Initial Patch Thoughts

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Originally Posted by BeeSting

Red:

It is surprising that my friends feel the same way about the expansion pack.... They seriously doubt that it will have the fixes needed to make the game play lasting, especially for the AI.

I'm really curious though.... do we represent only a small portion of RTW patrons?

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Tactical RI suggestion:
If we feel that there is the slightest chance that the xp will make the game a lot more enjoyable, maybe we should say "Yeah I'll buy that for sure, waiting impatiently and so on", or we may risk that they don't make one ~:eek:

Consider: If they make a crappy xp, it'll get slaughtered here and elsewhere, see low sales, lead to cancellation of franchise(?) Then we can go play some other war game and bash it for not being Total War ~;)
If they make a good xp, it will get mixed reviews in the community, sell a lot, give CA a better idea of what's the way to make a Total War game, cause the next one to be good.
If they don't make an xp, they may get down to making another half-donkeyed effort of a TW game - even more lameified than the current offering.
(wording deliberatly provocative - I'm playin RTW every free minute. love/hate relationship thingy) ~:)

I'd be interested to see some genuine sales figures for RTW. We all know it's sold 'loads' of copies, but it would be good to see some hard numbers. Comparing those numbers to the numbers of people we have on the main forums (Org, Com, TWCenter) might give us a bit of a clue regarding where we (the 'hardcore' for want of a better expression) actually sit with regard to the money men.

Do CA listen to the community? Yes - as evidenced by the bug-fixes in the patch. If there wasn't such a community then these failings would have simply stayed unpatched (and unfound most likely). The 'community' is what gives the franchise it's publicity during the time when there is no new release happening, or in the build-up and anticipation phase, and as such, there 'has' to be at least a nod in their general direction. The problem is, when the financial situation changes and there are so many 'non-community' buyers out there (as there have been for RTW), there becomes less of a need to keep the community happy. Little Johnny who reads PC Mag Monthly sees RTW get the 90-odd percent review (which comes from lots of bells, whistles, and the 'potential' for a truly great game), nips off down the shops, buys it, doesn't notice that his archers are using their missile stat in melee, doesn't see (or doesn't care) that his archers are using the back of his spearmen's heads for target practice, doesn't give a monkey's that Selucids can build elephants anywhere, and certainly doesn't know that naked fanatics should be called something more obscure (can't remember, sorry).

And therein lies the problem. The 'community' as a whole matters less in the Total War world now than it used to. The stuff that appeals (or is 'offensive') to the community (sorry for using that word so often) is, in general not on the agenda for the average buyer. End of story. There is no time/money made available to satisfy both ends of the spectrum.

And if the community drifts away, well, never mind eh? It was good while it lasted. As Jerome has said, there will be another TW game after this one. It will sell absolute bucketloads probably. The community will still exist, though probably smaller and with different members.

This has gone on a bit, so I'll stop there.

All that said, I still REALLY enjoy the game. I've been here since Shogun, and will probably continue with whatever comes next. And as much as I love the games, I'm not the greatest player (all those little men get very confusing) so many of the 'dumb-AI' problems don't affect my gameplay.

Cheers,

Rob.

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Originally Posted by RJV

naked fanatics should be called something more obscure (can't remember, sorry).

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You're obviously referring to the scantily clad fanatics! ~;)
I believe there's a community fix for those, and there are even some wardrobe-dysfunctional wailing wenches somewhere.

(Poke sideways across puddle: Personally I find nudity less offensive than violence - I even tolerate it in my own home - but I'm an old European atheist so sick views are to be expected.)

Gaesatae ...

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Originally Posted by Colovion

Gaesatae ...

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That's it.

And that's the problem in a nutshell. You know this stuff, and it's (to some extent) important to you. I'm aware of it, but I can take it or leave it. The bulk-buyer of RTW neither knows of this stuff, nor cares about it.

The TW franchise is being increasingly pitched at the latter sector of the market. Maybe this will change - we can but dream...

(@Colovion - I use 'you' as an example of the slightly disillusioned hardcore gamer in my analogy above. Apologies if I have misrepresented you)

Cheers,

Rob.

I think it is symptomatic of the world we live in or me getting older.

My favourite history/discovery channels are now dumbed down with programmes on 'serial killers' and 'bootleggers' preporting to be history. In literature Robert Graves becomes Simon Scarrow, so why shouldn't my favourite game suffer too?

