thus far...

**GershomPatmos** · May 24, 2007, 08:30 PM

Ok - thus far I've played as a few factions:
Rome
Syracuse
Greece
Parthia

I didn't try Carthage or Seleukia b/c I felt those two factions might be too "easy" with their size, but I do plan on giving a try to a few more factions soon also: Germanic tribes, Ptolemies, and Gauls (possibly Gettae also).

So far I feel that Rome is a bit easy to spew out a war machine in the beginning, though it is strategically set up for some very good battles. I like giving the hastati, principes, and triarii the "shield wall" formation for BI when I play as I feel it's a bit "historical" due to Rome's use of tight formations and historical accounts such as the later fight against Boudicca. Rome pretty much faced straight forward when battling.

As Syracuse it was a difficult starting position, as I mentioned - but it gets "better" after taking the island over. If you decide to take Carthago (the main city) - it becomes a cakewalk as you soon have ability to create all units and a large cashflow. Then you can sack Rome too...and it's uphill for you...downhill for everyone else as you can begin to blitz them all! But I think Rome is set up the same too if you just take the peninsula then move to sicily also. Then you can jump right over to Carthago.

Greece was a bit of fun (still haven't went back to it yet). I like the small beginning size, the challenge of Macedonians breathing down your neck, and the free slave factions there controlling some "key" territory also. You have to try to befriend one or the other (Macedon or free slaves) while attacking the other. Or go for the free slaves which you can't align with. Overall it's probably "medium" - I didn't take Sparta yet...so we'll see.

Parthia was actually more challenging in the beginning because I had no clue where the surrounding cities were located. And when you don't have fast routes between your two starting cities - you pretty much have to gamble. It was challenging to begin with. I even took campus scythii and then had to lose it...but once I realized I could turn out horse archers to "take care of business" - the opposition is starting to become "nothing". In fact...that's exactly what Seleukia is...I'm rolling over them with my horse archers just firing on all cylinders while they're trying to use stupid pike phalanx men or whatever. I easily take 700 men versus their 2000 or so and crush them because they can't run fast enough. It's quite funny, but quite sad also. I'll post a pic soon of one outcome.

gotta go - later all!
Gersh

P.S. Think I saw one unit without a proper UI card...checking on it.

**Deus ret.** · May 25, 2007, 05:49 AM

Originally Posted by GershomPatmos

It's quite funny, but quite sad also. I'll post a pic soon of one outcome.

Well, that's the way when fighting with HAs against pikes, or regular infantry for the record. I know of no mods who change this, and it wouldn't be a good change since this is quite historical - over the course of time the Parthians threw the SE out of the East and even threatened their heartland Mesopotamia before long. By the time they conquered the area, the SE had been subdued by the Romans who also had no real recipe against Parthian combat tactics (Carrhae is the most outstanding example) and only managed to inflict the occasional defeat on Parthian forces.

Playing with HAs against slow infantry is always unfair. In case of the Parthians, it's somewhat evened out as they don't sport capable infantry for city assaults, but few contemporaries wished to face them in the field.

Edit: What, the shield wall formation IS in RS? What a pity the mod doesn't run with BI on my system....

**Drtad** · May 25, 2007, 08:46 AM

Originally Posted by Deus ret.

Well, that's the way when fighting with HAs against pikes, or regular infantry for the record. I know of no mods who change this, and it wouldn't be a good change since this is quite historical - over the course of time the Parthians threw the SE out of the East and even threatened their heartland Mesopotamia before long. By the time they conquered the area, the SE had been subdued by the Romans who also had no real recipe against Parthian combat tactics (Carrhae is the most outstanding example) and only managed to inflict the occasional defeat on Parthian forces.

Playing with HAs against slow infantry is always unfair. In case of the Parthians, it's somewhat evened out as they don't sport capable infantry for city assaults, but few contemporaries wished to face them in the field.

Edit: What, the shield wall formation IS in RS? What a pity the mod doesn't run with BI on my system....

Quite true... except for the fact that it wasn't the Romans who destroyed the Seleucid empire. Look up the successor of Antiochus XII and Phillip I...
Also, it wasn't that they supported weak infantry for assaults, they supported no infantry.

With the exception of weak foot archers.

**Squid** · May 25, 2007, 08:23 AM

No, shield_wall isn't in RTW, you have to add it to the EDU and then run the game using the BI executable. This is a pain because shield wall would be great to be able to use.

**cherryfunk** · May 25, 2007, 08:43 AM

I know that swimming apparently causes problems in RTW, can we try sheildwall? It would be fantastic if we could add it as a feature.

**dvk901** · May 25, 2007, 10:32 AM

As for swimming and shieldwall.....I've been looking into this and I don't think swimming was the issue with the bridges. So we can probably put both in. I've narrowed down my 'suspect' to Darth's Bridge formations, which were substituted in the Sinuhet's 7.0 formations by Repman, and which we are using. I'm going to replace them with Sinuhet's originals and see if that fixes it.

**Squid** · May 25, 2007, 10:59 AM

We'd need to create 2 EDU files to implement shield_wall because not everyone has BI, this gets worse when you start swapping factions.

**cherryfunk** · May 25, 2007, 10:59 AM

As for swimming and shieldwall.....I've been looking into this and I don't think swimming was the issue with the bridges. So we can probably put both in.

Yes! I think this is huge -- it will give some units the ability to 'nerf' cavalry, IF they're used correctly, and it will give 'barbarians' some tactical advantages in some situations. Most importantly, it lets us create more unit diversity, so we won't have so many units that just replicate each other -- and it lets us do so without requiring new models or skins.

**dvk901** · May 25, 2007, 11:19 AM

Because of the sheer amount of work, folks, I'm going to have to abandon maintaining double sets of files for a while anyway. I just can't keep up, and it increases the possibilities of mistakes. So for a while, there is just going to be one default set anyway.

But I think Angel told me that having these settings in the EDU didn't bother normal RTW patched to v1.5.

**GershomPatmos** · May 25, 2007, 03:42 PM

well with the latest hotfix...shortcuts were added to the desktop, and one for BI if you have it installed. It only takes a little bit of editing to put in the shield_wall for BI enablement, but to do it for regular RTW? Would be more work...like ya'll say. Could maybe try making the formation "tighter" though for the Romans and the "loose" formation set to a standard spacing.

later,
Gersh

**dvk901** · May 25, 2007, 09:38 PM

EDU isn't the problem, it's maintaining a separate EDB that is. The economy is totally different for '1' turn play. With the recent removal of the senate, and added 'Boii Confederation', the whole '1' turn EDB is toast and has to be done over again. That's why I say, it'll be a while.