Has anything really changed from CA?

[Didz]

That's true. I misread Didz's point.

The problem is that whilst as a player you can avoid using these ships (they actually have no legitimate purpose in the game, as CA failed to include any land in the naval battle game) you cannot stop the AI recruiting them, so the best idea is just to remove them until CA get round to finishing the naval battle engine.

[AussieGiant]

It become pretty clear to me that while graphics, game development, map development and economic models have greatly increased over time, the AI team can simply not keep up with the ever increasing level of resource and relational management.

Essentially they have gotten to a point where they have over-engineered these aspects and this has left the AI team producing an under developed AI as they have simply not been able to keep up.

I don't want to overstate this because producing an AI that can handle all this would be an incredible acheivement, but that is the situation they face.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Essentially they have gotten to a point where they have over-engineered these aspects and this has left the AI team producing an under developed AI as they have simply not been able to keep up.

I don't want to overstate this because producing an AI that can handle all this would be an incredible acheivement

And therein lies the problem, I think. It's much easier (read as, less time consuming) to create & implement various aspects to the game (new units, trade routes, naval warfare, etc) than to create an AI that can handle all of it. IMHO, this is a$$-backwards if you wish to create a game that will challenge and hold the interest of 'serious' gamers.

However, given the timeframe and economic restraints that CA must be under, it's perfectly understandable (although I don't agree with it). Rather than gripe about it, I've exercised my rights and simply refuse to buy their games anymore unless they develop one that I can enjoy. That other folks here can spend hours cursing at their 'puter screen (and CA) and continue to play this game simply amazes me (and I tip my hat to your patience).

When I sit down for a round of gaming at my 'puter, I want to relax and enjoy myself to the point where I lose track of time, not the other way around

[AussieGiant]

Exactly ReluctantSamurai.

I find it rather amusing, that as a glass half full person who can appreciate CA's situation from a "in industry" position, some of the most vehement critics are playing this game ALL the time and seem to be in some masochistic surreal experience.

I on the other hand just completed a GB, h/m Prestige campaign which was thoroughly enjoyable and ate time incredibly fast.

Your analysis is right on the money. They have limited resources, including time and must produce "something". They simply can't sit in a room, perfecting AI for their games and "wait" until they have that "bullet proof" before release.

In the mean time graphic technology is jumping ahead in leaps and bounds and is being pushed primarily by the gaming industry which they are competing in.

They can't afford to fall behind too far...

...hence the situation they find themselves in.

[resonantblue]

Uh, the campaign AI is better. There is no doubt. It may not meet your expectations, but this is the first TW game I can remember when the AI consistently merges smaller units built all over its empire into larger armies and maneuvers those armies about to give you _good_ battles (from a campaign point of view, I'm still not a fan of the battle AI).

I do remember the good old days of MTW when the only good stack vs stack battles you usually had were either when the Mongols invaded or when you sieged enemy cities at the start of a campaign.

This is the best campaign AI yet and diplomacy _has_ improved. Granted, there are annoying idiosyncracies.

But really, the self-entitlement of many of the posters in this thread is not normal. Talking about taking legal action? Taking your ball and going home (ie "not buying another CA product ever" - yeah right, you said that about M2TW, RTW and MTW I'm 99% certain)? Assuming you did follow through (yeah right), let me just suggest that I'm thrilled I won't have to read another unreasonable, petulant rant about whatever TW game CA does next.

[resonantblue]

I alluded to this in another post, but I don't think the AI stupid DoWs are actually that bad. If you have Good or Very Good relations with an AI nation it's very unlikely that they will DoW you unless they really badly want one of the provinces you occupy. On VH I've never been at war with everyone.

Here's how I imagine most of the people complaining a lot about this "problem" are going about their games:

Turn 1-10 blitz enemy nations, breaking alliances and getting negative relations with everyone else as being untrustworthy.

Turn 10 - 20 consolidate and revolt to Republic to boost productivity, forgetting that this is like -140 relations for a long time with everyone who isn't also a Republic - which is 95% of the world.

Turn 20+ - relations with most majors is "hostile" without even being at war. Consequently AI nations DoW constantly. Player starts taking enemy territory resulting in even worse relations (territorial expansion hit) which means peace is very difficult to come by.

