Has anything really changed from CA?

[GFX707]

I was sceptical as always about this game when I heard about it at first. I pre-ordered it anyway because there is just nothing else like it. I have been playing since Shogun, and I have witnessed the series's decline after MTW.

The main problems with RTW and M2TW were:

1) Bad AI.
2) Useless diplomacy and suicidal enemies.

So, I have been playing since release and despite the BUGGY MESS that this game has been I have been more or less having a good time. In two months of playing through the campaign (and enjoying it) I have come to the following conclusions.

1) The AI is still just as bad, if not worse.
2) Diplomacy is still largely pointless.

Here's why: The AI on the campaign map always does the same thing. If you border Dagestan or Georgia at some point, they will always declare war on you, no matter how good your relations or whether you are trading. They will always be crushed with minimal effort. Then, you now border Persia. Inevitably, they will declare war next and be wiped out after a few turns. They are coded to be suicidal. To seal their own stupid fate they will absolutely NOT accept peace. Time and time again, there I am, at the "diplomacy" screen, my country terrifying/spectacular (or whatever), theirs weak/destitute and they will still NEVER accept peace. This goes on throughout the game. Sometimes you can get a peace but they don't seem to understand that they are in a very bad situation - that by asking for peace you are SAVING them from certain destruction of their handul of 2 stack raiding armies, and even if you offer them twenty thousand to save their lives they won't take it. So, that's our new diplomacy which incidentally should go beyond having some new buttons to click.

The strategic AI is also the usual terrible CA game situation again. When I was playing yesterday I bought Quebec from the French - I hadn't realised it bordered an English settlement and an army was standing right beside my new town as I hit "end turn". There were no troops in my town as I had just bought it, and there wouldn't be until the next turn when I had finished building some. There was a large English army across the river to the south. I think "Woops".

So what does the AI do? It can reach the town in 1 turn. There are no troops to defend it.

It walks its stack PAST the *undefended* enemy town and raids the nearby seminary instead. The AI's strategic approach to war seems to just be chucking tiny two stack armies at you to raid your settlements, even if, combined, all those stacks would crush you. This results in a tedious campaign of chasing piddly two stack armies around which ISN'T FUN.

So since I am now bored of typing, in summary, does this game have exactly the same problems as the past two CA offerings in my opinion? Yes....and more. Did I buy it anyway, pretty sure it would be the same old story? Yes.

Why did I buy it? Why did all of us pessimist CA diehards buy it anyway? Because there is STILL, after almost 10 years, nothing like the Total War series. If this was nature, the Total War series would be the Dodo. It has survived because it has no predators. It can get as fat and as stupid and as useless as it wants because it will still have nothing to fear from any other game because there are no other games of this type to compete. It's in a genre all of its own, and until someone basically does a Blizzard and rips it off, but improves and supports it, it's going to be the same old story.

(same old rant, too)

[Kadagar_AV]

Why so suprised?

Anyway, I know CA really really promised to have worked on the AI. Some developer came out and said "hey, we know we kind of sucked at this in previous games, but this time we wont, I swear!"

Seeing that I just laughed.

Did I believe him? No.

Should I have believed him? Obviosly not.

[antisocialmunky]

Support is way better now though . :) That more than anything has made me happy. Though I can actually get the thing running and not WCTDing all the time.

[al Roumi]

Support is way better now though . :) That more than anything has made me happy. Though I can actually get the thing running and not WCTDing all the time.

True, but results and changes are slow in coming. The appeal of daily updates on what is being worked on wears out when you are still facing tedious bugs. I'm sorry to repeat this but the game was not anywhere near ready for release and it's insulting really.

I was an avid Mount and Blade fan and I enjoyed the anticipation of new updates that slowly moved the game forward, developing gameplay and addressing (and creating) bugs. When it was finally released, I would have said it wasn't all the way there yet either, but damn was it more "complete" and finished than ETW 1.0.

The point being that in M&B I was fine about being a paying beta tester. When I've been a beta tester for other games, I've enjoyed being involved in the dev process too. However, the fact that we are effectivley free and un-acknowledged testers for ETW is galling. More so for having paid about £35 for the sodding special forces edition. Steam is all well and good but IMO it does NOT give a game designer license to sell you something 3/4 completed and finish the development of the game once it's on your machine.

God knows what happened at CA, or Sega Europe, but frankly it looks like they had a novice team with half the head-count they anticipated. As GFX said, they 1, haven't learnt from previous games and 2, have produced something slap-dash, which for some frustratingly unknown reason, I STILL PLAY and care enough to rant about it...

