How can I improve my RTW experience?

[Wartoga]

I picked up RTW only recently, and while I enjoyed it a great deal at first, by the end of my first Imperial Campaign I was very frustrated at many aspects of the game. I was hoping the community here might be able to suggest some mods/fixes for these problems.

1. The AI is very weak, both on the campaign map and in battle. In particular it's very easy to win battles with minimal losses while destroying the computer's forces utterly by exploiting the morale system. The AI fields too much infantry, too little cavalry and artillery, and rarely flanks. Any AI fixes out there?

2. Speaking of morale, I like the concept, but the armies rout much too easily. I wish I could adjust the overall morale level of all units in the game upwards.

3. I wish the battles played out more like historical ones, with big infantry clashes playing the central role in deciding the outcome on the battlefield. Instead I find that in the hands of the player cavalries dominate by forcing routs via demoralizing flanking charges.

4. I wish I was able to enjoy the cinematic close up view of the battles more often. As it stands, I spent all my time zoomed out babysitting my cavalries, who constantly need to be maneuvered into flanking positions and kept away from pursuing infantry, with which they are liable to get into deadly melee. I wish I could automate cavalries to act as skirmishers who charge and then withdraw.

5. I've grown to hate managing my empire. Once you have more than a dozen cities, figuring out what to build and where each turn gets very boring. Do I really need to worry about sewage disposal? I'd rather play as general than administrator. I've gotten very frustrated dealing with constantly spawning rebel armies as well.

6. I don't like shrine and weapons upgrades for units, especially shrine veterancy upgrades that can be conferred to all newly hired units. It's rather too easy to assemble armies that stack these bonuses and steamroll the inferior unupgraded troops.

7. Same goes for generals. They eventually grow too powerful to be fun. I enjoy the traits aspect of family members, but I wish they stayed as more characters and less juggernauts. More quirks, less command stars.

8. I hate how a nation's units are colored with the nation's main color. The Pink Parthans and topless pajama party barbarians are especially bad. I'd like to see units wearing normal looking outfits.

9. The obvious fantasy units really get on my nerves. I was still willing to tolerate Druid infantry, but my suspension of disbelief really broke down when I discovered I could recruit Roman ninjas. I'd rather have a smaller variety of troops in the game than fantasy troops.

10. The technological progression seems to go too slowly. By the time I finished my world domination campaign as Romans about 35 years into the game, my armies still predominantly consisted of Hastati an Equitates, because that's what most towns were capable of producing. Marius reforms happened about 5 turns before I conquered that last province on the map. I'd like to have either faster availability of newer troops, or am option to start the game at a later time period with different troops.

11. I enjoyed being directed in some of my goals by the Senate and rewarded for accomplishing them. Too bad the politics turned out to be a dud. I'd like to have a scripted/directed component to my playing experience.

So, TLDR:

I'd like to play a game/mod with better AI, less cavalry, less empire and build management, less stat stacking for units and generals, more emphasis on combined unit battlefield tactics with less twitch micromanagement, more opportunity to enjoy the action cinematically, some direction to my goals, more robust unit morale, no fantasy units, and better access to higher tier units.

Anything like that for me out there?

[Genius of the Restoration]

I'll give it a go. Have you played other factions by the way? Rome is very easy.

1. Try Darthmod

2. What difficulty were you playing at? Higher difficulty settings give a morale bonus to the enemy (as well as attack) making them harder to rout. A good enemy general will help with that as well.

3. That's part of RTW vanilla I'm afraid. A number of mods reduce the size of cav units to make them less effective.

4. I'm not sure if a mod has done this. It's only really the job of skirmishing cavalry to do this, while the special button for other cav is usually wedge which suits their role better.

5. You can just ignore most of it if you want, especially areas nowhere near the front. Queue up buildings and units and set rally points so you don't have to worry about them each turn.

