Talk:Rome: Total War/Archive 1

message: under factions in the original game it states there are way tio unloc all the factions. SHould it say how to do this?
:That seems pretty inapropriate for Wikipedia, thats more hints/cheats website territory. --80.176.81.65 12:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: unlocking factions

message: 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)
thread_title:  game guide, or encyclopedia? 

message: 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)
thread_title: China

message: 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 []) is pronounced  instead of the expected  (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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Pronunciation 

message: "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)
thread_title: Sieges

message: 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)
thread_title:  Mods in external links? 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Discussion of Strategy 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Someone deleted the Barbarian factions section... 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Accuracy of barbarian invasion

message: 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)
replies: text: I agree, he offers no sources to his claims. I NPOV-marked the section. --DMichel 16:24, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Accuracy of the "critism" section. 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Engine Limitations and Criticism 

message: This would count as 'original research' but I've had 12,000 soldiers in a RTW battle, and i didn't have all player slots filled or all the unit slots used. I believe the largest units are Peasants or Warbands, so if all the slots were used and filled with warbands (Or whichever the highest is) the total would be much higher than 10,000, maybe 20,000! Notably, even my high end system couldn't run 12,000 men, but the engine does support this. Thoughts? —This unsigned comment was added by 58.166.31.80 (talk • contribs) 05:06, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In theory, you could have eight players with twenty 243-man units each, which would give you a maximum of 38,880 soldiers in one battle.  However, pretty much anyone's computer would give you about ten seconds per frame under that kind of load.  In practice, 10,000 is a conservative estimate of a large but still potentially manageable battle.  If you'd like to clarify, feel free. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:18, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Up To 10,000 Warriors 

message: Apparently there's a new mini-expansion that's due out sometime this year, as reported in a gaming magazine.
Anyone have any further details?  Is it enough to add to the page?
Yeah, there will be one, although release dates are not know yet. It's not really that big, it's just another campaign and perhaps a host of historical battles. I don't see any sources for it other than a magazine. - XX55XX 19:55, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alexander the Great expansion 

message: I agree with the person (Slamorte) who earlier stated that this article is more like a game guide than an encyclopedia entry; also, when editing, a warning comes up about the article's large size.  I have decided to be bold and have done major editing to the Factions section in an attempt to correct these.  My changes include:
* Overhaul the faction descriptions to make them very brief.  This includes taking out the unnecessary lists of every unit available to each faction- especially considering many cannot be wikified.  Notable units are still mentioned and wikified (Legions, Cataphracts, Companions, etc).  I also removed the discussions of how X faction dies quickly because they fight Y and Z, or how X faction is a 'throwaway faction' (whatever that means).  That sort of info belongs in a game guide.  Essentially, I cut them down to very brief descriptions including a basic profile of how they fight (ie "X faction has good infantry but no cavalry"), and where they are on the map.  
* Removed unnecessary material discussing fan opinions/strategies for various factions (notably the discussion about how some people prefer barbarians because they're harder, strategies for Carthage involving giving up Sardinia and so on).  Again, this is game guide info.
* Someone keeps stating that only Julii get Arcani, which is completely false; I changed it a while ago and someone put back.  I am currently playing a game as the Brutii and I too can make Arcani.  The requirement to make them seems to just be of the Roman factions and build a large temple to a certain god (for the Brutii it is Mars, for the Julii I believe it's Jupiter).
* Earlier today I did an edit to the opening section so that it mentions basic info for the BI and Alexander expansions; the release/announcement dates may be wrong (I just did quick googlings to get the ones I listed).  Previously, the article did not even mention the two expansions at all except to list their factions, which I thought was kind of strange (especially considering I had not heard of the Alex one and assumed it was someone promoting their own mod!).
At this point, I've been working on it for several hours and I am still not happy with some of th wording, so I welcome help with it. :)
--DarthBinky 02:44, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Encyclopedia vs. Game Guide 

message: Apparently the current links for the official sites is not funtional. This is because on May 10, 2006 Total War.com changed its appearance. Because of this, I suggest that someone should change the current links for RTW and its expansion to the new Total War site. However in the new Total War site, info on BI, such as its description, is no longer there. InGenX 13:22, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: New Links for the official sites

message: hi i think the expansions of RTW such as BI and alexander should have their own pages as the RTW page is getting crowded and it would make more sense to have their own pages as tecneckly they are different games.--Hunter91 16:59, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it makes little sense. They are generally contain the same content as of the original, and they can be easily covered in a few sections. A single section is enough to discuss the new gameplay mechanics for the expansions. - XX55XX 13:13, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No. The article has been reduced in size significantly in past months and it has been very large at one point. Many other articles are even larger, like the article concerning the Voynich Manuscript. We can't split that article up. Most sections are too small to have a page of their own. So no. If other editors think that new pages for the expansions should be added, and they give very good reasons, they may do that. - XX55XX 21:36, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Expansions

message: I have a few snippets I must question:
#Still, RTW can simultaneously render more three-dimensional soldiers than any other game as of July 2006 - According to who? We need a reference to this.
#There have been fan-made modifications which attempt to fix the AI; however, these have met with only limited success because the AI engine in Rome: Total War is largely unalterable by the fan base. Again, this is unreferenced and as such is a POV comment.
#many within the established Total War fanbase took issue with some of the blatant historical inaccuracies in Rome: Total War. - this and many other things in the 'Historical accuracy' section are unsourced and need references. Such things as 'many' should be avoided.
Actually, looking at the article again it hasn't got a single reference!!! This needs to be fixed else anything such as those comments made above are not acceptable according to wikipedia policy.
Finally, the list of links is growing. Remember, Wikipedia is not a random collection of links. Do we really need them all here?-Localzuk (talk) 17:07, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I do note that the list of links is growing. I believe that it's time to take out the mod sites. Mod sites are not needed for this game article. The second quote does have some notability though and has been discussed in Total War fansites. - XX55XX 02:11, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Factual questions? 

