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Stravo wrote:Has anyone played one of the barbarian factions like the Britons, Gauls or Germania? I wonder if that faction can actually win? I've been toying with the idea of hordes of barbarian warriors sweeping down on Rome but my own ass rapings of these same hordes as Rome gives me pause.

What about Egypt? Some pretty well developed cities down there and interesting units.

The Greeks would be a challeneg since you essentially have Rome attacking you within a few turns.

Stravo, this is one of the main things the realism mod fixes; in vanilla the other factions are very underpowered, particularly Carthage. With realism some other factions (like Macedon) are arguably more powerful than any single Roman faction. I haven't played as Romans in a long time; I've gone through Alexanders old empire.

@ Ace Pace - it's called a realism mod. Not a 'what Ace Pace thinks is fun' mod. So yes, you can't recruit Republic armies in Russia, and units with little to no historical basis (screaming women, anyone? Druids?) have been removed. Upside - much better barbarian skins and units, several factions have gained new historical units not in the vanilla release. They did change to a barracks-based system now, tho. Next thing, you'll be complaining that they changed the New Kingdom Egyptians to proper, Ptolemic Egyptians.

I like a lot of the changes made by the Total Realism mod, but there are a few that are dealbreakers for me.

1) The pace of the vanilla game is already too slow, and the RTR mod makes it even worse by extending the ending date and lengthening construction time.

2) The mod reduces the move rate and increases the fatigue rate to be more in line with Shogun or Medieval. The move and fatigue rates in those games were two of my chief complaints about thsoe games, and it's not realistic at all. Why are my horsemen winded by the time they get somewhere marching at normal pace on a level plane? Rome finally got it right, and then this mod put it back where it was in the other games.

3) Reduced kill rate. Also makes it more like Medieval or Shogun, also one of the things I hated about those games. In vanilla RTW, a hail of arrows on unarmored units is deadly like it should be. When cavalry charges into the unprotected flanks or rear of a formation, the formation disintegrates, just like it should. The first time I charged heavy cavalry into the rear of a bunch of pikemen in the Total Realism mod and watched them take a few small losses, then wheel around and start inflicting casualties on my horsemen, I just stared at the screen in shock and disbelief.

I absolutely love what the mod did in terms of making things closer to actual history, but I absolutely despise the way it made combat far less[ realistic, not to mention less fun. If there was a version of the mod that included everything except the combat tweaks, I'd jump for joy. Until then, it stays off my hard drive.

Stark wrote:@ Ace Pace - it's called a realism mod. Not a 'what Ace Pace thinks is fun' mod. So yes, you can't recruit Republic armies in Russia, and units with little to no historical basis (screaming women, anyone? Druids?) have been removed. Upside - much better barbarian skins and units, several factions have gained new historical units not in the vanilla release. They did change to a barracks-based system now, tho. Next thing, you'll be complaining that they changed the New Kingdom Egyptians to proper, Ptolemic Egyptians.

See what Tuxedo said, I have no problem with realisim, but a game should be fun, not just pure history.
I want history, I go to play a wargame.

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:
but I absolutely despise the way it made combat far less[ realistic, not to mention less fun.

Yeah those romans stab now instead of slash with their gladius
About killrate and such, ive played original and 2 versions of the mod and I really didnt noticed any mojor changes so I wouldnt say combat is less fun (imo anyway). Perhaps even more fun because its harder and battles last longer. (altough I must say that I loved those wardogs )


quick question: how can you view your city when its not under attack?

wautd wrote:
Yeah those romans stab now instead of slash with their gladius
About killrate and such, ive played original and 2 versions of the mod and I really didnt noticed any mojor changes so I wouldnt say combat is less fun (imo anyway). Perhaps even more fun because its harder and battles last longer. (altough I must say that I loved those wardogs )


quick question: how can you view your city when its not under attack?

Settlement details.

Yes, such a big differance, excuse me for not wanting to have the units exhibit perfect realisim.

If there was a Realisim Lite version, with just the balences, I would download it, but I don't want the wardogs cut or anything like that.

Darth Wong wrote: What about siege towers? I tend to attack stone walls by finding a spot between defensive towers and sending a siege tower at it, along with two or three units of my toughest close-fighting infantry units (Rome has the best of these, so this tactic is geared toward Rome; it may not work very well with other nations). Once I kill his defenders on the walls, I take the towers and gatehouses, which then start firing inward toward the defenders' troops. That's a double bonus since the rest of my army doesn't have to worry about being harried by defensive fire as they approach the city walls, and the enemy will have more trouble attacking my forces as they enter the city through the main gateway. If they should start overwhelming my attackers on the ground despite the fire from the towers and end up pushing them back out of the gateway, his men will get nailed with the burning oil.

Yup, siege towers, you're right- I was in Seleucid mode at the time- hardly any units suited to killing on the walls (Watching pikemen pull out their swords is painful enough), unfortunately. Have you met the Cataphracts they start off with yet?

Re the realism mod- I really don't have time for mods. I find that there's always a deal-breaker "feature" in them that makes me despise the whole thing. After I finish my second Seleucid game, I'm going to give Carthage a go. It may be underpowered, but I like the challenge. If I can win with the Seleucids, surely I can give Carthage a fair shake!