6. Maybe don't build those shrines. I don't know if you can turn them off through editing without mods.

7. Less victories! Use them as governors instead if you don't like them becoming too powerful.

8. Many realism mods change this.

9. CA appealing to the masses I suppose. Again, a realism mod changes this.

10. This is partly game play. It's possible to get Marian Reforms much earlier than this. In general, population can expand as fast as you can conquer but what holds you back are the build times for the structures. That's not a big worry though, 70 turns in is plenty of time to have Urbans if you play your cards right. Try BI if you've got it, the Romans start off being able to produce most of all their units. I like racing to the next level though, and playing with many higher-tier units enabled makes the early ones seem like a waste to have as an option IMHO.

11. Not sure which mods can help you here.

I'd like to play a game/mod with better AI, less cavalry, less empire and build management, less stat stacking for units and generals, more emphasis on combined unit battlefield tactics with less twitch micromanagement, more opportunity to enjoy the action cinematically, some direction to my goals, more robust unit morale, no fantasy units, and better access to higher tier units.

Anything like that for me out there?

Go a realism mod. EB, RTR and RS are some good ones.

[Magic_8_Ball]

1. The AI is hard codded, so there's no fixing that. You can raise difficulty, but that only increases morale, not skill. The only fix to this I can see is multiplayer Being an MP junkie, I recommend it. Darth mod and SPQR does a few tweaks from what I here (haven't tried either of them), but as far as the AI's choice of maneuvers, nothing is changed.

2. Increase difficulty.

3. I think there are mods that do this, but not all battles had infantry playing a main role historically. Of course, with the Romans, armies were made of almost all infantry, but with the Scythians, pretty much every soldier was mounted.

4. I don't think there's a way to fix this... the best view when you're playing a battle is normally zoomed out as much as possible. That way, you can see all the action. If you wish to zoom in and enjoy the ongoings, save a replay (but I don't think you can do this in campaign =/). If you don't want to micromanage your troops individually, then sorry, but fighting battles isn't for you. I recommend MP if you wanna get better at micromanagement on the battlefield.

5. You could set your cities on automanage once you have a stable economy going.

6. Then simply don't use them.

7. Not sure if there's a way to prevent this, besides killing all your good gens off by doing something like boarding them on a weak fleet. Genius' suggestion could work I guess, but I think not having a gen present has a morale effect, which could add a bit of a challenge. Whether you want this or not is for you to decide.

8. Mods.

9. Don't use them and mods...

10. That's just you not building units... also, you'll never get to Marius Reforms without building shrines (I think... been a long time since a campaign), and since you hate upgrades, you can't use temples. No temples, no upgrades, and no reforms.

11. Don't think they'res a fix to this one.

[|Sith| Max]

TL;DR: get a mod or join a clan.

[General Nuisance esq]

TL;DR: get a mod or join a clan.

avoid ones beginning with S

[Magic_8_Ball]

avoid ones beginning with S

Cold, my friend, cold. What clan are you in? I could probably put a good rant on it depending on what it is.

Unless you're clanless, I guess. Besides, what do you have against Sith?

Also, our clan begins with "|" not "S".

[Wartoga]

Thanks for replying everyone, especially Genius.

1. Does Darthmod work with other mods? Is it included with them?

3. I finished a full campaign on N/N as Romans and it was extremely easy (but VERY tedious management-wise). Then I finished a short Gauls campaign on H/H and it was still not challenging much, although the computer surprised me initially by pulling extra armies out of Dimension X. I still haven't made up my mind whether that's an improvement.

Which of the major mods do you think might suit my requirements better? Emphasis on non-cheese difficulty and improved battlefield experience.

I downloaded RTR-PE. Played a few random battles. Certainly looks much nicer, but still very easy to win. Haven't played the campaign yet.

Rest:

Not sure how joining a clan would help me with most of my problems?

I could certainly restrict myself from doing some of the more exploitable things in the game, but it's hard to play that way, constantly stopping yourself from pursuing the best available solution and wondering if what you're about to do is "ok". I'd much rather have the game enforce the rules.

