The most annoying thing in MTW

**Lare** · 09-17-2003, 13:22

What is the most annoying thing in MTW in your opinion?

I think the most frustrating thing in the whole game is to fight against Golden Horde, when they appear. One example is when I started to play Russians in the high era. I had about 30 Haldbediers and a 5 star general, if I remember correct. I put them stand in the middle of a very large forest, which made them unstoppable. The Horde heavy cav didn't obviously stand a chanse, especially when I killed their leader.

The Horde had no chanse of winning, but the battle took a looooong time. If every Horde unit would have just attacked me it would have been much faster, but mostly they just shoot their arches towards me. I did put the time acceleration to the maximum, but I still think the whole battle took about 2 hours or even longer (I had to leave it to pause as I had to go to sleep and work in the midle of the fight).

Eventually (nearly 24h after I started the fight) I won, and the Horde didn't stay in the game after that since they were beaten when they appeared in the game. I wasn't as patient last evening when I played the Turks, and I had 9000 men against their 12000 men. I fought the battle for over an hour, but then I fed up and shut the computer.

I think there should be a possibility to save the battle f.ex. after half on hour of fighting (real life time of non-pause fighting, not game time).

**The Storyteller** · 09-17-2003, 15:54

Well, if its a horde, aren't you supposed to be totally exhausted after fighting them?

**Spino** · 09-17-2003, 15:56

I would sooner have them fix the tactical AI. It's frustrating to fight an opponent who is incapable of realizing when it's had its ass handed to it on a plate and should make a sensible withdrawal. If only it could then AI factions would last longer in the strategic aspect of MTW.

What drives me really nuts is when the AI attacks you only to camp on a hill near its map edge as soon as the battle starts It's real fun sitting around with the time acceleration set to maximum hoping the tactical AI will get its ass in gear and march across the map to do what the strategic AI wanted it to do in the first place

**Dhepee** · 09-17-2003, 16:27

I agree with Spino, the tactical AI drives me nuts, especially since the stratgic AI is pretty good.
I would like to fight a battle against the AI where it tried something besides marching straight at me in a sorted double line. It never outflanks or draws off an attack, it just marchs at you. (actually that's probably more historically accurate but it still drives me nuts) The only recourse is to play on expert so that the AI's units have the bonuses that make them tougher but sadly not smarter.

**A.Saturnus** · 09-17-2003, 16:29

The most frustrating thing is the lack of any decent diplomacy and the totally uncomprehendable behaviour of the strategic AI, especially later in the game. I had very good campaigns screwed up when suddenly some minor faction I have been allied with for 200 years attacks me without the slightest chance of gaining anything but their own extinction. When that happens I really consider de-installing the game

**Mount Suribachi** · 09-17-2003, 18:14

Terrible info management (only slightly improved by VI).

**Vanya** · 09-17-2003, 18:40

GAH

Vanya always gets a chuckle out of stoopid factions that decide to break your alliance or neutrality by attacking a ship of yours. These poor fools typicall are outnumbered and outclassed along the borders, so they dare not send in a ground army to start the hostilities. Instead, they pick on a lonely fleet somewhere, and expect that you will just sit and shy away from taking all their lands and women just because they have big stacks of peasants and archers deterring your armies of uberunits along the common border.

Fools This always leads to THEIR assimilation

Vanya sez... it would have been interesting (maybe in RTW?) if they had added a PIRATE agent/strategic/naval unit. You build a PIRATE ship and send it out to attack somebody's ship(s). Just like a spy or killa, there is a good chance the enemy will never know who sponsored the attack. When the PIRATE wins, its allegiance is never revealed. When the PIRATE is defeated, there is a % chance that its sponsor will be revealed (like with captured spies/killas). And knowing who sent the PIRATE does not mean declaring instant war. It just unsettles the king's view of the sponsor (like agents... you never are at war from a spy being discovered... but it hurts your goodwill...).

GAH

**magnatz** · 09-17-2003, 22:02

Strategic AI, diplomacy and trade could use some improvement imho, however my biggest gripe is that I have to right click all my generals whenever I need to appoint a governor.

PS: the Italian translation is nothing to write home about either.

**katar** · 09-17-2003, 22:26

most annoying thing?

all of those damned TREES

honestly, it`s a real pian not being able to toggle them on and off, even if it was just pre-battle it would help.

**Parmenio** · 09-18-2003, 00:24

That sonabitch the Pope.

