What has changed really?

[Borluc]

Hi, I just recently dl'ed and installed RTR and I have some questions. I went through the process that ends with dl'ing the Gold version.

The RTR site's boards are always down so I figured I'd try here.

First off, what has really changed? Allied armies still enter my territory without permission. I still can't threaten neutral armies to get off my land. I heard about supply lines, but I haven't seen any evidence of them either.

One thing that is very frustrating is that the enemy rounds take FOREVER in RTR. Whereas in RTW you wait maybe 20 seconds, RTR takes damn near several minutes. Is this normal? I thought maybe it was due to the AI using more advanced tactics, but I'd like an answer to this.

Also, almost every unit now has excellent morale. Is this intended?

Well, if someone could answer my questions here and maybe point me to a FULL list of changes, I would really appreciate it.

[LegionairosMatt]

About the AI turns:

Do you have Fog of War on or off??
You could try opening the Preferencesfile in the root directory of the game and changing CAMPAIGN_MAP_CAMERA:FOLLOW_AI_FACTIONS to CAMPAIGN_MAP_CAMERA:SKIP_AI_FACTIONS that should work otherwise i dont know...

[JoeyJubb]

Hi, while I don't know where a full list of changes are, i'll answer the rest of your questions.

As for the diplomacy, none of this can be changed until the RTW source code is released. It's simply hardcoded into the game engine and modders can't get at it. As a result, RTR suffers from the same annoying AI tactics as RTW does.

Supply lines aren't directly represented in RTR, but as you play the game you may notice you have to ship recruits back and forth further for retraining, as you can only build a provicial barracks in a newly conquered city after you've built all the Auxillia buildings, 24 turns later.

I've not heard of anyone else complain about the enemy turns taking so long, but one thing you can try is to uncheck "Follow enemy movements" in the game options menu, maybe someone else can elighten you better with this question.

Every unit does have excellent morale now, and you'll notice alot of them have lots of stamina as well. This is intended; along with the raised defence values and slower speeds, they make the melees in battles last longer and become more realistic. You can't expect an enemy to rout just because it's being attacked anymore, flanking and using scary troops is more essential.

As a note, you'll notice that archers, skirmishers and slingers are all pretty useless if you fire into the front of most enemies, you need to run round behind them - or at least to their right flank (to your left) - so that they aren't protected by their shields as much.

I hope this goes some way to answering your questions.

[Borluc]

Thanks for the replies, although I'm a bit annoyed now that I know the enemy turn problem is mine alone.

I always have fog of war on. I like using tactics (though I suspect that the enemy doesn't suffer from this disadvantage). In any case, the game is too easy for me as it is with the hardest settings.

That brings me to another semi gripe heh.. I REALLY want a multi player campaign mode. It really makes no sense that they haven't developed one yet. There are plenty of long term strategy games that people play and many of us would be more than willing to have a game of Rome last months. Are there any plans for this?

Ohh, and of course, there would be a timer to complete your turn based on your # of settlements. At least, the option for one.

[KALI]

In any case, the game is too easy for me as it is with the hardest settings.

Its a crying a shame that a game (RTR) that looks so good is so impeded by a dumb AI. But RTW doesn't even look good.

[Visna]

Not all, but some, of your problems are solved in the RTR Platinum Edition, which is based on the 1.5 game engine. I think the vast majority of the community plays that instead of the Gold version now.
Some even claim the diplomacy has gotten better in the 1.5 version, but I have yet to see an example of brilliant diplomacy.

[The_Lifetamer]

There is a multiplayer campaign mod developed at the .org.
It's certainly not perfect, but it does the basics, and it's a jewel of creativeness.
http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=64876

One thing for sure though, the day CA will make an official multiplayer mode I'll have a party!

[Cheexsta]

First off, what has really changed? Allied armies still enter my territory without permission. I still can't threaten neutral armies to get off my land. I heard about supply lines, but I haven't seen any evidence of them either.

As has already been stated, those things cannot be changed. I wish it could be, but that's not the case.