message: While I was looking around my Rome: Total War folder and I saw that there what appeared to be features that was supposed to be in the game but for some reason were removed. Here are some of them:
*A "Caesar in Gaul" campaign
*Lost factions in BI:
**The White Huns
**The Moors
*"Lost historical battles":
**Battle of Cannae
**Battle of Mancetter
**Battle of Pharsalus
**The Slave Revolt of Spartacus
**Siege of Syracuse
**Battle of Zama
**Battle of Magnesia
**Battle of Arausio
**Battle of Jugurtha
**Battle of Chaeronea (not the famous battle where Alexander the Great defeated the Sacred Band of Thebes)
**Battle of Alexandria
**Battle of Bibracte (although this battle can be played in multiplayer)
**Battle of Mons Graupius
**Batte of Tigranocerta
There are probably a lot more lost features in the game folder. But I was wondering how can you enable these lost features, if they can still be enabled that is? InGenX 10:41, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Try asking around the forums of the fansites listed in the external links.  I know from experience that the Org (the first one listed) is pretty good about that stuff.  Cheers --DarthBinky 15:59, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: ''RTW'' lost features

message: Hi, I have just been through the list of external links with a fine tooth comb and removed a selection. All the removals are under the guidelines. I have also removed the Mod External Links list for the following reasons:
#It is not pertinent to the article to link to them
#They are generally fan sites
#Several of them are just forums
#One was down completely
#Information on Mod's in the article should be covered within the text and if a reference is needed, one provided.
Remember, Wikipedia isn't a random collection of links, lists or information.-Localzuk (talk) 12:57, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed Links 

message: This article is longer than the one for our Solar System, and nearly as long as the one for Hitler. This is not a depository for every bit of information ever known about the game, nor an overview of Roman politics, nor a strategy page. Also this talk page is not a page for discussing things such as game mechanics or features that aren't relevant to the talk page, or an encyclopedia itself. I'm going to strip this article down to its necessities later on. Please don't bloat it again. Whitecap 17:18, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Excuse me, some people will be looking for those things you have deleted. I suggest you or someone should create separate articles for some of the content that is "unnecessary" because someone will probably put back the things you've deleted anyway and then you'll delete that and that guy who placed that content that you deleted will place it back; in short an edit war might start. And oh yeah, about your statement on the talk page: this isn't the only talk page which contains "unnecessary" things like game mechanics or other "crap";  there are hundreds of talk pages like this. Just look at the Civ IV talk page and you'll see what I mean.InGenX 02:45, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Excuse ME, but the fact that people are looking for things in an encyclopedia that are of non-encyclopaedic value is not a reason for us to keep them. System requirements? Multiplayer strategies? Nitpicking criticisms about the AI? Wikipedia is NOT the place for that sort of talk. Wikipedia is a place to portray the significant points of a topic, not a community to keep up with the latest news on the game, a review of the game, or a how-to. Especially bad was the mods section - completely unnecessary. If you'll notice, which it seems like you didn't, the majority (if not the entire section) of the game mechanics section is still there. It shouldn't be - but it is for now. An edit war will only start if *you* literally don't know what should be put into a Wikipedia article or not - I suggest you read the guidelines and policies. The things that were, so far, deleted, don't need separate articles. The sections on the expansion packs DO need separate articles. Replace anything that I have so far deleted and I'll get the page to be protected. Majority rule on a Wiki page does not allow those users to overrule article guidelines. For what YOU, and those other people, are looking for that was removed, go to GameFAQs, GameSpot, IGN, TotalWar.org. You seem to be mistaking this article, and this very talk page, for their forums. As well, the fact that other talk pages are filled with much of the same garbage as here doesn't mean we should let it pass. In fact, that's a major point of the wiki structure. I think you should rethink why you're even a member of Wikipedia at all. Whitecap 17:36, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: (From an uninterested observer). A quick reminder to everyone that no personal attacks and civility are both policies on Wikipedia. Cheers --Pak21 17:43, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Whitecap, the criticisms about the AI are very important. Okay, we can forgo the system requirements and multiplayer critiques, but the AI criticisms are important because this game, by and large, was noted by every single player for having poor AI. It has been mentioned in dozens of reviews and that is why the Creative Assmebly has strongly emphasized the overhauled AI in this series next game. I believe that the criticisms about the AI is just as important as the historical inaccuracy critiques because both have been discussed on a large scale. - XX55XX 20:03, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: All right guys please stop arguing here. All of the contributors of this article are trying to make it good, or so they think. If you ask me, the descriptions of the factions are one of those parts in the article that is making this article a bit big and, in my opinion, should be moved to an article of its own. I agree with the idea that the x-packs should be transfered to their own articles. Cheers 203.215.118.165 08:33, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: This is not GameFAQs.

message: I have removed all of the fansites as we are going to have problems with users adding more and more of them. According to guidelines we should only add one fansite listing and only if it adds anything. I think that on the balance of things, adding a link to the directory only should do just fine. -Localzuk (talk) 15:24, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fansite Listings 

message: Seems that someone rewrote the multiplayer article. It needs to be edited. Sounds too opinionated. I'm too lazy at the moment to edit it, might do so later. - XX55XX 22:29, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't see any reason to keep it- it was either completely POV or unsourced, likely without any source available.  So I removed it completely.  If the author wants to try again, it would be best to try to use more neutral language and provide references for the claims made.  Cheers --DarthBinky 23:55, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The new multiplayer criticism article is poorly written.