Do you consider this game lame?

[{ABC}]

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

[Jeebus_Frist]

WesMod 3.12 (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=5;t=11970)

[Dhepee]

What's the point of this poll?
If someone considers this game lame they probably aren't going to spend a lot of time on its message boards discussing its finer points. Actually, spending time on the message boards of a game that you find lame, might in and of itself be lame, but that's just me. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[MrWhipple]

I am an old cuss who had a dinosaur for a pet back in the old black and white days. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif I have been a serious gammer since 1971 when you had to spend a few hours just to read the rules, and played with cardboard units on a paper hex map. I have also spent many Saturdays with a box full of hand painted minatures playing war with my buddies down at the local hobby shop with the battlefield spread out over four or five ping-pong tables. In the eighties I became a programmer and even wrote a couple of games. That was back when computers came stock with 16k (yes I said kilobytes) of RAM, and no hard drive. (we used a cassette player or paper tape)

So please everyone please take this in the spirit it was intended, that is, from a kindly old man who just wants to share his experience.

Anybody who thinks this game is lame, should first spend some time writing a game, any game. Even tic-tac-toe. You can even use one of the easy languages like VBasic. I won't ask you to spend a couple of years getting good at C++ or assembly language. Spend some time on it, keep working on it til it is playable, add some AI if you think that is so easy, any AI, it doesn't even have to be complex. When you are done, if you finish, then you may be qualified to call someone elses code lame.

I am also a history buff and find that MTW has a great balance between history and playability. That has always been the hardest trade off in game design. Do you make it true to history and hard to play, or playable and compromise on some fine points. I have also found that just playing the game has given even an old badger like me a better understanding of the time that was.

Ok I am done with my rant, please move along, there is nothing else to see here. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

[Vigi]

You gotta remember that CA is out, first and foremost, to make money. Therefore they will market the game towards the widest audience possible and so if a Viking having horns on his helmet is not historically accurate, they probably won't care, since horns are cool and that makes the game more easily marketable.(bad example perhaps, but you get the point I'd hope). Bottomline is a happy medium, which I dare say this game creates, is probably what they were lookin for. Make it super historically accurate and sure you will please some people, but some might not like it that indepth. And so the happy medium is created, where the history buffs would like it more historically accurate, but they will still play and enjoy it if isn't and vice versa.

[Mega Dux Bob]

Hey God; Were's the hot blond I keep on praying to you for? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif

Anyway, this game kicks bottom As Mr Whipple I played wargames back when dinosaurs roamed the land and we things like carboard and paper; MTW is everything a computer wargame should be.

[Eastside Character]

Quote[/b] ]Anyway, this game kicks bottom As Mr Whipple I played wargames back when dinosaurs roamed the land and we things like carboard and paper; MTW is everything a computer wargame should be.
Amen http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Snowhobbit]

Citera[/b] (Vigi @ Nov. 01 2003,03:13)]You gotta remember that CA is out, first and foremost, to make money. Therefore they will market the game towards the widest audience possible and so if a Viking having horns on his helmet is not historically accurate, they probably won't care, since horns are cool and that makes the game more easily marketable.(bad example perhaps, but you get the point I'd hope). Bottomline is a happy medium, which I dare say this game creates, is probably what they were lookin for. Make it super historically accurate and sure you will please some people, but some might not like it that indepth. And so the happy medium is created, where the history buffs would like it more historically accurate, but they will still play and enjoy it if isn't and vice versa.
The fact is that marketing put the horns on the shelfs
Stupid marketing http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif

[The_Emperor]

The TW games kick serious butt I won't even touch a C&C game after these ones.

Like many of those above i am a hardcore gamer, but I have never seen something as good as Shogun and Medieval.

Roll on Rome http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[ShaiHulud]

I'm sure I can dispute Mr Whipple's geezer status. It's hard to explain a TRS80 computer to guys who cut their teeth playing RTS or online multi-player games.

The state of the art I first learned was Stone Age stuff. You didn't dispute the level of competency of the AI.... that was something in a sci-fi book. With the advent of personal computers ( a truly expensive toy, at the time), a top-of-the-line 16K computer didn't even have graphics.