**lancer63** · 09-18-2003, 00:58

Diplomacy should be improved, also princesses are dog ugly. No wonder I can't marry the wenches

and some v&v's are weird. Like odd number of toes which ends up in inbred. How does a birth defect of that kind appears when a man is 20 something years old?
The rest is just great.

**SirGrotius** · 09-18-2003, 03:51

diplomacy would have to be my biggest gripe (along with lack of information spreadsheets). i wish opposing leaders would at least have personalities, like, won't ally with catholics, megalomaniac, balance-of-power supporter, trader, isolationists, etc. instead, i find the diplomacy system to be entirely arbitrary and random in every sense of the word.

**YunDog** · 09-18-2003, 05:40

If the diplomacy and the strategic AI was fixed this would be the greatest game in the world ever and I would never play anything else

**desdichado** · 09-18-2003, 05:50

whats annoying me right now (apart from all the above) is the limit on number of men in a stack. I hate having 14 units in one stack and then remembering to have a small 2 unit stack follow its big brother around. I mean what difference does it make if I want to put 16 100 man units (1,600 men) in a single stack as opposed to the current limit of 960 men. I just can't see the point to it

And trees.

**MizuKokami** · 09-18-2003, 07:34

battlefields that have edges....wish i could fight on a planet instead of a map.

**a_ver_est** · 09-18-2003, 08:40

In fact I think that most wishes will be done in RTW, diplomacy, better IA, ... and one important ( at least for me ), real building damage after the battle.

**Cazbol** · 09-18-2003, 09:21

It's strange to hear that the AI never tries to flank some of you. It very often tries to flank me, often with fairly good results. Perhaps some people should get their arse away from the map edge.

My main complaint is a small one. I disable the auto-merging of units after battle. But if units of the same type in two different stacks are put in the same stack, and the total number of men in both units could fit in one unit, then these units will be automatically merged. If one disables auto-merging then this shouldn't happen.

**Revenant69** · 09-19-2003, 06:30

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]Vanya sez... it would have been interesting (maybe in RTW?) if they had added a PIRATE agent/strategic/naval unit. You build a PIRATE ship and send it out to attack somebody's ship(s). Just like a spy or killa, there is a good chance the enemy will never know who sponsored the attack. When the PIRATE wins, its allegiance is never revealed. When the PIRATE is defeated, there is a % chance that its sponsor will be revealed (like with captured spies/killas). And knowing who sent the PIRATE does not mean declaring instant war. It just unsettles the king's view of the sponsor (like agents... you never are at war from a spy being discovered... but it hurts your goodwill...).

Wow what a great idea. I like it very very much and i wonder if it is doable in a mod for MTW, and if it is doable then can someone give me a tip on how to do it? lol

**rolin** · 09-19-2003, 07:04

The most annoying thing in MTW is, to look at this side every morning, clicking on the thread 'Viking Invasion Patch' and recognizing it isn’t out already.

I would like it to get a summary of all my province-governors, with their skills and vices, and a summary (menu) of all my provinces where I just have to click on the provincename to switch to the building menus. (Like in Masters of Orion II)

I don't like it that a hopeless underdog suddenly attacks me with no chance to survive.

I would like to get a possibility to blind out the trees as well and certainly the diplomatic AI must be improved.

**el_slapper** · 09-19-2003, 14:48

Originally Posted by [b

Commentaire[/b] (Cazbol @ Sept. 18 2003,09:21)]It's strange to hear that the AI never tries to flank some of you. It very often tries to flank me, often with fairly good results. Perhaps some people should get their arse away from the map edge.

My main complaint is a small one. I disable the auto-merging of units after battle. But if units of the same type in two different stacks are put in the same stack, and the total number of men in both units could fit in one unit, then these units will be automatically merged. If one disables auto-merging then this shouldn't happen.

That one I never understood : that hate of automerging. Manual merge is tedious at best, and no merge makes your units understrength. As the game keeps in memory the valour of EACH soldier, there is not much point following the "merge hi valour units together".

OK, you'll have valour 4 billmen. Cool. 1 single unit, surrounded by noobs(because you did continue building them). What's the use? If the battle happen to decide elsewhere, you're screwed. Hi valour units are a drug, don't get addicted, you'll rely too much on them, and accidents may happen.

**Qilue** · 09-19-2003, 17:50

Blockades. At no time in history could a single dromon blockade a major fleet just because it could run away faster. A blockade should only be in effect if the enemy nation has naval superiority.

