Why New Total Wars Are Worse Than Rome I

[G. Ward]

KILL MOVES
The new engine they brought in with Empire: Total War (Warscape, as it is called) is incredibly flawed. It was designed for musket battles and artillery, hence why the projectiles and missiles work very well. However the Warscape engine was not designed for melee combat, and 'kill moves' (set piece animations done by stuntmen) were introduced as the SOLE way of soldiers attacking, meaning that once a 'kill move' starts it cannot be interrupted, vastly limiting the amount of scenarios that are possible; in earlier total wars 'Rome I' and 'Medieval II'' the engine they used (I don't think it really has a name) allowed for lots more variables. For instance, soldiers could be knocked down and then get up and soldiers could also interrupt attacks. On top of this, units could both attack another (1 unit) at the same time. This is a major issue, in later Total War games it is theoretically possible for a single peasant to be surrounded by hundreds of enemies and yet (if he keeps getting lucky and kills them) tie them up (occupy their 'attention') for a battle deciding length of time, due to the fact that only one soldier can attack him at once meaning that all the soldiers stand there and do nothing whilst one soldier engages. In Rome I, if a unit was surrounded it would die much quicker as all units within striking distance could all attack at once. This may not sound like that big of a deal but in practice, it looks stupid and totally kills emersion. Also, kill moves (from a spectacle point of view) dramatically worsens the melee combat; There is a fixed number of 'kill moves' to view, after a few battles you'll have seen all of them and they become boring. Because of the kill moves soldiers also slide around (without the 'walk' animation) trying to get into position to start the kill moves, making it look like the floors are too slippery or something.

LACK OF UNIT COLLISION
In Warscape games there is no unit collision, only an illusion. In Rome II the units do not push and shove at each other like they did in the original, only statically poke each other with their swords in animations that lack any vigour. In Rome I when units charged they would all surge into the enemy unit visibly pushing into it, forcing it back, bending the main battle line. In Warscape games all they do is stop the units from colliding artificially: when a unit charges another the first rank starts fighting but the rest just all stop dead in perfect synchronisation, giving the impression you're commanding robots rather than actual people. In Rome I, each individual soldier reacted at a different speed to an order giving the battlefield a much more lifelike feel.

These are the two biggest flaws, in my opinion, there are many, many more.

Many of these points come from Reynold Sanity's video, Rome II One Year On:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy5GRaHzFnI

A lot of the deep flaws come from the engine and bad design decisions like removing guard mode and streamlining the campaign. In Rome I you had this almost RPG-like way of building up cities from tiny villages into massive metropolises (in my opinion) this was a better system, why can't a small town become large if you wish to invest time and effort into it, and different provinces (cities) still had value due to base farming and trade resources (that weren't as valued as they are in the recent TW's but still were useful). They also removed 'loose formation' from Rome II (as far as I know) from a lot of the units which is absurd if you ask me.

Don't take this a godsend, I may have made errors or mistakes (I don't play the newer Total Wars as much). Feel free to disagree, as long as you're polite about it.

Please rep if you found this interesting :P I'm a rep whore.

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-Have a Nice Day

-V

[Diocle]

Good point, I agree. +rep for the repwhore!


Actually there is another feature removed in the new games: it's the matching between strategic map and tactical map, so, while in RTW you was able to see on which terrain (mountains, hills, plain, woods, river and so on..) you were deploying your forces, because what you were seeing on strategic map was exactly matching the terrain on which you would have fought your battle, in the new games this matching has been discarded, so, now you don't know anymore what will be the terrain on which you will fight.

The matching between strategic and tactical maps was in may opinion the best feature of TW games, it was the feature making these games absolutely unique among the other RTS games, now, for I don't know what reason, this feature has been discarded in favour of a set of preselected maps, so that in the new games all the battles look the same.

[Saul Tyre]

@Vengeance208 & Diocle I first played Rome II at a friends when he purchased the new release, 3/4 hours later we felt a bit deflated & disappointed and I decided then I would not buy it, the reasons being the same as you have both highlighted, nothing has changed my mind to this day. My friend persisted as CA brought out many patches and dlc's, he also added mods which he said made it bearable but he still could not get the same "feel". He eventually gave away what he had to some 12 year old kid who lived nearby We both still play Rome 1 + mods, Roma Surrectum eg is in our opinion what Rome II should have been and we both continue to play it regularly. It seems such a shame that a great opportunity was missed by CA for the sake of a fast buck

[G. Ward]

Good point, I agree. +rep for the rep whore!


