Plenty time to have tested mp

[Swoosh So]

So now that you lot have had plenty time to test multiplayer how about someone giving an indepth review and comparing it against the other titles in the series from a vet of the series point of view? Im really looking forward to try it but just cant find the time irl to fit it in atm havent even bought it yet, things should cooldown in a few weeks.

[Paolai]

Played just about 10 land matches. Played about 260 naval games.

Naval matches are great imho.

[ncbeach]

compared to all other versions... etw is the best.
(i have played every version of tw online since shogun including all expansions.. except for mtw2)


starting from the beginning..

ca tries to rip you off with a special forces version.. a new twist in the series.. the standard version of etw is crippleware in the sense thats is a full version with a very small amount of game material locked. "upgrading" to the unlocked version is a waste of money.

steam is required to play online.. which is free.. there are no tacky in game logos or ads.. a vast improvement over gamespy or the ca servers stw ran on.. good features are an easy to use friend list and the "overlay".. for vets of the series this will be one of the biggest new improvements.. this overlay is a semi transparent layer that can be accessed while online with shift+tab.... on this layer you can manage multiple chat boxes similar to popular instant message programs.. but it lacks the ability to send and receive files... you can also browse the steam network for player groups and profiles, even cruise the web with the steam browser... account settings such as alert settings and display name are here as well. the downside of steam is that there is no chat foyer.. a huge drawback and something i really miss.. all chat is conducted in army set up mode or in the battle, or via chat boxes with people on your friends list... i never thought i would miss the sight of "1 more plz" ... but i do.

this is the most restrictive version in terms of mp game set up options yet and i find this an area where improvements can and should be made. there are 4 land battle settings in total.. early era with low funds or high funds... and late era with low funds or high funds. the major difference is the arty has explosive shells and the factions are better balanced in late era... funds are 10,000 for low and 14,000 for high.. this does make it easy to create standard armies that can be saved or loaded in the battle set up.. unit size has 4 choices.. small, med, large, ultra.. ... weather, time of day, battle time limits all have selectable options.. missing are any options to control types of units allowed, limits on same troop type, number of units in total, any controls on fatigue... the map selection is horrible.. there is only one 4v4 map.. there are only two 2v2 maps.. and a handfull of 1v1 maps.. so far i have no idea how to even go about making or modding any of the maps.. without a map editor i think we are stuck with what they give us. the good news is the maps are good.. but i cant imagine playing on the same 4v4 for ever, it will lose its appeal soon..

patching the game is easy... steam does it for you.. but for the moment we are dealing with some players who have changed some files and can still play online.. cracked version of the game dont work online.. at least none ive seen or heard of.. but you can mod files with a real copy and get online.. this is fixable and i expect it will be part of an upgrade soon..

multiplayer campaign is entering the beta phase according to .com .. we have heard many promises in the past.. but this time it looks for real..

the battle-

the etw engine is very good..

units move well over the landscape.. but not perfect.. fatigue seems ok.. but in past it has been more of a factor.. units regain stamina quicker than i remember too.. and you can run across the entire map and only be "winded"... loading and shooting dont seem to drop stamina much at all and is not a factor.. all in all fatigue is ok.. i just wished there were host options to control the level of it on a per game basis... off, lite, med, normal, high, extreme.. the scale of the units are a little off.. id guess if the were reduced in size by 50% it would be more in line to the scale of the landscapes.. but this does make for nice looking unit graphics.. and is par for the series..

combat resolution is A+.. when units battle the kill speed has a good feel to it.. not too fast not to slow.. cav dont get the "swiping" bonus as before.. but their charge makes up for it.. new anti cav tactics are deployable stakes.. which impale horses running over them.. once a horse has been impaled the stake is gone.. and square formation... which works very well against cav.... ... although nearly all infantry carry guns.. the better generals and old tw players bring a row of 3-6 lite infantry sharp shooter units.. these are etw's missle troops.. used to win the ranged war.. more solid line infantry serve as basic h2h units that also can shoot like old crossbow units... this gives a general several options in fighting a battle.. you can shoot the enemy to pieces or run him over.. and bring the same units to do both.. .. art is and always has been unbalanced.. 95% of game rules deals with either what style of art is allowed and/or the limit to number of units brought.. mortars are the most unbalanced unit in the history of tw... and are banned from most games as well as rockets..

