View Full Version : Has anything really changed from CA?
I was sceptical as always about this game when I heard about it at first. I pre-ordered it anyway because there is just nothing else like it. I have been playing since Shogun, and I have witnessed the series's decline after MTW.
The main problems with RTW and M2TW were:
1) Bad AI.
2) Useless diplomacy and suicidal enemies.
So, I have been playing since release and despite the BUGGY MESS that this game has been I have been more or less having a good time. In two months of playing through the campaign (and enjoying it) I have come to the following conclusions.
1) The AI is still just as bad, if not worse.
2) Diplomacy is still largely pointless.
Here's why: The AI on the campaign map always does the same thing. If you border Dagestan or Georgia at some point, they will always declare war on you, no matter how good your relations or whether you are trading. They will always be crushed with minimal effort. Then, you now border Persia. Inevitably, they will declare war next and be wiped out after a few turns. They are coded to be suicidal. To seal their own stupid fate they will absolutely NOT accept peace. Time and time again, there I am, at the "diplomacy" screen, my country terrifying/spectacular (or whatever), theirs weak/destitute and they will still NEVER accept peace. This goes on throughout the game. Sometimes you can get a peace but they don't seem to understand that they are in a very bad situation - that by asking for peace you are SAVING them from certain destruction of their handul of 2 stack raiding armies, and even if you offer them twenty thousand to save their lives they won't take it. So, that's our new diplomacy which incidentally should go beyond having some new buttons to click.
The strategic AI is also the usual terrible CA game situation again. When I was playing yesterday I bought Quebec from the French - I hadn't realised it bordered an English settlement and an army was standing right beside my new town as I hit "end turn". There were no troops in my town as I had just bought it, and there wouldn't be until the next turn when I had finished building some. There was a large English army across the river to the south. I think "Woops".
So what does the AI do? It can reach the town in 1 turn. There are no troops to defend it.
It walks its stack PAST the *undefended* enemy town and raids the nearby seminary instead. The AI's strategic approach to war seems to just be chucking tiny two stack armies at you to raid your settlements, even if, combined, all those stacks would crush you. This results in a tedious campaign of chasing piddly two stack armies around which ISN'T FUN.
So since I am now bored of typing, in summary, does this game have exactly the same problems as the past two CA offerings in my opinion? Yes....and more. Did I buy it anyway, pretty sure it would be the same old story? Yes.
Why did I buy it? Why did all of us pessimist CA diehards buy it anyway? Because there is STILL, after almost 10 years, nothing like the Total War series. If this was nature, the Total War series would be the Dodo. It has survived because it has no predators. It can get as fat and as stupid and as useless as it wants because it will still have nothing to fear from any other game because there are no other games of this type to compete. It's in a genre all of its own, and until someone basically does a Blizzard and rips it off, but improves and supports it, it's going to be the same old story.
(same old rant, too)
Kadagar_AV
05-16-2009, 15:29
Why so suprised?
Anyway, I know CA really really promised to have worked on the AI. Some developer came out and said "hey, we know we kind of sucked at this in previous games, but this time we wont, I swear!"
Seeing that I just laughed.
Did I believe him? No.
Should I have believed him? Obviosly not.
antisocialmunky
05-17-2009, 19:42
Support is way better now though . :) That more than anything has made me happy. Though I can actually get the thing running and not WCTDing all the time.
al Roumi
05-17-2009, 20:19
Support is way better now though . :) That more than anything has made me happy. Though I can actually get the thing running and not WCTDing all the time.
True, but results and changes are slow in coming. The appeal of daily updates on what is being worked on wears out when you are still facing tedious bugs. I'm sorry to repeat this but the game was not anywhere near ready for release and it's insulting really.
I was an avid Mount and Blade fan and I enjoyed the anticipation of new updates that slowly moved the game forward, developing gameplay and addressing (and creating) bugs. When it was finally released, I would have said it wasn't all the way there yet either, but damn was it more "complete" and finished than ETW 1.0.
The point being that in M&B I was fine about being a paying beta tester. When I've been a beta tester for other games, I've enjoyed being involved in the dev process too. However, the fact that we are effectivley free and un-acknowledged testers for ETW is galling. More so for having paid about £35 for the sodding special forces edition. Steam is all well and good but IMO it does NOT give a game designer license to sell you something 3/4 completed and finish the development of the game once it's on your machine.
God knows what happened at CA, or Sega Europe, but frankly it looks like they had a novice team with half the head-count they anticipated. As GFX said, they 1, haven't learnt from previous games and 2, have produced something slap-dash, which for some frustratingly unknown reason, I STILL PLAY and care enough to rant about it...
Fisherking
05-17-2009, 22:48
The game came with lots of bugs, okay.
But the starting AI was not so bad. Granted they made it as bad as M2 with the change, but that is not how it started.
The diplomacy actually worked. Fine they broke it with the later changes but it worked.
You know RTW started out ok and then everyone wanted this or that and cried its too this or too that and so they changed it…and it got worse…
Well it seems they are taking another game that stared well and are transforming it into something entirely mediocre, but that is what some of the louder fans want.
And that is the part that always seems to be the same!
Evil_Maniac From Mars
05-17-2009, 22:54
I have to say that I think the complaining is way over the top. We paid (maybe a little much, but that can't be helped) and we got a perfectly good game. I would argue that the AI and diplomacy are much better than what we saw in M2:TW. Sure, there have been bugs, but no real gamebreakers, and we have no right to flame CA for making what is a perfectly adequate game.
pevergreen
05-17-2009, 23:32
I have to say that I think the complaining is way over the top. We paid (maybe a little much, but that can't be helped) and we got a perfectly good game. I would argue that the AI and diplomacy are much better than what we saw in M2:TW. Sure, there have been bugs, but no real gamebreakers, and we have no right to flame CA for making what is a perfectly adequate game.
:balloon2:
al Roumi
05-17-2009, 23:32
I have to say that I think the complaining is way over the top. We paid (maybe a little much, but that can't be helped) and we got a perfectly good game. I would argue that the AI and diplomacy are much better than what we saw in M2:TW. Sure, there have been bugs, but no real gamebreakers, and we have no right to flame CA for making what is a perfectly adequate game.
Beg pardon sir, we have every right to say what we think. As long as it's civil.
Evil_Maniac From Mars
05-17-2009, 23:41
Beg pardon sir, we have every right to say what we think. As long as it's civil.
Constructive criticism and calling CA a bunch of novices are two completely different things. I'd like to see another game studio take on such an extensive project and do as well with it as CA has.
I have to say that I think the complaining is way over the top. We paid (maybe a little much, but that can't be helped) and we got a perfectly good game. I would argue that the AI and diplomacy are much better than what we saw in M2:TW. Sure, there have been bugs, but no real gamebreakers, and we have no right to flame CA for making what is a perfectly adequate game.
:balloon2:
my thoughts exactly. these forums have slowly degenerated into an ETW bash fest. I loved the game, ive hand no major game breaking bugs, i find it quite challenging (particularly with the changes in 1.3) and enjoyable.
Cheers Knoddy
I think the AI overall is better than M2TW. Is it still lacking? Yes, but I'm wondering just how far they can take the game AI overall. Everyone (those that have played numerous pc games) knows that PC game AI, generally speaking, is extremely limited when comparing it to a human player's mind and abilities. My real question from an TW game AI perspective is this, 'can the knowledge and skill of CA's programmers do a better job in making a better AI?' Thats the real question that I find myself asking sometimes. I'm kinda thinking they are near their limit. They did better this time but can they really push the envelope even farther? Only time will tell.
Just some thoughts on my part...
~:cheers:
nameless
05-18-2009, 03:25
:balloon2:
my thoughts exactly. these forums have slowly degenerated into an ETW bash fest. I loved the game, ive hand no major game breaking bugs, i find it quite challenging (particularly with the changes in 1.3) and enjoyable.
Cheers Knoddy
No it's just the internet. The arrival and expansion of the internet means there's more idiots out there and as you know, "one person complaining means that there are 100 people complaining the exact same thing".
Then you got wikipedia and all of a sudden people have a Bachelor in history and game design and are experts in how a business should be run.
10 years down the road when we are playing Warhammer 40,000 Total war (Yes I do want one), people will be praising about how historically accurate and bug free ETW was (Just like how people are praising how bug free and historically accurate Shogun and MTW and MTW2 were).
Beg pardon sir, we have every right to say what we think. As long as it's civil.
Yes because calling a company a bunch of novices is so mature and civil good job lad. No novice company would release a product and then continue gathering feedback from the community to continue making the game better.
A novice company is one that trends into terrority that they know nothing about, give a half-ass effort, and then leave the consumers high and dry with no support and I know several companies that have done that.
You guys are lucky that CA is mature enough to actually wander into these bash infested boards and pick out the "constructive criticism" and see what they can do to make it better or solve it.
Needless to say, I've yet to see any game that hasn't been given patches at all. Hell even Blizzard patches their games and they take how long to make them?
Durallan
05-18-2009, 09:07
Its nice to see that alot of people didn't have game halting dead in your track, start again bugs, which allowed them to play this game without many problems, yet still seem content to keep telling everyone that did, or is having problems that they aren't and that they are quite happy about that situation.
However those that had problems are rather upset. And I'm still out on the diplomacy of ETW, to be honest I did use the camaign mod released by one of the M2TW dev's but diplomacy was very good in that, because I could have allies that lasted 200 turns, which is the entire length of a long campaign. But then seeing I ahven't been able to reach the end of a campaign in ETW without the fleet clicky crash, I can't really compare the two.
Constructive criticism and calling CA a bunch of novices are two completely different things. I'd like to see another game studio take on such an extensive project and do as well with it as CA has.
X3 Reunion by EGOSOFT, and I would say that they did better, Galactic Civilizations 2 by Stardock, CA can most definetly improve on their game. I would agree that we paid for a beta, yes they are lifting their game and improving, but the game could have been sent out to the public in a better condition, I am still waiting for the fleet clicky bug fix so i can actually play a campaign, so SEGA has my money and I've been waiting 2 + months and I still don't have a game I can play. yes I could have waited and bought it when i knew all the bugs were ironed out, but by then the special editions are normally sold out.
anyway, hopefully the next patch arrives soon and I can finally start playin this one :2thumbsup:
AussieGiant
05-18-2009, 09:18
It's a slippery slope to take a negative approach towards anything for an extended period of time.
I commend CA's ability to put up with half assed, perhaps even slightly ignorant commentary about the game and still provide a proactive positive approach to the communities and the game support mechanisms.
At some point a wise man once said to me:
"If you don't have anything positive to say, then keep your mouth shut."
It's like a broken down record here sometimes and I hope that we do not end up like some of the other boards.
al Roumi
05-18-2009, 10:47
God knows what happened at CA, or Sega Europe, but frankly it looks like they had a novice team with half the head-count they anticipated. As GFX said, they 1, haven't learnt from previous games and 2, have produced something slap-dash, which for some frustratingly unknown reason, I STILL PLAY and care enough to rant about it...
I haven't called CA novices, I said they have made themselves look like them, which I find shameful as they certainly aren't.
I do agree that attempts to correct the game after release are the inescapable norms of the time. However, 2 months down the line, the devs are still working on some pretty basic features that should arguably have been ready on release day.
I am still waiting for the fleet clicky bug fix
The fleet clicking CTD is caused by first rates and other larger ships' movement range increasing once Top Gallants and all the other range-increasing technologies are researched. The game has some problem calculating the longer ranges.
CA have said that they are fixing this in the next patch, but to fix these problems NOW all you have to do is move a sloop or brig into the offending fleet. This fixed all my old late-game saves where my first rates were crashing the game.
Hope the info helps.
At some point a wise man once said to me:
"If you don't have anything positive to say, then keep your mouth shut."
Doesn't sound like the words of a wise man to me.
The diplomacy can certainly use some improvement, but I still think it's a great deal better than in RTW and M2TW. Contrary to the OP's statements, I tend to be able to get peace treaties from many AI nations. Sure, many of them declare war again a few turns later if they are still adjacent to you, but peace is certainly possible at least for short periods.
I think one of biggest problems isn't that the AI declares war too often, it's that it declares war at the wrong times. I'm currently playing an Austria game, which is very different from my previous post-1.2 games due to a total lack of trade income. At the start I was only able to afford about 1 army stack and I had a devil of a time fending off Poland. If ANY other nation had declared war on me, I would have been in serious trouble. No other nation did however. I was able to finish off Poland and consolidate my position shortly before the Ottomans declared war on me. If the Ottomans had declared war while I was still invovled with Poland, they could have wrecked me. Instead, I am able to beat them by focusing on them alone.
Europa Universalis 3 deals with this situation very well IMO. In that game, the more wars a nation is involved in, the more likely that other nations that dislike them will declare war on them as well. It's a typical human strategy that works well: strike when your enemy is pre-occupied elsewhere. CA needs some kind of coding like this.
Durallan
05-18-2009, 12:40
The fleet clicking CTD is caused by first rates and other larger ships' movement range increasing once Top Gallants and all the other range-increasing technologies are researched. The game has some problem calculating the longer ranges.
CA have said that they are fixing this in the next patch, but to fix these problems NOW all you have to do is move a sloop or brig into the offending fleet. This fixed all my old late-game saves where my first rates were crashing the game.
Hope the info helps.
Thank you very muchly GFX, that is indeed certainly true, however I have found that having fixed the fleet, one turn, the next turn it is russian roulette for me as to whether it decides it wants to work again, also clicking on certain ports at the late game stage has just crashed the game, I don't know if that has been fixed, but I am going to try a game after the next patch, and see what happens.
I don't know if it was a wise man but my mum certainly said if you don't have something nice to say about someone then don't say it, on a philosophical point and a tangent to the threat, I would have to say that a wise man wouldn't have said that, he would have just listened ;)
at any rate, there is only one cause of this broken record, and that is CA seem to keep skipping on the same part of the record, which causes the now familiar scratchings of disappointed people! all they need to do is to change the record ;)
AussieGiant
05-18-2009, 14:10
Doesn't sound like the words of a wise man to me.
Yeah but that's only because you hear from your father when you are 17 years old...and at that age nothing sounds wise when you hear from him.
Europa Universalis 3 deals with this situation very well IMO. In that game, the more wars a nation is involved in, the more likely that other nations that dislike them will declare war on them as well. It's a typical human strategy that works well: strike when your enemy is pre-occupied elsewhere. CA needs some kind of coding like this.
The game AI also loves to declare war on you when it is already involved in several wars itself....which is something that desperately needs to change.
Yeah but that's only because you hear from your father when you are 17 years old...and at that age nothing sounds wise when you hear from him.
OK, thanks? :dizzy2:
No need for insults and name calling, guys. Everyone has an opinion and we should respect that. If you cant debate a topic without throwing personal insults around then perhaps its time to step back for a bit?
On a more positive note I was just reading some of my old posts from previous TW titles about terrible army stack composition, which, at least, it seems has improved a hell of a lot since M2TW.
I also complained a lot about how ridiculously easy the game was in RTW and M2TW. This seems to have changed (since 1.2 anyway) and I don't recall any of my games in ETW being complete pushovers after turn 10 like the last games.
So just the suicidal strategic AI to sort out now, I suppose.
I must admit I am just as willing to rant as anyone about stupid AI and idiotic diplomacy. However, this weekend I did some testing regarding the AI and, well.. the results actually are in favor of CA.
I had my cousin visiting me so I showed him my new shiny PC and my nice-to-look-at Empire TW. The guy has never played a TW game before, but he's had his share of red-eyed nights playing other games.
I let him try out a few (actually - 4) battles from my VH/H french campaign.... and he got trashed every time.
Once he misjudged the threat of flanking cavalry; wanted to counter 3units of cavalry with 3 units of line infantry. The cavalry went right past the squares and hit the cannon. Then hit the general. He forgot the squares while trying to save the general and his squares were decimated by enmy line... then the enemy cavalry charged to the back of those wavering squares. Toast.
