Sega listen, what we don't want in Empire!

[brokguitar]

Seeing how Empire has already been in the making and is at least 50-60% done, we should make a list of things we don't want to see in this game. The devs most likely have implemented their ideas for the base of the game and are not going to change this.

Please everyone add to this list all the things that made you disappointed in previous total war games.

Based on what i disliked about MTW2:

1) No more map units for merchants and diplomats.

2) Predictable AI battles. Poor siege AI.

3) Sloppy cohesion of units in battles.

4) Non compliant AI diplomacy. AI starting wars they cannot win when not necessary.

5) A campaign map that is more graphical than functional.

6) poorly written Vice and Virtues.

7) Scattered computer selection of heirs to the throne.

8) Weak animations that limit ability of units.
Missile unit animations that limit the ability of them to react. They won't retreat until they volley. Gunpowder units have problem shooting and just stand there not firing.

9) Artillery reloading every time they move.

10) Auto resolve not calculating defenses properly.

[Templar Knight]

Sega are the publishers, CA are the developers, but yea hopefully they will address these issues

[brokguitar]

My mistake, I meant CA but, SEGA owns CA so i guess it doesn't matter.
You should have added to they list because there is has to be something you felt could have been better or should have not been in the games at all.

[Templar Knight]

My mistake, I meant CA. You should have added to they list because there is has to be something you felt could have been better or should have not been in the games at all.

My list is endless...

But seriously, I don’t wont adoptions, totally unrealistic and spoils the feel.

[brokguitar]

Couple more things i thought about.

11) Rebels not being able to recruit forces within cities.

12) Rebels not playing a more of a active part in the campaign maps besides randomly appearing in regions.

13) Assassin and siege unit AI spam.

14) No negatives about sacking a city and destroying all the buildings for cash.

15) No choice for a medium length campaign.

[Hound of Ulster]

less graphics-heavy in battle map. (I can't play Med 2 because they threw everything but the kitchen sink into it graphically speaking)

[Furious Mental]

Then turn the graphical settings down. Do you really expect the developers to take the game backwards in terms of graphics?

[ICantSpellDawg]

Who said we don't want map diplomats?
I want map diplomats!!!
No map merchants though.

[Rodion Romanovich]

16) 99% of all battles result in the total destruction of either of the two armies. City battles are always fights to the death.
My wish: please add mechanics that make less battles be to the death. Give the player the option to surrender during a city defense, and give him a popularity penalty if he doesn't surrender when needed. Also give the attacker the option to accept the surrender (within some given amount of time, say 10 seconds) or keep fighting, with effects to rumor and diplomacy. In field battles, give the same options of surrender/accepting plea for surrender if either army gets encircled. In field battles, also make it easier to withdraw with the army intact. Make so each war circulates around fewer, larger armies (to avoid the many small, pointless engagements with brigands etc), and make cities more likely to surrender without a fight, be abandoned (if small villages) or handed over in a peace treaty, rather than having the game circulate around 100 sieges to conquer 100 cities. But in doing so, also make the big, important battles less decisive - make it a difficult campaign with difficulties pressuring the enemy into encirclement rather than escape etc.

[Sheogorath]

I'd say that randomly spawned rebels should be ditched entirly, at least in 'civilized' areas. You didnt get massive forces of brigands wandering about with grenadiers, or even organized forces, in Europe during the 18th century. They couldnt get enough men or arms together to fend off the state-run army.
Rebels should be an event, or at least a sort of 'mini-event' IE: Unannounced spawning of a rebel stack somewhere or other instead of five units of well trained line infantry suddenly appearing next to your capitol.

And please guys, dont give us another Portugese Pamplona (in the entirly wrong place too >_>). I realize that states in Europe might not be their full historical sizes to allow for a bit of expansion prior to getting started, but really, dont give England Brittany or Switzerland to France. %100 historical accuracy isnt required, but a little logic is always good :P

Generals should probably be removed from the battlemap at this point. Yeah, some generals DID actually go INTO the battle itself (Peter the Great, for instance, manned an artillery battery in an early battle of the Great Northern War.), but most of the time they selected a convineint hill far enough from the action to avoid stray shots and watched this unfold. I dont think ANY general of the era would've ridden into battle, sword swining and charged the enemy lines himself.
If a 'general' unit is required, make it a 'captain' or something similar, to provide a moral boost while alive and a hit when killed and all that.

