26-09-2004 04:50									#31
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Make sure to set the unit scale to huge if you want massive battles, by the way. It doubles the amount of soldiers in each unit.

	26-09-2004 05:20									#32
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So THAT is what it means. I think I have it on "large" now, 80 soldiers tops per card.

	26-09-2004 05:28									#33
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Yeah, on the huge setting you get 160 in each one. Makes the battles quite a bit more spectacular.

	26-09-2004 07:35									#34
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Jesus, that'll be huge. Yeah I'm currently in the middle of a campaign as the Brutii. Making steady inroads into the Greek area of the map. I need to pull the plug out and start conquering more. At the moment I'm just piss assing around getting the feel of it all.

Great game though isn't it.

	26-09-2004 09:56									#35
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I'm playing as the red dudes. Julli, or whatever.


The gauls are damned easy to kill. I'm thinking I might start a new game and focus more on the greeks or carthaginians or something instead.... but I guess they'll still be waiting when I'm done mopping up the gauls in my current game.


I currently have a 12 star general or something who's faught off litteral hordes of gauls - battle after battle after battle (I think he's faught as many as three in one turn), almost always being outnumbered 3 to 1... and sometimes even 5 to 1, yet still coming out with only a few dozen casualties. Even the faction leader of the gauls (who didn't have the number advantage many of his lessers had) was just barely able to break 100 casualties in his last stand.

It's gotten to the point that the gauls basically just turn tail and flee as soon as the general and his bodyguards make their charge. (which is how every battle of his has ended... him charging at the enemy and making the final blow once they are bogged down in the light infantry [hestati?] )

	26-09-2004 15:12									#36
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Yeah I'm close to finishing off the greeks (I think) and afterwards I'm gonna skip straight to Africa and go for Egypt. I hear its a good tourist place. I could continue into Macedonia which lies to my east but I don't desire to have a war with a somewhat major power that borders directly on my east. I'm a little paranoid that I might get beaten and I don't like that

	26-09-2004 16:37									#37
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Wowie zowie!

What set-up are you playing on Kassi to get these screenshots, how does the game run etc, etc.

-jma

	26-09-2004 16:38									#38
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Is there really any advantage to enslaving or erradicating a settlement? Can they be rebuilt at all?

	26-09-2004 16:40									#39
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quote: Originally posted by Jamski Wowie zowie! What set-up are you playing on Kassi to get these screenshots, how does the game run etc, etc. -jma

I would guess that those are medium to low settings. Really, you can't make the game look bad if you try.

It runs as smooth as anything on my amd athlon 2400, Radeon 9700 pro 500mb RAM computer aswell. Even with every setting on medium or higher, and the unit scale to huge with 160 soldiers in each unit.


I'll see if I can get some screenshots of my own.

	26-09-2004 16:43									#40
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I think I have to go to the computer shop tommorrow...

Wait - I'm in England now - argh - erm... When is the UK release?

-Jam

	26-09-2004 16:48									#41
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quote: Originally posted by Jamski Wowie zowie! What set-up are you playing on Kassi to get these screenshots, how does the game run etc, etc. -jma

Resolution: 1024x768

Anti-aliasing: Low
Unit detail: High (max is High)
Building detail: Low (max is Highest)
Vegetation detail: Medium (max is Highest)
Effects detail: High (High or Highest)
Grass detail: Medium (High)
Terrain detail: High (High)
Smoke/dust ON
Shadows ON
High-quality shadows ON
Grass ON
Desynchronize animation (huh?) OFF
Reflections/glints OFF

My rig is:
Athlon XP 2500+
Radeon 9600/128MB (Ludd's R9700 is better performance-wise but doesn't know the DX9 tricks as well AFAIK)
512 MB DDR RAM

It's running smoothly now, but I haven't tinkered with the settings yet, I'll see if I can ramp everything up and not get any performance loss. The resolution is 1024 only because I have a 17" CRT.

The game also alt-tabs from battle or the campaign screen back to Windows incredibly swiftly.