Second time, he attacked Iroquis and, despite my warnings, got into a nasty ambush (some indian units are invisible), meleed and charged by the lancers. He was completeley swarmed in the centre, managed to kill the enemy general but lost the battle completely.
Third time, after some practice he got throunced by the pope. Italian states had numerical superiority (1,75 stack vs 1) with a lot of arty. He had the quality troops though and was defending. He suffered very heavy losses and lost all his cav (guard units!!!). The italians were left with 3 units of cav, 4 units of sakers and a bodyguard unit. My cousin could not get to the arty without getting some canister and cav charges. His infantry routed, his general was killed. Valiant defeat.
The fourth battle was somewht unfair - a fleet battle. Equal forces with the british. His ships got intermingled with the british and in 15 minutes of utter chaos they routed or were sunk.
Now I tried all those battles yesterday and won WITH EASE!!!
1. you can't easily flank me; I put my line into a line and let the running cav eat a lot of musketballs.i form square in the last possible moment
2. I keep a decent reserve near my arty and my general
3. I don't let infantry stand in squares and get shot at
4. I know there are ambushes with those indians, i scout with cavalry or my indians.
5. I know how to flank arty, and how not to lose my guard cavalry figting an infantry square.
6. I know to keep enemy fleets downwind and to avoid getting too close to them. I also know how ) ships move upwind and how often they can fire a broadside.
Essentially, I would say the AI is doing a decent job. It can defeat a human novice on Hard in an open field battle; however, it hardly poses any threat to an experienced player. Bear that in mind.
The really stupid and annoying part is when the AI is defending against a siege. One-unit charges make me sick...
AussieGiant
05-19-2009, 10:38
I must admit I am just as willing to rant as anyone about stupid AI and idiotic diplomacy. However, this weekend I did some testing regarding the AI and, well.. the results actually are in favor of CA.
I had my cousin visiting me so I showed him my new shiny PC and my nice-to-look-at Empire TW. The guy has never played a TW game before, but he's had his share of red-eyed nights playing other games.
I let him try out a few (actually - 4) battles from my VH/H french campaign.... and he got trashed every time.
Once he misjudged the threat of flanking cavalry; wanted to counter 3units of cavalry with 3 units of line infantry. The cavalry went right past the squares and hit the cannon. Then hit the general. He forgot the squares while trying to save the general and his squares were decimated by enmy line... then the enemy cavalry charged to the back of those wavering squares. Toast.
Second time, he attacked Iroquis and, despite my warnings, got into a nasty ambush (some indian units are invisible), meleed and charged by the lancers. He was completeley swarmed in the centre, managed to kill the enemy general but lost the battle completely.
Third time, after some practice he got throunced by the pope. Italian states had numerical superiority (1,75 stack vs 1) with a lot of arty. He had the quality troops though and was defending. He suffered very heavy losses and lost all his cav (guard units!!!). The italians were left with 3 units of cav, 4 units of sakers and a bodyguard unit. My cousin could not get to the arty without getting some canister and cav charges. His infantry routed, his general was killed. Valiant defeat.
The fourth battle was somewht unfair - a fleet battle. Equal forces with the british. His ships got intermingled with the british and in 15 minutes of utter chaos they routed or were sunk.
Now I tried all those battles yesterday and won WITH EASE!!!
1. you can't easily flank me; I put my line into a line and let the running cav eat a lot of musketballs.i form square in the last possible moment
2. I keep a decent reserve near my arty and my general
3. I don't let infantry stand in squares and get shot at
4. I know there are ambushes with those indians, i scout with cavalry or my indians.
5. I know how to flank arty, and how not to lose my guard cavalry figting an infantry square.
6. I know to keep enemy fleets downwind and to avoid getting too close to them. I also know how ) ships move upwind and how often they can fire a broadside.
Essentially, I would say the AI is doing a decent job. It can defeat a human novice on Hard in an open field battle; however, it hardly poses any threat to an experienced player. Bear that in mind.
The really stupid and annoying part is when the AI is defending against a siege. One-unit charges make me sick...
Good post loony, and I guess something for everyone to consider.
I wrote in another post to Slaists that he was probably a top 5% player on the economic side of things. Most here are veteran players who know the tactics and would like to see an extremely intelligent AI.
At the moment it seems to be very hard to code this. And as I mentioned before...if they could...they wouldn't be making PC games for the general public. They'd be making far more impressive things for MNC who would pay them a bucket of cash.
I don't remember having any real problems with the tactical AI in the game, apart from how it always sneaks around and attacks your general or blows them up with artillery (hey, I'm the only one that gets to do that), it's never really seemed broken to me.
What I mention in my first post is the strategic AI. That is, the AI on the campaign map.
I don't remember having any real problems with the tactical AI in the game, apart from how it always sneaks around and attacks your general or blows them up with artillery (hey, I'm the only one that gets to do that), it's never really seemed broken to me.
What I mention in my first post is the strategic AI. That is, the AI on the campaign map.
I agree that the strategic AI is sometimes plain stupid, mostly due to poor economy/recruitment management. I think the AI does not understand what a "useless" unit is and where to find the "disband" button.
Im my late French campaign I keep giving conquered regions to Luisiana and giving them cash in addition to that. My "protectorate" owned Netherlands, Flanders, Genoa and Savoy in europe as well as 4 or 5 regions in NA. They get cash infusions and I have MY ARMIES keeping the stupid indians, austrians and other bad guys at bay; my protectorate cleans up the raiding parties.
They should have become a powerhouse in sth like 15 turns. However, they werefeeble and destitute; recently, I figured out why. I completed the mission (it was 1750 and I need to annex them to win) and saw they never bothered to upgrade their industry. Even the developed regions like Netherlands had apparently seen no iprovements.... OK, maybe they built armies? - NO!
They built navies, brigs and sixth rates, I found several stacks of those sitting in awkward spaces on the map (like a little west of Iceland?!)
Had the AI ignored the navies, it would have had a decent econ and at least 2 stacks of troops in NA (where we were constatnly at war with the indians). It could have also joined my conquests in Europe; it did have all the prerequisities to become a powerhouse and maybe even challenge me, but it did not.
Had the AI ignored the navies, it would have had a decent econ and at least 2 stacks of troops in NA (where we were constatnly at war with the indians). It could have also joined my conquests in Europe; it did have all the prerequisities to become a powerhouse and maybe even challenge me, but it did not.
The AI wasting all its money on building immense navies for no reason has been a problem on and off since RTW.
antisocialmunky
05-23-2009, 21:49
Anyone make a money script for the AI yet? It would seem like a nice bandage until the next patch.
Whew, I've been waiting a week for my ban to be lifted so i could post this.
No. Nothing from CA has changed. I haven't played Empire for more than 20 minutes per session in about a month now. I see my neighbours declaring war on me simply because we share a border, and i see them sending army after army, despite them being thoroughly destroyed each time. I see enemies accepting peace and trade, only to declare war by occupying one of my towns or farms with a unit of militia the very next turn. I see allies, who my nation has been the best of friends with, has given gifts to, has helped them in their time of need (which is always, because the AI is dumb, and when they're your allies it seems to be even dumber), declare war on me for no apparent reason, and absolutely refuse peace, no matter what.
I see my enemy throwing its cavalry at the front of my line, or sacrificing every single unit of cavalry it has, including its general, trying to take out a single unit of useless Sakers or Demi-Cannons that don't even have canister shot, i see my enemies sending single units of infantry at my line to be ripped to shreds from a volley from 4 units, then sending another single unit when that one runs away decimated, i see it wasting all its money on gigantic navies of trash ships like sloops and building high level shipyards but never having the money to build decent ships because it doesn't know how disband the crap ones now it no longer needs them, good heavens, i could sit here all day and whine.
Honeymoon period with this game has well and truly wore off for me, and I'm 100% dissatisfied. I'm absolutely convinced they have ported the abysmal AI over from Rome and Medieval II and thrown it into this games code, because it's absolutely no improvement whatsoever over those games, and in many cases mimics the AI of those games, as even you die hard fans of this game will have to admit.
I honest to god hope that 6 months, or 10 months, or 1 year from now, this game will be patched and will resemble what we were promised we would be given, but I'm going to say it won't. And now they're trying to buy people off with adding new units. There are more pressing issues than new units. At this point i wouldn't give a damn if each faction had totally identical units wearing the same colour uniforms and speaking in the same accent if CA would just fix the ******* game!
AussieGiant
05-24-2009, 10:33
Thanks for sharing Dayve.
I have to agree with Dayve here, as far as I can see very little has improved other than the graphic's and a lot of things have actually got worse such as the 'fire at will' not working, the random declarations of war, and more recently I notice the fog effects are actually less convincing in this game than they were is Shogun.
I'm still playing it and looking for work arounds but it needs a lot of work from CA to bring it up to a decent standard as a stategy game.
Thanks for sharing Dayve.
I don't hang around your diehard fanboy posts that defend every aspect of the game and make sarcastic comments about them, so i would be grateful if you returned that favour.
I wonder if i would have the right to sue CA for my money back on the grounds of advertisement fraud, and me not receiving the product that was advertised. I'll have to look into this.
I wonder if i would have the right to sue CA for my money back on the grounds of advertisement fraud, and me not receiving the product that was advertised. I'll have to look into this.
You're welcome to try but I attempted something similar against Blizzard over the misrepresentation of the World of Warcraft European Collectors Edition and didn't get very far. Both the UK and European trading standards departments agreed that the product was faulty and that Blizzard had deliberately sold me the product knowing it didn't work and were therefore guilty of fraud. Even HMV who I bought the game from agreed that it was a faulty product and offered me my money back. But nobody would take any action against Blizzard and doing so alone would have cost too much money. In the end I left it with the consumer protection agencies and never heard a thing back.
Yeah, game companies bank on the fact that the regular player, no matter how disgruntled, don't have the money to take serious legal action against them, and i certainly don't have the money to take any legal action whatsoever, but CA have committed gross advertising fraud with this product, and what i bought was certainly nothing like what was advertised and what was promised i was getting for my money, so I know for a fact that i am entitled at least to my money back.
It's no different to me buying a brand new, never worn T-shirt from eBay, then getting it and it's 2 sizes smaller than the advertisement, has worn fabric and stains all over it and has clearly been worn. False advertising, or advertisement fraud. :2thumbsup:
AussieGiant
05-24-2009, 23:00
I don't hang around your diehard fanboy posts that defend every aspect of the game and make sarcastic comments about them, so i would be grateful if you returned that favour.
I wonder if i would have the right to sue CA for my money back on the grounds of advertisement fraud, and me not receiving the product that was advertised. I'll have to look into this.
Me, a diehard fanboy, defending every aspect of the game??
Get of the grass Dayve.
You went on a rant and I chose to bait you a bit, which you took, so sorry for that.
To sue CA will not do much, I'd recommend simply not purchasing their next product or any of their products. That's the best solution.
They've certainly not delivered on one major point, and that was the AI's ability to fight retreats and correlate the strategic situation with the tactical situation which they said they were going to deliver.
As for the rest, they've given it a fairly good shake and are currently still working on it. I'll wait to deliver final verdict until the last patch is out. Seems only fair to me.
However, I just can't see certain people here ever being satisfied with the game no matter what happens.
No, i knew you were baiting. If I'd took it and said what i wanted to say, i'd just get banned again, there are mods here who are watching every little thing i say right now and are simply dying to ban me for life.
Of course i went on a rant. CA have committed advertisement fraud and i feel scammed. I want my money back damnit.
Also, sorry for double posting buy junior members can't edit posts :whip: but i know there are people here who will never be satisfied with the game, and seem to bash CA as if it's a hobby of theirs, and I'm not one of those people. If you look back at my posts here from the day ETW was released until present you will see that i have both defended and criticized the game, and even told people who were exaggerating their criticism to tone it down and be realistic, otherwise nobody will take any notice of them.
And I'll continue to do that. There are improvements on this game from Rome and Medieval, such as diplomacy. There are more options, diplomacy is overall much better than Rome and Medieval, the problem is that the AI doesn't know how to use it, so the diplomacy overhaul is entirely pointless. That's just one example.
However, like i said, the honeymoon period for me has well and truly wore off, and my attitude toward this game is becoming more sour by the day, no matter how many things i tell myself have improved from Rome and M2.
My advice would be to do one of two things.
a) Take the game back to the shop and demand your money back. It clearly doesn't perform to specification and the shop doesn't have a leg to stand on. If they give you any hassle demand to know the name of the manager, then write to him explaining why the product doesn't meet spec and ask for a refund.
b) If he doesn't give you your money back, or if you don't want to part with the game report then report the whole thing to Trading Standards. Thats what I did. Remember to contact both your national consumer protection organisation and the European Trading Standards agency. I actually found the EU one more interested, but that might have been because Blizzard were based in France.
Remember to keep copies of all correspondence, just in case it goes to court, and remember to get the names of the people you talk to on the phone or by email and always confirm conversions in writing afterwards.
If it does go to court remember that you are not just entitled to your money back, but you may also be able to claim damages, so don't forget to ask. A judge forced to try one of these cases is going to be pretty annoyed and in my expereince they will award hefty damages against any company that makes them sit through a trial, just to get their own back.
I had a friend who took a shoe shop to court becuase they would not give her a refund for a £50 pair of shoes, and the judge was so annoyed he awarded her £500 pecunary damages, just for wasting his time. You should have seen the shop managers jaw drop.
AussieGiant
05-25-2009, 22:08
Well I'm glad you didn't take the bait completely Dayve. Getting banned doesn't help anyone.
And yes I agree with what you say about how you were in the beginning and how you are now. I guess I'm just getting battered down with all the criticism of which some is certainly valid.
I end up sounding more positive and taking a less critical role just to try and balance it out a bit.
I've stopped playing until the next patch, so that says something. It's been two weeks now and I really want to play. But not until they get their next set of improvements out.
I assume you've been set to "Junior Member" for a reason? After 1600 posts it seems a little strange.:egypt:
Not sure, although i don't see what the point was... junior member just means you can only post once every 9849853 seconds and you can't edit your posts. The problem they had with me had nothing to do with the amount of posts or editing them, it was alleged racism, so i don't know.
Anyway, i haven't played either. I started a new campaign earlier out of sheer boredom, and now i have another problem. When i right click and drag a unit to set its facing or depth, half way through the line disappears and the unit begins to march to how it was before it disappeared. It's like i've let go of the right mouse button before i was finished setting the unit, even though i haven't let go of the mouse button. Switched on a couple of other games to see if it was actually my mouse playing up, but no, it's fine with the other games.
It's not even once every so often either, it's literally every single time i right click and drag, so i just said bollocks to it and turned it off. When it's got to a point where i'm so demoralized i don't even want to look at the icon on my desktop let alone CLICK IT... you know something's wrong.
Owen Glyndwr
05-26-2009, 07:25
The diplomacy can certainly use some improvement, but I still think it's a great deal better than in RTW and M2TW. Contrary to the OP's statements, I tend to be able to get peace treaties from many AI nations. Sure, many of them declare war again a few turns later if they are still adjacent to you, but peace is certainly possible at least for short periods.
I think one of biggest problems isn't that the AI declares war too often, it's that it declares war at the wrong times. I'm currently playing an Austria game, which is very different from my previous post-1.2 games due to a total lack of trade income. At the start I was only able to afford about 1 army stack and I had a devil of a time fending off Poland. If ANY other nation had declared war on me, I would have been in serious trouble. No other nation did however. I was able to finish off Poland and consolidate my position shortly before the Ottomans declared war on me. If the Ottomans had declared war while I was still invovled with Poland, they could have wrecked me. Instead, I am able to beat them by focusing on them alone.
