Rome Total War under Windows on a MacBook?
Dan Stephenson
intend to run BootCamp on it to dual-boot into Windows XP, for playing
games. But the MacBook has a really lame Intel integrated graphics
adapter.
Does anyone out there have experience running Windows games on their
MacBook and could report out to the groups? How's the performance? And
in particular, for Rome Total War, one of my all-time favorite games?
Thanks in advance,
--
Dan Stephenson
Photos, movies, panos from the Europe, USA, plus N.Z.:
http://homepage.mac.com/stepheda
(remove nospam from email address to reply via email)
Henri Arsenault
Dan Stephenson <stephed...@mac.com> wrote:
>
> Does anyone out there have experience running Windows games on their
> MacBook and could report out to the groups? How's the performance? And
> in particular, for Rome Total War, one of my all-time favorite games?
>
I have played many games on my Macbook pro with XP Pro under Bootcamp,
including Heroes V, Oblivion, TOAW III, The First Blitzkrieg, strategic
Command 2, Panzer Command: Operation Winter Storm, Conquest of the
Aegean, and many others, and I have yet to find one that will not work
or that doesn't work well. So I am sure that Rome Total War will also
run, although I haven't tried it on this computer.
Note that the graphics card on the Macbook Pro is not lame, but if XP
runs under Parallels instead of Bootcamp, I have read that 3D in games
is not supported. This is not the case for Bootcamp, where all the 3D
games like Oblivion run smooth as silk.
Henri
Dan Stephenson
<ars...@nospamforme.ulaval.ca> said:
That's the thing, though, I was wanting to get a MacBook, _not_ a
MacBook Pro, on account of its smaller size.
I want to brings on trips to Europe, and I've got packing light down to
an art form, bringing a daypack as my only luggage. So I am looking
for something smaller, you see. The MacBook (not Pro) has one of those
Intel integrated chipsets and I'd hate for it to not play some games
like RTW.
>
> Henri
Michael Ash
>
> That's the thing, though, I was wanting to get a MacBook, _not_ a
> MacBook Pro, on account of its smaller size.
>
> I want to brings on trips to Europe, and I've got packing light down to
> an art form, bringing a daypack as my only luggage. So I am looking
> for something smaller, you see. The MacBook (not Pro) has one of those
> Intel integrated chipsets and I'd hate for it to not play some games
> like RTW.
I'd haunt some PC gaming forums, then, and see if you can find anybody
using a similar chipset. Running on a Mac shouldn't matter if you're
running Windows, and it's a pretty standard (if newer) chipset so you
ought to be able to find PC users using it.
My impression is that it performs extremely well for an Intel integrated
chipset, which still means it doesn't even come close to a "real" chip
from ATi or nVidia. However, RTW is probably not an extremely demanding
game, so it may work just fine. The best way to find out is to find
somebody with hands-on experience with the chipset.
--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software
Dan Stephenson
> Greetings, I'm this -><- close to getting an Apple MacBook. I would
> intend to run BootCamp on it to dual-boot into Windows XP, for playing
> games. But the MacBook has a really lame Intel integrated graphics
> adapter.
>
> Does anyone out there have experience running Windows games on their
> MacBook and could report out to the groups? How's the performance? And
> in particular, for Rome Total War, one of my all-time favorite games?
>
> Thanks in advance,
FWIW, I ended up getting a MBP, and the Mac Version of RTW + BI. I
play it all the time. I recently won as Western Empire on Very
Difficult settings, and I am about the win as the Franks in that manner.
The key to beating the Hordes is a number of high-defense infantry and
a ton of archers -- on a bridge. The hordes bash against that again
and again, and even if they eventually win through, they've
significantly reduced their numbers.
Also, when under seige, I like provoking their general to chase one of
my own cavalry units around the city walls. About halfway around, the
enemy general is dead due to fire from the city wall's towers. I even
once survived an attack on a city and was left with ONE soldier left,
the general. ONE guy. No kidding.
I've got lots of stories like this. Anyone else have good tales of RTW glory?
--
Dan Stephenson
http://web.mac.com/stepheda
Travel pages for Europe and the U.S.A. (and New Zealand too)
Joseph Nebus
>The key to beating the Hordes is a number of high-defense infantry and
>a ton of archers -- on a bridge. The hordes bash against that again
>and again, and even if they eventually win through, they've
>significantly reduced their numbers.
>Also, when under seige, I like provoking their general to chase one of
>my own cavalry units around the city walls. About halfway around, the
>enemy general is dead due to fire from the city wall's towers. I even
>once survived an attack on a city and was left with ONE soldier left,
>the general. ONE guy. No kidding.
