Dev blog #3

[Peasant Phill]

Well, Mike did a good job at saying nothing.

At least he didn't acuse TW vets but otherwise I feel completely indifferent about his blog.

[Fisherking]

I am interested in the information that gets passed but not so much with the opinions.

He is the creative director, I believe, and goes back to STW.

People on the various fan sights have accused him and CA of everything bad that has happened on the planet from 1947 to the present and may have them responsible of what may happen in 2012.

He is showing a human side with what he has said all along.

Just like most people he redirects blame and criticism for what when wrong and that is no big deal to me.

He is showing a lot of guts to keep it up because every word is dissected, minced finely, and construed in every fathomable way...

Just wait and see!

[gollum]

More non-truths falling like rain.

In almost every interview that i can remember, Mr Simpson has entertained that "We make TW games for our hardcore fans because we are such ourselves" and that "we make the games we want to play". This one:
http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/r...oper-interview
is no exception (5:36).

In the #3 of this recent blog the weight of responsibility for the influence of "commercial reality" is thrown - typically of CA - to the publisher.

Yet, listen to this; in the very same interview linked above Mr Simpson states (6:23): "When we started out on Rome, we wanted to make a game that would appeal to as many people as possible and thats hardcore strategy gamers; people that only buy a strategy game a year or maybe have never bought one before...!!!"

So which is it Mr Simpson? Hardcore strategy gamers or people who only buy a strategy game a year or maybe have never bought one before (and like the action)? Please help me understand who is who because the two cannot be one and the same. Nor can their needs and the gameplay/gamedesign to accomodate them (be the same).
And if - God forbids - it turns out that you are actually (from RTW onwards) designing for the casual gamer and your blog is nothing but marketing talk, as in my opinion is, then who is more commercially concsious? The developer or the publisher? Could it be that CA wants the games to be every bit commercially oriented as SEGA does but cannot admit it openly beause people will disaprove?

Antithetical soliloquies the TW community has been fed back then, antithetical soliloquies is being fed now.

After all this, people are buying NTW at their own risk. CA has spoken.


PS: The most funny bit of that interview though is Tim Ansel @ 5:58: "Its not intended as an educational device...but on the other hand its fairly accurate as well".

With incinerating men from fire arrows; with men getting thrown 10m in the air from elephant/cavalry charges; with screeching women, flaming pigs wardogs and aracni ninjas; with cavalry behaving like a flock of birds; with chariots outrunning cavalry; with the Romans having the best cavalry roster; with heavy cavalry being awfully powerful in pre-stirrup classical antiquity; with the stereotypical (and wrong) depiction of the "barbarian" factions as crazed uncivilised loons; fairly accurate, sure.

[Owen Glyndwr]

Maybe he was taking credit for the excellent historically accurate mods that came as a result of their game?

Through their disregard for history, they inspire their gamers to go out and learn just how historically ambiguous their games are!

[econ21]

So which is it Mr Simpson? Hardcore strategy gamers or people who only buy a strategy game a year or maybe have never bought one before (and like the action)? Please help me understand who is who because the two cannot be one and the same. Nor can their needs and the gameplay/gamedesign to accomodate them (be the same).

I don't think there is a contradiction between making the game you want to make and also wanting it to appeal to as many people as you can. As Mike says, the former comes first, but given that you are doing want you want to do, you also try to get other people to like it. As the blog states, the key is quality and accessibility. A lot of "hardcore" artistic material (paintings, music, literature, film etc) can also appeal to a wider audience. For example, suppose RTW was not marketed as vanilla but as say RTR or EB. I am not convinced it would have sold any less, but if it was the EB variant it would no doubt have had to ditch the inaccessible native language unit names and the difficulty levels might have had to be tweaked a little (EB in particular, again, e.g. to avoid player factions going bankrupt right off the bat).

With other commercial games, again I don't see a contradiction. I regard Civ4 as a pretty hardcore strategy game, but I suspect it does well enough more widely. For example, I know that some of my young son's friends play RTW or Civ, but they probably play on different difficulty levels and use different strategies. For example, I might have fun trying to simulate historical army composition and tactics whereas in RTW whereas they might prefer more "fun" approaches and even autoresolve if they want to conquer the world. In another genre, World of Warcraft might be another game that accommodates both hardcore and casual players. And yes, both sides of fans do grumble at each other, but they keep paying their subscriptions.

