3 vs 3 devs vs the community

[Magyar Khan]

2 replays

this one is CA vs Kocmoc, Macajor and me

Giljay dropped (escaped? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif) just after the major clash

http://home.tiscali.nl/~t543201/web-wolves/wolves-replays/3vs3CA.mrp

CA vs Kocmo Amp and me. Amps thin line supported with some cav of me and kocmoc rolled up the flank, while amp was collecting heads of teh flank and centre player koc was facing the dreaded spanish http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif, I was doing nothing as i saw it was ok...

http://home.tiscali.nl/~t54320....ond.mrp (http://home.tiscali.nl/~t543201/web-wolves/wolves-replays/3vs3CAsecond.mrp)

I challenge anyone to make a review of the games they see on teh replays, i hope that teh replays show the actual battle for u. If many peeps facing problems i might make some screenshots.

I challenge the devs to analyse the thin line attacks...

Have fun with the replays.

[Swoosh So]

Was it fun for u guys? Did b team show?

[Satyr]

Sorry but the links don't work. Please try again because I would love to watch you guys play.

[Kraxis]

koc... I can't even get that to work.

But I manually took the link Magyar put up and used those, they work. Now I'm off to check the battles.

[Swoosh So]

The origonal links worked for me the new ones dont hehe, mags can you email them to me plz http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Magyar Khan]

seems the board cant get spaces working, i deleted them

[Magyar Khan]

try again swooshy

[HopAlongBunny]

Links seem to work fine http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

I hope to view another lesson in battle management http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Swoosh So]

Ill have to download them tomorrow from a net cafe http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif Dont have a cd burner at work and ive no floppy drive at home http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Swoosh So]

Did monsta and krae play in the b team? who were your opponents? too many questions? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif


SwoooooooshooooooooOOooooowl

[Kocmoc]

susi,


just 2 games was played. than CA left.
was it fun?

lets say, they dont have much practice and as i know(and saw) this i have much respect for them. it shows big honour to show up and expect to lose

it was fun, but not a challange.

look the second replay,mag jsut used his cav amm steamrolled from right to left, i moved back and lsot around 200 men, so i had full army still left, u can easy reduce it to a 2v3.

I hope it helped a bit to show them, that we need some changes. maybe we get a "patch" or some nice changes with the addon...perhaps something earlyer...who knows.....but it was fun

In wich game the devs show up and go online to play with the community?
this was a very nice thing, and i will thx again to got the chance to play.


koc

http://www.diepaten.com/room3.jpg

[Kraxis]

Ok here is what I saw in the first battle.

CA knew they were not as good as the CM (Community Members... don't know what to call you guys) so they set up a massive defensive line. Their units were mainly strong spears supported by halbardies, a few MAA and some knights, the obvious arbs were of course there too.

The Team had much more aggressive setup with a lot of cav and swords. I was not surprised to see Magyar with Byzantine Cav. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

While the theory of the CA team was sound, they made several blatant blunders. Such as sending three units og Chiv knights against the Byz Cav, and when that failed not moving them back with great speed. The CM managed to kill a lot of them with the Byz Cav arrows and the bolts of the Arbs.
Another big blunder was to position the arbs within the defensive line, and not moving them out when the CM began to pelt the Order Foot and Chiv Sergeants. Massive losses were felt there. Then Gil dropped I guess as the two flanking CA players made a mad dash and got killed.
Nothing new was learned there.

Second battle was much more interesting.

CA were not as defensive this time but they maintained a defensive posture. AMP and his Lancers attacked the Spanish CA player in one line units. Unfortunately for you Magyar (I'm guessing that was the point of mentioning it the first post) the CA player made several mistakes. First he did not commit more than three spears to the fight and only half his cav. Needless to say they were overwhelmed fast.
Second he only had Lancers for his general and Feudal Knights as staple cav.
That said I do think the first Order Foot ran horribly early, though that can easily be because they were massively outnumbered (the whole army AMP had was there in front of them and on their sides).

At the other end of the lines the battle was long, but the CA player had an odd selection of units in his Turkish army, 2 Peasants with no Valour and a unit of Hashishin. Now the Peasants can be explained as Pincushions but they were held back a long time while his Jannisary Infantry ate arb bolts in great numbers. The JI tried in vain to kill the opposing English Order Foot (or was it Chiv Sergeants), but they simlpy set in Loose and suffered few losses, while the JI had to advance under a hail from the Arbs.

