Rome Total War: Alexander release date announced

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-06-11 09:51pm

June 15, to be precise. That's this Thursday. It was mentioned on the official site (they had previously said only that it would be "released in June", without giving an exact date).

Captain tycho · Post by **Captain tycho** » 2006-06-11 09:53pm

That soon? Wow, I barely even knew about it until now.

My summer will again be spent locked to the computer.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-06-11 09:53pm

I bet lucky Australia will have to wait another month at least. Bah.

Jalinth · Post by **Jalinth** » 2006-06-11 10:11pm

Stark wrote:I bet lucky Australia will have to wait another month at least. Bah.

I'm waiting for Core 2 to come out so my new computer can actually run RTW (the original).

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-06-11 10:17pm

Stark wrote:I bet lucky Australia will have to wait another month at least. Bah.

The game is being distributed and sold on-line. There will be no retail boxes, and presumably no regional sales restrictions.

Fire Fly · Post by **Fire Fly** » 2006-06-11 10:18pm

I'm not entirely sure if I will buy this one. First off, the game won't be as diverse as the previous games. Second, I doubt there will be new game features to lure me that mods can't do already. Third, I'm not a big fan of phanlanx warfare. I never did like the Greeks much in RTW; their main infantry units were too bulky and cumbersome. And to top it off, I really hate all Middle Eastern units. Their infantry is shit and can't even stand their ground long enough before they turn tail.

If I hear good reviews from users and from various internet outlets, I may reconsider my position.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-06-11 10:23pm

I doubt that it will offer a fantastic new gameplay experience: basically, I suspect that it will just be a really awesome mod. But that's enough for me to buy it unless the price is exorbitant. Hell, it's highly doubtful that it will cost more than a typical gas tank fill-up anyway; it's not as if that amount of money is a budget-breaker.

Fire Fly · Post by **Fire Fly** » 2006-06-11 10:32pm

Slightly off topic, but still on the issue of RTW. Has anyone tried the RTW Realism Mod 6.0? I can't seem to find my RTW cd and was wondering if it was worth playing.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-06-11 10:42pm

Rome Total Realism is fantastic for the professionalism of the mod, but it doesn't really change the gameplay combat experience, if that's what you're looking for. Ultimately, combat is pretty much the same.

However, it does change the campaign game experience. It has much more extensive, detailed, and realistic unit types, as well as far more cities (some people like this, some people don't) and a really great auxilia recruiting system (basically, the auxilia you recruit will vary depending on what region they're recruited in, so you can recruit gallic spear auxilia in Gaul, and Ptolemaic phalanx auxilia in Egypt).

Duckie · Post by **Duckie** » 2006-06-11 10:46pm

Fire Fly wrote:Slightly off topic, but still on the issue of RTW. Has anyone tried the RTW Realism Mod 6.0? I can't seem to find my RTW cd and was wondering if it was worth playing.

RTR Platinum 1.5 is better in my opinion. I'm playing that. It has the new features of Rome Total War 1.5, like night fighting and improved combat AI (although the combat AI still sucks, I'm going to try Darth Mod for the AI to see if it's better.)

Oh, and you probably want the Marcus Camillus Four-Turns-Per-Year and Realistic Roman Leadership mod (And the Roman Cognomen Mod if you can get it to work although it crashes mine), if you're anal about history and elitist enough like me to play RTR.

Honestly, I look at it like Vanilla 2.0. It's not really substantially different like Darth Wong said, just better in my eyes.

Now, based on what I can see, for changing gameplay significantly there is (if you don't mind the setting) Blue Lotus. That looks to the the Anti-Rome Total Realism. Completely and totally not even based on history. And there's no way that the Asianness of the mod will not change combat from the "Western Infantry Are Teh Aweome" Romans vs. Barbarians vs Greek vs Horse Archer system of RTW. Too bad it's not out yet.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-06-11 11:26pm

Darth Wong wrote:The game is being distributed and sold on-line. There will be no retail boxes, and presumably no regional sales restrictions.

That teaches me for not doing research!

PS excellent!

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-06-12 01:10am

I'll be getting it late, in August, but damn. I wonder if it will break SPQR once again.

Alferd Packer · Post by **Alferd Packer** » 2006-06-12 12:33pm

Goody. I just wrapped up my Seleucid game, so I've got my phalanx tactics reasonably honed. Although, to be fair, one of my endgame armies was nicknamed "The Iron Tide" and consisted of ten cataphracts, nine armored elephants, and a general. That was a wanktastically fun army.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-06-12 02:27pm

Ace Pace wrote:I'll be getting it late, in August, but damn. I wonder if it will break SPQR once again.

Change the name of your RTW directory and then re-install RTW from scratch. Then install the mods on it, and make separate shortcuts to the individual directories. RTW, unlike many games, does not complain if you change the directory name. So you can keep multiple copies of RTW alongside each other on your HD with no problem. Right now I've got SPQR, RTR Platinum, and vanilla RTW/BI all installed on my machine.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-06-12 04:34pm

Neat idea, I should try it. Unfortunatly I fear for my grades if I suddenly start playing more then one RTW game atonce, this is digital crack.

I have to ask, what are peoples opinion on SPQR 6.1?

Post by **AdmiralKanos** » 2006-06-14 09:06pm

Dammit, they changed the date. Now they're saying it's Monday June 19, but you can get it Friday June 16 if you register to get E-mail updates on their website.

Cost is $15.00

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-06-14 11:15pm

I'm of two minds whether to get it- 100 turns race against time before Alexander dies isn't what I hoped for (at least an option to have him live longer?) but it should be fun battles, and I was always hoping for a presentation of the time period.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2006-06-14 11:20pm

Vympel wrote:I'm of two minds whether to get it- 100 turns race against time before Alexander dies isn't what I hoped for (at least an option to have him live longer?) but it should be fun battles, and I was always hoping for a presentation of the time period.

Have to agree that I'm not a big fan of the race against the clock thing either. I was hoping for more of a sandbox option of just cutting loose in the ancient world with my Macedonians and Companion cavalry.

Still there's no way in hell I'm NOT buying this game.

Duckie · Post by **Duckie** » 2006-06-14 11:44pm

Will this have AI updates and so forth like BI did for Rome Total War 1.2? If so, I hope there will be a 1.7 patch or so that gives vanilla the same upgrades as Alexander, because if there's one thing Rome: Total War needs it's a non-braindead AI.

Alferd Packer · Post by **Alferd Packer** » 2006-06-15 11:45am

I'd imagine that, like vanilla and BI, you can edit Alexander's config files to your heart's content.