I got Civilization 4 recently

[Faux]

Playing it only made me miss Rome: Total War :lol: Honestly, after playing TW, I can't enjoy just watching two icons shooting at each other. I wanna see a REAL battle and control it while having a turn-based strategy controlling the world

[whiteguy]

Playing it only made me miss Rome: Total War :lol: Honestly, after playing TW, I can't enjoy just watching two icons shooting at each other. I wanna see a REAL battle and control it while having a turn-based strategy controlling the world

 

 

 

 

 

I had Rome:TW, best RTS ever. (not counting Age of Empires 2:TC)

 

 

 

Civilization franchise is nothing against the TW franchise.

[Lenticular_J]

Is Total War really that good? I want it now.

[Faux]

Is Total War really that good? I want it now.

 

 

 

Some people won't like it. But for me, I loved it.

[BlueLancer]

Civ4 is brilliant, but like you said.. The combat system is a bit simplistic, and unrealistic. Ultimately, if you send enough cavemen against a tank, they'll destroy it with their wooden clubs -.-

 

 

 

Is Total War really that good? I want it now.

 

 

 

Rome: Total War absolutely rocks. I don't think the historical RTS game concept can get much more perfect from the TotalWar concept. Medieval: Total War takes it even further into perfection, but it lags a lot unless you have a very high end computer.

 

 

 

The only thing I dislike is the gargantuan building time of religious monuments, barracks, etc... In Civ, you can sacrifice population/turn government into slavery to build faster, in Rome, your entire kingdom/empire can be rampaged by barbarians while you wait those 11 turns to finish building a port, barracks and religious temple. Not just that, but constant sieges from enemy nations are a real strain on military resources... Running out of money is a real issue.

 

 

 

Rome Total War battle hint: If you want to have fun, play with Germania and recruit an army full of berserkers with weapon improvements. Group them together in a battle, and just when they're a few meters away from the enemy, click "special ability - Warcry", and enjoy.

 

 

 

Even roman elite units such as praetorian cohort will panic and rout when they see this hideous sight. And once the berserkers go into "heroic" mode, they will never retreat or stop fighting back. (But you wont be able to control their movement any more) Their attack status is highest in the game, over 30 with full weapon improvements.

[Faux]

Lol. Sometimes for fun, I just recruit a bunch of war dogs. One unit that can topple the wall/gate and let the dogs run through.

[DerekZoolandah]

I can't wait for Empire: TW. That's going to be epic - home cities, revolutions, -sea battles-, you can garrison people in buildings. It's going to be great.

 

 

 

Lancer the hell you talkin' about? 11 turns for a port, reli building, and barracks? Depending on the barracks and reli building, that's about 5-8 turns. Not to mention that the barbarians have to lay siege to your town, which gives you time to build up, and also you're in a prime defensive spot (hello phalanxes).

 

 

 

In my recent Briton campaign, I just took Italy, western europe, most of Spain (wrapping that up), almost all of Germania, and Sicily. Chosen Swordsmen on warcry just destroy everything. Then throw in some Light chariot archers (4-5) and you're in a beautiful spot to win. Chariot archers are fun to use - you can maneuaver them around to the back of some Hastati or Cohorts and just shoot them from the back and watch them fall like flies. You'll usually get a good 10-15 every complete volley. Even more for silver\gold chevron chariots. What I hate about the Britons is that you have to recruit mercenaries to have cavalry that isn't chariots. Chariots are suckish at best at running down routers.

 

 

 

Germania is a fun civ to use like lancer said though. Berserkers and spear warbands make them borderline OP, along with Gothic Cavalry. It's fun though since you can take 5 'zerks and 5 gothic cavalry and just have the zerks run at the right flank while the gothic hits the right flank at the same time - almost instant rout. Have your cav run down the routers. You'll easily get some gold chevron units really quick.

 

 

 

Brutii is probably the best civ to play between the Brut\Jul\Scip factions. They have Greece, Asia Minor, northern greece, RHODES (beautiful place haha to have). Towards the end of the game you'll be making 50k a turn easily from sea trade from places like Greece, Egypt, and Asia Minor.

 

 

 

Parthia\Armenia is sooo much fun to use. Cataphract Archers just can't be beat. Maneauver around them and encircle them and just weaken them and rout them with cataphract archers.

 

 

 

If you're looking for something more realistic, a hugely popular mod is Rome: Total Realism. Just google it or something.

 

 

 

I have some tips though. For every turn that a general sits in a city, he risks getting a negative attribute. If you move him a little, he'll lose that risk. It gets higher and higher for every 50k you have too. Bribing is fun to do if you want to get rid of small little armies. I like to keep a diplomat near Patavium so that the Brutii (who move from Greece upwards to try and take back Italy) so that he can bribe almost any army sieging Patavium or Mediolanium. You can also move Retinues between Generals - just dragandclick them to another person. So that if you have a 'Pet Idiot' Retinue, you can move him to a moron general you don't care about.

