Holy Moly, my typing is horrible.
Ok folks, I need advice here. Until this thread I was looking forward to Crusader Kings basically hoping it would be half as much fun as EUII was. Now that I’ve read Tamerlane’s AAR… I’m torn. It looks like there’s a strategic level to these Total War games I had no idea of. If I really liked EUII will R:TW fill the bill?
The only thing I’m worried about now if my video card. The R:TW site lists the requirements as “a reasonable card”. Anyone have any better information?
Welllll…maybe. They’re different beasts.
EUII is my all-time favorite game and it has strategic depth that the TW series, including the latest, can’t even come close to touching - all while abstracting the tactical side. The TW series is EU II’s mirror image - it has always been more of a Risk-style strategic game with a really in-depth tactical game ( except for naval engagements ). Now R:TW has taken the notch up a bit on the strategic side of things, especially the strategic side of warfare, but it still shines best as a battlefield simulator.
That said if I had to pick one for you to try, I’d recommend R:TW over CK.
I Love CK - hell, I ordered it from Sweden weeks before the U.S. release. It is right up my alley, in terms of setting. And you can convert your CK game to EU II :). But I’m a true fanatic - I know details about virtually every noble house modeled in it and I revel in the role-playing aspect of the game. But it is still a little broken in some ways and it needs another generation or two of patching to bring out its best. In fact it might need a CK II. If you aren’t as committted to the role-playing concept, I could see CK being a little disappointing to some.
R:TW on the other hand is a better polished game right out of the box ( Paradox has great patch support, but truly abysmal release standards ). The turn-based strategic game is fun enough that you could ( and you can ) play it without the tactical element intruding and still enjoy it as strategy-lite. But since it seems you haven’t been exposed to the TW series, I think you should give it a try for the tactical battlefield experience. Really, it is great fun and not at all overwhelming once you get a handle on it. For the new experience alone, I say get R:TW.
Hmmm…dunno. I have an older 1.4 gig Athlon-C machine with 512 mbs of memory and recently upgraded low/mid-end ATI Radeon 9600 XT and it runs fine with that set-up.
- Tamerlane
Thanks Tamerlane. My setup sounds fairly close to yours. Maybe I’ll put CK on my Christmas wish list. That way I can download the the inevitable 1.0n patch from Paradox after Peter Ebsen’s finished breaking the model.
Ok I’m sold.
Amen to all of that. Crusader Kings has some serious flaws in it that cripple most gameplay. I’ve ended up relying on the role-playing aspect of the game to try to derive as much fun out of it as I can, since the AI is incompetent at best and pathetic at worst.
For example, Bjørn Svendson, King of Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Duke of pretty much every Baltic territory, had several sons and salic primogeniture as inheritance law. The eldest son, Harald, was incompetent at best and pathetic at worst (total of his four attributes: 9.) The youngest, Johann, was a child prodigy - Grey Eminence, 17 diplomacy rating, 14 stewardship, 9 and 10 martial and intrigue.
Bjørn was getting along in years, but dreaded leaving his realm to Harald, and could not bring himself to hire an assassin to smother Harald and the second son in their bedrooms. He realized there was only one possible course of action.
(Enter BJØRN and SONS)
Bjørn : Well, boys, I’m getting along in years.
Harald drools.
Bjørn : …and I’ve decided to do something about it. Johann, I’m making you Duke of Mecklemberg, Pommerania, Prussia, Estonia, Latvia, Pruthenia, and … oh, hell, everything, really. (lno grants every available title to Johann.)
Johann : Thanks, dad! But … uh, Harald still inherits.
Bjørn : Got that covered, too. Strongest vassal inherits now. (lno switches inheritance law to elective law.)
Johann : Uh … this is great! But dad, your demesne is pretty small now.
Bjørn : Oh. One sec, I gotta go take care of something upstairs. Hand me my sword, will you, son?
(Exit BJØRN.)
Dull thud from upstairs. (lno drops console, types ‘die’, kills Bjørn.)
