Rome: Total War

Post by **I'm Murrin** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 6:09 pm

Yeah. As a comparison, here's a screenshot from my current game (R:TR Platinum)--you can see the differences from the original R:TW, but it's nowhere near as extensive as the R:TR 7 map will be:

Post by **I'm Murrin** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 2:02 pm

I lost my first game on R:TR, so I restarted as the Seleucids, and it is pretty good. I started the game with the largest faction and largest military, but they were spread thin across the immense span of the empire - at least 20 cities, to start with. The westernmost cities on Anatolia all had tiny garrisons and happiness at red levels, while the closer you got to the center--Seleuceius, Babylon, Susa--the better conditions got. Most cities started from the most basic level of development, and had to be built up slowly and ever so carefully. I did, however, have a huge income, enough so that I could, for most turns, keep construction going in every single city. So I had to sit still while these cities slowly got happier and added one or two units to the garrisons, and slowly spreading my small family out as their numbers rose.

Now, I've passed that first period of peace, through a stage of expansion south through Israel and down to the Nile, and am currently holding things together by moving small armies from place to place to hold off Armenian, Pontian, and Ptolemaic forces. For the last few years the heroic Choerilus Ephiphanes Philadelphus has been singlehandedly driving back Egyptian incursion forces in Anatolia, and is pushing towards their last city on the peninsula.

Post by **Trapper** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 10:00 pm

I've just spent an hour or so looking at the Total Realism option.

I think I have to retract my earlier advice to Avatar that the Barbarian Invasion expansion is worth buying. Total Realism looks like it is better, with the added advantage of being free.

I have been really enjoying BI, but it sounds like the modding community have left the official producers floundering in their wake.

Murrin, it sounds like you're right up to date with the mods situation, so if I could just ask: is it Rome Total Realism Platinum Edition v1.6 that is the one to get at the moment?

I found a good installation guide at

www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=58290

but I only have dial-up and would like to be sure before I download a 214Mb file and go through the uninstall/re-install process.

--------------------------

As a side note, my current Very Hard/Medium Western Roman BI game is going great. My armies have left about 13-14 Crossed Swords on the map denoting the sites of "Heroic" victories. I think the most I've ever had before was about 4-5. The road east out of the city in SW Turkey is paved with them.

I've also got/had about 15 units with one or two Gold chevrons, where I'd only ever had a couple before.

I also saw a quite amusing personality trait when I met up with the Celts.

Their 80 year old Faction Leader Calgacus MacAchuirr was "Aggressively Perverse".

"Consent is no longer something that this man considers when slaking his lusts for other men". (-3 Influence)

Is it wrong of me to be impressed by this, considering that he was an octogenarian?

Their 76yo Faction Heir was merely "Pig-Ignorant".

They still managed to boot me out of Britain, though.

Post by **Avatar** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 8:38 am

Looks great Murrin. The only thing that stops me from downloading it is that my game isn't exactly...uhh...original.

There's scores of mods being done for Rome. The one I'm most eagerly awaiting is the one set in Africa, with the Zulu wars etc. But who knows if it'll ever get done. *shrug*

--A

Post by **I'm Murrin** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 3:04 pm

That shouldn't be a problem, Avatar - what you do is, copy RomeTW.exe, and after installing the mod paste it back in (that's the same thing you do if you have a DVD version, or gold edition). So if it's cracked to run an illegal version, it should still run after modding (the mod mostly only changes the Data files).

Murrin, it sounds like you're right up to date with the mods situation, so if I could just ask: is it Rome Total Realism Platinum Edition v1.6 that is the one to get at the moment?

Platinum is a port of Rome: Total Realism 6.0. Realism 6.0 only runs on Rome: Total War v1.2; the Platinum version runs with the 1.5 patch. This means you get the latest version of the game as well as the mod.
That page you linked is the same one I used for installing my RTR.
If your game is unmodified, you shouldn't need to reinstall it before installing RTR, I think. As long as you have Rome and BI installed before you install the mod. (Note: when the mod is installed, the original Rome campaign won't be playable any more, unless you back up the Data folder and switch the two over. Barbarian Invasion should still play as normal, I think.)

It looks like Rome: Total Realism 7.0, which is currently in the works, will only run with BI, to take advantage of the new features.

Post by **Trapper** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 4:21 pm

Murrin wrote:That page you linked is the same one I used for installing my RTR.
If your game is unmodified, you shouldn't need to reinstall it before installing RTR, I think. As long as you have Rome and BI installed before you install the mod.

I'll give it a try. I may have downloaded and run an official patch at some time but no mods, so it sounds like that should be OK. If not I can reinstall and make it v1.2/1.5. (My BI is 1.4, I haven't actually tried to run the original since I got BI, so I'm not sure what v it's at.)

Thank you so much, Murrin, much obliged.

*rubbing my hands together with glee at the idea of such a great game becoming even better*

Post by **I'm Murrin** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 5:21 pm

Trapper439 wrote:(My BI is 1.4, I haven't actually tried to run the original since I got BI, so I'm not sure what v it's at.)

