The problem with elephants..

[Adrian II]

Im arguing that the game is barely week old and NONE of us are experianced enough to make blanket statements about the game based on a couple of battles.

Weren't you the guy who started another thread yesterday with the blanket statement that 'naval battles are crap'? Come on, Morindin, it's only fair to allow for other peoples' complaints. I'm on your side though, even though I don't have the game yet, because I appreciate your single-handed fight to give the developers a fair chance. Besides it's a bad thing if everyone starts modding and patching and customizing tactics and strategy. In no time we'll all be playing an entirely different game and any discussion of tactics on these boards will be a dialogue of the deaf.

[Morindin]

Weren't you the guy who started another thread yesterday with the blanket statement that 'naval battles are crap'? Come on, Morindin, it's only fair to allow for other peoples' complaints. I'm on your side though, even though I don't have the game yet, because I appreciate your single-handed fight to give the developers a fair chance. Besides it's a bad thing if everyone starts modding and patching and customizing tactics and strategy. In no time we'll all be playing an entirely different game and any discussion of tactics on these boards will be a dialogue of the deaf.

Just for the sake of an argument this is what I posted

Anyone else feel naval battles are just, well, crap?

Im not asking for a 3d battlefield or anything like that, but I seem to lose about 90% of my naval battles regardless of quality or quantity of my ships.

Also the fact its near on impossible to destroy ones fleet makes naval battles for me more irritating than fun.

At least the AI builds LOTS of ships.

In other words, im not making a blanket statement about the game but asking other peoples opinions to see if I am doing something wrong.
In that example, I got a post from someone saying "try this" and I am indeed going to try it.

Thats different from saying "Elephants are overpowered because they beat their match up. CA should DO THIS AND THIS TO MAKE ME HAPPY! *throws toys out of the cott"

[Adrian II]

CA should DO THIS AND THIS TO MAKE ME HAPPY! *throws toys out of the cott"

LOL, you've made your point I believe. Remember though that for most players historical detail and references are a huge part of the fun, if not their main reason for playing the game in the first place. Otherwise what's the point in playing a TW game instead of the single most brilliant abstract game in the world, i.e. chess? That's why they are 'nit-picking' as you would call it. It's impossible to recreate history, but the game has to have that 'feel' about it. That's a fine line. For some the killing speed is killing the game. For me the graphics are a horrible disappointment, no matter how brilliant the game may turn out to be with respect to tactics, the new integrated stategy map and other fantastic new features. Anyway I'll shut up until I have the game.

[Morindin]

LOL, you've made your point I believe. Remember though that for most players historical detail and references are a huge part of the fun, if not their main reason for playing the game in the first place. Otherwise what's the point in playing a TW game instead of the single most brilliant abstract game in the world, i.e. chess? That's why they are 'nit-picking' as you would call it. It's impossible to recreate history, but the game has to have that 'feel' about it. That's a fine line. For some the killing speed is killing the game. For me the graphics are a horrible disappointment, no matter how brilliant the game may turn out to be with respect to tactics, the new integrated stategy map and other fantastic new features. Anyway I'll shut up until I have the game.

I understand completely what you are saying, but my feeling on the matter is that people are judging their idea on realism in respect to killing speed from MTW. MTW was not any more realistic as RTW, infact how do we know what realism is anyway?
How many of us have fought in a battle recently? Sure we can quote battles going on all day but they involve massive numbers of men with multiple lines of battle, etc etc.

Im going to try the killing speed mod to see how I like it, but personally I feel its going to make battles between the stronger units go on and on and on and on. If I see cavalry charge into a bunch of infantry and get 'stuck' like in MTW I wont find that realistic at all.
I guess none of us really know so its all a matter of perspective isnt it?

[Red Harvest]

That pretty much nails it Adrian. It's not nit picking when the battles don't resemble anything I've ever read about, and defy common sense finishing in less than a minute after initial melee. That is the problem a lot of us are having with RTW. So despite people like Morindin, we will come here to discuss what looks wonked and HOW TO FIX IT!

Right now I can see the influence of RTS on this game in the battlefield gameplay. It might make multi-player click festers like Morindin happy, but it poses problems for the historical SP TW crowd.

I don't like having to play modded versions to get things working right, but I guess I'll have to unless they tone things down with a patch.

[Morindin]

You know there is nothing wrong with slow methodical games, infact I quite enjoy hexed based war games myself where you have all day to think about flanking manouvers and tactics.

I also enjoy RTS, flight sims, FPS, and chess, all sorts of games,

Sure I can accept its not as realistic for you, no problem with that at all. But to say its somehow "dumbed down" and less tactical before is my main beef.

It just requires a bit more use of the pause key and more thinking on you feet. Morale, flanking, all that is STILL IN THE GAME and its THOSE things that make the game more tactical than others.

I'd challange you on the clickfest point too, id say its now more a hotkey fest than it ever was, and infact, ironically, most RTS games are more hotkeys than clicking. Diablo games are "click fest".

Also more on the realism point, I really enjoy realism in simulation games. The more realistic the better, but I do know where to draw the line between gameplay and tedium. RTW is a game and claims to be nothing more.
There are some things in RTW that are highly unrealistic (infantry speeds and killing speeds) but there were 100x more things in MTW that were unrealistic, and I'd rather go forward than backwards.

If something kicks my ass (like Elephants) and I used a tactic I thought was sound, I dont ask CA to change to game for me, I find a way to beat the suckers.
I guess changing the game to me feels like cheating. RTW was made to be fast and furious. It may not be realistic I agree but its the way the game was made.

[Thoros of Myr]

It just requires a bit more use of the pause key

What's that?

I love mods, most of the time they are better then the game they were made for. Especially in an SP game they allow you to make the game the way you want it. Even if RTW was completely free of "warcraft-ish" influences there would always be somethng to complain about. If it's not one thing it's another. Sometimes the best games are not what comes directly from the box. Mods allow us to fix as many of those issues as we can get our hands on, be they personal or factual. What I don't like seeing is folks that see a small leak in a ship and cry that it's sinking and nothing can save them instead of fixing it.

[Morindin]

What's that?

I love mods, most of the time they are better then the game they were made for. Especially in an SP game they allow you to make the game the way you want it. Even if RTW was completely free of "warcraft-ish" influences there would always be somethng to complain about. If it's not one thing it's another. Sometimes the best games are not what comes directly from the box. Mods allow us to fix as many of those issues as we can get our hands on, be they personal or factual. What I don't like seeing is folks that see a small leak in a ship and cry that it's sinking and nothing can save them instead of fixing it.

I like the ability to mod what you dont like in the game as well, infact some of the most successful games have also been the ones that are easiest to mod.

One thing I dont like though is people claiming this and that after hardly any playtesting time and the developers changing it completely unbalancing the game.

Example, it happend in MTW 1.1 with spear units, and ive seen it happen over and over with plenty of other games.

One theory I have about all the cool interface features in MTW that didnt appear in RTW is because both games were being made at the same time.
Perhaps the devs put more initial effort into MTW or even did parts of RTW first before doing MTW. By the time they came to solely working on RTW to go back and change these things would put them behind schedual.

Yes there is a trend to make the game more classic RTS style (right click etc, the interface, etc) to make it easier for new players, I dont think its been dumbed down at all though. For example the strategic level is far more challanging than MTW ever was.

I also think the deeper we get into this game the more challanging it will get. There is a lot of depth to it.