So, to come to the question of Is this game lame?, hell, no Since 40, 50, 60, and 100 man units was NOT the norm in history, one can also admit that historical accuracy is not perfectly reflected.

But, the game offers a pretty demanding experience which requires the display of historical military acumen. Fail to employ terrain, or ignore your flanks or the morale of your troops and you'll suffer a gratifyingly historical result.

Computer Risk? Now that's lame Total War at Expert level? Buckle up

[jadast]

This is a question of perspective. My wife who doesn't play agrees this is a lame game. I see it as a worthwhile diversion. Any game of this type will alter history - I think thats the point. It would be lame if I could take the English or HRE only to the historical extent of their empires. Not all units,sizes, weapons, etc. can be employeed by the game makers for a variety of reasons.

By the way, what games do you enjoy that are not lame?

[{ABC}]

Throwing a sphere dice

[Lehesu]

I find the name {God} mildly disturbing, but seeing that his purpose on the Org seems to be to incite flaming rather than logical conversation, I shall ignore the slight.

[katar]

god - no
troll - yes

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

[Gregoshi]

Hello {God}.

The results of the poll so far are not surprising. {God}, you've gotten comments from several others. I can guess that you are in the yes (this game is lame) camp based on your sig and profile information, but would you care to eloborate on your view? There are many people who are unhappy to varying degrees with differing aspects of the game, so you wouldn't be the first.

[{ABC}]

Lord Gregoshi, what don't you like about the game?

[Tempiic]

well I consider the SP version boring and perhaps lame... but that is because I am used to the MP version (if not addicted) and because I am used to playing more complex versions of the SP version, for example EU2... Still it is nicely done...

As for MP, bar a few minor annoyments, i still enjoy my time there, so as a whole I do not consider it lame, bar these few minor annoyments http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[TheSilverKnight]

{God}, I would like to see what you don't like about game. I don't think many players agree with you on the game being lame, especially if they play it.

[Gregoshi]

Quote[/b] ({God} @ Nov. 02 2003,05:27)]Lord Gregoshi, what don't you like about the game?
There is nothing I dislike about the game enough to call it lame.

What I'd like to see improved is the strategic end of the game. In particular, I'd like to see population factored into the SP campaign. Too much warring and you bleed your troop resource pool to the point you can't raise anymore units. Too much warring and the population become unhappy because they are dying in the wars and their food going to feed the army. I'd also like to see restrictions on how many of the higher tech units can be build. A population of mostly peasants shouldn't allow unlimited numbers of knights and such. Changes such as this would make the game much more challenging and storming all of Europe in 50-100 years near impossible...or so my thinking goes.

Now, {God}, will you enlighten us on your views? What makes the TW games so lame? What other games out there do it right? Come on, you won't get your head bitten off. There are quite a few people here who have some strong opinions on bad parts of the game.

[BDC]

I'm sure at least one Viking once wore a helmet with horns on it on a raiding trip (for a dare probably...). http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[FesterShinetop]

Quote[/b] (Dhepee @ Oct. 31 2003,22:04)] Actually, spending time on the message boards of a game that you find lame, might in and of itself be lame, but that's just me. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif
Actually, I am amazed about how often people do that...

[{ABC}]

i was just asking what you think about... i believe whatever it can be it will be lame, more or less.
btw,if you want a hot blonde,u can buy one soon at a cloning company.
But what's the point of playing this game? again, i'm just asking.

[Brutal DLX]

Aren't you supposed to be more focused on giving answers rather than asking questions, given your divine status?

So, I'd also like to hear why you ask whether we find this game lame on a MTW message board?

[King John II]

It is a good game. It's real time element bears comparison with, say, Age of Empires and its turn based strategy element bears comparison to the Civilisation games.

But it is flawed.

By reason of being high on ambition and not so high on craftsmanship.

Which results in numbers of ideas which, while good in themselves, are a distraction and faintly disappointing.

And that means the game is just not quite immersive enough.

[Peasant]

Is Medieval LAME?

This game is not as polished as Shogun. Perhaps that is because they tried too many things, or that the engine AI does not deal will with the width of Europe compared to the narrowness of Japan?

