Rome: Total War is Out

[General Ludd]

Make sure to set the unit scale to huge if you want massive battles, by the way. It doubles the amount of soldiers in each unit.

[Kassiopeia]

So THAT is what it means. I think I have it on "large" now, 80 soldiers tops per card.

[General Ludd]

Yeah, on the huge setting you get 160 in each one. Makes the battles quite a bit more spectacular.

[Flip McWho]

Jesus, that'll be huge. Yeah I'm currently in the middle of a campaign as the Brutii. Making steady inroads into the Greek area of the map. I need to pull the plug out and start conquering more. At the moment I'm just piss assing around getting the feel of it all.

Great game though isn't it.

[General Ludd]

I'm playing as the red dudes. Julli, or whatever.


The gauls are damned easy to kill. I'm thinking I might start a new game and focus more on the greeks or carthaginians or something instead.... but I guess they'll still be waiting when I'm done mopping up the gauls in my current game.


I currently have a 12 star general or something who's faught off litteral hordes of gauls - battle after battle after battle (I think he's faught as many as three in one turn), almost always being outnumbered 3 to 1... and sometimes even 5 to 1, yet still coming out with only a few dozen casualties. Even the faction leader of the gauls (who didn't have the number advantage many of his lessers had) was just barely able to break 100 casualties in his last stand.

It's gotten to the point that the gauls basically just turn tail and flee as soon as the general and his bodyguards make their charge. (which is how every battle of his has ended... him charging at the enemy and making the final blow once they are bogged down in the light infantry [hestati?] )

[Flip McWho]

Yeah I'm close to finishing off the greeks (I think) and afterwards I'm gonna skip straight to Africa and go for Egypt. I hear its a good tourist place. I could continue into Macedonia which lies to my east but I don't desire to have a war with a somewhat major power that borders directly on my east. I'm a little paranoid that I might get beaten and I don't like that

[Jamski]

Wowie zowie!

What set-up are you playing on Kassi to get these screenshots, how does the game run etc, etc.

-jma

[General Ludd]

Is there really any advantage to enslaving or erradicating a settlement? Can they be rebuilt at all?

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Jamski
Wowie zowie!

What set-up are you playing on Kassi to get these screenshots, how does the game run etc, etc.

-jma

I would guess that those are medium to low settings. Really, you can't make the game look bad if you try.

It runs as smooth as anything on my amd athlon 2400, Radeon 9700 pro 500mb RAM computer aswell. Even with every setting on medium or higher, and the unit scale to huge with 160 soldiers in each unit.


I'll see if I can get some screenshots of my own.

[Jamski]

I think I have to go to the computer shop tommorrow...

Wait - I'm in England now - argh - erm... When is the UK release?

-Jam

[Kassiopeia]

Originally posted by Jamski
Wowie zowie!

What set-up are you playing on Kassi to get these screenshots, how does the game run etc, etc.

-jma

Resolution: 1024x768

Anti-aliasing: Low
Unit detail: High (max is High)
Building detail: Low (max is Highest)
Vegetation detail: Medium (max is Highest)
Effects detail: High (High or Highest)
Grass detail: Medium (High)
Terrain detail: High (High)
Smoke/dust ON
Shadows ON
High-quality shadows ON
Grass ON
Desynchronize animation (huh?) OFF
Reflections/glints OFF

My rig is:
Athlon XP 2500+
Radeon 9600/128MB (Ludd's R9700 is better performance-wise but doesn't know the DX9 tricks as well AFAIK)
512 MB DDR RAM

It's running smoothly now, but I haven't tinkered with the settings yet, I'll see if I can ramp everything up and not get any performance loss. The resolution is 1024 only because I have a 17" CRT.

The game also alt-tabs from battle or the campaign screen back to Windows incredibly swiftly.

[Kassiopeia]

I've found that enslaving increases public order somewhat. Less prone to rebel with so little people maybe? Same with exterminate. Of course, the enslaved people go to your rivals as well, IIRC, or at least they go to the SPQR cities (Rome) as well, so it's not necessarily a good idea.

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by Jamski
I think I have to go to the computer shop tommorrow...

Wait - I'm in England now - argh - erm... When is the UK release?

-Jam

Oct 1st

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by Kassiopeia



Desynchronize animation (huh?) OFF

C'Mon Kass, think about it!!!!!!

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by General Ludd
Is there really any advantage to enslaving or erradicating a settlement? Can they be rebuilt at all?

A settlement cant be destroyed. What you're doing is re-allocating the people from that city to another (enslavement) or killing most (erradicate).

The advantage to enslavement is that a percentage of the people get moved to other cities where they can be productive. Just as in civ, cities full of other factions people tend to be very rebellious. So it makes sense to move em, but the captured city will be less productive for a long time.

I'm not aware of the negative sides of enslavement v erradicate yet but I'm sure they're there. In MTW the choices you made with prisoners affected the character traits your generals picked up.