[Fisherking]

The game came with lots of bugs, okay.

But the starting AI was not so bad. Granted they made it as bad as M2 with the change, but that is not how it started.

The diplomacy actually worked. Fine they broke it with the later changes but it worked.

You know RTW started out ok and then everyone wanted this or that and cried its too this or too that and so they changed it…and it got worse…

Well it seems they are taking another game that stared well and are transforming it into something entirely mediocre, but that is what some of the louder fans want.

And that is the part that always seems to be the same!

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

I have to say that I think the complaining is way over the top. We paid (maybe a little much, but that can't be helped) and we got a perfectly good game. I would argue that the AI and diplomacy are much better than what we saw in M2:TW. Sure, there have been bugs, but no real gamebreakers, and we have no right to flame CA for making what is a perfectly adequate game.

[pevergreen]

I have to say that I think the complaining is way over the top. We paid (maybe a little much, but that can't be helped) and we got a perfectly good game. I would argue that the AI and diplomacy are much better than what we saw in M2:TW. Sure, there have been bugs, but no real gamebreakers, and we have no right to flame CA for making what is a perfectly adequate game.

[al Roumi]

I have to say that I think the complaining is way over the top. We paid (maybe a little much, but that can't be helped) and we got a perfectly good game. I would argue that the AI and diplomacy are much better than what we saw in M2:TW. Sure, there have been bugs, but no real gamebreakers, and we have no right to flame CA for making what is a perfectly adequate game.

Beg pardon sir, we have every right to say what we think. As long as it's civil.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Beg pardon sir, we have every right to say what we think. As long as it's civil.

Constructive criticism and calling CA a bunch of novices are two completely different things. I'd like to see another game studio take on such an extensive project and do as well with it as CA has.

[knoddy]

I have to say that I think the complaining is way over the top. We paid (maybe a little much, but that can't be helped) and we got a perfectly good game. I would argue that the AI and diplomacy are much better than what we saw in M2:TW. Sure, there have been bugs, but no real gamebreakers, and we have no right to flame CA for making what is a perfectly adequate game.

my thoughts exactly. these forums have slowly degenerated into an ETW bash fest. I loved the game, ive hand no major game breaking bugs, i find it quite challenging (particularly with the changes in 1.3) and enjoyable.


Cheers Knoddy

[Skott]

I think the AI overall is better than M2TW. Is it still lacking? Yes, but I'm wondering just how far they can take the game AI overall. Everyone (those that have played numerous pc games) knows that PC game AI, generally speaking, is extremely limited when comparing it to a human player's mind and abilities. My real question from an TW game AI perspective is this, 'can the knowledge and skill of CA's programmers do a better job in making a better AI?' Thats the real question that I find myself asking sometimes. I'm kinda thinking they are near their limit. They did better this time but can they really push the envelope even farther? Only time will tell.

Just some thoughts on my part...

[nameless]

my thoughts exactly. these forums have slowly degenerated into an ETW bash fest. I loved the game, ive hand no major game breaking bugs, i find it quite challenging (particularly with the changes in 1.3) and enjoyable.


Cheers Knoddy

No it's just the internet. The arrival and expansion of the internet means there's more idiots out there and as you know, "one person complaining means that there are 100 people complaining the exact same thing".

Then you got wikipedia and all of a sudden people have a Bachelor in history and game design and are experts in how a business should be run.

10 years down the road when we are playing Warhammer 40,000 Total war (Yes I do want one), people will be praising about how historically accurate and bug free ETW was (Just like how people are praising how bug free and historically accurate Shogun and MTW and MTW2 were).

Beg pardon sir, we have every right to say what we think. As long as it's civil.

Yes because calling a company a bunch of novices is so mature and civil good job lad. No novice company would release a product and then continue gathering feedback from the community to continue making the game better.

A novice company is one that trends into terrority that they know nothing about, give a half-ass effort, and then leave the consumers high and dry with no support and I know several companies that have done that.

You guys are lucky that CA is mature enough to actually wander into these bash infested boards and pick out the "constructive criticism" and see what they can do to make it better or solve it.

Needless to say, I've yet to see any game that hasn't been given patches at all. Hell even Blizzard patches their games and they take how long to make them?

[Durallan]

Its nice to see that alot of people didn't have game halting dead in your track, start again bugs, which allowed them to play this game without many problems, yet still seem content to keep telling everyone that did, or is having problems that they aren't and that they are quite happy about that situation.

