What\'s with all the Camp. Game whining?

[Khan7]

I dunno if people are whining about the Camp. Game much anymore, and I don't know people's general attitude in this forum as I just arrived here, but some of the questions I have read in the Community Site's questions page are simply ridiculous. People get bent out of shape about the computer cheating and getting "unfair" advantages, and even about the inevitability of facing superly ginormous armies in the East of Japan in the end of the game if you start out as someone like Shimazu or Mori. As far as the "invincible wall of huge armies complaint", I can only counter that I've never had even a slight problem with this simply because only 16 units can fit on the battlefield at one time per side, and the huge armies are going to be mostly Ashigaru, so you just rout the first batch and you win the battle. It's a trade off-- start in the fertile East and you've got money but you have to fight like hell for it from the beginning; start in the Godforsaken Rocky Sh'tland and you get a large amount of security and stability from which to build a secure empire but not much money to do it with.

As far as cheating and anything else is concerned, I personally am glad for any strategic advantages or 'cheating' the AI does to help bolster it's excessively feeble mind. I personally did not play on higher difficulties of Camp. mode because I had gotten the impression that it was giving the AI insane combat advantages and didn't want to mess up my senses for multiplayer, but it turns out they just get a modest honor bonus.. I'll have to go try the higher diff. out now.

So all I can say to people who whine about the Camp. Game is for them to just imagine what it would be like fighting an actual human with an actual mind, and see if they'd prefer that to a feeble AI that cheats to make it harder.

Sorry to bitch, but I had to get that off my chest.

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Khan7

[Maltz]

I am also looking forward to some MP campaign that are smaller in scale. Once we get a host, then people can join in as different clans - and they just fight like normal SP campaign. Besides battle involving yourself, you also watch the others fighting. As a result, this campaign might actually take pretty long. I guess you have to allow save games. It will be a nice thing to do for friends that have similar schedule. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

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Like I once mentioned, it might be even harder to play the hordes ourselves against "lucky" enemy human. Some of the enemy can assassinate our daimyo without a problem even if the chance is only 1%, or can re-fight a lost battle 100 times until they win! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

I think there isn't such a big difference in expert and easy in terms of real battlefield. If one can win > 90% of the even or advantaged (i.e. not outnumbered) battles in easy mode, then he or she should be able to prevail in most expert levels, too. Just needs to be a little faster in clicking, which can be quickly improved.

Actually in SP campaign, most of the times we are quality-wise outnumbering the enemy on the battlefield for the first 16 units (or less). This goes down to the level of strategy (not battlefield tactics) which is not very largely explored in MP. For example, if we can get a defensable province plus good troop composition, then we can hold it against 10,000 hordes for several years with very little casaulty - in the meantime we will cut the hordes' supply bit by bit.

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We all hope that the horde will become smarter! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif


[This message has been edited by Maltz (edited 07-03-2001).]

[evilc]

goody, can't wait for that campaign, even though it could be VERY boring while people play giant battles

[Khan7]

Note to EvilC: Large battles, if anythying, have a tendency to be shorter than small battles, unless both sides have Teppu and choose to have a lengthy shoot-out before engagin hand to hand.

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Khan7

[Maltz]

Just expand the idea of the 2nd type of MP campaign a bit (the first type being the clan tournament format):

(1) Everybody can play (not restricted to good, big clans with good players), but needs to coordinate to spare quite a lot of time to actually finish the campaign.

(2) Time limits in strategy map (custom set, 2 min, 5 min, no limit, etc.)

(3) Chat channel on the strategy map - should be easy to do.

(4) Time limits on battlefield (to prevent watching very boring long battles).

Anything else should be similar to current MP and SP. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

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So what's fun with it, you might still ask. I figured out a few good reasons:

1. Strategy level of multi-player gameplay. The current MP is purely battlefield tactics, which is only a portion of STW. It will be nice if real human can also challenge each other in terms of their planning BEFORE the battle field. The result of a battle has usually been decided before the battle actually takes place! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

2. More cooperation and treachery, honorable or shameless... http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif Players can form alliance to beat the hordes together, or actually helping the horde to beat another... heh heh

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p.s. we need to get a patch to disable all the cheats.

[This message has been edited by Maltz (edited 07-03-2001).]