This game has a strong opening, a fun mid-game but the end-game sucks. There are already posts around on this, but it is apparent that CA ignored or sluffed on the end-game. I leave a list of adjectives: tedious, micromanaged, annoying, repetitive.

The vast array of troops is at first enticing, but after time, loses its appeal. I mean how many damn upgrades to spearmen do you need? It gets very, very silly. They should have just had armor and weapons upgrades done with more polish (or just like STW).

Reality
The reality factor suffered too much. If this was to make the game playable, then perhaps there is an argument, but I think it was just laziness/ignorance/game mechanics - I don't buy the excuse that playability and historicity can't go upwards together. Why only one or the other??? Overall, the boys of Medieval Europe thought their real game was fun enough to go out at every chance and lop heads off, often getting their own lopped. This lasted about 750 years. If it worked then, why would you move away from it now?

Reality factor #1: What the hell is wrong with cavalry? The horse of Shogun basically sucked, but the horse in Medieval really suck. Cavalry charges would shatter and trample enemy formations throughout the entire middle ages. Heavy Cavalry should be able to move through an entire enemy formation, and at times even entire armies. Not every time, and not in a variety of cases, but the fact that it never happens??? LAME. What's up with after the initial charge, poking the front ranks of the unit with their lances? Is this a melted Swiss-cheesing ritual? a Shiskabob? CA should have implemented a resilience column on the spreadsheet and this should apply against to the effectiveness of a cavalry charge. If this value is overcome, then the cavalry troop should move through the entire unit, and leave a trail of flat, dead men. The fact that this CENTRAL and CRUCIAL part of the medieval period was totally ignored is LAME. I guess the CA guys are ancient/infantry war fanatics, where such infantry indeed ruled the roost. Unfortunately for us and for them, this is MEDIEVAL TOTAL WAR. Save it for RTW, boys.

Reality factor #2: Archers suck. why don't archers fire bows AHEAD of their walking targets? This is just plain lame. I have seen games where this happens. Myth did this I believe, and you could even tell your archers to fire at a ground position if you wanted them to lead off in a precise way. What's up with limited ammo --24/28 arrows? Would you get all dressed up in tights and polish your stick of wood then FORGET to bring enough arrows? How hard is it to carry arrows? How much do they weigh? Yes I can mod this (and the accuracy somewhat), and I do, but it is still LAME.

Reality factor #3: Naval Battles. How the heck did CA think that this would be adding to the game? All I can say after playing this game for one year: What the F@&#? LAME. Especially since they could have patched it to make battles resolve in some sensible way. SHAME and LAME on you, CA.

Note #4: Rock-Scissors-Paper was a lame game when I was 5 years old and it is especially lame decades later. I see everyone taking this as a furniture of the universe argument as if it HAS to be this way. Not only is this not how reality works, but it is a LAME idea. Not every troops has to have a clear killer. Just make troops that reflect reality and then give the effects of valor and morale, use cost and other factors to balance super-troops. That will make the whole balance issue be dynamic and fun. Like war was for those brutal 750 years.

Techtrees. I don't play those lame Microsoft/Blizzard/Westwood games (I bought one once) for this techtree fact alone. Is it so hard to model a semi-realistic economy that is not so restrictive and progressive. (NO) Hell, the Soviets went from a feudal state to a modern industrial state in 20 years this last century. Some tech-tree. I suppose the CA A$$ kissers around here will say that this makes the game more playable? Nonsense. LAME.

AI. I have seen the AI do the most suicidal and idiotic things on a regular basis. I have also had it demolish me seemingly without giving me a chance, and appearing to cheat. This makes the ***game aspect*** totally not-fun and LAME. How about a challenge? However, life is often either too easy or too rough in this way- just ask all those lost civilizations that were demolished by some overwhelming army over the last 3000 years (Assyrians, Mongols, etc.)... Or Americans vs the native Indian tribes. It is a game after all, and it is not supposed to be totally realistic but rather enjoyable. Neither extreme is fun at all.

