CA's target group customer...

[hellenes]

Many of us ask ourselves: Why RTW is in this state? Why we enjoyed MTW and struggle to find the same addiction in RTW?
The answer lies in the target group of RTW:

"Medieval war is an evolved Age of Empires. You build your empire starting with the land conquered by historic empires, eg England, France, Germany, Spain etc. Europe is split into sectionalized areas, eg Wessex, Northumberland, Scotland, Wales etc. Each area then can be progressed by funding the building of new buildings, each building then allowing new types of units, improved tax returns etc. Battles are created by moving in to enemy territory or by enemies or perhaps even friends moving into your territory.
I'm sorry to say the most entertaining aspect was going through the tutorials. You dont get to see your towns/cities being built. You have no idea where your building strategy is going other than by looking at a paper based diagram of what the building might allow you to do. You dont have to fight a battle it can be calculated automatically - an option I ended up using most of the time otherwise the game would take years. Even with using this option the game is painfully slow and frustrating. If you do use the 3D battle scene it is cumbersome and frustrating to get those troops in the right position, especially with larger battles (forget it !) and there is no guarantee the troops you have built are fit for the job - they might just run, which is ok if you knew that was the case when you created them. You must keep saving the game because it crashes often - especially if you leave the game on a menu while nipping for a coffee. Eventually I couldnt give a damn and ended up pressing the next year button repeatedly - not a lot happened. I have a better time going to sleep than this ! A very unclear game with a mix of battle, trade, politics (supposedly) and espionage - each element didnt seem to relate at all."
From here
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...Go.x=5&Go.y=11

Hellenes

[fret]

Target Market, hmmm.

- People want a better(looking) game, it will cost more to make.
- It costs more to make, so they have to sell more copies
- They sell more copies by broadening their target market.
- They are still trading to continue making games

Its the biggest issue facing the industry ever - the increased pace of technology advancement is driving up the production cost at a rate far far greater then the revenue stream because the target audience is not increasing at a similar rate to production cost.

The only way to counter this is either put up the price of the end product, or sell the product to more people. To sell it to more people, they have to make it more accesable and more appealing to more people - in doing this they will 'dilute' aspects of the product to broaden the appeal to mass-market.

So unless gaming really does become mainstream(which could be a problem in its own right to product quality), get ready for either:

- The cost of games going up
- The quality of games going down


"But gaming is breaking into the mainstream", I here you cry.

Wrong.

Mainstream is like Titanic or Star Wars - a global audience of tens/hundreds of millions of people, each paying $5 each to see the product, generating $hundreds of millions at the box office. Thats why Hollywood can make a film that costs $200,000,000 and still make a profit - because its mainstream.

[Mikeus Caesar]

No!!!! I don't care if the game has to cost £100!! I want quality!! Please!!! Don't remove the quality just so you can satisfy the ignorant masses!! Please, noooooo!!!!!

[fret]

Dont cry just yet, Middleware might save the day.

[aw89]

No!!!! I don't care if the game has to cost £100!! I want quality!! Please!!! Don't remove the quality just so you can satisfy the ignorant masses!! Please, noooooo!!!!!

HEAR HEAR!

[Old Celt]

Well you see that's what marketing research is all about: finding out what people would pay for something, and how big that market is. You could get significantly better games for $100 than you can for $50, but in most cases, you lose far too much market at the higher price for it to be feasible. You have to stay competitive with other companies, and strategy games are just a sliver of the overall pie.

[drone]

Considering the quoted review is one of two negative reviews (out of 48) in the article/page, I would argue that it would be pointless for a company to target this sort of customer. 46 people loved the game, do you sacrifice them to get the 2 others?

[BeeSting]

Well you see that's what marketing research is all about: finding out what people would pay for something, and how big that market is. You could get significantly better games for $100 than you can for $50, but in most cases, you lose far too much market at the higher price for it to be feasible. You have to stay competitive with other companies, and strategy games are just a sliver of the overall pie.

I'm sure you are the marketing expert and can speak for the majority.

[BeeSting]

Considering the quoted review is one of two negative reviews (out of 48) in the article/page, I would argue that it would be pointless for a company to target this sort of customer. 46 people loved the game, do you sacrifice them to get the 2 others?

For the first three weeks.... Yeah! I would have said this game is flawless.

[Old Celt]

Hey Bee Sting,

I don't have to be a marketing expert to give my opinion. You can get a state of the art 3D military sim for about $25 million if you are the US Army, Air Force or Marines. Care to guess on how many private sales you could make at that level? If the market could bear charging $100 a copy for PC games, you could bet your bottom dollar they would be doing it!

[BeeSting]

Old Celt:

LOL.... no you don't have to be a marking expert to make an opinion.... but you sure sounded like one. And I love the way you blow things up with your $25 mil military sim analogy to conveniently make your point. I thought someone on this thread mentioned $100, not 25 Million bones. I don’t know about you but I would easily pay up to $200 for a quality pc game, but that’s just me.... Having people fork out their money is not the issue if they could recognize the quality.

[Kraxis]

Bee he doesn't mean we pay 25 mill for it, but as a cost to develop it. Which in my mind might not be too far from the 100$ range we are discussing.

[BeeSting]

Bee he doesn't mean we pay 25 mill for it, but as a cost to develop it. Which in my mind might not be too far from the 100$ range we are discussing.

I know he didn't mean we pay the amount.

[Wh1teWolf]

Oh look more whiney kids, that cant make sentences, just one large paragraph.