I also echo the point made by another poster in the thread on the earlier blogs - it is not clear to me that ETW (or RTW) are particularly casual. The strategy layers are much richer than STW and MTW, and slow the game down considerably. The naval combat in ETW has a similar effect. I've been put off getting deeply into ETW at the moment because I just can't commit the time. I think STW and MTW with their Risk type strategy layer allowed one to get more quickly into the action (the battles) and would appeal more to the casual player.

PS: The most funny bit of that interview though is Tim Ansel @ 5:58: "Its not intended as an educational device...but on the other hand its fairly accurate as well".

Well, it's relative. Relative to most historically flavoured strategy games - say Civ4 or Age of Empires - RTW is very accurate. I learnt a lot about ancient history from RTW. Just seeing the map and the factions was an education for me (something you could not get from a Civ or AoE type game). I was surprised playing RTR and EB how much RTW got right. For example, I knew little about the pre-Marian Roman army, but RTW depicted it fairly well. Most of the stuff in your list of grumbles about with RTW is pretty minor IMO (incinerating or flying men, pigs, arcani, dogs, screeching women etc don't impinge on my game experience much). You didn't mention the Egyptians though, who I admit were an abomination.

The TW niche seems to be strategy games with a historical flavour that provide rather thrilling action. I don't think more historically accurate games so far can compete with the "sound and fury" action experience of a TW battle. Of rival games, the EU series seems to be the most commonly mentioned rival on the historically accurate side of the spectrum and Civ the benchmark for a historically flavoured games, but neither provides anything similar to the experience of TWs battles. I suspect this is partly because modelling a TW battle is very expensive and requires commercial success, as the blog points out.

[nameless]

I don't know about you guys but it seems this "blog" is a waste of time.

I mean as the OP said, this is just more meat for those critics to tear apart piece by piece. I mean we got people posting essays about his comments for cripes sakes.

Wouldn't it be more, I dunno, more constructive to talk about where the game is headed (DLC and such) and stuff about NTW? pre-ETW is done man, talk about more relevant stuff.

[gollum]

Hello Simon,
sorry to see you off the moderator's suit, i hope that whatever held you off the .org for a time has been positively resolved.

Originally posted by econ21
I don't think there is a contradiction between making the game you want to make and also wanting it to appeal to as many people as you can.

You bet there is; the only difference is that the commercial strength of the Civilization series comes from sticking to its particular genre.

This is the road that CA should have followed - had they had the guts to actually stand by the unique mix of TBStrategy and unique realistic RT battles they had come up with in all respects and levels: aesthetically, gameplaywise, controls and interface.

TW had its own standard, which it abandoned with RTW as the developers themselves mention in the interview linked above. The idea was to create a hybrid that would literally, to use the developer's words "attract as many people as possible". This hybrid of playstyles and games within the game, inevitably sacrificed depth for breadth. The battles were simlpified, the pace was quickened to appeal to action oriented casual gamers and RTS players. fatigue was considered unimportant enough for its index in the unit cards to be altogether droped and never appear since - you now have to mouseover to get an indication of fatigue. The point of view was moved closer to the action, in order to admire the gore and an "RTS type" camera was introduced. Every conceivable effort was made for the game to look, feel and play like other popular games, as the Civilization series and classical RTS games like AoE and warcraft/starcraft.

As Mike says, the former comes first, but given that you are doing want you want to do, you also try to get other people to like it. As the blog states, the key is quality and accessibility.

What Mr Simpson claims is that CA balances the two, although it gives an edge to quality; but the immense amounts of bugs, dumbing down of the battle engine, increasing of the complexity of the campaign game as per request of the majority of the SP casual gamer fanbase that CA targeted and claimed, without an equivalent increase in AI compeence and poor game balance indicate that this is not actually so.

A lot of "hardcore" artistic material (paintings, music, literature, film etc) can also appeal to a wider audience.

