Now that is interesting. I noticed on one of the link sites to download 6.2 that someone on the “comments” section had said something like “this is the guy that stole the game, not the actual one”, but I assumed he’d got the wrong one seeing as how it was linked to from the website. Interesting.
The .org site is the real one. The .com site was the real one until the guy on the team responsible for maintaining the site decided to screw the others over and try to make a bunch of personal profit off the site. I was frequenting the RTR forums when it happened - that same guy was the one who handled all donations from fans, and he skedaddled with all the money and pulled the regular site down and put up a bunch of ad referral thingies. There was some seriously pissed off people. I haven’t gone to the .com site since, so I didn’t even realize it was now trying to present itself as the “real” site.
Huh. Well, I guess I need to get the latest version then. I didn’t realize there were two sites…a friend pointed me to the 6.2 version I originally linked too. I wonder what the difference is?
If anyone has downloaded the new one, some thoughts on it would be much appreciated…
-XT
BTW, as far as I can tell the mods free…what possible motive would someone have to try and screw their buddies on this? What profit is available? (Hell, for that matter, why would anyone put this kind of time and effort into a mod thats free??)
-XT
Ads, and possibly donations under false pretenses.
Woo, this mod rocks, I don’t even miss my war dogs anymore. One word: scorpion. It’s like a Roman anti-personnel ballista, and in RTW vanilla, they sucked. Now they most definitely don’t. They’re fairly accurate, have a cool sound effect and a vicious knockback physic that tosses dudes back about thirty feet. Laying siege last night, I was shooting archers off the walls and watching them smack into the houses in town.
Two questions:
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Does anyone know if there’s a RTR compatible mod that improves the diplomacy? All the other empires in this game are suicidally insane.
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What empires besides Rome and western Europe don’t have hoplites out the wazoo? I want to try another kingdom, but I just got done conquering Greece and I can’t look at another phalanx for a couple of days.
I downloaded the 6.0 Gold version last night but haven’t had time to re-install the game. Can anyone tell me what the difference is? Is it worth going back and re-installing from scratch?
Yeah, they are definitely cool. No army is complete without at least one of these babies in it. 
They are definitely more effective than they were in the original game. I miss the catapults though…
No idea here…but I agree, its even more difficult to keep rival nations from attacking you now that it seemed in the original game.
There are a few of the eastern empires that have very weak infantry, using mainly cavalry…they don’t use phalanx troops IIRC. Just look at the descriptions. Almost all the nations in the east though were part of Alexanders fragemented empire, so they are going to have some form of phalanx or other. Personally I rather like the phalanx myself…its pretty decisive, even against Romes legions. If you use it right that is, and if you have a decent force mix. If you have that though you are nearly unbeatable.
-XT
I used to didn’t like them either, but I wanted to play the Macidonians so I had to deal. In my armies I usually have about half phalanxs, some archers, a couple of calvary, and the rest swordsman. This combination has worked for me so far. I remember one battle though where I had slingers instead of archers and not as many phalanxs against the Greek Cities. I don’t remember if I won that battle, but I know it was close and there was a lot of dead on my side.
I also like them because even as the Romans, I hate attacking. I prefer to let them come to me and I’ll usually try to bait them into attacking, mainly by besieging their cities. I do hate when they surround me though…
I found the answer to my question: according to the RTR boards, diplomacy can’t be modded. Apparently, the best way to avoid the AI’s strategic lemming urge is to never, ever share a land border with a faction you don’t want to fight.
Now I dunno if that’s true. I know Egypt went beserk within two turns of us sharing a border in Greece. But on the other hand, the Seleucids freaked out even without us sharing a border (and both of us being at war with Egypt!).
It could have something to do with me crucifying two out of three people in Continental Europe. Maybe I’ll go slow next time and make nice nice.
I also read about an exploit for forcing a faction into protectorate status that I might try. It’s cheesy but no more so than having faction after faction, with their last city blockaded and under siege, refusing a ceasefire and 25,000 donation.
I may find out tonight if I can’t push north and wipe out what’s left of the Gauls and crush Germania. I forgot to account for the batshit AI when I was expanding and I might not survive. 
I’ll report in if I make the switch.
Maybe the saves will work.
Probably. 6 Gold is apparently patch 6.3 + a few bug fixes/tweaks and a better installer. I briefly tried to look up the precise difference between 6.2 and 6.3, but my quick search didn’t turn up any actual version descriptions to compare them. I’m sure they’re out there mind you, I just quickly got tired of looking for them.
I’d say if you are playing a game that you want to finish, stick with that in case the save games are incompatible and then maybe try a fresh install.
From what I gather there is apparently a RTR “Platinum” that is a port of RTR to the RTW 1.5 patch. I remember thinking at the time that 1.5 was a significant improvement to RTW, though I don’t recall if the diplomatic AI was improved a lot or a little. However it is unsupported at this point by the RTR folks, who are supposedly working on a formal RTR 7.0 which will include the BI/1.5 update - to be released whenever, possibly in the fall or winter.
- Tamerlane
I decided to ditch my game and do the Gold version. Beware: this is not a simple thing. When they say a clean install, they really mean it. I’ve spent over an hour editing my registry alone, RTW really infests your system and doesn’t like to uninstall properly. Two hours later I haven’t even been able to get the 1.2 patch installed yet.
http://rtw.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=3,3340,,all
Here’s some decent directions if you’re hellbent on switching, but if you’re happy playing the .com version, stick with it. :smack:
I intend to make a copy of the current subdirectory before doing an uninstall…and I probably won’t do it until I’m done with the current game I’m playing (as the Romans).