[{GrailKnight}]

Thanks for replying everyone, especially Genius.

1. Does Darthmod work with other mods? Is it included with them?

3. I finished a full campaign on N/N as Romans and it was extremely easy (but VERY tedious management-wise). Then I finished a short Gauls campaign on H/H and it was still not challenging much, although the computer surprised me initially by pulling extra armies out of Dimension X. I still haven't made up my mind whether that's an improvement.

Which of the major mods do you think might suit my requirements better? Emphasis on non-cheese difficulty and improved battlefield experience.

I downloaded RTR-PE. Played a few random battles. Certainly looks much nicer, but still very easy to win. Haven't played the campaign yet.

Rest:

Not sure how joining a clan would help me with most of my problems?

I could certainly restrict myself from doing some of the more exploitable things in the game, but it's hard to play that way, constantly stopping yourself from pursuing the best available solution and wondering if what you're about to do is "ok". I'd much rather have the game enforce the rules.

You never mentioned about playing MP so i assume you think clans are affiliated with campaign?.....

[|Sith| Max]

mods improve Single-Player, Clans improve Multi-Player

[Zarax]

1. The AI is very weak

As already suggested DarthMod helps with that and it's included on several mods.

2. Speaking of morale, I like the concept, but the armies rout much too easily.

Pretty much every mod around allows for slower, more complex battles.

3. I wish the battles played out more like historical ones, with big infantry clashes playing the central role in deciding the outcome on the battlefield.

XGM with the 2hp option should be something that you may like.

4. I wish I could automate cavalries to act as skirmishers who charge and then withdraw.

Unfortunately that's not possible.

5. I've grown to hate managing my empire. Once you have more than a dozen cities, figuring out what to build and where each turn gets very boring. Do I really need to worry about sewage disposal? I'd rather play as general than administrator. I've gotten very frustrated dealing with constantly spawning rebel armies as well.

Most mods actually make this aspect more complex, however in many cases the greater depth makes it more fun than the routine that is in vanilla.

6. I don't like shrine and weapons upgrades for units, especially shrine veterancy upgrades that can be conferred to all newly hired units.

Most mods retain that aspect one way or the other, some more some less.

7. Same goes for generals. They eventually grow too powerful to be fun. I enjoy the traits aspect of family members, but I wish they stayed as more characters and less juggernauts. More quirks, less command stars.

If you want traits that actually challenge you try Extended Cultures, it will rock your world on that side.

8. I hate how a nation's units are colored with the nation's main color. The Pink Parthans and topless pajama party barbarians are especially bad. I'd like to see units wearing normal looking outfits.

EB (and I think RTR as well) do away with factional colors entirely, many mods tends to at least tone them down.

9. The obvious fantasy units really get on my nerves. I was still willing to tolerate Druid infantry, but my suspension of disbelief really broke down when I discovered I could recruit Roman ninjas. I'd rather have a smaller variety of troops in the game than fantasy troops.

All the big mods (EB, RTR, RS, XGM, XC, DTW) deals with that.

10. The technological progression seems to go too slowly. By the time I finished my world domination campaign as Romans about 35 years into the game, my armies still predominantly consisted of Hastati an Equitates, because that's what most towns were capable of producing. Marius reforms happened about 5 turns before I conquered that last province on the map. I'd like to have either faster availability of newer troops, or am option to start the game at a later time period with different troops.

Any mod with a decent AOR system will greatly compensate that with increased unit variety, too many to list.

11. I enjoyed being directed in some of my goals by the Senate and rewarded for accomplishing them. Too bad the politics turned out to be a dud. I'd like to have a scripted/directed component to my playing experience.

*grin* It's great to find another senate player here.
Extended Cultures keeps the senate, although for Carthage rather than the romans.
It also makes it less annoying (less penalties and longer mission times) so you might like it,

Anything like that for me out there?

No single mod will probably give you all at once but many will cover at least one side of what you're asking.

