RTR8 Beta v3.0 Feedback Thread

[Cheeki]

Why does AI produce so much fleets without purpose? This really cripple perfomance and you cannot even sink all thoose fleets.

https://i.sli.mg/Al8Q40.jpg



Parthia start as barbarian steppe state. Could it change culture to Eastern Civilized later?

[Cheeki]

Also I can add that Carthage always lose Spain to Iberians (tested across 5 playthroughs).


Seleucids have two great armies, but refuse to use it, they camp both at cities while their empire collapsing. Full stack of silver-shields can potentionally wreck one middle sized country, yet they don't even use it to combat rebels. Since they don't use it, they just burn huge amount of money.

First full stack of silver-shields on screenshot, second comparable army camping Pergamon.

https://i.sli.mg/j1uUYn

[ahowl11]

Thanks Cheeki for this excellent feedback! For some reason the Iberians are OP and they like to spam ships. Hopefully we've toned that down with our upcoming patch. But yes I'd like to see Carthage get more expansive in Iberia. Also the Seleucids are supposed to slowly but surely fall apart, but you're right, it'd be nice if they could put up a fight. It'll be interesting to see if these behaviors persist after we release the patch.

[Whiskey87]

Old RTR player (circa 2006) here, coming back to check out the new release.

Overall great mod, just what I expected. Encountered some problems though:

1. Unit Cost is not balanced at all, nearly all civilized factions have HUGE (-10,000) deficits due to unit outrageous upkeep costs. (450 per turn for the cheapest civilized infantry.) Meanwhile Barbarian Factions have nice surpluses.
2. What's up with Macedon's starting army, why all the barbarian infantry? Also despite the Barbarian forces, Macedon is still hopelessly in the Red.
4. Is Thesselonikka supposed to be 100% Barbarian Culture?
3. Why is the Seleucid army all elite? It amplifies problem #1 even further.

[ahowl11]

Hey there! Good to see that you're still interested in RTR. Have you downloaded the 3.1 patch? It fixes a lot of issues. As far as unit costs, it was an experiment in trying to balance out incomes for factions. We are overhauling the stats and costs of all units for 4.0, so it'll be much more balanced and accurate.
Well we have not yet done a lot of research for army compositions around the start date yet so the armies are just a random assortment that we came up with as a placeholder. In 4.0 all factions will have better starting armies. One thing about Macedon though, after reading Griffiths The Mercenaries of the Hellenistic World is that the Antigonids did not have much of a standing army due to lack of man power. Instead they had their elite corps and relied on the mercenaries they could hire to do the job for them until manpower could become an effective force again. So their armies are somewhat accurate at game start but we will tweak them to improve it.

[civilzadedkille]

Hello fellow realists,

Before getting into details about each of my points I would like to state that your mod had quite well established a place for itself in my Total War experience.It features the most smooth bridging between RTR VII and Stainless Steel for M2TW.

Let me get start by stating that I find your work on units' cost amazing!
Western Civilized has the highest upkeep cost across the board and its nowhere near justifiable in terms of balanced gameplay.It is however a historical truth that Civilized City-States provided their armies with a lot more than just a wage to get them by.On the other hand barbarians were cheap because all they were getting paid for was their services,no extras,no healthcare,no comforts.And it makes perfect sense that Western Civilized get a ton of extra experience.Physical exercise was routine even for non-enlisted citizens plus given the common clashes between Greeks, their armies were nothing sort of experienced upon deployment.
One game-breaking feature though is that archers are absolutely broken while javelinmen are altogether irrelevant.With the exception of Cretan archers all others from Asia minor to Iberia,European,Asian,African or otherwise were absolutely powerless against armoured units like hoplites.Traditionally in Greek warfare,archers,peltasts and slingers were used in skirmishes before the infantry clashed.The most common infantry was hoplites of course and the variations in the mod give a very nice depiction of reality.What is not nice however is that arrows are as devastating as javelins should be whereas javelins are a little more than oversized mosquitos.It is also unacceptable that horse archers have the same range as foot archers let alone same damage.I took the liberty of modding the all the archers,horse archers and javelin/pilum units damage and ranges after researching for a moderate amount of time about their general effects in battle and then testing them to make sure the results matched the historical records we have.To give a few examples the Legionaries used 2 pila (most likely one weighted and one thick or 2 thick ones) to disrupt enemy formation thus making their charge more effective.The pilum was 2 meters long and ranged from 2 to 5 kilos.Other than killing the soldiers in the front lines the pilum's primary use was to bent once it penetrated a shield adding extra weight to the soldier carrying it thus reducing his combat effectiveness.Of course the second cannot be simulated in game so instead I made pilum more lethal so that gaps left by the killed soldiers are slower to fill having more or less the same effect.Javelins now, were usually fired back at the original throwers as the edge was not long enough to bend so even if it penetrated a shield it could be detached from it.To simulate that I made javelins deal the same amount of damage across all units using them.The value is a bit higher than the lowest armor+shield of heavily armoured units to simulate the low lethality rate.Both pila and javelins put the soldiers,armoured or not,out of combat if they directly them directly thus a volley of javelins/pila by two (~500 men=~500 javelins/pila per throw) or more units is devastating whereas archers only have a chance of inflicting low casualties to armoured units if they fire to the units rear.
I have not yet touched upon slingers but I plant to.Also I made cost changes to Psiloi units seeing as they were the poorest of the poor if not helots or slaves and completely without armour.

