There it goes, fun factor low.

[Namarie22]

Well, finally hit, the dreary feeling of not wanting to start the game up anymore.

In the last two weeks, each new campaign has gotten duller and duller, if you succesfully play until 1710'ish, you know you have won, it's just a long ride of dusting/mopping up.

Actually, I'd say that often by 1705-6 you can see how the campaign is going to end... And then, what is really the point of playing anymore?

I really hope that the AI gets some serious buffs soon, and, southern Europe feels way too small with the layout of France, Spain and Italy.

Just a vent, fr00strating to see both games "of the year" for me turn into a "Meh" experience, E:TW, and DOW2..


Bring on the mod tools!!!:help::whip:

[AussieGiant]

What are your difficulty settings?

[Unhinged_Loon]

I'm looking forward to the economy tweaks Lusted talked about to make the game harder.

Lower income and higher upkeep will force the player to worry about the cost of war. There'll be complaints, I'm sure, but it sounds right to me

[Namarie22]

The difficulty does little imho for the campaign dullness, the basic thing is still that the AI is flawed.

I might be unlucky, but as for the most action on the campaign map and in battle, all settings on medium seemingly makes the AI do more stuff.. on any other setting on my computer, the AI does very, very little. In my last campaign, as Sweden again, Poland declared war on me without me really starting wars, I hopped over and found city after city without garrisons, on VH/VH (I'd given the baltics away to Spain for fun.. :P), then Russia declared war, and sent half a stack army over to the baltics, and the rest of Russia was undefended and quickly fell from a invasion via Finland.... .. .. . This is where I quit.

Glaring issues like that doesn't help.

And yes, will look forward to the income/cost changes, on the last few campaigns I make myself not go for the trading regions, because the later 50K income make things even easier.. :D

[Daevyll]

So, to date, youve gotten several weeks worth of enjoyment out of your 50 euro purchase.
Sounds like a good deal to me.

[Smellycat]

It is not a good deal if you consider we played the previous games for years. It is the first TW game since MTW that i have shelved after 2 weeks. Posting about this game is more fun than playing it. I am not saying it is like that for everyone but it is like that for me mostly because I know that i can not lose and that takes a lot of the fun away.

[Namarie22]

So, to date, youve gotten several weeks worth of enjoyment out of your 50 euro purchase.
Sounds like a good deal to me.

I wonder if thinking like that isn't why the gaming industry is what it is, nowhere else would we accept halfbaked products, except with a outrage... my first computer game that I really liked, Dungeon Master by FTL, I still play with a emulator on my PC... Carrier Command, Elite IV, EOTB, Dark Sun, Powermonger, all SSI's games hung around, then there were fewer and fewer games as the years passed like that, up comes the 2000's and games started hanging around for a half a year or so, and later, be happy if you get a few weeks worth out of games.. :P

Dungeon Master came out in 1986, I still play it.

I played Shogun until last year, R:TW and M:TW1+2 until, well, haven't really stopped, they are still installed, just taking a break.. I sincerely hope that E:TW will last more than a few weeks.

OH, there is ONE gem that I started playing during alpha, and bought, and still play, that gem Mount and Blade.. it's excellent, with it's flaws, but nothing glaring... Guess I can go and continue my campaign there until a few patches has arrived for E:TW.. :D

Hm.. complete ramble now.. lol

[Schiltrom]

I love Mount and Blade!
:focus: I find the game boring for the exact opposite reason: I'm a PATHETIC player and without cheats I've no hope of getting anywhere. Just having downloaded RTR can't have helped either.

[maestro]

Keep at it Schiltrom - you're lucky that the game is at least challenging. Us TW vets often find new TW games waaaay too easy and have to rely on after-market mods to spice things up a little. I have to say, contrary to what all the reviews and previews said, E:TW is the easiest one I've played for a long time. Still - plenty of factions and styles still to play :idea2:

You'll get better and better with every turn and soon enough you'll be in the sweat-spot where it's about right. Not too hard and not too easy, but a good, enjoyable challenge. I envy you :(

[jsberry]

It hit me today too. The weariness, the boredom. It's just about buying another stack of troops to go take another enemy capital - way too easy.