>I've got lots of stories like this. Anyone else have good tales of RTW glory?
I am indeed intrested, and that lone-survivor of the attack
sounds like the sort of thing that would make for outstanding Roman
legends. I'm sorry that I haven't got similar tales to share but I
suspect my PowerBook is a little too not-Intel-based to run it,
more's the pity.
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dan Stephenson
Well that is a good reason to upgrade.
Here are a few more tales and tactics.
1) the biggest danger when your city is attacked are the seige towers,
as they put out a lot of fire on your troops on the walls. If you
defend you walls, keep them off the walls until the tower gets very
close, then try to get them in position. You will be able to, if you
time it right. And your troops will not be reduced by half from the
tower fire.
2) This does mean you cannot reduce the enemy forces by arrow fire of
your own, if you're keeping your troops off the wall. Therefore, if
there is a sizeable force attacking, and I have modest defense forces,
I skip defending the walls. Let the the enemy have them. I repeat the
bridge-defense mechanism, and defense a narrow street leading into the
city square. Typically, the enemy only goes for one entrances, or if
multiple, a great majority go for one entrances only. So align your
best defense infantry with your archers behind firing fire-arrows.
I've used this tactic many times with success. When I win on Very Hard
difficulty settings, the key is to keep winning new cities with your
armies, not keeping your best troops in cities to defense them through
raw numbers.
3) If your city gates are busted open from a prior attack, or similar
with a section of wall, use the bridge-defense tactic there. About 50%
of the time, the enemy streams toward that one open spot. This is
particularly crucial in the wooden walls where you cannot place archers
on the tops of the walls. By the way, the "lead enemy general in front
of towers" works with the weak wooden wall towers, jsut not as well.
You have to be very interactive and round around in a kind of circle.
The enemy (or your troops for that matter) never ever cut a corner in a
chase. They obey a line-of-sight pursuit guidance and therefore always
result in a tail-chase.
4) You can often send out a cavalry unit to tease the enemy to chase it
to the walls, where you escape through the gates. But not before the
towers and the huge numbers of archers you've emplaced on the walls do
their damage.
5) Many times, if you sortie to attack a besieger, the run away. The
way enemy formations move, is often in their battle formation or
similar. This means, if you can guess which way they will run, you can
place your long-range archers all on that one side, and they're take
out a lot of enemy before your infantry even leave the gates.
6) When those beseiging armies run, send your general / cav units out
first, to chase down stragglers. Especially the artillery units.
Also, archers often run slower than enemy spearman, and cav typically
beats archers. Even if the enemy spearmen and archers are running at
the same pace, they'll be separated and you can attack the archers
anyway, or at least shock-attack and then run away before the spearmen
arrive. Note: for this ladder/tower trick, you may have to send out
the cav from the side gates, to avoid getting mobbed by the enemy.
Usually, there is still time to run around.
7) When the battering ram lumbers in, time a cavalry attack to occur
just as it gets in range of the tower fire. This attack causes the ram
to stop. Then race your cav back to safety. The extra time is usually
enough to cause it to catch fire. This "attack to stop" also works for
towers and ladder-carriers, although attacking towers usually aren't
destroyed, but, ladder-carriers are very vulnerable and you can get
many kills in. Especially if this disturbs the enemy unit when within
range if your archers on the walls.
8) If a unit gets in your city, feint-attack it with cavalry to drawn
it into a chase. Have the enemy unit chase your cav all along the
inside of the walls, where inward firing towers will take out the enemy
unit.
9) Often when attacking with a sortie from the city, and particular
true for huge numbers of Hordes, keep your back to your city walls,
particularly with one or two of your towers nearby. Mini-sortie with
loose formation archers to take out their horse archers. When they
attack, go to close formation and withdraw behind your infantry line.
The fire more arrows, and this time the towers join in the fire. And
if at any point the enemy truly engages, you will have your towers on
your side.
10) One of the best ways to defend a city under seige, is to attack a
city of the beseiging army. That will draw off their army in order to
attack your beseiging forces. This does not always require a BIG army
on your part, either. This is key to victory when I played as the
Frankes on Very Hard / Very Hard, where you are surrounded by nations
and you are always getting under seige.
11) Upgrading to even the smallest stone wall is crucial, so you can
have archers on the walls. You can have a ton of archers in a wooden
walled city, and they really won't do any good. Put them on a small
stone wall, and they can be devestating to an attacking enemy.
And all that is just on the topic of city defense!
RTW has so much to offer I hope the developers make an updated version soon.