Johann : Oh, shit.
Well I just finished the long campaign (189 B.C.) and here are a few more thoughts.
The senate doesn’t matter as far as I can tell. It’s the popular support that gives you the rights to attack other Romans and take Rome. Though I’m betting you only get the legionary eagle if you fill your Senate bar.
Money ceased to have any value for me about mid game. I was over 400,000 with all my build orders full for most of the game. As I finished the campaign I was close to 1,000,000.
Large border states are the only ones I had trouble keeping under control. I usually just pumped out a few more peasants to keep the peace. (There’s a nice trick I learned if you’re having problems controlling a new settlement fill the training bar with peasants the population drops as you do so loyalty rises. You can always empty it out later when the unrest goes down) I think next time I’ll move my capital to a more central position having a huge happiness penalty for being far from the center of the empire is a killer.
Late game Roman troops are unstoppable. I was killing 800+ troops while losing only 20 or so of mine.
It really doesn’t get into the games underlieing mechanics unfortunately. The Prima guide really just talks about the different units available (in detail) for the various factions, and the individual battles you can play. Its a bit of a disappointment.
My own experience has been more like Darkhold…the Senate really isn’t that much of a factor. I only noticed actual penalties if I ignored them repeatedly…if I knocked out a mission every once in a while the most they did was frown at me.
The automanage function works ok, but I tend to micromanage my city/provences if there is a governor there. If there isn’t they go into automatic automanage mode, so I just pick the mode I want (usually growth, as this tends to keep the cities happier). Certainly automanage works better than it did in TW:ME…where if you turned on aubobuild for instance your treasury would instantly take a huge hit as ever province in your empire started churning out worthless buildings. The only automanage I ever used in TW:ME was to grant titles automatically, and sometimes I would turn on autotax.
I’ve seen siege machines go up in flames from fire arrows/fire catapult shots…its rather cool to see their crews run off on fire. I’ve never seen any terrain go up, though again I’ve seen cities catch fire several times. I really like the new partial destruction of towns so you can repair the buildings instead of the random full destruction in TW:ME.
I love the fact that you can send your battered field army into a city an bring all your units up to strength in one turn (which is after all half a year) to go back out…thats a REALLY cool feature that I missed in TW:ME.
Its definitely a pain in the butt, but what I do is break my fleets up into multiple parts, with 3-4 ships in each fleet. Each fleet can carry on army, and if the fleets are close together they support each other if attacked. Its more work to move them and keep them close, but you can move larger army groups this way, and still have the support of your ships if attacked.
Its kind of a disappointment that they don’t have tactical sea battles…that would have really been something. I’m sure their calculations are good, but I’ve noticed that on autocalc my loses are always heavier and the enemy losses are lighter than when I manage the battles myself…and I’m guessing this is the same with sea battles. Oh well…maybe in the expansion or in a later game.
Anyone know if there are any mods out yet for TW:Rome? I haven’t seen any. There were several really good ones for TW:ME.
-XT
Man, I’m sitting here almost literally drooling over this game. I’ve GOT to get it. Let’s see, I get off work in 2 hours…
After I read the Masters of Rome series I’ve been wishing for Masters of Rome: the Game. This looks like it…
Anyone have any tips on how to groom a family member into a responsible type rather than Augustus the Lewd? Or this totally random?
Certainly you can up the Command ranking just by winnign battles but what about the rest of it? I have not fully tracked or tested it but it seems as if you might have some control over how management oriented you can get them.
For instance, several times I have gotten a new family member (17 years old) who had a better management skill off the bat than some of the old farts nearby. I know dropping them out at teh edge of the empire tends to not help so I decided to make this young kid into my ultimate city manager and moved him to Mediolama(sp?) pretty close to my capital and already a Huge City. I moved him in, took every good management retinue card off the old idiot hanging there and gave it to the kid and moved the old guy out just to be sure. 15 years later the kid is likewise a joke and lost what management ability he did have…flat out sucked. I did this one other time hoping it was a fluke with the same results.