The essence of 1700s diplomacy was that nobody should be allowed to get too powerful. That should be very easy to hard-wire into the AI diplomatic choices. Likewise, nobody went for the jugular. Frederick's conquest of Silesia (ONE province) took two major wars and was considered "great." He never came close to taking Vienna. Only one major power was removed (Poland) and it took three concerted invasions by other powers, in the LATE half of the century.

This game is the other extreme. Any game that allows Hollard to conquer and annex France (and England... and Prussia...) is fundamentally flawed.

Here's a no-brainer that the developers could easily implement: Certain regions (France, England, most home nation capitals) CANNOT be conquered - the major powers CANNOT be removed from the game. If capitals are taken, the loser must agree to terms (X regions, Y money, Z techs). That would keep the game both balanced and grounded in a 1700s context.

[Smellycat]

all the diplomatic status +/- thgings are worthless if you can be hated by everyone and still noone attacks you.

[MikeV]

Well, finally hit, the dreary feeling of not wanting to start the game up anymore.
Yep, hit me too, after the latest hard CTD (http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=72779&title=dee-dee-dee-song) ~1756.

I've turned to decoding the data files, waiting for enough patches to fix the major flaws, and maybe a popular E:TR mod, or such, to turn up. :coffeenews:

[antisocialmunky]

The real thing is that there isn't much you can get after 1810 to spice it up. The tactics don't really change and the interesting techologies are only 1/2 way up the tree, the techs towards the end just give you.... prestige... um yeah?

[Graphic]

It's not really doing it for me anymore either. Mods will save it though. They always do. Until then it's CoH: Tales of Valor.

[Callahan9119]

Honestly, the only thing that made Rome palatable was EB and RTR before it, Stainless Steel/LTC for MTW2.

As soon as I realized nobody was coming to my India, or that as Spain was losing all her colonies to me, She would find other work for the million man army milling around I stopped caring.

[satchef1]

I got to this stage a few days ago. Went back to my Maratha campaign yesterday just to cause trouble, i can't be bothered to conquer everywhere. Instead i allied the Turks, Sweden and the Danes, loaded them up with cash and declared war on everyone. Even then NOBODY attacks. I was expecting all hell to break loose but all my allies are doing is sitting there hoarding the cash i'm giving them.

It's like i'm the only one with ambitions outside of the nearest two provinces! Give me war! If not at home then at least in the colonies!

Still, custom battles can be fun :)

[Ordani]

Trouble was brewing when I realized that not only was it much more efficient to train new units as opposed to trying to keep any at higher rank, but nobody ever attacked my totally undefended territories. Then that campaign started CTDing every time I moved a unit in France.

About three weeks ago I realized all my planning and maneuvering in the Prussian campaign was completely pointless. I gave Russia back all their territory. I gave them a half million in cash. Five turns later they declared war again, I went back and took Muscovy again from some armed populace. Then I gave it to Sweden, left all my land totally undefended and sent my 10 star general to fight the Barbary Coast with only pikemen and a 6lber.

Then I stopped playing.

[Graphic]

Honestly, the only thing that made Rome palatable was EB and RTR before it, Stainless Steel/LTC for MTW2.

As soon as I realized nobody was coming to my India, or that as Spain was losing all her colonies to me, She would find other work for the million man army milling around I stopped caring.

That's the biggest thing for me: the complete lack of naval invasions. Maybe I wouldn't even have noticed if people didn't post about it, but once I did it just sucked all the fun out of the game and made the whole thing seem pointless.

[nafod]

I have to say this is a problem with the computer gaming industry.

I STILL have Sid Meiers Colonization for MS DOS installed on my computer, and that came out in what 1992? The new one sucks btw.