XGM is usually suggested as a good mod for beginners to start with, while XC, EB, RS, RTR or Darth are all excellent choices to follow into deeper experiences.

My personal suggestion is to see which mods are mod-foldered (so they can be used with other mods) and try them all.

[Zekey]

Just play online, much more challenging.

[|Sith| Max]

crudely stated but true.

[empr guy]

crudely stated but true.

when your right your right
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MP is good if your main complaints are about the battles, you can always find someone who plays better then the AI, even most of the new players can do better (or at least do something unexpected). (although once i played a 2V2, my ally left, i was trying numidia for the first time and got owned, i looked over, and the computer had routed its enemy with at least half its army undamaged...)

If its about the campaign use mods.

[|Sith| Max]

when your right your right
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MP is good if your main complaints are about the battles, you can always find someone who plays better then the AI, even most of the new players can do better (or at least do something unexpected). (although once i played a 2V2, my ally left, i was trying numidia for the first time and got owned, i looked over, and the computer had routed its enemy with at least half its army undamaged...)

If its about the campaign use mods.

yeah the AI has moments of sporadic brilliance at times. sometimes when i lag out and quit the game me mates tell me that my army is owning the out of the opposition... when that happens ya know the army is beast.

[Siegfriedfr]

1) playing campaigns you cant avoid managing cities. Alleviate the pain by right clicking the city tab instead of each city and define a personnal construction template so that you do not have to "think" for long everytime a city comes up (which is for me public order when city yellow/recently conquered and military when green/core cities);

2) only play on very hard, the morale bonus will ensure the enemy armies only routs when low on numbers; expect anal pain the first few battles after you notice killing the enemy general does nothing.

3) roma surrectum and europa barbarum are my 2 favorites mods; the first for its quality graphics and overall fixation of vanilla, the secoond for its heavy scripting which really makes the world comes more alive and involving;

4) the AI is mostly hardcoded, so you'll have to live with it!

The game got quiet old, but the scenery is still nice!

[Plant]

You want a better battle AI?
Hate managing your Empire and want less Management?
No mod does that. Except...

...Multiplayer
...the best Mod you'll ever play.

[Entropy Judge]

1. The AI is very weak, both on the campaign map and in battle. In particular it's very easy to win battles with minimal losses while destroying the computer's forces utterly by exploiting the morale system. The AI fields too much infantry, too little cavalry and artillery, and rarely flanks. Any AI fixes out there?

The Darthmod is the closest thing I've heard of, and while it doesn't 'fix' the AI (it's hardcoded), IIRC (and I've never used it, so hearsay) it does change the AI's formations and adjust when they do certain maneuvers.

2. Speaking of morale, I like the concept, but the armies rout much too easily. I wish I could adjust the overall morale level of all units in the game upwards.

You can, it's just a bit of a pain to do it for every unit. Open up the export_units_descr.txt file and give everyone a +10 or so to their Morale.

3. I wish the battles played out more like historical ones, with big infantry clashes playing the central role in deciding the outcome on the battlefield. Instead I find that in the hands of the player cavalries dominate by forcing routs via demoralizing flanking charges.

Don't use Cavalry and Archers to beat-stomp the AI like you were a 30th level Blackguard spiking a baby? Here the problem is that you're abusing the system and then complaining about it. In any case, almost every major mod tones down the Cavalry at least a bit and makes them more expensive.

5. I've grown to hate managing my empire. Once you have more than a dozen cities, figuring out what to build and where each turn gets very boring. Do I really need to worry about sewage disposal? I'd rather play as general than administrator. I've gotten very frustrated dealing with constantly spawning rebel armies as well.

The only mod I've played (Europa Barbarorum) actually makes empire management significantly more 'complex' ... but also gives you some buildings that take 30+ turns to complete. In fact, few buildings take less than 4 turns to build (IIRC - it's been quite a while since I've played). There's also a way to lower or eliminate the frequency Brigands spawn at, but as I've never had issues with it, I don't know where it is.