[PxR]

Rather than what I don't want, here's what I do:

1. Results other than complete destruction. Romanov is right, Armies retreat well before they are completely destroyed. The Withdrawal option shouldn't just be a panicky run for the boarder. Hit it, and you're allowed to fight your way off the side you came in on.
2. Better sea battles and amphibious operations. Way out of scale and unreal in practical terms. Getting enough carrying capacity, loading and moving and army is insanely difficult. Putting them ashore on unfamiliar or hostile ground is hard even today. Limit it to small units along major sea lanes.
3. Diplomacy that makes sense.
4. Standing army...If you have one, they cost a lot if they are on your property. Armies foraged until recently and there was a huge advantage to operating on the enemies land.
5. Cities loose money over time. As I still play RTR - this bugs me no end. Cities would never loose money. They provided little if any social services and the costs were essentially salaries and construction costs. If cities lost money, no one would occupy them. I think it's designed to force players to act. I don't know but I don't get it.
6. Add 10x more provinces. seems we can't choose exactly where we fight our battles, but the scale for the armies to the provinces is still 1000 times too big.

Thanks for listening.

[brokguitar]

Welcome PXR to the forums
Thanks for your ideas

[Frederick the Great]

17. Don't want the deployment area on the battle map.I want to encounter enemies on the campaign map with cavalry scouts giving you a percentage of information on your enemy.The more cavalry you put out to scout the better the percentage on getting the facts right.
Then you can decide to give battle or not.....few battles were encounters and usually one side fighting a defensive battle choosing the best defensive position and making use of the terrain while the attacker looked for weaknesses in your line or tried to outmanoeuvre you.
Providing on the information gathered from scouting while on the campaign map and given the choice to give battle or not...you could then decide to defend or attack whichever was in your best interest...if both choose to attack then it's an encounter battle and both sides march onto the battle map
...if one side picks defence and the other attack then the defender chooses where he wishes to deploy first and then the attacker marches onto the battle map and again depending on the amount of cavalry he has to the amount of gathered information on the enemy dispositions from which to plan a attack.....just an idea

[Kalle]

(Peter the Great, for instance, manned an artillery battery in an early battle of the Great Northern War.),

Its kind of funny you mention Peter as the example. What battle was this? It most certanly was not Narva because he fled Narva and left command of his 40000 entrenched men to Croy as soon as he heard a starving small Swedish relief force was on its way. Maybe he fired the cannon at the fortress while the Swedes were still in Denmark.

Better to name his opponent Charles XII who personally led the charges into melee, scouted enemy positions in dangerous positions (led both to his footwound before Poltava and his death in Norway 1718) fought the turkish army with a handful of men at Bender and so on. Brave beyond belief on the brink of selfdestructive, he did this both because he thought it was fun (or so i have come to belive) and that God was with him but also to show the troopers he did not ask for more then he was willing to do himself.

Kalle

[Sheogorath]

Its kind of funny you mention Peter as the example. What battle was this? It most certanly was not Narva because he fled Narva and left command of his 40000 entrenched men to Croy as soon as he heard a starving small Swedish relief force was on its way. Maybe he fired the cannon at the fortress while the Swedes were still in Denmark.

Better to name his opponent Charles XII who personally led the charges into melee, scouted enemy positions in dangerous positions (led both to his footwound before Poltava and his death in Norway 1718) fought the turkish army with a handful of men at Bender and so on. Brave beyond belief on the brink of selfdestructive, he did this both because he thought it was fun (or so i have come to belive) and that God was with him but also to show the troopers he did not ask for more then he was willing to do himself.