I also still have Panzer General II installed and that's a what 1998 release?

No flashy graphics in either of those....

Hell if I bought a game that obsorbed me as well as the original Master of Orion I'd be floored. I'd pay $200 for that experience now. Instead I pay $50-$70 for flashy graphics and little content.

I played Rome for years. I played MT2 for years. It remains to be seen how long I'll play ETW but as I have time to post during the week it doesn't seem like a long time....

[Namarie22]

Yepp, the games are becoming like fastfood snacks.. :D

I can't put my finger on why though, but some games are probarly, because well, they were the first one in the genre, though, alot of things are missing in todays era. Not to mention "will it work out of the box?" that you dread each time you grab a new game.. :P

Both Dungeon Master and Mount and Blade give a feeling of stuff going on around you though, that's something missing in E:TW completely..


Well, did a fun thing yesterday, got the faction unlock and started a game as the Italian States.. :D Still only tricky at first though!

[mmk]

It hit me today too. The weariness, the boredom. It's just about buying another stack of troops to go take another enemy capital - way too easy.

The essence of 1700s diplomacy was that nobody should be allowed to get too powerful. That should be very easy to hard-wire into the AI diplomatic choices. Likewise, nobody went for the jugular. Frederick's conquest of Silesia (ONE province) took two major wars and was considered "great." He never came close to taking Vienna. Only one major power was removed (Poland) and it took three concerted invasions by other powers, in the LATE half of the century.

This game is the other extreme. Any game that allows Hollard to conquer and annex France (and England... and Prussia...) is fundamentally flawed.

Here's a no-brainer that the developers could easily implement: Certain regions (France, England, most home nation capitals) CANNOT be conquered - the major powers CANNOT be removed from the game. If capitals are taken, the loser must agree to terms (X regions, Y money, Z techs). That would keep the game both balanced and grounded in a 1700s context.

Sounds like a very good idea!

Overall, my experience with the game is similar to yours.
And I really still don´t understand why Prussia would want to trade East Prussia for Courland. :dizzy2:
The diplomacy of this game drives me crazy and takes away a lot of the fun. I must say that I enjoyed playing MTW II much more.

[Maladin]

I agree. I enjoyed Empire: Total War for two weeks after buying it, but now every campaign is the same. Race for the trade spots, plan what to build in each town, search for the same technologies, bribe nations into trading with you, fight off the suicidal one-province powers... I never even got past 1730 because I was already bored by then.

Come to think of it, Dawn of War II is pretty boring once you finish it too.

Someone mentioned Master of Orion; I never played it, only the second game, but I loved it and still play it from times to times. The diplomacy system was particularly good: you could ask people to stop wars, for example.

[DEY123]

I agree...replayability on E:TW is really poor since it is always the same interaction with the AI and the only challenge is in the first few years. I stopped playing a few weeks ago and am waiting for a patch that makes gameplay changes before trying again.

This may be my last strategy game purchase for some time as they have all become too disappointing. They are either too difficult to control, slow moving, or not a challenge (like E:TW)

:no:

[Maladin]

It does not help that the console is missing; some of the best campaigns I ever played in Medieval 2: Total War were those where I used the console to swap starting positions. The Turks in Arhus, the Scots in Jerusalem, the Moors in Constantinople...

The decrease in numbers of the character traits is quite saddening too, especially that most are completely random. I did not appreciate the sun king hiring a fancy gardener when I already had trouble keeping order among the lower classes because France does not even have dragoons.

I do like the fact that alliances are something to worry about in Empire: Total War, though. In the previous game... Not so much.

[HKDDJulker]

Omg, another thread full of complaints?

not picking on anyone in particular, but srsly?

This is a good and fun game, full of features that other games are still trying to emulate. Its not perfect, and its not as good as it could be, but come on. You're sitting here complaining that the cake you bought is not as tasty as it could be, in between mouthfuls. Its good enough, and getting better over time. We are hardly the first set of consumers to feel like our product could have improvements. We'll get them, from CA and the modding community.