Actually there is another feature removed in the new games: it's the matching between strategic map and tactical map, so, while in RTW you was able to see on which terrain (mountains, hills, plain, woods, river and so on..) you were deploying your forces, because what you were seeing on strategic map was exactly matching the terrain on which you would have fought your battle, in the new games this matching has been discarded, so, now you don't know anymore what will be the terrain on which you will fight.

The matching between strategic and tactical maps was, in my opinion, the best feature of TW games, it was the feature making these games absolutely unique among the other RTS games, now, for I don't know what reason, this feature has been discarded in favour of a set of preselected maps, so that in the new games all the battles look the same.

100% agree with you mate, I didn't realise they'd even taken out that feature... ing hell, when did they take it out, with Empire: Total War?

Edit: Thanks for the rep

Yeah, the myriad of miniature -ups and bad design decisions in the newer total wars (Shogun II was good) totally kill the games for me. The only reason I like Empire: Total War the most (out of the newer Total Wars with the Warscape Engine) is because of the vastness of the campaign map (and thus the diversity of factions that you fight, although many are just copy pasted with changed skins, at least there are three distinct 'theaters' of war: basically the Native American's, Europeans and Native Indians are all very different from each other) and the joy of recreating the British Empire (I'm British ). The American War For Independence was fun too. Empire (in my PERSONAL opinion is one of the best total wars). However, the AI was and artillery was useless unless you had a lot of experience) but I still enjoyed it more than Shogun II.

I understand why people love Shogun II and appreciate it as a good game, though I can't bring myself to play a campaign because all of the factions are the exact same and the ashigaru spams just bore the out of me. I love the animations (for the one-on-one duels) and appreciate the sheer amount of polish (and graphical work) that went into the game. Shogun II also had an amazing art style. Gatling guns are also good and the music is incredible, rivalling Rome I's soundtrack (well hey it's made by the same guy).

As always this is just my opinion, feel free to disagree with me, but keep it civil.

To everyone: Rank the current Total War's in order, for me they are (from best to worst):

Rome: Total War
Empire: Total War
Total War: Shogun II (and FoTS)
Medieval II (The speed variation in the unit animations just kills it for me; it allows for some of the best units in the game to be beaten by some of the worst, otherwise it'd be 2nd)
Napoleon: Total War (I played Empire: Total War too much so when I got round to it I got bored very quickly.)
Total War: Rome II (Worse than the original in every way, other than graphics and faction variety)

Note: These are all the unmodded games.

I have no experience with any of the other Total War's (Attila or Warhammer) and so did not include them

As always this is just my opinion, feel free to disagree with me, but keep it civil.

-Thanks

-Have A Nice Day

-V

[Diocle]

In RTW and Med2 it's fantastic being able to choose the right terrain and the AI is also pretty smart in taking advantage from the ground; I remember in RS2 the neverending dances around hills and slopes before I succeeded in placing my legions on the right terrain! Good old times!
Dammit, in my opinion in war a good choice of the terrain is the 80% of the job (see Wellington at Waterloo!), it's incredible they have decided to remove the best feature from their games, they were the only company in the world to have implemented this feature!
I remember having lost a battle in clear numeric superiority because the Sassanids had gotten the upper terrain in a place near Ctesiphon (RTW-BI Mod Somnium Apostatae Juliani), during the battle my men were never able to take the high ground under incessant enemy volleys! A tragic and glorius carnage!
Instead today I play Rome2 and Attila and I don't care about terrain, whatever you do the game selects the map 'à la carte' (of course always cheating: even if on the strategic map you put your men on top of a mountain, on tactical map you have always to play uphill!)!

Let me say I'll never forgive them for this! Never! Never! Never!

I agree, animations in Med2 are a pain in the arse! I resolved the thing, playing the wonderful Mod For King or Country, just changing the mounts' weight in the scripts .. sadly now I've forgotten how I did the whole thing!

