There it goes, fun factor low.

[Maladin]

I completely agree. Medieval: Total War was a constant challenge. For one thing, you actually had to worry about assassins, not to mention all the events such as drought, famines, peasant crusades... And the civil war feature was pretty good. It did not need mods to be challenging.

The music was more interesting than the current ones, too.

But to Medieval 2: Total War's credit, you had a nifty video for assassinating the pope.

[Smellycat]

But to Medieval 2: Total War's credit, you had a nifty video for assassinating the pope.

DAMN YOU! now i have to reinstall M2TW...

[Graphic]

DAMN YOU! now i have to reinstall M2TW...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvpZnvPq9Xs

[Smellycat]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvpZnvPq9Xs

I never got those nifty priest killed at altar movies tho.
About Empire i feel exactly like this guy

[DisruptorX]

Medieval is based off of a simple risk board style battlemap, which it seems by now is proven to be superior than the Lords of the Realm II style map they've been using since Rome. It prevents the AI from being too mind numbingly dumb. None of the theoretical advantages of the current map style even come into play in ETW, since reinforcements now come from random directions.

The civil war aspect isn't really the same in ETW, as it doesn't break up your kingdom at all. That, the title system, and the complete randomness of which factions did well are things that have been missing ever since MTW 1.

From all the complaints here, though, I'd swear people haven't played Rome or MTW 2. Nothing about either of those games is superior to ETW.

[Smellycat]

except for being fun

[MikeV]

Medieval is based off of a simple risk board style battlemap, which it seems by now is proven to be superior than the Lords of the Realm II style map they've been using since Rome. It prevents the AI from being too mind numbingly dumb. None of the theoretical advantages of the current map style even come into play in ETW, ...

From all the complaints here, though, I'd swear people haven't played Rome or MTW 2. Nothing about either of those games is superior to ETW.

For the campaign map part of the app, I'd consider the Shogun & Medieval (1) system as the "Mk. I, Risk-like" version; Rome, Medieval 2, and Empire use the "Mk. II, LotR II-like" system.

I agree with your assessment that the earlier, simpler map made the AI seem more effective.

The unanswered question is whether the AI for the current system can be made effective at all. As various folks have pointed out, it's currently passive to the point of being uninteresting.

I suppose the folks who are enjoying the game, in its present state, are into MP and/or nice eye candy ... "not that there's anything wrong with that."

[Megas Methuselah]

The only things I really, really, really miss from RTW and M2TW are the family trees (a broken form is now available through modding, but it needs vast improvement), the ability of family members to fight on the field as generals (very good for roleplaying purposes), and the way battlefield reinforcements worked out (which is presently completely broken). Also, I don't like the singular large territories (like France, Spain, etc.), as it really limits warefare.

Other than those, ETW outdoes RTW and M2TW.

EDIT: Oh yes, the passive AI and no naval invasions. Did I mention that?

[Dayve]

Empire totally surpasses Rome and Medieval 2, there is no question on that, it's better than both of them combined, i don't think anybody could argue that.

Still, the original Medieval was better i'd say. The AI may not actually have been more intelligent, but it SEEMED more intelligent, because there was less it had to do to achieve its goal. It had to raise an army and enter a province, and was automatically sucked into battle with you, which was brilliant.

Then Rome introduced the more modern style campaign map where the AI could choose which part of a province to move its armies to, such as into a forest to ambush, or simply stand around devastating the ground, and it couldn't seem to make up its mind on what to do, so it usually just stood around doing nothing.

Now it has even more options... block your roads and trade, capture and burn your farms, workshops, schools, churches or go directly for your city, and when you give it these choices it cannot cope.

Bring back the Medieval campaign map. A risk style map isn't any less fun, i even have an older friend who refused to buy TW games when they stopped using a risk style, more simpler campaign map. It's clear Medieval is superior in every way except one: graphically, so you may as well just take Medieval and improve what's there, like graphics, add a bigger map, etc. etc.

Another thing the AI cannot understand or comprehend or use to its advantage is the research trees. I've never met an AI nation that researched fire by rank, they all go for division of labour and the high-end social technologies so they have monster income and crappy military. I've noticed they research from a script too, they never make up their own minds, they're researching what CA have programmed them to research, and it goes the same way every time... empiricism, division of labour, canister shot.

Never fire by rank, explosive shot, mortars, howitzers...