If you really are upset about things, send the modders a few $$$ to get them more motivated :yes:

[Meneldil]

Omg, another thread full of complaints?

not picking on anyone in particular, but srsly?

This is a good and fun game, full of features that other games are still trying to emulate.


Pardon me? What game are you talking about.

What I see here is that the TW franchise tried to emulate some of the features from more complex games (diplomacy, trade) and failed badly.
Europa Universalis, Victoria and consorts are much deeper games than TW, and half of their features aren't broken.

[Smellycat]

Omg, another thread full of complaints?

not picking on anyone in particular, but srsly?

This is a good and fun game, full of features that other games are still trying to emulate. Its not perfect, and its not as good as it could be, but come on. You're sitting here complaining that the cake you bought is not as tasty as it could be, in between mouthfuls. Its good enough, and getting better over time. We are hardly the first set of consumers to feel like our product could have improvements. We'll get them, from CA and the modding community.

If you really are upset about things, send the modders a few $$$ to get them more motivated :yes:

obvious troll is obvious...

...as for me i start a new campaign, press end turn button then the feeling of "what's the point" washes over me and it has been like that 2 weeks now... and I played RTW and M2W without mods for years and years.

[Smellycat]

Pardon me? What game are you talking about.

What I see here is that the TW franchise tried to emulate some of the features from more complex games (diplomacy, trade) and failed badly.
Europa Universalis, Victoria and consorts are much deeper games than TW, and half of their features aren't broken.

Funny you should say that i was re-reading Jack LustedsA Swedish Campaign report (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=2139988#post2139988) and came across this (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=2139988&postcount=20) post.

[Dayve]

It's the same for me really, i have the same problem as i had in Rome and even EB, the best expansion for it. 10 years in, i'm invincible. 10 years into this i have fire by rank and an insane income.

I just don't understand what's gone wrong. In M:TW (the original, the second was crap) you could play for 30 years, THINK you were invincible, then watch your entire empire fall to pieces within 2 turns.

I remember playing as France, building a huge European empire boasting all of France, the northern regions, western Germany, all of Italy north of Rome and with a huge army on each border, then Spain defeated me and took a province, a subdued (or so i thought) Germany found new strength and began pushing back, the pope excommunicated me and my empire broke off into 2 factions, then there was another break-off within the lands i still controlled and in less than 5 years my kingdom went from being glorious and huge and powerful to being nothing but the province of Paris. I even made a thread about in the the medieval section of this very forum and mentioned how amazed i was at how superior Medieval was to Rome, despite the soul destroyingly terrible graphics.

Now... Empire is good and all... it's just lacking when compared to Medieval, which sickens me considering it's got an extra 10(?) years worth of technology on Medieval.

[Maladin]

I completely agree. Medieval: Total War was a constant challenge. For one thing, you actually had to worry about assassins, not to mention all the events such as drought, famines, peasant crusades... And the civil war feature was pretty good. It did not need mods to be challenging.

The music was more interesting than the current ones, too.

But to Medieval 2: Total War's credit, you had a nifty video for assassinating the pope. :laugh4:

[Smellycat]

But to Medieval 2: Total War's credit, you had a nifty video for assassinating the pope. :laugh4:

DAMN YOU! now i have to reinstall M2TW...

[DisruptorX]

Medieval is based off of a simple risk board style battlemap, which it seems by now is proven to be superior than the Lords of the Realm II style map they've been using since Rome. It prevents the AI from being too mind numbingly dumb. None of the theoretical advantages of the current map style even come into play in ETW, since reinforcements now come from random directions.

The civil war aspect isn't really the same in ETW, as it doesn't break up your kingdom at all. That, the title system, and the complete randomness of which factions did well are things that have been missing ever since MTW 1.

From all the complaints here, though, I'd swear people haven't played Rome or MTW 2. Nothing about either of those games is superior to ETW.