Turn X - Player Quits to Windows, logs onto the Parliment and complains about how the AI is totally irrational for declaring war on a nation they are hostile against.

For merely becoming a Republic in the late 18th century France found itself at war with all of Europe. Despite repeated beatdowns and general understanding that France was the single strongest power most of Europe was either at war with France or plotting to start a war with France for the better part of 2 decades.

Is it really so unrealistic what you're seeing?

Like I've said, I've had many VH games where I am barely ever at war with anyone but the barbary states. Maintain good relations with the AI states and they rarely DoW me.

[GFX707]

Uh, the campaign AI is better. There is no doubt. It may not meet your expectations, but this is the first TW game I can remember when the AI consistently merges smaller units built all over its empire into larger armies and maneuvers those armies about to give you _good_ battles (from a campaign point of view, I'm still not a fan of the battle AI).

Are we playing the same game? The AI in my game prefers to send small stacks en masse to raid ad nauseum rather than merges its units where it might actually present a challenge. This is well reported behaviour. I have barely encountered a full stack doing anything other than standing around outside a city.

This is the best campaign AI yet and diplomacy _has_ improved. Granted, there are annoying idiosyncracies.

The problem is that these are the SAME "idiosyncrasies" we have faced time and time again since RTW. The AI declaring war on anything that moves and refusing to make peace. Diplomacy being (still) completely worthless other than "trade rights/map information" despite promises of improvement.

Assuming you did follow through (yeah right), let me just suggest that I'm thrilled I won't have to read another unreasonable, petulant rant about whatever TW game CA does next.

Equally if there will always be people who refuse to acknowledge that a game is flawed, flawed games will keep being released.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I do remember the good old days of MTW when the only good stack vs stack battles you usually had were either when the Mongols invaded or when you sieged enemy cities at the start of a campaign.

Have you ever played STW and the modded Samurai Warlords? From mid-campaign onwards you will have nothing but stack vs. stack battles some of which may take several hours to resolve And the best part is..........the AI can, and will kick your butt if you don't play well

But really, the self-entitlement of many of the posters in this thread is not normal. Talking about taking legal action? Taking your ball and going home (ie "not buying another CA product ever" - yeah right, you said that about M2TW, RTW and MTW I'm 99% certain)? Assuming you did follow through (yeah right), let me just suggest that I'm thrilled I won't have to read another unreasonable, petulant rant about whatever TW game CA does next.

I said nothing about legal action. In fact I understand the position CA is in......it is a business, afterall, and they must make a profit for their efforts. And I said nothing of the sort for other TW games up to RTW (which I still play). I said that after M2TW (which I ended up giving away) and indeed, after seeing the problems and frustrations other good players are having with ETW, I have not purchased the game.

I do not think my comments are a 'petulant rant'. I am a reasonably experienced TW player with an opinion. I do not push my views on others with continuous rants, I've just exercised my rights as a consumer to not buy a product I feel I won't enjoy.............key word here......"enjoy."

As I said...I play PC games to relax and forget about my worries and problems for a few hours.......not endure more of the same

[mkeogh]

Uh, the campaign AI is better. There is no doubt. It may not meet your expectations, but this is the first TW game I can remember when the AI consistently merges smaller units built all over its empire into larger armies and maneuvers those armies about to give you _good_ battles (from a campaign point of view, I'm still not a fan of the battle AI).

I do remember the good old days of MTW when the only good stack vs stack battles you usually had were either when the Mongols invaded or when you sieged enemy cities at the start of a campaign.

This is the best campaign AI yet and diplomacy _has_ improved. Granted, there are annoying idiosyncracies.

Wow! Did we get the same game?

I personally think the CAI and diplomatic engine in ETW are beyond question the worst of any TW game, and I've been playing them since Shogun.

As others have stated, ETW's CAI simply cannot handle this complex new map. It's really struggling with it.

It can't manage the economy so it's often bankrupt or on the point of bankruptcy. (By early mid-game in almost all of my campaigns my nation is terrifying and spectacular while the AI nations are meagre and destititute.)

Diplomacy is completely broken. The AI nations don't use it amongst themselves: they don't declare peace, they don't make new alliances or protectorates, and they don't max out their trade routes. Instead they declare wars on their friends, on their sole trading partners, and regardless of how many other wars they're currently fighting. And they will stay at war until one nation is eliminated or the game ends. I don't think 90+ and 80+ year wars were common in the 18th century. They also declare wars that they can't even fight, let alone win!