	26-09-2004 16:55									#42
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I've found that enslaving increases public order somewhat. Less prone to rebel with so little people maybe? Same with exterminate. Of course, the enslaved people go to your rivals as well, IIRC, or at least they go to the SPQR cities (Rome) as well, so it's not necessarily a good idea.

	26-09-2004 19:30									#43
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quote: Originally posted by Jamski I think I have to go to the computer shop tommorrow... Wait - I'm in England now - argh - erm... When is the UK release? -Jam

Oct 1st

	26-09-2004 19:32									#44
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quote: Originally posted by Kassiopeia Desynchronize animation (huh?) OFF

C'Mon Kass, think about it!!!!!!

	27-09-2004 01:37									#45
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quote: Originally posted by General Ludd Is there really any advantage to enslaving or erradicating a settlement? Can they be rebuilt at all?

A settlement cant be destroyed. What you're doing is re-allocating the people from that city to another (enslavement) or killing most (erradicate).

The advantage to enslavement is that a percentage of the people get moved to other cities where they can be productive. Just as in civ, cities full of other factions people tend to be very rebellious. So it makes sense to move em, but the captured city will be less productive for a long time.

I'm not aware of the negative sides of enslavement v erradicate yet but I'm sure they're there. In MTW the choices you made with prisoners affected the character traits your generals picked up.

	27-09-2004 01:44									#46
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quote: Originally posted by Kassiopeia I wonder though, you can have only so many unit cards in an army, how are you supposed to get really big battles with thousands of soldiers? Do the numbers represented by a card get bigger later on or something? Or will you have to use the reinforcements trick to bring in several different armies (does make sense)?

As was said you can increase the unit size. Plus, you can have more than two armies on the same field of battle. I'm guessing that if the numbers of units are very large in any battle, some may come on as reinforcements.

	27-09-2004 02:19									#47
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Got the game and it really is captivating! If you thought M:TW was a huge improvement wait 'till you try R:TW!

Now I have a Geforce 64MB video card. What is the benefit of anti-aliasing and should I try it with my card?

	27-09-2004 04:49									#48
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Anti-aliasing is a way to make digital objects look smoother than they are by adding shading to hard edges.

	27-09-2004 05:27									#49
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it eats up computer speed performance though

	27-09-2004 08:32									#50
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Man. I'm was going through quite nicely taking out the Greek cities and then Macedonia decides to declare war. Well they seige a place which I lift and then I go and attack them and well defeat them thanks entirely to my general. Having a really good general actually has a lot to do with the eventual outcome.

Does anybody know where I can find battle tatics out? Hmm I suppose they have a forum. But yeah, I definitely need to learn how to become a better general myself. At the moment I suck. Please don't tell me I need to sit down and read The Art Of War

	27-09-2004 13:15									#51
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You get a feel for it quite quickly, I've found (of course I've watched all the eps of Time Commanders and know this stuff in general ). Making it rout is the best way to drive away an army, be it defence or offence - and the best way to do this is to try to isolate the enemy force so that you can overwhelm a part of it. The part overwhelmed will panic, and especially with barbarians, this'll cause their entire ranks to just collapse. I love it when I have infantry matching wavering infantry on the city gates and throw in some equites to mess them up - their morale buckles and suddenly you have thousands of Gauls turning tail.

Taking cities is of course a bit more tricky, as they'll fleet to the city square where they may be more resistant to cavalry charges. Another thing is cities with tall walls, as you're mostly going to have ladders and towers which don't carry cavalry, so you'll have to take the walls by footmen alone. That's when it becomes a battle of attrition, a meatgrinder on the walls so to speak.

	27-09-2004 13:57									#52
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Yeah the gauls seem reasonably easy to defeat. I started a new game as the Julii. Going against the Macedonians is much harder, they are a lot more disciplined than the gauls, and their armies match yours too.

	27-09-2004 14:12									#53
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quote: Originally posted by Trajanus it eats up computer speed performance though

Modern cards handle it fairly well performance wise.

No need to go 8x or 16x mode though.

