View Full Version : MT2W:Where are we now??
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
12-03-2007, 00:57
Hey,
Over 1 year since MT2W has been Released, but where is the TW Community, as a whole, at now? Your Thoughts?
t1master
12-03-2007, 01:59
anybody who bought the game, played it, or urged others to play it and see were told...
I'm sure that you have a rather low standard as to what constitutes a worthwhile multiplayer game.
so i'm pretty sure this forum has become a holding pattern for that, and those who play m2 have moved on to other forums.
Where is the community. Generally into Europe. Strongest nations now are
Poles
Russians
Turks
Italians
Americans
Spaniards
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
12-03-2007, 23:17
Where is the community. Generally into Europe. Strongest nations now are
Poles
Russians
Turks
Italians
Americans
Spaniards
I think Poles are number 1 :yes: :beam:
But my family is Polish , and I'm not the #1 player around :wall: :sweatdrop:
Let me Rephrase my Question:
How is the TW Community Today. Is it doing good, bad, so-so?
[QUOTE={BHC}How is the TW Community Today. Is it doing good, bad, so-so?[/QUOTE]
It's fractured among the many different versions of the game. I think this happened because the multiplayer game declined in quality with each new release. So, the existing community didn't move on intact to the next game.
STW was played at 5000 money per player, and the playbalance was good enough that no rules limiting unit purchases were necessary. It was designed to be played at 5000 per player, and even though the system allowed a wide range on the money setting, 5000 was what almost everyone used because it was clearly the optimal value. In MTW it was unclear what the money per player should be, and a clear standard wasn't established. No matter what money setting was used in MTW there were significant imbalances, so there was no clearly optimal money setting. Judging from what I see posted RTW and M2TW also lack a strong standard. This prevents the multiplayer communities of those two games from becoming unified the way it was under original STW, and it increases the amount of time wasted trying to get a game with the settings for which you want to develop your gameplay skills.
Where is the community. Generally into Europe. Strongest nations now are
Poles
Russians
Turks
Italians
Americans
Spaniards
Krook how can you call a nation strong when we talk about a computer game? Maybe i completely misunderstand you point and you meant the most active countries?
:inquisitive:
I can because there is no international community atm. There are some national or regional communities. Polish TW community is strongest from them.
Anyway how can i call? :)
I'm rising my finger and pressing key :D
Hey,
Over 1 year since MT2W has been Released, but where is the TW Community, as a whole, at now? Your Thoughts?
Lost and Scattered.
Much like last year, but even more so.
Jochi Khan
12-10-2007, 18:49
The Total War community has deteriated more and more with each new game release.
The 'Good days' of STW are long gone. MTW did hold the communities attention up to and including VI. The days of the CWC games and CWB games were well supported.
It was the release of RTW that was the main reason for the rot. The well known clans did not 'move across' and thus the Lobby was 'taken over' by the present day type players and so it continued through BI, M2TW and now Kingdoms.
Needless to say, Kingdoms is not being played as we would expect due to different lobbies for each .exe and possibly the Securom (hidden file) that gets installed with Kingdoms.
pike master
12-11-2007, 01:54
this probably isnt the best forum to ask the question as hardly anyone even visits it anymore. im not quite sure what happened as i was in a delerium through it all but it may have been arguments and whatnot over an anthill.
to think all my men at arms and pikemen bled white over a small anthill. at least in world war 1 they gained a few yards or so before they got mowed down. before my swiss militia could plant their banner on the top of the small anthill which was an inchworm step they were trampled down in the onslaught that took place in this forum.
oops i just woke up out of my stupor. did i just write that stuff?
Jochi Khan
12-11-2007, 12:46
this probably isnt the best forum to ask the question as hardly anyone even visits it anymore. im not quite sure what happened as i was in a delerium through it all but it may have been arguments and whatnot over an anthill.
to think all my men at arms and pikemen bled white over a small anthill. at least in world war 1 they gained a few yards or so before they got mowed down. before my swiss militia could plant their banner on the top of the small anthill which was an inchworm step they were trampled down in the onslaught that took place in this forum.
oops i just woke up out of my stupor. did i just write that stuff?
Not sure I know what this post is refering to.
x-dANGEr
12-11-2007, 14:51
MIITW <> Multiplayer. For most of us because of lag.
this probably isnt the best forum to ask the question as hardly anyone even visits it anymore. im not quite sure what happened as i was in a delerium through it all but it may have been arguments and whatnot over an anthill.
What happened is the game deteriorated, and it's not an anthill of an issue because it's people's time that's being wasted. You can replace lost money, but you can't replace lost time.
pike master
12-20-2007, 20:42
the games broken condition has not alienated the forum members of the .com or the .net.
so i would assume it has something to do with issues not involving the broken condition of the game that members and visitors no longer frequent the org as much as they used to.
however back to topic i would think that rome and mtw2 are workable as there really isnt any game out there until the xiii century comes out that will involve anything even remotely what these games have.
and no one knows whether xiii century will have any multiplayer at all although i tend to believe the game may actually be geared for multiplayer when it comes out.
rome was really bad about about people dropping out during the battles but with mtw2 the problem is getting everyone to start. usually if everyone can get on board and the deployment phase is reached and the battle starts i have never seen very many players drop.
the issue at hand is that total war games have to relay the positions, movement and killing of hundreds or thousands of soldiers at once. in stw and mtw/vi thats all it had to do was work out equations and relay them back and forth. now rome and mtw2 have to do even more than that and anything that goes out of place can cause a desynch.
its not comparable to a game like halo where the host only has to keep up with the positions of i think 32 individuals and other games where the number of units is much smaller than the number from total war.
the situation i fear will only get worse with empires as these games are geared toward the single player community who want a lot of eye candy. multiplayer comes second.
im fairly satisfied with the game balance now except for two hand swords and halberdiers. spearmen can now stop a cav charge well as long as they remain stationary.
the only way to get smooth performance for multiplayer is too remove the eye candy.
the games broken condition has not alienated the forum members of the .com or the .net. so i would assume it has something to do with issues not involving the broken condition of the game that members and visitors no longer frequent the org as much as they used to.
Those are forums for players who have lower standards for what's an acceptable multiplayer experience than the players who used to come here. The org existed before those forums and before the lower quality multiplayer games were released by Creative Assembly, so, the patrons here were accustomed to the standards that Creative Assembly set with the first game in the series. The community at that time was top heavy with highly skilled player. Some players went from here and established .net over disagreement on how to get Creative Assembly to impliment changes to the game after the Mongol Invasion debacle, and perhaps over what changes should be made. Another .net site was established later that emhasizes making mods. I don't know of anyone who went from here to .com because there you have to accept whatever Creative Assembly makes regardless of the quality.
however back to topic i would think that rome and mtw2 are workable as there really isnt any game out there until the xiii century comes out that will involve anything even remotely what these games have.
I don't think they are worth playing online in their present state.
and no one knows whether xiii century will have any multiplayer at all although i tend to believe the game may actually be geared for multiplayer when it comes out.
I'm not getting my hopes up for XIII Century. Les Grognards might be good and it should be out fairly soon, although, it doesn't have the statistically based combat model of Total War.
rome was really bad about about people dropping out during the battles but with mtw2 the problem is getting everyone to start. usually if everyone can get on board and the deployment phase is reached and the battle starts i have never seen very many players drop.
Networking is not Creative Assembly's strong point. The basic idea is great because it limits the amount the data sent over the network during a battle to a very small amount. However, they don't seem to be able to optimize the communication protocol, and they insist on tying the communications during the battle to the matchmaking server which introduces additional instability. Creative Assembly acts as though they don't give a damn about how much trouble players have tying to play their game online.
the issue at hand is that total war games have to relay the positions, movement and killing of hundreds or thousands of soldiers at once. in stw and mtw/vi thats all it had to do was work out equations and relay them back and forth. now rome and mtw2 have to do even more than that and anything that goes out of place can cause a desynch.
No it doesn't have to relay that information because the positions, movement and killing occur on each machine independent of the other machines. The only things sent over the network to the host are the commands that the player issues and a checksum to make sure that player is in sync with the host. The host then relays the each player commands to the other machines in the game. RTW and M2TW do not place an additional demands on the communications link than STW or MTW. The number of men on the fiield is the same because, although they went from 16 units in a battle to 20 units, the unit size was made smaller. This is why it's puzzling why RTW and M2Tw require broadband, and yet perform worse.
im fairly satisfied with the game balance now except for two hand swords and halberdiers. spearmen can now stop a cav charge well as long as they remain stationary.
I'm not satisfied with the playbalance of any Total War game that came after original STW.
the only way to get smooth performance for multiplayer is too remove the eye candy.
The graphics just put additional demand on your video card, by the dynamic visual effects can load down your cpu substantially if they are not fully handled by features within the graphics card. For instance, in RTW v1.0 flaming arrows absolutely killed the frame rate. This problem was addressed in a patch, and it wasn't such a killer after that.
Gah Pu33ed - here you are talking like 90-year-old grandpa who remind his good times :)
Shogun was good balanced but shogun was not ideal of everything (I remember there were at least 1 rule about balancement).
CA simply can't balance game and this is a problem. There are only 2 bugs that really makes gameplay worse - cav bug and bug. Rest are only problems with balancing game. Before RTW balancemend depend really on 2 things - cav and inf. Missile units were strong, but almost every faction had same.