[Lupus et Matrem]

Ave! I also think that the newer titles to the Total War series are nowhere near as good as RTW:1 with how everything is layed out in front of you in the campaign map. I played RomeII a bit and I just felt like the whole UI didn't feel right at all. I don't say that because i'm a hardcore RTW:1 fan and giving a bias opinion but the way everything is layed out and the way it gives you the information on all the various aspects like diplomacy, settlement management etc. is far clearer and user friendly. Even after I began getting used to the UI in RomeII I till felt like CA had taken a step back as they tried to make more simplistic which just didn't feel right for what the game is. Not to mention settlement management is way too simple and dumbed down for me to see it as a positive.

The battles I will admit are much more entertaining and look incredibly nice to watch with the level of detail. I didn't play RomeII enough though to really pay attention to the game engine but in all honesty both RTW:1 and RomeII have their flaws and improvements.

If CA did a remaster of RTW:1 and only made the engine, AI and graphics better, I'd say that it would be insanely more enjoyable than RomeII than it already is.

[GaivsSejanvs]

If CA did a remaster of RTW:1 and only made the engine, AI and graphics better, I'd say that it would be insanely more enjoyable than RomeII than it already is.

Absolutely right. I haven't play Rome II, but that what I heard about it in the forums, is this a TW Game, that I will not buy.
I stop play TW Games since Empire: TW, so I stay at the old Rome I. It's the best for me.

[G. Ward]

In RTW and Med2 it's fantastic: being able to choose the right terrain and the AI is also pretty smart in taking advantage from the ground; I remember in RS2 the never-ending dances around hills and slopes before I succeeded in placing my legions on the right terrain! Good old times!
Dammit, in my opinion in war a good choice of the terrain is the 80% of the job (see Wellington at Waterloo!), it's incredible they have decided to remove the best feature from their games, they were the only company in the world to have implemented this feature!
I remember having lost a battle in clear numeric superiority because the Sassanids had gotten the upper terrain in a place near Ctesiphon (RTW-BI Mod Somnium Apostatae Juliani), during the battle my men were never able to take the high ground under incessant enemy volleys! A tragic and glorius carnage!
Instead today I play Rome2 and Attila and I don't care about terrain, whatever you do the game selects the map 'à la carte' (of course always cheating: even if on the strategic map you put your men on top of a mountain, on tactical map you have always to play uphill!)!

Let me say I'll never forgive them for this! Never! Never! Never!

I agree, animations in Med2 are a pain in the arse! I resolved the thing, playing the wonderful Mod For King or Country, just changing the mounts' weight in the scripts .. sadly now I've forgotten how I did the whole thing!

Yep I agree, now I've realised why that they actually did that (remove the terrain feature) that was a massive part of the game - for me as well.
I'll forgive them if they make a new engine that actually properly simulates battles; Total War is a up when you think about it: after 14 years CA should already have an excellent engine, we should be having truly massive battles and CA should be spending their time really improving each Total War. Total War should be optimised FULLY for 4+ cores. I mean, inghell it's not that hard!

I stop play TW Games since Empire: TW, so I stay at the old Rome I. It's the best for me.

Wise decision sir. Though I (for some reason enjoyed Empire).

Ave! I also think that the newer titles to the Total War series are nowhere near as good as RTW:1 with how everything is laid out in front of you in the campaign map. I played RomeII a bit and I just felt like the whole UI didn't feel right at all. I don't say that because I'm a hardcore RTW:1 fan and giving a bias opinion but the way everything is laid out and the way it gives you the information on all the various aspects like diplomacy, settlement management etc. is far clearer and user-friendly. Even after I began getting used to the UI in RomeII I till felt like CA had taken a step back as they tried to make more simplistic which just didn't feel right for what the game is. Not to mention settlement management is way too simple and dumbed down for me to see it as a positive.

The battles I will admit are much more entertaining and look incredibly nice to watch with the level of detail. I didn't play RomeII enough though to really pay attention to the game engine but in all honesty both RTW:1 and RomeII have their flaws and improvements.

If CA did a remaster of RTW:1 and only made the engine, AI and graphics better, I'd say that it would be insanely more enjoyable than RomeII than it already is.

