TWC Gold Code Day report

As all the .org people going to the event are playing it now( i wa sin the morning session, they're in the afternoon one) i thought i'd post this here as well:

As i type this M2Tw is installing to my pc :yes:

For starters i want to make a couple of things clear:

1. I will not answer your questions about every little detail of the game. Nor will i post pics of every little detail of the game. It's out for everyone in 2 days in Europe. And i want to spend some time PLAYING the game.

2. M2TW is the best TW game ever.

I have been playing the series since Shogun and i can make that statement without a moments hesitation.

On to the main report, its a sort of review i suppose, though the actual review im writing i wont post til tomorrow:

Gold Code Day Event

I had to get up at 6am to make the trains needed to get up there in time for the 10am slot. The journey up was uneventful, apart from spending part of it packed like a sardine on a train from East Croydon to Clpaham Junction. At Kew Bridge Station, me and Tom (Laverick) met up like we had pre-arranged to. It was a simple 10 minute walk from the station to SEGA HQ Europe. It was on the 5th floor of this huge building. It was like a playground for me, there were playable consoles around, and there were even testing rooms(in one of the rooms there was a PS3!). But i did not play any of them as i waited around for the other people to arrive and the Gold Code event to get started. Me and Tom were soon joined by Ben(winner fo the competition at RTw Heaven), an admin from the Heaven site who's name i forget, the person who runs the offical site, and by some CA devs: Richie Skinner(aka The Shogun), and another oen who's name i forget.

The CA guys were really great, and i had great fun chatting to them. Unfortunately they wouldn't tell me anything about the next Total War game, but they did reveal that even though they don't post here, they do read this forum.

Soon we were taken into a room set up with 5 pc's in(whilst there were only 4 of us, 5 would be at the afternoon session, Froggie from .org(the one who writes game guids) was invited seperately from the rest of us.

The game was already loaded up, and all the factions were unlocked for us.

Battle ai

First thing i did was test the claims Palamedes made in one of the dev blogs: that vh difficulty would mean vh this time round, and not just stupid bonuses for the ai. And that even TW vets would lose to it.

He was right. The ai doesn't get silly bonuses on vh, the increased morale and fatigue settings affect both the player and the ai equally.

I played a custom battle as England v Scotland, equal strength armies.

I lost.

Yes, i a TW vet since Shogun, who knows every little flaw with the RTW ai, got beaten by M2Tw's ai.

The ai outmanouvered me, and overwhelmed parts of my line before exploiting the breaks. And the increased importance of morale in vh means that units will rout still, sometimes quite easily, but they will reform if you do not persue them. Battle as so much better than RTw, units move slower, battles last longer, and are much, much tougher on the harder difficulty settings. Cavalry are not underpowered as thought after Agincourt. I had units of Feudal cavalry decimating my Armoured Swordsmen with a well timed charge with a good run up.

The ai pathfinding in battles is also very good, much better than RTW.

The Campaign

Next i decided to play a campaign as the English. Camapign difficulty and battle difficulty set to hard.

First thing you really notice is the beauty of the map. The entire game is beautiful as im sure you all know by now, but it's still astonishing to think of what they've achieved when you compare it to RTW.

Oh, and as for the whole turns/years issue. I didn't notice it when i was playing, all the other things in the campaign draw in your attention.

Campaign ai and diplomacy

Both are much better than in RTW. During the time i was at the Gold Code session, only 1 faction broke their alliance with me: The Scots. This was after i moved units out of York leaving it vulnerable to attack so i can see why the ai did this. Diplomacy works much better, with the ai accepting ceasefires now(the Scots accepted once i recaptured York), and your alliances with other factions affect your overall strength rating, and so how other factions react to you. They also take into account your past dealings with other factions.

Castles and City system

this is the first new feature that you notice, and it is a really good one. I didn't read the manual till i was on my way home, and that explained everything about it to me as i got confused at times and did not explore all of its features. Personally i really like this feature, as it adds a lot more strategy to the game.

Castles are of course your main troops producers. The top levels of these produce your best troops, and you can recruit multiple units per turn with them, the amount going up with each level it seems. You also can build the first 3 levels straight away without having to get to a certain population level, but for the last 2 you do. They also have higher public order. And of course they are very good defensively.