1: States would be less likely to get excommunicated. Getting Excomm. Is almost suicidal or at least horribly destructive. When I play Aragon, the French ALWAYS scare the crap out of me at first, until they get excomm. and then Germans and English savage them. This happens about 3 out of 4 times.
2: States should only start naval wars when they have an overwhelming economic or military interest and only when they have a chance to win. I usually build a fleet, then get attacked and then waste 25 years hunting down every last crappy ship that is totally unrealistically scuttling all my sea-trade. This is LAME LAM LAME, and only a moron would attack someone (me) when faced with such overwhelming superiority. Plus, I just wanted to trade, so why attack, we both made out.
3: Economies. how come AI states don't build nice economies? Why do they stop at a certain point on the tech-tree? Many threads on this. Good work posters, but it should have been fixed on the drawing boards -- lack of work at CA, that's why Lame. 4
: Alliances are not useless, but almost useless. Slightly better than in Shogun, but still LAME.
5: Agents are actually a very interesting idea in Medieval but were only implemented to about 25% of what they should have been. Further, it shouldn’t have been very difficult. Stacking spies would be good for starters. Making them less powerful/flexible would have helped, too (perhaps increased valor would unlock more abilities?). to those lamers who think spies suck: spies are realistic. SPIES CAN and often do incite revolts, but there has to be a way for stable regimes to easily counter this, like border guards that can kill more than one spy per turn...Lame.

I tried to get 3 friends to play this game. I bought one of them a copy, the other two bought their own. None of them played it for more than a week. They were all VERY different people, and some of them loved Shogun. One was a 18 year-old kid, the other a PhD at MIT, and the last a hard-core war-gamer. Just some of these criticisms came back to me. So no, I am not just a disaffected hermit.

Is the GAME LAME? No. MTW is a great game, despite all of these lame things. Thank you, CA. I still play it and fiddle with it all the time. I just wish I didn’t have to fiddle all the time. If they had implemented Cavalry and archers even 50% of how they should have, I would tip my hat to them, and they would get more sales and more money.

People who think this game overall is lame, should stop posting on these boards, and spend their time playing a game they think is not lame like.....what?

People who think you can explain away all the incredible problems with the game are only encouraging CA to slack in the future. Vote with your dollars, and complain for improvements. Stop kissing arse.

A dirty little peasant.

[Papewaio]

Quote[/b] (Lehesu @ Nov. 02 2003,08:06)]but seeing that his purpose on the Org seems to be to incite flaming rather than logical conversation
Hey it worked for the Inquistion

Burning bushes.

Catholic Church vs astronomy.

I think he is doing a very historical recreation of God http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif.

-----

Personnally I think you could make a very historically accurate game while not sacrificing game play. The only problem with high accuracy would be including a) logistics
b) that if it was truly accurate it would not divert much from truth.
c) being a player with a gestalt like ability is not highly accurate...living longer then any king 56 years undocumented feature or not, having most of your generals do as they are told... you would need a lower morale and less loyal generals in well general http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif. Just holding onto ones kingdom while trying to stop the power of your own barons from taking over would be a full time job.

[MrWhipple]

Quote[/b] (ShaiHulud @ Nov. 01 2003,12:50)]I'm sure I can dispute Mr Whipple's geezer status. It's hard to explain a TRS80 computer to guys who cut their teeth playing RTS or online multi-player games.
Just defending my Geezer status.

The first system that I had any real experience on was a DEC PDP11, then Data General Nova mini computers (you could play super Star Trek on the 32k machines but not the 16k ones). When the microprocessors came out I worked on Elf, Pet, Trash80, that one that made a good door stop. Then I built a lot of Heathkit H89, Heath/Zenith Z100, Z150 etc. Then the IBMs came out and I moved up to the PC, XT, AT, 386, etc. And who could forget the brick/peanut.

I can still remember the joy I felt when I upgraded my Heath H89 to 64K (the max at $400) and thought WOW who could ever use this much ram The first 10 meg hard drive for that machine cost $3,000 but it had an 8 inch floppy too (a whole meg of floppy)

And I was old when I statred http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif

[Gregoshi]

Hellooooo and welcome Peasant.

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif Wow, nice post. You raise some good points and I'd like to see much of what you mention come to the TW series. What I will disagree with is your contention that CA was lazy, sloppy, evil, or whatever for not developing a better game. We weren't involved in the game development, so how do we know? However, judging by the character of the CA folks that have showed up here in these forums, I doubt it was due to the unsavory nature of the CA staff.