**Oaty** · 09-20-2003, 02:59

Ahh yes that ship that is escorting that jedi knight that you need about 5 ships to destroy yes very poor would be very nice if they actually made a ship a unit containing 5 ships so as it slowly wins battles it also loses strength or give the ships hull strengths so after so many battles its hull is so weak that you only need someone to blink there eye to sink it. And the inbred vice is totally bogus, lets see you appoint a very smart man as governor, some village idiot discovers he has 6 toes and oddly enough he becomes a dumb man, yep that makes sense. My oppinion that vice should only go to new units not 1 that has been on the board fo numerous years. My final major complaint is when 2 armies show up on the battlefield and both the archers and artillery are in range. Yay we have discovered how to teleport. I guess I have 1 other the maps are so small that it makes me believe that horse archer were obsolete as soon as they made it to the battlefield

**Quokka** · 09-21-2003, 13:45

I have been waiting for something to really annoy me and now I have found it. Castle assaults.
Seige weapons are incredibly inaccurate and don't have anywhere near enough ammo. You'd think that they would bring more than a few rocks to knock down the walls, but time and time again when I have actually bothered to lead the assault (whenever I have seige weapons) They proove ineffectual.
Todays example is perfect. I hired 4 Mercenary Mangonel crews and used them to attack Venice castle. All 4 Mangonels couldn't knock down the single wall they were firing at. The total extent of their damage was 3 dead Royal Knights, who happened to get hit by a rock BOUNCING over the walls. Whats with the rocks bouncing that much, especially with the high angle of fire of a Mangonel?

As a result I won't ever lead an assault again, which takes a whole part of the game play out of action. I have never seen the AI assault a castle either, does it happen?

**motorhead** · 09-21-2003, 13:59

Rocks bouncing over the walls?? I had something similar with catapults hidden behind some woods. They lobbed their rocks so high only a direct hit damaged the wall and lots of bouncing rocks from the high angle. But when cats have a clear line-of-sight, they fire with a flatter trajectory so even near-misses tend to skip into the wall and do some damage.

**Omar Mena** · 09-22-2003, 00:34

One of the things I hate about MTW is the trade system. It is way too complicated. I have never had a longly succesful trade route. This sounds like a big noobie question but how do you attack islands like Ireland?

I mean a full 10000 man invasion?

**Tony** · 09-22-2003, 04:12

In no particular order:

1) Crap diplomacy - almost, but not quite, random.

2) Negative V&V - way too many applied way too often. They regularly destroy potentially decent leaders. Just how many folks in the medieval timeframe were "crackbrained"? This ceases to be entertaining and is irritating. At least it should have been configurable to some degree. V&V as a direct result of battle outcomes is a good idea. Random V&V popping up all the time for no good reason is NOT.

3) Tactical AI cannot recover from initial defeat. It will feed reinforcement into battle piecemeal for defeat in detail until routed off the battlefield.

4) Economic situation depends too much on trade. Trade is too easily blocked by a single "roaming" ship that can be very difficult to bring to battle. Why should it be more profitable to trade with Egypt than OWN Egypt? That is bizarre.

5) Uneven unit mix by faction by time period. E.g. Almohads in Late are toast in a stand up fight with just about anyone.

6) User interface not configurable enough to summarise data. E.g. I don't want to have to wade through 6+ popups at the end of each turn. Give me a single overall summary screen with navigation buttons to take me to the detail summary data I want - then let me drill into each line item for the details as I want. This isn't hard - gui design principles have been well documented for over 10 years.

7) Province taxation needs to be micromanaged to avoid the possibility of revolt. I should be able to set the taxation level to get the desired loyalty outcome - 100%, 140%... whatever, and then manage by exception province by province.

8) Siege resolution at the tactical level is very ordinary. E.g. my own ballista towers shoot into my own walls trying to hit the enemy outside the wall - helping to knock my own walls down. AI is very clumsy in attacking a siege.

9) The 56 year thingy. That is REALLY crappy.

Sometimes I find it hard not to go back to Shogun. Only the unit variety and the resulting tactical fun keeps me in Medieval.

**motorhead** · 09-22-2003, 09:08

Agreed on 1,2,3,4,6,8,and 9.

5: Variation by faction/era is great. It can be challenging to succeed with one of these factions. I don't want all factions to have nearly generic armies - boring.