But, castles cannot produce agents, you cannot change the tax level so its always at normal, do not have the ability for free upkeep units in them, cannot produce buildings to improve trade, and cannot build Guilds.

Castles can be turned into cities at any point.

Cities are your income. You can change the tax rate, build multiple buildings to increase trade, have free upkeep militia units(the amount increases with the level of wall you have and other factors), can recruit agents, Guilds can be built in them, academies, buildings of faith,and can also recruit multiple units per turn, though less than castles can of course.

They cannot produce your best troops, and have higher public unrest, are more likely to corrupt governors due to their wealth, and lack in buildings for cavalry and missiles(you get some but not many). Plus of course they have less defensive walls.

Cities can be turned into castles, but not if they go into the top 2 level of cities.

Finding the right balance between the number of cities and castles looks like it will be key in M2Tw. Have too many castles and you wont be gnerating enough cash.

Council of Nobles

These guy are nowhere near as annoying as the Senate in RTW. The missions they set also make sense. Once i was given the mission to reinforce the garrison of one of my towns so as to discourage possible attacks on it. The cash rewards some missions give can also be very handy early on.

Papacy and Crusades

This is very interesting. Your factions standing with the Papacy affects the likelihood of you getting the crusade you want to. Basically there is a list of provinces you can call Crusades to, you select one, and then the Pope either accepts or rejects your call for a Crusade. Crusades themselves work much better than in MTW imo. You just assign one of your armies to be the Crusading army, you get Crusade specific troops to recruit in the merc roster, and then you have increased movement points to get to the Holy Land. Once you've completed a Crusade your general can get some nice ancilliaries related to the Crusade. After the one Crusade i did, my general got a Knight Templar and a Knight Hospitaller as ancilliaries.

Papal Elections are also very interesting. The 3 Cardinals with the most piety are put up for election, and you can vote for which one you want to be Pope. After reading the manual i found out that it might be possible to do diplomatic negotiations with other factions during the Elections so as to get them to vote for who you want.

LAN battle.

So after playing the campaign for a bit, me, Tom and Ben did a LAN match against each other. I chose the Russians, Tome the Scots, and Ben the French. We fought on a very interesting amp called Redoubt, which has some lovely high passes one one side, and forests on the other with a building in the sort of middle. The battle started out with my Kazak horse archers attacking Toms rear before withdrawing. Tom and Ben were position basically opposite each other, while i had deployed on a very defensive position further away. Ben began to move his main force up to attack Tom, but sent 4 units of cavalry to fight my Boyar horse archers. These guys got caught by Ben so i commited them to melee whilst i sent in my general, more heavy mounted troops, and my Kazaks. My Boyars were routed but i destroyed his cavalry. Ben now began his main assault on Toms scottish, with his infantry going up the middle whilst his Gendarmes went up the side. I then sent my cavalry to a position behind Bens infantry, where i dealt with his artillery, and my infantry came through a high pass into position behind Toms rear. When Ben began to get the upperhand over Tom, i chargwed in my units, and beat them both.

The amazing thing about this battles was the performance. The pc's we were playing on had the following specs:

Intel P4 3.0ghz
2gb RAM
Geforce 7600Gt.

My computer at home which im typing this on is better than that. There were about 6000 soldiers in this battle, and there as minimal lag when all units were engaged. This game performs like a dream.

Agents

I have not had time to explore all the agents yet.

Modding

I asked the question that most modders had been wondering since finding out that everything apart from the campaign files were in pack files.

The answer from CA is:

Wait and see. ;)
(everyone should be able to work out what that means).

Overall impression

M2TW is like RTw, but more beautiful, far fewer bugs(haven't seen 1 yet), much better battle ai, better camapign ai and diplomacy, many great new features in it, the campaign has a great amount of depth to it.

This is THE best TW game of all time, and the best game i've ever played. Anyone would be mad not to get it.

i hope you have enjoyed this report.

Nice review Lusted, seems like you had tons of fun.

And i share most of your findings.

Except for the 6K soldiers without lag xD

It was great fun. And i also get a free Collectors Edition out of it as well.

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Except for the 6K soldiers without lag xD

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I'm sure it works great on the dev's exact computers...