So - they were good platform to balance rest.
RTW changed that and with other mistakes made game idiotic.
MTW 2 is much better but balancement of unit sucks - infantry is simply too expensive and missile unit are too weak (archers) or too strong (miskeeters) - which connected with range but makes gameplay impossible on early (because without missile certain fractions is useless) and late era (because muskeeters are as effective like machine guns).
First job to modder should be correcting missile unit - for example by giving every nation pavs or and improving archers (missile) attack for example - about 1,5 to 2 times. Then do same with horse archers (and lower their price).
When archers will be doing normal damage - time to correct range bug.
After that we will be having good common platform to correct cav and infantry. Nothing more - nothing less.
I am 85 year old, Puzz3D must be at least 105.
Annie
Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe
12-27-2007, 20:03
Last time I met him, he could only drink tea... Not sure he had any teeth left :inquisitive:
And I am an awful old papasmurf!
Louis,
Gah Pu33ed - here you are talking like 90-year-old grandpa who remind his good times :)
I'm talking about objective standards that you can demonstrate in tests. These are not my standards. They are the standards of gameplay and playbalance that Creative Assembly set 7 years ago.
Shogun was good balanced but shogun was not ideal of everything (I remember there were at least 1 rule about balancement).
There were no rules used until after Mongol Invasion was released which was about a year after Shogun. However, Shogun was not perfect. Instead of addressing the imperfections, Creative Assemble immediately started, with the Mongol Invasion add-on, down the road that they continue to go down to this day notwithstanding the improvements effected in MTW/VI with the relatively brief return of LongJohn to the design team.
CA simply can't balance game and this is a problem.
Exactly.
Well, we have what I call "byproduct balance". MP is basically a byproduct of SP. If the SP game is such then the MP version will be good if not then not. SP will be ofc balanced by SP criteria so there is no guarantee that it would benefit MP.
Shogun was good because it happened to have a very simple and reasonably well balanced SP game.
Same holds for maps. Maps were good as long as they were made by humans (in Shogun and in MTW), as soon as maps were generated from the campaign map they were useless in MP.
All in all, Shogun was excellent because the stakes were high. CA had to prove that the concept works. So they made fantastic, captivating maps, nice 2D sprites, good AI (!!!) and they worked out a good balance.
Once they proved the concept they focused their effort on the SP campaign side (which soon turned out was the selling point). From that point on everything we "got" in MP is a side-effect. Though they made a short lived attempt to turn MP into an RTS style game (see RTW: green arrows, RTS interface, war eles etc) but it was a failure (in every aspect but in terms of popularity too). After that MP was completely abandoned by CA, they just provided the minimal services to be able to claim that the product has an MP side.
The sad, sad thing is that those players who absolutely loved this game and loved playing Shogun or MTW (Yuuki, CBR, smurf, Annie, etc) are still (almost) all here waiting for the day when CA will produce a game which is on the same level as Shogun or MTW was (not even better but at least the same), and this day will never come ... the SP gets more and more complicated, and Shogun MP, regardless how much we loved it, was a commercial failure.
How about no ashi rule? I don't remember if it was stw or mi.
Anyway I liked MI - funniest battle I have ever played was when I killed 15 units into 1 minute and then I was killing one val 9 kensai for 10 minutes :)
Kensai was introduced into S:TW/MI and it was one of the destabilizer and bad move.
Annie
I know when kensai was intruduced but im asking when "no ashi rule" was introduced.
BTW Kensai was nice Annie :) I remember guy charging me with 4 kensai and 3 of them killed by muskeeters.
Well, we have what I call "byproduct balance". MP is basically a byproduct of SP. If the SP game is such then the MP version will be good if not then not. SP will be ofc balanced by SP criteria so there is no guarantee that it would benefit MP. Shogun was good because it happened to have a very simple and reasonably well balanced SP game.
If the unit balance is improved via MP feedback it improves the SP game. This can be seen in the Samurai Wars mod for MTW/VI which has a strong SP campaign on the normal difficulty setting using units that were playbalanced in MP. When the units are unbalanced the strategic AI doesn't know which units are unbalanced, but after a while the human player figures out which units work better and will buy more of them giving the human an advantage in the battles. The greater the unbalance in the units the more advantage the human player can get.
In an old interview back before Shogun was released, Mike Simpson touted the inherent playbalance that the Sengoku period provided as an advantage for the gameplay. I wonder what happened to this kind of thinking at Creative Assembly? It's as though Creative Assembly found out that playbalance isn't particularly important to sell games, so it isn't cost effective to spend a lot of time playbalancing. This kind of thinking no only hurts MP gameplay but also hurts SP gameplay.
Same holds for maps. Maps were good as long as they were made by humans (in Shogun and in MTW), as soon as maps were generated from the campaign map they were useless in MP.
You could attack in Shogun MP at least in team games on any campaign map with a reasonable chance of winning with the exception of bridge maps. In fact, hilly maps like the original Tosa map or Mimanska were favorites of some teams to attack. This was possible because attritional play was dynamically balanced with positional play. This allowed the initiative to be an important tactical advantage which the attacker could utilize to overcome the static tactical advantages of the defender. This was quite an achievement in gameplay design considering that the attacker had no advantage in combat power over the defender.
How about no ashi rule? I don't remember if it was stw or mi.
Anyway I liked MI - funniest battle I have ever played was when I killed 15 units into 1 minute and then I was killing one val 9 kensai for 10 minutes :)
The no ashi rule came in with MI. A no ashi rule was never used before MI and neither was a 4 max of one unit type rule used. These rules were both consequences of unit imbalance. The ashi was imbalanced because the weapon and armor upgrade costs were miscalculated, and the 4 max on guns because the guns were overpowered. Forseeing problems in unit balance in MTW due to the large number of unit types in the game, LongJohn coded a 20% tax increase on more than 4 of one unit type, but I wish we could get rid of that tax in samurai wars because we don't need it since the units are all fairly well balanced. A well balanced game doesn't need unit purchase rules.
Anyway I liked MI - funniest battle I have ever played was when I killed 15 units into 1 minute and then I was killing one val 9 kensai for 10 minutes :)
The kensai unit is a problem because the battle engine can't properly handle single man units. Even without the battlefield upgrades in MTW/VI, I was not able to balance the kensai in MP and had to eliminate it from the unit selection. It's still present in SP, but players complained about it being able to kill whole armies of 3000 men. I reduced it's combat power, but now it's underpowered and the strategic AI clans suffer if they spend a lot of money training kensai. There is no optimal group of combat parameters for the kensai that I can identify that will make it balanced against 60 man units. Also, you can't depend on guns alone to be the counterunit for the kensai. But, you have identified and are an example of what I think is a basic reason why we aren't getting a better balanced game out of Creative Assembly these days.
Wait wait wait Pu33ed. Remember that I'm not playing samurai wars - give me link, maybe I will back there :)
Anyway I agree almost with everything you are talking about, maybe without one thing;
When the units are unbalanced the strategic AI doesn't know which units are unbalanced, but after a while the human player figures out which units work better and will buy more of them giving the human an advantage in the battles
Here I can't agree. Into Barbarian Invasion Eastern Rome (into single player, when commanded by AI), used great army, which influenced multiplayer a lot.
They were taking 20 units of plumbatriarii - and it was almost undefeated.
Here I can't agree. Into Barbarian Invasion Eastern Rome (into single player, when commanded by AI), used great army, which influenced multiplayer a lot.
They were taking 20 units of plumbatriarii - and it was almost undefeated.
So, in R:TW/BI multiplayer, we now expect 20 units of plumbatriarii running around, in overlapped and tight group attacking an imaginary point behind the opponent's battle line?
Annie
ps.: look at Puzz3d signature for SamWars
NO - 18 into 2 lines (8 and 10) units of plumbatriarii come to enemy line, threw 14 plumbas per soldier which kill 90% of enemies and then attack meele, which will rout enemies into 15 seconds.
NO - 18 into 2 lines (8 and 10) units of plumbatriarii come to enemy line, threw 14 plumbas per soldier which kill 90% of enemies and then attack meele, which will rout enemies into 15 seconds.
If you'd just stand there and let them shoot you... yes id agree with you.
There were many different tactics to counter roman plumbatarii spam, just like pretty much everything else too. Don't make BI worse than it was please.
LadyAnn, I suggest you simply give it a try and see for yourself. BI should be available for a very low prize now. It was good and still is a good game despite all the bugs and the lack of mp support.
So, in R:TW/BI multiplayer, we now expect 20 units of plumbatriarii running around, in overlapped and tight group attacking an imaginary point behind the opponent's battle line?
Nope. BI is much more refined than that. I dare to say BI is the most overlooked part of the series, I dare to say it has better balance (with a few rules) than MTW. Just the key features:
- very strong archers (gothic raiders, ER archers)
- strong defensive units with offensive abilities (plumbatarii, first cohorts)
- strong offensive units vulnerable to missiles (chosen axes)
- strong spears that can absolutely slaugther cavs and can withstand cav charge in sciltorm (gohtic spears, etc; sciltrom actually works!)
