The Ravings of Demented Rabbits

Memorial

So I'd love to post some RTW screens for you all, since I just fought a most triumphant battle with the Germans, but since printscreen apparently isn't doing screenshots these days, that'll just need to wait. Meanwhile, let's talk some more about the game I'm currently playing as the Julii.

The scene is just outside the walls of Trier, in Germania Superior. The year is 233 BC, and the north is gripped by the icy hand of winter. An army of 500 brave Romans is lined up on a hill overlooking the city, awaiting the sally of some 800 and more Germans.

They are led by Marcus the Infantryman (who has other names, too, such as the Brave and the Mighty), the most legendary general ever produced by Roman arms. By his will, all of Gaul fell to the Julii family, and his leadership sustained the Julii through the darkest days of the German onslaught, when Romans by the hundred fell before the spear warbands of the enemy. Indeed, through his prowess and force of will he has come to lead the Julii family at the young age of 39. His is a promising career, destined to rise farther and farther into the heavens.

His army is a good one, composed of many veteran hastati (infantry) from the Gallic wars, along with many principes (better infantry) and velites (javalin throwers) and even a couple token units of archers and a pair of ballistas. It is perhaps the mightiest army the Julii have ever fielded.

The Germans, too, have a good army, though it is led by some no name captain. They have many spear warbands, a fearsome unit capable of demolishing hastati and principes with ease. The only sure way to kill them is through archer fire, and Marcus has precious few of those.

They march up the hill in an endless line. The ballistas begin firing, then the archers. And still the Germans keep coming. Suddenly, a group of equites (cavalry) charge past the Roman lines into the nearest warband. It is Gnaeus Plinius, another Roman general, and his bodyguard. They meet a heroic end. (You could say that the reinforcement AI is a bit asstastic when it comes to cav.)

And still the Germans keep coming, through a hail of arrows and javalins, until they close to melee with the Roman infantry. Once the spears are occupied, the Roman cavalry goes to work, routing the enemy light infantry (Screeching women. I love it), and then mounting charge after charge into the German rear.

It is here that the career of Marcus comes to an abrupt end. A stray German spearman brings him down and ends the life of the greatest of the Julii. The battle is a crushing victory for the Romans, yet all are melancholy at their great loss.

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And that's about the part where you say "Dude. That really sucked. I mean, that really blew."

OTOH, I won pretty big. The Germans have maybe one army of comparable size left, and it's dancing outside the range of an even bigger army of mine that's just waiting to slaughter it.

Yes, that's a crappy screen. It's the only one I have right now. I'll get more later.

Meanwhile, I suppose I ought to talk about the game some. It's an awful lot like MTW, except for like x10 coolness factor. They took away the province-based campaign map, and now you march armies all over the countryside, which raises the possibility for being ambushed and such.

Which is probably an appropriate time for my ambush story. It's right after the Germans attacked me, and I just got my ass kicked hard. While my hastati had been pretty much sufficient to rampage on any and all Gauls that so much as came near me, even at 3:1 odds, German spear warbands were doing about that same thing to me, and it was sucking a lot. Fortunately, my Italian cities were just then starting to pump out some archers, and a really really big army with lots of archers marches north to bring the hurt to some Germans. And they're marching through some forest, and get ambushed. And yes, we fought in a big forest, because where you land on the campaign map determines the terrain you fight in, and yes that's awesome. But in addition to putting me in a big forest clearing, it put me on a big big hill. In almost perfect order. So the Germans come charging up, and I cut them down with mass missile fire. I end up losing like 30 guys, and most of that's to my own arrows. Pure slaughter.

Anyway. Also, fleets matter more now, especially since the Senate keeps giving me missions to go blockade random ports, which I do, and then get paid for. This is good. Think of the Senate as kind of like the Pope in MTW, except they're not assholes (yet - We get to have a civil war later). Too, you don't need to fill the ocean with boats to get trade, which is really really cool.

And now that you've heard both Marechal and I mention random besiegement of Carthaginians, I suppose I ought to mention that particular fight, because it was one of the awesomest things I've ever done in an RTS game. The whole exercise was one of those birds with stones things - I had a bunch of spare troops sitting around on some island I jacked from Carthage eons back, and it just so happened that the Senate wanted me to go blockade Carthage. Even better, whatever army Carthage formerly possessed was pretty much dead at the hands of the Scipii family. So I load up my troops, blockade the port, seige the town, and once I get some seige weapons built (you build seige weapons like rams and ladders and towers at the seige now. It's sweet.) I begin the assault.

A pair of seige towers goes rolling up to the walls of Carthage. They come under some flaming arrow fire, but they shrug it off. The ramps go down, hastati begin climbing ladders, and suddenly we're fighting on the walls of Carthage. ON THE WALLS OF CARTHAGE. How sweet is that? In short order, we're not so much fighting on the walls of Carthage as we are in the central plaza of Carthage, because when you've got 400 guys and they've got 50, this sort of thing happens. In any case, I take the city. Lots of city fighting in RTW. For me, it's mostly ramming down the gates of some crappy barbarian settlement and running in, but Carthage had some real defenses. So does everybody in Greece, which is why the Brutii are currently sucking - Macedon and Greece have a lot of cities, and they're all well defended. Scipii are sucking even worse, because they had to do in Carthage, and Carthage is buff. Or was, until I kill stole them. Which reminds me of that last bird - they set it up so you have to play as one of the Roman factions first time through the campaign. Once you kill off an opposing faction, you can play them. So by killing Carthage, I can now play Carthage, as well as the Gauls, and pretty soon the Germans.

Anyway. Back to smacking down barbarians. Strength and honor, boys and girls. Strength and honor.

(Oh yeah. The generals give speeches before battles these days. It's very Gladiatorish and cool)

Posted by Dwip at September 28, 2004 8:42 PM