the most logical NapoleonTW review so far

[Fisherking]

Setting aside whether there actually are such people for now, my point is that you appear to be insininuating that the gentleman in question is one such individual?

I think you misread it or read more into it than was there.

I try not to bash people. I do sometimes attack concepts or ideas or vigorously complain about aspects of games. But when it is fixed, and sometimes when it is just beyond hope, I move on.

No Darth is not a CA hater. He is just saying he could do it better if they gave him the tools. He wants to put his mark on the game.

Most everyone on the forums would like the tools.

We just have to see if Sega lets CA spend the time and money to give us any.

You can accuse others of being "CA haters", in the same way that such people can accuse you of being "CA fanboys/apologists".

I will be back for the usual "I told you so" threads.

Yohei

Let ‘em.

I have been accused of both.

It doesn’t matter to me.

[gollum]

Its still too early to judge community concensus for NTW. Some of the aspects of the review sound alarmingly true to me (i am not buying the game in any case), like say that units behind the front one shoot their backs. This was clear from the screenshots already. Many of the malee/blobbing problems in the review were present in ETW, and to be honest with you they were problems the AI always had since STW. Napoleonic TW 1 uses the MTW engine to re-create the Nap. wars; unsurprisingly the AI was terrible and the game shone in mp (although it had a campaign). Anyone who has played tw long and hard (including multiplayer) knows that the AI was is and probably will be inept at using hybrids (melee/missiles). When the so-called meleebug and other such terms started circulating among TWC SPers it was clear that even they knew that CA just took what it had in the past, gave it a graphical upgrade and released it as a gunpowder era game. Playing ETW in person confirmed that beyond any doubt. Also the fact that the pace of the battles (unit speeds, firing rates etc) seem wrong also sounds very much like CA. They did the same thing in RTW; they created a fake challenge that hid the AI's ineptness by making the game too fast. CA is simply keep milking what they've made in 2000 with upgrading primarily the looks and feel of the game to be as mainstream and contemporary as possible.

STW took 3+ years to make. It was to be released after a short time of development as a C&C clone, but CA took the risk of making it more deep, historically accurate (by hiring Prof. Turnbull, known international authority in Sengoku) and polished, delaying release for years. And to answer Darth's question, yes the person responsible for the (creation and tweaking) of the tw battle engine and battle balance did retire sometime during the development of RTW. It has been also leaked that part of the employees of CA resented the direction the company took from RTW onwards (so much for those who "dont buy into it") against the will of the admins and heads to go ahead with the plan anyway. Since then, (certain) CA developers post strategically in community forums where and when complains are voiced, in order to hype-up and create hope and anticipation pre-release and in order to subtly discredit "whinners" post-release. These are facts and not opinions (mine or otherwise), and i've seen them first hand over the last 7 years or so, here and elsewhere. It doesn t mean that there are not whinners that simply like whinning - there are. But there are plenty of others that have valid complains and they do express them because they like tw and not because they hate it. And these people are shot down in some forums systematically even, because they are not "constructive", because of the "hate" etc. Most of this is part of a ruthless war in image and public relations, and for those who think that such a thing is fantasy, just think what Mike Simpson's blog meant to address: low user ratings on metacritic.

[Madoushi]

Very insightful, gollum, thanks.