Europa Universalis 3 deals with this situation very well IMO. In that game, the more wars a nation is involved in, the more likely that other nations that dislike them will declare war on them as well. It's a typical human strategy that works well: strike when your enemy is pre-occupied elsewhere. CA needs some kind of coding like this.
Yes definitely. You also see dogpiles like that in the Civ 4 games. Where one nation would be put under by 1 or two civs, and all of a sudden it was a 5 on 1 venture.
What I would love to see is diplomacy AI which works more like Civ 4. It looks like CA made some attempts to make their diplomacy more like this (With the "friend o meter" and the ability to immediately open negotiations). However it sounds to me like the AI in Civ 4 acts more logically. Sure there are certain leaders such as Shaka and Monty who are often perfectly sporadic, but there are other who make perfect sense (Such as Isabella, who can be your best friend if you share religions, and your worst enemy if you don't). The funny thing about Civ 4, actually, is the human player is the one who ends up looking more like the AI from this game (They develop a long standing relationship with someone and then just up and betray them out of the blue with no warning). Also in Civ 4 there are certain signs that a civ is about to go to war (The We Have Enough on Our Hands Right Now note in the diplo screen tells the player right away that that civ is preparing for war, and to start checking the relations screens to see if it might be them).
Sure a lot of people say that the game is more interesting when the AI is "unpredictable", but unpredictability does not equal humanlike. Ever since I started with R: TW, all I've really ever wanted to see is allies who I can feel somewhat emotionally connected to, all I get is factions which I may try to befriend now, but just know that someday they are going to attack me, and I will have to kill them (Kind of like the feeling in all those zombie movies where the protagonist's best friend/girlfriend/mother gets bitten, and they know that they will turn eventually...)
Sorry for the long rant, I hope at least some of it makes sense to someone...
*EDIT* Also in Civ4, I really like the fact that going to war is no laughing matter. Your economy (Military upkeep), and city happiness (War Weariness) take such a big hit from the declaration itself that the player really has to consider the options, and figure out, not just if he can win, but if he'll be able to deal with the implications of winning (higher upkeep, changed political status, science affected) It's really neat actually, I'd love to see things from Civ4 implemented in these games (But with the neato battles, and minus all the complicated micromanaging and math...)
I agree Owen. There are so many games on the market that do the diplomacy thing better, you would have thought CA would have been spoilt for choice on which system to adopt. Instead they seem to have opted for no system at all, which is really 'dumb'.
I played RTW, MTW, and Shogun for 50+ hours on each indivisual game. I stopped playing RTW because it felt like I beating up a bunch of retards. Until threads like this turn into threads saying how hard the AI is to beat (something that did happen on MTW and Shogun, less so on Rome) im never buying a TW title again. My hope is by 2015 the AI will be competent, then that will make for a kickass game.
Ah, what i wouldn't give for this game to have the AI quality that MTW had 10 years before it. The AI in MTW may not necessarily have been any better than this game, and I've said this before, but it had the illusion of being smarter due to the way the map was laid out and the emptyness of the map. Each province had one thing in it, a city, and there was only one aim, to conquer it, and damnit the AI knew how many troops you had in any given province, and would NOT move troops in unless it outnumbered you and had a good chance of winning. It also knew to wait and attack on a weak front, and it knew how to use its victories and keep up the momentum.
Here is a perfect example of one of the big problems, the suicidal AI, from my current game.
https://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l259/GFSchleebenhorst/sai.jpg
They have no allies, they are feeble and destitute, I am terrifying and spectacular. They are already at war with many countries, I am not. So obviously the perfect climate for a fresh campaign!
AussieGiant
05-26-2009, 16:19
That's pretty funny commentary GFX707. Made me laugh.
Just reload from the Autosave and it will probably go away. You don't have to accept this sort of crap.
Owen Glyndwr
05-27-2009, 01:26
Here is a perfect example of one of the big problems, the suicidal AI, from my current game.
They have no allies, they are feeble and destitute, I am terrifying and spectacular. They are already at war with many countries, I am not. So obviously the perfect climate for a fresh campaign!
lol, my reply? "So be it"
After playing a little while in 1.3, I have come to the conclusion that ETW is now becoming more like M2TW with every patch, i.e in 1.0 the AI countries were "Passive" but they would at least accept peace. Now in 1.3 everyone you have a border with declares war on you no matter how weak they are compared to you and will never accept a peace deal no matter how badly you are beating them, stubbornly refusing to accept peace even when you are sieging their last province. It looks like we are back to the M2TW cycle of everyone around you taking turns using the player as a means of suicide.
So, in essence, with every patch the game is moving backwards. I wouldn't be surprised to see the troops wearing plate armour and using arquebuses in 1.4.
Just reload from the Autosave and it will probably go away.
Unfortunately, that rarely works anymore. Trust me, I've tried reloading after a ridiculous DOW, and it only goes away about a third of the time. "The Black Knight always triumphs!"
Yep! looks like they've even screwed that up now.
In my current campaign as Prussia (which I keep going back to despite having quit in disgust at four or five senseless war declarations by AI nations who already had 4 or 5 wars already on their hands, a couple of which were my allies) I have conquered nearly all of Europe solely on the AI declaring war on me.
At the start of the campaign, I was considering who to squash first - Denmark for their ports or Poland-Lithuania to join my nation together. It turned out I didn't need to make that decision as turn by turn everyone just declared war on me and subsequently put up no challenge whatsoever, and despite that NO ONE WILL ACCEPT PEACE. So I am forced to exterminate everyone until I run out of borders. 1.0 might have been a buggy mess but at least the campaign was varied and the AI at least *seemed* to make reasonable decisions other than "COMMIT SUICIDE".
Barkhorn1x
07-09-2009, 18:22
Here is a perfect example of one of the big problems, the suicidal AI, from my current game.
They have no allies, they are feeble and destitute, I am terrifying and spectacular. They are already at war with many countries, I am not. So obviously the perfect climate for a fresh campaign!
Yes, that makes no sense. The strat AI is hopeless on the army assembly level as well. What is with the numerous 1,2 unit captain commanded stacks always milling about, going to and fro' but getting nowhere? Why can't the strat AI be programmed to group units into high count stacks under generals, much like a human playwer would?
I am playing as Prussia and I took West Prussia from Poland, followed by the inevitable DoW from Poland, Saxony and Courland. Then I took Warsaw a few years later. And the Poles just mill about in low count stacks at the periphery waiting for me to crush them. What has saved them - up to now -is my deliberate style of play and the taming of the Polish province, which takes some time. But, guess what? I now have that province well in hand and am almost done absorbing Saxony - and then it is party time in Eastern Europe and I doubt that the Poles can do anything to stop me as spread out as they are.
Finally - what is not debatable is that the game was released half finished. And while the support has been very good to date the AI (pick ANY level) is just not that good. And promises were indeed made that THIS TIME it would be different. Sorry, nope. :no:
Guys don't be so critical, as they said, they worked a full two years on the AI, to make it the perfect experience for us.
The problem is, the definition of what the customers wanted and what they thought we wanted.
As in we wanted an AI that worked, and they thought we wanted a 'rabid lemming'. I can see how that might cause a problem.
Yes, clearly what they thought we wanted was an AI with the relentlessness of the terminator coupled with the logic and planning skills of a recently trampled broccoli.
I was sceptical as always about this game when I heard about it at first. I pre-ordered it anyway because there is just nothing else like it. I have been playing since Shogun, and I have witnessed the series's decline after MTW.
The main problems with RTW and M2TW were:
1) Bad AI.
2) Useless diplomacy and suicidal enemies.
So, I have been playing since release and despite the BUGGY MESS that this game has been I have been more or less having a good time. In two months of playing through the campaign (and enjoying it) I have come to the following conclusions.
1) The AI is still just as bad, if not worse.
2) Diplomacy is still largely pointless.
Here's why: The AI on the campaign map always does the same thing. If you border Dagestan or Georgia at some point, they will always declare war on you, no matter how good your relations or whether you are trading. They will always be crushed with minimal effort. Then, you now border Persia. Inevitably, they will declare war next and be wiped out after a few turns. They are coded to be suicidal. To seal their own stupid fate they will absolutely NOT accept peace. Time and time again, there I am, at the "diplomacy" screen, my country terrible/spectacular (or whatever), theirs weak/destitute and they will still NEVER accept peace. This goes on throughout the game. Sometimes you can get a peace but they don't seem to understand that they are in a very bad situation - that by asking for peace you are SAVING them from certain destruction of their handul of 2 stack raiding armies, and even if you offer them twenty thousand to save their lives they won't take it. So, that's our new diplomacy which incidentally should go beyond having some new buttons to click.
The strategic AI is also the usual terrible CA game situation again. When I was playing yesterday I bought Quebec from the French - I hadn't realised it bordered an English settlement and an army was standing right beside my new town as I hit "end turn". There were no troops in my town as I had just bought it, and there wouldn't be until the next turn when I had finished building some. There was a large English army across the river to the south. I think "Woops".
So what does the AI do? It can reach the town in 1 turn. There are no troops to defend it.
It walks its stack PAST the *undefended* enemy town and raids the nearby seminary instead. The AI's strategic approach to war seems to just be chucking tiny two stack armies at you to raid your settlements, even if, combined, all those stacks would crush you. This results in a tedious campaign of chasing piddly two stack armies around which ISN'T FUN.
So since I am now bored of typing, in summary, does this game have exactly the same problems as the past two CA offerings in my opinion? Yes....and more. Did I buy it anyway, pretty sure it would be the same old story? Yes.
Why did I buy it? Why did all of us pessimist CA diehards buy it anyway? Because there is STILL, after almost 10 years, nothing like the Total War series. If this was nature, the Total War series would be the Dodo. It has survived because it has no predators. It can get as fat and as stupid and as useless as it wants because it will still have nothing to fear from any other game because there are no other games of this type to compete. It's in a genre all of its own, and until someone basically does a Blizzard and rips it off, but improves and supports it, it's going to be the same old story.
(same old rant, too)
GFX
I was thinking exactly this then I found your post
quoted for truth
I love your analogy in the last paragraph
Hey if we all beat our heads against the wall long enough - we might make a dent :wall:
(Such as Isabella, who can be your best friend if you share religions, and your worst enemy if you don't).
(Kind of like the feeling in all those zombie movies where the protagonist's best friend/girlfriend/mother gets bitten, and they know that they will turn eventually...)
Sorry for the long rant, I hope at least some of it makes sense to someone...
Dont trust Isabella man!!! that :daisy: stabs you in the back
perfect sense
good post
resonantblue
07-10-2009, 21:28
The sense of entitlement is obscene. You bought the game. You were not forced to buy the game. You bought the game knowing full well that in every TW game they promise the AI will be better (which it is), but fails to meet your expectations.
Seriously, if you take one step back and look at what you're doing it's a self-written comedy.
The sense of entitlement is obscene. You bought the game. You were not forced to buy the game. You bought the game knowing full well that in every TW game they promise the AI will be better (which it is), but fails to meet your expectations.
Seriously, if you take one step back and look at what you're doing it's a self-written comedy.
Yep I agree. It's funny that I bought ETW expecting it to be somewhat challenging and enthralling and ended up with a nicely decorated toybox.
I guess what isn't funny is I've told everyone of my friends (with much smaller gaming budgets than me) who have inquired to pass on this one despite the media generated hype.
Likewise, we usually buy three copies in our family. But only one this time.
The sense of entitlement is obscene. You bought the game. You were not forced to buy the game. You bought the game knowing full well that in every TW game they promise the AI will be better (which it is), but fails to meet your expectations.
Seriously, if you take one step back and look at what you're doing it's a self-written comedy.
You might be right, but there are laws against describing a product incorrectly.
Plus, they had FOUR YEARS to fix the AI. Four entire years. At the end of that four year period we have worse campaign AI than RTW. At least in RTW the AI would frequently invade by sea. In 1.3 every single thing that was bad about the AI in RTW is present in the ETW AI. Stupid suicidal war declarations (actually much worse than RTW because the AI is usually feeble and in about 5 wars already when it declares war on you) and never accepting peace.
So I shall ask you: Do you think it was unreasonable or stupid for us, the TW fan, to expect CA, in a period of four years, to make *some* improvements to the campaign AI in their game?
ReluctantSamurai
07-11-2009, 15:23
I'm afraid the bottom line for CA is summarized here:
"Week one sales of the title were nearly double those of both Rome: Total War and Medieval II: Total War, and is the first in the series’ to claim the Top 40 top spot. It also becomes the first PC exclusive title to reach the top since Football Manager 2008 in October 2007 – another Sega PC title."
[from a March report posted at IGN.com]
"If you make a hit game, you make good money out of it. But you only need to fail once or twice in a row and you're dead."
[a quote from Mike Simpson, the creative director for CA as quoted by the BBC in a March interview]
Obviously, with sales at the top of the charts, I don't expect anything will change anytime soon.....:no:
That doesn't surprise me, because unlike their previous titles they are finally tapping the Napoleonic Wargame market, the single biggest area of historical interest in the world with millions of potential customers, who like me have been waiting for a decent historical computer wargame for decades.
Problem is, if your going to tap that market and keep it then your game better damned well be historically accurate, because these guys are going to rip it to shreds if its not, and once the word is out that your a bunch of ignorant idiots who can't be bothered to do your research then you won't get a second bite of the cherry.
ReluctantSamurai
07-11-2009, 17:46
and once the word is out that your a bunch of ignorant idiots who can't be bothered to do your research then you won't get a second bite of the cherry.
Judging from the increase in sales of ETW over the previous two releases, a lot of folks disagree with that. Don't get me wrong.......I'm of the same sentiment as you. I just think it's going to take a competitor to step in and do something better for people to compare to.
While I fully appreciate that CA is in the business to make money (and oh, btw, here's a game for you folks to play), and that it is impossible to please everyone, one would think that after all this time, and with the experienced garnered from previous releases, that a more flexible game could have been produced.
By that I mean more option settings that actually determine gameplay. I design campaigns and scenarios for an old WWII game that has a much less complex game engine, and far fewer resources available for a modder to work with. Yet I, and others like me can create scenarios and campaigns that are fulfilling to all players both n00b's and veterans.
I just can't understand why CA cannot do something similar with a much more advanced game engine and a horde of experience from previous releases:wall:
Judging from the increase in sales of ETW over the previous two releases, a lot of folks disagree with that. Don't get me wrong.......
Well I bought it because I believed the sales spin that it was a historical strategy game. But I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else with an interest in wargaming or history, and the only reason I'm still playing it is because I found some mods to correct most of the errors, and managed to work out how to switch off all the fantasy units.
I've bought every TW titles so far, but this will probably be the last one, you can only get treated like a idiot so often.
Fisherking
07-12-2009, 08:14
Well I bought it because I believed the sales spin that it was a historical strategy game. But I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else with an interest in wargaming or history, and the only reason I'm still playing it is because I found some mods to correct most of the errors, and managed to work out how to switch off all the fantasy units.
I've bought every TW titles so far, but this will probably be the last one, you can only get treated like a idiot so often.
Which are you calling fantasy units?
There are things they have done in the game that disturb me and from a decent beginning, less the crashes and bugs of course, I see it getting farther and farther away.
I have tried to figure out why some things are ignored or even changes from the historical without much reason behind it.
Why do the French lack light dragoons but have rifles. Why does Austria lack rifles other than the air rifles and that is only two units. They also lack regular dragoons, at least in Europe.
Some of the things just seem totally subjective and I can’t see any reason for it, game play or anything else.
It would seem they are searching for their audience but only see the three hecklers in the back row and are trying to please all the wrong people.
Which are you calling fantasy units?
Basically, any unit which would not have been available to the faction in question at the time depicted, or which would not be capable of being used in the role that the game allows it to be used in.
So, for example I have currently turned off. Native America Artillery, Native American Lancers, Bomb-Ketches and Rocket Ships. The main things I wanted to be rid of were the bomb-ketches and rocket ships, which are basically only in the game as a sop to the American flag and could never have been used in the way depicted by the game.
