ASM First Impressions And Q/A Thread

**antisocialmunky** · 02-26-2010, 05:51

I'll be answering any questions you guys have this weekend. Ask away and I'll try and answer them.

Playing the Tutorial Right Now

-I like the new interface a bit more.
-The game is much more responsive for me, no more random hiccups even on small sizes.
-Does look better.
-More Faces, Yah!

Also mustaches as this was the Great Age of Facial Hair. Though the units still kinda have that creepy dead eye effect.

-Generals and Admirals have way nicer portraits.(You don't understand how much this makes the game look more atmospheric)
-Generals and Admirals have extra icons over them to help you figure out where they actually are. Very helpful for boats.
-Generals now have an ability called 'Inspire' that super powers one unit.
-Boat Repair should now fix a lot of those random sinkings during battle.
-Units speak the correct language.(FINALLY)

-Battle map is too big by default :( Need a version that doesn't take like 10% of the screen. I don't want the option to make it bigger, I want it smaller or both would be fine.
-Where are my game speed buttons...? Ctrl+T shifts through them.
-Storytelling is less corny so far.

-A few new Town Buildings. There is a new weapon factory and a new merchant's guild improvement for the campaign map for regions. One increases recruitment and makes upkeep cheaper while the other makes you money.

-No more 2 turn reenforcements. You have to build structures that resupply your army % per turn. I LOVE THIS!
-The AI on Hard is definitely competent for a SP experience. I know that it is a little boniied up the decision making is not the ETW fare.

**Warluster** · 02-26-2010, 06:20

This is a strange question; but did you have to download anything after you installed, and was it over 3GB in size? Was the entire game on the two discs you bought?

**antisocialmunky** · 02-26-2010, 06:29

2 Disks Only.

Edit, I haven't had to download anything but if you botch a steam setup, it will want to download form the web maybe that is why?

**antisocialmunky** · 02-27-2010, 14:25

So random BAI stories you guys probably want to know:

(I played the game on H battles.)

Overall Battle Experience
The AI will pretty much always try to form a giant line. This is not a bad thing. Most of the time the line is a little loose and units will come in piecemeal but it is still a line. It still mills around a little bit when it is forming up but oncei t gets rolling, usually it stays rolling. It will sit and shoot if it is even but if it has alot of extra troops and outnumbers you, it seems to exchange a few volleys until those extra troops have moved up to the line. Sometimes those extra troops will attack you in melee. I think this may be because there is a trigger that tells it to attack units at less than 50% or so. Its rather good at executing that.

So I took a battle where I was outnumbered about 15 units to 8 good quality units. The AI came in 3 parts. I expected them to do some sort of piece meal attack but the AI ended up uniting most of the army and steam rolled my army... :'(

Cute Stuff sightings
The AI is interesting with its cavalry. It will either keep it running around behind its lines and eventually goes for a flanking attack or it will go for a flanking attack. I haven't fought a large cavalry army so I can't tell you if its actually good at massed cavalry charges. But it doesn't just completely throw its horses away form what I've seen.

I did see something interesting thing though. I was deployed on a hill attacking a town and the AI army and the AI ran its whole army to outflank me? You heard that right. It ran its whole army past my lines(I ran forward to take 2 units out). But then it formed up where my left flank was... That was certainly interesting. I'm wondering if it was intending to do that because it would usually form up a line. But htis time they formed up perpendicular to my position and I had to run units to counter them...

One other interesting thing. The AI will defend itself from mass flanking attacks. This was the battle tat lost the Italy campaign for me. I had enough units to totally wipe the ETW AI in a stand up slugfest. I was at the bottom of a hill, had to advance up it to attack the AI. I flanked with all those free armed citizenry and tried to set up a firing line behind the enemy line but they sent a few units to melee them to death... I guess that means it can deal with flanking infantry a little better than in ETW.

Campaign Map
Armies are often large. They are made up of good units. Not particularly all that intelligently moved but if you're playing on hard the AI can spam good armies. The closest thing I can compare this to is fighting Arche Seleukia in EB. It is a torrent of decent units that you could never dream of affording...

It likes to hide in trees... This is annoying because the AI does not know how to deploy for ambushes.

**antisocialmunky** · 02-27-2010, 18:57

Just had a big battle. I can actually describe the big battles as fun now. :)

AI is not totally idiotic so it takes quite alot more actions per minute to respond to it.