- strong but costly cavalry, heavy cav almost twice the price than spearmen and costlier than any infantry; light cavs cannot be upgraded to beat heavy cavs (even though upgrade on heavy cavs count a lot)
- good HA (too good for some ~;p)
There were only two unit types out of balance: war eles and berserkers. So with no arty, no ele, no zerk rule (and optionally with max 3 or 4 HA rule as some were not happy about the HA spam which worked well) it had a very, very good balance.
This was the only game in the whole series with several efficient strategies on team level. It was possible (i) to turtle with strong inf/archer combo; (ii) to play a balanced army with strong archers, offensive inf and cavs; and (iii) to rush with upgraded cavs/offensive inf and some cheap archers.
We played the CWC final with 2 other chinese (taiwan?) clans (Long was one forgot the other, mea culpa) each clan played a different style. We played the balanced game, one of the chinese clans was a rusher, the other was a turtle. Each of these styles worked since we all got into the final and there were heavy competition. The outcome was very interesting. We beat the turtles, the rusher beat us and the turtle beat the rusher (at the end the turtle won on points).
I have not seen three styles in any of the other TW games and I played tourney finals (CWB, CWC, TWPL) in all TW games. In MTW the dominant style was well balanced with a few good rusher clans (well actually one: SA). In RTW it was rush (with some skirmishing on occasions but essentially it was a rush) with a few turtles (like Rapax). In MTW2 it is again rush with some clans playing HA skirmishing but that is not very frequent.
All in all BI has a balance and diversity which none of the other TW games has not even MTW!
Shogun ofc is a different story ...~D but I was not a clan player at that time ...
the problems with BI is that
- most players were scared away by vanilla RTW
- it was an expansion (like Kingdoms) and fewer players had it than RTW, as a result it was more difficult to get a fun game of random players
Actually if there is anything that has the balance of BI, though it is entirely different period (and thus hard to compare), is the NTW2 mod by Lordz! Brilliant work, too bad it is only a mod.
Sorry Cheetach - BI was even less balanced than RTW.
With rules you were talking about most players would take rome, and rome would be dominating. Every barbarian nation would be destroyed - sooner or faster. Some by archers and plumbatriarii, some by meele rush, some by undefeated cav. We tested that with Fireblade - rome was crushing everything.
BTW Bersekers were one of most balanced units into WHOLE TOTAL WAR HISTORY. Extremely powerful when good used (but after 1.6 patch berseker hardly killed plumbatriari into meele only), but expensive, vulverable to missiles, charging and you had to kept them into mandess :).
Sorry Cheetach - BI was even less balanced than RTW.
With rules you were talking about most players would take rome, and rome would be dominating. Every barbarian nation would be destroyed - sooner or faster. Some by archers and plumbatriarii, some by meele rush, some by undefeated cav. We tested that with Fireblade - rome was crushing everything.
BTW Bersekers were one of most balanced units into WHOLE TOTAL WAR HISTORY. Extremely powerful when good used (but after 1.6 patch berseker hardly killed plumbatriari into meele only), but expensive, vulverable to missiles, charging and you had to kept them into mandess :).
You can call me Lional, RTK2Lional that name should be more familiar to you. ~;)
Well, I should have been more clear, I was not taling about 1v1. What you said might hold in 1v1. I was playing mostly 3v3s and in a 3v3 all kind of factions, i.e. chosen axe barbs (burgundii, alemanii, etc), archer heavy barbs (goths) and romans were very useful.
Zerks were not that costly and any good player would hide them into other troops. Also there was not much time to shoot a rushing enemy anyway. If they were so balanced why were they banned in all competions?
Cheetah.. does BI still contain no penalty for overlapping friendly units?
I do not know the exact stats but if you mean the blobbing exploit that killed vanilla RTW then it is not working in BI. Well, actually you can squize your troops into a small area (perhaps not as much as in RTW) but you wont get that huge advantage that you got in RTW.
There is still a mild push-through but nothing that cannot be stopped with a few spears in schiltrom. Some ppl will try it I am sure, especially against spread out troops but it is not working against reasonably thick formations.
On the other hand do not expect a neat 1 on 1 match up of each unit like in MTW where each MAA were carefully matched up. Some ppl might do it, with some units it might worth to do (like plumbatarii) but on most occasions (still talking about 3v3s) it is more like group vs group.
However, it is not RTW. Brute force push through does not work. Match ups matter, i.e. which group against which one, chosen axes vs plumbatarii is not the same as chosen axes vs spears in schiltrom etc.
Also, moral is very important. Unlike in MTW2 it is possible to get chainrouts with proper tactics, it is not easy though, brute force push through wont do it unlike in RTW.
NO - 18 into 2 lines (8 and 10) units of plumbatriarii come to enemy line, threw 14 plumbas per soldier which kill 90% of enemies and then attack meele, which will rout enemies into 15 seconds.
It looks like a one-trick army.
Annie
When the units are unbalanced the strategic AI doesn't know which units are unbalanced, but after a while the human player figures out which units work better and will buy more of them giving the human an advantage in the battles
Here I can't agree. Into Barbarian Invasion Eastern Rome (into single player, when commanded by AI), used great army, which influenced multiplayer a lot.
They were taking 20 units of plumbatriarii - and it was almost undefeated.
Ok, but that's just by chance that the AI trained a lot of that particular unit isn't it? I doubt that the strategic AI recognizes that the unit is that effective tactically, although, it might be doing some kind of cost effective analysis, but I doubt it. The strategic and tactical AI's are completely separate in all the Total War games which is something that's supposed to change in ETW.
I have not seen three styles in any of the other TW games and I played tourney finals (CWB, CWC, TWPL) in all TW games. In MTW the dominant style was well balanced with a few good rusher clans (well actually one: SA).
The SA clan did win MTW/VI CWC finals with a rush style vs my clan's more balanced style. There was a no artillery rule.
The three styles: rush, balanced and turtle are also usable in Samurai Wars in both 1v1 and team play which is something that happens when the game system is balanced. (There was some imbalance in original STW which slightly favored the rush style.) In addition, co-ordinating all 16 units individually to make matchups is important because the game mechanics penalize men who have less than 1 meter of space to fight and the RPS is relatively strong. Also, the morale level is optimized to allow enough time for flank attacks to be carried out, but low enough that flanked units will rout which can trigger chain routs as well. This isn't easy gameplay to master despite the relatively small number of unit types, and it might not appeal to players who would rather a gameplay where control of fewer groups is the effective method of play.
MT2W:Where are we now??
Maybe near the end of total war series. What ever Empires will be, they will be nothing like total wars before. IMO
Australian section is closed down (after they finished Kingdoms), RTW had new engine, MTW2 had new engine and ETW will have new engine. I guess that what will be left to us is MTW/VI with samurai mod or without, RTW/BI with excellent NTW2 (I doubt that anyone is playing it on MP this days) and MTW2 with retrofit mod. Have you noticed which word is repeating? Mod. Do you know World in Conflict game? When you enter into MP section you have an option to run a mod. A feature which was never provided by CA. I don't doubt that Empires will compleately change total war series. Bad for some and good for others (majority - SP) I guess.
*I can see Elmo reading this forums from time to time with a smile - long ago he mentioned what might be the future of TW series* ''and there be dragons''
Lional or Cheetach - I'm [SC]KrooK and how about that. Nicks are not playing.
Do you know why into 3vs3 every fractions were being used.
Because into most competition there were rule max 1 kind of fraction per team. So you could take 1 roman fraction 1 "axemen" fraction or 1 horse archers fraction.
I don't know who banned bersekers. I think someone who was in charge into tourneys but did not play BI longer time. Personally I made some test "axemen" barbarians vs rome and almost every time rome won - no care about bersekers.
Lady Ann - it was one trick, but if one always works why should we need more. Plumbatriari had range about 60 - 80 metres, practically like archers.
And on 1.4 they had attack 14, sniper precision and dozens of plumbas.
If you spend 20 % of plumbas on enemy archers, they are down.
Wolf_Kyolic
01-01-2008, 15:21
Lady Ann - it was one trick, but if one always works why should we need more.
Yes!!!!!!!!!!!
lol
NimbleNota
01-01-2008, 21:22
Where are we now?
Nowhere :thumbsdown:
shingenmitch2
03-27-2008, 03:23
First time back in a bit...
Nice to see folks like Puzz, Annie, Louis St., and Lionel are still around. :laugh4:
I stopped after Rome. The big issue for me was that the battles -- which sucked even in SP. The battle-game (the strength and point of the original STW) became almost an afterthought to the overall strategic game (which, even with all the eye candy CA added was still a lesser economic game than the Civilization series).
With Rome a big problem on the battlefield was that the units ran around almost uncontrollably fast -- like chickens with heads cut off. It became less an exercise in tactical generalship and more a fast mouse-click fest. Also, when units engaged each other their individual fights were over so quickly that any attempt at army tactics was useless. It lost the beautiful pin and flank tactics that were possible with STW1, STW/MI and to a lesser extent with MTW1 -- tactics that made possible the defeat of a more powerful unit by 2 lesser units by having them act in concert. This was something crucially missing in almost all prior wargames and, unfortunately, also with all these later versions of Total War.
Sadly, with a decline in MP I'm pretty sure the forums declined as well -- the MP built the clans and the clans built the community.