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Originally Posted by RJV

That's it.

And that's the problem in a nutshell. You know this stuff, and it's (to some extent) important to you. I'm aware of it, but I can take it or leave it. The bulk-buyer of RTW neither knows of this stuff, nor cares about it.

The TW franchise is being increasingly pitched at the latter sector of the market. Maybe this will change - we can but dream...

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And that is why it's so hard to get Creative Assembly to fix the Parthian shot or make the running speeds realistic, but we have men flying 50 feet in the air, rocks that explode like 155mm mortar shells and flaming arrows that work in downpours and incinerate men and horses in 5 seconds.

No doubt the game still lacks various tweaks to achieve even greater realism, but so far as I'm concerned (as an Ancient History nut) I've had over 100 hours of entertainment for the price of a reasonable bottle of wine. The next game will probably be another step forward but even at present I still think I got the best of the bargain when buying RTW.

Carinus

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Originally Posted by RJV

And that's the problem in a nutshell. You know this stuff, and it's (to some extent) important to you. I'm aware of it, but I can take it or leave it. The bulk-buyer of RTW neither knows of this stuff, nor cares about it.

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Well if the bulk doesnt know or care why not call them gaesatae then? The bulk wont mind and people who do care about this are pleased. The same with horse archers and the other stuff.

I guess there are more people who say: I dont like this unrealistic game than there are people who dont buy this game because there are no men incinerated or flying through the air?

So I think the game could have been a lot more fun/realism (whatever you want).

On the theoretical side (only tangentially TW related, otherwise a rant):
It's an age-old question of who creates the tastes of the public, the producers or the consumers. I mean, if there was no crap on the market, everybody would buy quality stuff, right? If a game that sells well has gaesatae in it, then maybe other games would also have them incorporated? For example, I bet not a lot of people knew what scimitar was before they started playing AD&D or RPGs ( I know that none of my D&D crowd knew that beforehand back in the days).
What I find stupid and downright demeaning is that the vast majority of marketing strategies is based on looking down on the people who might buy their products. It is founded on an attitude that people are incapable and uninterested to learn; and eventually this turns out to be the truth if you repeat it enough times. If you only make shows about serial killers, of course all people are going to know or care about will be serial killers. What I fail to comprehend, however, is the people who are happy to be placed in that (first and foremost intelectually) inferior position.
But was it always like that, would the general public's tastes really be like that if they weren't offered junk and treated as junk? We don't know, since nobody really tried to do otherwise. Or maybe there is something to it that innovative and smart things sometimes do result in a huge success (e.g., I didn't feel like being treated like a 10yr old while playing Shogun)?

On the TW side:
As I said before, they don't have to make any effort to try to make it a realistic historical simulator. They don't have to go through all the tweaking, testing, assessment, research. All they have to do is externalize parameters to the maximum, and provide a solid foundation to work on. Then I'm ok if they make the retail product as "marketable" as possible for their own sakes.

I think there is some misunderstanding of my view because of the written word medium, and my own tendency to be blunt. Let's be clear that I support everyone's right to an opinion, and that I'm not telling anyone to shut up or go away. My main dispute is that some people don't seem to want to accept certain reality, and they feel it is reasonable to do so, while I think it is unreasonable.

Software titles need sales. Those sales can be to casual consumers, children, grandmothers, whatever. But the bottom line is, and always will be: you must show a profit on your work. The reality that some hardcore players cannot accept is, that for this project, profit could not be realized by doing all the work they (the hardcore players) would demand. Most of these players neither know nor care how much T&E is required to make AI improvements for example, just like the vast majority of players neither know nor care what "Naked Fanatics" were actually called in Latin in 250 BC.

No, I'm not saying the game is perfect. But like a previous fellow said, "I've had over 100 hours of enjoyment for the price of a reasonable bottle of wine." That's the key: provide a good value for the price. I really don't think many people could say RTW is not worth $40 or $50. It has good points and bad, but for that $50, the vast majority are suitably entertained. And to survive in any business, you must either cater to a large majority and charge low prices so everyone can afford your product, or cater to a tiny elite and charge outrageous amounts to keep your business afloat. Obviously, PC gaming thrives on the former, not the latter.