However those that had problems are rather upset. And I'm still out on the diplomacy of ETW, to be honest I did use the camaign mod released by one of the M2TW dev's but diplomacy was very good in that, because I could have allies that lasted 200 turns, which is the entire length of a long campaign. But then seeing I ahven't been able to reach the end of a campaign in ETW without the fleet clicky crash, I can't really compare the two.

Constructive criticism and calling CA a bunch of novices are two completely different things. I'd like to see another game studio take on such an extensive project and do as well with it as CA has.

X3 Reunion by EGOSOFT, and I would say that they did better, Galactic Civilizations 2 by Stardock, CA can most definetly improve on their game. I would agree that we paid for a beta, yes they are lifting their game and improving, but the game could have been sent out to the public in a better condition, I am still waiting for the fleet clicky bug fix so i can actually play a campaign, so SEGA has my money and I've been waiting 2 + months and I still don't have a game I can play. yes I could have waited and bought it when i knew all the bugs were ironed out, but by then the special editions are normally sold out.

anyway, hopefully the next patch arrives soon and I can finally start playin this one

[AussieGiant]

It's a slippery slope to take a negative approach towards anything for an extended period of time.

I commend CA's ability to put up with half assed, perhaps even slightly ignorant commentary about the game and still provide a proactive positive approach to the communities and the game support mechanisms.

At some point a wise man once said to me:

"If you don't have anything positive to say, then keep your mouth shut."

It's like a broken down record here sometimes and I hope that we do not end up like some of the other boards.

[al Roumi]

God knows what happened at CA, or Sega Europe, but frankly it looks like they had a novice team with half the head-count they anticipated. As GFX said, they 1, haven't learnt from previous games and 2, have produced something slap-dash, which for some frustratingly unknown reason, I STILL PLAY and care enough to rant about it...

I haven't called CA novices, I said they have made themselves look like them, which I find shameful as they certainly aren't.

I do agree that attempts to correct the game after release are the inescapable norms of the time. However, 2 months down the line, the devs are still working on some pretty basic features that should arguably have been ready on release day.

[GFX707]

I am still waiting for the fleet clicky bug fix

The fleet clicking CTD is caused by first rates and other larger ships' movement range increasing once Top Gallants and all the other range-increasing technologies are researched. The game has some problem calculating the longer ranges.

CA have said that they are fixing this in the next patch, but to fix these problems NOW all you have to do is move a sloop or brig into the offending fleet. This fixed all my old late-game saves where my first rates were crashing the game.

Hope the info helps.

[GFX707]

At some point a wise man once said to me:

"If you don't have anything positive to say, then keep your mouth shut."

Doesn't sound like the words of a wise man to me.

[TinCow]

The diplomacy can certainly use some improvement, but I still think it's a great deal better than in RTW and M2TW. Contrary to the OP's statements, I tend to be able to get peace treaties from many AI nations. Sure, many of them declare war again a few turns later if they are still adjacent to you, but peace is certainly possible at least for short periods.

I think one of biggest problems isn't that the AI declares war too often, it's that it declares war at the wrong times. I'm currently playing an Austria game, which is very different from my previous post-1.2 games due to a total lack of trade income. At the start I was only able to afford about 1 army stack and I had a devil of a time fending off Poland. If ANY other nation had declared war on me, I would have been in serious trouble. No other nation did however. I was able to finish off Poland and consolidate my position shortly before the Ottomans declared war on me. If the Ottomans had declared war while I was still invovled with Poland, they could have wrecked me. Instead, I am able to beat them by focusing on them alone.

Europa Universalis 3 deals with this situation very well IMO. In that game, the more wars a nation is involved in, the more likely that other nations that dislike them will declare war on them as well. It's a typical human strategy that works well: strike when your enemy is pre-occupied elsewhere. CA needs some kind of coding like this.

[Durallan]

The fleet clicking CTD is caused by first rates and other larger ships' movement range increasing once Top Gallants and all the other range-increasing technologies are researched. The game has some problem calculating the longer ranges.

CA have said that they are fixing this in the next patch, but to fix these problems NOW all you have to do is move a sloop or brig into the offending fleet. This fixed all my old late-game saves where my first rates were crashing the game.

Hope the info helps.

Thank you very muchly GFX, that is indeed certainly true, however I have found that having fixed the fleet, one turn, the next turn it is russian roulette for me as to whether it decides it wants to work again, also clicking on certain ports at the late game stage has just crashed the game, I don't know if that has been fixed, but I am going to try a game after the next patch, and see what happens.

