Give us your First Impressions!

[MasterOfThessus]

VII is finally released, let's hear what you think of it!

What do you like, and what don't you like? What would you love to see in a patch?

How is the new leadership system working, let's hear it guys!

[Maurits]

Nice initiative MoT! Obviously, I quite like our new additions

[Brusilov]

Started a Spartan campaign - no cavalry and immediately started to lose huge amounts of money from turn 1. I decided to start building an income generating building in the start, sending out my diplomat to get trade rights and peace treaties and trade with those i was at war with.

No cavalry is one thing I will have to put up with - unless I switch to an Antigonid campaign.

The no indication of how large a force is in that army or settlement is OK, I just hope I don't lose my one and only spy as there is no way that I can afford another one.

I try to expand with the starting units and improve the start settlements - I may have to forget the new buildings though.

[leoni]

At first thanks to everyone who were envolved in this great work, and keep this game alive.

I started a campaign, with achea on h/h, with bi exe. I got no problem to download and install on my

windows 7 sytem. I played until 260 b.c., with no error, ctd, fighting night battles, siege battles, got

always a good frame rate. At first i was attacked by the antigonids, but could easy push them back, and

expanded to corinth. Even than my allies sparta attacked me, and after a long run i destroyed them.

The antigonids never came back, epiros took over whole of macedon, the attalids are still busy just with

the independent states, the aitolians doing nothin, just standing with three full stacks by ellis and letin

overun their cities on central greece...strange. Kingdom of massylia gettin down very early, quickly after

them the illyrians, carthage is beginning to fall back against the iberians, rome wiped out epiros from

italy. Money is no problem, i got now huge armies and 120340 whatever, but buildings need so much

time...maybe the time has come for my first oversea expedition...wanna drench the romans in blood

again a huge thanks for this work, further reports will follow...

[Muizer]

Most factions with a level of expenses higher than can be structurally afforded. They also start with a sizable treasury. It's up to you as a player to decide whether to stake everything on expansion or to invest in domestic growth. Either way, I would not be surprised if you went through a period where you're feeling poor and vulnerable. If you survive, things will improve, but if we did things right, it will be difficult to start up a steamroller. Perhaps we should set a challenge!

[MasterOfThessus]

Don't expect the romans to be a push-over

[preselectlee]

WHERE IS RTR 8?!?!?!


...Kidding! I was pleasantly surprised. Ive been playing 6.0 for years. I always imagined 7 would cover the whole med like 6 did (i didnt follow the previews and such). But playing it I understood why you did what you did.

The only gripe I have is not knowing what stack/city has troops or not without clicking on it. That is kind of driving me a little nuts. I think I have to start as a smaller Greek faction at first, because the Roman one is so large and hard to follow. But I guess Ill get used to it.

But really, thats a small issue. Thanks so much RTR team!

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

The only gripe I have is not knowing what stack/city has troops or not without clicking on it. That is kind of driving me a little nuts. I think I have to start as a smaller Greek faction at first, because the Roman one is so large and hard to follow. But I guess Ill get used to it.

You will get used to it, eventually. Doesn't take all that long, really, and it teaches you to use spies

[preselectlee]

You will get used to it, eventually. Doesn't take all that long, really, and it teaches you to use spies

I know. Its just not being able to clear see my own army and garrison strength that gets to me. But like I said, small gripe in what looks to be a masterpiece.

Sometimes its shocking to look at the vanilla in comparison to some of these mods. You people need to get hired by Sega/creative assembly.

[Maurits]

Sometimes its shocking to look at the vanilla in comparison to some of these mods. You people need to get hired by Sega/creative assembly.

And cooperate in making an unrealistic public beta release? No, thank you

This is just for fun, let CA make the platforms (moddable of course) and let the fans create their ultimate version of the game. That's what makes modding so cool: you can put your very own ideals into it

[Risasi]

As of this morning at 12:30am;
I'm four years in as Sparta. Man this is tough. I'm -17000 denarii in the hole, but have three cities now and a stabilized economy. I'm going positive about 1k denarii every turn. I went the expansion route. I like it better than EB so far. The appeal to me of RTR over EB is that I can jump into the game, get my strategy fix without bogging down in the drudgery of the econ like in EB. But to each his own, I think both have their place. And I'm in the RTR camp. :-) Props to you devs.

---
I'm curious, do you plan to add in "Historical Battles" later? The reason I ask is because my friends and I use the battle editor to play out key battles in a hotseat campaign we have going. If Historical battles doesn't go back in I'm guessing I'll be playing RTR VII purely for SP, and RTR 6 PE for hotseat MP campaigns w/ battles staged via the battle editor...

[Maurits]

I'm curious, do you plan to add in "Historical Battles" later? The reason I ask is because my friends and I use the battle editor to play out key battles in a hotseat campaign we have going. If Historical battles doesn't go back in I'm guessing I'll be playing RTR VII purely for SP, and RTR 6 PE for hotseat MP campaigns w/ battles staged via the battle editor...

Since we've had more of these reactions, we'll seriously consider polishing the Historical Battles and adding the section in the next patch

[DukeCanada]

I'm curious, do you plan to add in "Historical Battles" later? The reason I ask is because my friends and I use the battle editor to play out key battles in a hotseat campaign we have going. If Historical battles doesn't go back in I'm guessing I'll be playing RTR VII purely for SP, and RTR 6 PE for hotseat MP campaigns w/ battles staged via the battle editor...

Perhaps in one of the patches, we haven't really talked about it yet.