One thing that is very frustrating is that the enemy rounds take FOREVER in RTR. Whereas in RTW you wait maybe 20 seconds, RTR takes damn near several minutes. Is this normal? I thought maybe it was due to the AI using more advanced tactics, but I'd like an answer to this.

That's very unusual; turns for me tend to go very quickly. Perhaps it is some sort of graphical setting that is causing this? You may want to scan over preferences.txt to make sure everything is how you want it (or delete the file if you wish to return to default settings), since RTR comes with its own preferences file.

Also, almost every unit now has excellent morale. Is this intended?

Morale is measured on a numerical scale. In vanila RTW, they generally range from 10-25 or so, while in RTR it's usually upwards of 25. While each unit still has a different morale level, the game engine sees these high numbers and classes them as having "Excellent Morale". So don't worry, those skirmishers will still rout faster than elite Hoplites and so on.

Now, as to a full list of changes, there are probably too many for me to remember but I'll try.
Factions:
1. Rome is unified. Historically, Rome was not split into three "families" that controlled portions of the republic. There were powerful families, sure, but military imperium (the right to command) was not inherited, instead was issued to individual generals by the Senate when it was needed. Besides, Rome was not the only republic; Carthage had a republic system, for example. So with these factions, we simply assume that the player is the senate or equivalent.
2. Egypt has been revamped and made into the Ptolemaic Empire. At this time, Egypt was controlled by a Macedonian dynasty of Pharoahs after Alexander's empire collapsed, and the faction has been made more Hellenic rather than native Egyptian. This means no more overpowered chariots...
3. The Britons have been removed, to be replaced by a generic Illyrian faction. The Britons in history did not conquer half of Europe like they do in Vanilla; in fact they barely did anything aside from trade until Caesar launched a small expeditionary raid on the island. The Illyrians, on the other hand, gave Rome and the surrounding factions all sorts of headaches.
4. The Seleucid Empire has been beefed up to their historical boundaries.
5. Thrace and Dacia have been merged into a single faction. The Dacians were a Thracian tribe, so they've just been combined into a generic faction.
6. Bactria has replaced the freed faction slot and is acting as another counterbalance to the Seleucids.

Units:
1. Every unit has been completely revamped with new stats, skins and such.
2. Every faction now has more historical units, though some factions need to be reworked still (Gaul, for example...). Rome no longer has national archers, nor does it have Legionaries with lorica segmentata and so on.
3. AoR system. Now when you conquer a settlement, you have to assimilate these new conquests with the Auxilia buildings before you can train troops there. The first level of assimilation yields only a happiness/trade bonus. The second and third levels allow certain types of local troops to be trained. The fourth level (Barracks buildings) allows the training of the most basic of your faction's troops, and the fifth level allows more elite troops. Stables and Archery Ranges now only have two levels each, but require certain Auxilia or Barracks buildings to do anything.

Those are the major changes I can remember, I'm sure there are some that I've missed...

Edit: @Gabriella26, it depends on your difficulty settings and such. While the diplomacy is far from brilliant, I've had quite a few pleasant surprises with AI factions accepting peace, often with them paying me tribute. You just need to be able to tell when they'd be willing to accept such a peace (normally when they offer you a ceasefire you should be able to demand stuff from them). This was using RTRPE on Hard campaign difficulty.

Or maybe I've just been lucky

[Borluc]

Thanks a lot guys for the responses. They were very informative. Especially the multi player!!! yay! heh

Now, do you guys think I should reinstall with RTRPE this time? If so, is there a step by step installation direction section?

Thanks again.

[Visna]

I think you should definately use RTRPE. As for instructions.... Made for noobs like yours truly, this one is extremely good.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=58290

[Borluc]

Well, I uninstalled, deleted the folder, reinstalled and followed the RTRPE directions.

Unfortunately, the turns take several minutes (longer if anything than the Gold). Also, when I zoom in on the units, it is laggy.

This is the same comp that I had when I first got RTW and it never had these problems. In fact, I have 1500 mb ram now which is 1024 above what I started with.

[Quinn Inuit]

Several minutes? They take under a minute on my machine. What's your processor like? I've got ~3ghz. (fairly new machine).

