The combat is much better in Rome 1.

[Jackbrick]

When units engage in melee multiple units will hit a unit at the same time. Hypothetically let's say we have five Gaul Warband Spearmen vs one legionary. When a unit is hit it causes a brief stunlock. Which leaves them an opening to be hit again. A unit also has a chance to block an attack, stopping a stunlock. Sometimes, a unit even misses. I seen a unit strike the air in front of him and hit nothing. This is like an intimidation move rather than an attack. Armored units generally require more hits to go down. Sometimes units will fall down but not necessarily die, this can give them a window of an opening to be helped by a friend.

In Rome 2 they will queue up and fight him in 1 v 1 fight, and do ridiculously long animations. This works okay in games like Skyrim but not in big battlefield games. In Rome 1, they won't let their battle brother fight alone and will fight with him. The Legionary will take a good few hits before he goes down. He will struggle to even get one hit as the Gauls attack him.

[Obdilord]

This is because in Rome 1, unless stated otherwise, every model within a unit possesses only 1 hp. A hidden dice is rolled during attacks that matches the attacker's attack stat and the opponents defense stat. (including armor and armor piercing as well as any hidden unit modifiers) However, there is another hidden dice in the game that occurs if the attack successfully wins the roll and that is Lethality. Which is basically the odds of that attack killing the opponent, knocking them down or just flinching from the attack.

[Jackbrick]

Originally posted by Obdilord:

This is because in Rome 1, unless stated otherwise, every model within a unit possesses only 1 hp. A hidden dice is rolled during attacks that matches the attacker's attack stat and the opponents defense stat. (including armor and armor piercing as well as any hidden unit modifiers) However, there is another hidden dice in the game that occurs if the attack successfully wins the roll and that is Lethality. Which is basically the odds of that attack killing the opponent, knocking them down or just flinching from the attack.

There are exceptions like German Berserkers, and elephants. Which have additional hit pointss, giving them like a second wind ability. Berserkers are highly vulnerable to arrows. But decent in melee and can tank to a degree, along with a very high DPS, and knock down ability. Berserkers need a unit to act as a filler to keep them alive, they best used as a flanker.

Elephants merely be tickled by non-spear and non pike units. Can sustain many hits before falling. Pikes and javelin, however do massive bonus damage, and overpower their high hit points.

[Julius Geezer]

Yeah Rome 1 has my favourite combat engine for sure. Medieval 2 is up there and I like how weighty everything feels, but pikes and 2h weapons are borked (in vanilla) and cav charges can be a pain to pull off sometimes.

[Jambie Lionheart]

It's one of the things I love about the original rome >: ] Looks so wierd when they stop fighting as units.

[Obdilord]

Originally posted by Jackbrick:

Originally posted by Obdilord:

This is because in Rome 1, unless stated otherwise, every model within a unit possesses only 1 hp. A hidden dice is rolled during attacks that matches the attacker's attack stat and the opponents defense stat. (including armor and armor piercing as well as any hidden unit modifiers) However, there is another hidden dice in the game that occurs if the attack successfully wins the roll and that is Lethality. Which is basically the odds of that attack killing the opponent, knocking them down or just flinching from the attack.

There are exceptions like German Berserkers, and elephants. Which have additional hit pointss, giving them like a second wind ability. Berserkers are highly vulnerable to arrows. But decent in melee and can tank to a degree, along with a very high DPS, and knock down ability. Berserkers need a unit to act as a filler to keep them alive, they best used as a flanker.

Elephants merely be tickled by non-spear and non pike units. Can sustain many hits before falling. Pikes and javelin, however do massive bonus damage, and overpower their high hit points.

That's why I said "unless stated otherwise" you are mostly correct. Although I feel that Berserkers are grossly overrated and that the Germanic Chosen Axemen are significantly better. If Berserkers had more models in it's unit and had Armor Piercing I would say they are worth the price but as they are they can't compete with endgame units while Chosen Axemen can.

In regards to Elephants. This is due to another hidden modifier within the game and that's unit type advantage/disadvantage. Most unit types have a positive buff against certain other unit types but also disadvantage against others. These effects are quite impactful in a game where most units have only 1 HP. Spearmen for example will have a bonus of +4 or +8 (depending if it's considered an elite unit or not) against Cav and Elephants but on top of that the Cav and Elephants will get a -4 modifier when against Spears. The "anti-cav" description you see when inspecting a unit is only there to showcase this hidden modifier. Same with Camel's having "Scare Horses" which operates the exact same way as "Anti-cav". The game doesn't tell you that Spearmen also have a negative modifer against swords which is why they do poor against them. BTW all these modifiers focus solely on the units attack stat which is why it's so difficult to kill a unit's counters.

[Jackbrick]

Originally posted by Obdilord:

That's why I said "unless stated otherwise" you are mostly correct. Although I feel that Berserkers are grossly overrated and that the Germanic Chosen Axemen are significantly better. If Berserkers had more models in it's unit and had Armor Piercing I would say they are worth the price but as they are they can't compete with endgame units while Chosen Axemen can.

They had the utility of causing morale debuff, which can cause routes. So, they do have their uses. I usually only about 1 or 2 Berserkers in my army.

[Fang]

Yeah I can't go back to Rome 2. I just don't enjoy it that much anymore, and the overhaul mods for it like DEI I find to be an unfun slow and bloated mess.

Meanwhile Rome 1, and its remaster, just remain fun to play no matter how you play it. Vanilla or otherwise.

[Julius Geezer]

Originally posted by Fang:

Yeah I can't go back to Rome 2. I just don't enjoy it that much anymore, and the overhaul mods for it like DEI I find to be an unfun slow and bloated mess.

Meanwhile Rome 1, and its remaster, just remain fun to play no matter how you play it. Vanilla or otherwise.

Agreed.

[YaFilthy]

Rome 1 remaster is better then Rome 2 in my opinion it has all the classic diplomacy stuff that is really nice for "strategic" title. Rome 2 also has that siege walls mechanic but it still hasn't been ironed out in my opinion with the wall blobs looks terrible for a "Newer title".

[_______LANDO_____]

just play rome classic, easy

[beegee84]

rome 1 was the peak for total war everything was done perfect.

[androrix]

The original Rome was just superior to everything that came after in collision mechanics. When battle lines were joined they really crashed into one another as you would imagine. In later games beginning with Medieval 2 this did not happen. Charging units would dribble into battle one at a time and the line would not hold its cohesion. It was very anticlimactic.

This could either be because of the insertion of unique individual fighter animations that came with Medieval 2 or a change in engine. Either way, it has never been corrected. If it happened just so we could have a flashy animation by a soldier it was a forest for the trees moment IMO.

[The Zodiac Gamer]

Was definitely the peak of the series battles. Everything feels like it should while combat in the new ones feels floaty. The graphics also have this muddy, washed-out look to them I can't stand while Rome is colourful and dramatic.

The UI and stupid laggy wiki system of recent titles sucks as well. I tried Atilla and was amazed that the unit descriptions don't tell you ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about the unit's actual traits.

Shogun 2 is the only modern TW that I can stand.