Red Harvest, I have no doubt that any software company can choose to respond to their core customers. Where I think the real issue lies is what the term, "core customers" means in this context. Some would say that the core customer is the one who can lay out the full order of battle (from memory alone) for the Battle of Cannae. Others might say it is the 13 year old who sets the camera on the enemy troops to watch the flaming onager shot fry them and then laughs like Beavis and Butthead at the graphical show. Building a sophisticated AI, capable of challenging a very capable human general on the battlefield would be wasted, pearls before swine, if you will, when considering the Beavis type player. Now, lite it or not, we have to live in a world where morons outnumber people of above average intelligence by at least 4 to 1. There is no question, Red Harvest, that you are a smarter than average person. What I think you may fail to realize is that your intellect is like a 100 watt lightbulb, where the average person has an intellect like a 25 watt lightbulb. We all have to live in the world dominated by mediocrity. It isn't pleasant or fair, it's simply true. You know, just as well as I do, that the financial incentive just isn't there for CA to rework the AI of RTW. It simply isn't going to happen.

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Originally Posted by Old Celt

Now, lite it or not, we have to live in a world where morons outnumber people of above average intelligence by at least 4 to 1.

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If we always have this as a starting position, it will never change. It may be impossible to change it in any case, but it most certainly won't change if we repeat it enough times for it to become the truth. And I'm not some great utopian humanist: my interest in this is that I'm probably in that 25%, while sometimes some things make me really wish I wasn't.

Part of the problem with all of this is the frustration and a barely concealed sense of 'aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhh' because for so many of the hardcore players it is a 'nearly' game. There will always be bits that people don't like, but one thing that gets many of the folks backs up here is that there has been a LOT of work put into RTW, new map, new battle engine, new units, the whole kit and caboodle, only for the AI to do STUPID things. Add this to the fact that in OLDER versions of the game, it didn't do (many of) these same stupid things, and you have a recipe for a frustrated gamer.

No, they are not going to rework the AI. I think we can all accept that. None of us know how it really hangs together so how much it is changed in the expansion we will have to wait and see, but for a lot of people one of their main questions is 'Why the hell did they write it like that, when they could and should have written it like this'. (silly AI moves). Add this to 'this is broken, no-one spotted it, the patch has fixed it, but now something else has broken', and you have yet more frustration.

Many of the people here are desperate to love RTW. You only have to look at some of the posts here to see how much time and effort people are spending modding the game to get it to perform as they would wish. The fact that the game doesn't live up to what they (in some cases reasonably, and in others not) expected it to only makes it worse.

Cheers,

Rob.

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Originally Posted by hrvojej

my interest in this is that I'm probably in that 25%, while sometimes some things make me really wish I wasn't.

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If the moron:human ratio is 4:1, then thinking that you're in the 25% could put you firmly among the 80% ~;)

Cheers,

Pell.R.

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Originally Posted by Old Celt

Building a sophisticated AI, capable of challenging a very capable human general on the battlefield would be wasted, pearls before swine, if you will, when considering the Beavis type player. Now, lite it or not, we have to live in a world where morons outnumber people of above average intelligence by at least 4 to 1. There is no question, Red Harvest, that you are a smarter than average person. What I think you may fail to realize is that your intellect is like a 100 watt lightbulb, where the average person has an intellect like a 25 watt lightbulb. We all have to live in the world dominated by mediocrity.

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Hence the desire for a slider and real, distinct AI levels. If Beavis wants, he can run the game at superfast speeds on easy difficulty. Red Harvest (and others) would prefer realistic speeds and a competent AI, isn't this the point of the VH diff level? And who knows, maybe Beavis would play the game at medium or hard if Butthead dared him to, and maybe he would learn something (Beavis is the smarter of the two, you know). If not, there's always flaming arrows and onager rocks to watch: fffffiire, ffffffffiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrre, ffffffffffffiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrre!

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Originally Posted by Pellinor

If the moron:human ratio is 4:1, then thinking that you're in the 25% could put you firmly among the 80% ~;)

Cheers,

Pell.R.

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~D ~D ~D
I go sleep now.