The result of the AI continually shooting itself in the leg due to its inability to handle or use the economic and diplomatic engines is that the AI nations are turned into easily conquered weaklings. Eventually, I'm the only one doing anything on the campaign map while the AI nations are struggling just to survive.

The overall campaign AI is dismal. It's completely confused by what it should put into garrison and what it should put into field armies. Thus, it often puts too many troops into garrison or none at all. And it fails to build proper field armies that can actually threaten the player. As a result on the battlefield the player almost always has more and better troops, and a player with more and better troops on the battlefield simply cannot lose!

Further, the AI is completely inept on the strategic offensive. It often resorts to raids which is a completely pointless feature: doesn't hurt a region's economy, does minimal damage to the town, and provides no benefit to the raider. A human player won't waste his time on it. Instead the human player builds up a large army and either attacks the region capital or uses the nice exploit of sitting in an outlying town to let the town's garrison come to him. The result is that player gets bigger and stronger with an accumulation of provinces and wealth. Meanwhile the CAI is sending pathetic little stacks (often consisting solely of artillery units) to raid outlying towns and where they are quickly stomped out by an annoyed human player. Oh, the AI doesn't know how to retreat so it fights every battle no matter what the odds resulting in tiresome "whack-a-mole" battles. Basically, no AI nation can win this game! So the player is in a non-competitive environment- it's just a matter of WHEN the player will either win or quit out of boredom.

The pathfinding is atrocious. AI armies and navies routinely get stuck on the campaign map. (I quit my last campaign when I realized that I could easily crush Russia because most of its army was stuck in West Prussia alongside that bridge. The AI also struggles with landbridges.

Then you got the problems of the AI treating each individual province as a seperate fiefdom. It won't move armies from one friendly province to assist another friendly province. I don't know how may times I've witnessed a tiny AI raiding army burn down a province while in an adjacent province a full stack army does NOTHING to assist one of its OWN beleaguered provinces. Nor will the AI move an army from a neighboring province to relieve a siege.

Then you got all the new features that CA introduced with ETW that its AI simply cannot handle. My "favorite" is the hostile fleets entering a port: AI army ejects hostile fleet from port, AI moves its army out of the port, and hostile fleet immediately moves back into the port. And this process repeats the next turn and the next and the next.... I've seen the above scenario in almost every campaign I've played. Oh, sometimes the AI won't even bother ejecting a hostile fleet from one of its ports so that a single ship will stay in a port for decades stopping trade and prohibiting shipbuilding.

Then you have naval transport. ETW wasn't released with an AI capable of using naval transport. It was only AFTER the game was released that CA started programming AI naval transport, but then discovered it was tougher than they anticipated. So we have a game where AI use of naval transportation is rare to non-existent. Thus, playing the British or the Marathas is a complete joke (even more so than the other factions). Further, AI controlled Britian is completely neutered due to it being stuck in its homelands. The AI also doesn't know how to use the "theater" feature so that the Carribean is the personal playground of the human player and India the Maratha's little sandbox.

I don't think the above issues are "annoying idiosyncracies," but serious CAI issues that almost completely ruin the game. I want to fight big, important battles against powerful opponents, not stomp-out pathetic little stacks from bankrupt nations in repetitive, cakewalk battles. Unfortunately, the later situation has been my experience with ETW. I started campaigns as France and Sweden under the 1.3 patch and have shelved both of them because the CAI is so abysmal that completely ruined any immersion.

I do dream of how much better ETW would be with a much more simplified map. ETW with its breathtaking battles and improved BAI (I think its better than RTW's and M2TW's) might have been a classic with a "Risk-Style" map- no more whack-a-mole battles, no more pointless raids, no more pathfinding issues, no more problems with the CAI having to choose between units in garrison or in field armies, but lot's of big battles (which the AI could sometimes win just on sheer strength of numbers) that emphasize ETW's biggest strength- it's battle engine!! However, that's just wishful thinking and I have to hope that future patches will alleviate some of the above issues, but that's probably just wishful thinking too. And that's saddest thing about ETW.

