a Legio II Italica under the command of the Caesar (heir), and now I'm pulling in various rag tag units in Gaul to form another legion under the command of The Count of the Saxon Shores (I forget what the Latin is). A note about legion names: if you want the legion to have a certain regional name attached, the first cohort unit must be raised in that particular region. Raised in Italy, for example, and you get Italica. I'm not sure what the other regions are called.

I took Mike's advice of making my econ cities full blown Christian with the Bascillica and abbies and what not. Now, Tarentum and Carthage are my two biggest money makers.

Edit: As Mike said, you really really need spearmen. In my above battle, I had only legionaires and they didn't stand up to calvary charges as well as they did in RTW. The spearmen are the Auxulia Palintinae; don't confuse the name with the unit. People have been reporting them to be one of the most skilled units, having a very high defense.

[Stravo]

I replayed RTW after my ignominuous defeat as the Eastern Roman Empire just to make sure I hadn't lost it and kicked ass. But I also noticed a difference in game play, even in some of the prebattle dialogue that your commander gives before a battle. Spearmen seem more effective against cavalry, archers more effective in general, etc. Does installing the new expansion pack patch the old game past the patch previously available?

[Ace Pace]

As far as I know, 1.3 was the latest patch released before BI, then BI came in with 1.4, to be honest, I have no idea what was changed, as I do not have BI yet and neither play Rome right now.

[Darth Wong]

One other reason why some players might prefer vanilla RTW is the variety of tactical styles. By the time of BI, there has been considerable convergence of battle tactics and unit types because people have slowly figured out what works and what doesn't. But in RTW, you have wide variations in the methods of war. The Romans use their masses of heavy legionaries, while the Alexandrian remnants use phalangite combat, the northeastern provinces rely heavily on armoured cavalry, some nations are fond of elephants, etc.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I assume all these differences don't detract from the overall impression the game has on people, BI I mean. Different doesn't necessarily mean worse, and all the reviews I have read have been top marks again.

[Darth Wong]

I assume all these differences don't detract from the overall impression the game has on people, BI I mean. Different doesn't necessarily mean worse, and all the reviews I have read have been top marks again.

I for one am really enjoying it. It's the early stages of the game that are tedious, but once you stabilize your cities it's quite entertaining.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Reminds me a lot of Rise Of Nations, another award winning RTS that went for a strategy and tactical element (the RTS genre title always bugged me when pretty much every game in the past was pure tactical action). That game was all real-time rather than, say, MoO2's turn based empire building and real-time tactical battles. So getting a big nation was a pain in the arse when the computer decided to team up on you from all sides.

In either case, I've got to try R: TW before I even consider the expansion pack. Expect plenty of pleading for helpful tips in the near future.

[Ace Pace]

Reminds me a lot of Rise Of Nations, another award winning RTS that went for a strategy and tactical element (the RTS genre title always bugged me when pretty much every game in the past was pure tactical action). That game was all real-time rather than, say, MoO2's turn based empire building and real-time tactical battles. So getting a big nation was a pain in the arse when the computer decided to team up on you from all sides.

In either case, I've got to try R: TW before I even consider the expansion pack. Expect plenty of pleading for helpful tips in the near future.

You mean Moo3.

[Admiral Valdemar]

No, I mean MoO2. As far as I'm concerned, there is no second sequel.

EDIT: I meant purely for ground combat there. I never used turn based combat for even space battles since I left it on auto.

[Ypoknons]

Reminds me a lot of Rise Of Nations, another award winning RTS that went for a strategy and tactical element (the RTS genre title always bugged me when pretty much every game in the past was pure tactical action).

It's difficult to compare RTW that way to RoN. The tatical element is almost completely different from your typical RTS game, which is what tactical RoN really is.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Yeah, it's in a genre of its own there. Like I said, I've seen the fighting on very early versions with the BBC gameshow. It's the actual building an empire and defending it bit I've got to see.

[Darth Wong]

Reminds me a lot of Rise Of Nations, another award winning RTS that went for a strategy and tactical element (the RTS genre title always bugged me when pretty much every game in the past was pure tactical action). That game was all real-time rather than, say, MoO2's turn based empire building and real-time tactical battles. So getting a big nation was a pain in the arse when the computer decided to team up on you from all sides.

I've played Rise of Nations and thought it kind of sucked, actually. And I'm not just talking about the shitty graphics (shitty even for its date of release, with herky-jerky sprite-based graphics and no real sense of kinetics); the game is just plain small: small in scope, small in imagination. A huge army in Rise of Nations is a few dozen units. You can take a fortress city by telling swordsmen to run up and hack at its walls. I don't know why Rise of Nations won awards, to be honest. The game also has no real concept of tactics, since victory is essentially determined by the speed with which you can build units and hurl them into attrition battles. If one must go with a RTS game instead of a combination turn/realtime game like RTW, C&C Generals is a better pick than Rise of Nations in my opinion.

In any case, Rise of Nations certainly doesn't have these grand battles that you fight in RTW, nor does it have these white-knuckle "last stand" setpieces such as the city defense battles, which I've always found to be the most thrilling part of RTW. I still remember one battle in which the Egyptians stormed my crappy wooden-walled Seleucid town, and I held off a huge full-stack Egyptian army with nothing but a general, a handful of militia hoplites and a couple of units of peltasts. I planted my hoplites at the end of the main road leading from the gates to the city square, in a "V" formation so that the enemy would be forced to walk into the "V" and be hit from both sides by my long spears. His heavy units tried to force their way through this bloody chokepoint while he sent faster, lighter units around side streets in an attempt to enter the city square and hit my hoplite defenders from behind. I used my general and my peltasts to protect the hoplite rear, and they fought almost to the last man but they succeeded: the enemy was never able to hit my hoplites from the rear. My garrison was reduced to a quarter of its original manpower in a long and bloody battle, but we finally routed the invaders, and my cavalry ran up a huge killscore trampling the enemy as he fled through my town's narrow streets. After a battle like that, you jump out of your chair and feel like running off to tell someone, except that you know he would look at you as if you're crazy.