I don't know if it was a wise man but my mum certainly said if you don't have something nice to say about someone then don't say it, on a philosophical point and a tangent to the threat, I would have to say that a wise man wouldn't have said that, he would have just listened ;)

at any rate, there is only one cause of this broken record, and that is CA seem to keep skipping on the same part of the record, which causes the now familiar scratchings of disappointed people! all they need to do is to change the record ;)

[AussieGiant]

Doesn't sound like the words of a wise man to me.

Yeah but that's only because you hear from your father when you are 17 years old...and at that age nothing sounds wise when you hear from him.

[GFX707]

Europa Universalis 3 deals with this situation very well IMO. In that game, the more wars a nation is involved in, the more likely that other nations that dislike them will declare war on them as well. It's a typical human strategy that works well: strike when your enemy is pre-occupied elsewhere. CA needs some kind of coding like this.

The game AI also loves to declare war on you when it is already involved in several wars itself....which is something that desperately needs to change.

[GFX707]

Yeah but that's only because you hear from your father when you are 17 years old...and at that age nothing sounds wise when you hear from him.

OK, thanks?

[Skott]

No need for insults and name calling, guys. Everyone has an opinion and we should respect that. If you cant debate a topic without throwing personal insults around then perhaps its time to step back for a bit?

[GFX707]

On a more positive note I was just reading some of my old posts from previous TW titles about terrible army stack composition, which, at least, it seems has improved a hell of a lot since M2TW.

I also complained a lot about how ridiculously easy the game was in RTW and M2TW. This seems to have changed (since 1.2 anyway) and I don't recall any of my games in ETW being complete pushovers after turn 10 like the last games.

So just the suicidal strategic AI to sort out now, I suppose.

[loony]

I must admit I am just as willing to rant as anyone about stupid AI and idiotic diplomacy. However, this weekend I did some testing regarding the AI and, well.. the results actually are in favor of CA.

I had my cousin visiting me so I showed him my new shiny PC and my nice-to-look-at Empire TW. The guy has never played a TW game before, but he's had his share of red-eyed nights playing other games.
I let him try out a few (actually - 4) battles from my VH/H french campaign.... and he got trashed every time.
Once he misjudged the threat of flanking cavalry; wanted to counter 3units of cavalry with 3 units of line infantry. The cavalry went right past the squares and hit the cannon. Then hit the general. He forgot the squares while trying to save the general and his squares were decimated by enmy line... then the enemy cavalry charged to the back of those wavering squares. Toast.

Second time, he attacked Iroquis and, despite my warnings, got into a nasty ambush (some indian units are invisible), meleed and charged by the lancers. He was completeley swarmed in the centre, managed to kill the enemy general but lost the battle completely.

Third time, after some practice he got throunced by the pope. Italian states had numerical superiority (1,75 stack vs 1) with a lot of arty. He had the quality troops though and was defending. He suffered very heavy losses and lost all his cav (guard units!!!). The italians were left with 3 units of cav, 4 units of sakers and a bodyguard unit. My cousin could not get to the arty without getting some canister and cav charges. His infantry routed, his general was killed. Valiant defeat.

The fourth battle was somewht unfair - a fleet battle. Equal forces with the british. His ships got intermingled with the british and in 15 minutes of utter chaos they routed or were sunk.

Now I tried all those battles yesterday and won WITH EASE!!!
1. you can't easily flank me; I put my line into a line and let the running cav eat a lot of musketballs.i form square in the last possible moment
2. I keep a decent reserve near my arty and my general
3. I don't let infantry stand in squares and get shot at
4. I know there are ambushes with those indians, i scout with cavalry or my indians.
5. I know how to flank arty, and how not to lose my guard cavalry figting an infantry square.
6. I know to keep enemy fleets downwind and to avoid getting too close to them. I also know how ) ships move upwind and how often they can fire a broadside.

Essentially, I would say the AI is doing a decent job. It can defeat a human novice on Hard in an open field battle; however, it hardly poses any threat to an experienced player. Bear that in mind.

The really stupid and annoying part is when the AI is defending against a siege. One-unit charges make me sick...

[AussieGiant]

I must admit I am just as willing to rant as anyone about stupid AI and idiotic diplomacy. However, this weekend I did some testing regarding the AI and, well.. the results actually are in favor of CA.

I had my cousin visiting me so I showed him my new shiny PC and my nice-to-look-at Empire TW. The guy has never played a TW game before, but he's had his share of red-eyed nights playing other games.
I let him try out a few (actually - 4) battles from my VH/H french campaign.... and he got trashed every time.
Once he misjudged the threat of flanking cavalry; wanted to counter 3units of cavalry with 3 units of line infantry. The cavalry went right past the squares and hit the cannon. Then hit the general. He forgot the squares while trying to save the general and his squares were decimated by enmy line... then the enemy cavalry charged to the back of those wavering squares. Toast.