When I play Greece I always let them take the wall. Sure, armored hoplites can hold their own on the walls, but some phalanx formations in the city chockepoints are just bloody murder

Ace baby, it IS a wargame. And since the engine has horrible built-in problems (like phalanxed guys getting their spear bonus against cav charging from the rear) I'm okay with a reduced kill rate, and I thought the vanilla move rates were far, far too high. Cavalry is weak compared to Medieval, but RTW has hardly any proper heavy cavalry anyway, and Cataphracts are excellent shock troops.

I want to know why I can't retreat from city defences. I just had a battle (1 hero, 1 slingers, 1 eastern inf) against about 9 hoplites. I ran the inf to the mapedge, and used the slingers and the occasional charge to destroy 5 of the militia hoplites (they totally ignored me and went for the town center, since there were no walls). But since I was (obviously) going to lose, I tried to retreat... and couldn't. Didn't have a 'withdraw' or 'rout' button. And after the battle, when my guys were out by the mapedge, the whole army vanished. Heroes of Parthia... gone. Bah. Its ALMOST as lame as the magic 600-man armies that materialise at random, full of legions and heavy cav etc.

wautd wrote:When I play Greece I always let them take the wall. Sure, armored hoplites can hold their own on the walls, but some phalanx formations in the city chockepoints are just bloody murder

Is there some way to keep the gate open when your defending by the way? (so the comp doesnt needlessly destroys my walls )

Stravo wrote:The Greeks would be a challeneg since you essentially have Rome attacking you within a few turns.

The Greeks are fun to play and I highly recommend them. The first ten turns or so around Syracuse are the shit. Scramble to build up whatever forces you can there, because the Scipii and Carthaginians are both going to hit you early and hard--the army from Carthage will have a unit of elephants! Those were probably the toughest battles I've had in the game, taking an army composed of stacks of hoplite militia and one or two proper units against very tough opposition before the walls of your very best early-game city.

However, if you can weather that storm, you have some very profitable cities and the means to take several more. Hoplite armies are also barrels of fun to command, if you know how.

Stark wrote:Ace baby, it IS a wargame. And since the engine has horrible built-in problems (like phalanxed guys getting their spear bonus against cav charging from the rear) I'm okay with a reduced kill rate, and I thought the vanilla move rates were far, far too high. Cavalry is weak compared to Medieval, but RTW has hardly any proper heavy cavalry anyway, and Cataphracts are excellent shock troops.

Wargame my ass, its a TBS\RTS, a wargame is the kinda stuff Shep posts pics from.

A truly realistic wargame set in that era would suck, folks. Battles could take hours, days, or even longer to conclude, for fuck's sake (especially when attacking a city). How are you supposed to fit that into a campaign-based game where you often must command several battles during a single game turn?

So yes, the engine has to deviate from total realism in places, even for something called a "total realism" mod. The question is whether it can do so while still preserving some sense of the tactics and balance between unit types of reality.

Ace Pace wrote:

Stark wrote:Ace baby, it IS a wargame. And since the engine has horrible built-in problems (like phalanxed guys getting their spear bonus against cav charging from the rear) I'm okay with a reduced kill rate, and I thought the vanilla move rates were far, far too high. Cavalry is weak compared to Medieval, but RTW has hardly any proper heavy cavalry anyway, and Cataphracts are excellent shock troops.

Wargame my ass, its a TBS\RTS, a wargame is the kinda stuff Shep posts pics from.

Hate to break it to you, but Shep's one of the first people to start playing this game, and was one of the first people to post screenshots.

Beowulf wrote:Hate to break it to you, but Shep's one of the first people to start playing this game, and was one of the first people to post screenshots.

Fine, bad example, I was more pointing about the games he sometimes posts pics of that look out of the 80's.

Stravo wrote:Has anyone played one of the barbarian factions like the Britons, Gauls or Germania

I started a game with the Britons and I sliced trough Gaul (TR-mod tough). I dunno if Britons are strong or that the Gauls are pussies yet because I didnt faught any other faction yet

Started playing as Germania. Its an OK faction, some good early units but economically what a pain in the ass. I am scratching for whatever dinarri I can get, one city gets to build one improvement each turn. Granted I am fielding the largest army in the world but jeez, where's the money??

It's becoming no fun playing this faction taking cities and getting all happy when I top out at over 2,000 dinarri when playing as Rome or Seluecids I was looking at 10 times that number this early in the game.

Bah...there's no money in Europe.

Beowulf wrote:

Ace Pace wrote:

Stark wrote:Ace baby, it IS a wargame. And since the engine has horrible built-in problems (like phalanxed guys getting their spear bonus against cav charging from the rear) I'm okay with a reduced kill rate, and I thought the vanilla move rates were far, far too high. Cavalry is weak compared to Medieval, but RTW has hardly any proper heavy cavalry anyway, and Cataphracts are excellent shock troops.

Wargame my ass, its a TBS\RTS, a wargame is the kinda stuff Shep posts pics from.

Hate to break it to you, but Shep's one of the first people to start playing this game, and was one of the first people to post screenshots.

The first, I think.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

wautd wrote:

Stravo wrote:Has anyone played one of the barbarian factions like the Britons, Gauls or Germania

I started a game with the Britons and I sliced trough Gaul (TR-mod tough). I dunno if Britons are strong or that the Gauls are pussies yet because I didnt faught any other faction yet

A little bit of both I think. The Gauls are definately the weakest out there, and for a barbarian civilization the Britons are pretty powerful.