Kalle

Peter left Narva several days before news of Swedish relief arrived. I believe he had to deal with yet another Streltsy uprising.
As to when he manned an artillery battery, it was indeed during a battle which he lost. It MAY have been during the Azov Campaign, though. Hell if I remember every single detail of every Tsar's life.

As to Charles...well, he may have been brave, but he was also a stubborn fool, and it cost him the war. There were so many times when he could've gained peace on very good terms for Sweden, but he was determined to wipe Russia out. Then came Poltava, and I'm sure we all know how things went after that.
Not saying he was better or worse than Peter, because Peter had his own share of personality issues, especially later in his life (Ah, the curse of the great Tsars...beating your own son to death.)

Regardless, Russia won and Peter created a world power that lasted for a few hundred years, which spawned another world power that lasted the better part of a century. And now Russia's starting to get antsy again...who knows.

[anders]

I totally agree battles shouldnt be massacres like they are in RTW and M2TW now, the point should be to drive the enemy from the field, not slaughter them to a man.

on-map agents are not a good thing, they require a lot of work just keeping track of where they are on the map, the way EUIII handles it is way better.

[Discoman]

Prisoners in the game should be used as political tools and we shouldn't have to immeaditly kill them, release them, or ransom them after a battle. We should be able to use it as a bargaining chip to end wars and what not. Also we should be allowed to choose for what price we ransom and for who do we give away.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1) No more map units for merchants and diplomats.

2) Predictable AI battles. Poor siege AI.

3) Sloppy cohesion of units in battles.

4) Non compliant AI diplomacy. AI starting wars they cannot win when not necessary.

5) A campaign map that is more graphical than functional.

6) poorly written Vice and Virtues.

7) Scattered computer selection of heirs to the throne.

8) Weak animations that limit ability of units.
Missile unit animations that limit the ability of them to react. They won't retreat until they volley. Gunpowder units have problem shooting and just stand there not firing.

9) Artillery reloading every time they move.

10) Auto resolve not calculating defenses properly

1. I liked map units for merchants and diplomats. It makes sense.
The diplomat should be able to agree to an exchange of ambassadors so that you never have to send another diplomat. And the ambassadors can be expelled if you annoy them/they annoy you/war breaks out.

2. Only solution to that is to have different Ai "personalities". A set of standard AIs with slightly modified variables. Some more aggressive, some more financial, some more militant but defensively strong, some passive but has great alliances and diplomatic relations with others.

Depending on what the AI values, it will behave differently. Granted, this is a pain in the buttocks to program and design, but it should be worth it.

Battle AI- theres only so much you can do to write a program that behaves almost human-like in battles. You're just going to have to compensate elsewhere, like more starting money, more kings purse, troop morale advantages, etc. You can't hardwire the computer to react to everything a strategic general could come up with, in real time. That's too complex, in my opinion. Unless you think you can do it. Then by all means try.

3. Not sure what you mean, except with M2TW gunpowder units and mounted charges. You need to make sure giant errors like that dont happen. It completely ruined gunpowder units and mounts in my opinion. I rarely used them. And ps, it was a medieval war game. Ouch.

4. I prefer an aggressive AI. Make the AI more truthful, honorable, and passive (the way the OP suggested) in EASY mode.

5. I have complaints about the campaign map. Mostly good opinions, but there needs to be better functionality and less bugginess. How about no more moving en route and getting stuck every turn without even attempting to reroute. How about not rerouting 150 years all the way AROUND the mediterranean by foot instead of waiting to see what I want him to do?

I hate moving into enemy ZOC without the unit stopping outside of it to let me decide what I want to do. There should be a toggle "prompt before moving into Zone Of Control except when clicking on target to attack" in the game options. Other suggestions?

6. Not sure what OP means.

However, I notice my generals pick up negative traits far too often. No matter what, they ALWAYS seem to pick up something that kills their piety. There's always a sorcerer or a heretic in my retinue, an alchemist or some evil person.

I NEED TO BE ABLE TO TRANSFER MY RETINUE AGAIN! PUT IT BACK! PUT IT BACK!