Gil was in center and was clearly disturbed by the speedy rout of his ally on the left, so he positioned three Chivalric Sergeants to protect that flank... sadly he positioned them with the back to the enemy and never noticed this. Needless to say they were crushed with great speed, one of them even ran before any losses were suffered.
After that the battle was over, Gils forces scattered faster than you can say "Rout" and only a few of them managed to kill some enemies by charging ahead.

The last CA player tried with a charge but he did not commit his Khwarazmian Cav... and so his Jannisaries ran far too soon, despite a valiant fight.

All in all the thin lines did not show something I would not have expected given the situation of massive flanking and outnumbering of the CA forces. The result was more due to the disparity of skills than the thin lines.

[Swoosh So]

Mike did the bteam show? If so who was in it monsta and krae?

[Kocmoc]

yes, the guys was there but ca hadnt a bteam. so we just played this 2 games, b team didnt palyed.


koc

[Swoosh So]

Sheesh I bet monsta pops me in his head soup when i return to the game http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[CBR]

LOL (sorry heh)

Well cant add much to what Kraxis said. The CA team didnt have a chance really, thin cav lines or not.

CBR

[LadyAnn]

Next time, we should allow to form a W-team. "All girls team".

Annie

[baz]

how can i put it? was comprehensive http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif i thought they would be better to tell the truth...

[LadyAnn]

I was surprise this morning to see so many good people around. Usually I am not online during the day: too many distractions, can't fight without interruption. But this morning, I did come online, and see so many "old faces". And when I saw the devs, I understand why.

May I suggest:
1. The devs are welcome to come back online;

2. The boss of the devs should make them play online once per week or so, as part of the "career skill development". http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

3. next time they come, they should be part of our teams, not them vs. us thing. Of course, they will have trouble fighting the best of us, who doesn't have trouble fighting AMP+Kocmoc+Magyar combo? But if the teams are fairly even, they may appreciate more the balance of things.

Why I think it is important the devs play with us more often?

1. You can't balance things right unless you play with people who are keen in the art of "feel the imbalance and exploit it". If you think certain way, you will test your game certain way and think it is balance and good. But throw it to a thousand players and they will come up with some "solutions".

2. Not many game developers play online with people who play their games. The devs earn a lot of appreciation and respect from the community. I think it is a good marketing/public relation move. Time permits of course, we know the devs are busy making better games still.

Annie

[Dionysus9]

Quote[/b] (Kocmoc @ Dec. 13 2002,12:49)]. . .

lets say, they dont have much practice and as i know(and saw) this i have much respect for them. it shows big honour to show up and expect to lose

it was fun, but not a challange. . . .
Lets hear it for CA Hurrah Hurrah Hurrah

Kocmoc is right-- in what other game do you see developers showing up to play games against the community? I've never heard of this before. It is GREAT for morale, in my opinion, as it shows CA does care about us and our concerns for the game.

They had to know they were going to lose. These poor devs spend everyday pouring over code and machine language. Meanwhile we are sharpening our wits and blades on the field of battle. MTW is unique in many ways, one is that constant practice is required to stay on your game. The devs spend their time making the game better for us, not practicing how to win.

It shows great honor to stand and fight a battle you know you will lose. Hats off to CA.

Thank you, Creative Assembly, for sending your emmissaries to our "unofficial" forum. Thank you for clashing with us on the field. You bring great honor to your organization.

We hope to see you online playing recreationally. With a little bit of "polishing" we could get you to a competitive level fairly quickly. I, for one, would love to play a couple of friendly games and give some pointers.

Hurrah Hurrah Hurrah

CA

[baz]

they have my respect for turning up, they did this off there own backs and i do thank them for it http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Knight_Yellow]

They took a risk playing the best but i expected more from the ppl who made the game and should technically know every weakness.
only watched the 1st battle so far but heres what i thought

First of all the deployment was usual affair but Azimoth started ahead of his team and had to run over to them in turn having to sacrafice 3 knight units. then he positioned his arbs and archers way back? while his order got shot to s@$t by several of the wolf's ranged units.
Then on the CA's right flank B-O-F-H also used his arbs poorly but at least he used them. eventualy both flanks succumbed to a suicidal charge witch exposed gil's flanks and when they routed gil sat still and got tripled.

overall heres a thought about each player....