I apologize though for giving a bad link in the OP pointing to a pirate version of this mod. I feel bad about that. This was a hell of a lot of work for some folks to do…and all for free. And the mod is simply great IMHO…I’m actually having as much fun now as I had when the game was new.
I hope these folks keep it up…and I really hope that they get an advanced copy of MTW 2 so they can start early on a TR version of that.
-XT
Yeesh. I don’t recall this being this difficult. 
So I’ve taken all of Italy, pushed the Carthaginians off all their islands so they only have their African territory, and the Gauls beyond the Alps. I’m focusing on letting my cities grow, so trying not to recruit heavily for a bit, cheerfully sitting behind my nice defensive borders. Suddenly the Illyrians decide it would be nice to attack their friendly neighbours. WTF? Okay, fine, I’ll grind them into dust…except I don’t have enough spare troops. I take Segestica with my northern defensive army, then decide to land a shiny new army near Apollonia and attack the Illyrians’ southernmost city. And my shiny new army takes two steps and gets ambushed by a full stack of Greeks. Damn. I fight them off, taking substantial casualties, besiege the Illyrian city, trounce them in two seperate battles on their turn, take the city, and what happens? I’m besieged by another full stack of Greeks, and I can see yet another full stack within one turn’s march.
I think I need some hoplitai-B-gone.
Sounds essentially like the campaign I’m currently in. Every time I expand someone else decides they MUST go to war with me. What I ended up doing is playing cat and mouse with the Macedonians, taking cities then moving out and letting them have them back, moving to bridges and inviting them to attack understrength looking stacks…that have triarii backed up with tons of skirmisher/slingers (still no archers…do the Romans just not get archers in this version??) and making them pay big to try and cross. My main thrust has been into the Gaul lands…and of course the damn Spanish decided to join the fun. I’m currently at war with everyone I have a border with…but interestingly not Carthage, once I cleared Sicily…they sued for peace and I haven’t heard from them since.
So far the Romans have actually been more difficult for me than any of the other races I’ve played. Their units just don’t seem to be able to compete head to head, so I have to use a lot more manuver and tactics…and I still end up taking higher losses than I do with, say, a Selucid army. Money seems to be tight as well…though that seems the case with all the races I’ve played thus far. I’m lucky if I’m clearing 4-6k per turn at this point…which is usually just enough to repair damaged units (especially my fleet) and perhaps buy a building and a unit or two.
-XT
Nope. My advice is to put a junior general on a boat and go on a recruiting run. You can always find some Cretien Archers in Greece. Just make landfall, hire the mercs and get out.
Or even better - send out an expeditionary force to conquer Crete itself, and use the island as an archer farm (and as a bonus, get a piece of that lucrative Agean trade money).
There isn’t much of a difference between the .com and .org versions of RTR, at least that I could tell last night in my reconquest of Italy. The strategic map is alot prettier, and the Roman religious choices have changed. I recommend the switch if you’re feeling saucy.
Playing Rome and fighting hoplites is tedious. Gotta keep their attention with heavy infantry and then flank them with whatever you have. Cavalry does the best and fastest job, I haven’t met the phalanx that can withstand more than three cav charges to their rear. When attacking a city packed with hoplites, send skirmishers up on the walls to rain javelins down on the phalanxes. One unit of javelins can take out 120 hoplites. When you’ve got infantry going head to head with a phalanx, circle some slingers to the rear of the phalanx and start shooting them in the ass. In addition to moderate casualties, the hoplites may get pissed and start chasing the slingers, leaving the phalanx vulnerable to your infantry.
This is what I used to do to get war elephants in the original game for the Romans.
Is this historically accurate, the Romans having no archers at all? Not even auxilliary archers? I did feel that the archers in the original game were over powered (they were about the same as the high end Egyptian archers for range and damage) but no archers at all seems a bit much.
Thats pretty much my own tactic. I usually try and manuver about and get the phalanx units out of line abreast and into a series of skirmished of one on two…they hit the singled out phalanx in the rear with a cavalry charge. I’ve never seen it take more than 3 chargers. The problem though is those damn Greek/Macedonian special sword units. They are fast and nasty and can run down a full strength early legion type unit and chew it up if you aren’t careful.
I’d say my losses per battle are about double with the Romans than they were with the Selucids or the Macedonians. So, say I normally lose about 100 men for every thousand of the enemy, I’m probably losing something like 200-300 now per battle. Still winning, but the winning is MUCH more costly.
-XT
-XT
The weakest point i’ve found with phalanxes is when you’re defending a city. While they’re coming through the gate, they can’t get into formation, so I generally have my skirmisher units standing off and hurling javelins into them, while my cavalry run straight through them from side to side. Plays havoc with their morale, even with the the TR mod.
Defending with Phalanx is actually easy…if you don’t try and defend with them at the walls. What I do is put my light units, skirmishers, slingers, archers ect, and any swordsmen on the walls. I put my phalanx at strategic choke points in the city around the town center (the only thing you REALLY have to defend). Then, as enemy closes on the walls I pull back my ranged guys (leaving the others to fight to the death on the walls and slow the attackers down) and then fight it out in the streets. If you have mobile units like cavalry you can get some of the enemy to chase you around the walls…and they will take losses the whole time from the hidden defenders in the towers and such.
-XT
Another FYI for anyone interested. Alexander, the offical RTW mod is out. Here is a review from Gamespy on it for anyone who may be interested in getting the mod (its download only I think). Appearently you play as Alexander and have 100 turns to repeat his feats of empire building.
If anyone does get it, feel free to post here your thoughts on it. For myself, unless someone here says its the greatest thing since sliced bread, I’m going to stick with this mod…I figure it should keep me going until MTW2 comes out at the least.
-XT