Well: CA made a game to make money? FINE!!!
They made the Hellenic Ptolemies Mummies *vomit smilie*? FINE!!!
They dumbted down the game? FINE!!!
They dont care about historical accuracy? FINE!!!
What is NOT FINE is the fact that they keep the game hardcoded to sell the expansion...
What happened to the pre release statements like "moddable is the middle name of RTW" and "this game will be more moddable than MTW"?
CAN WE ADD MORE FACTIONS? NO!!!
CAN WE MOD THE ROMAN FACTIONS-SENATE? NO!!!
CAN WE MOD THE CULTURES? NO!!!
CAN WE MOD THE AI BUILDING ORDERS? NO!!!
CAN WE MOD THE REDICULUS RED ZONE IN CAMPAIGN? NO!!!
Can we expect anything good from such behaviour twoards the modding community?

Hellenes

Colovion,
"thanks Red Harvest for writing all that so I didn't have to" ~:) Echo.


Havent had time to read the whole thread but regarding Jeromes posts.


"We had guessed that you guys would probably be better at making the game you wanted to play than we could be, with the commercial restraints we have, and so we've tried to extern as much stuff as possible via the text files to give you the chance. The movement speeds are tricky to mod at the moment for various engine-architecture reasons, even for us, but we're looking at it. So, no promises, but we do read a lot of your posts - here, on the .com and even at TWC - and although we're not always around to post, we do take on board as much of it as we can and these things do get discussed inside CA.

BTW, Toranaga's comments correspond quite closely to what we were trying to do with the arcade battles, although that system never got the love it deserved and consequently may have been pitched a little incorrectly. Maybe we'll extend it in future products "

Personally the TW series appealed mostly because it was the closest thing to a tactical hand to hand/archery sim that ive come across.The immersive gameplay, mp or sp was there.

With Rome a lot of expectations were generated with the pre game hype(time commanders, screen shots, vids etc,(and yes the baying from the community demanded this hype to a certain extent.))

Certain comments from the pre game releases led me to believe that arcade battles would be a sorta easy intoduction to the TW series and that Rome "proper" would be a tactical progression.However this does not seem to be the case,the two are vitually identical and personally it plays like an easy intro game to me.

I understand perfectly the CA ambition to gain market share(as im sure 99% of the Orgs patrons do)and wish you good luck.Perhaps your biggest challenge in the future is finding a balance between satisfying veterans of the TW serieries and attracting newcomers.

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Originally Posted by BobTheTerrible

What makes you say archery is overpowered? It seems ok to me, but I know little of archery from a historical point of view.

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Bob,

I meant to get back to this earlier. Most western cultures of the time did not find archery terribly effective. It was almost never decisive in the time period. Yet in RTW you can see fairly massive casualties in a single volley by the lowest level archers in the game vs. lightly shielded/lightly armoured types at long range. This archer would represent the green recruit of no special talent, and with a simple bow--so one would expect him to be rather ineffective, but he is not. He will gain experience upgrades and missile upgrades rather easily, rapidly approaching elite missile stats. Elite units like Cretan archers were the exception in the west.

Eastern archers were often better armed than their western counterparts. Parthians and Scythians typically had good composite bows (with the Parthan bow being improved over the Scythian.) Still the rank and file of much of the Persian army tended to have lower quality bows from what I gather. And they didn't exactly mow down the Greeks.

An interesting aspect largely absent from the game is that slingers were considered more useful than their contemporary archer counterparts. (I didn't know this until RTW, when I started doing a lot more reading on the subject.) Many western cultures did not use archery much in battle (except for sieges) but instead relied on slingers. And the Celts relied a lot on slingers during sieges. In the game the buildable slingers are given very short range and much less punch, making them several times less effective than the weakest archers. Elite slingers using lead bullets were more feared than archers

I need to go back and check some of the weather and tree impacts on archery in 1.2, but I originally found these rather muted as well.

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Originally Posted by Old Celt

Red Harvest, I have no doubt that any software company can choose to respond to their core customers. Where I think the real issue lies is what the term, "core customers" means in this context. Some would say that the core customer is the one who can lay out the full order of battle (from memory alone) for the Battle of Cannae. Others might say it is the 13 year old who sets the camera on the enemy troops to watch the flaming onager shot fry them and then laughs like Beavis and Butthead at the graphical show. Building a sophisticated AI, capable of challenging a very capable human general on the battlefield would be wasted, pearls before swine, if you will, when considering the Beavis type player. Now, lite it or not, we have to live in a world where morons outnumber people of above average intelligence by at least 4 to 1. There is no question, Red Harvest, that you are a smarter than average person. What I think you may fail to realize is that your intellect is like a 100 watt lightbulb, where the average person has an intellect like a 25 watt lightbulb. We all have to live in the world dominated by mediocrity. It isn't pleasant or fair, it's simply true. You know, just as well as I do, that the financial incentive just isn't there for CA to rework the AI of RTW. It simply isn't going to happen.

