suggestions for RTR VII

[Patronus]

A few suggestions to make the RTR experience better.

1.) Add a silk road structure in the east to increase trade and economic activity. Everytime I play as bactria or the selecuids, it is a freaking ghost town out there, after I conquer my neighbors of course. There is barely a trickle of trade, on land or sea. Historically, that area of the Middle East had lots of sea trading and land trading going on with Asia. Add a few ship and land routes going off the eastern part of the map.

2.) Please give the barbarian factions, the horde ability. It would be historically accurate, and it would definitely make the gameplay more interesting. In fact, giving that ability to all the factions would make the game very fun. If you feel like giving up your capitol city and moving elsewhere with your armies, you should be able to do so.

3.) Add more scripted events. I know RTW BI and MTW2 have certain scripted events, like the Mongol/Hun invasions. This would greatly enhance the game (obviously don't add scripted Hun invasions, but something similar). I think something like a scripted parthian resurgence, where several stacks pop up out of nowhere and several cities defect to the parthians would make the game better. Or perhaps having some Indian armies pop up and invade Bactria. The game really needs this; I know whenever I play as any of the factions out east (parthia, bactria) I got bored very fast. It usually doesn't take much to conquer your neighbor, because you only have one or two to worry about, whereas when you play as the romans or macs' you have quite a few enemies right at the beginning. Scripted events, factual and even counterfactual, would add a lot more value to the gameplay.

4.) revamp experience system. Im just throwing this one out there. I have a lot of trouble getting my troops experienced. Whenever I autoresolve, they get experience, but they also suffer way too many casualties. Don't know if this one can be fixed by the dev team. I doubt it....

[khshayathiya]

1. Yup

2. Yup

3. Yup

4. Smells of hardcode

[Mythos_Ruler]

5) Don't nerf the Macedonians too bad (keep their units strong). I like them. The reason Macedon lost its wars against Rome wasn't because Macedon's soldiers weren't tough, but because of bad tactics and economics. Perhaps making Greek city revolts a constant nuisance would suffice enough to prevent the Macedonian province rush.

[Mythos_Ruler]

6.) Scripted event: Spartan revolts against Macedonian and Achaean players: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...rd_century_BCE

7.) Scripted Event: The Social War, Italian civil war: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_war Could pose a nice challenge to the player who by that time would have a large empire.

9.) Mod warships to look cooler on the campaign map. Currently they're these little dingies.

10.) Add another "Wonder of the World" - Parthenon in Athens.

[Sidus Preclarum]

7.) Scripted Event: The Social War, Italian civil war: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_war Could pose a nice challenge to the player who by that time would have a large empire.

oh, yes, that would be great.

[Orthanner]

11) Sarmatian cavalry: not 'katafractoi' but 'cataphractarii' ('katafractoi' = fully armoured horsemen riding armoured horses while most sarmatians did NOT armour their horses) having bastard swords, not teeth, as melee weapon; recruitment cost and upkeep of sarmatian units should be lowered as cataphractarii made up at least 70% of sarmatian armies (some sources mention 90%).

12) Introduce composite bows for use by Sarmatians/Easterners. These should have higher projectile speed and also better accuracy. Also they should not be affected by rain.

13) Armour piercing for cataphracts. They really NEED it! It's completely unrealistic that they use spears not only for charge so if AI does not change weapon to secondary it's better to tweak primary.

[Canterbury]

Having given up on RTW as glorified eyecandy that can't be redeemed, before I depart I thought I'd contribute a few ideas I've tried [in italics] but haven't seen used in the mods, and a few others which i would've tried if i'd had the skill to create.

Setup
Keep going with the principles behind Metro Naval Mod. Eliminate all walls. This is far more realistic, given that settlements are abstractions of a regions infrastructure, not literal entities, and therefore far more vulnerable to interdiction than the game allows. It’s also better for gameplay, in that if you want to secure your base you'll have to garrison more heavily, slowing down the steamroller, and because the AI is crap on sieges. It also removes Siege Total War with one stroke.

In that vein, radically downgrade trade. Again this is both more realistic [Most current economic history’s of the ancient world attribute 90% of wealth to agriculture, 10% to trade.] and more in tune with a game that is supposed to be about conquest, not being a shopkeeper. Give everyone trade rights at the start with everyone else. Trade exists whether the government wants it or not. having said that, maybe the balance is hardcoded.

If possible, make lower the financial benefit of high and very high taxes while increasing the political penalty. The current system advantages the player because he’s more capable of managing the dissent high tax creates.

Remove spies, assassins and watchtowers. The game doesn’t need superheroes and satellites.

Create a twelve turn a year mod with 1 winter turn and halved movement points. This would also require build costs and times to be multiplied by 3 or 6, depending on the mod. This would give a much more real time experience, in that all armies/navies won’t be able to move so far without the enemy reacting, and possibly help the AI because they wouldn’t go so far off course on the campaign map.