However, some of my best managers have first been good commanders first who I left in a city to consolidate things then left there longer for one reason or another. Next thing I know these guys who really weren’t management types (that I actually meant to replace with better managers) became great at running a city.
So, is the game modelling the notion that if you make a 17 year old Governor of a big, rocking town you can pretty much guarantee he’ll grow to be a total ass while the older and seasoned by battle veterans better appreciate the job as governor and work to be good at it?
Or am I just unlucky so far with the young jerks?
I might also add occasionally I see another faction member toddling about with like a 10 or something management skill. So many scolls denoting it that it runs well into a second line. I’ve never gotten one of my guys close to that so wonder if I am missing something, it is just random if unlikely or the AI cheats for its own guys.
FYI I couldn;t let such a good manager get by so I assassinated him. 
I think you can enhance a character by trading their retinue characters. I THINK this will change certain attributes, but I have to admit I haven’t gotten that far into the game yet to optimize my charactes. I usually just rely on the material at hand and count on my tactical abilities to get me out of any jams I might find myself in. 
-XT
Yeah…you can trade retinue characters between your family members. Just have them both in the same city, open the info on the character you want to take from and drag the character card onto the avatar you want to give it to. That said not all retinue characters can be moved (or at least accepted) doing this. Some seem “attached” to their patron.
I was just hoping for some way to nudge my guys into getting better virtues instead of mostly vices.
The only thing I can add about management traits are that academies do seem to produce people with a couple of scrolls already and that if you leave someone in an area with Low Taxes for an extended time they seem to be guaranteed to get “worthless assessor -10% Tax Income” sooner or later. I keep forgetting to check guys that have been in an area with Very High Taxes to see if they get any bonuses for that.
Had a fun tactical moment earlier. Early in a Julii campaign I was besieging Patavium with ~400 troops. A Gallic army with a similar number of troops broke the siege, and was joined by Patavium’s garrison. I deployed my 5 units of hastati along a low, wooded ridge, where they were hidden from prying eyes. At the end of the ridge a few extraneous units - merc hoplites and a couple cav and missile units - stood out in the open. The Gauls charged at the exposed units, and at the critical moment my hastati came screaming off the ridge. The Gauls broke and fled, and were utterly annihilated in exchange for a grand total of 4 Roman casualties. I love it when a plan comes together.
Cool…glad it worked for you. Me it did not work for.
I was assaulting a city that had some reinforcement troops. I had Arcani with me (the ninja type guys who hide nearly anywhere) and positioned them where I knew the opposing reinforcments would come from (I love that reinforcements show from the direction they are on the map).
So there my Arcani are all nice and hidden with the opposing army looking ot march right by. I can hardly wait to pounce when the opposing army stops and its archers start shooting my hidden Arcani.
I paid attention and paid attention again and sure enough my Arcani were still showing the hidden marker while simultaneously showing the “We are getting shot” marker. Haven’t used Arcani since.
To me this was one of the big let downs of the game as I figured the AI cheats and like so many games the AI knows exactly where you are. Given your experience though maybe I need to retry it.
Either way pulling stuff liek what you pulled off is a blast. I’ve had a few occasions where an enemy troop is bracketed by two calvalry units and they hit near the same time from both flanks…total devastation and great fun.
BTW…I’ve been meaning to ask how to deal with Chariots. Damn British chariots are brutal…seem near as bad as elephants. I tried spearmen and they got creamed. Calvary including my General’s cavalry gets creamed. Urban Cohorts take a beating. Attack dogs die just by attacking (although there are a lot of them so kind of a wash). Nothing seems to own those guys. What am I missing?
This is where your peasants and milita comes in. Let them take the brunt of the charge and clog the chariot wheels with their mangled corpses. It sucks on the battlefield, but you win out in terms of unit cost. As I mentioned before, all horsie units now suck at close combat fighting. If you can stop them charging, you can take them out.