2. You have Rome Total War Gold Edition which has RTW and BI on separate CDs. There is a problem with some of these packages in the sense that sometimes RTW is v1.5 and BI is v1.4 and when you also install BI it downgrades RTW to v1.3. After you have installed BI you can verify which RTW version you have by starting the game(using the RomeTW.exe not the BI.exe), clicking OPTIONS and looking in the upper right corner. If it says ver1.3 then you should download and install BARBARIAN INVASION PATCH v1.6 and this will also upgrade your RTW to the required v1.5. Here is the link to BI patch v1.6:
www.sega.com/support/pcdownl...r_patch_1-6.zip

Post by **Trapper** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 6:01 pm

Murrin, you have totally cleared up my utter confusion about the whole thing in two concise and comprehensive posts.

Thanks again. I'll let you know how it goes.

About to go to bed and let my dial-up download that 200Mb overnight.

I hope your Seleucid campaign is going well.

Although my personal thoughts on the matter are:

Keep Wome Woman.

Post by **Avatar** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 11:26 am

Thanks for the info Murrin. My RTW is totally unpatched though...bog standard V1.0. Do I need to patch it first? Or is there a TR mod that will run off V1.0? Or will installing a TR mod automatically upgrade the version as well?

--A

Post by **I'm Murrin** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 5:08 pm

You have to have it patched to 1.2 to install RTR, or 1.5 to install platinum. However, I don't think they have patch 1.2 available to download any more.

Post by **Avatar** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 9:19 am

Hmm...but an exe that's fixed for the patch should be fine for the mod...so patch, install mod, recopy fixed patch .exe?

Will try when I've got download time. Worst that can happen is having to uninstall/reinstall. No worries.

Thanks.

--A

Post by **Trapper** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 3:15 pm

The download site for RTR hasn't worked in the last few days, although I had seen it work previously (that's how I knew it was a 214Mb file).

I'll keep trying as it sounds wonderful.

Meanwhile in my BI game the Franks have taken back 3-4 provinces around Denmark and the only reason I still have a foothold in Turkey is that I have the greatest General I have ever had winning against 1:2 odds on a regular basis.

Post by **Trapper** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 4:17 pm

The download is finally working. Kinda...

Estimated time left 15hr 10min.

Rest assured I have inquired about broad-band. Unfortunately I'm stuck with dial-up for the time being.

Post by **Trapper** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 4:20 pm

It's now 20hr 10min.

*shakes head*

I'm going to bed.

Post by **Warmark** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 5:22 pm

Post by **Avatar** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 9:04 am

Hope it worked.

--A

Post by **Trapper** » Wed Sep 13, 2006 3:53 pm

Yep, it worked (13hrs 10 min in the end).

I started a game, played about 11 years game-time, saved it. Now when I try to resume play it crashes to desk-top when I press End Turn and it gets to the Pontic AI.

I'll just have to save more often, I guess.

Although I'm not too sure whether I like the fact that they seem to have gotten rid of the higher-order Barracks and Hippodromes.

On a childish note, I had a bit of a giggle when I found a Carthaginian town in eastern Spain called "Arse".

I'll give them the benefit of the benefit of the doubt and assume the town was founded by that great Carthaginian - Foghorn Leghorn. "Boy, Aah say boy, we should found a city hyah".

Post by **I'm Murrin** » Thu Sep 14, 2006 10:17 am

Did you set it to "short campaign"? When I played a short campaign as Parthia the game started crashing at 225BC, on the Romans' turn. I think it was because they reached the victory conditions before me (I'd already had a warning about Rome and some others getting near the conditions). I don't think R:TR was intended for anything other than full-scale campaigns. Then again, 11 years is not long; it might not even be possible to reach the conditions in that time...

Post by **Trapper** » Thu Sep 14, 2006 12:37 pm

It was the full campaign. I was playing the Romans. If the Ponts managed to gain 50 provinces in 11 years I can only take my hat off to them.

Hopefully it won't happen again. I've restarted as the Carthaginians (I was going to play as the Seleucids so we could compare notes, but when I saw that they start with 33 provinces and only 4 initial Governers I kinda freaked out.

) and while I haven't reloaded that game yet I've been saving on each turn.

Overall it's been pretty good, although I think the naval combat is a bit dodgy. On several occasions I've had entire fleets destroyed to the man by a single enemy ship when I've held a 6:1 advantage, and I haven't won a single naval battle without having at least one of my ships sunk.

Post by **I'm Murrin** » Thu Sep 14, 2006 1:22 pm

Oh, I should probably warn you about something else: archers are useless in R:TR. The creators decided that in R:TW the archers were far too effective, decided that in real life it must be unlikely for such a small thing as an arrow to find a target, and changed the odds, such that I've never seen a single soldier killed by archers.

Kevin's Watch

Kevin's Watch

Rome: Total War