RTW difficulty setting - behavior has changed

[johnsmith9999]

Hello all! I re-installed RTW via steam after a 5 year break; was looking forward to some long and enjoyable games etc. However as I have continued to play over the last 2 days I am noticing that the AI is very different; I am thinking that “difficulty setting” should really be “lame setting”
There are rebel navies everywhere, rebel armies as well, AI cities appear to have multiple recruiting slots, enemies that have 1 city can support the same amount of armies and navies that I can with 30 cities, every time I fight a battle rather than using the auto-resolve, I am at the bottom of a hill.. The lame list goes on. Honestly it feels more like a job then a game.
Can anyone tell me how to adjust the behavior of the game backwards a few years? Is there a mod that does this?
Thanks

[Vossie]

Probably depends on the version of your game. Steam auto-updates to 1.5.
Not sure if the problems you describe are gonna disappear tho. ( You can try to re-install and turn auto-updates off and keep it at 1.0 )

Rebel native are everywhere in the beginning of a campaign. ( Including Rebel armies. Those will continue spawning throughout your campaign tho. )
AI will have it's stats boosted to give you more of a challenge. ( This is the same for pretty much all TW games. Depends on your difficulty settings tho )
For the battles, the campaign map terrain will dictate the map you will be fighting on. Is the enemy army standing on a hill/mountain or is yours standing in a sloop?

[johnsmith9999]

Thank you for responding Vossie. I used to play RTW years ago; I had put hundreds of hours into it so I understand the mechanics of rebel armies and terrain etc. I am saying that these mechanics have drastically changed. Great example; I stationed a small stack in a mountain pass to guard my rear, if an enemy army attacked, I should have been sitting at a high point; forcing the enemy to attack up-hill against my archers. The opposite happened; when the battle started I was at the bottom of the hill. Out of maybe 50 fights, I must have been at a downward slope/disadvantage for 45 of them regardless of terrain on the campaign map. The best way I can explain it, the higher my difficulty setting, the cheaper/underhanded the AI gets. Regarding rebels: They seem to have quadrupled, there are more rebel navies appearing throughout the game then there are enemies. This must be a result of updating code etc. I am aware of the game files: I can for example change the unlockable factions easy enough. I am wondering if I can change or lessen this AI behavior.

[Vossie]

I see, I do apologize for the confusion.

I myself haven't played RTW vanilla in a long time, ( Atleast 9-12 months. ) however I do remember how it was as I also must have spent hundreds of hours playing every faction.
None of the things you're describing happened back in the day. I'm not sure what's causing it either. Especially the battle map problem is very weird.

It's an old game which is know for it's flaws but this is new to me. I'll try a new campaign in a little while to test this for myself and I'll let you know what I experience.

PS: Currently I'm playing RS II which is pretty stable and awesome so I can recommend trying this if you feel like it.

[johnsmith9999]

LOL so I was fighting against Egypt, the bowmen and axemen ran faster than my light cavalry.

[Infidel144]

That sounds strange, I did my first RTW campaign earlier this year, and did not have any of those problems (though the rebel spawn crap was very... annoying),. (I did have a series of CTD's at one stage and ended up installing BugFixer which solved that). Maybe something went weird with your install?

Edit:
I just noted you used steam, I have an RTW CD.

[Jansenfinn]

I agree with that the AI is always spawning on a top of a hill

[johnsmith9999]

Can anyone help with this? I love RTW but the AI is just such a cheap bastard, it's more frustrating than fun. any advice, how can I adjust the amount of pirates etc?

[z3n]

Descr_strat has those values for spawn rates. Set them at 999. Higher = less

Unfortunately you will need to start a new campaign and delete map.rwm. Make a backup in case something goes wrong, the descr_strat is terribly finnicky and can cause a kick back to menu. So having a back up descr_strat to replace the screwed up descr_strat is a good idea.

You could also just download a mod like Europa Barbaroum (history based but fun) or RSII instead. The mod I'm working on is kind of work in progress, it's called Classical Age Total War. The bigger the mod team is , the more polished it will be because two men can only do so much.

Good luck.