[paramedicguyer]

I played the demo today, I had bought the game on amazon today too...b4 i got the demo...crap. I can;t believe that EB (running on a 2004 game engine, and basically designed by a non profit group) is superior to ETW. WHat the hell is CA doing. the EB team has made CA look so bad, CA should either really get their shit straight or just call it quits. They are getting paid for designing this game and they still manage to drop the ball. I hate M2TW its just a remaping and reskinning really of RTW, they didnt even write a new script they only modified RTW (they were so lazy they just disabled the Marian reforms), CA also made it far too difficult to mad M2TW initially, I bet it had something to do with how many of the mods for RTW turned out to be superior to the vanilla game. I am sick of all these game reviews giving CA great reviews. These games starting with RTW (which I only like for EB) seem to be catered to idiot short attention spanned gamers who really don't have a terrible interest in deep emmersive strategy, and are more interested in action (I mean no offense to anyone). I honestly am more interested in the straregy map and diplomacy, battles are last on my list. When it comes down to it ETW in my opinion is the retarded silver spooned cousin to europa universalis III.



Peace

[resonantblue]

Wow! Did we get the same game?

I personally think the CAI and diplomatic engine in ETW are beyond question the worst of any TW game, and I've been playing them since Shogun.

As others have stated, ETW's CAI simply cannot handle this complex new map. It's really struggling with it.

It can't manage the economy so it's often bankrupt or on the point of bankruptcy. (By early mid-game in almost all of my campaigns my nation is terrifying and spectacular while the AI nations are meagre and destititute.)

Diplomacy is completely broken. The AI nations don't use it amongst themselves: they don't declare peace, they don't make new alliances or protectorates, and they don't max out their trade routes. Instead they declare wars on their friends, on their sole trading partners, and regardless of how many other wars they're currently fighting. And they will stay at war until one nation is eliminated or the game ends. I don't think 90+ and 80+ year wars were common in the 18th century. They also declare wars that they can't even fight, let alone win!

The result of the AI continually shooting itself in the leg due to its inability to handle or use the economic and diplomatic engines is that the AI nations are turned into easily conquered weaklings. Eventually, I'm the only one doing anything on the campaign map while the AI nations are struggling just to survive.

The overall campaign AI is dismal. It's completely confused by what it should put into garrison and what it should put into field armies. Thus, it often puts too many troops into garrison or none at all. And it fails to build proper field armies that can actually threaten the player. As a result on the battlefield the player almost always has more and better troops, and a player with more and better troops on the battlefield simply cannot lose!

Further, the AI is completely inept on the strategic offensive. It often resorts to raids which is a completely pointless feature: doesn't hurt a region's economy, does minimal damage to the town, and provides no benefit to the raider. A human player won't waste his time on it. Instead the human player builds up a large army and either attacks the region capital or uses the nice exploit of sitting in an outlying town to let the town's garrison come to him. The result is that player gets bigger and stronger with an accumulation of provinces and wealth. Meanwhile the CAI is sending pathetic little stacks (often consisting solely of artillery units) to raid outlying towns and where they are quickly stomped out by an annoyed human player. Oh, the AI doesn't know how to retreat so it fights every battle no matter what the odds resulting in tiresome "whack-a-mole" battles. Basically, no AI nation can win this game! So the player is in a non-competitive environment- it's just a matter of WHEN the player will either win or quit out of boredom.

The pathfinding is atrocious. AI armies and navies routinely get stuck on the campaign map. (I quit my last campaign when I realized that I could easily crush Russia because most of its army was stuck in West Prussia alongside that bridge. The AI also struggles with landbridges.

Then you got the problems of the AI treating each individual province as a seperate fiefdom. It won't move armies from one friendly province to assist another friendly province. I don't know how may times I've witnessed a tiny AI raiding army burn down a province while in an adjacent province a full stack army does NOTHING to assist one of its OWN beleaguered provinces. Nor will the AI move an army from a neighboring province to relieve a siege.

Then you got all the new features that CA introduced with ETW that its AI simply cannot handle. My "favorite" is the hostile fleets entering a port: AI army ejects hostile fleet from port, AI moves its army out of the port, and hostile fleet immediately moves back into the port. And this process repeats the next turn and the next and the next.... I've seen the above scenario in almost every campaign I've played. Oh, sometimes the AI won't even bother ejecting a hostile fleet from one of its ports so that a single ship will stay in a port for decades stopping trade and prohibiting shipbuilding.

