The "What should I know before I play this game for the first time?" Q&A!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The "What should I know before I play this game for the first time?" Q&A!

Blazing Ownager: Jun 2, 2007; by FactsAreUseless

John Pastor posted:

Rome - Total War

Be the Romans. This is a no-brainer.

Hire mercenary hoplites to bolster your forces. Let them do the dying. Roman infantry is generally too valuable to be sacrificed lightly.

Heavy infantry in the center, light infantry on the flanks. Always fight on the defensive. Cavalry should be in the rear, and should sweep out to protect your flanks and attack theirs once the battle is joined. Don't throw away your general, because if he dies, your morale drops like a rock.

Don't be afraid to maintain a second line of reserve infantry behind. You can order your first line to disengage, and while it won't be pretty, you can often save a tired unit by having them run through your second line. Just don't forget to order the reserve unit to fill the gap.

Flanks are extremely vulnerable. Keep yours clear, always pummel your opponent's. This is especially true with hoplites. If you're charging the front of a hoplite, you're doing it wrong, and will die.

Always have a unit or two of light cavalry to run down fleeing survivors and skirmishers. Don't let the enemy retreat with intact units. Try and kill them to the last man if you can- especially archers and other annoyances.

The artillery you can bring with your units is next to useless against walls, but gently caress if it doesn't kill enemy soldiers like the dickens. Scorpions on a hill can fire over long distances, with fair accuracy, and skewer whole columns at a time. Once they get experienced- which they will quickly, if you don't let them die like a retard- they'll fire faster, further, and more accurately. You can have a battle half-over before the melee starts.

When fighting Carthage, bring skirmishers- Velites, specifically. Use them against elephants. They're cheap, so it's worth losing a unit of them to cause to rampage a unit of elephants- especially when those elephants are still among enemy troops.

You can try the manipular formation (line each of Velites, Hastati, Principes, Triarii, each falling back through the other when tired) if you're a masochist. I'd recommend Principes in the center, Hastati on the flanks, and Triarii in reserve, with Velites as skirmishers. Get archers if you can find them, because they'll outrange your Velites. Post-Marian, your units will homogenize- while simultaneously growing in effectiveness- meaning that you can pretty much just build big lines and crush the hell out of them.

One more piece of advice in Rome: Hire bloody mercenaries whenever and where ever you can. Seriously. Don't worry about the price of maintaining them, just keep hiring them and zerging everywhere. You will never really need to BUILD any units for your main conquest obliteration force if you keep doing this, seriously.

Also, this applies way more to the Barbarian Invasion expansion:

Murder the gently caress out of your own people at all times. Seriously. If you are having trouble maintaining order and getting revolts, simply move your men out of a city on the verge of unrest, let them flip, march them right back in and then execute everyone you can. Small populations = Easily controlled; if you really want to conquer the world repeatedly murder towns as much as possible.

To be entirely honest when playing this game I never tried to do it the right way and build units civilization style as the building construction just takes too long. It's all about one rolling force of hired mercenary scum conquering the world while the rest of my force just scraps with whatever the AI sends your way and murders the every loving crap out of everyone who starts to not like me. Just keep some Generals in the group and you're good to go.

Oh yeah, one more piece of advice: Don't bother with diplomacy. The AI sucks, it never helps you even if it says it will, it will sign peace treaties and attack you in the same turn (this isn't realistic, it just doesn't give a poo poo) and so forth. Extort them for money or territory if possible then burn their houses down. It's pointless to try anything else.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2009 04:14

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# ¿ May 20, 2024 05:41

Blazing Ownager: Jun 2, 2007; by FactsAreUseless

projecthalaxy posted:

So I got Fallout 3. I have mainly just been wandering around doing the Survival Guide missions stuff. I am level 8 now. Is there a best time to start actually trying to advance the plot? Also, will I need to start pulling up a second combat skill, right now I have solely been using Small Guns. Will my shotgun eventually fail me?

You shouldn't try to advance the plot until you are really ready to end the game, at least past the radio station. That's as far as you should go, period. Unless you bought the expansion (thus replacing the horrid ending), then you can go ahead and finish the plot whenever you feel ready since it won't just abruptly come to a retarded end on you.

And no, you really don't need secondary gun skills. You can almost always find some small arm to run with if you need to. In fact I'd only recommend a secondary skill if you are primarily a melee character.

Also make sure you do some exploring! There's lot of sub-plots, and I mean LOTS (I missed the majority the first time around), so take your time and enjoy all the little stories in the game, too.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2009 02:21

Blazing Ownager: Jun 2, 2007; by FactsAreUseless

J2DK posted:

- Assign "shoot" to a trigger you can easily charge shots with both characters and fight at the same time.
- Dante's Gilgamesh has an attack called Real Impact. If you activate Devil Trigger after Dante jumps into the air, Dante will inflict an extra hit and do almost twice as much damage.

These two are by far and away the most important things I can tell you, aside from "Get Charge Shot 3 as soon as humanly possible as it is completely awesome." Also, the Devil Trigger extra damage infliction (vital to be decent with Dante) works with a number of his attacks, including both Gilgamesh and Stinger. The damage output is MUCH more than 2x; I finished off the 2nd to final boss in just two True Impact + Devil Trigger. I probably slipped since then but I was, at the time, #23 on the rankings for that level because of it.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2009 02:39

Blazing Ownager: Jun 2, 2007; by FactsAreUseless

Gaz-L posted:

Nope. You can meet people who've read it, which is a neat little random encounter when it happens.

Oh, I'd try and get the alien ray gun, if you're sticking to Small Arms. Limited ammo, but crazy powerful. And head up to Canterbury Common and invest in the caravans. It ups their repair skill, with one of them clearing 80, which is very useful for the rarer weapons.

Isn't the alien ray gun an Energy weapon?

# ¿ Jul 27, 2009 06:46

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The "What should I know before I play this game for the first time?" Q&A!