[Smellycat]

except for being fun

[MikeV]

Medieval is based off of a simple risk board style battlemap, which it seems by now is proven to be superior than the Lords of the Realm II style map they've been using since Rome. It prevents the AI from being too mind numbingly dumb. None of the theoretical advantages of the current map style even come into play in ETW, ...

From all the complaints here, though, I'd swear people haven't played Rome or MTW 2. Nothing about either of those games is superior to ETW.
For the campaign map part of the app, I'd consider the Shogun & Medieval (1) system as the "Mk. I, Risk-like" version; Rome, Medieval 2, and Empire use the "Mk. II, LotR II-like" system.

I agree with your assessment that the earlier, simpler map made the AI seem more effective.

The unanswered question is whether the AI for the current system can be made effective at all. As various folks have pointed out, it's currently passive to the point of being uninteresting.

I suppose the folks who are enjoying the game, in its present state, are into MP and/or nice eye candy ... "not that there's anything wrong with that." ~;)

[Megas Methuselah]

The only things I really, really, really miss from RTW and M2TW are the family trees (a broken form is now available through modding, but it needs vast improvement), the ability of family members to fight on the field as generals (very good for roleplaying purposes), and the way battlefield reinforcements worked out (which is presently completely broken). Also, I don't like the singular large territories (like France, Spain, etc.), as it really limits warefare.

Other than those, ETW outdoes RTW and M2TW.

EDIT: Oh yes, the passive AI and no naval invasions. Did I mention that?

[DisruptorX]

I suppose the folks who are enjoying the game, in its present state, are into MP and/or nice eye candy ... "not that there's anything wrong with that." ~;)

Both the eyecandy and the sandbox/rp aspect are what keep me playing, despite the lack of tactical challenge. The turn based aspect is much more involved than MTW 2, and there's more non-combat action going on.

Also, while the AI is pretty bad, if you play as say, France, and actually go after your objectives, you are guaranteed conflict as the entire world goes to war with you and you can't afford to simply steamroll your opponents one by one.

[Dayve]

Empire totally surpasses Rome and Medieval 2, there is no question on that, it's better than both of them combined, i don't think anybody could argue that.

Still, the original Medieval was better i'd say. The AI may not actually have been more intelligent, but it SEEMED more intelligent, because there was less it had to do to achieve its goal. It had to raise an army and enter a province, and was automatically sucked into battle with you, which was brilliant.

Then Rome introduced the more modern style campaign map where the AI could choose which part of a province to move its armies to, such as into a forest to ambush, or simply stand around devastating the ground, and it couldn't seem to make up its mind on what to do, so it usually just stood around doing nothing.

Now it has even more options... block your roads and trade, capture and burn your farms, workshops, schools, churches or go directly for your city, and when you give it these choices it cannot cope.

Bring back the Medieval campaign map. A risk style map isn't any less fun, i even have an older friend who refused to buy TW games when they stopped using a risk style, more simpler campaign map. It's clear Medieval is superior in every way except one: graphically, so you may as well just take Medieval and improve what's there, like graphics, add a bigger map, etc. etc.

Another thing the AI cannot understand or comprehend or use to its advantage is the research trees. I've never met an AI nation that researched fire by rank, they all go for division of labour and the high-end social technologies so they have monster income and crappy military. I've noticed they research from a script too, they never make up their own minds, they're researching what CA have programmed them to research, and it goes the same way every time... empiricism, division of labour, canister shot.

Never fire by rank, explosive shot, mortars, howitzers...

Come to think of it, i've never seen an enemy recruit grenadiers! I always play on VH/M btw.

[nafod]

Empire totally surpasses Rome and Medieval 2, there is no question on that, it's better than both of them combined, i don't think anybody could argue that.

Still, the original Medieval was better i'd say. The AI may not actually have been more intelligent, but it SEEMED more intelligent, because there was less it had to do to achieve its goal. It had to raise an army and enter a province, and was automatically sucked into battle with you, which was brilliant.