7: You can with VI. Add '-loyalty:xxx' (no quotes) to the command line that runs MTW:VI and auto-tax will adjust taxes to try and reach that %. True, setting it to 140 really means minimum 140, it can't increase taxes in small enough steps to keep it at exactly 140. I use the default auto-tax (in VI they upped it to 120%) and never have a problem. Using auto-tax in original MTW was asking for a rebellion.

The GUI is one of the biggest problems to me. There's so much useful information that is already there that could be displayed. This would make running a large (30+ province) empire less like root canal surgery. Perhaps they were aiming for historical accuracy by simulating logistical tedium. I vote for biolgical accuracy in RTW. They should include a bottle of plague to be inhaled from when disease strikes your population

.

Also, limiting stacks by the number of total men instead of just 16 units is very annoying. Let a full stack on the strategic map equal a full army on the battle map.

**Galestrum** · 09-23-2003, 19:49

Beyond all that has been written before me, with which i almost entirely agree, the following are major drawbacks:

(1) Computer unit building selection. The computer often makes armies in the following composition, (8) archers/crossbows, (1) cavalry, (1) advanced spear (armored spear, chiv sgt, etc), 5 militia/peasant types. This type pf army is incapable of beating much, other than an exact same army - yet the AI constantly churns out "low-tech" and unbalanced armies over better and more balanced armies.

Yes this can be modded - and I have done more than my fair share of modding - its the only thing that keeps me playing, BUT i shouldnt have to learn how to mod and play test for CA - the game should be good upon release.

(2) Diplomacy, diplomacy, diplomacy - i know its been said but it just needs to be said some more. We need options, options options in diplomacy (a) client states/vassalage (b) trades © a general knowledge screen where a comparison of relative strength in various aspects can be measured (in a vague way). (d) how about establishing an embassy with a faction instead of micromanaging dumb emmisarys all over the earth, why cant i just place an emmisary in the court of faction A and then go to a screen whenever i wanna talk with them?

(3) what about internal diplomacy? why cant i deal with the church, or the nobles, or the peasantry, or the court in a direct manner. Where is the palace intrigue, where is the church working against your ruler for doing unpopular religious reforms, or for being a psycho? why cant i change/convert religion? and deal with the benefits/consequences of such actions? any number of internal factors are non-existant or so abstract and/or of non real impact that they are meaningless.

(4) Unit production - it is utterly flawed. When an undeveloped province can produce the same amount of spearmen as a large, developed urban populace province something is wrong. Every city/province should be able to produce as many units as population and money can afford, not be limited to the same amount of troops per province, unless of course the provinces/cities are equal.

(4a) stop with the intricate build requirements. A well developed city should be able to produce any unit it wants to. You should be able to build one or a small amount of "armouries/barracks" type building and within those all units can be built. Intricate build req cause more micromanagement and arent realistic. I own Constantinople have a gazillion florins, the largest city in the world but because i havent built a level 3 sword building i cant make byz cavalry?? I mean come on, dont you think i could just buy the swords from somewhere else and train my men there? One word - streamline.

(4b)Stop with the Build one unit, one ship, or one agent per year / per province. They should all be separate. "My emperor, we have a city of (1) million people and the wealth of many nations, unfortunately, we can only train (1) assassin, (60) archers, a priest or your pleasure yacht".

All of these unit types should be buildable at once - they are totally separate.

(4c) stop with the ++++ no more armouries, swordsmiths and morale boosting buildings.

Peasants are peasants, but if i build them in an advanced province they are now armoured in plate and have the morale of caesar?

Perhaps have one building which increases "training" and therefore stats, but haveing (4) buildings is overboard and can make a peasant into a royal footknight

**Galestrum** · 09-23-2003, 20:06

BTW the most annoying thing about MTW, is that it is going to get patched (1) week before RTW goes gold

that it added more problems and bugs than it solved.

The VI campaign isnt that great at all - the only good thing it did was make modding easier - soemthing which most buyers wont utilize. The addition of the 56 year bug, broken reinforcements, kings not leading armies, etc were not plusses IMO.

Customer service here stinks. How long has it been since VI was released? And still no patch for obvious bugs - bugs introduced by the addon product

And now, they grudgingly are getting around to solving what they broke - gee Thanks CA, dont do us any more favors. As far as i can tell, I spent $$ for VI to get (a) a fairly boring viking campaign (b) to watch catapults shoot fire missiles only at wooden castles © new units (our modders have already done that ) (d) more playable factions, yet again wow, since these were already done by modders - basically VI is a huge waste of $$$$

I hope CA just gives the new code for RTW to our modders and let them "make" the game