post patch [04/30]: end-game play not fixed

[Slaists]

I believe, one of the stated goals of the last patch was to make the end-game more engaging and fun. To be honest, I have a feeling CA has utterly failed in that department.

In 1775, playing as Britain on H and rapidly approaching the long campaign goals I have 500,000 K cushion in my treasury and despite having ALL of my provinces developed to the max, several big fleets, 4 full armies (two of them in India, 1 in the Americas and 1 in North Africa) I am still 'raking in' 40K to 50K a turn in profits (depending on which of my trade partners is blockaded in the particular turn).

Economy wise: it IS a step forward, my cushion is not millions just 500K... but still... My trade can be 100% blockaded for decades and I would still be able to stay 'above the water'...

I feel part of the reason of this ability to build up huge cushion is the industrial unrest that has disappeared with the new patch. Now it's possible to have happy faces (populus) all around even with full research in Enlightenment, maximum Industrialization (as many towns as any province has) and absolute monarchy. Unrest forced the player to garrison even the colonial towns previously helping to 'eat away' the cushion.

Game-play wise: end-game AI is as dead as before. It's the start-to-mid-game that CA has fixed and made more engaging.

-- Maybe opening up more theaters and giving the AI appropriate priorities would help? For example, if the player is going wild in North America, AI France still has a chance to expand and build up an empire of similar strength in Africa or South-East Asia. Just an idea.

-- Naval invasions are still something from the fairy tales. The first three decades of the game I was fully occupied in North America, guarding England with token troops that are there at the game start. Neither France nor Spain (my enemies of the time) attmpted to do anything. Neither did any AI faction try to do anything about half of India belonging to rebels.

[Rhuarc]

I agree with you to some extent. As CA has said, they plan to keep making improvements to the gameplay, etc. This is great, but they have had to put out a lot of major fires before turning to refining all aspects of the gameplay. The house is not burning down anymore, but there are still holes in the walls.

However, I think TW veterans will always be able to 'win' this game. All TW games have been like that. Especially late game. This is why I rarely finish a campaign. After a certain point you are unstoppable. I don't think this is THAT much of a problem, as it is a reflection of your success at building your empire. I actually like the fact that I can 'succeed' in this fashion. Much better than having arbitrary triggers in the game to submarine the player 'just to make it harder.'

Like all games, once you know how to beat it, you have to do other things to make it challenging: Playing a smaller, harder faction, etc. I don't know how they could 'fairly' make it tough for you in 1775, after 3/4 of a century of buildup, but maybe fixing industrialization would help. I still think you would be able to keep rolling regardless.

[antisocialmunky]

It would be nice if the end game was actually fun - that the business of actually going from getting to the world domination stage to GOD EMPEROR OF MANKINDS isn't just a bunch of tedious grind.

Lots of Strategy Games have issues with this but some have solved it by adding in special win conditions. I just don't see ETW being able to implement anything truly interesting in the state its in right now. It would be awesome to be able to coordinate a massive alliance to fight another massive alliance liek hte Napoleonic Wars but the AI just isn't in a state to supply the player with any sort of meaningful coordinated challenge.

[Namarie22]

I frankly though, don't see much point in playing until they've reached some stability with the balancing..

Hate to start campaigns, then abandon because of patch (or, tear your hair out).. wonder if this is how it will be, or if there will be another patch shortly?

[Tully Bascombe]

I've had 3 crashes since the new patch came out, so in my opinion they fixed nothing.

[Slaists]

It would be nice if the end game was actually fun - that the business of actually going from getting to the world domination stage to GOD EMPEROR OF MANKINDS isn't just a bunch of tedious grind.

Lots of Strategy Games have issues with this but some have solved it by adding in special win conditions. I just don't see ETW being able to implement anything truly interesting in the state its in right now. It would be awesome to be able to coordinate a massive alliance to fight another massive alliance liek hte Napoleonic Wars but the AI just isn't in a state to supply the player with any sort of meaningful coordinated challenge.

Well, modders have had quite some success tweaking the diplomatic engine in the previous TW titles: AI does seem to form alliance blocks against the player in Broken Crescent for example.