I have tried to figure out why some things are ignored or even changes from the historical without much reason behind it.
I know what you mean. The sad fact is that if they just stuck to the historical theme the results would be far more playable and interesting. For example: Why depict the Royal Ecossais in kilts when their real uniform was just as distinctive and interesting?
To me such things are insulting, its basically the game company saying we think that your all too stupid to cope with a game that's historically accurate so to make it easier for you to understand and play we are going to give you the 'dumbed-down' version. Its terribly demeaning to be treated like an idiot, and as a customer I object to it, but its a common trait when producing products for the American market particularly when the supplier is an American company, and you get it a lot in film and entertainment industry. For example the title of the film 'Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone' had to be changed to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' and the entire film re-dubbed for American audiences just because the American distributors thought their audiences would be confused, and yet a Frenchman, German or Dutchman who did not even speak the language managed to understand it.
The other driving force behind a lot of these changes is of course the multi-player sub-game. Something that I don't have the slightest interest in and will never play but seems to be 'the tail thats wagging the dog' on a lot of these ridiculous 'play-balancing' idea's. Personally, I have nothing against the multi-player sub-game as long as it doesn't have any impact on the actual game itself. So, if they want to stick fantasy units and over-powered rowing boats in the MP game, I have no problems with that as long as they don't appear in the campaign. Just give the MP community their own version of the unit tables or something, then you can stick whatever you like in there and I don't give a monkey's.
ReluctantSamurai
07-12-2009, 12:59
I've bought every TW titles so far, but this will probably be the last one, you can only get treated like a idiot so often.
I reached that point with M2 and gave it away to a friend...........RTW only gets played because of all the mods, and the only one that gets played with any regularity is Samurai Warlords...........
I have tried to figure out why some things are ignored or even changes from the historical without much reason behind it.
I do not mind ahistorical units or situations that may be placed in a game. They can make for fun diversions when you get tired of the same old, same old. But there should be in-game functions to turn them off when you don't want them.
The other driving force behind a lot of these changes is of course the multi-player sub-game. Something that I don't have the slightest interest in and will never play but seems to be 'the tail thats wagging the dog' on a lot of these ridiculous 'play-balancing' idea's.
I might agree with that, but........that's where the money is and, whether one likes it or not, that is the bottom line.
Goaswerfraiejen
07-23-2009, 13:43
Well, I steadfastly refused to buy the game, given what happened with M2TW (I loved RTW, though--still play it regularly). I must say that I'm very glad that I did: from what I see posted on these boards every few months, little has changed. The game still came out half-finished, and that's unacceptable. The only question that I have left, really, is if they'll pull another M2TW and stop fixing it so that they can release their next titles instead. Honestly, I kind of hope they do, so that more of us will learn our lesson for the next time.
I might agree with that, but........that's where the money is and, whether one likes it or not, that is the bottom line.
I don't think the TW money is in the multi-player scene - I suspect only a small minority of TW players do MP.
But in a more general sense, I agree with you - the money is not in a historically realistic game. Rather, CA, particularly Lusted, see better "balancing" as improving the historically flavoured game (both SP and MP) that most customers want to buy.
Ditto putting Scots in kilts, including rocket ships, mortars and other anachronistic battlegear, RTW Egyptians in Moses era outfits, geishas in STW etc - it's what is thought will most appeal to the mass market audience.
Personally, I am probably not in that target market but I can live and let live, so long as realism mods are possible. I still find TW a much more engaging platform for historical wargaming than most of the more drab hardcore games.
I loved RTW, though--still play it regularly
Um, if you loved RTW, not buying M2TW and may be ETW could be your loss. M2TW is very similar to RTW, but with better AI. I can't see why anyone would love RTW and not like M2TW, unless it was due to lack of interest in the period.
ETW is a more revolutionary change and only time will tell if the AI has kept up with the change in the game engine. At the moment, it reminds me of RTW in that the AI has so far not kept up with the changes (in RTW, the changes were the move from the Risk style map and the change in the battlefield engine; in ETW, the changes include the reduced number of provinces per faction, trading theatres and the greater importance of naval operations).
Basically, any unit which would not have been available to the faction in question at the time depicted, or which would not be capable of being used in the role that the game allows it to be used in.
So, for example I have currently turned off. Native America Artillery, Native American Lancers, Bomb-Ketches and Rocket Ships. The main things I wanted to be rid of were the bomb-ketches and rocket ships, which are basically only in the game as a sop to the American flag and could never have been used in the way depicted by the game.
Hmm, the first "bomb vessel" (aka bomb ketch) "Bombarde" was built by the French in 1681. So why would you say bomb-ketches were ahistorical (in terms of availability) in the game period of ETW?
Goaswerfraiejen
07-23-2009, 17:18
Um, if you loved RTW, not buying M2TW and may be ETW could be your loss. M2TW is very similar to RTW, but with better AI. I can't see why anyone would love RTW and not like M2TW, unless it was due to lack of interest in the period.
ETW is a more revolutionary change and only time will tell if the AI has kept up with the change in the game engine. At the moment, it reminds me of RTW in that the AI has so far not kept up with the changes (in RTW, the changes were the move from the Risk style map and the change in the battlefield engine; in ETW, the changes include the reduced number of provinces per faction, trading theatres and the greater importance of naval operations).
You misread my post. I did buy M2TW (not Kingdoms), and was sorely disappointed by the quality of the game. The most egregious of my problems was that I could not control battles myself for the first six months, until a patch was released to fix the specific problem I was having (one frame per minute or so due to bugs with the animation). I was even more disappointed in the decision to stop fixing M2TW so as to release Kingdoms, and the subsequent decision to stop fixing Kingdoms so as to release ETW. These decisions have resulted in three unfinished games with serious bugs and promised but non-existent features, and that's just not acceptable to me.
Again, you did not read my post properly. My reasons for not purchasing ETW have nothing to do with the style of the game, or with its perceived dissimilarity to RTW: they have to do with the quality of the products which I purchased after RTW, which seems to have been in steady decline. Reading these boards since ETW's release, I find few indications to the contrary. I mentioned RTW because I considered its engine and concept to be significant improvements over MTW's, and not just mere graphics-glitz. RTW certainly had a number of problems, yes, but in my estimation they were fairly minor and were largely fixed before M2TW was released. This was not at all my experience with M2TW.
I would love to play ETW, or to properly enjoy M2TW--but that's extremely hard to do when I am forced into the role of an un-consenting beta tester, and when the efforts to complete the game and streamline the product are half-assed at best, and quickly abandoned for the empty promises that come with a new release. Many people have enjoyed M2TW, Kingdoms, and ETW, and that's great. Nonetheless, I stand by my decision and refuse to purchase any more half-finished products from the TW line.
Fisherking
07-23-2009, 17:38
Hmm, the first "bomb vessel" (aka bomb ketch) "Bombarde" was built by the French in 1681. So why would you say bomb-ketches were ahistorical (in terms of availability) in the game period of ETW?
I think what he means is that they were never used in sea battles. They were for shore bombardment.
They had to be anchored on springs to swing and adjust to the target. That wouldn't work at sea.
Hmm, the first "bomb vessel" (aka bomb ketch) "Bombarde" was built by the French in 1681. So why would you say bomb-ketches were ahistorical (in terms of availability) in the game period of ETW?
Never said they were, seems that Fisherking understood the point.
I think what he means is that they were never used in sea battles. They were for shore bombardment.
They had to be anchored on springs to swing and adjust to the target. That wouldn't work at sea.
That's true. I misread Didz's point.
That's true. I misread Didz's point.
The problem is that whilst as a player you can avoid using these ships (they actually have no legitimate purpose in the game, as CA failed to include any land in the naval battle game) you cannot stop the AI recruiting them, so the best idea is just to remove them until CA get round to finishing the naval battle engine.
AussieGiant
07-24-2009, 10:25
It become pretty clear to me that while graphics, game development, map development and economic models have greatly increased over time, the AI team can simply not keep up with the ever increasing level of resource and relational management.
Essentially they have gotten to a point where they have over-engineered these aspects and this has left the AI team producing an under developed AI as they have simply not been able to keep up.
I don't want to overstate this because producing an AI that can handle all this would be an incredible acheivement, but that is the situation they face.
ReluctantSamurai
07-24-2009, 15:33
Essentially they have gotten to a point where they have over-engineered these aspects and this has left the AI team producing an under developed AI as they have simply not been able to keep up.
I don't want to overstate this because producing an AI that can handle all this would be an incredible acheivement
And therein lies the problem, I think. It's much easier (read as, less time consuming) to create & implement various aspects to the game (new units, trade routes, naval warfare, etc) than to create an AI that can handle all of it. IMHO, this is a$$-backwards if you wish to create a game that will challenge and hold the interest of 'serious' gamers.
However, given the timeframe and economic restraints that CA must be under, it's perfectly understandable (although I don't agree with it). Rather than gripe about it, I've exercised my rights and simply refuse to buy their games anymore unless they develop one that I can enjoy. That other folks here can spend hours cursing at their 'puter screen (and CA) and continue to play this game simply amazes me (and I tip my hat to your patience).
When I sit down for a round of gaming at my 'puter, I want to relax and enjoy myself to the point where I lose track of time, not the other way around:laugh4:
AussieGiant
07-24-2009, 15:52
Exactly ReluctantSamurai.
I find it rather amusing, that as a glass half full person who can appreciate CA's situation from a "in industry" position, some of the most vehement critics are playing this game ALL the time and seem to be in some masochistic surreal experience.
I on the other hand just completed a GB, h/m Prestige campaign which was thoroughly enjoyable and ate time incredibly fast.
Your analysis is right on the money. They have limited resources, including time and must produce "something". They simply can't sit in a room, perfecting AI for their games and "wait" until they have that "bullet proof" before release.
In the mean time graphic technology is jumping ahead in leaps and bounds and is being pushed primarily by the gaming industry which they are competing in.
They can't afford to fall behind too far...
...hence the situation they find themselves in.
resonantblue
07-24-2009, 17:10
Uh, the campaign AI is better. There is no doubt. It may not meet your expectations, but this is the first TW game I can remember when the AI consistently merges smaller units built all over its empire into larger armies and maneuvers those armies about to give you _good_ battles (from a campaign point of view, I'm still not a fan of the battle AI).
I do remember the good old days of MTW when the only good stack vs stack battles you usually had were either when the Mongols invaded or when you sieged enemy cities at the start of a campaign.
This is the best campaign AI yet and diplomacy _has_ improved. Granted, there are annoying idiosyncracies.
But really, the self-entitlement of many of the posters in this thread is not normal. Talking about taking legal action? Taking your ball and going home (ie "not buying another CA product ever" - yeah right, you said that about M2TW, RTW and MTW I'm 99% certain)? Assuming you did follow through (yeah right), let me just suggest that I'm thrilled I won't have to read another unreasonable, petulant rant about whatever TW game CA does next.
resonantblue
07-24-2009, 17:23
I alluded to this in another post, but I don't think the AI stupid DoWs are actually that bad. If you have Good or Very Good relations with an AI nation it's very unlikely that they will DoW you unless they really badly want one of the provinces you occupy. On VH I've never been at war with everyone.
Here's how I imagine most of the people complaining a lot about this "problem" are going about their games:
Turn 1-10 blitz enemy nations, breaking alliances and getting negative relations with everyone else as being untrustworthy.
Turn 10 - 20 consolidate and revolt to Republic to boost productivity, forgetting that this is like -140 relations for a long time with everyone who isn't also a Republic - which is 95% of the world.
Turn 20+ - relations with most majors is "hostile" without even being at war. Consequently AI nations DoW constantly. Player starts taking enemy territory resulting in even worse relations (territorial expansion hit) which means peace is very difficult to come by.
Turn X - Player Quits to Windows, logs onto the Parliment and complains about how the AI is totally irrational for declaring war on a nation they are hostile against.
For merely becoming a Republic in the late 18th century France found itself at war with all of Europe. Despite repeated beatdowns and general understanding that France was the single strongest power most of Europe was either at war with France or plotting to start a war with France for the better part of 2 decades.
Is it really so unrealistic what you're seeing?
Like I've said, I've had many VH games where I am barely ever at war with anyone but the barbary states. Maintain good relations with the AI states and they rarely DoW me.
Uh, the campaign AI is better. There is no doubt. It may not meet your expectations, but this is the first TW game I can remember when the AI consistently merges smaller units built all over its empire into larger armies and maneuvers those armies about to give you _good_ battles (from a campaign point of view, I'm still not a fan of the battle AI).
Are we playing the same game? The AI in my game prefers to send small stacks en masse to raid ad nauseum rather than merges its units where it might actually present a challenge. This is well reported behaviour. I have barely encountered a full stack doing anything other than standing around outside a city.
This is the best campaign AI yet and diplomacy _has_ improved. Granted, there are annoying idiosyncracies.
The problem is that these are the SAME "idiosyncrasies" we have faced time and time again since RTW. The AI declaring war on anything that moves and refusing to make peace. Diplomacy being (still) completely worthless other than "trade rights/map information" despite promises of improvement.
Assuming you did follow through (yeah right), let me just suggest that I'm thrilled I won't have to read another unreasonable, petulant rant about whatever TW game CA does next.
Equally if there will always be people who refuse to acknowledge that a game is flawed, flawed games will keep being released.
ReluctantSamurai
07-24-2009, 20:57
I do remember the good old days of MTW when the only good stack vs stack battles you usually had were either when the Mongols invaded or when you sieged enemy cities at the start of a campaign.
Have you ever played STW and the modded Samurai Warlords? From mid-campaign onwards you will have nothing but stack vs. stack battles some of which may take several hours to resolve:sweatdrop: And the best part is..........the AI can, and will kick your butt if you don't play well:inquisitive:
But really, the self-entitlement of many of the posters in this thread is not normal. Talking about taking legal action? Taking your ball and going home (ie "not buying another CA product ever" - yeah right, you said that about M2TW, RTW and MTW I'm 99% certain)? Assuming you did follow through (yeah right), let me just suggest that I'm thrilled I won't have to read another unreasonable, petulant rant about whatever TW game CA does next.
I said nothing about legal action. In fact I understand the position CA is in......it is a business, afterall, and they must make a profit for their efforts. And I said nothing of the sort for other TW games up to RTW (which I still play). I said that after M2TW (which I ended up giving away) and indeed, after seeing the problems and frustrations other good players are having with ETW, I have not purchased the game.
I do not think my comments are a 'petulant rant'. I am a reasonably experienced TW player with an opinion. I do not push my views on others with continuous rants, I've just exercised my rights as a consumer to not buy a product I feel I won't enjoy.............key word here......"enjoy."
As I said...I play PC games to relax and forget about my worries and problems for a few hours.......not endure more of the same:smash:
resonantblue
07-24-2009, 21:40
Of course the game has flaws. I've never claimed otherwise (in fact claimed th eopposite in the post you quoted).
But there are way too many posters in this thread who are being way too dramatic about what their rights are and how CA has destroyed their innocence and touched them in naughty places.
There was definitely talk of legal action by someone (can't be bothered to keep track of who there were so many take my ball and go home posts in this thread) and of course the _only_ thing holding him back was that he couldn't afford a lawyer (lol. right. get real. you're upset that you invested $60 and feel like it was wasted so you're going to spend thousands of dollars taking a company to court on something that the judge will dismiss with an out loud laugh. yeah, we believe you. we really do!)
I remember back when M2TW came out there was some poster, I think his name was Puzz3D, who spent all his time on these forums complaining about how bad CA was and would tell anyone who would listen (including those who didn't care) about how he didn't buy M2TW and wouldn't until CA restored his trust and confidence.