For the record, I've had no problems with RTRPE in the current release, but I hear that you shouldn't let certain cities rebel (I never let them rebel, so I didn't notice that bug). And it's a great game on the BI exe--plays vastly different than RTR:G.

Edit: This is not to diss RTR:G. It rocks. It's just that playing on the 1.5 engine gives you some basic gameplay advantages, and the BI engine even moreso.

[Borluc]

Like I already said, my machine worked fine with the basic RTW installed a year ago. Yes, it took under a minute to go through the enemy rounds. I'm looking for solutions.

What type of direct X should I use? I have 9c installed.

[AngryTitusPullo]

Like I already said, my machine worked fine with the basic RTW installed a year ago. Yes, it took under a minute to go through the enemy rounds. I'm looking for solutions.

What type of direct X should I use? I have 9c installed.

RTW/BI do actually take more resource than the early version (RTW 1.2 where Gold is base on) though the effect will only be realized if one had such an old rig like mine (6 years old :tooth: ). Since the unit details (especially Romans) are more detailed done in RTR mods than in vanilla RTW the lag effect will sometimes be felt.

However, none of those who have below 2 years old PC have any problem if I'm correct.

When you start the campaign (before clicking the start arrow) there's an option to turn of the 'view AI movement' or something like that. Unticking it will definately makes the turn runs faster if that helps.

Also I minimize all the background stuff running on my pc before playing the game even the virus protection (offline ofcource and unplugged) and I have been able to have 8000 units battles (though it lags a bit ofcourse, but it still runs fine).

In the hardware related thread I believe there's a topic about how to maximize you CPU performance.

[Borluc]

Ok, I really don't think its a lack of power in my computer; or having too many programs running.

I do need help though. I installed RTW, played through the damned prologue, and entered an imperial campaign. The game ran perfectly with the turns moving at a reasonable speed. Ok, so now I installed the 1.3 and the 1.5. Since I didn't want to do the prologue again, I tried to paste the "all playable factions" script. Unfortunately, I can now select any faction but I cannot actually play them. When I select one and blick the next button, I get kicked back out to the menu screen!

Man, this is driving me nuts.

Any help?

[AngryTitusPullo]

Ok, I really don't think its a lack of power in my computer; or having too many programs running.

I do need help though. I installed RTW, played through the damned prologue, and entered an imperial campaign. The game ran perfectly with the turns moving at a reasonable speed. Ok, so now I installed the 1.3 and the 1.5. Since I didn't want to do the prologue again, I tried to paste the "all playable factions" script. Unfortunately, I can now select any faction but I cannot actually play them. When I select one and blick the next button, I get kicked back out to the menu screen!

Man, this is driving me nuts.

Any help?

Any editing to the start file (especially world folder) need to have map.rwm deleted.

[Quinn Inuit]

That's what I'm using, too. My guess is that it's not a video issue, though, since it's the enemy turn that's causing your problem. Are you sure it's the game and not something else on your computer? I noticed no performance difference between Gold and PE, even when PE was in the beta stages and crashing frequently.

I get a little laggy zooming in, too. I think it's the grass texture they used. IIRC, they're going back to vanilla in the 1.7 release.

[Borluc]

Not sure if its something else on my computer, but I doubt it. I have virus protection and spyware remover.

I might try installing the game again.. *sigh* and trying out 1.0. Then I'll install 1.3 and try it. 1.5 etc.

If I get all the way to RTRPE and it is working fine, I'll know its the mod.

[Quinn Inuit]

Are you running the exe with the "-show err" switch or whatever? That'll give you (and us) an idea of what's going wrong.

[Borluc]

No, I only executed the steps I stated above.

I'll list them again here.

1. Installed RTW
2. Installed patch 1.3 (when you go to add/remove programs in control panel is this patch supposed to appear as a separate install from RTW? I know it installed to the RTW folder.)
3. Installed patch 1.5
4. I tried to copy the "all playable nations" patch into the map folder (yeah I know the right one)

In any case, I have removed everything again and installed RTW... again.

I'm holding off doing anything again until I get an answer to my question under #2 here. Thanks.