with good tactics it is possible to match up against one and a half armies and win... ive had 4 to 1 kill ratios in a number of matches and some extreme 10 to 1 and higher now and then..... and those that know me know i never camp.. against quality players you can have excellent team matches and 1v1's with long battles that include epic side skirmishes, rushes, flanking, and critical pivot moments.. ive had the joy of fighting battles that came down to less than 50 troops on either side.. your troops will hold a long time if lead right.. will rout quickly if used wrong...

the ai takes over for players who drop in mid game... its about time this was a feature.. sadly.. most hosts dont bother to set the ai level to expert and the army will rush out to its doom... when set on expert the level of play is better than any tw ai before it.. i havent lost to an ai army yet.. but ive had a few close calls... id rate the expert ai player better than the average tw noob, and more aggressive..

the ranking system is basic and confusing.. if you win you will get some stars.. there is no ladder and no way to look up anyone stats besides yourself... the first 9 star i played was also the first ranked battle i played.. he got really mad i beat him because he dropped a retarded amount of levels.. the average no clan named i dont know you from adam player will drop me more than half the time in 1v1.. as pulling your internet connection will not result in a loss for the host.. this is insane.. i cant even keep a list of them to remind me later.. no way to ban someone from your games either.. (u can boot from the battle set up but u cant create a preset list of banned players) ...

swoosh.. if there is anything missing in my review that your are interested in plz ask.... but to you and any other previous tw player.. now that you have read this i must charge you a review fee.. go out and buy this game and we will call it even :)

[Megas Methuselah]

compared to all other versions... etw is the best.
(i have played every version of tw online since shogun including all expansions.. except for mtw2)


starting from the beginning..

ca tries to rip you off with a special forces version.. a new twist in the series.. the standard version of etw is crippleware in the sense thats is a full version with a very small amount of game material locked. "upgrading" to the unlocked version is a waste of money.

Agreed.

steam is required to play online.. which is free.. there are no tacky in game logos or ads.. a vast improvement over gamespy or the ca servers stw ran on.. good features are an easy to use friend list and the "overlay".. for vets of the series this will be one of the biggest new improvements.. this overlay is a semi transparent layer that can be accessed while online with shift+tab.... on this layer you can manage multiple chat boxes similar to popular instant message programs.. but it lacks the ability to send and receive files... you can also browse the steam network for player groups and profiles, even cruise the web with the steam browser... account settings such as alert settings and display name are here as well. the downside of steam is that there is no chat foyer.. a huge drawback and something i really miss.. all chat is conducted in army set up mode or in the battle, or via chat boxes with people on your friends list... i never thought i would miss the sight of "1 more plz" ... but i do.

Agreed on everything except the in-game chat. How can you not know this? When in-battle, move your mouse cursor in the top left corner of the screen, a little option thing will open up. Click on the little figure. Once someone says something, the chat box pops up for everyone in the battle.

this is the most restrictive version in terms of mp game set up options yet and i find this an area where improvements can and should be made. there are 4 land battle settings in total.. early era with low funds or high funds... and late era with low funds or high funds. the major difference is the arty has explosive shells and the factions are better balanced in late era... funds are 10,000 for low and 14,000 for high.. this does make it easy to create standard armies that can be saved or loaded in the battle set up.. unit size has 4 choices.. small, med, large, ultra.. ... weather, time of day, battle time limits all have selectable options.. missing are any options to control types of units allowed, limits on same troop type, number of units in total, any controls on fatigue... the map selection is horrible.. there is only one 4v4 map.. there are only two 2v2 maps.. and a handfull of 1v1 maps.. so far i have no idea how to even go about making or modding any of the maps.. without a map editor i think we are stuck with what they give us. the good news is the maps are good.. but i cant imagine playing on the same 4v4 for ever, it will lose its appeal soon..

Agreed. Apparently, there's new maps coming in with the next patch, so thank God. I wish there was a way to restrict certain units from being recruited (i.e. mortars).

patching the game is easy... steam does it for you.. but for the moment we are dealing with some players who have changed some files and can still play online.. cracked version of the game dont work online.. at least none ive seen or heard of.. but you can mod files with a real copy and get online.. this is fixable and i expect it will be part of an upgrade soon..

