RTW-the Total Realism modification

[johnny]

I'm not overly happy about installing this one. So far there are more cons than pros. I'll try to point some of em out here....

* The new skins are definitely a pro, units look much sharper now.
* The Carthaginians are finally a power to be reckoned with

Sorry, but those were all the pros i could come up with. So now for the cons

* More cities and provinces isn't always a blessing, the loadtimes between turns takes quite a while longer now, sometimes even ridiculously long.
* Somehow it's not possible anymore to bribe friendly units, so the generals of SPQR just stand around a bit until they die of old age, what a waste.
* Bribing units costs considerately more than in the original game, and if there's a general in command of the army to bribe, it could cost you more than 40.000 Dinarii, which makes it almost impossible to bribe enemies off without using a moneycheat.
* Not a fan of the endless navalbattles in the game ? Then get ready for navalbattle hell in the Total Realism mod. Every single friggin turn, tiny fleets of your enemies, consisting mostly of one or two ships with a grand total of 16, 17, or 18 men aboard, block almost all your ports, regardles if there's a massive fleet stationed. So every turn again you have to chase them off and sink them, otherwise you won't have any income from those cities that year, so not checking ALL of your ports could cost you dearly.
* The time of buildingconstruction and training units takes longer than in the original game, buildings that used to take two turns, now take three, units that used to take one turn, like the Trireme, now take two. Why ?
* Where are the archers ? Archers used to be an important part of my tactics on the battle field in RTW, but i haven't been able to train any so far since installing the Total Realism mod. The Archery ranges produce slingers and ballistas, but no archers. The campaign starts out in 280 BC, and at the moment i'm somewhat in 228 BC, so that's 108 turns without archers, what kind of BS is that ?
* Generals are no longer mounted, which makes them an easier target in an open battle. The enemy sorts them out and pins them down with their archers (yes, the enemy DOES have em).

Well, that's it in a nutshell, can't think of anything more now, but plenty of reasons to start missing the original game methinks. Of course i could always uninstall the whole deal, and make a clean RTW install, but i want to finish a Total Realism campaign at least once. I do think however that they should apply a new name, Total Realism is the last thing that comes to mind when playing this modification, Total Annoyance would be more appropriate here.

[ 05-20-2005, 04:52 AM: Message edited by: johnny ]

[Luvian]

Yeah I know, back when the mod was starting they tried to recruit me on the project, but I wasn't really interested. I don't like mods that rebalance games.

It's also probably because my game has that annoying cursor slowdown problem, and I moved back to Medieval: Total war.

[johnny]

206 BC now and still no archers, i'm starting to doubt i'll ever get them. I already claimed Rome, and this time there's an option to continue the game. So one more positive note for the creators.

But teh archers aren't my main concern right now, it's the fact that after all this time i still don't have the option to train Rome's prime weapon on the battlefield, the legionnaire cohorts. 74 years underway, and i still have the same units as the ones you start with, which are the Equites, Triarii, Velites, Principes, Hastati, and Auxiliari cavalry, and in some of the towns you start you can train some Gallic units.

Now what the hell happened with the Auxiliari infantry, Auxiliari archers, Legionnaire cohorts, Roman cavalry, Legionnaire cavalry, Praetorians, and Urban cohorts and cavalry ? Are they still in the game or do i have to go all the way with those few units i mentioned earlier ? Because that would really suck. How the hell could they leave out the archers and the cohorts ? It doesn't make much sense to me, especially since they had the nerves to call it "Total Realism". I'd like to meet the creators of this mod some time and teach them some things about the Roman military from those days, because they obviously haven't got a clue what they were doing.

[Sir Degrader]

Have you reached the Marius reform?

[johnny]

Originally posted by Sir Degrader: Have you reached the Marius reform?

Not yet, i'm closing in on the year 200 BC, and if they made it historically correct, i'll have to wait a little while longer, but in the original campaign the reform came somewhat around 220 BC. I don't even know if they included the Marius reform in this mod, but i hate to think they were THAT stupid. After the reform i'll see some new units, no doubt, but what strikes me is that the Romans can't train any archers, while other factions can. The Macedonians and the Greeks were a major pain in the butt without archers. I was pretty vulnerable against those phalanxes without ranged units, and as you may know, sending light cavalry against them is as good as suicide. It's a small miracle i destroyed the Greek cities, and nearly whiped out the Macedons without archers.

Do you have any clue in what year i can expect the reform in this mod then ?

[ 05-20-2005, 09:09 PM: Message edited by: johnny ]

[JayS]

Actually, patch 1.2 changed the Marius reforms to be more random in when they occur. I think they usually appear around where you are though.

Also, you can still devastate the phalanxes with the pila fire from your hastati and/or principes, and if you really want archers you can recruit them as mercenaries in most areas around greece and sicily (look for cretan archers).

(I actually haven't played this mod in a long time, so things may have changed since the last version (5.1) I was playing)

What version do you have? You mentioned a slowdown bug that was in my version that the modders said they have fixed by the latest version (5.4).

Edit: The reason they didn't include archers as part of the core recruitment in the cities was because archers were not a part of the Roman Republican legion and did not play a big part in battles on Rome's side in that period. (a good description of the Roman Republic Legion can be found here: http://www.unrv.com/military/organiz...can-legion.php ) The intent was to allow you to recruit Roman auxilia through the mercenary system. Different zones have different mercenaries, simulating taking auxilia from different cultures. Looking at their preview of the next version 6.0 ( http://tyr.recongamer.com/preview.htm ), they list the roman republican army as being comprised of "Principes, Velites, Triarii, Equites, Hastati, Accensi, Funtidores, Rorarii."

[ 05-22-2005, 02:45 PM: Message edited by: JayS ]

[johnny]

Yeah, i know all about it, i get my info from here

Pretty good site i must say.

Edit: my version is 5.4 patched with 5.4.1

[ 05-22-2005, 06:47 PM: Message edited by: johnny ]

[JayS]

You should probably double-check that slowdown bug (if it really is slow and not just a result of your hardware, because RTR should be just as fast as RTW) with the bug list and then post a report there.

[johnny]

It could be due to lack of RAM, but that will be over in the coming week when i buy an extra 512 MB and a brand new graphicscard. If there's still a problem with slow loadingtimes, then at least i know that the problem isn't on my end.

[StigTC]

I'm guessing it's the graphics card, it certainly made a world of difference on my computer.