I suppose you could also use a well positioned phalax division 4-5 units deep. Not nearly as fun though.
Best bet is to use ranged weapons against them (unless you want to sacrifice peasants like Rabid_Squirrel). What I usually do is let em charge in and pound them all the way with ever ranged weapon I have, then let the regiment they are charging throw their spears (assuming its one of the units with this capability). At the same time I try and move a light cav unit on sprint mode to hit them in the rear just as they are getting set to strike home their own charge (the timing of this can be dicy). In nearly every case I’ve had so far their battle standard has turned white and they’ve bolted with my light cav hard on their heals.
If you have phalax units (mercs) then its a simple matter of just letting them charge in on them. They will lose every time as long as you set your regiment depth to at least 4. At least they’ve never failed me yet, and if they get decimated…well, they are only mercs after all, so just disband the remnant or roll them into other damaged formations after the battle.
I’ve done this a few times by putting my cavalry in wooded areas (so that the wooded icon is on the unit). As long as its sufficiently off axis they don’t SEEM to be seen.
Have you had a fight yet in heavy woods? It was chaos for me. I couldn’t figure out where the axis of attack was, couldn’t keep track of my own units and where they were, the trees were screwing up my formations, ranged attack seems to be ineffective (I think they have some kind of blocking factor for arrows when in trees…be cool if they do, but that might be taking realism too far! 
). Was the worse ‘victory’ I’ve had so far, nearly even as far as casualties goes…and they were heavy. Anyone have any tips for woods fighting? I haven’t done much of it yet, I’m playing the Bruitii and am mainly in Greece/Egypt/North Africa.
No idea.
-XT
I was thinking this too…until last night. I had blown off several missions in a row. I got the message that the people would support my taking Rome, but I was fully engaged with the Egyptians at the time and didn’t have the resources for a two front war…especially since Rome was bristling with full stack armies. Anyway, I blew off one mission too many it seems…and got nailed with a fine of 130k! Wiped out my treasury which I had drawn way down on to fund my war in Egypt and kind of left me hanging for a while. I did the next mission, but blew off the one after that…and the Senate gave one of the other Roman factions leave to attack me! Now I have that two front war going on, and my Italian city/provinces are pretty weak, with just town watch/archers to defend them.
So, you can only blow off the Senate so much before they start seriously retaliating against you. I never even saw a ramp up to such a penalty. The most I had ever been penalized before was like 5k…and then they hit me up for a wopping 130k!!
I’m currently re-orienting my troops and building armies in Greece for an offensive not only against the Julii (interestingly enough the other Roman factions are still neutral to me for some reason…even Rome itself) but against Rome too. I’ve pretty much got the Egyptians completely on the ropes now anyway…I think all they have are a few islands left and are no real threat anymore.
-XT
Resurecting this thread to ask a few questions from anyone playing this game.
How the hell does the economy work when your empire gets big??? I’m finding myself being forced to keep my taxes constantly at low, with full stacks of GOOD units AND a general in all my fronteer cities to keep them from rioting and kicking my troops out. And this is after I’ve basically built all the structures that are supposed to KEEP the peace. Let a general die and a city instantly goes from yellow (or mostly blue) to red and rioting the next turn…and this is with keeping the city at ‘growth’ (if there is no governor)…espcially (it seems to me) if the city is out on the fronteer somewhere and far from the capital. And it seems that one city, besieged, rioting, etc can turn your economy around in a single turn. Trade seems to stop and then take several turns to recover.
So, how are people keeping large empires going? How do you keep money coming in from turn to turn? How do you keep cities happy and non-rioting??? Has anyone played the full campaign to the end and won with anything other than the Roman factions?
Hopefully someone who is playing the game will answer before the thread sinks back into the murk.
-XT
Find out what the cause of the discontent is in the city details screen. Squalor? Unrest? Distance from Capital? If you waited too long to build sanitation buildings, the squalor won’t go away. Let us know.