Then you have naval transport. ETW wasn't released with an AI capable of using naval transport. It was only AFTER the game was released that CA started programming AI naval transport, but then discovered it was tougher than they anticipated. So we have a game where AI use of naval transportation is rare to non-existent. Thus, playing the British or the Marathas is a complete joke (even more so than the other factions). Further, AI controlled Britian is completely neutered due to it being stuck in its homelands. The AI also doesn't know how to use the "theater" feature so that the Carribean is the personal playground of the human player and India the Maratha's little sandbox.

I don't think the above issues are "annoying idiosyncracies," but serious CAI issues that almost completely ruin the game. I want to fight big, important battles against powerful opponents, not stomp-out pathetic little stacks from bankrupt nations in repetitive, cakewalk battles. Unfortunately, the later situation has been my experience with ETW. I started campaigns as France and Sweden under the 1.3 patch and have shelved both of them because the CAI is so abysmal that completely ruined any immersion.

I do dream of how much better ETW would be with a much more simplified map. ETW with its breathtaking battles and improved BAI (I think its better than RTW's and M2TW's) might have been a classic with a "Risk-Style" map- no more whack-a-mole battles, no more pointless raids, no more pathfinding issues, no more problems with the CAI having to choose between units in garrison or in field armies, but lot's of big battles (which the AI could sometimes win just on sheer strength of numbers) that emphasize ETW's biggest strength- it's battle engine!! However, that's just wishful thinking and I have to hope that future patches will alleviate some of the above issues, but that's probably just wishful thinking too. And that's saddest thing about ETW.

Most of the problem syou mentioned do happen. But these things have been inherent in every TW game in the series. This is _not_ new stuff. The campaign AI is better then it has been, which may not be saying all that much, but it's definitely better. In every TW game until now I've struggled to actually have stack on stack battles. In ETW I get them _all_ the time. On Very Hard the AI is not short on money, whether it's getting it via cheats or legitimately - I don't really care. Granted, the battle AI still stinks compared to a human, but I'm fighting full, balanced stacks all the time. I'm playing on VH and there's no shortage of enemy armies to blow away.

Comparing AI reaction to how a human would AI is just plain silly. No one has yet built an AI that is as intelligent as a human, or even close to it. To fix those situations you describe, the only way to really do that is to hard code reactions to certain situations. Which is exactly why the AI constantly declares war on the player if territory is adjacent and the AI has it as an objective. We need less of such AI code, not more.

I, for one, am grateful that I now have a campaign AI that can setup some good land battles on a consistent basis. The battle ai is another issue entirely (and oh how I wish it were better).

[Cecil XIX]

So many of these problems could be aleviated by having a full-blown, all-inclusive online hotseat mode. Who cares how many years it would take to finish? It would be the ultimate succession game!

[pevergreen]

So many of these problems could be aleviated by having a full-blown, all-inclusive online hotseat mode. Who cares how many years it would take to finish? It would be the ultimate succession game!

1v1 campaign is coming.

Its coming. Its coming. Its coming.

*holds teddy bear tight and rocks backwards and forwards*

[Didz]

So many of these problems could be aleviated by having a full-blown, all-inclusive online hotseat mode. Who cares how many years it would take to finish? It would be the ultimate succession game!

I'm a bit more sceptical about MP campaign mode. I played an MP campaign of MTW2 and one of the problems is that human players just naturally use all the expliots available so it becomes a sort of battle over 'who knows the best cheats' rather than actual gameplay.

[Schiltrom]

I love virtually everything about Empire, in fact the only thing I can thing of that I REALLY hate is the fact that besieged AI NEVER surrender even if I can't see the red in the balance of power (BOP, he he) bar. Perhaps they just can't comprehend their utter lack of chance.

[Didz]

I love virtually everything about Empire, in fact the only thing I can thing of that I REALLY hate is the fact that besieged AI NEVER surrender even if I can't see the red in the balance of power (BOP, he he) bar. Perhaps they just can't comprehend their utter lack of chance.

I've actually had a besieged AI surrender once.

I think I even had the AI ask for peace once (however, I may have been dreaming)