Gil: Comatosed or did he drop?
Azimoth: Why take ranged units when u dont use them?
B-O-F-H: Didnt see much of his tactics but i noticed a charge with wavering units into the middle of the enemy.

Kocmoc: Used his infantry to great effect in routing an entire flank.
Maca: Used his arbs verry well and reduced bofh's moral enough to make him rout without mutch effort
Magyar: Supported with calvary, then moved in for the final kill with his inf.
So overall i think it was a good idea but sending the best of us didnt provide the most entertaining of replays.

Mixed CA and Community teams is the way forward i think.
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[RageMonsta]

Although we were to become known as the B team (tut) we were present and hoping the warm up act (the 'A' team..hannible/face/Mr Mags..tut)would prepared them for our final assault...sadly it has been reported that the Dev team were taken away in an aMbulance screaming 'THE ROOM IS SPINNING..THE ROOM IS SPINNING'...

Hopefully a new found understanding will come to light..and in future when the MP community says something stinks the Vatican (CA) will smell it also....or at least realise that the minor %10 MP market have the best bloodhounds in the business...

Good to see they came and represented....Monsta thinks that Alexander Graham Bell would love to try a mobile phone or the internet...

It hs been reported that the original TW game developers has been quoted as saying...'We created this child...the MP minor %10 markey have made it the man it is today'.

-----ALL REPORTS ARE FACTUAL-----NO LIES OR FALSEHOODS HAVE PASSED THIS NEWS DESK---IF PROVEN OVERWISE SEND COMPLAINTS TO----THE ORG----

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif Monsta is out of retirement

[RageMonsta]

BTW Swooshy Mrs...we are at the moment deciding on what to serve when you come to dinner....since you are the menu it would be best if you choose the starter....

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif testing for ripe head

[bosdur]

Kraxis, you made a dead on review on the battle, but I'd like to chime in some of my opinions as well:

1st battle:
The 3 chivalric knight shouldn't have been used to chase the byzantine cavalry at all, Since they ran at the same speed and byz cav is used to skirmish, the knight can never get to the byz cav. What azimoth should do is to set up his arbalesters to counter the skirmishing cav, if we look at the 2nd battle, magyar was also trying to do the same thing with the turcoman but then after he saw that lucifer set up his arbalester right, he didnt bother to continue, even if he bothered his turcoman is going to be wasted, outranged and outpowered. Among the 3 CA players in the first battle only gil knows how to use his arbalesters right, didn't he see his teamm8s not using the arbalesters. Anyways he should have warned 'em http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif.

The U shaped defensive camping that they set up actually was great, if they kept it on hold & hold, covering the holes with (i.e cav flank counter with cav, shock flank counter w/ shock/cav) and use arbalesters right, they might put up a better fight.

2nd battle:

Lucifer made a terrible blunder by moving around his order foot too much, amp saw this and made the charge. Right about when amp was closing in, luciffer order foot was actually stopping neatly (flanks protected), but then he decided to move them again, his most right order foot stands out and got creamed big time, the flank collapse and hells break loose.

Again they should play defensive U-camp, might work better this time especially with amp's cav rush.

Final thought:

This friendly match is a positive one as it gives a dead-on confirmation of the flaws in the game (i.e cav rush), I would like to congratulate CA for sparing the time for this mutual feedbacking opportunity.

[HopAlongBunny]

All I have had time to look at is the first fight; and will need to look at it again to see more.

I thought he might be able to get your Byz cav on the right; apparently he thought so too but I didn't see any attempt to "box" your Byz with his 3 knights. In any case maybe he realized chasing you INTO a hail of arb fire was a bad idea and tried to cut losses...although a little late.

In the centre (where I focused most of my viewing) I was sure those Wolf knights were going to counter-charge the Order foot. When I saw Magyar continue to "skirmish" I shouted STOP It was too late....3 unsupported Order foot just kept on running deeper http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif If Gil had not dropped, perhaps these units would have had support....could have made things quite different.

