It's just not fun to be in constant war all the time

[Durallan]

we have had this argument many times, and there are 3 types, there are people who say its total war, there are people who say there is too much war, and then there are the people playing empire total war! lol

I look at this as it meant to be being a strategy game, like a four X game, Xpand Xplore Xploit and whatever the fourth one is. There is no reason that I can see that this game cannot have intelligent opponents like games like Civilizations 4 and Galactic Civilizations. If the campaign was all just about the battle maps, why bother with diplomacy and all the little other bits that make the campaign interesting, why bother with all those little tidbits of history? I think however those little tidbits of history could have been events that changed the game and randomly gave one nation an advantage over the others. The closest game that comes to this series of games I would say is Galactic Civilizations 2. The reason for this is that in GC2 they finally decided to depict the battles, unfortunately they are predetermined by the game, but they gave them graphical demonstrations. So GC2 battles = crap ETW AI = crap.

The black knight AI is still very much alive (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhRUe-gz690 watching it always makes me feel better )

I Was 5 turns into my british campaign and i was already at war with spain and france and I think a few others lol, I don't mind being at war with france and spain though, nautral enemies of GB,

Although by 1720, most AI's were at war with the rest of the world, and it now being 1779, NOT A SINGLE ONE. Has made peace with any other AI nation, unless they destroyed that faction. At least I could rely on the Black knight AI to declare war on me, I wiped out the last of the Marathas on the indian continent because I need Hindustan to win the campaign for GB, but Mughal owns it, as soon as I owned maratha's lands, Mughal declared war on me, losing 8k a turn in trade revenue.

It is easier to have friends in the latest version of the game now and having reliable allies, I am an ally with Prussia, I was having trouble in that Sweden would continually cut off our trade revenue, which was worth 6k a turn to me from prussia, so I had to sit a navy near prussia's trade port, unfortunately there was alot of swedish agression and it was impossible to keep repaired ships there as it took 2 turns to get them abck to a british port and repaired and by then the swedes had blocked the trade route again. So I sent an army to attack and take courland, and the region right next door to it across the bridge. Prussia slowly over the next few turns put an army next to courlands capital and I was wondering if they wanted it. Anyway sure enough ending a turn, Prussia Asked me if they could have Courland (Seeing they were an ally and probably needed it for a victory condition and I didn't I gave it to them and they gave me some random territory theyd captured deep in russian territory, so i've been allies with them since the start of the game, strangely enough even though spain lost its main territory to portugal, (Spain wiped out portugal, I took spain and portugal, allowed portugal to rebel and gave them portugal and spain in return for protectorate)
Spain and France have been allies since the game started and now spain only owns flanders.

It looks like naval invasions for france and spain might be broken or at the very least, they find it hard to cross the channel because there are many many french armies sitting along normandy looking like they badly want to attack the british isles.

Anyway for me its a strategy game and if they keep going into the direction of total war all the time every minute, I will go back to civ 4 and other games, and even if they make the battles prettier ( won't help me don't have the computer for it) not everyone can appreciate graphics, but EVERYONE, EVERYONE EVERYONE can appreciate GOOD ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

[Prodigal]

Xpand Xplore Xploit and whatever the fourth one is.

Xpletive, what you shout at the PC when the game CTD's for the 5th time in 3 hours.

[Didz]

I think the thing thats really sad is that when you start a new campaign you get 'Miss Whiplash' pop up and give you a strategic briefing which actually makes the game sound like it has some structure to it.

I've just started an Austrian Campaign and I recall being told that Austria was in the frontline against muslim incursion from east, that Austria's role is to defend the true faith and protect its Catholic neighbours from the spread of the protestant faith from the west and the muslim faith from the east, and to ally with its catholic neighbours to provide mutual support.

Can't remember if those were the exact words she used but that was the gist of it, and Turn 1, I actually tried to follow her guidance. Except that none of my Catholic neighbours were really interested in mutual support or alliances, or even trade, so I ended up trading mostly with protestants and muslims.

Then you Press End of Turn and everything just goes to hell in a handbasket. In my case, Poland, the very country I was charged with protecting from the evil influence of Protestantism, Othodoxy and Muslim influence immediately declared war on me, and from that point on every faction you play seems to just degenerate into a pointless slug-fest.

The only solution that seems to work is to play at reduced difficulty levels (e.g. Normal), in which case the Campaign AI seems to take a valium and go into a stupor for the duration of the game. Its just as stupid, its just too lazy to act on its own stupidity.

[miotas]

I look at this as it meant to be being a strategy game, like a four X game, Xpand Xplore Xploit and whatever the fourth one is.

I agree. The AI definatley seems like it's drunk.

[antisocialmunky]

TW isn't pure 4x. Its more of a formation combat simulator with a 4x fascade nailed on. When was the popular 4x with a combat simulation part as detailed as TW(Besides SoSE, MoO2 had a good one as well)?

[miotas]

XXXX, pronounced "four x" is an australian beer. I don't know what you think you're going on about

[Durallan]

very good one miotas I would definetly agree :P

umm well, a 4x game is still a 4x game, no matter how complicated the combat, your still expanding and conquering and trading and going through the diplomacy to get there unless you just play the start a new quick battle in which case you aren't playing a 4x game...

[Matteo123]

Does it count as 4x if 3 of the x's don't work? Does simply claiming to make a 4x game count as having made a 4x game? If I sell you a 85' civic but claim it is a new car, does it count as a new car just because I say so?

[antisocialmunky]

Does it count as 4x if 3 of the x's don't work? Does simply claiming to make a 4x game count as having made a 4x game? If I sell you a 85' civic but claim it is a new car, does it count as a new car just because I say so?

THIS.

TW was never about 4x or atleast not any sort of traditional 4x. To be honest, the closest to 4x that TW has ever come to was STW. You had clear variables(resources, man power, production) and were able to plan around them. That's the defining trait of a 4x is that you can actually plan, optimize, and execute massive overarching strategies, etc.

You didn't have to worry about all these extra doodads that were added to artificially make TW feel more organic. You don't have these purposely obfusicated resource models etc.

I mean, seriously do you even have ANY idea how much income you're going to get or how fast its going to increase after building something? Its been like that since rtw with squalor and corruption and all sorts of crap. There's too many weird little variables to keep track of and the game is TOO RANDOM with the AI war declarations and other crap. And ontop of all this weirdness, things haven't been reported accurately since MIITW.

All the strategy in TW is build tons of eco, try to gauge out how much is enough, build units, attack. Build more eco if you eco starts to slip, build more armies, more eco, more armies until you get bored and quit. THAT is all the game there is.

EDIT: I just realized that that's exactly how the TW AI works. :-p