Is anyone else bored?

[lancelot]

Further to my 'I miss GA mode' thread, last night I was playing away as the greeks when I had a rather sad revalation..I was bored.

I was conquering away like a good little warlord when I realised I was doing exactly the same things I did in STW and MTW and it didnt feel new or different..

Now before anyone posts 'this is a TOTAL WAR game, what did you expect' save yourself the bother, Im well aware of that fact, I just feel like there is 'something' (Im not sure what) missing. Anyone know what I mean?

The- smash army/seige town/rinse/repeat syndrome seems even more..'highlighted' shall we say, in this game than it did in MTW. And that was a 'simpler' game..? Yea, I dont really get it either...sigh..

I guess Im just expecting a bit more these days. Yes, the map/battlefield relationship devised for this game is great and I love the idea that you can blockade a pass etc etc

I think I have lost my love for this game, I want it back!!

[solypsist]

it's little use to compare rtw to mtw, so that's not a good place to start. i found myself referencing mtw, but this is a different game, and once i left mtw behind (campaign map part, anyway), rtw has increased in enjoyment.

the greeks are one of the easiest to use, try a different faction.

[Lord Ovaat]

I'm finding it a little discomforting that the Campaign Map is so small. Small? Well, it is a big map with lots of provinces, but when you consider there are four allied Roman factions gobbling up territory it limits your thrusts if you happen to be playing one of the those factions. My first campaign was probably the most interesting; I kept rather large stacks around my capitol because of concern for the other Roman factions. It has, however, become apparent, that they are NOT going to attack me without being told to by the Senate. The Senate seems to leave you alone until you are in position to win. So, they actually are allies. I used to wish for this with MTW, now I'm not all that sure it's the best policy. It would be nice if, on occasion, one of the other factions made a "play" for power. I no longer have the nagging "fear" that my current hundred-turn campaign could go up in smoke at any moment simply because several factions attack at once. I guess I do miss the suspense.

[Akka]

I always ends bored with any game I play, at least for a while (and I will replay it several monthes later).

RTW, so far, has shown a tremendous and incredibly resilience to boredom, which is something to praise ^^

I agree, though, that the lack of non-conquest goals is somehow lacking. After a while, you start to "see through the game" and feel more the mechanics and less the ambiance. Some lively and varied goals/objectives/creations would definitely help to flesh even more the game, and improve it overall.

[a_ver_est]

Imho more types off victory conditions will be a great improvement. Cultural victories, faction which has earned more development points, ...

Yep I now these is a Total War game and all it's about war ... but I think that the engine allows doing more thinks with a lite more development and it will avoid boring early.

[TheDuck]

it's little use to compare rtw to mtw, so that's not a good place to start. i found myself referencing mtw, but this is a different game, and once i left mtw behind (campaign map part, anyway), rtw has increased in enjoyment.

the greeks are one of the easiest to use, try a different faction.

Try playing as one of the explicitly weaker factions, say Gaul for instance (which many folks consider very weak).

[Adrian II]

The- smash army/seige town/rinse/repeat syndrome seems even more..'highlighted' shall we say, in this game than it did in MTW. And that was a 'simpler' game..?

I feel your pain. I played RTW a couple of times on a friend's computer and I think it's not a great improvement over MTW. It's a speed game, really not much more than a shooter. The graphics are horrible (I can't stand those phants in funny pants or the pristine white city walls) and the absence of "real" diplomacy as well as on-screen naval battles and decent MP really clinched it. I'm not going to buy it. I think I'll wait and spend my 50 bucks on Pyro's upcoming game Imperial Glory which is scheduled for the first trimester of next year. It's just past the alpha stage and the first reviews are very promising. It has sophisticated on-screen naval battles, robust diplomacy and a war engine that handles soldiers individually, lets them hide behind buildings and trees, etcetera. Besides I like the way the Pyro developers interact with their (prospective) fans and buyers, it's a welcome change from the arrogance displayed by CA developers on this board. Now that they're no longer the only outfit with a good war engine, I guess they'll be learning the hard way. I think MP is the wave of the future anyway, particularly in view of the possibilities to integrate it with MMORPG's.

[Bob the Insane]

Imperial Glory which is scheduled for the first trimester of next year.

Had a look at the site and it seems fun...

But after the War and Peace thing I have learned to be cautious with games of that era and scope...

[ChaosDrake]

nope im not bored, nein ich bin nich gelangweilt.
im playing the brutii they are funny hehe

[Adrian II]

Had a look at the site and it seems fun...

