Worst thing I've ever see in a totalwar game

**totalwar junkie** · November 23, 2006, 10:47 PM

So the game now decides what my computer can and cant handle.
I was attempting to attack a small army with a larger army right behind. At the begining of the battle I receive a message that the enemies reinforcements that would normally arrive are being omitted because my CPU is not able to handle that many men on the field. This is simply BS.
I've played custom battles larger than the battle that was about to ensue with no problem, sure it may have lagged a slight bit but not enough to make it unplayable. My CPU is a AMD 3200+, may not be the totally up to date but for such a feature to be added to the game is very, very bad taste in my opinion. Unless this is something that is going to get fixed or someone makes a mod to bypass this, I wont be wasting any more of my money on any future totalwar games.
I've bought them all, played them all, and while rome had its fair share of problems and things I hated, this is easily the worst thing I've ever seen in a totalwar game, really almost any game.
Games are supposed to let you decide what is acceptable performance for your computer not dictate such a thing for you. This really ruins the fun factor of the game.

Anyway enough ranting. Anyone else hate this feature as much as I?

**Endeav** · November 23, 2006, 10:49 PM

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/annou...php?f=121&a=67

Hopefully this is something modable/patchable and not hardcoded, as it does kill the challenge in some campaign battles.

**bbos** · November 23, 2006, 10:52 PM

yea I hate this feature aswell, I have a P4 3.0ghz overclocked to 3.1 and I get that massage all the time for big battles, completely takes away the point of the game IMO, hopefully a mod can address this.

**totalwar junkie** · November 23, 2006, 10:57 PM

I'm not trying to be a whiner, this is a legitimate complaint. Because of this feature the stragetic value to this game is cut in half. The fact that the units arent even available at all is just plain silly. It makes no sense that it at the very least does not deploy them in sections but rather ommits the entire army, leaving you to have to fight multiple battles and limiting your strategic options. Pretty bad thing for a game built on strategy.

Originally Posted by bbos

yea I hate this feature aswell, I have a P4 3.0ghz overclocked to 3.1 and I get that massage all the time for big battles, completely takes away the point of the game IMO, hopefully a mod can address this.

I totally agree. The sad thing is I was thoroughly enjoying the game up until I received that message. MTW2 other than this feature already seems to be far superior to Rome and brings back the feeling of quality that the first MTW had.

**Endeav** · November 23, 2006, 10:59 PM

Well, this happened a lot in RTW, they just never gave the technical explaination.

**Mooncabbage** · November 23, 2006, 11:01 PM

Wow that's bad... I only have a 2ghz centrino but I've never ever had that problem...

Is it refusing to fight battles with armies bigger than 20 units or what?

**Endeav** · November 23, 2006, 11:05 PM

I play on huge with 20 stacks in my army (well as French this usualyl leads to around 1500-1600 men) and the game will run smooth as butter against another full stack, but any reinforcements will be delayed. Kind of lame considering I'm running a Core 2 Duo 2.13 Ghz, 2 gigs of DDR2 and a geforce 7900.

It should be an option or a scale according to system specs.

**totalwar junkie** · November 23, 2006, 11:05 PM

Originally Posted by Endeav

Well, this happened a lot in RTW, they just never gave the technical explaination.

Never happened to me in Rome. Normally in TW games, if there was too many men, you just had to kill enough for more to be deployed. I've never once seen the game not allow entire armies to enter the field, in any TW game.

**Endeav** · November 23, 2006, 11:07 PM

Originally Posted by totalwar junkie

Never happened to me in Rome. Normally in TW games, if there was too many men, you just had to kill enough for more to be deployed. I've never once seen the game not allow entire armies to enter the field, in any TW game.

This is precisely what the OP is talking about. Kill about half the enemy army and reinforcements start to arrive. Doesn't seem the campaign battles like to have more than ~3000 units on screen.

**totalwar junkie** · November 23, 2006, 11:10 PM

Originally Posted by Endeav

This is precisely what the OP is talking about. Kill about half the enemy army and reinforcements start to arrive. Doesn't seem the campaign battles like to have more than ~3000 units on screen.

No. Let me clarify the circumstance. I had 2 under a full stack, and attacked a captain with only one unit, with a full stack inside a castle behind it. My strategy in doing this was so that I wouldnt have to assualt the castle.
As soon as the battle started I received that message. I killed the one unit and the battle was over. The end. That is not how the game functioned in Rome.

**Endeav** · November 23, 2006, 11:11 PM

Originally Posted by totalwar junkie

No. Let me clarify the circumstance. I had 2 under a full stack, and attacked a captain with only one unit, with a full stack inside a castle behind it. My strategy in doing this was so that I wouldnt have to assualt the castle.
As soon as the battle started I received that message. I killed the one unit and the battle was over. The end. That is not how the game functioned in Rome.

Ah well if that one unit had a couple more guys, the second army would've came. I guess it is based off unit cards then. I've had that happened before as well, much to my annoyance.

**totalwar junkie** · November 23, 2006, 11:16 PM

Originally Posted by Endeav

Ah well if that one unit had a couple more guys, the second army would've came. I guess it is based off unit cards then. I've had that happened before as well, much to my annoyance.

All I know is I never had this problem in Rome. It never ended a battle before deploying all of the armies involved in the battle. It may have delayed deployment, but never omitted armies. In fact I used that very strategy in Rome constantly in order to take settlements etc.. never had a problem.

**Venom** · November 23, 2006, 11:11 PM

I had this problem. The computer had two full stacks, and I had one (though I had much better troops). I was all psyched for this big battle, and was totally disappointed when only one army showed up, I got that stupid message, and no AI reinforcements ever arrived.

**Mooncabbage** · November 23, 2006, 11:15 PM

yeah that makes sense

**Mooncabbage** · November 23, 2006, 11:29 PM

The thing is though, it deploys reinforcement armies all at once, and since the other one was a full stack (20 unit cards) and the one you where fighting was a single unit, once you wiped out the first army, thus making space for the second army, the battle was already over. Does that make sense?

**totalwar junkie** · November 23, 2006, 11:34 PM

I suppose that would make sense. Although, Rome never had a problem deploying a up to 2-3 full stacks on my computer. So if this is the case, they obviously made the hardware standards higher, which might make sense simply because MTW2 is newer though on the settings I run it is pretty much the same performance I expereinced with Rome.

**Mooncabbage** · November 23, 2006, 11:47 PM

It could be a graphical bottleneck, a CPU bottleneck, or a ram bottleneck. If you can turn the graphical settings up without making any real difference to your performance, that would point to one of the other two. I honestly can't tell you anything other than that.... I run on normal scale, but I've never fought two full stacks at once, or anything even close to that. Seems like a quick way to lose to me.

**villain4hire** · November 24, 2006, 12:05 AM

Yeah this feature really pisses me off as my pc can handle huge settings. I mean **** on custom battles I fight 2 on 2 on huge with medium settings using 1680x1050 so Im like wtf is this crap on campaign... I like how in the campaign I can have 3 stacks showin up all at onace against me but I'm only allowed to have 1 army???? wtf.

**Mooncabbage** · November 24, 2006, 12:17 AM

I don't suppose the size of those armies would up to more than 10,000 dudes would it? Seems unlikely....

Also in campaign games I think the reason only 1 army can show up at a time (not accounting smaller reinforcement armies) is to keep the odds reasonably even since you can't have more than one stack in your control at a time... I never let the AI control reinforcement armies, but if you do does it count them in your 20, or on top of?

I don't really know, I'm rather tired and so my logic isn't really working for me right now