I would be very glad to provide you with the file if you it matches the course of the mod so feel free to ask.Also it would be nice to see a phalanx formation for hoplites but not equipped with sarisses.I had modded RTR VII and added shield wall to all hoplites to simulate their way of fighting and their formation but I am aware that the ability is only available in BI.Still if something similar could be added I'd be overjoyed.

Regarding cities I only have a minor complaint.I feel like cities like Syracuse should have a higher trade income.I am not very familiar with how the base trade income is calculated per city but it just feels wrong to have a tax income twice the amount of trade income in cities like that.Athens as counterexample is of course the most proficient city in the general balkan area and of course the capital of a faction so it makes sense that its trade revenue is going to be juicy (still feels slightly underestimated). However I have no idea as to the actual trade activities of the cities at that time or if it is even possible to mod trade for each settlement individually so if you've done your reasearch or the game restricts you from doing altering trade,never mind me.

One last addition I would like to see is an integration system for newly conquered cities,especially larger ones,perhaps similar to what RTR VII had.It added a level of extra planning to waging war and incorporating cities into one's state and above all it was realistic as Romans and Greeks actively did so in different ways,mind you.

That's all for now.Keep the dream alive and thanks for the awesome mod.

[Agarax]

So I'm doing the Roman campaign and am having trouble with unrest after invading N. Africa.

Even with enough soldiers to max out at 80% and low taxes, I still get revolts and am constantly re-conquering territories before I can build out enough structures to get everything under control.

Am I missing something?

[Saul Tyre]

Regarding cities I only have a minor complaint.I feel like cities like Syracuse should have a higher trade income.I am not very familiar with how the base trade income is calculated per city but it just feels wrong to have a tax income twice the amount of trade income in cities like that.Athens as counterexample is of course the most proficient city in the general balkan area and of course the capital of a faction so it makes sense that its trade revenue is going to be juicy (still feels slightly underestimated). However I have no idea as to the actual trade activities of the cities at that time or if it is even possible to mod trade for each settlement individually so if you've done your reasearch or the game restricts you from doing altering trade,never mind me.

One last addition I would like to see is an integration system for newly conquered cities,especially larger ones,perhaps similar to what RTR VII had.It added a level of extra planning to waging war and incorporating cities into one's state and above all it was realistic as Romans and Greeks actively did so in different ways,mind you.

That's all for now.Keep the dream alive and thanks for the awesome mod.

Our team at RTR Project are as I type preparing v4.0 for release hopefully in early summer. Many of the points you touch on here are being addressed with some major changes being made & much time consuming hard work being done, keep the faith

[Vrosivs Avgvstvs Rakvs]

So I'm doing the Roman campaign and am having trouble with unrest after invading N. Africa.

Even with enough soldiers to max out at 80% and low taxes, I still get revolts and am constantly re-conquering territories before I can build out enough structures to get everything under control.

Am I missing something?

Try exterminating the populace, if they are too rebellious, that should do the trick as far as I can remember

[Saul Tyre]

Try exterminating the populace, if they are too rebellious, that should do the trick as far as I can remember

HAIL!!! Vrosivs the Ruthless: Ethnic cleanser

[Vrosivs Avgvstvs Rakvs]

HAIL!!! Vrosivs the Ruthless: Ethnic cleanser

Hahahah, whoops It's just stimulation by negative reinforcement mate

Btw don't worry about the double post, deleted

[Agarax]

Try exterminating the populace, if they are too rebellious, that should do the trick as far as I can remember

Nope, that doesn't work. Even when the population gets cut down to 400, they will still revolt and throw off a full stack of troops.

[The Young Pretender]

Question about unit sizes....

So I'm playing as Carthage and am building up my base in Iberia, in hopes of Spanish mines funding my war against Rome, and I've noticed that my unit sizes come out different than what is advertised.

For example, Liby-Phoenician infantry is a unit of 61 men, but after a fresh unit is created it only gives me 31. Huh? Same with Cavalry. A Caestrati cavalry unit from Mastia says 51 in recruitment yet only gives me 26. I've noticed this for Roman and other factions. Full stack armies against one another but come battle time they look like more like skirmishes than epic battles.

???