To be honest IG looks simply too good to be true, particularly for a navy buff like me. So I try not to hype myself up. That's one thing I learned from the RTW episode here. I'll see what gives, come spring, and my 50 bucks might just as well go toward some good books. Books never bore me.

[Didz]

I think I'll wait and spend my 50 bucks on Pyro's upcoming game Imperial Glory which is scheduled for the first trimester of next year. It's just past the alpha stage and the first reviews are very promising. It has sophisticated on-screen naval battles, robust diplomacy and a war engine that handles soldiers individually, lets them hide behind buildings and trees, etcetera.

Had a look at this game and the first thing to point out is that its quite clearly not an ancient wargame, so as far as I'm concerned its not an either or choice.

At first glance it certainly looks impressive but I was concerned to note when viewing the trailer that the developers have chosen to opt for the old movie makers trick of introducing exploding cannon balls and bayonet charges to spice up the game play.

Hopefully, someone will put that right before the game is released as If I'm going to buy a Napoleonic Wargame I would prefer one which is reasonably accurate.

War and Peace was an absolute waste of money and I threw it in the bin before even completing a single campaign so I shall be much more cautious about spending money on another similar title.

[Thrudvang]

My only gripe about Rome is the really bad path finding. You should hear my swears whenever I give a simple move order to elephants or cavelry.

Instead of 'go around and to the point' they just stop all your own men, you can set waypoints, but it's kinda annoying to have to lay down signs to direct your own men.

[Ktonos]

Battle AI is on the same standarts as MTW. What it needs is to enhance the ability of campaign AI to produce and maintain high quality generals.

In MTW no faction would produce high quality armies. The camp. AI would not take advantage of its tech tree, but in RTW it will. The problem is that when the phalanx pikemen are frontal charged by my cretan archers and the archers win. Thats because my archers are under the command of a 9 star general and will fight to the last when the pikemen have no general to fight for.

[troymclure]

i've been thinking and one of main problems is something "the wizard" mentioned. The AI doesn't take advantage of it's victories, it's like hannibal you know? :)
I have lost the occasional battle on the strat map but normally it doesn't really matter, lose a battle in MTW and you've normally lost a province, lose a battle in RTW and you MIGHT MAYBE get seiged, then the AI might actually seige you (it might wander off without having tried as well) and even if you are seiged you've normally got an army/diplomat/ nearby to protect you, that or lots of archers plus stone walls. Either way i think i've lost maybe 5-10 provinces in about 5 campaigns, that just isn't enough. There are some good battles in the start of a RTW campaign but i find once ive got a certain amount of provinces it becomes just a matter of time. MTW/STW were similar but not as bad, i think it's more to do with the new campmap AI then anything. Lets say you're the spanish in MTW you take all the iberian pennisula and head down into africa so you could advance up to say egypt with your army. Now lets say you've got your big stacks on the border, and of course nothing in all the provinces behind it cept a few peasants. If you lose that main border force you KNOW your in trouble, that in a few turns the enemey will be marching back up through africa into your homelands and your going to have to do something about it. In RTW if the same thing happened and an army of my borders got wiped out i don't worry. Sure moment o' panic but then i realise it will take the AI 20 turns to actually do anything about my now undefended borders and by then i can have another army/diplomat waiting for them.
I think most of the problems maybe are linked to the campaign AI rather than battle AI which is quite understandable seeing as how this is the first time they've had to program for something like this.

[Akka]

Mmh, I admit there is something right here.

The feeling I have, is that the AI doesn't really know what to do.
Armies wandering aimlessly is a common sight. For navies, it's even more obvious.

I think that AI should have goals for each of its armies. If it's on the offensive, it should aim for enemy's armies or cities, try to blockade and try to destroy his fleets.

Right now, it seems that it only happens by accident, without that much of planning and thinking.
Perhaps that's only a feeling, but well.

[Adrian II]

Hopefully, someone will put that right before the game is released as If I'm going to buy a Napoleonic Wargame I would prefer one which is reasonably accurate.

Don't tell me RTW's oliphants are anywhere near accurate. The issue of realism has been discussed to death here. Needless to say I respect your view, but in the end it's all a matter of personal preference and it would be impossible for developers to keep track of what a majority of prospective players judge to be 'realistic'. That applies to Pyro just as much as to CA. I just hope Imperial Glory will surprise me in ways that RTW doesn't. And I'll continue playing STW and MTW for quite some time, I'm sure. BTW: my eldest son (9) has just discovered STW and we're having all sorts of discussions that go far beyond the scope of the game itself. He has definite ideas about loyalty and he feels you cannot betray an ally who has been fighting alongside you for most of the game. However, if you want to become Shogun you'll have to fight even your closest ally sooner or later. So, we had a long discussion about what power, or the quest for it, does to people, and how come that people in high places seldom have real friends.