Yes, you can mod your files. It's possible to unlock the unplayable factions (I particularly enjoy Wurttemberg and the Powhatan Confederacy) but, for whatever God knows reason, it's also possible to change unit costs. I'm all fine with the unplayable factions, but not the unit costs. The unit costs cheating-thing is supposed to be fixed in the next patch.

the ranking system is basic and confusing.. if you win you will get some stars.. there is no ladder and no way to look up anyone stats besides yourself... the first 9 star i played was also the first ranked battle i played.. he got really mad i beat him because he dropped a retarded amount of levels.. the average no clan named i dont know you from adam player will drop me more than half the time in 1v1.. as pulling your internet connection will not result in a loss for the host.. this is insane.. i cant even keep a list of them to remind me later.. no way to ban someone from your games either.. (u can boot from the battle set up but u cant create a preset list of banned players) ...

Yeah, I really hate it when I'm just about the win a ranked battle, but host is able to pull the plug and crashes the game without a loss. That really pisses me off. Also, I want a ban option. More than once, I've gotten these little waste of flesh kids who kept re-joining my game immediately after I would boot him out. Mostly they're people I know who have cheated in games by spamming mortars when the rules would be "no mortars."

[Swoosh So]

Thanks for the review nc was exactly what i was looking for, im definately going to buy the game once im abit less busy offline.

The aspect i look forward to most is the multiplayer campaign, Amp and I had such fun with that even with the rome engine so will be great to see it on a good totalwar game.

Btw it should be possible to use single player maps in a map pack by unpacking the files theyre contained in and adding to a mp maps folder. Not sure if only the host or all participants would need the extracted files tho.

Unpacker: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=234546

[Krasturak]

*opens coffin*

*creeps out of coffin*

*sees Swoosh*

Gah! Swoosh! Gah!

Krast must now decipher methodology, travel to strange new lands with many guns to confront fniendish Swoosh in battle once again ....

/OOC

Hi guys.

Thanks for the review, NC, that's about what I needed to know.

Might be able to get online to play this in 6 months or so, depending.

See you then.

OOC/

Gnish! Gnash! Gni!

*waves axe*

*creeps back into coffin*

*closes coffin*

[Swoosh So]

NC how many people are online on your average night now with ETW and what % of them are from shogun/mtw?

[AggonyDuck]

It's very hard to say Swoosh due to the absence of a foyer.

[Nobunaga]

if the game is this good then why is mp forums here almost dead?? Is there any active multiplayer community??

[Scurvy]

the total war center is more active mp wise, and the clans tend to use the ccs (links around here somewhere)

[Jochi Khan]

How many people are online on your average night now with ETW and what % of them are from shogun/mtw?

Impossible to say how many and/or if from STW/MTW.

Last night on the UK Server, average 10-15 games being hosted and no idea who the Host player names are. Mostly 1v1 and 2v2 games so not many people playing.

When you launch the game you are taken to the Battle List of the Server region that you are allocated, that is, the Server region nearest to where you reside. You have the option to change this.

This shows games in progress or being set up. Unless you know the name of the Host there is no way of knowing who are in these games or waiting to join these games because there is no lobby for you to ask people to join games. A very big backward step from the other TW games.

You can join Groups and have Friends in an attempt to meet up. If you select either a group or your friends it will show you who are offline, online or ingame. Very misleading. Online your frame is blue, ingame your frame is green (that is, your name and the square frame around it).
Nothing like having half a dozen chat windows on the go trying to keep up with people.

Important Once you launch ETW to get to the Battle List you are classed as being ingame. You can be sat at you pc wondering what to do next but you still show as being ingame.
I am convinced that this is where the fictitiously large numbers (ooo's) of people playing ETW is being generated.

So, where are your friends , where are they playing and with who? I have sat for hours swapping from one region to another looking for games being hosted by players I know. Last night I found FearofNC on the US Chicago server but his game was full (Naval...Trafalgar).

This is no way to keep a community together like in the old days.

[Kalle]

One hint on the size of the mp community is to look at the participating clans of the cwc. Very many. A lot of them are new to me but both Aggony and Celtibero are in though and maybe some other old clans. It still feels great to win battles in tournament :)

Kalle

[ncbeach]

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

click the link at bottom that says "view steam players per game"

currently there are 13,561 playing etw right this second.. 17,740 was the peak today.

this includes everyone who is logged into steam, and has etw launched... lets say 90% are playing sp.. that leaves 135 online at the moment... it might be closer to 80% (265)given how easy it is to get an online game: there is a quick battle service, once you have gone through the hassle of setting up steam in the first place why not try the mp, a good bit of the achievement awards can only be gained in mp.. my guess on the % of vets.. id say 60-75% have played some version of tw before..maybe not online though.. of stw vets.. id say less than 1%.. ive run into maybe 5-10 players in the last 2 weeks that played stw.. out of the thousands ive played..