[Iskandar]

Originally, I had planned on starting with the Norici for a long time, but seeing again the interesting starting position of the Antigonids, I decided to give it a try. I was bothered with the flags/army strength issue, but now I'm getting used to it. The spies being cheap is OK, given how much more useful they are, but I'm not sure about the diplomats/assassins. I'm concerned about it all turning into a bribe/assassination fest, but we'll see.

On to the campaign - I think the Achaeans committed faction suicide by losing every FM, some ten years into it. Also, I was trying not to use exploits, but seeing how fast my economy was going down the drain, I rushed for Pela by sea (luckily, I managed to capture Thessaly in the first couple of turns); after I beat the stack with the elephants, I realized I had to face two more stacks, so I used a river crossing to take one of them out without much more losses (damn elephants..). I know, I know, I'll do it right the next time. Also, distances are killing me. A rebel stack came out of nowhere and besieged Lysimachea. They're gonna take it the next turn and my royal army is still a couple of turns away. Overall, it's a lot of fun, even though I've barely scratched the surface.

Oh and my reaction to the Hypaspists/Hetairoi taking insane amounts of money and 10 years to train: "Wait, that must be a mistake... or an anti-CTD device...hmm it doesn't look like it.. guess the AI won't use'em at all....well, that sucks - I won't be giving away 40 turns of recruitment just for one awesome unit... although... the level of role-play and immersion... wow, that's amazing"

I'm already planning on recruiting another Hetairoi, so I have one Companion/Hypaspists pair for each of my two royal armies (the King and the Prince). Also, after I saw that, I paid closer attention to what happens in battle and it turned out that these shock troops wiped the floor with the enemy every time so far.

To sum it up - incredibly excited so far, will post in a couple of days/ a week, when I've gonme deeper into the campaign and tried some other factions

[DukeCanada]

Originally, I had planned on starting with the Norici for a long time, but seeing again the interesting starting position of the Antigonids, I decided to give it a try. I was bothered with the flags/army strength issue, but now I'm getting used to it. The spies being cheap is OK, given how much more useful they are, but I'm not sure about the diplomats/assassins. I'm concerned about it all turning into a bribe/assassination fest, but we'll see.

On to the campaign - I think the Achaeans committed faction suicide by losing every FM, some ten years into it. Also, I was trying not to use exploits, but seeing how fast my economy was going down the drain, I rushed for Pela by sea (luckily, I managed to capture Thessaly in the first couple of turns); after I beat the stack with the elephants, I realized I had to face two more stacks, so I used a river crossing to take one of them out without much more losses (damn elephants..). I know, I know, I'll do it right the next time. Also, distances are killing me. A rebel stack came out of nowhere and besieged Lysimachea. They're gonna take it the next turn and my royal army is still a couple of turns away. Overall, it's a lot of fun, even though I've barely scratched the surface.

Oh and my reaction to the Hypaspists/Hetairoi taking insane amounts of money and 10 years to train: "Wait, that must be a mistake... or an anti-CTD device...hmm it doesn't look like it.. guess the AI won't use'em at all....well, that sucks - I won't be giving away 40 turns of recruitment just for one awesome unit... although... the level of role-play and immersion... wow, that's amazing"

I'm already planning on recruiting another Hetairoi, so I have one Companion/Hypaspists pair for each of my two royal armies (the King and the Prince). Also, after I saw that, I paid closer attention to what happens in battle and it turned out that these shock troops wiped the floor with the enemy every time so far.

To sum it up - incredibly excited so far, will post in a couple of days/ a week, when I've gonme deeper into the campaign and tried some other factions

It seems like your making some of the decisions I've made! Im also knee deep in a Macedonian campaign at the moment. I highly suggest you ignore the balkans until you've captured Greece. Also, if you're forced to fight a large Spartan army try matching your elite Hypaspists to their Spartan units. Its the only way avoid taking huge losses.

Also, dont auto-resolve against Spartans with more than 4 stars, its very painful to see your army thrashed and sent back to Pella for training.

Oh, and for gods sake, train a good navy! Otherwise getting from point A to point B will take far too long.

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

^The long recruitment times for various elite units are there because there shouldn't be more units of them than the amount present at the start of the campaign. All to counter the "Full stack of Hypaspists" kind of unrealistic thing.

[Blatta Optima Maxima]

^The long recruitment times for various elite units are there because there shouldn't be more units of them than the amount present at the start of the campaign. All to counter the "Full stack of Hypaspists" kind of unrealistic thing.

create_unit

[leoni]

...so here are my second feedback..played now with achea until 224 bc on h/h, no ctd or error, just some missing

descriptions, celtiberians became superpower in the west and is pushing back the arverni and carthage on

north africa too, rome captured carthago in 235, but lost it again, now is more fighting epiros on main

greece, the attalids still stayed in asia minor, they needed endless rounds to take rhodos, getai didnt act

very agressive, all the other tribes in iberia are death, i rule in safety over the peleponnes, taken kreta, raid

the cost of epiros, finally in 233 the reform taken place, so i m rally my troops to conquer rome, right now.

A big thanks on the team, for this wonderful work, stability.

[mcantu]

most elite units are given long recruitment times to keep them from being spammed

[Iskandar]

Yeah, I understand that, I was just conveying how shocked I was at the amount of time at first. But I like it, I think it's awesome, especially wrt to realism/immersion factor. Sadly, the AI won't retrain the starting ones (and I can't be bothered with porting it to Alex right now.)