With all that said, I'm still holding out hope that one day CA will go back to its roots and build a good battle engine that plays well in MP.
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
03-28-2008, 02:28
I just beleve that the MP players here should be more active (I would, but hard to when you have wrist tentidonts :shame: :shame: ). I know MP isn't great like it was before, but I just think it be better if a lot of us actually stayed and help out, and not complain and leave the TW for good, or leave TW MP but not the fourms.
CeltiberoMordred
03-28-2008, 23:29
I think you guys should try the new Retrofit Multiplayer.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=100848
Jochi Khan
04-01-2008, 18:57
Hello shingenmitch2.
It's been a long time m8. :tumbleweed:
pike master
04-02-2008, 23:46
When I get back into MP I am planning on playing the Retrofit MP version. I believe it should be the standard for everyone to jump on board with.
Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe
04-03-2008, 19:54
Nice seeing you Mitch, playing anything fun at the moment?
(since it seems that noone is actually playing MTW2 MP, we might as well turn this forum into an "any other fun game around?" forum, right?)
Smurfy,
Wolf_Kyolic
04-07-2008, 02:27
TW is not a MP game anymore. VI was the last one in the serie which could be played online. All the releases after that are for SP.
If that was not the case, 90% of the MP community would not quit playing it.
Game is broken (a non-functioning engine with endless bugs and a non-hapening MP) since Rome and the devs do not give a damn about these facts where they are already able to sell 2 million copies to SP customers with every release.
Ctrl+A and double click enemy. That is how they plan it for the battlefield and MP peeps can go play other games if they don't like it. Selling 300 less copies do not bother them at all. They have two choices: Please MP community of 300 players and loose several hundred thousand SP customers or just ignore the MP and sell millions. Which would you choose if you were the owner of CA?
If you like campaign, that's fine. You can enjoy TW for a couple of months. If you want MP, just forget it.
ETW is on the way and that will be an even bigger disaster than Rome for the veterans of the game. All but all will be random in the battlefield. Note these words of mine somewhere. We talk again when it is released.
Just cope with the fact that TW is a story of the past. Was an epic story -but it is over. Get used to that and move on.
Sadly ..... I agree with all of the above. It's a real shame that they can't make more of an effort for the MP players. Our voice just seems to get swept under the carpet.
Who said theyll loose their SP customers customers if they make a better battle engine with better balance? Even SP players complain about balance and exploits, its lazyness, only laziness, and carelessness, as most fanboys will buy it just to see how it is, and they have made their money, even if it sucks ****. Than theyll make flawed patches, the big uplightening was retrofit, but now most players seem to prefer vanilla LOL.
Many here dont play TW or at least dont M2, so test it and see the main tactic(im not referring, to kyolic that seems, even if not playing it to know the "best" tactic)
The way I see it is they get a budget to complete a game.... So where do you think they will put most of their energy and money?? It stands to reason that that MP will always be the poor relation to SP. And MP's will always be moaning about some imbalance or other. :wall:
I guess most of us will try out Empire in the vain hope that MP will be a balanced
experience. Then come straight on here and moan about the injustice. The sad reality is that we are haemorrhaging MP's with each release.
Many here dont play TW or at least dont M2, so test it and see the main tactic.
Why should I do that? I would have to buy a new computer to do that, and my clan won't play M2 online. Nothing that's been posted about M2 + K + "any optional mod you want to include" suggests to me that it would be worth playing even if I got the game for free.
The codebase of this game has become so large that it is beyond the ability of the company to produce a fully functional game. After the game is released they only fix the stuff that's relatively easy to fix and new bugs are created by that process which proves that the game is beyond their control. Multiplayer suffers very badly as a result of this problem because it requires virtually unflawed functionality and very good playbalance. This project management deficiency became apparent when RTW was released, and they haven't solved the problem yet. Unless management becomes more realistic about what they can achieve with the available resources, the problem is not going to go away.
Retrofit mod brings back some VI experience. There are few things like flanking and so on which will be fixed in next addon but overall this mod is very good. Like NTW2 was for RTW. Of course this is not addon like Viking Invasion was yet
most of the clans are now playing Retrofit.
Fenix, I agree that the retrofit mod has improved what was largely a poor rush based experience.... I play retrofit only and to say that most of the clans are playing it may be a bit of a exaggeration. I would however say that there has been an upturn in the numbers of retrofit games in the lobby over the last week or so due to the GS tournament which people seem to be practising for. This in my book is a good thing as It's now easier for me to get a game.
Now we need a 2v2 tournament open to anyone, with lose regulations to promote game play. Anything that advertises retrofit is a good thing in my book.
tibilicus
04-09-2008, 01:18
It's not that the community is dead for Mp as such, just this community. Take a look at clan community sheild they manage to be engaging whilst allowing freeedom and keeping an eye on the behaviour of people. That is why theres no surprise that it transformed from a tournement site to the home of the MP community.
To be hoenst I would be surprised if this Mp section of the forums got more than 30 veiws a day, let alone some actually meeeningfull posts.
Titan of Gaul
04-09-2008, 22:55
To be hoenst I would be surprised if this Mp section of the forums got more than 30 veiws a day, let alone some actually meeeningfull posts.
Most truthful post this topic tbh lol
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
04-10-2008, 01:13
At One Time this fourm used to be the home of MP, maybe it will become so once agan one day?
Wolf_Kyolic
04-10-2008, 02:13
It's not that the community is dead for Mp as such, just this community. Take a look at clan community sheild they manage to be engaging whilst allowing freeedom and keeping an eye on the behaviour of people. That is why theres no surprise that it transformed from a tournement site to the home of the MP community.
To be hoenst I would be surprised if this Mp section of the forums got more than 30 veiws a day, let alone some actually meeeningfull posts.
Community means the forum posters? Or the players who are present there at the lobby?
How many players can you see online every night during the week? 40-50? And weekend nights? 60-70? And how many of them play Retrofit? 12-13?
What a big community that is! Laughable.
PS: As I stated in my previous post, game is broken seriously and the Retrofit mod tries to fix the balance issues at least and the majority of the tw veterans moved to it. So that is why I refer to it.
agreed, it doesn't matter how many are posting it's only ever about how many are playing
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
04-10-2008, 15:09
Community means the forum posters? Or the players who are present there at the lobby?
How many players can you see online every night during the week? 40-50? And weekend nights? 60-70? And how many of them play Retrofit? 12-13?
What a big community that is! Laughable.
PS: As I stated in my previous post, game is broken seriously and the Retrofit mod tries to fix the balance issues at least and the majority of the tw veterans moved to it. So that is why I refer to it.
Argeed with Kyolic also. I mean, I remerber when I started Viking Invasion Back in Early 2004, there would be 200-250 people on MTW/VI. It Differ on the Weekends and days, but it still more then the max number of people now. What is the highest number of people on a TW game today, 80 ot 90 like Kyoilc said?
Nobunaga
04-11-2008, 09:44
TW is mainly a SP game. MP just doesn't cut it. It will never appeal to the market...
It's not that the community is dead for Mp as such, just this community.
That's because this community wouldn't accept the degraded multiplayer experience that constitutes the new TW. Original STW had more people playing online than M2TW does now. That means the original MP community was bigger than the current community.
TW is mainly a SP game. MP just doesn't cut it. It will never appeal to the market...
It used to.... that's what we are saying:wall:
Tomisama
04-11-2008, 16:32
TW is mainly a SP game. MP just doesn't cut it. It will never appeal to the market...
Single Player was the easy money, and the natural path (safe) for developers to take in the beginning. Multiplayer was, and still is an add-on, only existing so that they can have something else to write on the box.
In that beginning (STW), Multiplayer’s only represented 5% of the buyers, so it was never taken seriously, and never developed to its full potential as an engine to drive sales.
From my perspective, this was and still is the major shortfall of the Total War series. They missed the big picture of how to sell games, and so have settled for a mediocre place in the market, with mediocre profits, and a mediocre future.
The concept is simple. People are attracted to crowds. The more people you can get together, the more people will come to see what’s going on (Woodstock, Loto, etc.). Multiplayers are very visible, and a strong Multiplayer community is the best evidence that a game is worth playing. This is true for both other Multiplayer’s, “and” Single Players alike.
The logic being; that if there are that many people playing it, it must be good!!!
Jochi Khan
04-11-2008, 22:48
Too true Tomi too true.
Marius Dynamite
04-11-2008, 23:36
I think most people who played M2:TW eventually realised it was a very poor game and have moved on.
Wolf_Kyolic
04-12-2008, 03:39
I think most people who played M2:TW eventually realised it was a very poor game and have moved on.
Compared to Rome, MTW2 is a lot better. Well Rome was a joke anyway.
But if you compare it to the original (MTW1), you find out that it just does not cut out. When you play MTW, it just feels solid where 90% of the resolution taking place has got a logical reason. That 10% chance factor is always there and that is not avoidable at all (initial charges and etc). Yet it is compensatable with player skills and in the past, it never became a huge concern unless you were a bad looser.
However the chance factor with MTW2 is much more higher than that. I don't want to state a specific ratio but trust me. It is much more higher.
Even that is enough reason to loose interest with the game.
Apart from that, the engine does not work properly. CA introduced animations with Rome and at that point units started to react according to their own will instead of the players orders which was the begining of the end.