Some of you (not naming any names) need to get a grip. If you want to complain about aspects of the game that are deficient, by all means do so - that's one of the things forums are for. But let's not get carried away about how we should sue CA for false advertising, how they've ruined your summer and otherwise are the cause of AIDS, tsunamis and everything evil in this world. Especially don't do that when saying it was the same in MTW, RTW, M2TW and now ETW. You just look foolish being "fooled" by CA 4 times in a row (more if you count expansions). As the illustrious former president of the world, George W. Bush once said:
"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."
Uh, the campaign AI is better. There is no doubt. It may not meet your expectations, but this is the first TW game I can remember when the AI consistently merges smaller units built all over its empire into larger armies and maneuvers those armies about to give you _good_ battles (from a campaign point of view, I'm still not a fan of the battle AI).
I do remember the good old days of MTW when the only good stack vs stack battles you usually had were either when the Mongols invaded or when you sieged enemy cities at the start of a campaign.
This is the best campaign AI yet and diplomacy _has_ improved. Granted, there are annoying idiosyncracies.
Wow! Did we get the same game?
I personally think the CAI and diplomatic engine in ETW are beyond question the worst of any TW game, and I've been playing them since Shogun.
As others have stated, ETW's CAI simply cannot handle this complex new map. It's really struggling with it.
It can't manage the economy so it's often bankrupt or on the point of bankruptcy. (By early mid-game in almost all of my campaigns my nation is terrifying and spectacular while the AI nations are meagre and destititute.)
Diplomacy is completely broken. The AI nations don't use it amongst themselves: they don't declare peace, they don't make new alliances or protectorates, and they don't max out their trade routes. Instead they declare wars on their friends, on their sole trading partners, and regardless of how many other wars they're currently fighting. And they will stay at war until one nation is eliminated or the game ends. I don't think 90+ and 80+ year wars were common in the 18th century. They also declare wars that they can't even fight, let alone win!
The result of the AI continually shooting itself in the leg due to its inability to handle or use the economic and diplomatic engines is that the AI nations are turned into easily conquered weaklings. Eventually, I'm the only one doing anything on the campaign map while the AI nations are struggling just to survive.
The overall campaign AI is dismal. It's completely confused by what it should put into garrison and what it should put into field armies. Thus, it often puts too many troops into garrison or none at all. And it fails to build proper field armies that can actually threaten the player. As a result on the battlefield the player almost always has more and better troops, and a player with more and better troops on the battlefield simply cannot lose!
Further, the AI is completely inept on the strategic offensive. It often resorts to raids which is a completely pointless feature: doesn't hurt a region's economy, does minimal damage to the town, and provides no benefit to the raider. A human player won't waste his time on it. Instead the human player builds up a large army and either attacks the region capital or uses the nice exploit of sitting in an outlying town to let the town's garrison come to him. The result is that player gets bigger and stronger with an accumulation of provinces and wealth. Meanwhile the CAI is sending pathetic little stacks (often consisting solely of artillery units) to raid outlying towns and where they are quickly stomped out by an annoyed human player. Oh, the AI doesn't know how to retreat so it fights every battle no matter what the odds resulting in tiresome "whack-a-mole" battles. Basically, no AI nation can win this game! So the player is in a non-competitive environment- it's just a matter of WHEN the player will either win or quit out of boredom.
The pathfinding is atrocious. AI armies and navies routinely get stuck on the campaign map. (I quit my last campaign when I realized that I could easily crush Russia because most of its army was stuck in West Prussia alongside that bridge. The AI also struggles with landbridges.
Then you got the problems of the AI treating each individual province as a seperate fiefdom. It won't move armies from one friendly province to assist another friendly province. I don't know how may times I've witnessed a tiny AI raiding army burn down a province while in an adjacent province a full stack army does NOTHING to assist one of its OWN beleaguered provinces. Nor will the AI move an army from a neighboring province to relieve a siege.
Then you got all the new features that CA introduced with ETW that its AI simply cannot handle. My "favorite" is the hostile fleets entering a port: AI army ejects hostile fleet from port, AI moves its army out of the port, and hostile fleet immediately moves back into the port. And this process repeats the next turn and the next and the next.... I've seen the above scenario in almost every campaign I've played. Oh, sometimes the AI won't even bother ejecting a hostile fleet from one of its ports so that a single ship will stay in a port for decades stopping trade and prohibiting shipbuilding.
Then you have naval transport. ETW wasn't released with an AI capable of using naval transport. It was only AFTER the game was released that CA started programming AI naval transport, but then discovered it was tougher than they anticipated. So we have a game where AI use of naval transportation is rare to non-existent. Thus, playing the British or the Marathas is a complete joke (even more so than the other factions). Further, AI controlled Britian is completely neutered due to it being stuck in its homelands. The AI also doesn't know how to use the "theater" feature so that the Carribean is the personal playground of the human player and India the Maratha's little sandbox.
I don't think the above issues are "annoying idiosyncracies," but serious CAI issues that almost completely ruin the game. I want to fight big, important battles against powerful opponents, not stomp-out pathetic little stacks from bankrupt nations in repetitive, cakewalk battles. Unfortunately, the later situation has been my experience with ETW. I started campaigns as France and Sweden under the 1.3 patch and have shelved both of them because the CAI is so abysmal that completely ruined any immersion.
I do dream of how much better ETW would be with a much more simplified map. ETW with its breathtaking battles and improved BAI (I think its better than RTW's and M2TW's) might have been a classic with a "Risk-Style" map- no more whack-a-mole battles, no more pointless raids, no more pathfinding issues, no more problems with the CAI having to choose between units in garrison or in field armies, but lot's of big battles (which the AI could sometimes win just on sheer strength of numbers) that emphasize ETW's biggest strength- it's battle engine!! However, that's just wishful thinking and I have to hope that future patches will alleviate some of the above issues, but that's probably just wishful thinking too. And that's saddest thing about ETW.
paramedicguyer
07-27-2009, 03:17
I played the demo today, I had bought the game on amazon today too...b4 i got the demo...crap. I can;t believe that EB (running on a 2004 game engine, and basically designed by a non profit group) is superior to ETW. WHat the hell is CA doing. the EB team has made CA look so bad, CA should either really get their shit straight or just call it quits. They are getting paid for designing this game and they still manage to drop the ball. I hate M2TW its just a remaping and reskinning really of RTW, they didnt even write a new script they only modified RTW (they were so lazy they just disabled the Marian reforms), CA also made it far too difficult to mad M2TW initially, I bet it had something to do with how many of the mods for RTW turned out to be superior to the vanilla game. I am sick of all these game reviews giving CA great reviews. These games starting with RTW (which I only like for EB) seem to be catered to idiot short attention spanned gamers who really don't have a terrible interest in deep emmersive strategy, and are more interested in action (I mean no offense to anyone). I honestly am more interested in the straregy map and diplomacy, battles are last on my list. When it comes down to it ETW in my opinion is the retarded silver spooned cousin to europa universalis III.
Peace
paramedicguyer
07-27-2009, 03:24
I have to post again, I am so pissed. I played just the demo, and I can tell this game is terrible. I loved the naval battle but the land battle sucked, it seems that a great deal of micro management is necessary, tho I have been playin RTW for so long I am not used to this type of warfare. I really am dissapointed with CA, They only reason they are the best at what they do, is because they are the only ones that do wat they do. They have the market cornered really, so they don't care how crappy their games are. Did anyone notice the great amount of emhpasis was placed on special units, whether it be the special forces edition, or that stupid elit addon. but no diplomacy addons no strategy map addons, no gameplay addons. No just units. I can go an entire campaign autoresoloving crap and not even see units (although I have to admit the ships look great). ANother thing the skins on the units look bad. EB skins are superior to ETW skins and I play both on max.
Some studio just needs to comeout wth their own rival. So finally CA will be forced to make a good game.
NO peace
Quickening
07-27-2009, 12:20
As disappointed as I am with Empire I have to say that the land battle in the demo is a terrible example of the land battles in the full game. I to thought it was atrocious and it put me off the game but it isn't reflective of the average battle.
resonantblue
07-27-2009, 18:53
Wow! Did we get the same game?
I personally think the CAI and diplomatic engine in ETW are beyond question the worst of any TW game, and I've been playing them since Shogun.
As others have stated, ETW's CAI simply cannot handle this complex new map. It's really struggling with it.
It can't manage the economy so it's often bankrupt or on the point of bankruptcy. (By early mid-game in almost all of my campaigns my nation is terrifying and spectacular while the AI nations are meagre and destititute.)
Diplomacy is completely broken. The AI nations don't use it amongst themselves: they don't declare peace, they don't make new alliances or protectorates, and they don't max out their trade routes. Instead they declare wars on their friends, on their sole trading partners, and regardless of how many other wars they're currently fighting. And they will stay at war until one nation is eliminated or the game ends. I don't think 90+ and 80+ year wars were common in the 18th century. They also declare wars that they can't even fight, let alone win!
The result of the AI continually shooting itself in the leg due to its inability to handle or use the economic and diplomatic engines is that the AI nations are turned into easily conquered weaklings. Eventually, I'm the only one doing anything on the campaign map while the AI nations are struggling just to survive.
The overall campaign AI is dismal. It's completely confused by what it should put into garrison and what it should put into field armies. Thus, it often puts too many troops into garrison or none at all. And it fails to build proper field armies that can actually threaten the player. As a result on the battlefield the player almost always has more and better troops, and a player with more and better troops on the battlefield simply cannot lose!
Further, the AI is completely inept on the strategic offensive. It often resorts to raids which is a completely pointless feature: doesn't hurt a region's economy, does minimal damage to the town, and provides no benefit to the raider. A human player won't waste his time on it. Instead the human player builds up a large army and either attacks the region capital or uses the nice exploit of sitting in an outlying town to let the town's garrison come to him. The result is that player gets bigger and stronger with an accumulation of provinces and wealth. Meanwhile the CAI is sending pathetic little stacks (often consisting solely of artillery units) to raid outlying towns and where they are quickly stomped out by an annoyed human player. Oh, the AI doesn't know how to retreat so it fights every battle no matter what the odds resulting in tiresome "whack-a-mole" battles. Basically, no AI nation can win this game! So the player is in a non-competitive environment- it's just a matter of WHEN the player will either win or quit out of boredom.
The pathfinding is atrocious. AI armies and navies routinely get stuck on the campaign map. (I quit my last campaign when I realized that I could easily crush Russia because most of its army was stuck in West Prussia alongside that bridge. The AI also struggles with landbridges.
Then you got the problems of the AI treating each individual province as a seperate fiefdom. It won't move armies from one friendly province to assist another friendly province. I don't know how may times I've witnessed a tiny AI raiding army burn down a province while in an adjacent province a full stack army does NOTHING to assist one of its OWN beleaguered provinces. Nor will the AI move an army from a neighboring province to relieve a siege.
Then you got all the new features that CA introduced with ETW that its AI simply cannot handle. My "favorite" is the hostile fleets entering a port: AI army ejects hostile fleet from port, AI moves its army out of the port, and hostile fleet immediately moves back into the port. And this process repeats the next turn and the next and the next.... I've seen the above scenario in almost every campaign I've played. Oh, sometimes the AI won't even bother ejecting a hostile fleet from one of its ports so that a single ship will stay in a port for decades stopping trade and prohibiting shipbuilding.
Then you have naval transport. ETW wasn't released with an AI capable of using naval transport. It was only AFTER the game was released that CA started programming AI naval transport, but then discovered it was tougher than they anticipated. So we have a game where AI use of naval transportation is rare to non-existent. Thus, playing the British or the Marathas is a complete joke (even more so than the other factions). Further, AI controlled Britian is completely neutered due to it being stuck in its homelands. The AI also doesn't know how to use the "theater" feature so that the Carribean is the personal playground of the human player and India the Maratha's little sandbox.
I don't think the above issues are "annoying idiosyncracies," but serious CAI issues that almost completely ruin the game. I want to fight big, important battles against powerful opponents, not stomp-out pathetic little stacks from bankrupt nations in repetitive, cakewalk battles. Unfortunately, the later situation has been my experience with ETW. I started campaigns as France and Sweden under the 1.3 patch and have shelved both of them because the CAI is so abysmal that completely ruined any immersion.
I do dream of how much better ETW would be with a much more simplified map. ETW with its breathtaking battles and improved BAI (I think its better than RTW's and M2TW's) might have been a classic with a "Risk-Style" map- no more whack-a-mole battles, no more pointless raids, no more pathfinding issues, no more problems with the CAI having to choose between units in garrison or in field armies, but lot's of big battles (which the AI could sometimes win just on sheer strength of numbers) that emphasize ETW's biggest strength- it's battle engine!! However, that's just wishful thinking and I have to hope that future patches will alleviate some of the above issues, but that's probably just wishful thinking too. And that's saddest thing about ETW.
Most of the problem syou mentioned do happen. But these things have been inherent in every TW game in the series. This is _not_ new stuff. The campaign AI is better then it has been, which may not be saying all that much, but it's definitely better. In every TW game until now I've struggled to actually have stack on stack battles. In ETW I get them _all_ the time. On Very Hard the AI is not short on money, whether it's getting it via cheats or legitimately - I don't really care. Granted, the battle AI still stinks compared to a human, but I'm fighting full, balanced stacks all the time. I'm playing on VH and there's no shortage of enemy armies to blow away.
Comparing AI reaction to how a human would AI is just plain silly. No one has yet built an AI that is as intelligent as a human, or even close to it. To fix those situations you describe, the only way to really do that is to hard code reactions to certain situations. Which is exactly why the AI constantly declares war on the player if territory is adjacent and the AI has it as an objective. We need less of such AI code, not more.
I, for one, am grateful that I now have a campaign AI that can setup some good land battles on a consistent basis. The battle ai is another issue entirely (and oh how I wish it were better).
Most of the problem syou mentioned do happen. But these things have been inherent in every TW game in the series. This is _not_ new stuff. The campaign AI is better then it has been, which may not be saying all that much, but it's definitely better. In every TW game until now I've struggled to actually have stack on stack battles. In ETW I get them _all_ the time. On Very Hard the AI is not short on money, whether it's getting it via cheats or legitimately - I don't really care. Granted, the battle AI still stinks compared to a human, but I'm fighting full, balanced stacks all the time. I'm playing on VH and there's no shortage of enemy armies to blow away.
Comparing AI reaction to how a human would AI is just plain silly. No one has yet built an AI that is as intelligent as a human, or even close to it. To fix those situations you describe, the only way to really do that is to hard code reactions to certain situations. Which is exactly why the AI constantly declares war on the player if territory is adjacent and the AI has it as an objective. We need less of such AI code, not more.
I, for one, am grateful that I now have a campaign AI that can setup some good land battles on a consistent basis. The battle ai is another issue entirely (and oh how I wish it were better).
Again, we obviously got different versions of the game because I haven't encountered these epic land battles that you describe, and I also play on VH/VH. Instead I feel like General Zod screaming out in exasperation: "I win! I always win!" as I blow through the pathetic little stacks that nearly bankrupt countries send against me. Oh, I do get the occasional "big battle" when I besiege a large garrisoned town, but because I almost ALWAYS iniatiate such "big battles" then I make sure to bring more and better troops so I can't lose. I'm almost never outnumbered or outgunned which is really the ONLY way the TW BAI can win a battle and so I win ALL the time. (Further, if the AI nations are only getting by economically on the higher difficulty levels due to bonuses then give'em bigger ones because they're all broke in my games!) I have NEVER felt threatened with being defeated in this game. Not once. With apologies to General Patton and Vince Lombardi, but winning all the time isn't exactly fun.
You're right many of the above issues were found in previous TW titles. But that's not entirely true either: the CAI in previous TW titles knew how to use the diplomatic engine, how to use naval transport, and that different regions within the same nation were still part of that nation. Additionally, ETW has exacerbated many of these issues and created new ones due to all the added features to the campaign map that the AI doesn't understand. The CAI had a difficult enough time with the far less complex maps of RTW and M2TW. So why then did CA add on even MORE features to the campaign map that its CAI cannot handle? I guess to sell more copies to people who will steamroll through a campaign once or twice, kick the game into the dustbin, and move onto the next big thing. However, they really did a disservice to those strategy gamers who actually play games for the CHALLENGE!