Come to think of it, i've never seen an enemy recruit grenadiers! I always play on VH/M btw.

[nafod]

Empire totally surpasses Rome and Medieval 2, there is no question on that, it's better than both of them combined, i don't think anybody could argue that.

Still, the original Medieval was better i'd say. The AI may not actually have been more intelligent, but it SEEMED more intelligent, because there was less it had to do to achieve its goal. It had to raise an army and enter a province, and was automatically sucked into battle with you, which was brilliant.

Then Rome introduced the more modern style campaign map where the AI could choose which part of a province to move its armies to, such as into a forest to ambush, or simply stand around devastating the ground, and it couldn't seem to make up its mind on what to do, so it usually just stood around doing nothing.

Now it has even more options... block your roads and trade, capture and burn your farms, workshops, schools, churches or go directly for your city, and when you give it these choices it cannot cope.

Bring back the Medieval campaign map. A risk style map isn't any less fun, i even have an older friend who refused to buy TW games when they stopped using a risk style, more simpler campaign map. It's clear Medieval is superior in every way except one: graphically, so you may as well just take Medieval and improve what's there, like graphics, add a bigger map, etc. etc.

Another thing the AI cannot understand or comprehend or use to its advantage is the research trees. I've never met an AI nation that researched fire by rank, they all go for division of labour and the high-end social technologies so they have monster income and crappy military. I've noticed they research from a script too, they never make up their own minds, they're researching what CA have programmed them to research, and it goes the same way every time... empiricism, division of labour, canister shot.

Never fire by rank, explosive shot, mortars, howitzers...

Come to think of it, i've never seen an enemy recruit grenadiers! I always play on VH/M btw.

Ever heard the quote" "The computer Can do anything you want it to, but it will only do exactly what you tell it to do?"

For in this statement lies the essence of the difficulty, and arguably fallacy of "Artificial Intelligence."

[Dayve]

Ever heard the quote" "The computer Can do anything you want it to, but it will only do exactly what you tell it to do?"

For in this statement lies the essence of the difficulty, and arguably fallacy of "Artificial Intelligence."

I know, but they filled us with fairytales of intelligent AI that makes decisions based on the situation and crap like that. Part of me knew it was a lie right from the outset but the other part of me argued that they must have learned their lessons from the abysmally poor AI in both Rome and Medieval 2.

Also, a script, if worked on long enough, could tell the AI to go down a certain research tree depending on certain factors. Example: Prussia. A tiny nation destined to do nothing but go to war with Poland, Sweden, Russia and Austria. Obviously Prussia should be dominating the battlefield but struggling with money, even if they go down the industry trees, because their territory is tiny. This isn't what is happening though, every nation is following an identical script. They go for social, heavy industry and a tiny bit of military with no variation or change.

But then, even if Prussia was programmed to do what i mentioned, since there are no penalties for blitzkrieg or prolonged warfare or explosive expansion, other than dampening your relationship with neighbours, they would still be able to continue wars for the entire game with no penalty, because you could purposely lose every battle you fought and constantly recruit the maximum number of soldiers in every province every turn with no bad effect on public order. What if France conquers London? The population is magically converted to French. They're happy and you can recruit elite French units as soon as you repair the governors office.

There just aren't any consequences, so nations like Prussia or Sweden, who dominated the battlefield but always lost out eventually due to an eventual lack of manpower, don't suffer those same consequences in game. Prussia could continue a losing war with Russia forever and ever and ever unless they were conquered with no bad effects on happiness or economy.

Add all this up and it = no challenge whatsoever. Medieval 1 was a challenge, this isn't, yet this is 10 years ahead of Medieval and cost more money.

Once again, this is still an immensely fun game, but i'm left completely puzzled at what's going wrong. As technology advances, CA's Total War games get worse with each game, or at least the AI does.

[DisruptorX]

I suppose the folks who are enjoying the game, in its present state, are into MP and/or nice eye candy ... "not that there's anything wrong with that."

Both the eyecandy and the sandbox/rp aspect are what keep me playing, despite the lack of tactical challenge. The turn based aspect is much more involved than MTW 2, and there's more non-combat action going on.

Also, while the AI is pretty bad, if you play as say, France, and actually go after your objectives, you are guaranteed conflict as the entire world goes to war with you and you can't afford to simply steamroll your opponents one by one.