Ave to you too lol, yes agree that Rome II is too simplistic and made for the casual's, so many features are just GONE from Rome I for no apparent reason, it really is ing stupid.
A remastered Roma Surrectum 2.5 would be best (in my opinion) that would be awesome. They would just need an engine that actually worked and then they could hire the mod team. It's been done, Darkest Hour: A Hearts Of Iron Game was made by experienced modders hired by Paradox and is a full fledged game (as far as I'm aware) and then there is CS:GO.

-Thanks

-Have A Nice Day

-V

[herne_the _hunter]

The battles have got better at the expense of campaign gameplay.

I'm glad they reintroduced reemerging factions in Empire

Vannila Rome 1 and Rome 2 are equally as good and bad as each other. Sounds controversal in a thread such as this but Rome 1 from 2004 is easily as good as a game from 2013

[Ironlich]

Omg well i think no one of the Total Wars ever depicted battles as they really went... soldiers would not keep fighting indefinitely like robots. When they grew tired they slowly retreated and let fresh comrades come replace them in combat. The opposing sides did not have a magical line separating their formation from the enemy's, they would merge with each other, the overzealous ones probably ending deep into the enemy ranks while others remained back. The maniples of soldiers did not stick always together as if a magical bond kept them such, they could end up losing cohesion and then reorganize under another banner/standard, merging with them.

Now you talk about Rome 1, hmmm... well i remember things like unbreakable pike walls ( which is laughable, because pikes can be broken or stripped ), overpowered cavalry ( heavy cavalrymen could break enemy formations but they could not utterly destroy the enemy with a single charge ). I remember things like berserkers making enemies fly and kill hundreds, and elephants destroying entire armies by walking over them.

The most realistic total wars ironically are the first shogun and medieval. There, cavalry was strong but not that strong, archers were good but not that good, spearmen and pikemen had great defence but they lose to heavy swordsmen, etc...

[Diocle]

The most realistic total wars ironically are the first shogun and medieval. There, cavalry was strong but not that strong, archers were good but not that good, spearmen and pikemen had great defence but they lose to heavy swordsmen, etc...

Indeed, they were great games!

Another great feature of Med1? This: three campaigns; Early, Mid and Late Medieval Campaigns! Great, great, great feature! Never seen after then! (apart Shogun2, but it's a entirely different thing)

[Ironlich]

Indeed, they were great games!

Another great feature of Med1? This: three campaigns; Early, Mid and Late Medieval Campaigns! Great, great, great feature! Never seen after then! (apart Shogun2, but it's a entirely different thing)

Another fundamental thing which makes MTW shine was the Artificial Intelligence. Do you remember? In Medieval 1 the computer was smart enough to attack when least expected and with adequate forces. It would not always risk assaulting your castles but rather wait for them to starve. On the battlemap, it would place itself on high ground waiting for you, hide troops in woods, target your most valuable troops with archers.

In Rome the AI was very dumb in comparison... i remember armies freezing on the campaign map and not moving anymore, or generals drowning themselves in the river, in the attempt to cross it.

[Aquila SPQR]

This trend of "ruining good old games" is visible in all my favourite series, unfortunately. Latest SimCity is a disaster. Civilization V and VI are a total disappointment. And TW series... it ended on poor ETW.

I don't know why such great games went in the wrong direction. Maybe because visuals became more important than content. Or maybe developers did not want to copy old great features in fear that it would be considered "they just upgraded old game with better visuals". So they decided to change good old things and add new mechanics like "you can build only 5 buildings in Rome - you built a temple? Then sorry, but you can't build an aqueduct then" (or extremely hated "oh, so you love to zoom and just watch soldiers fight? Then we'll add a shaking camera so you won't be able to see it clearly as you liked. Oh, and you won't be able to turn this feature off of course".

This literally killed the game for me. I just can't enjoy it, enjoy the battles which I agree - look quite cool, when there is this totally absurd limit on what you can build in the city. And, of course, "you built a building in Rome that's why people in Neapolis are starving/angry". For me the M2TW is the pinnacle of TW series and I still enjoy playing it, it's actually the only TW game I still play. And thanks to mods it's actually the only one I need to play - using M2TW as a base I can play as ancient Romans, medieval English or XVIIth century Sweden.