Besides that, the number of the bugs that the game contained were countless. There was a petition for a patch and we listed more than 30 bugs demanded to be ironed (may be much more). Go figure it out.
MTW2 has the same engine as Rome. Just a revised version. So some of the issues that Rome had due to a broken engine are obviously still present there. And it contains many bugs as well.
So when you compare MTW2 to MTW1, you simply find out that MTW2 is way inferior. Only area it excels is the graphics and that is when you zoom in. Zoomed out, it is easier to identify units in MTW1.
However it is a fact that MTW1 feels "old" after this point when you compare its design structure and design quality to the other recent games in the market. It just does not feel high end. So "then let's go back to MTW1" approach won't work at all.
Unfortunatly, CA simply cannot manage to bring it together. When game play is there, the high end feel is missing and when it is there, (sort of) this time the game play is missing. It is always "wait till the next release" since Rome and upto now there has been 3 releases (BI, MTW2 and Kingdoms) which failed utterly and dissapointed the veterans of the game. And none of those releases were "free". People paid for their broken games.
As I always tell; right game, wrong company.
Returning back to the quote; yes, MTW2 is a poor game. Just the eye candy and that is all. It just does not feel right if you know what the real concept of the game is and how the mechanics should work (Shogun and MTW1). Originally TW is about skills (unit control, micro management, speed, making quick and right decisions and etc) and using your brain and creativity (tactics and depth). MTW2 lacks that depth which MTW1 and Shogun had. It lacks that because to have that, you need a perfect engine which is "operating". And it has to be bug free as well. MTW2 is too far from that. And yet devs try to avoid complexity on purpose because the game has to reach to masses.
Retrofit mod which the community plays makes everything a bit better to a degree but that is all. Modifying your Ford Focus does not turn it into a Ferrari no matter how hard core the modding is.
Nobunaga
04-12-2008, 07:17
It used to.... that's what we are saying
TW MP never appealed to mass market...Even at its best...
TW MP never appealed to mass market...Even at its best...
If you are talking about everyone who buys that game then yes as I have said SP has a bigger following. What I am saying is that MP had a larger following than it does now.... far larger.
The anticipation through the community for RTW was unbelievable. We'd all seen the graphics and we were awaiting it with baited breath. It was a real shame when we were let down so badly on gameplay.
This thread is about dissatisfied MP's I'm not interested in the "mass market" SP side of the game
:wall:
Nobunaga
04-12-2008, 08:39
If you are talking about everyone who buys that game then yes as I have said SP has a bigger following. What I am saying is that MP had a larger following than it does now.... far larger.
The anticipation through the community for RTW was unbelievable. We'd all seen the graphics and we were awaiting it with baited breath. It was a real shame when we were let down so badly on gameplay.
This thread is about dissatisfied MP's I'm not interested in the "mass market" SP side of the game
read man! i said TW MP never appealed to the MASS market. I know it had larger following in the past... but it never appealed to the MASS market.
Wolf_Kyolic
04-12-2008, 12:01
read man! i said TW MP never appealed to the MASS market. I know it had larger following in the past... but it never appealed to the MASS market.
As far as I know, MTW2 sold around 2 million copies.
Nobunaga
04-12-2008, 16:51
As far as I know, MTW2 sold around 2 million copies.
Yeah but how many people are in the multilayer foyer nowadays? Again I am talking about MP not SP. This game (MP) is stale. MP didn't change from the days of STW...which is sad really...
Nobunaga
04-12-2008, 16:53
BTW how come u guys are fixated on this game? As far as my experience go other RTS games (warcraft/starcraft/age series/war hammer 40K/Company of Heroes..) provide a better much more deep MP experience...
Tomisama
04-12-2008, 16:55
TW MP never appealed to mass market...Even at its best...
No Total War game was ever developed intentionally for, or promoted to the mass market as multiplayer, so how can you say they never appealed to the mass market?
For an example only:
January 25, 2007
SAGA Breaks Open the New Era of RTS Gaming
Saga, a new Massively-Multiplayer Online Real-time Strategy (MMORTS) game from Wahoo Studios, is set to revolutionize the way RTS games are played.
“The biggest innovation happening right now is that battles aren't self-contained anymore … You build up your armies and you carry them forward from battle to battle … Injecting a little RPG element into your army is the future.”- IGN article entitled “The State of the RTS”, April 7, 2006
According to IGN’s recent article, the future of RTS is persistency. The present of RTS is playing for a few hours, building a mighty city and army, amassing resources and money, all just to have the session suddenly end in victory or defeat, game over, sorry try again, start from scratch…
Saga brings persistency to RTS gaming. You build cities and armies to defend and manage a persistent online kingdom in a persistent fantasy world. When you’re offline, your kingdom continues to function; your guild wars progress as your friends and teammates play, your resources continue collecting, your kingdom continues to defend against enemy assassins and espionage missions…
“Think World of Warcraft from a thousand feet up… instead of having just a character, you own hundreds of troops and fight massive battles against other players,” says Jason Faller, Saga Creator and Executive Producer.
Saga’s features include military questing, an auction house for trading troops and spells, guild wars, espionage, and more. Kingdoms and armies gain permanent experience that carries forward perpetually for a more realistic and more exciting RTS experience.
Additionally, Saga brings the excitement of collectible gaming to the online environment. Rather than pay subscription fees, in Saga you pay as little or as much as you decide. Just as in collectible card or miniatures games, players can buy ‘booster packs’ of random troops and spells, which are traded and customized to create the strategic army of choice for each player.
Saga is the future, and for that matter, the not-so-distant future; internal Alpha testing is under way; closed Alpha testing begins late January, signups beginning immediately. Saga is slated for Beta release in Spring 2007. Visit http://www.playsaga.com for details and further information.
About Wahoo Studios, Inc. - Wahoo Studios is a leading independent developer of PC and console games. Based in Orem, Utah, Wahoo Studios has worked with the top game publishers, creating outstanding titles for all age groups and all platforms. Under their NinjaBee label, Wahoo Studios has also developed several critically acclaimed titles for the Xbox Live Arcade downloadable market. http://www.mpogd.com/news/?ID=2351
To bad it wasn’t a Total War game :sad:
Nobunaga
04-12-2008, 17:05
i said TW MP never appealed to the mass market not TW MP can never appeal to the mass market. Although I think that TW MP in its current state can't (in no way) compete with other (RTS) MP games.
Magazine/Game Websites articles are all hype and marketing we all know that. They count for nothing. As an example RTW scored on all game magazines/game websites more than STW/MTW... And we know that RTW is a crap game...
Tomisama
04-13-2008, 02:00
BTW how come u guys are fixated on this game? As far as my experience go other RTS games (warcraft/starcraft/age series/war hammer 40K/Company of Heroes..) provide a better much more deep MP experience...
I am presently checking out Company of Heroes, hoping to find what I personally want in a multiplayer game.
Thanks Nobu :wink:
Tomisama
04-13-2008, 13:23
Retrofit mod which the community plays makes everything a bit better to a degree but that is all. Modifying your Ford Focus does not turn it into a Ferrari no matter how hard core the modding is.I agree :yes:
But if you are going to try to make the best of the situation, be sure you understand that there are “two” Retrofit mods (Retrofit 1.0 and Retrofit MP).
They are completely separate Kingdom mods (MP does not require 1.0).
Retrofit MP is the one you want for the best multiplayer version.
Apparently the latest patch (Kingdoms v1.5 ) upgrades the original Kingdom mods ( Britannia, Crusades, Teutonic, and Americas), but does not effect any of the other mods.
So if you have Medieval II Kingdoms, and the Retrofit MP mod, I believe you have everything you need for the best multiplayer experience you can get with this game.
Have fun :beam:
Wolf_Kyolic
04-13-2008, 20:19
So if you have Medieval II Kingdoms, and the Retrofit MP mod, I believe you have everything you need for the best multiplayer experience you can get with this game.
Which is very limited.
hellenes
04-14-2008, 03:02
BTW how come u guys are fixated on this game? As far as my experience go other RTS games (warcraft/starcraft/age series/war hammer 40K/Company of Heroes..) provide a better much more deep MP experience...
But are mere dumbed down DUne2 clo(w)nes....
Tomisama
04-14-2008, 03:23
A new face in town?
XIII Century: Death or Glory
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/xiiicenturyswordhonor/review.html?mode=gsreview
XIII Century: Death or Glory First Impressions
With gameplay that's comparable to the Total War games, XIII Century will let you relive the great battles of the early Middle Ages.
By Jason Ocampo, GameSpot
Posted Apr 20, 2007 7:54 pm GMT
If you took the popular Total War strategy games, stripped out their overarching turn-based strategic layer, and kept the awesome real-time battles, the resulting game would look a lot like XIII Century: Death or Glory, a real-time tactical game from 1C and developer Unicorn Games Studios that's about the brutal era of medieval warfare.
XIII Century is a game that's about battles, and nothing but battles. It will feature more than 30 of them, divided into five campaigns that cover European history. These include notable battles such as Bouvines, Falkirk, Las Navas de Tolosa, and Lake Peipus, a legendary battle in Russian history that was fought on the surface of a frozen lake. All of the battles aim to historically reconstruct as much as possible, from accurate depictions of the landscape and terrain to the weather conditions and the colorful heraldry of the participants. Of course, how the battle unfolds will be up to you and your skills.