[Kraellin]

from what i've seen and heard on this forum, most folks dont agree with my idea for multi campaigns. i'd rather see ALL battles resolved with battle mode turned off and JUST play the strat map itself. this would be a LOT less time consuming and involve a LOT less sitting around and waiting for other's battle to be done. i do realize that a large number of the multi crowd would find this not as fun, being that they are good battle mode players...(whereas i'm not ;)

the other thing i'd like to see is the elimination of the weather choice for the attacker. i'd rather see this made into a time of day choice. weather would just become random based on the current season. elminate all timers as timers and simply use a time of day choice as to when to attack or not. the sun goes down, everyone withdraws, and the battle could end with a victor, a loser or a no decision. details would have to be worked out for the no decision.

and ultimately, i'd like to see the game become a massive multiplayer game. if you field an army, it's there, in real time and would move about on the ENTIRE map of japan in first person pov (point of view). if you're fielding more than one army perhaps you also have a mode for jumping around and running each of those armies personally or, as the daimyo, you sit in your castle and simply send out orders, via couriers, with the incumbent time lag of such, to each of your armies. if the daimyo himself fields an army then you run your territory based on where the daimyo is. couriers have to come to him and go from him accordingly. this to me would be the ultimate shogun and whereas this isnt going to happen for a while to come, i do hope CA considers going in this direction in the future.

K.

[Khan7]

Weather choice is entirely realistic and an important part of the game, to give the attacker some advantage that he would realistically have. If an attacker runs out of time, then barring the possibility that he has utterly smashed the defenders and just hasn't hunted everyone down, he does in reality lose, as he spent all the time and money to move his army out there and then wasn't able to achieve a foothold in the province he was after. It also provides some incentive to keep the game moving. It would be absurd if the pressure to keep the game moving were applied equally to attacker and defender, that would be absurd, it's just not that way.

Anway, gtg.

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Khan7

[Maltz]

It will be great if the two party can decide whether they want to have the battle result auto-calculated.

There can also be custom settings:

Battle Mode

( ) Auto-Resolve Only
( ) Auto-Resolve Priority
( ) Personal Command Priority
( ) Personal Command Only

The "priority" thing means as long as one party wants to auto-resolve/personal command, then the battle will be in that. Now everybody should be more happy http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[Kraellin]

maltz,

yes, i like those options, but do we know for sure that the multi camp game will only be two people? i had assumed, and it is just an assumption, that multi camp games would be like single player...8 players with some or all of these being human.

if it is only 2 player, then your options would work on every upcoming battle, but if it can be as many as 8 players then i think the host is going to have to set one option which remains the same all through that campaign. otherwise things would bog down too badly. but i do like the choices.

K.

[Khan7]

I'm not sure if they're going to be working anything out for an original STW MP Camp. Game.. I sorta kinda got the impression that it would only be for the expansion, as in the expansion there are only two playable sides which would cut 90% of the waiting for others to fight.. but who knows? I would do a seven player Classic STW multiplayer.. probably.. would have to try it.. but I don't know if they'll develop it..

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Khan7

[Maltz]

Quote Originally posted by Kraellin:


...but do we know for sure that the multi camp game will only be two people? i had assumed, and it is just an assumption, that multi camp games would be like single player...8 players with some or all of these being human.

[/QUOTE]

K I think it won't matter. This kind of MP campaign will have all the custom settings done at the very beginning. So no matter how many people join (2-7), the setting will apply to the rest of the game all the time.

The "prioirty" setting can be viewed as, "in any battle, as long as 1 party decides to go that way, then the battle will go thos way." So if facing a 4-player campaign, then people might decide to go "auto-resolve-prioity" in the first place. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif So even if I want to fight myself, and you want to auto-resolve, then it will be auto-resolved.

However, I suppose synchronizing 7 people is a hard business... guess in clans with similar regional background a more popular MP campaign is possible.

[MagyarKhans Cham]

thats why we have www.campaign.club.tip.nl (http://www.campaign.club.tip.nl)

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http://home-4.worldonline.nl/%7Et543201/web-mongol/mongol-images/mongolsmiley.gif Quote Although the enemy moves fast, a mongol arrow will kill him at last[/QUOTE]