Does it? In my experience the only artists that ever make the transition are those that put suficient water in their wine and aim right from the start for the mainstream. People who are listening to Cabaret Voltaire and The Residents, watching Jim Jarmusch films and read Brett Easton Ellis because they really like it are few and far between.

However, i do agree that it is possible to have "hardcore" games that due to their very nichness and quality do appeal; EB is a good example, but there are others too. I agree with you that this would have been the optimal way for TW to evolve, but it didnt; CA is unwilling to control the admited "overambition" with which they approach their releases; basically they consistently bite more than they can chew because they just have to accomodate more and more SP features and graphical updates to keep up with the gargantuan expectations of sales they and their publisher clearly have. It is well known that people who are aiming for quality are ready for commercial sacrifices, but Mr Simpson is stating the exact opposite in his blog; that they are not and that they want the fanbase to give them better reviews on metacritic user, because they might hurt the sales and sales will hurt the quality, that very same one the game did not have to begin with.

I also echo the point made by another poster in the thread on the earlier blogs - it is not clear to me that ETW (or RTW) are particularly casual. The strategy layers are much richer than STW and MTW, and slow the game down considerably. The naval combat in ETW has a similar effect. I've been put off getting deeply into ETW at the moment because I just can't commit the time. I think STW and MTW with their Risk type strategy layer allowed one to get more quickly into the action (the battles) and would appeal more to the casual player.

It is actually absolutely clear; just not for you because you happen to like the added complexity in the SP part of the game that you mostly enjoy and think that it is depth; but it isnt. At least not rigorously defined chess-like stretegic depth. If it was then chess "actions" (as in taking a piece) that are performed even faster than MTW/STW make chess the most "mainstream" of the lot, with RTW/M2TW the most "hardcore" ones; however popularity of the games and the type of players they attract prove you wrong - its actually the other way around.

This is because it doesnt matter how fast the action is in doing the move that determines the strategic depth but the layers of principles and counterprinciples that you have to consider before making the move. For example in chess you have to consider material/tactics and then strategic considerations such pawn structure, piece mobility, king safety, positionsolidity, pawn storms, poison pawns, passed pawns, tempo, development etc.

In STW/MTW factions are in contact in a series of adjacent areas and similarly to chess, any action at any side of the board such as an attack with a large stack is bound to alter the dynamics of the situation as the region(s) from whence the attack came from will be weakened and be potential targets for counterattacks. Measuring such dynamics as well as the odds that govern them in the ensuing battles was where the strategic depth was in STW/MTW.

In RTW/M2TW this simply does not happen because there is no contact anymore, the same balance dynamics happen now over broad areas in a sea of hexes that the AI cannot navigate. In most cases it is sufficient to have a full stack that conquers city after city aided by the attrocious multi-retrain feature; the AI is always deploying his forces in the campaign map the same way he deploys in the battlefield: piecemeal.

I agree that it would have been interesting to see what would have happened had CA made the mp campaign or had the AI been up to the challenge, but none of these actually ever materialized. The only thing that happened is that people like you, say that RTW/M2TW has more layers, but so what? The AI either does not keep up with the complexity or does not even know complex features exist and all you are left with is more exploits against it for the player.

In actuality however, you say all this because you are the kind of player that likes a TW-Civilization hybrid and is happy with where the series went, generally speaking. This is why, unlike many other veterans you enjoyed RTW. From your persepective what you say is true. From mine it isn't.

Well, it's relative. Relative to most historically flavoured strategy games - say Civ4 or Age of Empires - RTW is very accurate. I learnt a lot about ancient history from RTW. Just seeing the map and the factions was an education for me (something you could not get from a Civ or AoE type game). I was surprised playing RTR and EB how much RTW got right. For example, I knew little about the pre-Marian Roman army, but RTW depicted it fairly well. Most of the stuff in your list of grumbles about with RTW is pretty minor IMO (incinerating or flying men, pigs, arcani, dogs, screeching women etc don't impinge on my game experience much). You didn't mention the Egyptians though, who I admit were an abomination.