Thank you to CA and CM for this great instructional video. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

I can see there is tons of stuff to digest with more watching. Thanks again *burp*

[Alrowan]

well ive only just downloaded the replays, but ill be sure to view them

i had a great tim last night at 3am in the morning... even though i didnt play it was just fun to catch up with a lot of the guys i first met when playing online, it was all good

[barocca]

Giljay neither "comatosed" nor escaped,
- he was privileged to see the CDT first hand.
(Both Games GilJay CTD'd)

I am left wondering what was the devious surprise Giljay tried to warn us about?

Much Kudo's to CA for playing online, my hope is they will continue to play online,
and yes, they should play as part of mixed teams,
this gives them the opportunity to watch some of the tactics we employ...(without the disheartenment of being "picked on" by all and sundry)...

My hope is they will read this thread, and take to heart the advice given here about deployment and tactics.

==== ====
These types of threads are great training aids for all newcomers to the game, we want the new players to become a challenge quickly, threads such as this can only help in that goal
==== ====

[TenkiSoratoti]

well what can i say, after i viewed those replays i thought what a waste of time.

The first battle was ok fair an above board the second battle, wtf, a ball of cavs running around routing 2 whole armys would that have happened, was the game designed for that????

Man o man from what i saw that was not the way battles are meant to be fought

Too many cavs what a load of bull pffft
screw that for a battle.

[GilJaysmith]

Evenin' folks,

Thanks for the kind words about our appearance :)

As to the battles... we made the mistake of playing at PCs which weren't within shouting distance of one another; I was upstairs and the others were downstairs, although it must be said Lucsypher was advising me, which is why my position in the first game had any tactical soundness about it. We were both a little concerned about BOFH's putting his arbs behind his infantry, and when he charged it wasn't because we'd suggested it :) I thought we hadn't necessarily lost that battle by the time I crashed, though, so it was annoying that I did.

The second battle was obviously a complete disaster, as you've noticed. Lucsypher says he didn't even see what hit him, and I know I didn't see what hit me; the first thing I knew about it was finding that I had the enemy on three sides of me. It came as somewhat of a surprise to me that my infantry were facing the wrong way, but I was busy correcting the tendency of my v4 fanatics to break formation and attack the cavalry which had steamed through the outside of our line. My fundamental mistake, however, was in forgetting that we were the attackers (although you wouldn't know that just from the action replay) and in bringing another infantry-only army. I can only blame the beer molecules floating up from the party being held downstairs at the time. That, or I'm rubbish :)

I suspect the crashes were caused by a mildly embarrassing lack of preparation; I have the patched retail version installed on my machine at work, but I didn't have the CD to hand Rather than risk installing a no-cd crack, I copied over what I thought was the unprotected patch release EXE. However, talking to our QA manager after the battles, it turns out that I may have had an EXE that was too new - apparently we developed for a couple of days beyond the version which Activision actually decided to release. So my EXE may have been subtly incompatible - although obviously it could still crash like anyone else's version ;-)

Anyway, it was good fun, our respects to the victors, and it may happen again sometimes. And I'll certainly try to play online from home more often, as I did after the game launched.

Gil ~ CA

[AMPage]

I see to many people complaining about cavalry armies, yet they aren't that hard to beat. A lot of people sit there not knowing how to react to a cavalry rush and wonder why they are routing. So, they just claim that cavalry are to strong, when in fact it's them being clueless on what to do.

If you think all cavalry armies are to strong, try playing against a clan using all byzantine. A clan using all byzantine and picking atleast 4 or more byzantine infantry is a lot worse, trust me.
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Spears need to be better against cavalry. Before the patch it was a pain in the ass to rout spears with cavalry, not even flanking and rear attacks worked well. Now it's spears routing fast when they get flanked or badly outnumebred and such *the way it should be*. I think spears need to eat away cavalry faster, so maybe they should have a bigger bouns vs cav.

[DthB4Dishonor]

Hail Everyone,

This is a bit embarrasing so please dont laugh at me guys. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/idea.gif . I have only had a pc for last couple of years since about junior year in H.S. so I'm not pc savy at all and STW was only 2nd pc game I ever really played. Well my question is this how do you play the replay. I d/l it onto desktop but then when I try and play it and open it it says "open with" and gives me a list of stuff I have on my pc. (I have win 98). What do I do? Thank you all in advance for your time.