[The Young Pretender]

And I've had the same problemsize as Agarax. I've had to reconquer Arse twice, multiple exterminations with high influence general, annihilating population, low taxes and still deep red flirting with insurrection.

[ahowl11]

Hello and thanks for your feedback. I have no idea how the unit sizes are being strange but for public order it's like BI, where if your culture of your generals differs from that of the region it will generate unrest. We are working on a system that will make it easier for players to integrate foreign settlements into their desired culture

[General Gordon]

I take it I can use v3.0 v3.1 for Rome total War only, without requiring the Alexander Expansion

Actually I have Rome Total War, which includes as you know Barbarian Invasio. Suppose it won-t work for BI though.

[ahowl11]

No you need Rome Total War Alexander, it's the only way it will work.

[joethepro36]

I've run through a Roman campaign under Challenging/Challenging to turn 213. I think I'm going to leave the campaign there in part to feeling its lost its challenge and in part because of the crashes, bugs and yet to be polished aspects. Its in a good state, definitely feels like a beta and not an alpha stage. For context I've played previous versions of RTR in the past but I don't post here frequently. Some feedback I have:

Arrows and archery seems a bit too powerful when compared with other projectiles such as javelins. I think the javelin power and range is perfect as is but as it stands, arrows do more damage which is inappropriate. I have had many siege battles in which arrows have been able to pick off large amounts of principes stationary behind the battlements. For balance they should be weaker than javelins. They do have the range advantage already by miles. Conversely, the arrows from tower defences are quite pathetic and pose no real danger to enemy units. They also have much lower range than arrows from units, which I can accept but then damage needs to be buffed in exchange for balance. They should be buffed a little imo as seeing the front gatehouse double towers struggle to kill half a unit of weaker tier peltasts over 40 minutes of battle is silly.

I know the iberians have been addressed but they are indeed OP. They just roll over everyone else and spam useless fleets. The sheer spam of them is a little funny, at one point it was just a stack wipe every turn for many 20 turns. The proportion of cavalry in barbarian factions also seems very high, like 80-90% cav at times. It's uncommon to see less than 50% cavalry. Not sure if historical but its a bit wacky seeing my 50th siege defence involve a thousand horses charging between the palisades into a wall of heavy roman inf.

Carthage also seems very reluctant to launch naval invasions and indeed the only army I saw outside of north africa was in iberia just sitting idle near an iberian city while carthage was at war with them. Furthermore naval invasions by the AI doesn't really seem to happen in general.

Diplomacy has the issue of enemy factions being extremely reluctant to accept peace. I never declared war myself, war always came to me. By the campaign's end I had been at war with the celts, carthage, gauls, iberians, illyrians, greeks. The celts peaced out on their own early on, the only example of a single ceasefire on its own being offered. All other factions except carthage rejected peace at all times with carthage accepting a peace they first presented that was cut down to ceasefire + 137k denarii from me. Could have been a fluke of the campaign but seeing the enemy 100% blockaded, unable to launch any invasions, defeated in the field with their colonies in sicily held by myself for 150+ turns still demanding 137k denarii + their colonies back is a little immersion breaking.

The balance of roman forces is quite nice, earlier on I particularly relied on velites in large numbers. I think the javelin power is very good and the 1 turn recruit timer makes them very attractive in addition to the lower cost of maintenance. The core of roman inf, hastati, principes and triarii are well rounded and each have their place. Principes are definitely the core main unit as they should be.

Experience gain from battles is far too low. It's really rare to build veterancy. Like 700 kills to about 10 losses on a principes unit and no vet gain. That's like 3 kills a man. I've seen kill ratios higher than that without experience gain also. I think the large vet bonuses from highly developed cities such as rome is a good thing, maybe should be toned down a little so you can't native recruit gold vet units but its a nice touch to get solid, well trained troops from the outset. What is important is the ability for units to gain veterency being improved in the field. 2x at least imo, otherwise its non-existant and its the training on build thats the only factor.

As you well know, bridge battles are an automatic crash to desktop however there is another ctd you can get that's similar. At the bottom of sicily if you have a battle next to the strait and a unit is present on the other side and tries to reinforce, it will cause a crash when the reinforcements are to enter the battle.

Naval trade is a joke also. Appreciate the desire to make land trade useful and all but sea trade is tiny, like barely worth building for. You're generally better off building the land trade buildings. Naval trade was nerfed too hard imo. 13k trade income in a city and its like 700 denarii naval trade with epic trade + navigation.

Peasants are 6-7k to build and 1k maintance. Known bug?


I think I'll play the campaign again from one of my favourite factions, Pontus and let you know of their perspective.

[Saul Tyre]

As Vrosivs our Head of PR is is on holiday and ahowl11 our Project Leader is very busy preparing the new release and may not find time to answer, I am happy to reply to your feedback, tho' they may also reply at a later date.

