Is it more difficult to manage an army in a battle in Rome Total War than in Total War Rome 2?

[twgamer20197]

I don't have much experience playing TWR yet ( both the classic and the remastered versions ). But is it more difficult to manage an army in battles? Both battles in the open and battles attacking a city

[G. Ward]

Well, Rome I's engine is quite different from Rome II's. This quite drastically affects the behaviour of your units.

In Rome I's engine, the units are simulated to have mass in a way that is amazingly realistic. They collide realistically with the enemy. This is really cool. It means that the battle-lines are dynamic: the weaker unit is slowly pushed-back and overwhelmed by the stronger force, until the line eventually buckles. This simply does not happen in Rome II. However this can result in it being more difficult, in Rome I, to withdraw / maneuver your units that are in combat. In Rome II, disengaging from combat is extremely easy. Sometimes, you can even just walk through enemy units that your unit is supposed to be fighting with relative ease. This simply doesn't happen in Rome I. Your unit, in combat, is much "sticker". It's harder to disengage, and it's impossible to simply walk fowards, through the enemy, like you can sometimes do on Rome II.

In Rome Remastered, you can re-arrange the unit cards by dragging with the mouse in U.I. bar. (You couldn't in the original Rome).

Pathfinding in seige battles for the original Rome (& the Remaster) is appalling. Units frequently bug-out, and misdirect themselves. Sometimes they don't run. Frequently they do loops, or do go where you've told them to go in roundabout ways. This is extremely frustrating. I was very disappointed that C.A. & Feral did not fix the seige path-finding in the game.

In open-battles, pathfinding is much better, though, you might find that the units, especially skirmishers, feel less responsive to your commands than in Rome II.

Obviously you don't have to agree, but I personally find that in the later Total War games, units are too responsive, and, feel like automata. All raising their shields at once; all turning on the spot at once; all charging at once, etc. etc.
This doesn't happen in Rome I. Each individual soldier in each unit responds at an ever so slightly different speed to an order given.

Also, Rome II allows for 40 vs. 40-unit battles. This is simply not a feature of Rome I, or Remastered. 20 vs. 20 is the most number of units you can have under your control in a battle at any one time (further reinforcements, if they are not controlled by the A.I., are forced to wait outside of the battle area). Whilst this isn't great from a gameplay perspective, it means that there is a significantly lower number of units to manage than in Rome II in a massive battle.

In conclusion, I'd strongly encourage you to try out Rome Remastered and see if you find things to like about it. You will find that the units certainly 'feel' much different than Rome II's , but, I don't think they will present a problem when you manage them in battle. You may even find that, given time, you prefer the feel of Rome I's units (and their realistic weighting & mass).

TLDR: I don't think that unit responsiveness should present a problem for you, outside of sieges -- which annoy everyone, even R:TW pros, because the pathfinding is bugged-out.

-G. Ward