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I totally disagree with you....

The appeal of this game from the start of its series was, without a shadow of a doubt, its convey of challenge and realism in complex battle field conditions. It set the game apart from all others and won a niche crowd. And I was really surprised to find the "arcade battle" option in the latest series, which I never even bothered to open up like so many others who bought this game. This just goes to prove, whether the players are new to this strategy game series or not, they still buy the game for its battle engine and the depth of challenge it presents. The beauty of the Shogun was the fact that it taught someone like me, who never knew anything about strategy, such as the importance of covering flanks and rear or other elements, learn the whole realism thing with ease and most importantly with much fun. Had there been an option for the arcade battle style, would I have tried it out? Hell no! Whose intelligence are you insulting?

I do not feel the game has devolved to games Warcraft or other “mass” appealing games. But I do feel that, for whichever sake, it has lost quality…. Granted, it made leaps and crossed bounds in visual effects, yet it retained much of what made me grow quickly tired of other games in matter of weeks, the second rate AI. And if it ended at being second rate I would have been okay with it, but it disappointingly falls short of the grand perimeter set for the game. It is full of bugs and grotesquely stupid, too many for one to easily overlook--in fact, you have to try really hard to not let them bother you and be convinced: “Wow, I wonder if I was accidentally set up with a beta version?” Even my friends who are new to the game series complained to me about all the holes in it. This game is like a rare eye candy girl, who’s sexually promising, yet has nothing to show for in bed. But you keep banging her hoping…. I bet the things that made majority of people continue to play this game past the first month were the mods and wanting to try out the many factions and their unique units, nothing more.

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Originally Posted by RJV

Part of the problem with all of this is the frustration and a barely concealed sense of 'aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhh' because for so many of the hardcore players it is a 'nearly' game. There will always be bits that people don't like, but one thing that gets many of the folks backs up here is that there has been a LOT of work put into RTW, new map, new battle engine, new units, the whole kit and caboodle, only for the AI to do STUPID things. Add this to the fact that in OLDER versions of the game, it didn't do (many of) these same stupid things, and you have a recipe for a frustrated gamer.

No, they are not going to rework the AI. I think we can all accept that. None of us know how it really hangs together so how much it is changed in the expansion we will have to wait and see, but for a lot of people one of their main questions is 'Why the hell did they write it like that, when they could and should have written it like this'. (silly AI moves). Add this to 'this is broken, no-one spotted it, the patch has fixed it, but now something else has broken', and you have yet more frustration.

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Let's face it. RTW was too ambitious a project for CA, especially with Activision interfering in the game design. I wonder how many man hours it took to write the battlefield user interface that RTW v1.0 shipped with after Activision rejected CA's minimal UI interface? That's time that could have been spent on better AI or debugging the game. I'm convinced that the deterioration of the gameplay is primarily due to Activision's interference. CA set a high standard of gameplay with their previous games, and they haven't maintain it. Also, the number of bugs in v1.0, the failure to correct them all after a 3 month effort by 25 programmers and the introduction of new bugs in v1.2 just shows how massive a task it is. As far as I'm concerned, the deadlines that CA is working to are unrealistic. These problems are not going to go away for the expansion pack. So, if you can work around the gameplay problems and still enjoy it great, buy the expansion.

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Originally Posted by Puzz3D

Let's face it. RTW was too ambitious a project for CA, especially with Activision interfering in the game design. I wonder how many man hours it took to write the battlefield user interface that RTW v1.0 shipped with after Activision rejected CA's minimal UI interface? That's time that could have been spent on better AI or debugging the game. I'm convinced that the deterioration of the gameplay is primarily due to Activision's interference. CA set a high standard of gameplay with their previous games, and they haven't maintain it. Also, the number of bugs in v1.0, the failure to correct them all after a 3 month effort by 25 programmers and the introduction of new bugs in v1.2 just shows how massive a task it is. As far as I'm concerned, the deadlines that CA is working to are unrealistic. These problems are not going to go away for the expansion pack. So, if you can work around the gameplay problems and still enjoy it great, buy the expansion.