Further, no where in my post did I allege that I wanted CA to design an AI as intelligent as a human. I'm fully aware that no AI can beat a human player on an even playing ground (and I've never had an issue with an AI getting bonuses on higher difficulty levels. I love how Civ4 has numerous levels of difficulty with the AI getting more and more powerful bonuses on each level so that the player can find a level at which he's comfortable and not feel overwhelmed.) My example of how a human plays this game vs. the AI was just to show the problems CA created by adding more features to the map. The raiding feature is a perfect example: a human player will quickly realize that it's pointless, but the AI won't. So why is it in the game? It hurts the game because it makes the CAI even more ineffective on the offensive than it was in RTW and M2TW, and it was abysmal on the offensive in those games. (STW and MTW had a LOT of faults, but at least their maps forced the AI to concentrate its forces so that it would sometimes win offensive battles just on sheer strength of numbers. Remember the Almohads? The Hojo Horde? In fact, MTW was the last game that CA designed which had a CAI that could handle most of its map's features, and I do wonder how ETW would be if CA had just kept on refining and updating those "Risk-Style" maps instead of moving to these "free-style" maps which have just played havoc with their CAI.) Thus, I believe the mechanics should have been simplified to at least give the AI a chance to compete with the human player and maybe even more of a chance with the right allocation of bonuses. When it became clear during playtesting that the CAI was having a tough time with the raiding feature then it should have junked. Same with that idiotic "hostile fleet entering a port feature." What did that add to the game other than confusing the heck out of the AI? And how did that benefit the game? So you're darn right- CA needed to add far less code than more, but adding more code is EXACTLY what they DID DO!!!!
Additionally, as a fan of the strategy games EU3 and Civ4, I know that getting an AI to act in semi-rational way in a PC game diplomatic engine is not an impossiblity. (EU3 has a feature similar to ETW in which the AI is programmed to want certain provinces, but in that game the AI only declares war when it thinks it can win it! How come CA's AI programmers cannot do that?) Further, those games also demonstrated that it is possible for the AI to be effective offensively on the stratmap if you tailor the map to the AI's strengths. In fact, the stratAI's in those games can actually win their games. (If you removed the player from ETW and let the AI nations battle it out for 200 turns would any of them even come close to fulfilling their victory conditions? No.) Quite simply the AIs of those two games, both of which have been on the market for years, put the CAI of ETW to shame. They are not even in the same league. (And, yes, I know the argument that ETW is different due to it having tactical battles, but with each new TW release CA appears to ape more and more of Civ4's and EU3's strategy maps and thus I think comparisons are perfectly fair.)
Hey, it's great that you're having fun with ETW and find it's campaign improved. However, I truly believe that ETW's campaign AI is the worst one I've experienced in ANY TW game. It's a darn shame because I love this period of history, love the battle engine, but HATE the campaign AI. I truly wish I didn't, but unfortunately I do. It's so inept that it ruins the game- steamrolling a hapless and hopeless AI opponent has never been fun for me. (And I pull my punches in ETW by not blitzing and not using trade nodes. I've always been a big believer in allowing AI nations in the TW series time to build up before I go knocking them down, but in ETW, due to the constant wars and the AI's inability to handle the economic engine, the AI nations actually get weaker as the game goes on. It's just awful.)
The basic problem is that the Campaign AI doesn't understand the principles by which the game works.
If you do a simple test you can easily prove this for yourself. About a month ago I decided that the campaign game was simply too easy if you expliot the loopholes in the game mechanic's, and I imposed a few basic house rules to limit my own options and give the Campaign AI more of a chance.
One of these rules was that I would never ever occupy more than one Trade Portal in the same Trade Theatre.
Typically, human players begin their campaigns by what is usually referred to as 'The Trade Race', which basically involves defeating the pirates guarding the trade theatres and posting trade ships on every Trade Portal to secure a monopoly in the trade of Ivory, Spices or Sugar. I played my first few campaigns this way and it nets the player a huge income that then allows them to dominate the game.
I figured that if I limited my acquisitions to one Trade Port per theatre maximum, I could still place 14 x East Indiamen on that spot and earn a decent income, but that there would always be other trade ports open for use by the AI, and so they would also be able to make a decent trade income and the resulting challenge would be greater. I even thought naively that it would result in an ongoing naval challenge as various factions fought over domination of the various trade theatres.
In fact, when I analysed the Campaign AI's response to this opportunity it was quite obvious that the Campaign AI had no idea how to expliot the trade theatres.
In many cases trade posts were simply left unoccupied despite the fact that for some reason factions do send fleets into the trade theatre zones and have them hang about pointlessly.
In most other cases even when the trade ports were claimed by the AI, little or no income is generated from them suggesting that most of the ships positioned on them are warships rather than traders.
In one particular incident I actually attack one of these fleets to discover that it consisted on one trade ship and four warships. In fact, the stack was producing a Net Loss for the faction that sent it, as the ships maintenance costs exceeded the potential income.
On another occassion I discovered that Great Britain had dispatched a fleet of seven ships to a Madagascar Trade Post which was not only not producing any income (e.g. it was all warships), but also had an almost full army stack aboard. The cost of that fleet and the army must have been huge and it just sat on the Trade Post for most of the game.
When the Campaign AI is that 'ignorant' of how the game actually works, let alone what strategies to employ to win then there is very little that we players can do to help, and as CA will not release the Mod Tools necessary to change the AI and Diplomacy behaviour it seems unlikely that things will improve any time soon.
resonantblue
07-28-2009, 18:06
Again, we obviously got different versions of the game because I haven't encountered these epic land battles that you describe, and I also play on VH/VH. Instead I feel like General Zod screaming out in exasperation: "I win! I always win!" as I blow through the pathetic little stacks that nearly bankrupt countries send against me. Oh, I do get the occasional "big battle" when I besiege a large garrisoned town, but because I almost ALWAYS iniatiate such "big battles" then I make sure to bring more and better troops so I can't lose. I'm almost never outnumbered or outgunned which is really the ONLY way the TW BAI can win a battle and so I win ALL the time. (Further, if the AI nations are only getting by economically on the higher difficulty levels due to bonuses then give'em bigger ones because they're all broke in my games!) I have NEVER felt threatened with being defeated in this game. Not once. With apologies to General Patton and Vince Lombardi, but winning all the time isn't exactly fun.
Give TROM a try. I'm engaged in an epic struggle against the Mughal Empire which owns all of India. Every turn a new stack shows up (of course I haven't raided their trade, which would certainly help, but I'm enjoying the epic land struggle) and I've only got one understrength army there to fight the hordes, running from province to province to try and stem the tide. The AI is building balanced armies with artillery, cavalry and infantry and I'm actually forced to withdraw from a good number of battles (VH/H) because my army is not at full strength. I'm losing provinces every other turn and gaining them back once my army replenishes.
I can't spare anything else because in Europe as Austria I'm engaged in conflict on three fronts - against the Russians who send a stack (not always full, but at least 14-15 units strong) to my borders to seize Galcia every second or third turn, France who continues to try to seize my protectorate Westphalia (whom I have had to protect with an army because, unfortunately, the AI fails to build settlement defences so it loses to a French full stack everytime) with a seemingly endless number of stacks and against the Ottomans who are desperately trying to expand into the Balkans after I seized most of it from them.
You're right many of the above issues were found in previous TW titles. But that's not entirely true either: the CAI in previous TW titles knew how to use the diplomatic engine, how to use naval transport, and that different regions within the same nation were still part of that nation.
I disagree. I can't tell you how many posts I recall from previous TW games where people are complaining about the lack of AI amphibious assaults. Oh yes, they happened once in a while, just like in ETW. Of course in MTW it was a non-issue mostly because for example England and Flanders were connected by a land bridge - but do you not remember people compalining about the CAI mostly ignoring the fact that a land bridge is there? The diplomacy was horrible in MTW, RTW and M2TW. THe only difference was that it was easier to make peace. And in 1.2 ETW it was relatively easy ot make peace. They changed that for some reason and we might disagree about the reason, but the fact remains that this is not something that was never fixed. Obviously they felt the design needed to be different. The random DOWs were just as bad in previous games of the TW series as they are now.
Additionally, ETW has exacerbated many of these issues and created new ones due to all the added features to the campaign map that the AI doesn't understand. The CAI had a difficult enough time with the far less complex maps of RTW and M2TW. So why then did CA add on even MORE features to the campaign map that its CAI cannot handle? I guess to sell more copies to people who will steamroll through a campaign once or twice, kick the game into the dustbin, and move onto the next big thing. However, they really did a disservice to those strategy gamers who actually play games for the CHALLENGE!
When you embark on a 2-3 year software project, you can not perform a proof of concept on everything. That's just not how software works. I'm sorry you think it should be different, but as someone who manages software projects let me just tell you that thinking is totally detatched from reality.
Further, no where in my post did I allege that I wanted CA to design an AI as intelligent as a human.
You are certainly implying it whether you know it or not. Whenever you make a case that the AI does X when it should do Y (such as why does the AI declare war or not make peace or whatever) you are implicitly comparing it's "irrational" behaviour to what a human would do.
Additionally, as a fan of the strategy games EU3 and Civ4, I know that getting an AI to act in semi-rational way in a PC game diplomatic engine is not an impossiblity. (EU3 has a feature similar to ETW in which the AI is programmed to want certain provinces, but in that game the AI only declares war when it thinks it can win it! How come CA's AI programmers cannot do that?) Further, those games also demonstrated that it is possible for the AI to be effective offensively on the stratmap if you tailor the map to the AI's strengths. In fact, the stratAI's in those games can actually win their games. (If you removed the player from ETW and let the AI nations battle it out for 200 turns would any of them even come close to fulfilling their victory conditions? No.) Quite simply the AIs of those two games, both of which have been on the market for years, put the CAI of ETW to shame. They are not even in the same league. (And, yes, I know the argument that ETW is different due to it having tactical battles, but with each new TW release CA appears to ape more and more of Civ4's and EU3's strategy maps and thus I think comparisons are perfectly fair.)
As a fan of the EU and HOI series, let me just say that the AI there sucks horribly too. Ever seen an amphibious invasion in EU2? Yeah right. You think "mini" raiding armies are a problem in TW? Did you even play EU2? it's funny because mos tof the things you complain about in the TW series have also plagued the EU series. One great thing about the EU series though is the diplomatic model is way ahead of the TW series. Protectorates/vassals all automatically are a part of your alliance and no one can dow them without dowing you, etc. But the AI there is also problematic. Like when your bad boy rating goes up everybody DOWs you even dinky little Savoy that has a tiny army will join in.
Hey, it's great that you're having fun with ETW and find it's campaign improved. However, I truly believe that ETW's campaign AI is the worst one I've experienced in ANY TW game. It's a darn shame because I love this period of history, love the battle engine, but HATE the campaign AI. I truly wish I didn't, but unfortunately I do. It's so inept that it ruins the game- steamrolling a hapless and hopeless AI opponent has never been fun for me. (And I pull my punches in ETW by not blitzing and not using trade nodes. I've always been a big believer in allowing AI nations in the TW series time to build up before I go knocking them down, but in ETW, due to the constant wars and the AI's inability to handle the economic engine, the AI nations actually get weaker as the game goes on. It's just awful.)
You're certainly entitled to your opinion and I can not quesiton the integrity of your feelings. But the arguments and comparisons you're making don't really add up.
If you're angry because you think CA is omnipotent and when they start a 2-3 year software project they knew the CAI would break on certain new campaign map features they added, well yes, I can see why that would frustrate you. But that's rooted in ignorance - that's not how it works and if they halted all progress on the rest of the game until the AI was good enough we'd still be playing Medieval Total War and CA would be bankrupt.
ReluctantSamurai
07-29-2009, 02:52
If you're angry because you think CA is omnipotent and when they start a 2-3 year software project they knew the CAI would break on certain new campaign map features they added, well yes, I can see why that would frustrate you. But that's rooted in ignorance - that's not how it works and if they halted all progress on the rest of the game until the AI was good enough we'd still be playing Medieval Total War and CA would be bankrupt.
Yes......and no.
CA, as a business, certainly needs to turn a profit. However, the way it has chosen to do this, IMHO, is to appeal to the casual gamer by adding tons of new features irrespective of whether the AI can handle them or not. This trend started with RTW and has continued to today. Economically, judging from the record sales of ETW, this was a wise decision but....................only because there is no real competition in this genre, allowing CA to pretty much do as it pleases.
I disagree that designing a challenging AI is akin to building the Pyramids. When CA started with STW & MTW, the simplicity of those games made for great gameplay as the AI was capable of handling what needed to be done to actually win the game. With RTW, the decision was made to go for the 'glitz and glitter' and the AI has never kept pace since. Since 'glitz and glitter' sells CD's, that's what CA has concentrated upon. I'm sure there are competent programmers over there, capable of designing a strong AI (it don't gotta be perfect, nothing ever is).
A recent experience of mine hits right to the heart of the matter, I think. I am enrolled in a program to teach me the basics of game design. In my very first course, the professor asked our class this question: What is the most important feature of game design?
Two of us answered for a strong AI and replayability. The rest of the class were for a$$-kicking graphics and complex play. I'm 56, and the other person who answered as I did is in their mid-40's......the rest of the class is late teen's, early 20's.
That about sums it up, AFAIAK.................................:no:
Yes......and no.
CA, as a business, certainly needs to turn a profit. However, the way it has chosen to do this, IMHO, is to appeal to the casual gamer by adding tons of new features irrespective of whether the AI can handle them or not. This trend started with RTW and has continued to today. Economically, judging from the record sales of ETW, this was a wise decision but....................only because there is no real competition in this genre, allowing CA to pretty much do as it pleases.
I disagree that designing a challenging AI is akin to building the Pyramids. When CA started with STW & MTW, the simplicity of those games made for great gameplay as the AI was capable of handling what needed to be done to actually win the game. With RTW, the decision was made to go for the 'glitz and glitter' and the AI has never kept pace since. Since 'glitz and glitter' sells CD's, that's what CA has concentrated upon. I'm sure there are competent programmers over there, capable of designing a strong AI (it don't gotta be perfect, nothing ever is).
A recent experience of mine hits right to the heart of the matter, I think. I am enrolled in a program to teach me the basics of game design. In my very first course, the professor asked our class this question: What is the most important feature of game design?
Two of us answered for a strong AI and replayability. The rest of the class were for a$$-kicking graphics and complex play. I'm 56, and the other person who answered as I did is in their mid-40's......the rest of the class is late teen's, early 20's.
That about sums it up, AFAIAK.................................:no:
ouch... even though... my son is 19 and he craves for better AI in all the games he plays.
Also, hasn't anyone noticed. To play TW games tactically one rarely gets to appreciate the graphics...
Vice versa, if one plays to appreciate the graphics, rarely the right tactical decisions are made...
Give TROM a try. I'm engaged in an epic struggle against the Mughal Empire which owns all of India. Every turn a new stack shows up (of course I haven't raided their trade, which would certainly help, but I'm enjoying the epic land struggle) and I've only got one understrength army there to fight the hordes, running from province to province to try and stem the tide. The AI is building balanced armies with artillery, cavalry and infantry and I'm actually forced to withdraw from a good number of battles (VH/H) because my army is not at full strength. I'm losing provinces every other turn and gaining them back once my army replenishes.
I can't spare anything else because in Europe as Austria I'm engaged in conflict on three fronts - against the Russians who send a stack (not always full, but at least 14-15 units strong) to my borders to seize Galcia every second or third turn, France who continues to try to seize my protectorate Westphalia (whom I have had to protect with an army because, unfortunately, the AI fails to build settlement defences so it loses to a French full stack everytime) with a seemingly endless number of stacks and against the Ottomans who are desperately trying to expand into the Balkans after I seized most of it from them.