Does the ai cope well with the progression of the campaign? Or is it pointless after you reach a certain point and become utterly invincible?

i haven't played far enough to find that out yet.

Like i said in the first post, my pc at home is better than the ones there at the event.

My pc's better than you say the event's machines are.

But as i don;t know their settings, there's no way to tell xD

Everything was on max and we played on huge unit size.

Overall veiw. Shogun sucks. On a more serious not glad some got to enjoy the day ~:)

Thanks for posting, Lusted...

One question!


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Why are you still online when you have M2TW to play? ( Lucky! )

:beam:

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Why are you still online when you have M2TW to play? ( Lucky! )

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Got to do some stuff for my sister.

How long did you lan battle take?

Just to gage this talk of slowing down battles :)

Thanks.

Erm, i didn't time it, but half an hour or more.

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Originally Posted by Lusted

Everything was on max and we played on huge unit size.

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What resolution, what FSAA, what AF?

Not sure on resolution, but like i said, everything on max.

Most encouraging news about M2TW to date, especially considering the source. :bow: Thanks, Lusted. :2thumbsup:

Thanks for the report, very interesting indeed. :2thumbsup:

Would you mind elaborating on the LAN battle? Did you start out with equal armies (in terms of purchasing power)? I was just wondering, how the French player, having spent his cavalry against you (Russians), and also apparently having some artillery in his army, can still have sufficient infantry to charge the Scots (which had seen no action yet) and be able to drive them back?

Was it a better choice of units, better tactics, unequal army set-up?

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Originally Posted by Lusted

2. M2TW is the best TW game ever.

I have been playing the series since Shogun ...

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Me too. I trust you then, but beware! I'll check soon :laugh4: .

Thank you for your review :2thumbsup: .

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Would you mind elaborating on the LAN battle? Did you start out with equal armies (in terms of purchasing power)? I was just wondering, how the French player, having spent his cavalry against you (Russians), and also apparently having some artillery in his army, can still have sufficient infantry to charge the Scots (which had seen no action yet) and be able to drive them back?

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We all had equal purchasing power. The French player lost 4 cav units to me and his 2 artillery units. So he still had 14 units left, including some gendarmes and some good infantry. He held the Scottish players main line whilst flanking with the Gendarmes.

Thanks Lusted!

Still, the Scots would still have had 20 units (against their 14). I guess it must have been tactics then (flanking with the Gendarmes). I like it!

Thanks so much for this review.

Cant wait!

Could you tell me if it was difficult to differentiate your units when zoomed all the way out? Especially in the LAN battles?

Not really, i knew what units i'd placed where, and unit banners are a great help. If i was in doubt i used the handy new function when you click the faction icon in the battlemap.

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Originally Posted by Lusted

Got to do some stuff for my sister.

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What can be more important than M2TW???

Only joking, cheers for the review.

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Originally Posted by tibilicus

Overall veiw. Shogun sucks.

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LOL! Totally out of interest. Why?

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Not really, i knew what units i'd placed where, and unit banners are a great help. If i was in doubt i used the handy new function when you click the faction icon in the battlemap.

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Thanks for your reply. :bow:

Did you feel the need to pause during the game? Was it too fast to make tactical decisions?

Did it feel more like RTW MP or MTW MP?

Thanks!

HeHe I found one bug. Cities were in reality main producer of missle units, esp after crossbows came to use. History purist viev ~;)

I'm now even more mad/depressed that I can't get this game till Christmas.

Thanks for the info! Have some fun with it and if you need a break come back and tell more of us unlucky Americans anything else:P

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Did you feel the need to pause during the game? Was it too fast to make tactical decisions?

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I needed to pause a few times in the battle against the Scots because they rushed me and overwhelmed me. Something i was not expceting at all. For the most part in battles i do not need to.

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Did it feel more like RTW MP or MTW MP?

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Never played MTW MP, but the LAN battle we fought felt much, much better than RTw's multiplayer.

Didnt Tibilicus win this competition?....

Im from TWc, not .org. There were competiton run at the .com forums, .org, TWc and Heaven games. So there were the winners from each of those competitions, and a member of staff from each site as well. Half went to the morning session, half to the afternoon one.