If you MUST, how about only family members rather than generals be able to move their retinue. I need my king and prince to be able to move their retinue. No more alchemists and evil stepmothers for my heirs, please. If the prince can't get rid of their evil hangabouts by ordering them off to live with Frank the One-eyed inbred cousin of the prince, then what good is it to be royalty?

Frankly, The King should be able to order the execution of anyone in anyone's retinue, for extra dread. LOL

7. Need to be able to select the heirs again. Dang it, I am the King, you know.
My eldest son, the inbred moron who never bathes and is terrified of imaginary pink elephants IS NOT GOING TO BE KING. Someone will kill him before he takes the crown. If they don't, I will.

So let's spare us the aggravation. Give me my ability to choose an heir again.

THANK YOU. That's my biggest complaint other than charges completely wasting mounted units in M2tw.

8. Agreed. Units need to respond to my orders quicker. Stop animations mid-stream needs to be an option. It may not look as authentic up close, but it provides for smoother control of battle. Those who don't likey that can simply play by house rules which say dont order units around like an omniscient hovering godlike entity, and play from generals camera only.

9. Artillery? What's that?

I honestly hate gunpowder units. Too slow, too inaccurate. Give me a good old fasioned trebuchet, catapult, or ballista. I use those infrequently too, but at least the defending units have a CHANCE. The AI never has proper gunpowder units.

They are at once too sloppy for medieval battle, and too powerful in seiges. They are almost useless on the field, and they almost guarantee a win in seiges. Granted, maybe thats realistic... I dont know. Ignore me on this one. I just hate them. They arent my style. I just choose to play without them.

Oops! I think I just gave away one of my weaknesses.

Hates machinery
-50% when commanding gunpowder units
-25% when commanding artillery

[Hellenic_Hoplite]

1. Make the upkeep and recruitment costs on units a bit higher, it seems unrealistic for a nation to have 5 or 6 full stacks running around the map unless they are a horde. this would also make it more challenging for the player since the player woulden't always be the strongest faction on the map.

2. Make the game playable from the start. what I mean by this is don't release the game in beta stages, make it so that we don't need to patch the game before we play it for it to seem "acceptable".

3. NO MORE UNPLAYABLE FACTIONS!!! this is the thing that frustrates me more than any of them, if you can easily make a faction playable than please do it. I am so sick of having to get into the "descr_strat" folder and do this my self and when I say make all factions playable I really mean all factions, evan senate type factions and emergent ones. (I'm sure you could figure it out but implementing them into a provincial campaign.)

4. Please give us provincial troops/AOE's. I know this is not that hard to do (I know because I've modded my game to do it) so can you please give us this cool and well needed feature?

5. Bring back the ability to assissnate generals/charcters.

6. Bring back civil wars/rebellious generals.

7. An easy to use Campaign map editor would be nice, maybe something similar to the map editors from games like rise of nations and age of empires. I would also like to see a faction editor and a "unit editor" (if that would all be possible)

[Mikeus Caesar]

I agree with all the points here except the 'every battle being a massacre' one.

The only times i've ever lost large amounts of units is when i've not paid attention to my cavalry and left them doing hand to hand combat.

As long as you pay attention to what you're doing, battles are only massacres for the AI, while you lose maybe 100 men at the most.

[Jasper The Builder]

Seeing how Empire has already been in the making and is at least 50-60% done, we should make a list of things we don't want to see in this game. The devs most likely have implemented their ideas for the base of the game and are not going to change this.

Please everyone add to this list all the things that made you disappointed in previous total war games.

Based on what i disliked about MTW2:

1) No more map units for merchants and diplomats.

2) Predictable AI battles. Poor siege AI.

3) Sloppy cohesion of units in battles.

4) Non compliant AI diplomacy. AI starting wars they cannot win when not necessary.

5) A campaign map that is more graphical than functional.

6) poorly written Vice and Virtues.

7) Scattered computer selection of heirs to the throne.

8) Weak animations that limit ability of units.
Missile unit animations that limit the ability of them to react. They won't retreat until they volley. Gunpowder units have problem shooting and just stand there not firing.

9) Artillery reloading every time they move.

