Just What is Attracting People Anyway?

[Turbosatan]

For an old NTW hand, Glenn, in ETW it is quite nice to have battle AI that knows how to shoot back at you (on hard at least); no more -- well, less! -- milling around in front of your guns, firing one shot then turning & walking slowly past your massed ranks of fire. The AI knows how to coordinate arms -- unsupported troops or poorly placed guns will be destroyed & an open flank will crumple quicker than you can say "Now where did that enemy unit of horse go?" The battles are much more, well, MTW like in some cases than the sequels -- 18th Century stylee, natch but there's that feel that the sequels missed of actually having to play tactically; a lot of people who seem to be complaining about this aspect of the game are in my opinion (& if I may make an MTW analogy) complaining that their Late Spanish Lancers & Armoured Almughavars are having no problems with the enemy's stack of urban militia & vanilla archers. Of course, the AI needs proper equipment & battlefield technology to match you, but if you fight an enemy who does have these things then it really is very enjoyable & I hope that CA are beavering away at changing the AI's priorities so it equips its troops better.


Proper application of military advances on the battlefield -- when one knows how to implement them, something that has in the MTW VI tradition been left out of the documentation & left for one to stumble over -- rocks, as you utilise fire by rank, Light Infantry etc. Also, if your opponent has those advantages, they will seek to use them against you.

On the other hand, there are issues with almost every aspect of the game, but y'know: it's only been out a month. I'm sure in due course the battle AI will be even better, things like pathfinding around obstacles & utilisation of cover which the computer sometimes has a problem with at the moment hopefully will be addressed.

The campaign AI, as in the last two TW games, has massive difficulty dealing with the flashy 3d map. If it had only a RISK style to cope with I'm sure it'd behave a lot more sensibly although there are serious issues aside from this. For instance, I do hope that they'll finally sort out the inability of the AI to launch naval invasions; it seems they've listened to Caravel's fave MTW-VI bugbear (the Byzantine amphibious landings in Scotland complete with an Imperial Highland sightseeing tour) but gone too far the other way. Like I said though I believe this is unfinished but due to be fixed rather than a sign of how it was meant to be applied.

The graphics are obviously bazzing. The ship combat is quite quite thrilling, with the (obvious to me & I'm sure yourself) proviso that applies to all arms in the game -- you can't just aim to arcade it & hope for the best, it'll leave you whingeing "Why does {insert grievance here} not act like I think it should/like I have seen in a movie?" There are of course exploits which those with too much time on their hands have found even for the good bits of the game, but they seem to be overlooking the fact that it's a game & like all games (simulations of control) the rules are not foolproof & can in fact be, well, gamed.

So in summary (I've left out the damaged/unfinished stuff because there's twenty billion threads here & at the official forums & at tw_center full of those): not quite there yet but still lots of fun. Depending on the level of polish that is applied (I personally think it's mostly grouting & paint rather than structural) it could actually become as great as MTW.

PS: Oh yeah if you've got a bazzing turbonutterninjabast top-end rig it probably won't work. Get a 2.5 or so GHZ WIN XP wih a good graphics board & plenty of RAM. I personally think most people who are unable to play the game (there re many, they are vocal) have either over-clocked or ridiculously high-end multi-thousand pound PCs. They are very disappointed. I spent seventy five quid on a new barebones one out of Micromart, another fifty for the gfx board, & I'm as happy as Larry the Labrador in a Bonio factory.