Make any infrastructure where you only spend money free and instant. All barracks, naval dockyards, blacksmiths etc cost nothing and take O turns to build. Again this helps the AI much more than the player because the players choices are so much better. The AI builds generic settlements with a priority on the military side, each with its own barracks etc, while the player builds specialised settlements, some for recruitment, particularly the bigger cities to get the elite troops faster, others for money, shifting the balance between them as his empire develops. The AI doesn’t have that subtlety, and never will. M2TW’s division between Castles and Cities was a crude attempt to impose that division. Giving everyone military infrastructure for free works a lot better, as it makes the AI obsession with it quick and painless and allows them to get on with the important thing in RTW, making money. That, not facilities, is the key to getting a big army and winning the game.

Corruption should rise radically over time, particularly in core areas. This reflects the corruption/exploitation of the nation by the upper class, a well documented historical phenomenon, and the way that the empire has to be constructed to serve the interests of the core regions. This should go so far as to make some areas entirely parasitic. They become financial losers and produce few soldiers.

Make rebels attack settlements. Combined with the “no walls at all” this has the potential to radically alter the game.

Conquered areas outside the factions cultural area should require far more troops for a far longer period of time. Some areas, Spain and Germany in particular, will have repeated rebellions, which should be big and nasty. Some areas, desert North Africa, Persia and the Steppe, should effectively be uncontrollable. Follow the old principle of easy to conquer, hard to rule. Some areas would simply become not worth keeping. And given that slavery was universal in the era, not just in Rome, once any settlement gets to a certain size it should run the risk of a slave rebellion.

Introduce raiding. Certain factions will raid their neighbours irrespective of the relationship at the political level. This takes the form of rebels being spawned on their territory and moving over the border to attack other factions settlements. This can only be “solved” by conquering the area the raiders come from.

Recruitment
Alter mercenary recruitment to reflect political realities. All ancient factions were in reality confederations, some of them very loosely tied, not nation states. The factions heartland should have no mercenaries, as all recruitment there is done through official channels. But further away more mercenaries become available, reflecting the reality that different regions had a far less loyal attitude towards the factions heartland. Mercenaries therefore become troops levied/brought by an invader from intimidated/sympathetic local tribes/cities. If possible, once the region becomes part of the heartland, ie it ceases to be an AOR region, then mercenary recruitment stops. Gaul for example, could only recruit elite units in their settlements, and relied on a boosted number of mercenaries in their own region to bulk up their armies. This replicated the small standing force levels these factions had, while giving them a big surge capacity, but also made them vulnerable to other factions coming in and taking their soldiers.

With mercenaries/levies taking over as the majority of recruitment, make the conversion of a territory into a homeland [with the full range of troop types] take a lot longer, as in at least 400 hundred turns. Even the mods underestimate the amount of time it takes to convert a territory. To use Rome as an example, it wasn’t until after the Social War in the early 1st century BC that northern and southern Italy produced generic “Roman” legions, a full two hundred years [800 turns under 4TPY] after some of them had been conquered. Up until then had their own, distinctive formations that weren’t mixed with formations from other areas. This would be more accurate, balanced and fun, and again helps the computer by stopping the leading faction/the player from getting too far ahead. The player invariably chooses the faction with the best unit roster, which is fair enough, but being able to spam legionnaires isn’t a good idea.

As settlements get larger they should have access to fewer, not more troop types, to the point that huge cities only have access to massively expensive, take forever to build elite units. This is both historically accurate and a good balancing mechanism. As empires develop where they recruit gets pushed further and further out to the borders. The centre starts to atrophy. The best example of this is again the city of Rome. Originally it produced a huge number of legions, but as its empire developed recruitment faded. By the late 1st century AD it was only able to generate enough men for the 5000 man Praetorian Guard. By the early 4th century, just before the Guard was destroyed, it took almost all Italian recruits. Replicating this in the game makes upgrading a settlement a choice with negative and positive consequences, rather just something you do as soon as you’ve go the money to do it. It also stops the leading faction, usually the player, from getting too far ahead of the others by stopping him from his using his invulnerable core to pump out standard faction units. “Elite” units could also be “better trained” versions of standard units that take a lot longer and far more money to build. For example, using RTRPE 1.9, Carthage can produce in Carthage Sacred Band infantry and cavalry, which take 10 turns to build each, as well as experienced elephants, fleets and artillery, which take as long, but not “one unit a turn” Libyan infantry or peltasts or Numidian cavalry. This also encourages the AI factions to build elite units because they can’t do anything else with that settlements recruitment slot.

Battles
Change the base size for infantry to 60 for all, cavalry to thirty for all. The arguments about the relative size of units all miss the point that what is being depicted are not cohorts/regiments but blocks of between 2000 to 3000 infantry and 1000-1500 cavalry, giving each full strength 20 unit army about 50,000 men. What is seen on the battlefield should reflect that overriding fact, not the irrelevant detail of tactical organisation.

Hopefully some of these ideas will be useful to somebody.