STW as an educational tool, who'd 'ave thunk eh?

[Tamur]

"Boredom is the desire for desires." - Tolstoy

[Kommodus]

What you are experiencing sounds quite natural to me. I wouldn't expect any video game to hold one's interest indefinitely. Don't be afraid of it; it simply means that there is more out there for you to accomplish and experience. All things change with time, and you are changing too. Maybe your next great interest won't even be a game.

[Nelson]

I've been playing Star Wars: Battlefront, Painkiller, Doom3 and IL2 Sturmovik (can't go too long without some stick time). Rome gets time too but not all my game time. This reduces the chance that anything gets too repetitive or boring. It's also why I'm still on my first Scipii campaign. If you exclusively play any one game for a long time it will get old.

[Tamur]

Sorry, should have explained Tolstoy there. Agreed with the last two posts -- any activity will become repetitive and "boring" if overplayed/overworked/etc. Even creative work becomes painfully dull if you don't take a break from it and do something else.

Burnout is the same thing, only that's the term for the same feeling when you're obliged to do something so constantly that it becomes dreadful.

So, take a walk (a long one, as in these or anything here) and everything will be better, even RTW

[Sin Qua Non]

I usually combat the eventual boredom by having interest in a few games of differing eras at one time. I'm currently also into IL-2, as well as FS9 and EU2. Plus I think I'll look into The Sims 2. I'm not bored with RTW yet, or will I probably ever be 100% bored with it. But when my attention wavers, I'll just hop into a WW2 era dogfight. You can't take any more of a left turn than that!

[Dimeola]

Yea, I know what you mean. I had quit playing MP because of several issues. With RTW I eagerly came back. Now I am wondering why. Have found 3v3 to be very laggy and 2v2 to often be way too fast. And I get so damned tired of allies who wont talk and make plans. And the occassional Troll like last night who constantly cursed me. Since such behaviour doesnt affect me at all I can only guess that it gives them a cheap thrill. I feel sorry for him. I tried so hard to be optimistic about RTW but even tho it is awesome it doesnt fullfill what it could have been. I just hope some issues are adressed. As for me i`m off to learn Lightwave.
Dimeolas

[The Wizard]

I think so too - RTW seems to be missing something. Something.

It's frustrating to me not to be able to pinpoint what that 'something' is - but this game seems to be missing some of the suspense and challenge of the previous games.

However, I've only just started my first game on hard and I'll suspend my so-called 'final verdict' until I've played this game a good deal, but for some reason I have the feeling that the limited amount of playable factions, plus the fact that none of the playable factions seem to have a very challenging, weak starting position (think Aragon or late Byzantium, and yes, now I'm forced to compare), that I won't be playing the original game for all that long...

An example.

To my surprise, and this in a negative sense, I found that I was annoyed with my first game, with the Brutii, and subsequently I chose the Julii, and once again I was surprised, or rather, shocked, to find that I was once again bored and annoyed with the fact that what I was doing, seemed to turn from cool into tedious (almost), and I wanted to play another faction, so now I'm playing the Germans, and hoping dearly to get that experience I got with my first game in MTW, with the Byzantines, which was so fun that I actually finished it (hehe).



~Wiz

[troymclure]

i must admit i am getting bored of RTW but i think it's my own fault i got it just around uni holidays and i basically sequisterred myself from the world for about three weeks (the uni holidays weren't that long but i have my priorities:) ), i've played almost every faction now and i think i may have overdone it a little. :(
still i'm hoping that i'll get back into it when the next patch comes out. SHould be along enough break by then.
ps:- if you want a hard faction to play, ala aragorn byz late try the armenians, scythians, parthians; spanish; numidians or even the seleucids. In my opinion they have the hardest starting positions of any of the factions.
I'd probably say the armenians/numidians/spanish are the hardest with the other three a bit behind though all similar.
pps:- I don't think the game is as tough as MTW was though i'm not sure, once i got the hang of the new game i find that it's almost impossible to lose a campaign. I don't know if this is actually because it's now harder or because i've now been playing these games for years and my "battle experience" is really starting to climb. I honestly think i've fought more battles than probably any 5 of the greatest historical generals in history and it's really starting to show. I daresay this is a common occurrence and may be the reason so many of us on these boards find RTW easier than in previous TW games.

