Game, Strategy and Communiity

[silvercue]

Hi all, I am new to the board - just been reading a cpl days.
I started playing the demo after reading a book called Emporer: The Gates of Rome by Conn iggulden - it's fantastic - anyone read it?
Anyway, now I have full game & I have searched the web for decent Preatorian Sites or strategy guides, basic community things and can't find anything in English. I noticed a thread about putting something togethor, is there no decent sites or a strategy guide anywhere?
The game seems great fun to me, but the strategy in battle seems a little simplistic at the moment (I play Warcraft 3 and the new Beta for the expansion which is far more complex) maybe thats because I am still at the beginning of the game. The only thing I don't like is the horrible bunching of units in battle, or worse the way units scale ladders - looks ridiculous.
Also, don't like the fact that you cannot run away - not even save ANY troops in melee - I know heavy armour may struggle to get away but this seems excessive.
Otherwise, I love the look and feel of the game and hope this board prospers A good community will be essential - especially if those map making tools come out one day.

[Athos]

There is actually a good amount of strategy in this game.

Primarily in the matchup of units and how you move around the map.
If you just move your troops toward an objective in sp they will get murdered, have to scout and know everything about where they are about to move....

In terms of battles, you need to have the right units, ie
spearmen out front in stationary, archers behind them and then legionaries protecting flanks and to sweep onto attackers being held up by the spearmen. And of course cavalry off to the side to kill off enemy archers and siege equipment.

And then theres mp, which has many different facets. There has been a few good strategies posted.

[prefect]

Rushing with Chariots .
The Egyptians rule.

[Athos]

Egyptians are great for rushing:
slaves are slapped out in 12 seconds....
Examplefied by the Slut Rape tactic

[prefect]

too bad it takes like 3000 slaves to take out a legion. egyptians have awesome cavalry. i hate the romans... its fun dominating them though. the one thing i think this game is missing is some kind of auxiliary cavalry. it sucks having to get honor points to make cavalry. makes them really valuable though.

[silvercue]

..don't get me wrong - I love this game, but it really is a bit too simplistic in battle (there is no resource managemenet so this is important) - I worked out the strategy u described in about 5 minutes and it seems to win in SP all the time. There could have been more special formations in the game. For example the Legionaires had an advantage over barbarians because they use small stabbing gladiuses and could stand close togethor protecting each other with shields, while a barbarian needed so much room to swing their swords - it would work out three romans to one barbarian - just because of a "space" utilising formation.
Also - and this actually spoils the game a lot: I have a group of soldiers in melee combat and want to get my cavaly round the back so I try to avoid the melee - if one man touches (slightly) my cav they all have to join the mellee and not run on to the enemy archers - there is no way to avoid this as you cannot issue orders in when in melee and it is totally stupid and unrealistic.
As I said I love the game, but as it is PURELY battle orientated they really should have got these little things and the "look" of the battle done a bit better.

[nitroace30]

If you wanted a resource game-get the age of empires series or another map building game. Its good to see a great map game-WITHOUT resource management. I love just fighting, I have all the age of empires games including mythology they just get boring having to mine gold, chop lumber and gather food. PRAETORIANS is beasty. I hope they make an expansion with the same quilities but improvements-such as map editor-more units and well just stuff-like new unit formations etc.

ALSO I FIND SOMETIMES THAT THE GAME CAN BE A LITTLE UNREALISTIC WHEN A GROUP OF MELEE UNITS CHARGE A ARCHER UNIT-AND THE ARCHERS DONT KILL ANY UNITS WHEN THEY CHARGE. I HATE IT WHEN YOU CANT KILL THE ENEMY. SEEMS A BIT STRANGE.

GREAT GAME THOUGH.

[silvercue]

nitroace30 you did not read my post properly -I do not want a resourse game at all - I want a battle game - that's why I love Praetorians. What I am saying is that as Praetorians is ONLY a battle game they could have taken the opportunity to make it by far the best battle RTS - they have not - there are obvious flaws - the battles look terrible for a start and much of the strategy is totally ridiculous. For example - I have a ladder up against a wall and a whole troop or 30 all climb it in 1 second - they then all occupy the space of about 3 ppl at the top...MMmmm that looks good.
Also, the strategy in battle could have been deeper and more realistic.
Other than that it is very good and I am enjoying it. I also think that it is important to have a community discuss the minor points that they would like improved in their favourite games - I know we have heard there will be no patch, but I play Quake3 and ID announced that they would NEVER make another patch years ago, they have released about 5 since then.

[Athos]

re: Silvercue
Hey, well at least Praetorians is something to tide us over until
Rome: Total War comes out

re: Prefect
It doesn't take 3000 slaves to take out a legion, more like 500 who swiftly sweep onto their opponents who only have 2 maybe 3 legions, some spearmen and some archers....if even that many...
Slaves = 12 seconds. Legionaries = 75 seconds.
That means you can get out 6 slave units by the time it takes your opponent to get out one legion troop....
Believe me, go into gamespy and find a game with some guys with Slut in front of their names...
'nuff said.

[ShadowFiend]

Legions are not worth in the early game...
And with barb spears I can block any kind of rush.

1 barb spear=2 1/4 slaves in strenght and one tower with 1 archer can block slut rape quite easily...

I have gayspy and the full, yet I haven`t heard any slut clan.
But heard about the undefeatable ECG clan

The basic of blocking rush is to always stick to fortified places and where you can exploit the terrain to your advantage...

and have spears. 4-5 of them in the row but the first unit you should train is a healer or 2.

[silvercue]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Athos
[B]re: Silvercue
Hey, well at least Praetorians is something to tide us over until
Rome: Total War comes out


I actually rate Praetorians very highly - but ALL games have faults...

Rome total War - any good info web sites?

[nitroace30]

I cant get over how good spearman and pikeman are against charges when they use their stationary formation. I never used to use these units-thought they were weak and useless-but as soon as i started using that formation i love em.

[Athos]

Spearmen are perfect for stopping those charges, only problem is you have to protect them from archers or they get torn apart

[ShadowFiend]

Not only charges but they are able to stop 1 unit at once easily when there are no archers...
Barb pikemen are the best here because the tonns of HP.

And a nasty strategy is to place pikemen in stationary form in front of the vill entrance of the enemy if you don`t have enough forces to swiftly destroy the village

Everything comes out dying quickly

[Gino]

Originally posted by silvercue
Hi all, I am new to the board - just been reading a cpl days.
I started playing the demo after reading a book called Emporer: The Gates of Rome by Conn iggulden - it's fantastic - anyone read it?

I'm almost finished it and it's a fairly entertaining read, but there are a number of historical inaccuracies that seem unnecessary to me.