One of the biggest gameplay drawbacks of the previous titles was that in order to win you really had to conquere most of the known world. It just did not leave enough space and resources for a meaningful counter-power developing. End-game was just that, as you mentioned just a tedious grind.

I believe, the idea of ETW was exactly to solve this problem by NOT making the player conquer the known world, but rather maintain his empire against other powers (or alliance of powers) of similar size and capability. The problem is: it's not happening in the game. Once the player has gotten his win condition 'assigned provinces', his economy is the most powerful in the game, while the AI is busy fighting each other and ruining their treasuries in decades old wars in which actually nothing is happening.

The latter is happening because the AI has suddenly (compared to the previous TW titles) lost ability to make peace with other AI factions.

[Mr Frost]

I think one problem is having a tech tree {and building system} that even poor players can "max out" before the game ends {and easily at that} .
Indeed , at present by 1/3 of the way into a campaign , many {probably most} players have typically managed to achieve a comfortable technological lead over most other factions and certainly have a clear , even dominating , lead by mid game .

It should be that without cheating or modding , the player simply cannot complete the entire tech tree , but if He/She focuses sufficiently on some aspects of it , can finish some branches {though it should be a narrow thing and the technologies that are neglected should have an effect that is realistic} .

In reality , much on the end of the tech tree was actually early 19th century {for the steam block ships , 3 decades into it !} and some of the early tech was already in common use .
The tech tree needs a massive overhaul {it wouldn't be hard as it was a century of tremendous change and advancement in so many areas} and could probably use a number of new technology catagories {there seems to be room in the U.I.} such as "The Arts" for example {which would share the same tab as Philosophy} .

The way extra schools etc give bonuses to research could use overhaul : they seem to be adding too many extra research points for each extra school {from a game ballance perspective} and simply having many extra schools would still allow a much expanded tech tree to be completed without addressing this .
Perhaps altering it so the effects of having say 10 schools with 20-30 gentlemen spread evenly throughout them isn't quite so dramatically superior to having only 1 school with 3-5 genltemen in it would be fitting in such a redesigned system and each extra gentleman/scholar in a given school should add some research points to developing any specific tech , even if only by a tiny degree {I'm not sure that is allways the case at the moment} .

Gentlemen should only spawn in provincial capitals if that faction has no school {I've seen them spawn on schoolless islands for example} as there is no way the A.I. could be efficient in the way that is handled and/or be able to do research in capitals {at a serious penalty to their research} .
The best option here might be they only spawn in schools unless there are none and then only in the national capital {and mabey a cities with an observatory} in which they can research but only at half the rate they would in a school {again , spreading gentlemen out thin on many techs at once shouldn't be too much better than concentrating them on only one or a few techs at a time ... certainly not enough to make schoolspam an endgame easymode} .
Also the dueling feature is a bit silly {for many reasons} and stealing research needs serious work {currently it is a touch cheesy ; we need an elegant feature for a more civilized game} . Certainly the A.I. doesn't seem to be using their gentlemen very well , having them roaming around the countryside so much that they would be far better off never letting them set foot outside their own schools ! They need an overhaul themselves .




This all put together would still allow a player to focus on whatever they considered vital techs and , should they be willing to accept the penaties for neglecting other technology developments , allow them to develop technologies that didn't arrive until the next century {like steam driven warships , precussion cap firearms and rifled cannon ; or instead social advances etc} or merely advance all knowledges equally to a degree roughly equal to historical developments but never finish all the research trees and thus never reach a point where schools are no longer needed {and indeed become liabilities that get destroyed and replaced with other buildings which the A.I. wont do} nor achieve a point where it is literally impossible for an A.I. faction to hold a technological lead over them !

[Ardri]

Mr Frost, I agree totally with the fact that the tech tree should not be able to be completed. This would also add variety to the factions as some factions could be better at researching one line as opposed to another line of techs making some factions geared toward military prowess or others industrial powers. Not only would this bring variety to the game, it would also make it possible for countries to ally based on need. Say an industrial nation knows it cannot match a more militaristic nation on the battlefield so it allies with a militaristic nation to fill the need and militaristic nations could ally with industrial nations to help support their economies. It could ally for the creation of alliances based on need and necessity. The technological aspect of ETW definitely needs a bit of an overhaul if the game is to remain insteresting through the later stages.

