Rome: Total War is Out

[Grandpa Troll]

im running an athlon 3200
1 gig ram and
Radeon 9800


runs like a champ
well..when i learn how to play

[lightblue]

Fun game, very addictive. Playing medium as the Sciipi, conquered Sicily, destroyed the Carthaginians, sending my legions against Egypt at the moment as well dabbling on the Med coast against the Gauls. Only problem I have at the moment is with keeping my populace happy. I seem to get a lot of squalor in all my cities even with sewers/public baths/aqueducts etc. OH, and lacking in decent generals as everyone is weakwilled or nuts

[Flip McWho]

See decent generals seem to be what each one of mine happens to be. Except one out cast. I just don't have enough. Though I got an adoption and a man of the hour recently.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel
thanks

Will try to get it next weekend after I get paid again. Can't wait to play it.

Here are the dot org recommendations for things to do before installing

As us poor relations over here in Europe will be installing the game in the next few days, here is are some handy tips to prepare yourself and your other half (your PC that is).

1. Uninstall the Rome Total War Demo. There are rumours that the demo is not compatible with the full game, e.g., causing problems with not seeing all possible screen resolutions in the game video menu. Better safe than sorry.

2. Delete any unwanted clutter from your hard disk and defrag it, so it is like a virgin field of snow...

3. Update your graphic card drivers from the manufacturers web site: Nvidia or ATI

4. Some people recommend updating the firmware on your CD/DVD drive to ensure it won't have any problems reading the RTW CDs. It is possible a bad batch of CDs hit the States last week - hope we don't get that here

5. Turn off any virus scanner software before installing - this has been recommended by Activision support.

6. Create a system restore point. In Windows XP this is under Accessories, System Tools, System Restore. You can also get to it from Start, Help and Support.

7. If you've already got DirectX 9.0c installed (it comes with Windows XP Service Pack 2, or as a separate download), do not install DirectX from the RTW installer. The version of DirectX included with RTW is 9.0b (i.e., older), and it could screw up your DirectX configuration, as it does not seem to detect that you have a later version already, and you end up with a mix. To see what version of DirectX you have, run dxdiag.

8. The installer also requests that you first disable any CD/DVD emulation software, such as Alcohol/Daemon Tools.

9. If you do have any installation problems, check the dedicated .COM forum. eradosan (admin at the .com) has created a web site for known problems and workarounds/fixes.

10. Stock up on your favourite poison, lock all the doors, and prepare to make war

I'm not sure I agree with all of them. I didnt disable alcohol. I didnt defrag. It didnt put DX9.0b ontop of my SP2 9.0c.

The system restore is a good idea as well as updating drivers and turning off virus crap.

Make sure you have enough free HD space (~3Gb)

[Flip McWho]

I didn't do sh*t all, just installed it the moment I got home. Works very fine.

[Cookie Monster]

Those prebattle speeches are more than just ear candy. If you pay attention to them they reveal clues about the upcoming battle.

One example that comes to mind is when he says something along the lines of our enemy has shown up with no friends. Translation, he will not receive reinforcements during this battle.

Has anyone else noticed this?

[Kassiopeia]

Yeah, it's pretty obvious. Like said, they represent their characteristics - I had a general who had "bloody" as a trait, and he ended the speech with saying how he yearns to bathe in the blood of the enemies. Likewise, the general will drone on about superiority in numbers being irrelevant if you have less troops, saying how the Roman spirit and courage will help them prevail. I don't know how it's decided whether or not the portents have been favourable or not, in any case, if they are, he extols them, if they're not, the general will simply state that the soldiers shall make their own destinies. If the general has a bad history with defensive battles (A Bad Defender trait or somesuch), he'll remind of it but say that now it's time to break the trend. I suppose it's a string of soundbites instead of one entire speech that are glued together based on what the situation is. Also a general who is Pragmatic usually fails to mention portents at all.

And if the general is of the drinking sort, he'll promise the first soldier to the enemy a jug of his finest wine. The list goes on and on.

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by Kassiopeia
Yeah, it's pretty obvious. Like said, they represent their characteristics - I had a general who had "bloody" as a trait, and he ended the speech with saying how he yearns to bathe in the blood of the enemies. Likewise, the general will drone on about superiority in numbers being irrelevant if you have less troops, saying how the Roman spirit and courage will help them prevail. I don't know how it's decided whether or not the portents have been favourable or not, in any case, if they are, he extols them, if they're not, the general will simply state that the soldiers shall make their own destinies. If the general has a bad history with defensive battles (A Bad Defender trait or somesuch), he'll remind of it but say that now it's time to break the trend. I suppose it's a string of soundbites instead of one entire speech that are glued together based on what the situation is. Also a general who is Pragmatic usually fails to mention portents at all.

And if the general is of the drinking sort, he'll promise the first soldier to the enemy a jug of his finest wine. The list goes on and on.

this is very kewl

Thanks for the insight

Gramps

[Jamski]

They'd SOLD OUT at Game in Norwich! Arrrgh! And at Virgin, and at the smaller shops!

So I bought a HUGE monitor instead and lugged it home on my bike

-Jam

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by Kassiopeia
I suppose it's a string of soundbites instead of one entire speech that are glued together based on what the situation is.

That's precisely what I noticed after fighting about 4 battles. You tend to hear the same or similiar speech especially if you manually resolve battles with the same general over and over.

I still think it's a nice touch and will still enjoy this aspect of the game even a year from now.

[Kassiopeia]

It started to feel a bit old after some while, but then my generals started to have entirely unforeseen traits and new bites started to get introduced, and suddenly you'd have new parts you'd never heard before. It's been made very durable for a feature of that kind. Now I tend to skip most of them, unless I know that there's an interesting trait there, like Madness. Also of note is that Generals with little traits have very short speeches, and mere Captains utter only a sentence or two. I wonder if the speech affects morale too? I'd suppose that it does in the sense that the traits which affect the speech affect the altogether battle situation as well.

What exactly DOES the Command skill do, now that I think about it? Does it simply heighten the morale and thus the routing treshold of units? Does it increase firepower or, say, the effect of flanking maneuvres too?

[Traianvs]

looks like some people are conquering a bit too easy.
never ever start a game on easy. A game that is too easy spoils it all for me. I always go hardcore, though in some fps games that screws me because enemies respawn at the highest diff level

[Flip McWho]

Aye I can see your point. However I'm playing with campaign on hard and battles on easy. I thought it would kinda balance it out, but yeah having hard in the campaign side of things doesn't seem to affect much. I suppose it effects the amount of times your family gives birth and death rate and cost and so forth. Its too early to tell for me. Battles however are rather easy (at least against the Gauls - is this still the case at higher difficulty levels? Are they Gauls total push overs?) I shoulda left them up a level. But I just desire to unlock all the other nations.

[Grandpa Troll]

maybe a good point is here..try to play at most difficult and learn hard lessons...

maybe you have something here versus learning to walk with crutches you walk on your own!

Ok

[lightblue]

I try and play these games on medium. Medieval on the hardest lvl was virtually impossible.

Gauls do seem to be easy to beat. Draw them into a fight with your infantry -> flank with cavalry -> get to rear with horse -> meat grinder.

Trying the start of a campaign with the Brutii atm, it seems to be easier, possibly because the cities you conquer at the start aren't as big as say Thabus and Carthage which you attack as a Scipii. That and I seem to be getting better generals.