the part about the different servers.. ive spent some time trying to figure them out... i dont have all the answers and i could be wrong... but the usa has 3 main servers.. la, chicago, ny .. from there each server has sub servers.. there is a dc server which i go through.. atlanta, miami, boston, san jose and a few others..

from what i can tell... all usa servers speak to each other.. it doesnt matter which one you are on you will see game from all the other usa servers.. international servers im guessing working in the same way.. im betting hot spots like uk and aussie have a main server and sub servers to the same effect.. when i went to uk i saw many games listed by celti.. which i remember as a spanish clan.. maybe all of europe is linked like usa is.. i really dont know..

you cannot see games listed on the uk servers from usa and vise versa.. however.. you will see games hosted by people in your friends list regardless of which server they are on.. i can goto uk... host a game.. and anyone who is on my friend list will see it.. so for those trying to hook up with old tw friends... i suggest an exchange of steam id's so you will see each others game.. invites also work.. if im on usa server and invite someone on my friend list from the uk they can join. one thing i have noticed.. LAG.. when playing on the uk server i lag terribly.... on usa i can run 4v4 with no lag at all.. there is a green, yellow, red light system when viewing hosted games to show your connection speed to the host.. all of uk's games for me are yellow..

ive been hosting an early era, low fund, no restrictions, unranked, naval battle the last 2 days.. ive been almost unstoppable on land.. so i wanted to spread FEAR to the high seas.. i won 75% of my matches yesterday.. not as high as my land % but ill be working to get it there :)

[tgi01]

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

click the link at bottom that says "view steam players per game"

currently there are 13,561 playing etw right this second.. 17,740 was the peak today.

this includes everyone who is logged into steam, and has etw launched... lets say 90% are playing sp.. that leaves 135 online at the moment... it might be closer to 80% (265)given how easy it is to get an online game: there is a quick battle service, once you have gone through the hassle

Dont wanna hurt NC -s feelings but 10 % of 13561 is 1356 ... ....

and the MP % could be higher than that ... steam is very MP friendly most of the top games are mp or mp only ...

TGI

[ncbeach]

lol thx for pointing that out :P big difference!!!

[Nobunaga]

wow now im hyped

it seems that CA did a good job on ETW... How is the balance/game mechanics compared to STW/MTW? And is this really worth getting?? Thing is that I have get a new pc to run ETW properly so I am still not sure if I should get it now...

[phunkbot]

I'll try comment as well and also to add a few things I've come across over my ~100-130 mp games so far (on a low - mid pc configuration):

Firstly something I didn't see above - we do get Steam crashes that ruin games, although rare they do happen (most I've got in a single night was two, combined with people dropping out of games during loading and ruining games out of pure profanity it amounted to 5 out of ~10 games for the evening). Making friends (or having ones from previous titles, which I don't ) makes getting into worthwhile fun games easier.

As I've only played previous titles singleplayer I cant compare the balance with that; I'm at around 33000 skill points atm and move about the 30-35k range and I'm glad that there doesn't seem to be a pattern of the type "player 1 brings x units of type a and y units of type b and wins every time, if I do the same I get lots of haxxor skill rating points", also I've encountered people who clearly beat me in what's called "micro" only to then be beaten by my "macro" . I've come out on top against seemingly incredible odds and have had my army wiped out when I was certain I was winning. Against a honorably playing opponent you often get games that come down to 10-15% of the original armies deployed surviving, and when at the end you tell each other "hey, good game - thanks" you both mean it. I'd say its overall a reasonably balanced game, tactics and good fortune (specifically when your troops are being brave ) will carry you trough to victory more so than counting on beating by (abusing) superior unit statistics alone.


Performance-wise the game lives up to my expectations to the fullest; When you're on low - mid it isn't as pretty but it just works fine, it gets choppy for me only on 2v2 ultra armies or on 4v4, provided the game doesn't lag due to poor connectivity.
Also for some reason I have excellent connections when logged in the US- New York server, far better than the European servers and even the one I guess should be the most suitable for me Europe - Southeastern, with more than half the games being 3/3 connections, its noticeable in-game as well.

Without question the biggest thing to look forward to for me is the multilayer campaign, there isn't post victory rape and pillage in the game as it stands

See you guys on the battlefield (first one to actually join the org steamgroup chatroom gets a beer on me ! )