RTKPaul

[GilJaysmith]

(no need for this to remain)

[Shahed]

Hail Paul

To watch the replay:

1. Put the .mrp file into the following folder:

C:\Program Files\Total War\Medieval - Total War\SaveGames\Battles

ATTENTION: the above path is only valid if u have installed MTW to the default directory. If not then simply find the SaveGames/Battles folder and place the replay in there.

2. Launch up MTW
3. Click Single Player
4. Click View Replays
5. Select and play the replay u want to watch

Both replays are quite errrm, for want of a better word, FUN http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[HopAlongBunny]

Looked at the 2nd replay. I thought I had seen cavalry rushes in SP...ouch

I thought the far flank had a chance of putting up a fight; the Janitors usually put on a good show. I'll have to look at it again to see what made them runaway so fast. Maybe the lack of secured flanks?

[AMPage]

I know kocmoc was the host, if you were the host it would have crashed. Good thing the game didn't hang when you crashed cause we wouldn't have been able to get the replays, i think anyway i'm not sure.

Lack of secured flanks was it. You can't be lost not knowing how to react against someone who knows what there doing or your dead. Some people online don't understand that and call me cheap, lame and say that's the only way i can win, by using unbalanced armies. Sad part is sometimes they are also using an unbalanced army aswell and are upset they lost.

[HopAlongBunny]

hehehe

That flank charge with your lancers was beautiful AMP Even if the CA player had committed full out to stopping you I think you would've won. That he/she committed piecemeal just made it a sure thing. Since the plan was to show CA what the game actually does in MP I was glad to see many things were used: thin line attack; cav rush; all (or nearly so) cav army... One thing I did NOT see was the "Attack of the Purple Windmills" (soon to be a feature length movie I hope)

[DthB4Dishonor]

Thanks alot Sinan http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif Its late but I'll watch the replays tomorrow.

RTKPaul

[barocca]

Quote[/b] (AMPage @ Dec. 14 2002,19:55)]Having watch the replay of the 1st game i wasn't in. I noticed Gil also dropped at the end, when the game was almost over. So, both games he dropped when the game was clearly lost. That reminds of those competitive games i played back in stw, when the host would drop me at the end, when he was losing. Oh well, it happens. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
GilJay came back into the foyer both times very clearly unimpressed with CTD

Both times He dissappeared from the list of peeps online, and various peeps mentioned that fact and surmised his system had crashed.

GSD's, CTD's, random lockups and drops are plenty common in games above 2v2.

your insinuation is unfriendly AMP.

[Nobunaga0611]

I couldn't help but laugh to myself while watching those replays. In the first game ca seemed to have a unified front, but their lack of battle knowledge hurt them. When AMP steamrolled the right side I seriously started to laugh. Units not even involved were running for thier lives, elite units too. The side-line Gil set up should have been longer, with hold-position and formation on. They would have still lost, but at least not as quickly. Very brave of you to show up CA. Please do so more often. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[AMPage]

Yes, you're right sorry about that.

Thank goodness for the patch they aren't common anymore, they are rare, well for me anyway.

[Kraxis]

I think I came out as not apreciationg the fact that CA don't have the same time to play as the opposing forced have.

I most certainly loved to see CA in action. That shows a lot of, both love and dedication to the game. We can't be dissatisfied with that. I have only seend devs come online in two other games, Tiberian Sun (I wonder why??) and WarCraft III (I'm not sure but I heard Rob Pardo was frequenting the Ladder of Starcraft)...

Surely AMP would have won regardless, he showed much better management of his cav, but if Azimuth had committed all forces he would have laste good time, and perhaps taken out enough of a chunk of AMP for the Lancers to have run out of steam. But sadly that would not have helped Gil with those wrongfacing spears http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif but if tehy had faced well enough I guess the fight would have been other than a routfest.
Those games certainly did not scare me regarding the cav. But I would not mind if spears got a little bit of bite back, though I do not demand it. If I had seen something like that against a much better opponent (no pun intended CA) then I would get scared.

[Swoosh So]

Well thanks for putting in an apperance giljay http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif Maybe i fight u guys one day when i get back online http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/flirt.gif

[TenkiSoratoti]

Too right http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[YunDog]

My hat is off to the CA boyz for 'aving a fair go' as we put it so eloquently down under

Onyas