Has anything really changed from CA?

[Yun Dog]

Anno is out and quite interesting(I like their depiction of land warfare and hte city building in topnotch though I will always say the Pharoah style was better) though ships are too slow even with '+' pressed. What's HOI3?

Hearts of Iron 3

and its out!!!

I played it till it was ragged all weekend

and loved it

sorry ETW I wont be needing you for some time

I guess when Im in the mood for some eye candy action - but not when I chasing some strategic goodness

[Quintus Cunctator]

I would just like to say that the original poster has summed up my feelings exactly. I've also been playing Shogun and have also become quite disillusioned with the series which is terrible because it was my favorite set of games. I haven't bought Empire yet because I played the demo and saw that (as has become usual) it was broken. I mean, really broken. Memories of Medieval 2 1.0 battles where the AI just stood there and died under archer fire (and I mean all of them) came flooding back to me.

To those of you who are defending the AI, I really fail to understand. Everyone points out that its difficult to write an effective AI, which is true but I don't need it to be as good as a human. I merely wish for it to be competent. I've played other complicated games where the AI has not only challenged me, it has destroyed me. Yet in Total War they cannot even achieve competence? I'm sorry, their setup is no more complicated than many other strategy games out there.

No, I think its exactly as the original poster said, there's no competition and CA have gotten lazy. The focus for several iterations now has been graphics with lip service being paid to gameplay improvements. I can't remember when they weren't promising to fix the AI/Diplomacy. Yes, yes, this game it'll be much better! But each time, no change. The problems that were described by the poster have existed since Rome, which is completely unforgivable in my opinion.

I came to this forum to see if things have improved with the patches but unfortunately it sounds like its business as usual and I'll have to wait to buy Empire, if I ever do. Which is a crying shame, because I adore this period. Ah well, at least I have Europa Barbarorum to console me.

[oldpiker]

I would take the AI as is if I could just play the game, but I have finally had to give up on it completely. A bunch of my save games have finally disappeared and nothing I do with my computer config, video card drivers, or memory mgmt helps. It now crashes within the first ten minutes regardless. It has literally become unplayable. It's really rather outrageous that it's still being marketed, in spite of all the bad reviews and heads-ups posted by purchasers. I have no idea how people are playing this title long enough to get into discussions of the details of its workings.