Your RTW preferance

[Emperor Tom]

how do you feel about all the mods out for RTW. Do you play souly for the mods or vanilla or do you switch on and off?

[Count De Monet]

Well I for one Do enjoy RTR, EB loads too slow for me. But I also like playing vanilla too. Right now I am currently playing the America's campaign. I will be back to RTW again...perhaps in a week or two.

[empr guy]

i enjoy a well made mod, but i go back to vanilla every now and then.

[leseras]

Mods are fun, but vanilla is still the best to me.

[|Sith| Max]

Since i consider the AI inferior i only play Vanilla MP and one carefully selected excellent ALX mod with a good MP that is supported by its modding crew.
Fighting the pc is just a waste of time so any campaign would need heavy scripting and lots of extra features to keep me interested. so far only Wlesmana with his LOTRTW has managed to do that.

[Dave Strider]

then I recommend Iberia Total War. It has alot of scripting and you can un-install the mod if you don't like it

[HanatielHawk]

I've installed mods, i've modded the game a bit, i play MEII total war and kingdoms now and then but rome is still my favorite vanilla.

[C-Rob]

Mods only in Rome.

Vanilla is... well... it unpleasant to say the least.

[Xerrop]

Haven´t played vanilla very long and therefore never finished a campaign when I bought the game. The game had no athmosphere for me compared to STW or MTW. So I installed three mods (RTR, ROP and EB) short afterwards to find the one fitting my taste best. Therefore my first successful finished campaign was a Spartan one in ROP.

But meanwhile after playing Shogun (btw. where is the option "or have you stopped playing RTW for older TW games" ) I tried a vanilla campaign with the Julii. Now after having unlocked the other factions through my great campaign victory I´m interested in playing a Seleucid, Parthian and German campaign also. And why not trying Barbarian Invasion also? I´m very interested in the era. Have read many books and articles about Late Antiquity and the Dark Ages and seen some interesting movies. Not to mention that some mods like Ruins of Glory or Ages of Darkness II look very promising.

To sum it up I voted for playing both. But with more interest and experience on the mods.

[Emperor Tom]

Currently enjoying a challenging vanilla campaign as the Parthians. Only one ally, Numidia. Enemies Romans, and Scythia.

[|Sith| Max]

In a few years you will realize that its never challenging.

[HanatielHawk]

In a few years you will realize that its never challenging.

Indeed, try Numidia VH/VH and give the AI large boosts and advantages, call that challenging.

[Calisthenis of Dyrrachium]

I play a mixture of Amazon Total War and a heavily self modded Rome Total War.

[Genius of the Restoration]

I play mostly vanilla, but have dabbled in mods a bit over the years.

@Max
"Never challenging" is a bit all-encompassing isn't it? That depends entirely on how you play and how experienced you are with the game.

[|Sith| Max]

Thats why i said "in a few years"

[Soulstrider]

So far I only played vanilla until now but I am probably getting a mod for my next campaign just out of curiosity. I am undecided between EB or RTR .

[|Sith| Max]

go for the one with better AI. its a lot more fun when the opponent doesnt charge his gen into a phalanx.

[NightEye]

^They still do that in both once in a while.

@Soulstrider

If you're all for heavy realism and historical accuracy go for EB. Just get used to longer than usual loading and heavy lag if you got an old PC like mine. There's a lot of unique scripting in it.

The basic version of RTR (Gold/Platinum 1.9) is essentially a realistic version of the vanilla game. Though it has campaign mods such as Fate of Empires and The Iberian Conflict portray actual scenarios in history. It also has Extended Realism which makes RTR's basic campaign closer to that of EB

Edit: But it would be better if give both a try and see what you like. Who knows, you might like both of like I did.

As for my preference, I play mods and a slightly modified vanilla.

[Emperor Tom]

I've been playing TW since 2006...but Parthia is not one of the fations I used much. Also everything on very hard.

[Plant]

I've play Numida VH/VH. It wasn't challenging at all. I conquered Carthage straight away, then sicily then southern Italy. At which point I gave up. Played Spain VH/VH as well...almost the same sequence of events occured. Rather boring really. Multiplayer is so much more challenging.