RTW revisited after patch 1.3

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RTW revisited after patch 1.3

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RTW revisited after patch 1.3 - 10/15/2005 3:10:52 AM

ravinhood

Posts: 3891
Joined: 10/23/2003
Status: offline

Well bite my tongue and choke. lol I have to admit I'm impressed with the AI in RTW now after patch 1.3 (No I didn't get BI I waited on the patch for RTW). I was soundly beat in two major battles by the Gaul AI. I played it like I always did, got my full stack of 20 men and went a marching into gaul land. Boy was I smeared. It brought a stack and a half, plus what was in the city I was sieging against me, hit me from three sides, it was a massacre and I wasn't the one doing it for a change. ;) I only used a 1 star general though.

So, I reqrouped and built up a 16 stack army with my 4 star general and made haste to the bridge that seperates the guals from the julii, I messed up though and stopped just before the bridge instead of on the bridge and had to fight an open battle when the guals attacked me again. It was a better fight, but, it broke my left flank as I broke its right flank and it killed my general shortly after that (I was too busy trying to roll up its flanks and wasn't keeping an eye on my general) and then made mince meat of the rest of my army AGAIN GDmit! lol

They've added some features as well like "zone of control". I used to be able to just run around a city or stack, now that city or stack will stop you in your tracks (costs you boo coo movement points to move into one) and you either have to fight your way through it or make a huge circle around it.

Rebel armies are beefed up more, better units hardly any peasants and come in stacks of like 5's instead of 1's and 2's and 3's.

The diplomacy can still be exploited to a degree. Catch an ai faction at war with several other factions, goto war with it then send a diplomat and sue for peace and get a nice 20,000 denari donation to end the war. (carthage did this as usual as that was one of the things I checked out as well if they had fixed the diplomacy exploits).

It's too early to say it's a "great patch", but, so far it's looking pretty challenging and this only on VH/H, since I haven't modified the combat speed and I can't stand those rout on contact battles. I may move to VH/M for more combat time, losses are extreme though, no more of these only 1 or 2 losses and killing thousands that's for sure.

The city siege pathing seems to be improved, haven't had a chance to fight a major city offensive battle yet though with towers and siege towers and ladders. The ai seems to have been wised up as to make a bunch of siege equipment though so those players who exploit putting spearmen/phalanx in that one opening the ai used to always just try to pour through it's made it much harder since the ai takes several approaches to entering the city now.

It actually feels like it plays more tactfully now, at least on an experienced 13 year old level. Before it played like a 2 year old, ohhhhh looky daddy I charge! lol The general unit seems to have been beefed up a little more also, they don't die as fast and it has a sometimes it charges, sometimes it holds back personality too.

It doesn't work with anything 1.2 or any mods for 1.2, so RTR and SPQR you can just toss now until they upgrade and from word of mouth the RTR team is only going to upgrade the BI game, so, it looks like we won't have the great map that RTR provided us for the new 1.3 RTW anymore. (cries).

Post #: 1

RE: RTW revisited after patch 1.3 - 10/15/2005 6:40:23 AM

Sarge

Posts: 2841
Joined: 3/1/2003
From: ask doggie
Status: offline

Hi ravinhood,

Are you sure the AI is not just cheating now, becuase I got to tell ya RTW had one of the worse AI I have ever seen and thats a big accomplishment considering the RTS gender.

Don't take this the wrong way, I do thank you for the heads up

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(in reply to ravinhood)

Post #: 2

RE: RTW revisited after patch 1.3 - 10/15/2005 7:11:53 AM

ravinhood

Posts: 3891
Joined: 10/23/2003
Status: offline

No I actually think it maneuvers better now, I've seen the difference, it doesn't just stand there and wait for me to flank it. And it also gets the handicaps it should get on hard and very hard settings now, the combat bonus, so that's to be expected, it was broken in v1.2 and both the ai and the human player got the bonus thus the ai got no bonuses thus so many recording easy victories on vh/vh settings.

I'm a pretty good player have won my fair share online of MTW battles and this patch definitely has improved in performance of the battles. Else I would have steamrolled the ai as I did before even with bonus to modifiers if it just stood there and did nothing or charged its leader to its death immediately. The leader appears to have some scripts now, it sometimes charges, sometimes waits and even the other units do the same, it actually is keeping "reserves" in some situations.

The stacking was a major issue before, too many 1's and 2's and 3's stacks, it's definitely building larger stacks and bringing them together in counter attacks against me, unike before it would just send another stack of 1's or 2's or 3's. It's also using "ambushes" better and more often, something that was lacking before as well. I have to send out a diplomat or spy now to sort of screen my advance heh. I've already lost two major battles and two major armies, I cannot afford another loss or all will be lost and I will have to suffer defeat at the digit crunching of a computer. lol I'm lovin it. ;)

One thing it might know though and I'm not 100% certain yet is what unit I am clicking on to maneuver, seems when I move to one flank or the other to adjust my units or attack, it goes to the other side and does stuff over there, thus, getting to one of my flanks as I get to one of its. And it knows when your general is unprotected and does a pretty good job of going after it if you don't keep a close eye on him.

Personally though even if it is cheating somewhat I am all for it as long as a challenge is there, I can't stand $50 games that offer no challenge whatsoever even on the hardest settings. This patch has given me new enjoyment out of a game I've hated for almost a year. You might say I'm finally getting to play it for the first time again.

And many are stating that Barbarian Invasion is even "harder", though there are a "few" who say they've beat it on vh/vh, nothing like the volume of people that said they beat RTW 1.1 or 1.2 on vh/vh though. Some people are just not meant to play computer games, heh, but, as for me, I know my abilities and I have too many games with ai's that can beat me to believe that RTW should have been so easy in the first place. Even MTW was more of a challenge. Now, RTW 1.3 is the challenge I was looking for.

(in reply to Sarge)

Post #: 3

RE: RTW revisited after patch 1.3 - 10/15/2005 1:54:18 PM

Vyshka

Posts: 275
Joined: 4/13/2002
From: Chandler, AZ
Status: offline

Good to hear, I am reloading it as I type this message. I had been thinking of getting the BI expansion and will probably do so now.

(in reply to ravinhood)

Post #: 4

RE: RTW revisited after patch 1.3 - 10/17/2005 5:47:59 PM

Barrold

Posts: 58
Joined: 7/7/2005
From: Grand Rapids, MI
Status: offline

Boy this is a tough one to swallow, but I have come to have the same feelings as Ravinhood regarding RTW. Even with the mods available, it just wasn't as satisfying an experience as I expected. If I have a moment, maybe I will try the patch.

BDH

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None of this is my fault.

(in reply to Vyshka)

Post #: 5