Talk:Rome: Total War

game guide, or encyclopedia?

most of this article reads more like a game play guide than an encyclopedia. does an encyclopedia really need to include strategy info, playable vs. non-playable factions, and so on? i'd suggested deleting a lot of the factions section as unneeded on wikipedia. instead, include external links to game guides and strategy hints. Slamorte 12:37, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Incorrect information

Removed the following text:

Furthermore, the various members of each faction tend to develop skills and traits more in line with the stated goals and ideals of that faction: Julii tend to have skills relating to crowd control and in dealing with people, reducing unrest and increasing overall popularity with the governed, Brutii tend to develop war-oriented skills, increasing their command ability, as well as being rather traditional, making them popular with the Senate. Finally, Scipii tend to develop traits and skills dealing with economics and finances, making Scipii players generally the wealthiest. This can largely be seen as a matter of degree, though, as Scipii who fight in many battles will develop more combat based skills, Julii who rule despotically will not be saved by their populism, and Brutii who never see combat will likely become better tax collectors than some Scipii.

This is not true. The information for RTW character trait gain is contained within the file export_descr_character_traits.txt, which I have worked with extensively for various modifications. The file does not distinguish between the three Roman factions. The only possible factor that could affect this, therefore, would be the unique temples the factions get. But the traits don't match up. The Julii have Jupiter (which gives law-bestowing traits), Ceres (which gives farming traits) and Bacchus (which gives all sorts of awful traits, like alcohol- and adultery-related ones). The Brutii have Mercury (which helps trade), Mars (which makes generals prone to anger, bloodlust, and being energetic). Finally, the Scipii have Saturn (which gives law-bestowing traits), Vulcan (which gives engineering and mining traits), and Neptune (which gives no traits).

Basically, the facts don't bear this assertion out. —Simetrical (talk) 22:09, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

China

why isn't china in the expansion? it was the other superpower at the time, and could've wooped all the barbarians with its advanced tech + mass army

China's interactions with the west at this time period wasn't much more than some trade and diplomats, and sometimes the barbarian tribes they displaced would head west. Though RTW isn't focused on historical accuracy there's really not enough interaction to justify adding them. Plus, it would draw focus from the "Barbarian Invasion" aspect. Though if Creative Assembly removes or relaxes the hard-coded limits on the number of territories and the number of factions there could concievably be mods involving china. RentACop 06:50, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There are, in particular Zhanguo: Total War. They just don't cover Europe as well. In any case, Wikipedia talk pages are for discussion of the page, not the topic. —Simetrical (talk) 23:30, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation

Removed the following paragraph:

In addition, the game ignores basic rules of Latin pronunciation, of which the most notable features are that all sounds are hard, the v should be pronounced as if it were a u or a w, and the j should be pronounced as if it were an i or y. Thus, Julius Caesar should have been pronounced Yoo-lee-us Kai-sar and the Gallic leader Vercengetorix would have been Wer-ken-get-or-rex. However, these can hardly be faulted to the game designers, as they are contemporary English concepts and understandings of pronunciation.

In its place, I added this:

Latin words are, in general, wholly or partially Anglicized; velites (Latin [welɪtes]) is pronounced vɛlɪtes instead of the expected vɛlɪtiz (compare the ending sounds of testes). Likewise, the C in principes is pronounced as a hard [k] as in Latin instead of the [s] expected for English. See Latin declension and Latin pronunciation.

Basically, the tone of the paragraph I removed had a very noticeably prescriptivist tone, which Wikipedia should not have (it's POV to say that there's a "correct" pronunciation for a word). It's also distinctly condescending toward the designers. My rewrite, on the other hand, notes the partial Anglicization of words, which is an interesting point the original paragraph leaves out, and its tone doesn't either state or imply that any pronunciation is "better" than another.

I don't care if you revert my revert while we work out a compromise, by the way, provided we are working out a compromise. I don't intend to get into a revert war if I don't have to. —Simetrical (talk) 23:48, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No offense taken whatsover. I'm a WikiNewbie.. :) -Ttan 3:15, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Well there are two types of Latin, classical(where v is pronounced like w and c is pronounced like k) and vulgar(where v is pronounced like v and c is pronounced like ch), and RTW uses vulgar Latin —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.81.29.64 (talk • contribs) 05:28, 7 January 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Well, no, it doesn't use much of anything consistently—for instance, Principes pronounce their name with a hard C. I'll note that the pronunciation is only "incorrect" by the standards of the game's time period. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:29, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sieges

"The gameplay is similar to that of its predecessors, Shogun: Total War and Medieval: Total War, although there are some additions like sieges and greatly improved city fights."

There were already sieges in Medieval (I never played Shogun, so I don't know about that one), although you besieged forts/castles and not towns/cities as in Rome. On the other hand the city fights are not just improved but are new; there were none of those in Medieval. Everyking 06:23, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Surely you of all people don't have to be told to be bold? I never played MTW or STW myself, so I wouldn't know. —Simetrical (talk) 04:02, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I diddled with it. If anyone thinks it could be worded better or was in fact not worth adding at all feel free to diddle with it yo-self. RentACop 22:52, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Mods in external links?