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Well, Activision sucks sweaty balls!!!! :furious3:

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Originally Posted by RJV

That's it.

And that's the problem in a nutshell. You know this stuff, and it's (to some extent) important to you. I'm aware of it, but I can take it or leave it. The bulk-buyer of RTW neither knows of this stuff, nor cares about it.

The TW franchise is being increasingly pitched at the latter sector of the market. Maybe this will change - we can but dream...

(@Colovion - I use 'you' as an example of the slightly disillusioned hardcore gamer in my analogy above. Apologies if I have misrepresented you)

Cheers,

Rob.

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Yeah but the thing is, wouldn't you rather take it and feel like you were playing an authentic game? I would. One of the best things I love about historically based games is the learning that goes on while playing it. Even games which are obviously not the epitome of historical accuracy such as the Civilization series and the Age of Empires series, still convey a sense of historical know-how. In RTW this gets trashed, as for the most part all which would have been needed was different names for the various units. For the Age of... series there would be little notes on everything you can select - the history and usage of Pigs, Deer, Oak trees, Blacksmithing, men-at-arms, Toxotes... the list goes on.

The point is that the majority of my historical knowledge that I learned at a young age was through these such video games. Rome has some of this, but loses points in almost every field of realism imaginable. Now, realism obviously doesn't equal fun, but for me if the game I"m playing doesn't authentically reflect the time period it purports to portray... it's really hard to continue playing it. It's the fact that Rome: Total War is the only way any of us with a desire to see these huge battles played out which is the frusterating part. There's really no other game of this sort. So essentially we're trapped here until we make of it what we want, because it doesn't look like the devs have the resources to help us out.

I just hope that if they go back and make a MTW2 that they make it 100 times more accurate than RTW is.

Heck, maybe this time they'll even us do a beta test before the game is released.

I agree with you Puzz3D.

Clues about the huge scope of making this a 3D game being overwhelming for a mere 25 developers came when the release date moved, and by so far. They did an admirable job when you consider all the factors they were up against, but of course, some of the people will never be satisfied.

No matter what you do, there will be the 13 to 15 year old, "know it all" kiddies telling you how easy it would have been to do things another way. It sure is frustrating to have to listen to that kind of criticism from children who often times have trouble making change without electronic help. But that's the world we live in.

I'm sure CA isn't losing any sleep over the few complaints they get on this site. I go to other sites and this one is by far the most negative of all of them when it comes to talking about the quality of the game. This site is definitely the home of the most extreme critics.

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Originally Posted by Old Celt

I'm sure CA isn't losing any sleep over the few complaints they get on this site. I go to other sites and this one is by far the most negative of all of them when it comes to talking about the quality of the game. This site is definitely the home of the most extreme critics.

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majority of any complaints from all levels on any site have one thing in common... The AI is crap! And too much time it seems was put elsewhere, mainly on packaging, on eye candying the whole nothing.

It was also the most indepth forum around for STW and MTW, especially compared to the mess that is/was the official forum. That should tell you something.

I'd like to know why the movement speeds etc are hard-coded?

Refreshing to see you post an argumented post Colovion, you ought to do that more! ~;)

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Yeah but the thing is, wouldn't you rather take it and feel like you were playing an authentic game? I would. One of the best things I love about historically based games is the learning that goes on while playing it. Even games which are obviously not the epitome of historical accuracy such as the Civilization series and the Age of Empires series, still convey a sense of historical know-how. In RTW this gets trashed, as for the most part all which would have been needed was different names for the various units. For the Age of... series there would be little notes on everything you can select - the history and usage of Pigs, Deer, Oak trees, Blacksmithing, men-at-arms, Toxotes... the list goes on.

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Now, this is not exactly true. The information on especially the Roman and Hellenic units is plenty and good. What is very strange however, surely keeping in mind the amount of history buffs working at CA, is that the Barbarians, Carthaginians and Egyptians have been cut out and replaced with Roman/Hollywood based fantasy. I have no clue why they didn't continue as they had done with the Romans, for example. They've been given accurate names, great explanations, and even an AI formation. And when we _know_ that CA had a year longer than planned, it is surely mindboggling. It isn't that much work, nor is it so expensive, so why have such important details been "forgotten"?