So essentially you've admitted that you're playing a MODDED version of the game. Why? Could it be possible that you felt the vanilla CAI was subpar? If your arguments about an "improved CAI" are based on your playing a mod then your entire argument here is disingenuous. I'm NOT talking about a MODDED game!
I disagree. I can't tell you how many posts I recall from previous TW games where people are complaining about the lack of AI amphibious assaults. Oh yes, they happened once in a while, just like in ETW. Of course in MTW it was a non-issue mostly because for example England and Flanders were connected by a land bridge - but do you not remember people compalining about the CAI mostly ignoring the fact that a land bridge is there? The diplomacy was horrible in MTW, RTW and M2TW. THe only difference was that it was easier to make peace. And in 1.2 ETW it was relatively easy ot make peace. They changed that for some reason and we might disagree about the reason, but the fact remains that this is not something that was never fixed. Obviously they felt the design needed to be different. The random DOWs were just as bad in previous games of the TW series as they are now.
Amphibious assaults in ETW are rare to non-existent which was NOT the case in previous TW games. Further, when I'm talking about the AI not using diplomacy I'm NOT talking about the player being able to squeeze a deal out of the AI, but that the AI nations are not using it amongst themselves which is a FAR bigger problem and something I made very clear in my first post. This was NOT the case in previous TW titles. The AI nations in ETW is not making peace amongst themselves, not maxing out their trade routes with each other, and not making new alliances. It's killing their economies and killing the game! (Well, at least, the vanilla version, maybe not the modded version that you're playing.) The AIs of ALL previous TW games were able to do the above. Further, the AI knew how to retreat in all previous TW games (in STW and MTW the AI even knew how to make tactical retreats), but not in ETW. I actually had to fight a battle in which 12 men attacked my 1000+. Of course, I auto-resolved and suffered over a hundred casualties! Also, you keep ignoring my statements about ETW's AI treating each province as a seperate country which was NOT the case previously and is HUGE problem with the game.
When you embark on a 2-3 year software project, you can not perform a proof of concept on everything. That's just not how software works. I'm sorry you think it should be different, but as someone who manages software projects let me just tell you that thinking is totally detatched from reality.
So my expectations of the AI being able to function within a game are detached from reality? To expect the AI to be able to handle new features introduced in a game is not part of the deal when I purchase that game? Sorry, but I think that is absurd. That sounds like you're grasping at straws to find some excuse for a proven fact: ETW's AI doesn't know how to handle MANY of the game's features. That's not an industry standard, but just shoddy work and excusing it sounds like rabid fanboyism.
Plus, CA has been making these games since 2000- they are not some start-up company. They're the BIG BOY on the block with massive resources in comparison to other PC game makers. There is no excuse for the state ETW was released in especially in comparsion to other strategy games on market. Further, ETW has been in development longer than 2-3 years. It's been development since 2005.
You are certainly implying it whether you know it or not. Whenever you make a case that the AI does X when it should do Y (such as why does the AI declare war or not make peace or whatever) you are implicitly comparing it's "irrational" behaviour to what a human would do.
Nonsense. You're just ignoring what I wrote to attack a strawman argument. My point was simple: CA should not have added in a new feature that made the game MORE difficult for the AI which is what the addition of raiding did. I'm ALL for simplification to help the AI (as you chose to ignore by not cutting and pasting my remarks on it. I guess they didn't fit into your version of my argument.)
As a fan of the EU and HOI series, let me just say that the AI there sucks horribly too. Ever seen an amphibious invasion in EU2? Yeah right. You think "mini" raiding armies are a problem in TW? Did you even play EU2? it's funny because mos tof the things you complain about in the TW series have also plagued the EU series. One great thing about the EU series though is the diplomatic model is way ahead of the TW series. Protectorates/vassals all automatically are a part of your alliance and no one can dow them without dowing you, etc. But the AI there is also problematic. Like when your bad boy rating goes up everybody DOWs you even dinky little Savoy that has a tiny army will join in.
Again you're creating a strawman argument. I didn't say word about EU2. I specifically mentioned EU3, which has a pretty darn good AI by PC gaming standards (all of which are exploitable, but some are clearly better than others), and certainly vastly superior to ETW's CAI. If you want to compare the AI of a game released almost a decade ago to ETW's then go ahead, but you're being disingenuous again. And it's a sad fact that EU2's AI is still better than ETW's.
You're certainly entitled to your opinion and I can not quesiton the integrity of your feelings. But the arguments and comparisons you're making don't really add up.
So my arguments and comparisons, which you either ignored or purposely distorted, don't add up, huh? Well, if you're arguing against a bunch of stuff that I didn't actually say and then of course its not going to add up in your estimation! How convenient! Further, the few of my statements you have directly addressed apparently have the fatal flaw of being at odds with your opinion so undoubtedly those don't add up either. Wow! Big surprise!
If you're angry because you think CA is omnipotent and when they start a 2-3 year software project they knew the CAI would break on certain new campaign map features they added, well yes, I can see why that would frustrate you. But that's rooted in ignorance - that's not how it works and if they halted all progress on the rest of the game until the AI was good enough we'd still be playing Medieval Total War and CA would be bankrupt.
Thanks for the condescension.
I never said anything about CA halting ALL progress. (You just looooove "the strawman", don't you!) For the record, I love ETW's battle engine which I've mentioned before so don't pretend I didn't say it. The battles are gorgeous and undoubtedly CA's best work of any game of the series. Who is to say that ETW would not have sold the same or even more units with this battle engine and a refined and updated version of the earlier "Risk-Style" maps? Afterall, it's been the battles that have been the showpieces of the TW series and the new candy definitely moves units. Combine this battle engine with a decent CAI that can work within its map and CA would have a classic on its hands. That's what I mourn about this game- so close, but so far away.
Omnipotence wasn't needed for CA to be aware that its CAI would struggle with ETW's map. RTW and M2TW both fully illustrated the problems the CAI were having with these free-style type maps. So it wouldn't have taken much to figure out that adding more features to the campaign map would make things even tougher on the AI. Yet CA pushed forward. Also, CA knew about these CAI issues prior to release because a blind man can see them in the dark. I just wish CA had used some common sense during testing: if they saw that the AI couldn't handle a new feature then get rid of it or find a workaround. Maybe some people would have been ticked off if one of their favorite "features" (exploits) was taken away, but ETW would have been a better game for it. I'd far prefer a simpler but more challenging game than having a game full of features that I can use but the AI cannot. Basically, CA reached beyond their AI designing capabilities for this game. One may applaud the ideas and effort, but it simply didn't work and ETW suffered for it. And, unfortunately, I don't think CA will be able to ever get their CAI to function well within ETW's map- it's too complicated and CA has no record of vastly improving their AIs through patching or an expansion. I'd love to be proven wrong! Sadly, however, I think ETW will be the PC game version of "A Bridge Too Far."
Anyway your disingenuousness, strawman arguments, and condescending insults has convinced me that our little debate is at an end. You obviously cannot debate without resorting to such tactics so what's the point of continuing? If you want to keep stating how wrong my impressions of the sorry state of ETW's CAI are and rail about my "ignorance" of the software development world then go right ahead. However, I've never enjoyed someone p%ssing on my back and telling me it's raining, and that's what your defense of ETW's CAI feels like (especially since you're not even playing the game with it!)
Cecil XIX
07-29-2009, 07:50
So many of these problems could be aleviated by having a full-blown, all-inclusive online hotseat mode. Who cares how many years it would take to finish? It would be the ultimate succession game!
Give TROM a try. I'm engaged in an epic struggle against the Mughal Empire which owns all of India.
TROM does seem to make a big difference to the battle AI, which is why I don't comment on it anymore, as I'm no longer sure if the performance I get is representative of the game or the mod.
I certainly wouldn't waste my time going back to vanilla to find out. If your interested in the history I would certainly urge anyone to try TROM. Although I hear good stuff about DarthMod too.
pevergreen
07-29-2009, 11:13
So many of these problems could be aleviated by having a full-blown, all-inclusive online hotseat mode. Who cares how many years it would take to finish? It would be the ultimate succession game!
1v1 campaign is coming.
Its coming. Its coming. Its coming.
*holds teddy bear tight and rocks backwards and forwards*
So many of these problems could be aleviated by having a full-blown, all-inclusive online hotseat mode. Who cares how many years it would take to finish? It would be the ultimate succession game!
I'm a bit more sceptical about MP campaign mode. I played an MP campaign of MTW2 and one of the problems is that human players just naturally use all the expliots available so it becomes a sort of battle over 'who knows the best cheats' rather than actual gameplay.
Schiltrom
07-29-2009, 14:16
I love virtually everything about Empire, in fact the only thing I can thing of that I REALLY hate is the fact that besieged AI NEVER surrender even if I can't see the red in the balance of power (BOP, he he) bar. Perhaps they just can't comprehend their utter lack of chance.
The basic problem is that the Campaign AI doesn't understand the principles by which the game works.
If you do a simple test you can easily prove this for yourself. About a month ago I decided that the campaign game was simply too easy if you expliot the loopholes in the game mechanic's, and I imposed a few basic house rules to limit my own options and give the Campaign AI more of a chance.
One of these rules was that I would never ever occupy more than one Trade Portal in the same Trade Theatre.
Typically, human players begin their campaigns by what is usually referred to as 'The Trade Race', which basically involves defeating the pirates guarding the trade theatres and posting trade ships on every Trade Portal to secure a monopoly in the trade of Ivory, Spices or Sugar. I played my first few campaigns this way and it nets the player a huge income that then allows them to dominate the game.
I figured that if I limited my acquisitions to one Trade Port per theatre maximum, I could still place 14 x East Indiamen on that spot and earn a decent income, but that there would always be other trade ports open for use by the AI, and so they would also be able to make a decent trade income and the resulting challenge would be greater. I even thought naively that it would result in an ongoing naval challenge as various factions fought over domination of the various trade theatres.
In fact, when I analysed the Campaign AI's response to this opportunity it was quite obvious that the Campaign AI had no idea how to expliot the trade theatres.
In many cases trade posts were simply left unoccupied despite the fact that for some reason factions do send fleets into the trade theatre zones and have them hang about pointlessly.
In most other cases even when the trade ports were claimed by the AI, little or no income is generated from them suggesting that most of the ships positioned on them are warships rather than traders.
In one particular incident I actually attack one of these fleets to discover that it consisted on one trade ship and four warships. In fact, the stack was producing a Net Loss for the faction that sent it, as the ships maintenance costs exceeded the potential income.
On another occassion I discovered that Great Britain had dispatched a fleet of seven ships to a Madagascar Trade Post which was not only not producing any income (e.g. it was all warships), but also had an almost full army stack aboard. The cost of that fleet and the army must have been huge and it just sat on the Trade Post for most of the game.
When the Campaign AI is that 'ignorant' of how the game actually works, let alone what strategies to employ to win then there is very little that we players can do to help, and as CA will not release the Mod Tools necessary to change the AI and Diplomacy behaviour it seems unlikely that things will improve any time soon.
Yes, the campaign AI is a disaster still, especially the economic AI... Post 1.3, the only thing that keeps it afloat is the seemingly huge cash infusions it gets on VH. To be honest though, the economic AI was never CA's forte. I remember it being absolutely moronic in all TW titles all the way back to Shogun.
resonantblue
07-29-2009, 18:42
So essentially you've admitted that you're playing a MODDED version of the game. Why? Could it be possible that you felt the vanilla CAI was subpar? If your arguments about an "improved CAI" are based on your playing a mod then your entire argument here is disingenuous. I'm NOT talking about a MODDED game!
I already alluded to this in another post in this forum, but the two big changes TROM makes that I like are - less lethal long range musketry and much more accurate artillery. It does improve some other facets of the game (cash infusions to AI nations, etc), but I played vanilla and was doing just fine.
Amphibious assaults in ETW are rare to non-existent which was NOT the case in previous TW games.
Shrug. I can dig out a bunch of threads from people who disagree with you. Not that it would help - you've got an axe to grind and no amount of fact or logic is going to get in the way!
Further, when I'm talking about the AI not using diplomacy I'm NOT talking about the player being able to squeeze a deal out of the AI, but that the AI nations are not using it amongst themselves which is a FAR bigger problem and something I made very clear in my first post.
The AI does make peace. Just not very often. For the same reason in 1.3 it doesn't make peace with the human very often. They chose to make the diplomacy highly dependent on relations between the two countries and when war and territorial expansion can result in something like -200 relations, it's going to be hard to make peace. Things were different in 1.2, making it clear that this was a _choice_ by CA. They may find later it was a bad decision (I hope so), but what you're complaining about is not relevant.
This was NOT the case in previous TW titles. The AI nations in ETW is not making peace amongst themselves, not maxing out their trade routes with each other, and not making new alliances. It's killing their economies and killing the game!
See this is what I mean about you comparing the AI to human behaviour. A human player will do this because frankly the human player, end game, is going to take over the entire world anyways. In real history, nations did not make trade agreements with every nation they were at peace with. In fact, quite the opposite - mercantilism was still a favoured trading philosophy in the 18th century - and the idea that trading, while it may benefit you, but would benefit your trade partner relatively more is something that was long recognized by whoever the dominant trading nation of the time was. So they often did NOT trade with a nation that may have wanted to trade with them.
But none of that matters, because a human player always maximizes trade agreements and you, regardless of your protests otherwise, expect the CAI to act like a human.
A human player would, of course, request a trade agreement with everyone its not at war with. To the point that if that's how you really feel, we ought to just remove the "Request Trade Agreement" option from the diplomacy menu since you feel all AI players should act like humans and trade agreements should be implicit with peace.
(Well, at least, the vanilla version, maybe not the modded version that you're playing.) The AIs of ALL previous TW games were able to do the above. Further, the AI knew how to retreat in all previous TW games (in STW and MTW the AI even knew how to make tactical retreats), but not in ETW. I actually had to fight a battle in which 12 men attacked my 1000+. Of course, I auto-resolved and suffered over a hundred casualties! Also, you keep ignoring my statements about ETW's AI treating each province as a seperate country which was NOT the case previously and is HUGE problem with the game.
If you think they can't make the AI perform a tactical retreat you're kidding yourself. They _chose_ not to allow it, for whatever reason. Perhaps to shut up your other half, all the other people who endlessly complained about chasing little raiding armies all over the place and how annoying that was? Now there's a thought.
Thanks for the condescension.
No problem. It only took one response from you to realize that you're really angry and not likely to be persuaded by rational discourse. Embarassing you won't change your mind either, but it might make you think twice before listing all the reasons CA is evil, bad and should be punished for their insolence.
I never said anything about CA halting ALL progress. (You just looooove "the strawman", don't you!) For the record, I love ETW's battle engine which I've mentioned before so don't pretend I didn't say it. The battles are gorgeous and undoubtedly CA's best work of any game of the series. Who is to say that ETW would not have sold the same or even more units with this battle engine and a refined and updated version of the earlier "Risk-Style" maps? Afterall, it's been the battles that have been the showpieces of the TW series and the new candy definitely moves units. Combine this battle engine with a decent CAI that can work within its map and CA would have a classic on its hands. That's what I mourn about this game- so close, but so far away.
If you don't want them to add any features the CAI can't handle and your position is also that the CAI is totally broken and can barely stand on its own two feet what other conclusion should I draw? Obviously it's exaggerated to make a point, but the point stands.
Omnipotence wasn't needed for CA to be aware that its CAI would struggle with ETW's map. RTW and M2TW both fully illustrated the problems the CAI were having with these free-style type maps.
Okay so the obvious solution was for them to what... ? Roll back the campaign map back to the Risk style map because you don't think they should be allowed to release features that the CAI may not perfectly handle? Or just keep the campaign map there without any progress - progress that I will say personally I really like - until they can perfect the campaign AIs ability to manage it (eg never)?