[AussieGiant]

I'd just like to state for the record here and now that:

You are all arguing for the game to be made harder.

If in fact that does happen, can I quote you all liberally and be able to attribute these current quotes as "wanting to make the game harder" and therefore you all forgo the ability to complain that the game has become too hard in future?

[Slaists]

I'd just like to state for the record here and now that:

You are all arguing for the game to be made harder.

If in fact that does happen, can I quote you all liberally and be able to attribute these current quotes as "wanting to make the game harder" and therefore you all forgo the ability to complain that the game has become too hard in future?

Signed!

[antisocialmunky]

Well, modders have had quite some success tweaking the diplomatic engine in the previous TW titles: AI does seem to form alliance blocks against the player in Broken Crescent for example.

One of the biggest gameplay drawbacks of the previous titles was that in order to win you really had to conquere most of the known world. It just did not leave enough space and resources for a meaningful counter-power developing. End-game was just that, as you mentioned just a tedious grind.

I believe, the idea of ETW was exactly to solve this problem by NOT making the player conquer the known world, but rather maintain his empire against other powers (or alliance of powers) of similar size and capability. The problem is: it's not happening in the game. Once the player has gotten his win condition 'assigned provinces', his economy is the most powerful in the game, while the AI is busy fighting each other and ruining their treasuries in decades old wars in which actually nothing is happening.

The latter is happening because the AI has suddenly (compared to the previous TW titles) lost ability to make peace with other AI factions.

The problem with ETW is that CA has never really throught overly hard about figuring out the end game. A lack of a definite direction...

I was always impartial to the late game alternate victorys. For ETW I could see a fun sort of economic victory condition based on relative incomes. As for the normal military domination, I wouldn't mind it if after certain thresholds are passed the game picks a few random factions reasonably far away and reasonably powerful and start giving them bonuses in diplo to each other, and to their economies so they eventaully ally against you in a giant bloc.

Of course my favorite late game victory condition was form Master of Orion 2 where you can travel to another Dimension and kill those hyper advanced Antarian bastards that have been attacking you FTW.

If this was a WWI game, I would suggest that when the player reaches about 80% domination, alien Tripods land and try to conquer the Earth.

[loony]

when you have a dominating position, the game has to become too easy. it has become very difficult to get that position, however.
I play as Poland-Lithuania and I am in trouble all the time for the first 20 turns (VH/VH, of course :))
Pre-patch I played GB and it was a cakewalk...

It is, however, unfortunate that the only way to make the game challenging is to make money so scarce. I have been fighting with the worst and most boring units all the time; no fancy cavalry, no fancy guns, no nothing... Militias and pikement slugging it out with general's bodyguard...

[anweRU]

I feel part of the reason of this ability to build up huge cushion is the industrial unrest that has disappeared with the new patch.

Slaists, you're playing a CM. CM only has nobility & middle class, neither of which is affected by industrial unrest. It was always thus. I fumed about it much earlier in a couple of other threads - British superiority. Bah, humbug!

Go play an AM or R, then you'll get all the unrest you want.

[AussieGiant]

Slaists, you're playing a CM. CM only has nobility & middle class, neither of which is affected by industrial unrest. It was always thus. I fumed about it much earlier in a couple of other threads - British superiority. Bah, humbug!

Go play an AM or R, then you'll get all the unrest you want.

oohh, nice point there anweRU. I never thought about the different types of political systems having that much of an effect.

I'm sure a few others didn't either.

[Slaists]

Slaists, you're playing a CM. CM only has nobility & middle class, neither of which is affected by industrial unrest. It was always thus. I fumed about it much earlier in a couple of other threads - British superiority. Bah, humbug!

Go play an AM or R, then you'll get all the unrest you want.

Ok, that would explain why the faction (GB) does not get industrial unrest. Is is not clear how CA imagined manning all those factories under CM without a lower class though: slaves??

However, playing as Ottomans (AM) I also do not see any industrialization unrest and none is displayed in the upcoming building descriptions. Maybe I have not played long enough. Will check later.

[antisocialmunky]

I think that is a reported issue so they'll probably get it fixed soon.