Then Rome introduced the more modern style campaign map where the AI could choose which part of a province to move its armies to, such as into a forest to ambush, or simply stand around devastating the ground, and it couldn't seem to make up its mind on what to do, so it usually just stood around doing nothing.

Now it has even more options... block your roads and trade, capture and burn your farms, workshops, schools, churches or go directly for your city, and when you give it these choices it cannot cope.

Bring back the Medieval campaign map. A risk style map isn't any less fun, i even have an older friend who refused to buy TW games when they stopped using a risk style, more simpler campaign map. It's clear Medieval is superior in every way except one: graphically, so you may as well just take Medieval and improve what's there, like graphics, add a bigger map, etc. etc.

Another thing the AI cannot understand or comprehend or use to its advantage is the research trees. I've never met an AI nation that researched fire by rank, they all go for division of labour and the high-end social technologies so they have monster income and crappy military. I've noticed they research from a script too, they never make up their own minds, they're researching what CA have programmed them to research, and it goes the same way every time... empiricism, division of labour, canister shot.

Never fire by rank, explosive shot, mortars, howitzers...

Come to think of it, i've never seen an enemy recruit grenadiers! I always play on VH/M btw.

Ever heard the quote" "The computer Can do anything you want it to, but it will only do exactly what you tell it to do?"

For in this statement lies the essence of the difficulty, and arguably fallacy of "Artificial Intelligence."

[Graphic]

DAMN YOU! now i have to reinstall M2TW...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvpZnvPq9Xs

[Dayve]

Ever heard the quote" "The computer Can do anything you want it to, but it will only do exactly what you tell it to do?"

For in this statement lies the essence of the difficulty, and arguably fallacy of "Artificial Intelligence."

I know, but they filled us with fairytales of intelligent AI that makes decisions based on the situation and crap like that. Part of me knew it was a lie right from the outset but the other part of me argued that they must have learned their lessons from the abysmally poor AI in both Rome and Medieval 2.

Also, a script, if worked on long enough, could tell the AI to go down a certain research tree depending on certain factors. Example: Prussia. A tiny nation destined to do nothing but go to war with Poland, Sweden, Russia and Austria. Obviously Prussia should be dominating the battlefield but struggling with money, even if they go down the industry trees, because their territory is tiny. This isn't what is happening though, every nation is following an identical script. They go for social, heavy industry and a tiny bit of military with no variation or change.

But then, even if Prussia was programmed to do what i mentioned, since there are no penalties for blitzkrieg or prolonged warfare or explosive expansion, other than dampening your relationship with neighbours, they would still be able to continue wars for the entire game with no penalty, because you could purposely lose every battle you fought and constantly recruit the maximum number of soldiers in every province every turn with no bad effect on public order. What if France conquers London? The population is magically converted to French. They're happy and you can recruit elite French units as soon as you repair the governors office.

There just aren't any consequences, so nations like Prussia or Sweden, who dominated the battlefield but always lost out eventually due to an eventual lack of manpower, don't suffer those same consequences in game. Prussia could continue a losing war with Russia forever and ever and ever unless they were conquered with no bad effects on happiness or economy.

Add all this up and it = no challenge whatsoever. Medieval 1 was a challenge, this isn't, yet this is 10 years ahead of Medieval and cost more money.

Once again, this is still an immensely fun game, but i'm left completely puzzled at what's going wrong. As technology advances, CA's Total War games get worse with each game, or at least the AI does.

[Greyblades]

Sigh... I miss the old days, with me, fisherking, Sir bean etc getting hyped as hell for the release... god it feels... well like a party realy we were full of anticipation for it, it was great when we got there. And then the happy drunkeness has passed and we were wondering why it just isnt feeling right. And now its morning we've got our hangovers and wondering why the heck did we bother coming.

[Smellycat]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvpZnvPq9Xs

I never got those nifty priest killed at altar movies tho.
About Empire i feel exactly like this guy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDrITaBPdt8)