10) Auto resolve not calculating defenses properly.

Hmmm disagree with 99.9% of that..

Sega will do a great job, Better than you and me, So just button it eh?

[Askthepizzaguy]

Hmmm disagree with 99.9% of that..

Sega will do a great job, Better than you and me, So just button it eh?

You know, I believe discussing the pros and cons of the game is precisely one of the fundamental purposes of this forum.

If one were to disagree with someone else, perhaps a more specific or detailed bit of reasoning would be in order.

I'm not sure telling someone to "button it" will even come close to working. But, we agree to disagree here.

[Jasper The Builder]

Don't you even try to discriminant me

Trying to tell Sega, What to and what not to do, Its not about "discussing" its about his views and his views only, What he wants to see in the game.

If we had majority rule, Games such as TW would be in development for like 5 years due to disagreeing all the time...

[Askthepizzaguy]

Don't you even try to discriminant me

The guy is clearly out of his depth here, Trying to tell Sega, What to and what not to do, Its not about "discussing" its about his views and his views only, What he wants to see in the game.

If we had majority rule, Games such as TW would be in development for like 5 years due to tools disagreeing all the time...

Well I think you've made your point. Nothing so eloquently put could possibly be wrong.

In the meantime, the rest of us would like to discuss the game and what we'd like to see in it.

[Jasper The Builder]

How come you can edit your posts but we cannot?

All you bells are the same on here, We are masters of this forum, Anything anyone says against us, We send them warnings or bans, Pathetic!

[Sheogorath]

I'm a bell? And he's in Florida. He ain't a yank.

And just to further enrage you, I'm going to edit. Its 'cause youre a junior member that you cant edit. See the title just under your name?

Anyway, you'll note that there are a couple of people with "CA STAFF" as their title. Guess who they are? Theyre CA staff! HOMG I NO! ITS LIEK, MAAZIGN AN STUF.
They do, in fact, listen to people. Maybe not on ALL matters, but, heres an interesting story:
Back when I first heard about RTW, I was quite excited. I went to the totalwar.com forums, signed up and started posting around on the forums.
One thing I suggested was temporary forts that could be built anywhere, isntead of just castles and all that.
Now, MAYBE they were planning on those before I said anything, maybe they werent. Can you say? Are YOU a CA/Sega employee?

[Jasper The Builder]

You want me to believe that you made such a big change due to one post on a forum, whatever, Taxi..That guy says "listen sega, i want this, i want that" Well, what about people like me who are 100% behind Sega and CA to create a game based on their expertise

[Kekvit Irae]

Who is this "we" you speak of? You don't speak for the rest of us. Or, at least, not me anyway.

[Jasper The Builder]

I speak up for the silent majority of people who had enough of all the people around here, Giving out stick unfairly to Sega and CA, Trust me there is alot of us, I know that for Sure..It seems as if most of these guys have something in common; they are all poor at making computer games, thus why most of them failed to land good jobs in that arena. So just leave it to the professionals as they know what they are doing,

[Sheogorath]

You want me to believe that you made such a big change due to one post on a forum, whatever, Taxi..That guy says "listen sega, i want this, i want that" Well, what about people like me who are 100% behind Sega and CA to create a game based on their expertise

I call Godwins Law! Automatic victory -> Me

Seriously though...
Sega and CA do occasionaly partake of the act known as 'listening'. I'm not a hundred percent sure it was me, but it may well have been, considering I made that post a long time before RTW came out and the topic got quite a bit of interest.
As for 'expertise'...I have two words for you:
Portugese Pamploma.
And a whole host of assorted technical errors, which brokguitar mentioned. Which is not to say that CA and Sega have produced excellent games in the TW series, theyre just not as good as they could be. Listening to customers is what helps people improve thier products. No customer feedback = no change = a boring game, see? MTW2 could've been RTW dressed up with fancy graphics. It isnt. The pikemen will attest to that.

And he'd be a 'southerner'. 'Less he just moved there from the north.

And DEAD GOD man, flaming is one thing, but flaming a moderator? Enjoy your B&. You deserve it.