In either case, I've got to try R: TW before I even consider the expansion pack. Expect plenty of pleading for helpful tips in the near future.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Reminds me a lot of Rise Of Nations, another award winning RTS that went for a strategy and tactical element (the RTS genre title always bugged me when pretty much every game in the past was pure tactical action). That game was all real-time rather than, say, MoO2's turn based empire building and real-time tactical battles. So getting a big nation was a pain in the arse when the computer decided to team up on you from all sides.

I've played Rise of Nations and thought it kind of sucked, actually. And I'm not just talking about the shitty graphics (shitty even for its date of release, with herky-jerky sprite-based graphics and no real sense of kinetics); the game is just plain small: small in scope, small in imagination. A huge army in Rise of Nations is a few dozen units. You can take a fortress city by telling swordsmen to run up and hack at its walls. I don't know why Rise of Nations won awards, to be honest. The game also has no real concept of tactics, since victory is essentially determined by the speed with which you can build units and hurl them into attrition battles. If one must go with a RTS game instead of a combination turn/realtime game like RTW, C&C Generals is a better pick than Rise of Nations in my opinion.

Probably why I installed C&C: Generals soon after getting RoN. It was fun for a while, but it reeked of trying to be both Civ and C&C and failing at both. Jack of all trades and all that.

In any case, Rise of Nations certainly doesn't have these grand battles that you fight in RTW, nor does it have these white-knuckle "last stand" setpieces such as the city defense battles, which I've always found to be the most thrilling part of RTW. I still remember one battle in which the Egyptians stormed my crappy wooden-walled Seleucid town, and I held off a huge full-stack Egyptian army with nothing but a general, a handful of militia hoplites and a couple of units of peltasts. I planted my hoplites at the end of the main road leading from the gates to the city square, in a "V" formation so that the enemy would be forced to walk into the "V" and be hit from both sides by my long spears. His heavy units tried to force their way through this bloody chokepoint while he sent faster, lighter units around side streets in an attempt to enter the city square and hit my hoplite defenders from behind. I used my general and my peltasts to protect the hoplite rear, and they fought almost to the last man but they succeeded: the enemy was never able to hit my hoplites from the rear. My garrison was reduced to a quarter of its original manpower in a long and bloody battle, but we finally routed the invaders, and my cavalry ran up a huge killscore trampling the enemy as he fled through my town's narrow streets. After a battle like that, you jump out of your chair and feel like running off to tell someone, except that you know he would look at you as if you're crazy.

I haven't played a strategy game that actually uses real strategems since high-school, and even that was basic games of Red Alert and Tiberian Sun with friends. I always see AI as a cheating bastard.

[Fire Fly]

Has anyone been able to get generals with many command stars? I've been trying to get generals with certain attributes so that they can gain some office titles. I am having a really hard time just getting my generals to be two stars.

Addionally, the more battles I win, the less loyal my generals become. So my general who has won the most battles for me has a loyal rating of 1. I every time I'm about to end a turn, I take him out of his respective legion, for fear of him going rebel with one of my most experienced armies.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I've got several generals with over 5 stars, one of whom has +2 at night. Of course, they're all in my "Christian Suicide Death Armies of Penitence" and all my proper Roman generals are busy governing settlements and returning the populace to the True Ways.

[Admiral Valdemar]

What's the best way to get good management types? I have found having a good general tied up in a city is typically good at keeping order, but I tend to want him ready to go out in the field at a moment's notice and not leave the city in tatters.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

What's the best way to get good management types? I have found having a good general tied up in a city is typically good at keeping order, but I tend to want him ready to go out in the field at a moment's notice and not leave the city in tatters.

The academy->scriptorium->Ludus Magna series of buildings will, in both original and BI, significantly increase the chance and number of retinue additions for any general in the city. Most of these will be 'educated' types like philosophers, mathmeticians, librarians, geographers, etc. Most provide a management bonus. In BI, these buildings also provide a Law bonus to the city.

Keeping cities in good order without generals is pretty easy in the original. Just keep the taxes low and the games up and everyone's happy. It's BI where it really gets tricky.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Hm, well I'm trying my hand at the original vanilla game before I even attempt BI since I've not had chance to build an empire, letalone defend one. I have a nasty habit of doing well until I somehow piss off the Greeks, Macedonians, Gauls and Carthaginians all at the same time, just as the Senate is hounding me too.

[Darth Wong]

The most important thing is to hone your tactical combat skills. If you can consistently win battles without requiring a numerical advantage (or even parity), then this greatly increases your strategic flexibility.

Also, if you can't dislodge a besieging army from one of your cities on the first turn, don't be afraid to wait until he attacks, particularly if you have stone walls. Wooden walls are basically shit, but if you have stone walls, rest assured that a competent defense will force him to pay dearly in blood in order to take that city. I recently fought off an army of more than 2400 Huns with a Roman garrison of only 800 men by letting them take the city walls and then fighting them in the streets (refinement of your city-fighting tactics is useful in RTW, but it's absolutely necessary in BI). That's 3 to 1 odds, on "Very Hard" difficulty setting. I had about 40% casualties but I ass-raped the fuckers and sent them fleeing into the countryside with more than 95% casualties.

In this game, stone walls are really important. In fact, when playing RTW I used to deliberately wait until enemy cities had reached "Minor City" level before taking them, because then I'd be able to build stone walls right away instead of waiting for what seems like an eternity to hit 6000 population and graduate from "Large Town" status.