Formerly we had a huge list of mod forums in the external links. A Link to the Past dropped those, saying they were insignificant, but leaving the mod websites. I agree that there were too many forums listed before, but honestly, the TWC forum for SPQR is far more significant than the Troy Total War site. No offense to TTW, but they haven't released a version yet and just aren't terribly noteworthy.

In an effort to keep the number of links to a reasonable level, how about only including 1) the official sites and/or forums of mods that have 2) released a public version? That would keep it down to maybe five or ten. —Simetrical (talk) 05:18, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion of Strategy

As an avid player of Rome: Total War, I don't think it would be wise to mention strategy in this particular article, as the article tends to do. For example, for Carthage the article reads that the most agreed strategy is to abandon sicily and the most likely result of losing Spain to defend carthage herself. However, many players would disagree immensely with this point. I for example, have almost never given up Sicily, and far from it, the main and wisest strategy I (and many others I know) use is to immediately declare war on the Brutii immediately and take Messana. You must do so on your very first turn, with the faction leader Hanno--Hanno is old (60 or so) and he will always die in his first two turns or so unless you decalre war (for some reason the prospect of war lets the old man live a few turns longer). After that, I build up my army (taking almost all my armies aside from Town Militia, in ever single city) make peace with the Greeks at Syracuse, and attack for the city of Rome itself as soon as possible. This takes the Romans by surprise, but may cost you some. However, in a few turns (and buying mercenaries and armies from your looting of Roman cities), you end up destroying all the roman factions in less than 20 turns or so( I once managed 12 at great cost, and the eventual loss of many other cities to damn Rebels, Numidians and Gauls).

The purpose of that whole scenario I gave is that I ALWAYS do this. I have actually almost never failed ("almost" pointing to thimes when I don't stop playing for 6 hours straight) even in the highest settings (although I almost always will lose spain and if the Greeks attack I lose Sicily at the higer settings--either of which I'll lose anyways). But this strategy, probably shouldn't be mentioned in the article, because everyone has their own strategies. As such, I don't think it's in the spirit of Wikipedia to be giving certain opinions of strategy, especially since they might be harmful to the player reading it, such as the ones already included in the article. Or is it better to create a "strategy category" for the article, and thus we can mention the main and most agreed upon strategies in the game in that category (and others can expand it). I think that idea might be best: to create a "most used strategies" category.

I just want to hear everyone elses opinion on that, before trying to redo an entire article and create an entire category: especially the opinion of some of the wikipedia "veterans". ^_^--Persianlor

I agree that specific strategies are outside the scope of this article, except for very broad statements (like "Numidia is generally considered among the most difficult factions to play as"). No need to include them anywhere, else, either, IMO, they just aren't notable. —Simetrical (talk) 02:18, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Someone deleted the Barbarian factions section...

I see that the descriptions for the Gauls, Britons, Germans, Dacians, and the Scythians are gone. Anyone willing to redo them? Some vandal must have deleted them. - XX55XX

No need to redo them, I'll just pull them from the edit history. It was 86.142.198.20 (talk • contribs) who did it. He removed a lot of stuff—you may want to check that out to see what else you think is appropriate to restore (I'm not sure the unit lists are particularly important, for instance). Here is the difference between the last pre-86.142.198.20 edit and the revision current as of my writing this, after my reversion.

Also, by the way, you can sign your name and the date automatically with four tildes: ~~~~. —Simetrical (talk) 02:20, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Accuracy of barbarian invasion

exactly how accurat was barbarian invasion? We should mention it in the page —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.226.183.47 (talk • contribs) 04:52, 16 January 2006 (UTC).[reply]

We could have a bigger accuracy section altogether, if someone wants to write it. Basically BI was pop-culture-level accuracy, like the original game, if you were wondering. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:32, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Accuracy of the "critism" section.

That section does indeed sound legit, but is the author of that part willing to offer some evidence? I don't think it should be there, but if the author wants it there, he or she should back it up with some evidence that Iranian players do scrutinize it. Plus, this game was never meant to be realistic anyways, so unless if the "critism" is happening amongst with the majority of Iranian gaming circles, one must back that up with evidence. If the author does not offer any evidence, I will delete it, as although it sounds legit, it doesn't sound noteworthy. - XX55XX 21:58, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, he offers no sources to his claims. I NPOV-marked the section. --DMichel 16:24, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I cleaned it up, it was in very poor English so I assume the chap was Iranian himself. Maybe it was a personal gripe.

We have very little idea what the music of the period was like, as such it would stand to reason that the creators of the game had to come up with something that would reflect the expectations of their audience.--69.107.102.38 04:21, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Engine Limitations and Criticism

In my opinion the Engine limitations would fit well under the Criticism section seeing as the engine-section is about how players were disappointed with the engine compared to what the developers' has promised. In my opinion we should merge them after we've seen if the claims currently under criticism are accurate.--DMichel 20:05, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I've seen plenty of evidence of that, if you wish, you can re-write that - XX55XX 20:59, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just merged both sections. But what about the (possible NPOV-violated) section about the stereotypical depiction of the Arabic factions?--DMichel 13:11, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Links to Clan sites

Do you really think that these links fit in an encyclopedia? I'm quite sure there are alot more clans than those listed. In my opinion remove the whole section. --DMichel 13:13, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]