I won't go into a long winded explanation (since I've done that before), but I will summarize my view: in (software) projects, you start with a list of goals/features but for various reasons (time/money, technical, etc) your final product usually comes out differently. Often what seems like a good idea on paper, turns out to be anything but good when put to code. CA has indicated that the STW/MTW game engine was restrictive in what they could do with it which is why they re-wrote the engine for RTW.

What I find encouraging with CA is that each game improves the series and they appear to be listening to us.

Examples:

1) STW had no ships and there was a group that was begging for naval combat. MTW comes along and introduces ships. As you pointed out so well, it is far from perfect, but I fully expect naval combat will be much better in RTW, though probably not as good as many are hoping.

2) STW diplomacy was very simple and people wanted more. MTW gave us some more variety on the diplomatic front. Again, there is room for more improvement though.

3) Spies/assassins are improved in MTW over the shinobi/ninja of STW. They can affect the game in more ways than in good ol' Shoggy - V&Vs and general loyalty.

4) You mentioned cav. Cav went from no charge penetration in STW to a little in MTW. Again, some improvement. Why not allow full run through? Only the developers can answer that question, but I imagine there were reasons (which I vaguely recall one of the CA programmers discussing quite a while ago).

Hopefully I've made my point (enough to be labeled a fanboy http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif ).

Anyway, good post and good discussion points for just a dirty little peasant. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

[King John II]

If you want to see how far the developers have advanced find a copy of Braveheart and play a few turns.

You will see there all the central ideas - but at a stage when they were little more than a twinkle in a (very, very, very ambitious) developer's eye.

In Braveheart there was the idea of manoevring separate units of troops and making use of formations. But in fact battles were just one amorphous mass mixed up with another. That aspect is now one of the strengths of the game. Castle assaults were present in Braveheart - but just would not run. Well, there is work to do yet on this part of the TW game engine, but at least you can assault. And the graphics are coming along well.

What happened between Braveheart and Shogun is that a whole slew of over-ambitious stuff was taken out and effort put into making some of the core ideas work.

Where, I think, MTW has gone just a bit backward from Braveheart, and particularly from STW, is that the immersive quality is very high in both the predecessor games but has fallen off a little in MTW.

I rather agree that too many units have been introduced and too many upgrades. Whereas things like soundtrack or video footage have been a bit neglected.

A major weakness of STW lies in its map. It is too limiting. That problem has been overcome in MTW. The number of provinces and variety of terrain is satisfying.

I am hoping that the next game in the sequence cuts back a bit on the distracting detail, includes some video clip rewards and gives the highest possible value to game balance. If it can possibly also achieve a high level of basic craftsmanship that will also be good.

[_Hector_]

Lame no this game had enjoyment to the art of warefare. I started playing games like aoe, aoeII,aom and got excited with ron. none proved to hold my attention as mtw has. Furthermore, my anticipation of rome totoal war, in out of this reality. (wish it was coming out earlier than fall of 04) No this game is more involving than others and allows you to gage your abilities. It also as a neat ability to hurt early rushers.

Fearless hector

[_Hector_]

Lame no this game had enjoyment to the art of warefare. I started playing games like aoe, aoeII,aom and got excited with ron. none proved to hold my attention as mtw has. Furthermore, my anticipation of rome totoal war, in out of this reality. (wish it was coming out earlier than fall of 04) No this game is more involving than others and allows you to gage your abilities. It also as a neat ability to hurt early rushers. In the past games I played in I was hurt early with rushing, usually because I just started playing it. Not true so much in this game.

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

[econ21]

I chose the balanced between realism and playability option, although I was tempted by the CA is god one.

Peasant - I also have my own doubts about the accuracy of MTW (esp. the ahistorical nature of all the sword units), but strangely enough I disagree with you about cav, archers and the modelling of combined arms (rock-scissors-paste). I find they are pretty much spot on in MTW. But there is clearly room for disagreement about such matters.

Plain fact is, as you say, that there is no better (or even comparable) computer wargame for the battles of the period . (Shogun is basically the same engine with different stats).

By the way, it is very easy for you to mod the relevant stats to increase the lethality of cav and archers; it's all in text files that you can edit in word or whatever.