I hate to break it to you, but to plenty of consumers, myself included, the CAI handles reasonably well. Well enough to play and enjoy the game. Is it perfect? No. Does it react how a human would react? No. Are either expectations reasonable? No. Am I willing to shell out $60 for the game, CAI and all? Absolutely. Has CA done its job in providing me what I consider value for my money? Yes. The number of hours I"ve spent on ETW would cost me about $5000 in movie tickets, for the equivalent entertainment level. I'm certainly appreciative of the value in ETW and other video games.
So it wouldn't have taken much to figure out that adding more features to the campaign map would make things even tougher on the AI. Yet CA pushed forward. Also, CA knew about these CAI issues prior to release because a blind man can see them in the dark. I just wish CA had used some common sense during testing: if they saw that the AI couldn't handle a new feature then get rid of it or find a workaround. Maybe some people would have been ticked off if one of their favorite "features" (exploits) was taken away, but ETW would have been a better game for it. I'd far prefer a simpler but more challenging game than having a game full of features that I can use but the AI cannot. Basically, CA reached beyond their AI designing capabilities for this game. One may applaud the ideas and effort, but it simply didn't work and ETW suffered for it. And, unfortunately, I don't think CA will be able to ever get their CAI to function well within ETW's map- it's too complicated and CA has no record of vastly improving their AIs through patching or an expansion. I'd love to be proven wrong! Sadly, however, I think ETW will be the PC game version of "A Bridge Too Far."
Yes, they're evil and they thought about this very scenario and decided to screw the consumer. Yes.
Anyway your disingenuousness, strawman arguments, and condescending insults has convinced me that our little debate is at an end. You obviously cannot debate without resorting to such tactics so what's the point of continuing? If you want to keep stating how wrong my impressions of the sorry state of ETW's CAI are and rail about my "ignorance" of the software development world then go right ahead. However, I've never enjoyed someone p%ssing on my back and telling me it's raining, and that's what your defense of ETW's CAI feels like (especially since you're not even playing the game with it!)
That's a shame. The sheer voulme of your irrational rantings has almost given me enough source material to complete my new book. I just need a few more posts from you to finish it off and we can probably even swing a movie deal.
Bottom line? Yes there are problems with the game. Was there nefarious intent of some sort at CA to extort you out of your hard earned $60? No. Is it playable? Certainly. Is it worth $60 or whatever you paid for it? That depends on you doesn't it? I certainly found plenty of value in my ETW purchase. Your mileage may vary.
Gentlemen, please dial it back a little. It's been an interesting conversation thus far, but it's gotten a bit....heated, shall we say? I understand all too well that a lot of folks have strong feelings on this subject -- including Yours Truly -- but we have to be able to discuss things calmly and civilly. :bow:
I love virtually everything about Empire, in fact the only thing I can thing of that I REALLY hate is the fact that besieged AI NEVER surrender even if I can't see the red in the balance of power (BOP, he he) bar. Perhaps they just can't comprehend their utter lack of chance.
I've actually had a besieged AI surrender once.
I think I even had the AI ask for peace once (however, I may have been dreaming):laugh4:
resonantblue
07-31-2009, 20:57
I'm sorry. It's a character flaw I have. I rather enjoy heated online discussions.
I will back away from this thread now :).
As some closing remarks to this thread I will add a personal measure of where I think this game is at.
Look at my sig. 6.5hrs/ 2 weeks
pre 1.3 this was 80hrs/2 weeks
I dont think Im the only one who has stopped playing this game
Last night I tried to pick up my game again - 2 turns - 2 more nations on the 'at war list'
meh tell em to take a number and get in line
I didnt click a third turn
nothing wrong with this game? then why arnt I playing it :thumbsdown:
And with Anno 1404 (dawn of discovery), HOI3 on the horizon
TOO SLOW!! CA
oldpiker
08-14-2009, 17:31
My first computer was a VIC-20 and my first gaming machine was a C-64. I am not new to gaming. I felt I needed to comment here. Your points are all well-taken. I agree with most. At some point in every game you become aware of the compromises and lack-of-reality of the whole shebang. My immersion in disbelief is usually over at that point. Up til that time I enjoy being part of the deception. After that I can frequently get many more miles out of just finding ways to "outsmart" the AI. It becomes an interesting challenge all its own. In a sense...figuring out how to "break" the game. In spite of its many and obvious flaws, I have found ETW to be one of the most engaging startegy titles I have ever owned. Its tactical battle engine is pretty impressive overall. Anybody who ever set up toy soldiers or "marble armies" as a child, would certainly find it amazing. Still, what I'm not getting is how so many players are able to run this monster, seemingly without technical difficulties (constant CTDs, migrating to the inability to eventually load saves and even finish the game). I don't usually have a cutting edge box, but I do roll my own, and normally have a machine that is lean enough and mean enough to run just about anything succesfully at some level. I have researched the forums and now think the game's memory address issues may be what have finally halted my ability to run ETW at all. How are so many you able to run this software long enough and hard enough to even discuss AI issues without it crashing constantly? Seems to me that this game's conceptual and AI issues rank far below its stability problems. This is one of the most unstable pieces of software I have ever run.
My first computer was a VIC-20 and my first gaming machine was a C-64. I am not new to gaming. I felt I needed to comment here. Your points are all well-taken. I agree with most. At some point in every game you become aware of the compromises and lack-of-reality of the whole shebang. My immersion in disbelief is usually over at that point. Up til that time I enjoy being part of the deception. After that I can frequently get many more miles out of just finding ways to "outsmart" the AI. It becomes an interesting challenge all its own. In a sense...figuring out how to "break" the game. In spite of its many and obvious flaws, I have found ETW to be one of the most engaging startegy titles I have ever owned. Its tactical battle engine is pretty impressive overall. Anybody who ever set up toy soldiers or "marble armies" as a child, would certainly find it amazing. Still, what I'm not getting is how so many players are able to run this monster, seemingly without technical difficulties (constant CTDs, migrating to the inability to eventually load saves and even finish the game). I don't usually have a cutting edge box, but I do roll my own, and normally have a machine that is lean enough and mean enough to run just about anything succesfully at some level. I have researched the forums and now think the game's memory address issues may be what have finally halted my ability to run ETW at all. How are so many you able to run this software long enough and hard enough to even discuss AI issues without it crashing constantly? Seems to me that this game's conceptual and AI issues rank far below its stability problems. This is one of the most unstable pieces of software I have ever run.
You answered your own question. Figuring out how to outsmart the CTD is the MOST FUN thing about Total War games. Save every turn! Still crashes? Don't move the ship into the port. Now save again! Try a saved game from 3 years ago. This time, auto-calc that battle. The strategies are endless, as is the CTD frustration. Turn the CTD frustration into your ally, by making it part of the game. That's what Total War is all about.
It was clear when RTW came out that the AI couldn't play it's own game. It just couldn't cope with some of the extra features, especially the open map. To make matters worse some issues were carried over from STW! Things haven't really improved. The game has become ever more complex, which makes it excellent for the player, but the barely improved AI just can't handle it.
oldpiker
08-15-2009, 21:45
I'm in synch with that. Trouble with ETW though, is that you can get to a place where none of the saves will load, or, if you find one that will, and play a battle through again from that point, you get a CTD immediately after, especially if you are going through an end-of-turn. It becomes impossible to get any of the saves to play through to a point where the game will advance and offer up a new save point. I don't keep more than a handfull of saves (at a gig or so of disk space apiece), so my options quickly become limited. This is obviously turning out to be a bad strategy with ETW! After quite a bit of research, I believe most of the issues commonly being experienced are due to the well-documented large memory space issues. I tried the suggestion by "Mad Boris," to no avail. Also have tried totally minimizing all settings just to see if I could get one of the saves to load up and play. No joy there. I do wonder if there is some corruption issue with the save games. I'm pretty much at the wall now. About the only option, if I want to keep running this software, is to start a new campaign, play it through till the memory problems bring everything to a halt again, and accept that I will never be able see a campaign through to the end. Bummer, since a lot of the research goodies don't become available til near the end game. BTW...I am running: Gigabyte GA-M59SLI, AMD\A64x2-4600,2GB Corsair 6400C4, 9600GT 512MB on Win XP SP3. I shut down all uneccessary processes before running ETW
Divine Wind
08-16-2009, 01:36
As some closing remarks to this thread I will add a personal measure of where I think this game is at.
Look at my sig. 6.5hrs/ 2 weeks
pre 1.3 this was 80hrs/2 weeks
I dont think Im the only one who has stopped playing this game
Last night I tried to pick up my game again - 2 turns - 2 more nations on the 'at war list'
meh tell em to take a number and get in line
I didnt click a third turn
nothing wrong with this game? then why arnt I playing it :thumbsdown:
And with Anno 1404 (dawn of discovery), HOI3 on the horizon
TOO SLOW!! CA
I'm exactly the same. After 1.3 came out, the frustration I had with ETW just made me give up entirely with the game. I tried reloading a new campaign last week after work, and almost instantly I was at war with half the world. I was clicking "quit" shortly after.
Empire (and MTW 2 to some extent) just lack something that Shoggie, MTW 1, and Rome had. The latter 3 gave me thousands of playing hours, replayability, role playing, and satisfaction. ETW, and MTW2 have been incredible disappointments for me and I will have to consider any future purchases in the total war series very seriously.
:no:
oldpiker
08-16-2009, 05:50
ETW is an excellent example of modern gaming trends that promote eye candy over gameplay. The old Commodore 64 from the 1980s hosted some really fine gaming challenges all running within 64 kilobytes. Two I remember fondly are Red Storm Rising, and the original Pirates from Sid Meir. They featured very basic graphics, but both totally immersed you in interesting play. Designers were not tempted to overdo the graphics because the capability was just not there. Instead, they worked within a very limited palette to deliver some genuinely challenging gaming. Don't get me wrong. ETW has the potential to be one of the finest RTS titles ever developed. And let's give them credit...it's a gorgeous piece of work. It just doesn't work because they chose eye candy over effective gameplay. If it didn't have potential I wouldn't have let it torture me through so many crashes over the last few months.
about gameplay versus eye candy, and the AI not being able to play its own game from RTW and onwards, I think I would be very happy if we could have the old MTW campaign game back, where apart from economy ( no AI trade lanes) and diplomacy the CAI worked well enough within the games parameters, and add the beautiful looks of MTW2/ETW.
antisocialmunky
08-16-2009, 13:58
As some closing remarks to this thread I will add a personal measure of where I think this game is at.
Look at my sig. 6.5hrs/ 2 weeks
pre 1.3 this was 80hrs/2 weeks
I dont think Im the only one who has stopped playing this game
Last night I tried to pick up my game again - 2 turns - 2 more nations on the 'at war list'
meh tell em to take a number and get in line
I didnt click a third turn
nothing wrong with this game? then why arnt I playing it :thumbsdown:
And with Anno 1404 (dawn of discovery), HOI3 on the horizon
TOO SLOW!! CA
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?
Owen Glyndwr
08-16-2009, 17:13
Well, I just played EUIII, and it really gave me some perspective on this AI. In my first campaign I invaded Scotland as England, and France was immediately dragged me it. I was expecting it to be a proxy war but oh was I wrong. I managed to steamroll Scotland, and had successfully captured the lowlands within 2 years. And then the French came. Being the shortsighted fool I was I neglected a navy, and France wholeheartedly took advantage. Soon they were send stack after stack of troops in, invading my west coast, and taking Glamorgan and Cornwall from me. At the same time they took advantage of my lack of naval support and took Dublin and Calais Naturally I was forced to abandon the lowlands to go defend my country. After a series of stunning defeats I was on the ropes. Scotland came back and retook Lorian and Ayshire, and were starting to move into Yorkshire and Lancashire. Meanwhile the French were pushing from two directions into my center. I was forced to change my strategy. This would no longer be a simple matter of me crushing Scotland into my empire. So I crashed my economy and created the biggest army my country would allow. And it still wasn't easy. I spent the next 10 years of my game kicking the French out, and moving up into Scotland. Finally I did that, but lacking a navy, was unable to push further in on the French. Not to mention my my kingdom was in shambles and my people were on the verge of revolt. So finally I went into peace negotiations.
Here´s another aspect of EU that I really like. Making negotiations is really intuitive, and they have a neat little map so you can see what they're ceding, you can order them to become your vassals, you can even force them to renationalize nations that they once destroyed (for example you can force England to give Wales its freedom :2thumbsup:.
Anyways, to Scotland I wasn't pleasant. They were physically broken, and had nothing to negotiate with. I essentially destroyed their nation, taking everything from them, but leaving them Lothian as a joke. As for France, even though I managed to kick them out of my country! At this point the French still held Dublin, but they didn't own Calais any more. Burgundy entered into a separate war with the French (I tried allying with them once I realized this, but they flat out rejected it. That is one thing I don't like about the game. Getting anything out of the AI can be extremely difficult, even when both nations have something to gain.) Anywho, the Burgundians came in and recaptured Calais for me! So now I had a bartering chip. At that point the French were re-besieging Calais, and me, without a navy, stood no chance of holding it. So In exchange for Dublin, I agreed to give up Calais. The French accepted this wholeheartedly, and we went about our separate ways. It's been twenty years now, and the French, while not being outright amiable, are at least neutral to me.
Now there were some things I truly liked about this.
1.) The first part was that I was severely punished in the game. Not for being the human player, but for blindly running into a war without considering the tangled web of alliances, and the implications of doing such a foolish act. Because of this, I found myself quite unprepared for the three front war I got stuck with (Me vs. Scotland, France and Norway), and doing this had a severe effect on my economy as my merchants were kicked out of nearly every country, and I was left friendless for my aggressions.
2.) France got dragged into the war due to it's alliance. But despite that, turned out to be my greatest foe. They actually cohesively invaded my country, and damn well near beat me. At the same time Scotland was acting in conjunction, and put me on a multi-front war. Even Norway got in on the action, reinforcing Scotland, and invading my East coast.
3.) Fighting the war was fun, but extremely tiring. I don't know about other people, but I do actually like to lose once in a while. WHen you're small, or on the ropes, the game is actually pretty fun. When you're so powerful that you can basically do whatever you want, the game is boring as hell.
4.) The AI identified weaknesses that I possessed, and then exploited them, namely, my lack of a navy, and the fact that I only had one army, which was distracted up north. And when this happened, they attacked en force.
5.) The AI actually settled for logical peace treaties. With Scotland, who really didn't exist, I could be harsh, and Scotland took what it could get. With France and Norway, with whom I didn't have a position to bargain from (They never really lost anything), I had to give a little to coerce a peace out of them, though it still wasn't outrageous. A couple ducats here, and a worthless territory there.
Anyways, it was a very cool engine, and the AI (to me, anyways) seemed very intelligent and reasonable. :2thumbsup::2thumbsup:
Maybe the fact that the game plays on a tile system similar to M:TW has an effect on the AI's cohesiveness, but I really wish it was something CA could look into. (Oh, and I think the fact that things happen in realtime is pretty cool!)
oldpiker
08-16-2009, 17:39
ETW is really two games -the political/diplomatic and empire-building element, and the tactical battle element. I doubt that CA will ever put in the effort or resources to effectively rewrite the empire-building element. I would like to see them at least offer an add-on or separate stand-alone that simply featured the tactical battle engine and the option to set up totally customized battle scenarios on interesting and varied terrain. That could be a nice consolation prize that would offer an hour or two of interesting battle action. They should also offer it free to those of us who ponied up for ETW.
ETW may be two games....neither of which function.
I was in a serious drought for strategy play. Having exhausted CiV4 I reached for EU and found quite the delight.
I can't say RTW or MTW2 are "deeper" than ETW, but they sure as hell seemed to be.
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 :yes:
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
08-18-2009, 06:18
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
08-19-2009, 03:56
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.
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