[Colovion]

I posted a thread almost exactly like this after a few months of Age of Mythology being out and being a part of that community. It was the same problem - the next game in a great Series was somewhat dumbed down and also sped up - and somehow I also lost my drive to play it.... which never happened with MTW or AoK. I don't think it's entirely due to the speed of the game, perhaps it's that the game seems much more related to doing things the fastest they can be done and not the most intelligently. Perhaps it's the fact that in RTW the Romans aren't going to get whiped out, no way - not unless you do it yourself. IN MTW there was a chance that any Civ would get knocked off. I think I'll get more into playing once more mods come out though.

I"m not totally bored of RTW - but my excitement to play it each time is definately flagging. I'm waiting for the patch and for the EB mod.

[Orda Khan]

Oddly enough, I found myself thinking 'Ho hum same old' after only a few days. The game has not progressed that far since STW IMO. It is about time CA had some serious competition otherwise they will spout the same old scenario in various guises.
My verdict is.....Could try harder

.....Orda

[Red Harvest]

I'll admit that the battles have bored me quite a bit and I can't bring myself to finish even a "short" campaign. I started playing recklessly on VH/VH last night to get some challenge to the battles. After 130 straight VH victories, I was ready for a few losses. Big battles that should be interesting rarely are because the AI is so inept. The sad thing is that in MTW, the AI fared better in battle, despite the fact that it carried around a lot more low tech units than the RTW AI carries around. Better AI armies should have resulted in tighter battles in VH, if the AI was as strong as MTW.

The strategic side still holds my interest. I've played the weaker factions on VH/VH and they are worth the challenge. Stronger factions are too easy to win with.

Still it is a bargain for what I paid. I also fully expect that CA will improve things considerably with a patch. There is obviously plenty that didn't get finished to their liking, so I expect things will be much better after a patch or two.

[TheDuck]

I'll admit that the battles have bored me quite a bit and I can't bring myself to finish even a "short" campaign. I started playing recklessly on VH/VH last night to get some challenge to the battles. After 130 straight VH victories, I was ready for a few losses. Big battles that should be interesting rarely are because the AI is so inept. The sad thing is that in MTW, the AI fared better in battle, despite the fact that it carried around a lot more low tech units than the RTW AI carries around. Better AI armies should have resulted in tighter battles in VH, if the AI was as strong as MTW.

The strategic side still holds my interest. I've played the weaker factions on VH/VH and they are worth the challenge. Stronger factions are too easy to win with.

Still it is a bargain for what I paid. I also fully expect that CA will improve things considerably with a patch. There is obviously plenty that didn't get finished to their liking, so I expect things will be much better after a patch or two.

Agreed. I'm about 3/4 of the way through a Julii long campaign, and I've taken to bribing the Brutii and Scipii stacks that come towards me and throwing them at the follow on stacks (I never bribe all of them, only a portion). I never know the real mix I'll be fighting with and it forces me to be creative. My 'standard butt-kicker' stacks are merely for mop-up. It guarantees that most of the fights are 2:1 to my disadvantage. Woohoo!

[Colt374]

Still it is a bargain for what I paid. I also fully expect that CA will improve things considerably with a patch. There is obviously plenty that didn't get finished to their liking, so I expect things will be much better after a patch or two.

Or after the inevitable expansion pack....

Sorry if I'm being too cynical, but it wouldn't suprise me at all if the patches for the most part only fix the bugs, and it takes an expansion pack to make the game more like what everyone would really like it to be.

But I'm hoping CA proves me wrong on that.

Colt.

[barvaz]

On the first week I got RTW I found myself playing from the moment I got home from work till the early hours of morning. When I couldn’t hold on any longer and had to get out of the game for the bathroom or grab something to eat, I’d notice the time (usually around 3-4am) and drag myself to bed, barely getting up to work in the morning, spending all day waiting to get home while planning strategies in my head for the next turns. My wife didn’t manage to speak to me the entire weekend and in the few sentences we did manage to exchange, I complained how the game is not even perfect and about all the things I think they could do better…

Anyway, I knew I’d burn out pretty fast that way and get sick of the game within few weeks so I took a break and haven’t played for over a week. I will start playing again soon but I hope I can manage to take it easy now.

I am a very slow player, I like to take my time and get “into” the game. Each turn takes me long minutes; sometimes I don’t make more than 2-3 turns in an hour, enjoying the atmosphere, roleplaying my generals and empire and taking notes of my progress. I can easily see myself playing this way for months without getting bored, then taking a break and keep coming back for more.

And that is with a game I think that is not as nearly as perfect as it could have been (hopefully but doubtfully will be after a patch and expansion or two).

- barvaz