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The point is that the majority of my historical knowledge that I learned at a young age was through these such video games. Rome has some of this, but loses points in almost every field of realism imaginable. Now, realism obviously doesn't equal fun, but for me if the game I"m playing doesn't authentically reflect the time period it purports to portray... it's really hard to continue playing it. It's the fact that Rome: Total War is the only way any of us with a desire to see these huge battles played out which is the frusterating part. There's really no other game of this sort. So essentially we're trapped here until we make of it what we want, because it doesn't look like the devs have the resources to help us out.

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The power of games like Age of Empires is that the creators have done their best to get every little detail, how insignificant it may be, in the game. Something that I've seen back in MTW, were little things like mercenary Turcopoles, Scottish Highlanders, the high upkeep of knights, the three eras, etc. showed that however unrealistic some solutions were (Italy?? Gigantic Byzantine Empire?) still there were numerous things to compensate. For example, the weak start of the Byzantines made it possible for the Turkish underdogs to defeat them. In RTW that balance is gone. Carthage is painfully weak, (and we know that there are Carthage luvers in CA!) the Seleucid/Parthian/Egyptian part not even remotely close to 270 BC in all aspects, and don't get me started on Wonders... Patch 1.2 has brought that only partially back by strengthening the strategic AI; the tactical has not improved the slightest. In that same manner, I despise things like at random arrising rebels. There should be a reason for them to come up! If my people are disgruntled, I expect rebels. But when I've got a full stack army in a 400 people village with 200% public order, I shouldn't even have to care about looking for them. I know some people like random events, but in my mind they are useless and plain annoying, certainly when they can be as destructive as vulcans.

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I just hope that if they go back and make a MTW2 that they make it 100 times more accurate than RTW is.

Heck, maybe this time they'll even us do a beta test before the game is released.

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Amen brother. :bow:

*\QUOTE/* (Err, how do I quote?) The appeal of this game from the start of its series was, without a shadow of a doubt, its convey of challenge and realism in complex battle field conditions. It set the game apart from all others and won a niche crowd. And I was really surprised to find the "arcade battle" option in the latest series, which I never even bothered to open up like so many others who bought this game. This just goes to prove, whether the players are new to this strategy game series or not, they still buy the game for its battle engine and the depth of challenge it presents. The beauty of the Shogun was the fact that it taught someone like me, who never knew anything about strategy, such as the importance of covering flanks and rear or other elements, learn the whole realism thing with ease and most importantly with much fun. Had there been an option for the arcade battle style, would I have tried it out? Hell no! Whose intelligence are you insulting?*\QUOTE/*IT'S A QUOTE!!!!***

Yes, I CERTAINLY agree with this.

Hell, I never knew about history or ancient tactics until I got my hands on Shogun, and now I'm quite an expert for a person of my age ~D . Big thanks for that, *Creative Assembly* (somebody need to reminds everyone that. CA sounds like California to me.)

But hey, I love Warcraft, Counter-Strike, and all those hell of a game. I truly do. (Unlike many of us here ~D )

Yet, the Total War series rules over all, and *What I look for in them are different from every other games! DIFFERENT!!!* This makes the series worthy of a thousand golden wreath crowns, a thousand Van Gogh pictures, a thousand magnificent silk turbans, and a million thousand UK - err - pound sterling? (Let's just say they want US dollars alright.)

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Originally Posted by Old Celt

I agree with you Puzz3D.

No matter what you do, there will be the 13 to 15 year old, "know it all" kiddies telling you how easy it would have been to do things another way. It sure is frustrating to have to listen to that kind of criticism from children who often times have trouble making change without electronic help. But that's the world we live in.

I'm sure CA isn't losing any sleep over the few complaints they get on this site. I go to other sites and this one is by far the most negative of all of them when it comes to talking about the quality of the game. This site is definitely the home of the most extreme critics.

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Oh really? Sounds like you are making up statistics again... I don't get the impression that more than a small minority of the complaints here are coming from kids.

Why do you even come here if you find other sites more to your liking? You clearly don't like us, you don't think ORG members opinions matter as you have so clearly stated several times. And you don't believe that the game can be significantly improved without a military budget. So why are you here?

You sound very much like a number of "guardian" type managers I have had to work around in my career. "Oh we couldn't possibly do that." "It would be too expensive to fix the problems in that reactor." "Let's spend twice as much modifying this piece of scrap as we would just replacing the undersized heat exchanger upstream." Like them, you lack vision, and you are wrong.