So I've been playing Rome Total War

Cafe Society
1

I’ve been playing this game a bit and it seems pretty good. The turn based portion is pretty well put together, and the battles are a ton of fun to play. The AI is pretty much as good as you can reasonably want for, and there is nothing like watching your calvary send infantry flying after a charge. It seems like they put all this effort into the game, but spent about 2 seconds on controlling your army. I got three main problems:

(1) Your calvary moves faster than your infantry. If you have a formation with your calvary in the back and order them to move somewhere a bit aways your calvary will move through your infantry and disrupt their battle lines.

(2) There (as far as I can tell) is no way to orient your troops on the battle field. For example, if I want to defend the gate of my city I can order my calvary there. Sure they will get there, but there is no way to guarantee that they will be facing the right way. What I’ve ended up doing is ordering the unit to a point a bit away from the place I want them to be, where the unit will have to march in the direction I want them oriented. Obviously that’s a giant pain in the ass.

(3) This one kind of goes with (2), but it’s damn near impossible to form coherent battle lines. If I want my 4 legionnaire cohorts to line up in front of 2 Histati with calvary on the wings I have to estimate each position for each unit. Needless to say, with 8 units it rarely turns out to be the formation I want. Even if I manage to get them all in the right spot, as in (2), there is no guarantee that they are all facing the correct direction.

The biggest problem I have with these three things is that the solution is obvious. When you give orders you should be able to specify a position and a direction, and you should be able to do so with multiple units. Let’s say I want to do what I said in (3). I should be able to select my 4 legionnaire units, click once to specify one end of a line and again to specify the other point. An arrow should pop up at the mid-point of that line, and you select the orientation of those units by pointing the arrow in the proper direction. Four clicks and I got a nice line of battle. I should add at this point, that this line or ghost images of the units should stay up on the screen so that you can position your other units relative to it.

Furthermore, you should be able to specify the unit density by the line length. If the line is shorter than the minimum space that the units need, then the units line up as close as possible together. If the line is longer than that, the units line up equidistant from each other. To continue with the example, I want my Histati behind my legionnaires. To do so, I select the two units, draw the line parallel to the legionnaire line and the same length. Since the 4 legionnaires take up more space than the 2 Histati, the Histati will be spaced equidistant behind the legionnaire line.

To do the Calvary you wouldn’t need to draw a line because it’s only one unit. Simply click where you want it, an arrow pops up and you orient it in the way you want it. With these controls I could set up the formation I want in maybe 20 seconds. With the current RTW controls it could take me a good 3-5 minutes to get everything in the proper position and facing the right way.

It just bugs me that they spent all this time making a great game but didn’t take the time to think about controls. I mean you think you’d be able to get a unit to easily face a certain direction.

2

2: Use “,” or “.” to change the direction of where your units are facing.
3: Hold the right mouse button and drag it while you’re clicked on what unit you want. You’ll then be able to make the unit into whatever formation you want. Two deep but ten people long? All on one line? It can be done.

3

I didn’t know this, but it’s still is only a half solution. I should be able to tell my unit to go [here] and face [this way].

I was speaking more of getting 4 separate units in the same line.

4

Oh, if that’s the case, will you please tell me when you get that figured out?

The best way I can figure out how to do that is click on four separate units with the shift key and click to where you want them. It’s not perfect but the results are usually better than clicking and pointing them each seperatly.

(Have you played Medieval II yet? I think it’s absolutly gorgeous.)

5

I don’t remember these things as being problems. Are you fully patched?

Isn’t there a graphical indicator of how your unit will line up when they’re finished with their movement? Colored imprints on the ground where they’ll end up. That way you can coordinate the positions of multiple units.

And if you select multiple units to move them, they’ll line up in whatever formation you select.

6

CAVALRY! :smack:

I play “Medieval” rather than “Rome”, but in that, you can select a bunch of units, group them, pick a group formation and then stretch the group to fit how you want. Even so, it’s not a good idea to park cavalry right behind infantry, especially if they’re the impulsive kind who are prone to charge any enemy who comes near. Better to take a leaf out of history’s book and put them on the wings, both to comfort nervous infantry who don’t like unprotected flanks and to gallop them around to the enemy’s flank or rear.

7

? This was never really a problem for me. Right-clicking and dragging units akin to how many I wanted in one line (I.e. four lines - light infantry, spearmen, heavy infantry, archers/artillery) always sufficed for my strategic needs. However, pausing the game while delivering the commands is a bonus.

As for cavalry, the wings is the place to go. You’ll need them to counter enemy pincer movements or to rush around and smash flanks or squishies.

8

I didn’t know about the shift key either, but that’s still only a half solution. You are liable to end up with units facing every direction. What do you think of my ordering system?

Medieval II looks to be beyond my computer’s hardware. The 10 GB of free hardware space takes up 15% of my total HD space after the OS.

I’m not patched yet, but I don’t see any colored indicators on teh ground. How do you choose a formation for a group of units?

:smack:

Don’t you keep your commander’s cavalry unit close to the center of the infantry to keep their morale up?

What do you guys think of my ordering system?