Just looking at the screenshots will tell you that the battles in XIII Century look and feel a lot like those found in Total War. At your command will be a wide range of units, from simple warriors and archers to light cavalry to different types of knights. Each faction has its own unique factions and specialties, as well. For instance, the French have some of the best mounted units in the game with its knights, while the Welsh have the best archers. Meanwhile, the Mongols also make an appearance, and Mongolian cavalry are incredibly swift. These units are armed with the appropriate weapons and equipment, according to historical research.
All of your units will be divided into formations, which is the basic control unit on the battlefield. You simply click on a formation and click somewhere on the map to tell it to move there, or click on an enemy formation to tell it to attack. Selecting multiple formations and click-dragging the mouse lets you play with different formation options on the battlefield, so you can put your foot soldiers in line to face an enemy charge or position your archers in the back of the formation for protection. Victory will go to those commanders that use their units wisely and maneuver them effectively on the battlefield.
The scale of the action is comparable to that of Rome or Medieval: Total War, as you can easily have hundreds, if not thousands, of units on the screen at one time. The visuals are sharp and detailed, and there are subtle variations between each man on the battlefield. If you like medieval warfare tactics, then XIII century is a game worth checking out when it ships. 1C hasn't announced a specific release date, but it is scheduled to ship later this year.
-GameSpothttp://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/xiiicenturyswordhonor/news.html?sid=6169432&mode=pr
Wolf_Kyolic
04-14-2008, 05:37
Multiplayer is something of a lost cause at present, as it supports only direct IP connections (although a patch providing access to a matchmaking server is apparently in the works).
No MP as yet.
Nobunaga
04-14-2008, 09:42
But are mere dumbed down DUne2 clo(w)nes....
Not really. To get a feeling on what I am saying just read this article (from www.wcreplays.com - It is written by a pro warcraft 3 gamer called sky and translated by someone named "LCeh".
Originally Posted by Sky
This is my first time writing such a commentary, and I had always wanted to do one. Because this is my own game, I especially like to write according to what I was thinking at the time, so please let me know if there is anything I can improve (on writing).
This is the first match against FoV in the WC3L series. Map is TS. I was a bit surprised to see Fov assigned to TS, as I was expecting Check. Nonetheless, I had to come up with a strategy before going into the game. (I lost to FoV on this map during IEF about a month ago, so I did a lot of preparation for this match)
Knowing FoV, he should be going panda to counter my Paladin first hero strategy. So I wanted to confirm it by sending a footman to scout, because I can only decide on a strategy if I know which hero he is using. For each hero there is a different counter, so this is important.
So once I knew he was going panda, my strategy was to creep the merch, don't build too many footmen, no expansion and fast tech to t3 and use tri hero to fight late game. This is because panda is very good against t1 units, so against panda I decide to go t3+tri hero, more to work with. Creeping this camp will allow me to get to lvl 3 quickly, as well as hiring the trollls.
After creeping the merc, I went to shop to look for boots of speed and staff of teleportation, and then go to his base and see if there are any injured ghouls I can HL. This is to disrupt UD, and at the same time, creep with footman to level up Paladin. Once I hit t2, I go t3 immediately to get knights. Meanwhile, I do whatever I can to harass Fov. My goal was to take out as many acos as possible, slow down his economy and gain a bigger advantage.
Once I get my knights and tri hero, I continue to harass with my paladin while leveling up my MK and BM. (Fov also tried to counter harrass by zepplin dropping in my base, but because I already built some towers to counter his panda, FoV's harassment did not do much). Since my paladin has been in his base this whole time, I know a lot about his army and his positioning. Knowing that I have a bigger army than he does, I decided to expand. (I tried engaging him in his base for a little bit, but was not able to gain any advantage, so I backed out and expand to build on my lead instead of fighting in his base)
Once expo's up, FoV knows it as well. From FoV's pov, he would probably want to engage in a fight as soon as possible, so I was not in a hurry to engage him and waited at my base. And so, not long after, he came, but due to his impaired economy and his lower hero level, he was not able to succeed.
Summary: In a game like this, Hu vs UD is more about the battle of the mind and strategies than anything else. It's about who can choose the right strategy and execute it better in the game. If you can take control of dynamics, then you are not far from winning. Therefore, it is safe to say that many times, in these matches between pros, it's about the battle of the combination of mind and the micro/macro execution.
Nobunaga
04-14-2008, 09:52
Dont get me wrong guys I love the TW series. STW was really innovative and had gr8 potential. But the MP was alway broken / full of exploits / full of bugs. For instance route bug in STW (i even suffered from this in SP) / fatigue rates in MTW / RTW / MTW2.
Many options/changes should be added to this game to make the MP worth playing. For example CA can add strategic points on the map and/or the ability to get additional troops during battle...
MP in its current state is just not worth it...
Nobunaga
04-14-2008, 10:12
btw anybody have an idea where longjohn is working now? The guy is really brilliant.
Tomisama
04-14-2008, 12:33
No MP as yet.Direct only (with static IP) at present, but they will have a server up and 2v2 available soon. Who knows what the future will bring?
What I see here is that their aim is clear. They are building a better game, and going to provide the design and development focus to the battle mechanics that the Total War series has completely lost sight of.
I would rather support someone who is “trying” to make a game that I want to play, rather than wasting my time and money on someone who doesn’t care what I want.
Time for truth! This has been a seven year down hill spiral, and I am tired of hoping it gets better, because it never does :no:
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
04-14-2008, 16:06
:wall:
Direct only (with static IP) at present, but they will have a server up and 2v2 available soon. Who knows what the future will bring?
What I see here is that their aim is clear. They are building a better game, and going to provide the design and development focus to the battle mechanics that the Total War series has completely lost sight of.
I would rather support someone who is “trying” to make a game that I want to play, rather than wasting my time and money on someone who doesn’t care what I want.
Time for truth! This has been a seven year down hill spiral, and I am tired of hoping it gets better, because it never does :no:
Argeed, But Maybe one day when all the MP players start leaving, then they make a better MP for TW. But again, mabye not :wall:
Orda Khan
04-14-2008, 16:25
Time for truth! This has been a seven year down hill spiral, and I am tired of hoping it gets better, because it never does :no:
I mirror your sentiments, Tomi and it's one reason I did not buy Kingdoms. I've given up playing TW, like Kyolic said, it was fun but now it's history
........Orda
Well I hope that the retrofit tournaments that are currently being played will get a few players across from Vanilla and that we can start to rebuild the mp community. I suppose that there is not much point moaning about it we either play TW in one form or another or we don't, people will vote with their feet.
Jochi Khan
04-14-2008, 17:26
Well we either play TW in one form or another or we don't, people will vote with their feet.
They already have.
Well I hope that the retrofit tournaments that are currently being played will get a few players across from Vanilla and that we can start to rebuild the mp community. I suppose that there is not much point moaning about it we either play TW in one form or another or we don't, people will vote with their feet.
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
04-15-2008, 01:03
But then again, if a lot of people don't want to come back to retirofit, I don't think it would do much sadly.
You are probably right m8, we'll have to see
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
04-15-2008, 14:53
Argeed, we will have to see. I think it will bring back some people, and attract some new players, and proably some current players will tranfer to it, but I don't see it making a big change. Just like when M2TW came out, people thought mabye it would be better MP wise and everyone would come back. Kinda was wrong on that prediction then unforutally . :wall:
M2TW I think is still better then RTW MP wise, just not lke STW/MTW.
shingenmitch2
04-24-2008, 15:59
Hi all,
I'll have to try that "retrofit" when I have some time again (that and jump in with Puzz if he's still doing his mod online). My gaming comp died -- something to do with graphics card fan stopping -- and only recently got it back running. A house, a wife, pets and spring cleaning also have a way of eating into one's time...
I just don't understand why CA/EA or whoever it is now doesn't make a spin-off game marketed for Multi-play only. It would seem to be easy $. Almost everything is there: take the old MI or even STW, update the graphics a bit, make a bunch of big maps tailored for MP. Where they would have to make an effort would be play balancing (which is really just tweaking parameters), streamlining how players' computers connect (no dropping or lag -- but if WOW can do it in 3D virtual world, how difficult is STW?), and make a really usable gaming forum for setting up matches. But essentially all the fundamentals are done. And, they wouldn't have to 'ef with all the campaign crap which has to be huge time/cost burden. This battle-only MP could become a whole new MTW game-line and has a ready market.
------
In response to a couple of posts up there (and to beat a dead horse): the reason the "old guys" complain about MP and the new game is, I think, that we saw the genius of the TW series as the battles themselves. They were revolutionary -- an exercise in generalship that had the strategy of chess mixed with live-action. They were THE reason for the game -- the campaign was only a set-up to make the battles meaningful. Somewhere along the way CA/EA flip-flopped the game making the campaign the central feature and the battles began to suffer. They LOOKED better than ever, but the effort to make them PLAY better was lost. Battles may have even been intentionally "sped up" (i.e. less tactical) because they were viewed as taking too long and clogging the campaign game. So what we got is a buggy game that looks great, but has a mediocre campaign and mediocre battles.
