historic characters, do they exist or not?

[Pandora]

How many of you have yet had the pleasure of encountering a commander whic actually existed in history?. I know that characters such as Caesar and Vercingetorix existed in the original version of the game.
However after playing 2 campaigns at BI i have not encountered a single one, are they removed on purpose by the developers of the game or do you have to do something in order to be able to use them as commanders in your military forces?

Any thoughts on this folks? have you perhaps encountered a real historic commander during your campaigns in BI and would like to talk about the experience? If so feel free to reply. I believe that this issue is something which has to be discussed and therefore i am eagerly awaiting your various replies.

[Lusted]

Erm, in RTw you didn't really get historical characters, you just got people with historical characters names.

[Pandora]

Yes of course but they were still included in a way even if they were not the actual characters

[Goth]

The only leader i can identify from history in bi is emperor valens the ERE Faction Leader

[Slaxx Hatmen]

There's also Shapur II of Persia and his son Ardashir II, Theodoric of the Franks, not to mention Valentuis(Valens Brother)"the Wrathful" and his son.(Cant remember his name, but I've read about him)
But those are the only guys I reconize, everybody else just seem to be made up for the game.

[Pandora]

Can you use these characters in battle? Because i have never encountered them during my campaigns

[Slaxx Hatmen]

Yes you can, you just need to be the faction using them! Because the AI has a bizzare tendency to throw all its best Generals and Kings into backwater towns for ages. So you usually dont see them untill you besiege that backwater town and kill them with ease. Yah pretty stupid I know but hey thats RTW AI!

[Pandora]

:-) i dont usually play the eastern nations because of the fact that i dont like using horse archers and the like in battle. They are much to easy to destroy and they dont cause a lot of casualties. i agree with you on the AI bit however :-) although they have improved it from the original game there are still some minor bugs like the one you mentioned in your message.
Have you encountered any historic commanders in the West?

[Flogger]

I recruited a Hunnic general and his name was Attila. He died before he got to take Rome though.

[COTLOD]

What are you talking about? BI is the only one that actually does have historical characters. Both the East Roman Augustus and Caeser are named appropriately for people that actually existed around their time. The first is Valens, the ERE Augustus, whom I believe is the same Valens who lead the real East Romans in the disaster at Adrianople. The second is Theodosius, the ERE Caeser, who in real life later went under to become Emperor Theodosius I "The Great" and the last Roman Emperor to rule over a united Western and Eastern empire(maybe the last "true" roman emperor seeing as how Justinian and Heraclius were both Byzantine despite Justinians reconquests of the west). I think the WRE augustus, Valentinian, is also named for the co-emperor at the time. As far as I know Vanilla RTW doesn't have any historical characters. Although interestingly enough I got a Hannibal, who was the son of a Hamiclar, was born around 245 BC, and had both traits "Touched by the Gods" and "Military Genius." I thought the game had randomly chosen to give me the great Hannibal Barca so naturally I attempted his legendary march from Spain to Italy. I conquered Spain with Hannibal, but once I reached Gaul, the Gauls kept ****ing with me so I was forced to unleash Hannibal's wrath on Gaul instead of Rome. Was fun watching the Elephants rampaging through the cheap Gallic infantry.

[Pandora]

ok i admit that i may be wrong but i havent been able to recruit any historical charcters at all, how late in the campaigns do they appear?

[Mirconus the Great]

Well, at least I saw a rebel named Spartacus around 73 BC around Capua (at RTW). I also saw Valens at ERE, at BI. I saw a Valentinian at WRE and an Attila at the huns in the 46th decade. I really don't know if they've been randomly put so, but I don't think this is a valid explanation...

[Siddyus]

When I was playing the Hunnic campaign. I got a capt. named Atilla lead a vast army purely made up of horsemen and strangely though he didnt have any traits... he defeated about 4 armies that has about 2500+ soldiers in it. He even managed to march to italy where he got promoted to a general but at that time he was 60+ yrs old then the next turn he died of old age. lol

[Pandora]

Oh thats just bad luck my friend, do you think that he would have been able to conquer rome if he had lived for a few more years?

[Siddyus]

Hmm... actually he could since at that time his army was already besieging rome. only about 2 turns and Rome shall be his. Such an unfortunate event to happen.

[Pandora]

Every general becomes famous as soon as he has died, sad but true. Quae Caret ora Cruore Nostro

[Siddyus]

Right about that comrade. Its so unfortunate that "u must die first" to become famous unlike today. lol

[Pandora]

lol. have you got any other skilled generals leading your armies?

[Siddyus]

Yeah sort of. But unlike Atilla(who's only a cap'n) who defeated many armies and managed to besiege Rome. They didnt perform that well in the battlefield and I never was able to step into Rome again... until now. well, maybe it was also my fault. lol

[Pandora]

No i dont think it was your fault you where just the victim of different circumstances like the roman legions in teutoburg forest