	27-09-2004 16:11									#54
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How does it come across in comparison to the other Total war games(Shogun+Medieval)? How is the strategic level of the game in comparison? Does the better battle engine make up more of the games interest now or is the strategic part of the game just as important?

in a nutshell has any other part of the game other than the graphics been improved upon?

	27-09-2004 16:24									#55
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I haven't played Medieval, alas, so I can't tell, but what I've heard from other players is that the campaign game has been improved on enormously. There aren't any huge errors in the battle engine that I've witnessed, the Gauls are ridiculously easy to beat but then I suppose they're supposed to, being smelly barbarians and everything.

Screenshot galore!

First battles with the Huge unit scale.
http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ant...big_numbers.jpg
http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ant...sive_attack.jpg

A Gallic attack on one of my cities.
http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ant...llic_attack.jpg

Roman defenders.
http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ant...man_defence.jpg

My general defence plan when I have hastati or watchmen against, well, about anything. The "H" are Hastati, light infantry, while C is cavalry and V is velites (javelineers). The green rectangle is the Gaul force pushing through with a siege ram.

http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ant...all_defence.jpg
The big idea is to allow the Gauls to march through a bit through the opening, after which they'll be crushed on three sides with hastati. Add a random quick cavalry charge, and the meatgrinder will spit out dead barbarians like nothing.

http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ant..._the_breach.jpg
http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ant...at_the_gate.jpg
http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ant...g_frenchman.jpg
The aforementioned strategy in action.

http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ant...outed_gauls.jpg
http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ant...s_in_flight.jpg
http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ant...ear_victory.jpg The results. Winter screenies from a similar battle where I employed the same strat.

http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ant...in_a_barrel.jpg
This is from my conquest of Sparta (they left it relatively unguarded, busy with the other Roman factions). The archers were helping with a wall battle but they started to do more harm than good for the hastati fighting the Greek spearmen - then I noticed the phalanx sitting on the street doing nothing. Tee hee.

http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ant...tw/overview.jpg
This was a tricky affair. The enemy army was equal in numbers and was throwing at me in two parts, both coming down at me to a valley. I was too busy fighting to take screenshots, but I had most of my hastati charge at the closer, smaller force while my cav harassed the charging gauls behind my lines. The smaller force soon get enough and took flight, that's when I threw everything including my new toys, war dogs, at them...

http://kotisivu.dnainternet.net/ant...dogs_of_war.jpg

	27-09-2004 16:25									#56
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What's the hotkey for taking screenshots? I was slamming print screen all through a battle thinking I was taking screenshots but I didn't get any.

	27-09-2004 16:28									#57
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It's Print Scrn, but you have to Alt-Tab out and paste it to a graphics program and save it, i.e. it only puts it on the clipboard. A game like this really, really would need them to be saved automatically in a directory in sequence so you wont' have to alt-tab all the time.

	27-09-2004 17:07									#58
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quote: Originally posted by child of Thor How does it come across in comparison to the other Total war games(Shogun+Medieval)? How is the strategic level of the game in comparison? Does the better battle engine make up more of the games interest now or is the strategic part of the game just as important? in a nutshell has any other part of the game other than the graphics been improved upon?

The strategic component has been completely re-done with game complexity comparable to a civ scenario. With STW the ratio of strategic to tactical was 5:95. With MTW 35:65. With RTW its more like 50:50. I'd guess that you could easily play RTW at the strategic level, auto-resolve all combat, and still have an interesting game.

The graphics have improved but for many of us the tactical combat is not as good as previous versions because of unit speed issues and other changes that didnt need to be 'fixed' (kinda like not including firepower in civ3).

	27-09-2004 17:50									#59
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The site to go to for all things TW is

www.totalwar.org

	27-09-2004 20:56									#60
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thanx for the info Kassiopeia+SpencerH

I've been having a good look at their website, but as always hearing from the people who have gone out and bought it gives the best idea of whats really going on

Strangely i found Shogun a better game than Medieval, when i was expecting the extra levels of complexity in Medieval to win the day - oh well, maybe more isn't always better
Still RTW looks amazing - if the other part of the game is as good as the battle screens then i might be forced to upgrade my pc, which i've been fighting against for a long time