Orda Khan
04-24-2008, 16:21
Hiya Mitch,
It would be good and relatively easy to create TW multiplayer.
I'll add another reason why the 'old crowd' enjoyed the MP side. Interaction.
I've spent a few hours at a time playing online battles and had a thoroughly enjoyable time fighting with/against real people. Compare that with a few hours of SP campaign, winning a series of ridiculously one sided battles and being frustrated by annoying bugs. The time online never felt wasted, whereas many times I've asked myself why I wasted my time with the campaign
......Orda
If only a patch that allows 16 vs 16 MP games.
Jochi Khan
04-24-2008, 23:27
Hiya Mitch
Nice to see you still visiting. :yes:
I'll add another reason why the 'old crowd' enjoyed the MP side. Interaction.
It was the interaction with many players online that made TW so entertaining.
If only a patch that allows 16 vs 16 MP games.
If only. :2thumbsup:
cromwell
04-25-2008, 00:51
Hey you old bastards!!
I miss the old days too, I do check in here once in a while to see if there's any groundbreaking news....nothing so far.
I have been playing wow these days, and that game has the same issue as the TW games. Single player vs Multi player and the imbalances one causes the other.
For me there has to be something new to multi, I can't keep coming back to the same thing over and over. When I bought RTW + MTW2 and went online it was fun at first, but the novelty wears off quickly, and it's back to the same old. None of them hold me for long like the STW/MI/ MTW/VI.
I'll keep checking in like I'm sure other old vets do, Keep up the fight!
FearofCromwell
shingenmitch2
04-25-2008, 17:05
The peeps -- Orda, you are quite right. The peeps online made it special :yes: -- I've met a lot of nice folks that you sadly lose touch with when the online dies. Even the bad peeps kept things interesting.
And I'll also say this about the MP -- no comp AI was ever as challenging, interesting or inventive an opponent as a live person. Getting the rare win over top players was awesome. I hardly feel a sense of accomplishment :2thumbsup: or defeat :surrender2: when beating or losing to an inanimate computer. And when we had 4v4's the teamwork and limitless outcomes always made it fun. STW Wooded Roads 4 will always have a special place in my gaming memory.
shingenmitch2
04-25-2008, 17:08
Tosa, 16 vs. 16 can you imagine? How great would that be.... Hell 8v8 would have been awesome.
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
04-27-2008, 16:42
Tosa, 16 vs. 16 can you imagine? How great would that be.... Hell 8v8 would have been awesome.
I hontestly think 8v8 would be awesome, don't know about 16 .vs.16 though, but heck, BF2 and COD4 and them can do 16 .vs. 16 and attract people, so can we!! :egypt: :clown:
Wolf_Kyolic
04-28-2008, 02:42
Hmm 16 v 16.
Considering the MP code CA uses, that would run like 0.001 fps I guess.
Missle battle starts this week saturday and it ends next week sunday. Still to go!
:beam:
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
04-28-2008, 18:08
Hmm 16 v 16.
Considering the MP code CA uses, that would run like 0.001 fps I guess.
Missle battle starts this week saturday and it ends next week sunday. Still to go!
:beam:
True. But if you take out the missles, you won't have to wait to long :beam:
YellowMelon
05-02-2008, 15:32
This allows multitasking, Kyo. You can play the game, leave, do some laundry, bake a cake, seduce a woman (or man), then return for the epic conclusion.
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
05-06-2008, 20:00
This allows multitasking, Kyo. You can play the game, leave, do some laundry, bake a cake, seduce a woman (or man), then return for the epic conclusion.
A Man? Hope you talking about the girls here, not making refences to the guys :laugh4: :laugh4:
YellowMelon
05-06-2008, 23:07
Hey I'm not judging.
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
05-07-2008, 00:08
Hey I'm not judging.
Nethier am I, and I hope my joke didn't make me look like.. you know (which I'm not).
YellowMelon
05-07-2008, 00:55
If they (kyo) prefers the company of men, that's his choice.
I just notice funny thing. People who yell most about multi are those who...
are not playing.
Like Yellow Melon. He behave like multi exprert - despite I haven't seen him on gs for a year.
Maybe we should limit discussion only to players who really play multi.
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
05-09-2008, 22:30
I think it doesn't matter though Krook if he plays or not actively, as long as he actually played the game for a X amount of time I believe.
Not at all Warman.
Style of playing changes during months.
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
05-10-2008, 17:34
Not at all Warman.
Style of playing changes during months.
Style Of Playing As In changes? Explain Krook, because I don't think it really doesn't, untill at least when a New game comes out mabye.
YellowMelon
05-10-2008, 22:42
Explain when in the past few months I have discussed the game as an expert. I don't even touch the fields of battle at CCS. Maybe you should stop making assumptions there, Krook.
Please cite references to me acting like a MP expert in the past few months. I dare you.
gg
Style of playing changes during months.
I mean all the time people are inventing new things. When tactic is unstopable into month X, and someone who stopped playing into month y says "game is bad balanced" because tactic x is unstopable might be wrong because during time when he did not playing, someone invented something simple and useful - and tactic x is not unstopable anymore.
Just like with ha. At the beginning everyone used foot archers, then everyone used ha only and now people are using mix of foor archers and ha.
However if you ask someone who stopped playing 3 -4 months ago , he say
"oh no - foot archers are useless, ha rules".
YellowMelon
05-11-2008, 16:43
But did I say that?
YM you are just an example. Sorry but I didn't want personally abuse you.
In my opinion tragedy of multiplayer part here is situation when most of posters are people who are not playing.
YellowMelon
05-12-2008, 01:10
Maybe before you single people out you should think first.
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
05-12-2008, 14:12
Style of playing changes during months.
I mean all the time people are inventing new things. When tactic is unstopable into month X, and someone who stopped playing into month y says "game is bad balanced" because tactic x is unstopable might be wrong because during time when he did not playing, someone invented something simple and useful - and tactic x is not unstopable anymore.
Just like with ha. At the beginning everyone used foot archers, then everyone used ha only and now people are using mix of foor archers and ha.
However if you ask someone who stopped playing 3 -4 months ago , he say
"oh no - foot archers are useless, ha rules".
But you don't need to play every week to realize what tactics are beatable/unbeatable Krook. How Much do you play M2TW MP a week, let alone other TW MP games?
Melon, any comment on this other then your two responces? Like to stir up some converastion here.:yes:
MTW2 - about 10-12 hours ;D
Other TW games - I'm noty playing and thats why I don't make any comments about them (with small excursion - if someone ask me which game is better IMO :L)
No man ever set foot on a star, yet almost everyone talks about the sun.
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
05-13-2008, 21:35
No man ever set foot on a star, yet almost everyone talks about the sun.
Good Quoate Tosa. Still trying to figure out what that means.:yes:
YellowMelon
05-13-2008, 21:43
It means it is possible to know about things that you observe without actually being there...
Unfortunately I agree with Krook despite his misplaced accusations. Which is exactly why I haven't made comments re the game since I stopped playing. Durrrrrr.
Tosa Inu - if you want proof check last CWC (this on vanilla version).
Due to "strange" rules made mostly by players whom did not play multiplayer too much, or play only with themselves - rules were horrible. Hardly one understood it and most players called them bad.
On the other hand check CCS rules - simple, easy and matched for everyone. And guess what - with these rules decisive faction on game when cavarly dominate were .... Aztecs. For me that is better direction.
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
05-14-2008, 18:20
Tosa Inu - if you want proof check last CWC (this on vanilla version).
Due to "strange" rules made mostly by players whom did not play multiplayer too much, or play only with themselves - rules were horrible. Hardly one understood it and most players called them bad.
On the other hand check CCS rules - simple, easy and matched for everyone. And guess what - with these rules decisive faction on game when cavarly dominate were .... Aztecs. For me that is better direction.
Depends who writes the rules. If you had a good player who didn't play much, doesn't nescreassy mean it's going to be bad set of rules Krook.
YellowMelon
05-14-2008, 19:46
When I ran DoA I wasn't very active, but people loved the rules. If the person is in tune with the game, then it works.
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
05-14-2008, 19:54
When I ran DoA I wasn't very active, but people loved the rules. If the person is in tune with the game, then it works.
Yea, in the case like you, you was able to get good rules even though you wasn't very active. If I did it, I won't proably be so lucky, so it all depends.
i have played TW since shogun came out, i played it online pretty consistantly up until rome, since rome i have played online only a few times, mostly because i havent baught the new games right away. when i got m2tw my computer crashed and i lost my game, but was planning on getting back on soon. although i can sort of tell from the discussion, how many people play online these days, as an average.
Did they resolve the login issue yet? I shelved my disk after the 9-miss-1-hit login tries some months ago. Can I log in any time on first try?
Annie
WarMachine187
05-31-2008, 16:55
The multiplayer part of the game has suffered greatly.I mean, compare now to the days where the Vandal Horde and other veteran clans used to be online playin RTW all the time.
Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe
06-25-2008, 20:42
Retrofit? (with all due respect for Mordred one of the greatest MTW1 player around)
Other stuff? ( :dizzy2: :furious3: :no:)
Is any of this worth 5mn of dl time? Not to mention time to try to play it?
Nope?