6. I don't like shrine and weapons upgrades for units, especially shrine veterancy upgrades that can be conferred to all newly hired units. It's rather too easy to assemble armies that stack these bonuses and steamroll the inferior unupgraded troops.

Don't use Temple upgrades to beat-stomp the AI like you were a 30th level Blackguard spiking a baby?

7. Same goes for generals. They eventually grow too powerful to be fun. I enjoy the traits aspect of family members, but I wish they stayed as more characters and less juggernauts. More quirks, less command stars.

Use them as Governors, Roleplay their traits, put them on ships and disband the ships ... play EB, which makes Command Stars much more difficult to get ... one of the better things Generals are good for is clearing out those pesky Rebels and Brigands that spawn in with 4 units. 3-4 Cav + a General is good for several regions.

8. I hate how a nation's units are colored with the nation's main color. The Pink Parthans and topless pajama party barbarians are especially bad. I'd like to see units wearing normal looking outfits.

Mods.

9. The obvious fantasy units really get on my nerves. I was still willing to tolerate Druid infantry, but my suspension of disbelief really broke down when I discovered I could recruit Roman ninjas. I'd rather have a smaller variety of troops in the game than fantasy troops.

Mods. They tend to have more realistic units, and often have a large variety of units as well.

10. The technological progression seems to go too slowly. By the time I finished my world domination campaign as Romans about 35 years into the game, my armies still predominantly consisted of Hastati an Equitates, because that's what most towns were capable of producing. Marius reforms happened about 5 turns before I conquered that last province on the map. I'd like to have either faster availability of newer troops, or am option to start the game at a later time period with different troops.

In Vanilla Rome, Marian Reforms occur when you get a city in Italy (except Rome) to Huge Size/Imperial Palace. Mods may change if/when any reforms occur ... EB, for example, actually has *4* Reforms for the Romans, 3 for the Celtic nations, and at least one for just about every faction anyway. How long it takes you to get them ... can take quite a while, honestly, but in EB, you usually won't be conquering the World before getting at least one Reform.

I'd like to play a game/mod with better AI, less cavalry, less empire and build management, less stat stacking for units and generals, more emphasis on combined unit battlefield tactics with less twitch micromanagement, more opportunity to enjoy the action cinematically, some direction to my goals, more robust unit morale, no fantasy units, and better access to higher tier units.

I'd recommend Europa Barbarorum (Linked by Genius of the Restoration) - it has more expensive and less broken Cavalry, more even units (in general) and Family Members, much higher Morale and Defense for units (results in longer combats), specific goals for each individual faction (in the form of specific Regions to be held or raided in order to win), and a vastly superior unit selection. Higher tier units are not necessarily better than lower-tiered ones, and fantasy units do not exist - one unit was actually taken out because there was dispute on whether it existed or not. On the con side, it does have a significantly more complex Building system, which can be a bit of a pain when you start the game running out of money, and once you get a lot of money Cavalry are still quite capable of mashing most armies. I do not recall if there is any significant improvement to the AI (it seems like it sometimes), but I also believe the Darthmod is compatible with it, or can be made compatible.

[Dave Strider]

Almost all of that can be solved with Roma Surrectum, try that

[Entropy Judge]

2) only play on very hard, the morale bonus will ensure the enemy armies only routs when low on numbers; expect anal pain the first few battles after you notice killing the enemy general does nothing.

Two things to note for this one:
1) Very Hard Battle, to make sure - Campaign Difficulty has no effect on Battles. Obvious, but sometimes the obvious is necessary.
2) There is also an Attack and Defense Skill modifier with Very Hard, so not only will the units not rout very often, they will be able to significantly outperform your own units with similar stats.

[Tay333]

Get a mod like RTR but if you like the senate (I don't) that mod gets rid of them.You could impose restrictions on yourself like only use certain units or only attack certain factions.That can make the game harder but it wont get rid of those things you don't like.