 

 

 

Civ just can't compare to RTW except that you can start your own colonies and you can go through the ages. It's a good game - but yeah, it just is weak comparitively.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even roman elite units such as praetorian cohort will panic and rout when they see this hideous sight. And once the berserkers go into "heroic" mode, they will never retreat or stop fighting back. (But you wont be able to control their movement any more) Their attack status is highest in the game, over 30 with full weapon improvements.

 

 

 

Incorrect, heavy onagers get something like 110 attack vs infantry

[BlueLancer]

 

Lancer the hell you talkin' about? 11 turns for a port, reli building, and barracks? Depending on the barracks and reli building, that's about 5-8 turns. Not to mention that the barbarians have to lay siege to your town, which gives you time to build up, and also you're in a prime defensive spot (hello phalanxes).

 

 

 

 

You can't build or recruit while your town is under siege :lol:

 

 

 

But yes, Phalanxes are the best way to defend a city against any civilization. If you pack about 3 units of Phalanx-using soldiers to each entry point.. It's really not possible to get through, unless you use archers/skirmishers or other missiles to pepper them to death. (The lame thing about this is, that "auto-resolve battle" doesn't recognise this, and you'll get hundreds of casualties if you let it auto resolve, or you can spend 20 minutes fighting it yourself and get maybe 5 casualties out of 800 soldiers on your side)

 

 

 

P.S: Onagers and catapults aren't really units as much as they are "tools" (even though personnel operate them). If your catapult personnel get assaulted they'll rout faster than lightning and the equipment is left useless.

 

 

 

Parthia\Armenia is sooo much fun to use. Cataphract Archers just can't be beat. Maneauver around them and encircle them and just weaken them and rout them with cataphract archers.

 

 

 

Yes, I almost think Parthia is overpowered. For example I placed only 2 units of horse archers to guard a road to my capital. Egypt sent like 1500 foot infantry to invade the capital but just couldn't get through horse archers.

 

 

 

Why?! Well.. It's impossible to outrun horse archers/cataphract archers. They are extremely fast. While they retreat, they also shoot arrows. And when the timer goes to 0, if they haven't killed you, they lose the battle automatically. (I have "missiles don't run out" enabled though)

 

 

 

The only unit that could probably outrun horse archers is war dogs.

[ThurinEthir]

You guys do realize Civ4 is NOT a RTS? I suppose RTW isn't really either, but at least the combat is.

 

And yeah, the simple, single unit combat (Though you can turn on stack attack) of Civ4 is the only thing I don't like about it. And I'm a big combat fan...So that was a let-down. Oh well.

 

Both are great games, I plan on getting Total War: Eras sometime soon. You can't really compare them...

[DerekZoolandah]

P.S: Onagers and catapults aren't really units as much as they are "tools" (even though personnel operate them). If your catapult personnel get assaulted they'll rout faster than lightning and the equipment is left useless.

 

 

 

Yeah, I know. :P I just felt like screwing\messing with you heh.

 

 

 

But yeah since I've been using chariot archers lately I've gotten into horse archers. So freaking awesome - it's almost impossible to lose as Armenia\Parthia because of like you said, they're almost overpowered. Though chosen archer warbands\pharoah's archers (which both you'll be very likely to see) will just eat up non-cataphract archers.

 

 

 

You can't build or recruit while your town is under siege :lol:

 

 

 

I thought you were talking about non-sieged cities. :ugeek: But I guess that's the funnest thing about raiding cities - they can't get defense up fast enough to absord the attack of a full stack of whatever you choose.

 

 

 

Have you ever tried ambushing? I really want to go back into Germania campaign and to try and get the zerks and cavalry on that little spot north of patavium - the romans love to use that spot to get to the barbarians, hahaha. I've only ambushed small (2-3 unit) armies before, but it's fun.

[Faux]

Germanians have nothing on the Spartans. Those guys are built like a [bleep]ing tank. There's only one unit above them and that's the Urban Cohort. Their javelins are better than bullets.

 

 

 

The pigs are the worst though. I remember playing the first time and saw it in the unit list and I'm like 'oh, that's cool" So I made a couple. In one of the battles I got to use it, I sent it out first and it fired up (now that's even cooler), but what happened was it turned around and destroyed my first line of hoplites. :? :lol:

 

 

 

You guys do realize Civ4 is NOT a RTS? I suppose RTW isn't really either, but at least the combat is.

 

And yeah, the simple, single unit combat (Though you can turn on stack attack) of Civ4 is the only thing I don't like about it. And I'm a big combat fan...So that was a let-down. Oh well.

 

Both are great games, I plan on getting Total War: Eras sometime soon. You can't really compare them...

 

 

 

Yeah I know. But the thing is, RTW gives you the option for an RTS battle. I know some people (like indy) who don't like battling and just like the turn-based strategy part of the game.

[indy500fan]

Yeah I know. But the thing is, RTW gives you the option for an RTS battle. I know some people (like indy) who don't like battling and just like the turn-based strategy part of the game.