Second time, he attacked Iroquis and, despite my warnings, got into a nasty ambush (some indian units are invisible), meleed and charged by the lancers. He was completeley swarmed in the centre, managed to kill the enemy general but lost the battle completely.

Third time, after some practice he got throunced by the pope. Italian states had numerical superiority (1,75 stack vs 1) with a lot of arty. He had the quality troops though and was defending. He suffered very heavy losses and lost all his cav (guard units!!!). The italians were left with 3 units of cav, 4 units of sakers and a bodyguard unit. My cousin could not get to the arty without getting some canister and cav charges. His infantry routed, his general was killed. Valiant defeat.

The fourth battle was somewht unfair - a fleet battle. Equal forces with the british. His ships got intermingled with the british and in 15 minutes of utter chaos they routed or were sunk.

Now I tried all those battles yesterday and won WITH EASE!!!
1. you can't easily flank me; I put my line into a line and let the running cav eat a lot of musketballs.i form square in the last possible moment
2. I keep a decent reserve near my arty and my general
3. I don't let infantry stand in squares and get shot at
4. I know there are ambushes with those indians, i scout with cavalry or my indians.
5. I know how to flank arty, and how not to lose my guard cavalry figting an infantry square.
6. I know to keep enemy fleets downwind and to avoid getting too close to them. I also know how ) ships move upwind and how often they can fire a broadside.

Essentially, I would say the AI is doing a decent job. It can defeat a human novice on Hard in an open field battle; however, it hardly poses any threat to an experienced player. Bear that in mind.

The really stupid and annoying part is when the AI is defending against a siege. One-unit charges make me sick...

Good post loony, and I guess something for everyone to consider.

I wrote in another post to Slaists that he was probably a top 5% player on the economic side of things. Most here are veteran players who know the tactics and would like to see an extremely intelligent AI.

At the moment it seems to be very hard to code this. And as I mentioned before...if they could...they wouldn't be making PC games for the general public. They'd be making far more impressive things for MNC who would pay them a bucket of cash.

[GFX707]

I don't remember having any real problems with the tactical AI in the game, apart from how it always sneaks around and attacks your general or blows them up with artillery (hey, I'm the only one that gets to do that), it's never really seemed broken to me.

What I mention in my first post is the strategic AI. That is, the AI on the campaign map.

[loony]

I don't remember having any real problems with the tactical AI in the game, apart from how it always sneaks around and attacks your general or blows them up with artillery (hey, I'm the only one that gets to do that), it's never really seemed broken to me.

What I mention in my first post is the strategic AI. That is, the AI on the campaign map.

I agree that the strategic AI is sometimes plain stupid, mostly due to poor economy/recruitment management. I think the AI does not understand what a "useless" unit is and where to find the "disband" button.

Im my late French campaign I keep giving conquered regions to Luisiana and giving them cash in addition to that. My "protectorate" owned Netherlands, Flanders, Genoa and Savoy in europe as well as 4 or 5 regions in NA. They get cash infusions and I have MY ARMIES keeping the stupid indians, austrians and other bad guys at bay; my protectorate cleans up the raiding parties.

They should have become a powerhouse in sth like 15 turns. However, they werefeeble and destitute; recently, I figured out why. I completed the mission (it was 1750 and I need to annex them to win) and saw they never bothered to upgrade their industry. Even the developed regions like Netherlands had apparently seen no iprovements.... OK, maybe they built armies? - NO!
They built navies, brigs and sixth rates, I found several stacks of those sitting in awkward spaces on the map (like a little west of Iceland?!)

Had the AI ignored the navies, it would have had a decent econ and at least 2 stacks of troops in NA (where we were constatnly at war with the indians). It could have also joined my conquests in Europe; it did have all the prerequisities to become a powerhouse and maybe even challenge me, but it did not.

[GFX707]

Had the AI ignored the navies, it would have had a decent econ and at least 2 stacks of troops in NA (where we were constatnly at war with the indians). It could have also joined my conquests in Europe; it did have all the prerequisities to become a powerhouse and maybe even challenge me, but it did not.

The AI wasting all its money on building immense navies for no reason has been a problem on and off since RTW.

[antisocialmunky]

Anyone make a money script for the AI yet? It would seem like a nice bandage until the next patch.