rise of nations has been beat say hello to the RTS of the year. yay yay

I got the demo a while back too and I agree with your opinion of it. It really is a great game. Great music, great animations, great attention to detail, basically, just great. I advise anyone with DSL to download it and try it out, it's more fun than a barrel full of monkeys.

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The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary. - James D. Nicoll

lol I'm just waiting to be yelled at for posting a huge pic...

anyway some peope from playing the demo would be concerned about the quicker pace and easyness of it, especially hardcore MTW and STW fans...but remember the tactical battles are only half of the game, and its only a demo.

I'm curious to see how seige warfare works after all most of the action around that time were seiges rather than field battles.

Oh and I just learnt the hard way that if war elephants are under too much pressure (I sent mine right into the middle of a whole cohort) their status will be "running amok" and they'll kill your own troops as well as the enemies. Armoured elephants seem unbeatable but apparently it takes ages and costs heaps to make one.

PS. If you thought that screen was bad check this out:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/rom ... ml?page=79

yay seige!:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/rom ... ml?page=49

Edited by - Griffon_26 on 9/8/2004 3:24:16 AM

"I'm curious to see how seige warfare works after all most of the action around that time were seiges rather than field battles"

sorry Griff, that's not right. The Roman Army was essentially an offensive field force for most of it's history, certainly throughout the expansionist phase of the republic and Emoire. it had eveolved to meet its enemies in the field. Only later as expansion ceased, did it become a static defensive force. Later it was split in two, a purely defensive frontier force (limitanei) and a mobile cavalry/infantry reserve well behind the frontiers (comitatesenses)

I'll be interested to see whether they've just used the classic Army of the late Republic and Early/High Empire, or if they've included the later evolutions of the Roman military. You know the classic legion got scrapped in the 4th century? out-of-date, too expensive, not flexible enough for the conditions prevailing at the time.

if the devs have done it right, you needn't worry about effalumps, they really aren't that useful tactically. they have a profound psychological impact on unseasoned troops, and scare horses, but steady infantry, spearmen and archers can deal with them q readily. it was very common for the Persians to use effalumps against the Romans, but they rarely got any lasting advantage from it once the Romans figured out how to deal with them.

I'm so looking forward to this game!

(apart from green Romans, that looks cr*p; I'm not having my legionaries in anything but 100% accurate period outfits) and the horsetails were only used by high-ranking officers and Praetorians. Centurions had sideways crests not lengthways, except for the Primus Pilus and the Miitary Tribunes.

Phalanx formation should be beatable with legionary forces if theyve provided enuff tactical freedom in the legionary unit to subdivide it into centuries and maniples. Otherwise phalanx is a tough nut to crack if you can't out-maneouver it.

As for building units, well let history itself be your guide. The Romans had fairly small forces considering the size of their conquests and the scale of battles they enjoined. Their success in rdefating and routing armies vastly superior in numbers has usually benn put down to discipline and training, which is true of course; but there's another far more veryday and practical reason. The Romans recognised, as Alexander had, that only those forces that actually can engage are of any consequence. What's the point of having, say, a million men at arms on the field, if you can only engage with 10,000? Once the front ranks are penetrated, the rest will usually break and run anyway.

I also hope they've put civil wars in, not just foreign enemies. by far the toughest battles in the Imperial period were the huge conflicts between rivals for the purple.



Edited by - Radio Free Tawakalnistan on 9/8/2004 4:10:09 AM

Edited by - Radio Free Tawakalnistan on 9/8/2004 4:22:47 AM

They aren't romans!!! And they do have centurions modeled correctly

...and seiges were definantly more common than battles in rome and elsewhere.

The game seems to have made Triarii "spearmen", principes "heavy infantry" and hastiti "light infantry" whereas the triarii were elderly men, principes were middle aged who formed lines in front of the triarii, and hastiti the young men at the very front. Each man had lancers, javelins and a sword and shield, well at least it was like that after the reorganisation of the army by Tullius...however I don't think it matters...its the Greeks I want to play!

And I want to be a barbarian horde, paid bribes by frightened "civilised" romans to camp inside their borders to scare away other barbarian hordes with my greater barbarianism...muahaha *commits barbarous acts*

I've always been more fascinated with the barbarians, and celts gauls etc than the romans themselves.



Edited by - Griffon_26 on 9/8/2004 4:41:34 AM

I knew they weren't Romans but i thought they might just be using some generic model like in AOE and making them different colours. The legionary organisation you mention is the pre-Marian form used in the Punic Wars and the Hellenic campaigns, it derives from the original military "levy" of the early Republic (legion actually means "levy" Elements of it still survived into the post-Marian army which was the basis for the classic military formations of Caesar and the early Emperors.

why do want to play the Barbs? they're rubbish, if they cant overwhelm by surprise in a first rush, they'll lose. You really have to be a rotten general to lose to barbarians. The real danger from barbarians is that they're always there, lurking about on the frontiers, and there's so many of them. And, again if the game designers have got it right, you rarely have a free hand to deal with them. You have to keep one eye on the barbarians outside the frontier, another on your rivals within the Empire who might take advantage if youre too engaged with fighting barbs. And vice-versa.

i kicked the demo's ass...yay me!

@Grif.....Maybe you can change the picture to a linky if you can't downsize it?

What do you call that armor displayed on the Egyptian(?) spearmen on the left? It looks like linked plates and it looks like it is pretty much a total body covering. I didn't know they had those in that age.

Edited by - Indy11 on 9/8/2004 6:43:23 AM

to me it looks more like the tightly linked scales used in Persian cataphracti armour. but they do look Egyptian, don't they? in which case the others'd have to be fighting Macedonians or Persians, and those green boys don't look Persian.


Edited by - Radio Free Tawakalnistan on 9/8/2004 7:45:34 AM

*squints at image*

Hmmmm. Maybe scales, they look squared off and linked at the corners/edges though and not overlapping.

The shield of a white horse hairs' (?) looks Greek in decoration but rather small.
The other side seemingly has no shields, not even wicker ones, so I suspect they are Egyptian.

Droooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool.
I got PCGamer UK on Saturday. With the demo. That is one sweeet game,

roll on need for speed underground 2, i want urban racing now dagnabit *goes off to play nfsu 1 *

I'm always confused about the different ages in rome etc...didn't they start off as a kingdom, and then become a republic (because they had too many bad kings, swore never to have one again) and then had an emperor again (octivian if I remember)??

Taw to me it sounds like you will be upset if they miss one single historical detail hehe "if the devs have done it correctly" famous last words...

They seem to have called the carthagian spearmen poeni whereas the poeni just meant phoenicians which were what those people were called.

And the barbarian tribes were cool, most of them forced into rome by other wilder tribes further north. The celts at one early time made it all the way into rome, and slaughtered the senate, but were bribed to go away. The huns were ok except when Attila died they just melted away.

Octavian (Augustus) *restored the Republic* or see he and his supporters said. At least he paid more than lip service to the Republican traditions. By the end of the Western Empire the Emperors looked and behaved like oriental potentates. Imagine a Turkish Sultan and you're not far off what the Roman Emperors became.

I'll be upset of they omit a lot of historical details and more upset if they miss out a big one, but the odd minor detail is neither here nor there. The TW guys know their stuff though and from what I've seen so far I don't think I'm going to be disappointed.

Poeni, Carthaginians; I suppose they could be those, and that could be Carthage. Doesn't look like it though.