I've run through a Roman campaign under Challenging/Challenging to turn 213. I think I'm going to leave the campaign there in part to feeling its lost its challenge and in part because of the crashes, bugs and yet to be polished aspects. Its in a good state, definitely feels like a beta and not an alpha stage. For context I've played previous versions of RTR in the past but I don't post here frequently. Some feedback I have:

Arrows and archery seems a bit too powerful when compared with other projectiles such as javelins. I think the javelin power and range is perfect as is but as it stands, arrows do more damage which is inappropriate. I have had many siege battles in which arrows have been able to pick off large amounts of principes stationary behind the battlements. For balance they should be weaker than javelins. They do have the range advantage already by miles. Conversely, the arrows from tower defences are quite pathetic and pose no real danger to enemy units. They also have much lower range than arrows from units, which I can accept but then damage needs to be buffed in exchange for balance. They should be buffed a little imo as seeing the front gatehouse double towers struggle to kill half a unit of weaker tier peltasts over 40 minutes of battle is silly.

I know the iberians have been addressed but they are indeed OP. They just roll over everyone else and spam useless fleets. The sheer spam of them is a little funny, at one point it was just a stack wipe every turn for many 20 turns. The proportion of cavalry in barbarian factions also seems very high, like 80-90% cav at times. It's uncommon to see less than 50% cavalry. Not sure if historical but its a bit wacky seeing my 50th siege defence involve a thousand horses charging between the palisades into a wall of heavy roman inf.

Much will be changed with the release of v4.0, Archers & Javs are rebalanced, new Factions and power rebalance, new units & costs, starting economy rebalance & much more, many bugs will be fixed, including the bridge battle.

Carthage also seems very reluctant to launch naval invasions and indeed the only army I saw outside of north africa was in iberia just sitting idle near an iberian city while carthage was at war with them. Furthermore naval invasions by the AI doesn't really seem to happen in general.

Carthage naval invasions can be increased by going into your directory/data/descr_sm_factions > scroll to Carthage and change prefers_naval_invasions NO to YES > go to file (top left corner) save and close.

Diplomacy has the issue of enemy factions being extremely reluctant to accept peace. I never declared war myself, war always came to me. By the campaign's end I had been at war with the celts, carthage, gauls, iberians, illyrians, greeks. The celts peaced out on their own early on, the only example of a single ceasefire on its own being offered. All other factions except carthage rejected peace at all times with carthage accepting a peace they first presented that was cut down to ceasefire + 137k denarii from me. Could have been a fluke of the campaign but seeing the enemy 100% blockaded, unable to launch any invasions, defeated in the field with their colonies in sicily held by myself for 150+ turns still demanding 137k denarii + their colonies back is a little immersion breaking.

Diplomacy has always been a problem with RTW but you can use Forced Diplomacy to overcome this. Engage your diplomat, make your demands, click on the (?) in the top right corner, the adviser will appear, click on the "show me how" button and as long as your demands are not impossible they will be met.

As you well know, bridge battles are an automatic crash to desktop however there is another ctd you can get that's similar. At the bottom of sicily if you have a battle next to the strait and a unit is present on the other side and tries to reinforce, it will cause a crash when the reinforcements are to enter the battle.

That's an issue with the land bridge, it's not fixable so if you're fighting a battle and there's a reinforcing army, either autoresolve or wait until that reinforcing army moves away.

Naval trade is a joke also. Appreciate the desire to make land trade useful and all but sea trade is tiny, like barely worth building for. You're generally better off building the land trade buildings. Naval trade was nerfed too hard imo. 13k trade income in a city and its like 700 denarii naval trade with epic trade + navigation.

With this mod income is best obtained by farms.

Peasants are 6-7k to build and 1k maintance. Known bug?

It was made that way purposely to stop the AI spamming of peasants.

I think I'll play the campaign again from one of my favourite factions, Pontus and let you know of their perspective.

You are playing the 3.0 version, is there a reason why you did not upgrade to the 3.1 version which improved some (but not all) of the problems with 3.0? Like I have said v4.0 will be released in the not to distant future, there has been a lot of hard work, historical research, time and effort gone into the many changes and improvements to create a stage of realism on which to play, I'm sure you will find it worth a visit and we will be happy to receive your feedback once again

[Lealo]

I love it. Escpically the map is so great.

A small ciricism on the map is that here are so many river crossings - maybe you could somehow change the look if them/of it.

Then I wonder if you are supossed to play the superfactions - if that is the case, they need a lot of balancing, and change. Then there is a need of guides and more info on the how the unit stats are working. How has a phalanx unit around 23 in attack, while a hoplite has 14? (In action the phalanx dont seem to have have that kind of attack stats). I also like how battle balance is made right now. Infantry seems to be the most important factor right now. And exhaustion is geat.

Overall i really like it! Good job.