I agree with you; no doubt every TW game has been - if not a great pool of knowledge at least a great incentive for knowledge. CA always had a soft spot for gimmicky units, and to a certain degree this was acceptable; however by the time Rome came out, this was supercharged in order to appeal to all these people that make in pure bliss video after video of "3000peasants vs 100spartans" or "beserkers versus legion" etc. I cannot say that my resentment is with historical accuracy, it is definitely though with historical plausibility: the respect with which an era was represented and how this was felt and translated in the gameplay. As such, the abundance of gimmicky units and unrealistic gameplay parameters was in my (and others') opinion, nothing sort of ridiculous, and motivated by profit only - unless you wish to argue somehow that these had to do something with hardcore TWers; you were around when Rome came out and i'm sure you remember many feeling let down.

...but neither provides anything similar to the experience of TWs battles. I suspect this is partly because modelling a TW battle is very expensive and requires commercial success, as the blog points out.

I agree, neither does. But i am 100% convinced that this is not so due to only the money injected in resources - STW/MTW battles are hailed from the specialists of the genre, TW mpers, as top of the crop for years now, as you know better than me, in terms of depth of gameplay. And yet they were far cheaper, i'm sure we'll all agree, than the simulations CA is producing today. Yet they are better than ETW, and vastly better than RTW/M2TW.

I said it in the other thread and i'll say it again: quality of the final result is not linearly prportional to budget and resources. This is simplistic and outright false. If Mr Simpson was arguing that an overambitious commercially and large production is proportional to budget and resources, i would have agreed; but that's not what he's saying.

[antisocialmunky]

Considering that he was alluding to his own dissatifaction at the finished product in the previous blogs, what he says in here is nice in principle and usually makes a successful game but it wasn't practiced all that well with ETW.


As for accessibility... that has two parts most people can enjoy the game and most people can play the game. I mean literally play the game. ETW failed that quite gloriously.


And as for Mr. Simpson. Just come out and say you're doing damage control already. I really don't care about ETW very at this point. Its quite pass tense now.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

"It's all SEGA's fault."

[econ21]

In actuality however, you say all this because you are the kind of player that likes a TW-Civilization hybrid and is happy with where the series went, generally speaking. This is why, unlike many other veterans you enjoyed RTW. From your persepective what you say is true. From mine it isn't.

Well, just to clarify - I am not a fan of vanilla RTW, but got a lot of enjoyment out of its mods (especially RTR) and of M2TW via PBMs. What attracts me to the series is the embedding of "sound and fury" historical battles within a free-form campaign. Other games seem able to provide either historical battles or an interesting campaign, but not both. I see TW games as providing a sort of strategic sandbox game, where you can play a faction as you will (turtle, rush, role-play etc) and fight battles as you will (historical composition and tactics, victory at all costs exploits or conquer the map with only your own bodyguard type self-challenges). Some players are looking for a more chess-like experience (whether vs the AI or in MP) and I can see them being disappointed with the series from that perspective.

I do agree, however, that the basic weakness of the series from RTW onwards has been the strategic AI: your observations about the AI moving peicemeal and the player's big stack conquering cities gets to the heart of the issue for me. Even the mods can't really solve this, although they try to compensate by buffing the AI with money scripts and stationary garrisons etc. What is really needed is a crudely effective Civ type AI that just creates a stack of doom (I guess it would ultimately have to be stacks of doom) and gives the player a threat. STW and MTW provided that very effectively, but it's been lacking since (although I haven't played ETW enough to make a judgement there). It's a computer game, so I don't expect too much although Civ shows the bar can be set surprisingly high. I can't help thinking this is solvable; hence my interest in the series persists. If we can provide feedback to CA, this would be what I would focus on.

The other weaknesses are secondary. The ahistorical stuff is an irritant but so long as the series permits mods, it can be overcome. The battles seem to have improved from the nadir of the RTW Trebia demo - they have slowed down, allowing more tactics, and the AI seems to be gradually recovering to its STW/MTW competence. My limited experience of ETW and what I have read here is quite positive on that point.

[antisocialmunky]

To be quite fair, it takes a fair amount of play through to find all the broken aspects of 1.3 and I doubt the reviewers played it for long enough. He probably looked around the battle map, did some stuff on a list of features, and ran some battles.