 

 

 

Just came here to say that, I guess some people do read my posts :D .

 

 

 

Even though I always auto-resolve battles I still really, really like R:TW. However I think I like Civ IV a little more, since it is solely based on the turn-based system.

[sithlord_man]

I only like CIV4 for building your empire. Not like TW were you have pre-set territories. Only thing thats also fun with CIV4 is the ICBM...glitches for me so i can't build the project for it...i can still build them though ;)

[Lenticular_J]

You should change the topic title to make it about R:TW. I'm downloading it right now.

[DerekZoolandah]

Germanians have nothing on the Spartans. Those guys are built like a [bleep] tank. There's only one unit above them and that's the Urban Cohort. Their javelins are better than bullets.

 

 

 

Greece is decent at best. Their biggest thing they should probably rely on doing is using their huge naval trade bonus (owning Greece, Rhodes, and a part of Sicily) and their ability that they're fighting a one front fight - north. Germania has Britons to the west, Rebels to the east, Sycthians to the East, Gaul to the South, South west\east. But yeah, Greeks can easily just bribe an army to tears, and then rely on the sieging of towns they can't bribe. If they sally out, or have another force attack them, just have your phalanxes in a 3\4 sided triangle\square, and then have your generals wayy off to the side to avoid them being ran off. When you get engaged, not only will they lose to your phalanxes, they'll be in a treat with your general body guards attacking them in the flank for a nearly instant rout.

 

 

 

I think Germans can easily beat Spartan Hoplites though. Have a spearwarband to keep the phalanx in place, then have your choice of zerks or Goth Cavalry to flank and rout the enemy. Very easy to do.

[Faux]

It's easy to cancel out a flank though. Just remove the Spartans from the Phalanx formation, position them, and put them back.

 

 

 

But yeah, I guess the German speed gives them an advantage over the hoplites.

[BlueLancer]

Now that you mentioned it, yeah, end-game Roman units are a serious headache to beat. Urban Cohort is probably one of the few units that could kill Germanian berserkers without retreating in panic and still have men standing.

 

 

 

And Spartan Hoplites (the ones that take 2 turns to recruit).. :shock: Even a cavalry charge from behind wont cause many casualties and they'll start beating you up... The game designer probably put their defence level a tad bit too high.

[DerekZoolandah]

I dunno. You could just have zerks charge them, then have your goth cavalry charge them from the flank. I'm not 100% sure, but it SHOULD cause a rout, then just move down the line of cohorts\other infantry. The morale loss of other roman's routing should be enough with a zerker charge to make them rout themselves, if they won't just keep charging.

 

 

 

Also, to Shadow, if the Spartan Hoplites move out of position to meet the charge, then they'll get flanked by the spear warband themselves. It's a lose-lose situation since Greece has pretty crappy cavalry except for generals.

[Robert_de_Sable]

CIV 4 BtS>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Any other game I've played, except RuneScape.

 

BtS>RuneScape.

[Faux]

I dunno. You could just have zerks charge them, then have your goth cavalry charge them from the flank. I'm not 100% sure, but it SHOULD cause a rout, then just move down the line of cohorts\other infantry. The morale loss of other roman's routing should be enough with a zerker charge to make them rout themselves, if they won't just keep charging.

 

 

 

Also, to Shadow, if the Spartan Hoplites move out of position to meet the charge, then they'll get flanked by the spear warband themselves. It's a lose-lose situation since Greece has pretty crappy cavalry except for generals.

 

 

 

I always divide my army into two lines. Three at times when I put my archers in the middle. 6 units of Spartans last a very long time.

[Faux]

Wow, I never played Germania before. Didn't know Berzerkers were this insane

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9axcJYYx ... re=related

[BlueLancer]

Yeah, as said before, even a small band of berserkers can beat the strongest full units in the game like spartan hoplites. The berserk mode is pretty overpowered.

 

 

 

BTW, not sure if many people have their sounds on while playing, but voice acting is brilliant in Rome Total War :lol: Just listening to all the funny accents is worth it...

 

 

 

 

"Viktori n honer!"

[DerekZoolandah]

You should know that whatever you send against berserkers there's a 95% chance that they will die. I've found I take the most casualties from cavalry charges, so if you want to keep hitting and running zerks that'd probably be the best way to do it.

 

 

 

I hate the Greek Generals. He sounds like a freaking 12 year old. "The enemy general is KEEEELED." His voice squeeks everytime at the keeld part. It's hilarious. :lol:

[Faux]

I started a campaign with ze germans. The only regret I have is that I chose the unit size as normal. There's only 12 berserks per unit. I'll go for the large units in my desktop (laptop can only handle so much).

 

 

 

I'm glad the germans have the dogs. Funnest unit ever. One thing that pisses me off is that the units will retreat then unretreat more than once :evil:

 

 

 

[DerekZoolandah]

I've never used the dogs before, because of the 2 turn thing and then they don't do much damage I thought. :?