Why do you wake me up with ghost? http://https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=104905
Louis,
UglyElmo2
06-26-2008, 00:03
Louis: The Retrofit Mod is actually a very good mod and one which a few of the CA programmers made to make the SP game more difficult. It also allows you to play the Grand Campaign in hotseat mode (which also can be played by PBEM).
I am currently getting up a big PBEM game with some of the NF clan members from the .com. We are taking the smaller/weaker/hard-to-play factions to make it even more challenging. Thus far we have:
1. Scotland - NF Kublai101
2. Sicily - NF On A Mountain
3. Portugale - NF B5Draal
4. Moors - Stig
5. Denmark - BigD (my son)
6. Poland -
7. Venice -
8. Turks -
NF Starcy, NF Flimmeister, and maybe Unhinged Loon have yet to pick. I am taking the last faction left. The battles are autoresolved, which makes the campaign much harder than if you fought the battels vs. the weak AI.
I never cared much for the MP and realtime battles of M2TW, so I let my son convince me to play my very first TW campaign ever in hotseat mode. Up til now, I had never played a single campaign with any of the previous titles. I must admit, I was skeptical, but found out I enjoyed the M2TW RetroFit campaign.
Maybe you should try a hotseat PBEM with someone. I think you might be surprised and enjoy yourself. It's something different in the way of MP play.
Good to see you again.
ElmarkOFear
Gah! Ghost! :)
Playing one of "Ghost" movie's song.
... time is like the river
to the sea
to the sea...
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
06-26-2008, 16:54
I did RetirofFit and did some Hotseats, was fun, but wasn't any good with it lol. My problem is that it takes to long, have to e-mail the save game,etc..., so which is why I won't plan on doing it anymore, but it is fun if you don't mind the long waits. :yes::yes:
UglyElmo2
06-27-2008, 06:36
Hotseat PBEM games are a must for some of us with long, or variable work hours, with families, or other personal committments, which take away our amount of time per night to play online. I only play PBEM games now, but would probably return to play TW online if the Empire battles are improved to the old Shogun/MTW1 levels.
PS: Warman: Check your PM inbox. I just sent you the info. you requested.
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
06-28-2008, 17:52
Hotseat PBEM games are a must for some of us with long, or variable work hours, with families, or other personal committments, which take away our amount of time per night to play online. I only play PBEM games now, but would probably return to play TW online if the Empire battles are improved to the old Shogun/MTW1 levels.
PS: Warman: Check your PM inbox. I just sent you the info. you requested.
Since I have to figure out why I can't get on M2TW MP now, I be doing another PBEM or two, you up for it Elmo? :clown::egypt:
Also, I got your info along with some others, Thank Moo!! :clown::egypt:
UglyElmo2
06-29-2008, 03:48
What do you want to play? Do you have the Kingdoms expansion? If so, we could do one of the campaigns from that. Either us vs. the AI or a Winner Takes All.
Let me know. I am always up for another PBEM. I would recommend playing the RetroFit mod, since with autoresolved battles, RetroFit makes them much tougher to win, especially against castles and Citadels or Huge Cities with Huge Walls. You have to have overwhelming numbers, and even then you may find yourself on the losing end of the deal.
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
06-30-2008, 19:55
Us .vs. AI sounds good to me Big Elmo :clown:
UglyElmo2
06-30-2008, 21:42
I'm going on vacation, and will set the game up when I get back. We can play the Kingdoms Crusade campaign if you like. I haven't played that one as the Christian factions (Byzantium and Antioch), so we can try it to see how we do.
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
07-01-2008, 00:28
Sounds good Elmo. I be Gone Untill Friday/Saturday FYI also to rest my wrists,. :wall::wall:
UglyElmo2
07-03-2008, 07:16
Sounds like you got a bit of Carpal Tunnel's Syndrome going on there Warman.
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
07-03-2008, 21:33
Tenditions, same annoying thing though :wall::laugh4:
Sorry for the bump here... but I just had to say:
The battle balance is fucked up in the newer TW games. (And thereby it's not anyhow intresting as an MP game) The new games killed the old community/clans effectively: Some moved on, leaving too few in S:TW, and the ones thay did move on disliked the new stinky MP game and quit as well.
Wish CA had just stopped after STW... Does that make me 80-year old? Hmm, gotta check that in the mirror.
offtopic:
Hey there oldies! ~:wave:
(Elmo! Back again?)
edit: Cursed microsoft!!! (btw)
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
12-11-2008, 17:49
To Many sadly left, and the ones remaining still may play Samurai Warlords Mod (like me) or MTW/VI even, but even then, we still have to few to carry on, compare to even a few years ago. A lot of people today ,older and newer players, don't care and try not to help out anyhow, so that kills MP even more.
With Minmial from Community, and conutined crappy MP from CA..... I think MP here is deadn and will remain dead. :sweatdrop:
I miss the old MTW/VI days of Early-Mid 2004 :clown:
Hi All,
Long time.
Love TW v much, though MP pretty boring now.. am waiting for new TW release:yes:
Merry X'mas and happy new year :charge:
Hello tootee,
How are you?
Hi Tosa sama long time.
I'm doing ok hope you too.. if E:TW is any good hope to see you online in coming months :)
Hello tootee,
Great to hear.
I'm fine too, thanks. It's been a long time indeed.
Gawain of Orkeny
12-30-2008, 19:37
Depends who writes the rules. If you had a good player who didn't play much, doesn't nescreassy mean it's going to be bad set of rules Krook.
Then you need me :)
UglyElmo2
Re: MT2W:Where are we now??
I'm going on vacation, and will set the game up when I get back. We can play the Kingdoms Crusade campaign if you like. I haven't played that one as the Christian factions (Byzantium and Antioch), so we can try it to see how we do.
ELMOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooo
Long time no see you Ugly Bastard
Hunter KIng George
12-31-2008, 01:06
GAW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Looks whos talking about being ugly. :beam:
When u going to stop by for some VI m8?
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
12-31-2008, 17:59
Rally Around the VI Banner my friends! :clown: :beam:
Swoosh So
01-06-2009, 06:00
Aww i missed shingenmitch!! damn what i wouldent give to have an old school game with those guys!!
Hey Mitch if your still around!!
Got all nostalgic when speaking with sulla about stw/mtw1 the other day so thought id pop in and see whats going on, damn i miss those games!! havent found any game yet that can recreate the feeling of shogun battles with good players! Really wish i had fraps in thos days to watch the old battles now and then :( it was art!
Jochi Khan
01-08-2009, 01:14
The good old days of MP total war are long gone. Sad but that is a fact.
The good times, when there were so many clans competing against each other. The individual players that helped to form the community. Players that could be seen almost any night of the week logging on for a few games with friends and strangers alike.
RTW was the start of the rot and M2TW was no improvement.
Hello Swoosh. Nice to see you are still around.
Didn't you use the (space)ER (in the target line) to record and the (space)mEP to view the replays in STW?
I still enjoy watching STW and MTW replays including CWC games.
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
01-08-2009, 17:19
Sadly so Jochi. When I was on the 2.0 server on VI in Early 04, that was the best:clown:. We had about 40-50 people on the unpatched server,and we had a lot of fun. We would play on the weekends 4-6 hours straight, sometimes I would be up until 1-2 AM playing. A lot of fun. I really miss those days of TW. That was when we all had fun, had respect for each other even if we did argue a lot (:laugh4:), and such, but in the end, it was a great time until RTW was released :sweatdrop:. Only 3 people besides myself still play on TW today from the unpatch server. Sad indeed.
t1master
01-08-2009, 21:10
is this the old folks convention?
hiya gaw and swoosh! say hi to the khan.
Swoosh So
01-09-2009, 07:54
Lost all my replays and stuff over time, if u have any replays that i participated in from mtw or better still shogun id love it if u could upload them somewhere or send me on messenger, just send me a pm and ill give u my messenger address would really appreciate it! :) wtb nagashima 4v4 replay that would just make my day! or if u could stick 1 or 2 on youtube that would be even better doubt ill get shogun working now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZA-gqJL9Is sigh..
ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88
01-09-2009, 16:00
I lost all my replays from my 2004 timespan me thinks also *sigh*:sweatdrop:.
However, I do have some from 2005 with some of the oldies and from 06 (I got 1 aganist Magyar Khan, I was Swiss, He was Mongols, but guess who won that :laugh4::wall:?
You like to have them Swooshy? :beam::yes:
ytghazal
11-02-2010, 20:30
So im a new total war player. i started after Napolean Total War came out, but i bought Medieval Total War and Medieval 2 Total War only. I might possibly buy the others starting with Shogun 2 Total War and than Shogun and possible Empires and Napolean last. I have always been a Multiplayer person, When i played World of Warcraft I always played PvP, or player vs player, and found This to be truely unbalanced. I than moved on to Battle for Middle Earth 2, went into MP and also found this to be totally unfair. Than i went into several other games, out of those the only one that i replay is League of Legends, Dota, and some warcraft 3. The only way i can see for MP players here to get what they want and take a stand. Sign a huge protest. work with modders to make human maps, eventually ppl like me who came to the game will join in, crowd gets bigger, more noticibility. Eventually who knows. Old players should stay active in forums at least. Anyways tahts my view.
Nova.Titan
01-24-2011, 12:26
Yes, but the mods are still alive.
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