[Diocle]

Now tell me that I'm just a ing idiot, I'll accept it, but please, now that I've begun to write down my personal truth made of regrets and complaints about those wonderful old games, let me write here this:
do you know a feature that I immensely loved in Rome TW? This: watching my cities on tactical map whenever I want!

Yes, OK, it's a silly detail, but for me (as player I'm a builder! I love building things, I love it!) it was a great pleasure watching my temples, my aqueducts, my barraks, growing and the city changing with them!
I loved spending some time, watching men and women walking around in the street (think that I would add men wearing toga, children, animals, carriages, old men, gladiators, people from foreign countries, crowding the streets ..) I loved watching a barbarian town slowly turning into a Roman town, as I loved adding a Hellenistic temple in a Persian town and watching the effect ..

.. all in all, I'm still here asking myself why has CA discarded that small beautiful and funny feature!

[Aquila SPQR]

Same here! It was a great feature, and should be so simple to implement (we already HAVE city models used in battles), so... why they removed it from the game? Marketing wants us to believe new games are "great". We see a lot of enhanced trailers, we read a lot of reviews that looks kinda biased, we are encouraged by petty gifts (BUY NOW and you'll get ONE FACTION a week earlier than everyone else! BUY NOW and you'll get AWESOME better sandals for your hoplites!) to "preorder" (literraly buy blindly the product before trying it before or reading a lot of independent reviews)...

[eugenioso]

Coming here to rep whore a comment which originally came out approximately 6 years ago is frankly a sad affair.

[Bran Mac Born]

Not being able to mod the campaign maps in Empire and Napoleon sucks. The campaign maps in those games are just terrible.

[♔atthias♔]

since RTW in defference to al orther warscape games is fully moddable

[G. Ward]

Now tell me that I'm just a ing idiot, I'll accept it, but please, now that I've begun to write down my personal truth made of regrets and complaints about those wonderful old games, let me write here this:
do you know a feature that I immensely loved in Rome TW? This: watching my cities on tactical map whenever I want!

Yes, OK, it's a silly detail, but for me (as player I'm a builder! I love building things, I love it!) it was a great pleasure watching my temples, my aqueducts, my barraks, growing and the city changing with them!
I loved spending some time, watching men and women walking around in the street (think that I would add men wearing toga, children, animals, carriages, old men, gladiators, people from foreign countries, crowding the streets ..) I loved watching a barbarian town slowly turning into a Roman town, as I loved adding a Hellenistic temple in a Persian town and watching the effect ..

.. all in all, I'm still here asking myself why has CA discarded that small beautiful and funny feature!

Forgot about that feature, agree with ya - it's ing cool.

Another fundamental thing which makes MTW shine was the Artificial Intelligence. Do you remember? In Medieval 1 the computer was smart enough to attack when least expected and with adequate forces. It would not always risk assaulting your castles but rather wait for them to starve. On the battlemap, it would place itself on high ground waiting for you, hide troops in woods, target your most valuable troops with archers.

In Rome the AI was very dumb in comparison... i remember armies freezing on the campaign map and not moving anymore, or generals drowning themselves in the river, in the attempt to cross it.

Unfortunately, I wasn't born when either of those great (I'm sure) games were released, I was born in 2001

Coming here to rep whore a comment which originally came out approximately 6 years ago is frankly a sad affair.

What? My comment was not made 6 years ago, I don't know what you mean by any of what you said - and judging by the lack of replies, no one else does either. Please can ya clarify.

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-V

since RTW in defference to al orther warscape games is fully moddable

Rome Total War and Med II are the best games for modders, since Warscape the mod-ability (is that a word) of the engine is drastically reduced.

-Thanks

-Have a Nice Day

-V

[Frunk]

Vengeance, I just merged your posts for you. In the future, please try and include all your replies in one post, even if you are quoting. You can use the Multi Quote button, which appears next to the Reply With Quote button on each post.

Simply press the button on each post you would like to quote, and then press the Reply With Quote button on the last one. You will then be able to quote all the posts in one reply with ease.