[screwtype]

"You dont get to see your towns/cities being built. You have no idea where your building strategy is going other than by looking at a paper based diagram of what the building might allow you to do. You dont have to fight a battle it can be calculated automatically - an option I ended up using most of the time otherwise the game would take years. Even with using this option the game is painfully slow and frustrating. If you do use the 3D battle scene it is cumbersome and frustrating to get those troops in the right position, especially with larger battles (forget it !) and there is no guarantee the troops you have built are fit for the job - they might just run, which is ok if you knew that was the case when you created them...Eventually I couldnt give a damn and ended up pressing the next year button repeatedly - not a lot happened...A very unclear game with a mix of battle, trade, politics (supposedly) and espionage - each element didnt seem to relate at all."

LOL. I actually agree with most of that review! MTW *was* too big and clumsy and uncoordinated to be a really good game.

I think if this reviewer had started with STW instead of MTW, he would probably have got hooked on the system just like I did. But I can see how a noob would become totally overwhelmed and frustrated by starting with MTW. Heck, not long ago one of the game's grognards on this very forum talked about the same sense of being overwhelmed when first playing it.

In fact I eventually ended up doing with MTW exactly what this reviewer did, just out of curiosity. I did nothing but click on the "end turn" button again and again, to see what would happen over a long period. Almost nothing did!

In my opinion, MTW is a monstrosity which outgrew the original game system. I forgave CA for making it because at least one "more is better" iteration is an industry staple after a great game. But it's harder to find excuses for the flaws in RTW

[Mikeus Caesar]

How can anyone feel over-whelmed by MTW? To tell the truth, when i first played it, i found it quite easy, even though i'd played no games like it in the past.

[bretwalda]

Similar thing here: I did not like it for the first time, partly because I did not bother to read the manual or this site and partly because I am a TBS (=turn based strategy) player (Civ3 rocks) Actually I even played it like a TBS: autoresolving every battle which of course took away the fun... ;)

Anyway half year ago I reinstalled and gave it another chance, and I am hooked. Learned how to use the units and how to handle the battles. Now I can turn the tides in battles and have the feel of it, developed battle instincts. Cool, ha?

After the initial skirmish I kind of *know* how the battle will go. And there is no greater satisfaction than tire the enemy from a hilltop, decimate them with arrow and when the poor quality troops start to break n run and rout I charge downhill and the enemy chain-routs...

[screwtype]

How can anyone feel over-whelmed by MTW? To tell the truth, when i first played it, i found it quite easy, even though i'd played no games like it in the past.

I'm just passing on what one of the senior members said.

But maybe it partly depends on your introduction to it. I started out with STW which has far fewer provinces and even so took a considerable time to beat, especially for a methodical type like me. I thought STW was big enough already and when I saw MTW I just thought, no, too much work in trying to conquer all this.

After all, at a certain point in a game of this type the "steamroller effect" kicks in, where you're obviously going to win even though there are still a lot of provinces to conquer. STW, being smaller, didn't really have that problem. By the time you got into a winning position, there weren't that many provinces left to take anyhow.

And then there was that huge plethora of "strategic" units in MTW cluttering up every province and complicating the gameplay unnecessarily. So I guess you could say I still consider it as an obese version of STW (although to be honest, I find STW to be not quite big enough these days).

[screwtype]

Similar thing here: I did not like it for the first time

One of my main gripes with MTW (apart from the lack of strategic challenge, which is common to all three games) is that I found the AI just didn't build enough quality armies. I got tired of facing armies full of peasants. Even after I installed Wesmod, the AI rarely seemed to build anything better than a spear unit or an archer.

With STW at least you'd find yourself in a tech race with the other factions, trying hard to churn out some buddhist monks or at least swordsmen faster than the AI factions. That doesn't happen in MTW so the battles tend to be easier and less interesting. Also, it means there's no sense of urgency about conquering those built-up enemy provinces before it's too late. You can just relax and conquer the map in your own time.

[ajaxfetish]

LOL. I actually agree with most of that review! MTW *was* too big and clumsy and uncoordinated to be a really good game.

I think if this reviewer had started with STW instead of MTW, he would probably have got hooked on the system just like I did. But I can see how a noob would become totally overwhelmed and frustrated by starting with MTW. Heck, not long ago one of the game's grognards on this very forum talked about the same sense of being overwhelmed when first playing it.

I started out as a noob on MTW, and I definitely felt confused and a little helpless, and didn't know how to do pretty much anything on the campaign map, but the battles were just so dang cool I didn't even care, and later when I could figure out the campaign map I came to love that, too. The game certainly isn't perfect, but it's got enough good points to be a definite winner in my book.

Can't speak for RTW. Haven't played it (mostly cause it's not set in the middle ages ), and probably won't be, especially after hearing so much disappointment here.

As for the "steamroller effect," who ever said you had to finish a game? It's not like the little end screen and dialogue is so amazing it's worth hours of monotony to see. I'll just play until I start getting bored with a game and then start a new one. If the whole game overall is getting a little boring, just switch to a different kind of game you like (FPS, RPG, whatever) for awhile before playing MTW again and it'll be a whole lot better.

[weegee]

Total Noob here. I've been playing about 3-4 hours a night for the past week and I love the game. I only restarted the game once after about 20 turns because I had missed some very basic concepts because of my inexperience (i.e. you probably don't want to attack knights with your UM general's unit or rules about finances, buildings, etc.)

I'm currently about 70 years into the game (see my How Am I Doing? thread) and love every second of it.

It's true that there are several rounds where all I did was quickly scout my building/troop build cues and then hit end year. But all that is going towards working for a goal. For instance, right now about to invade France and I need a good front line force of ILI to match up against the 7 royal knight units in Provence. So for the next 6 turns or so, I'll be building ILI, concentrating my ships because France has some ships in my lanes, fortifying my back door provinces to make sure no one jumps me while I'm distracted, etc. The point of the game is not to be at war every turn.

Quite frankly the game plays with your emotions. I have to bite my lip when I catch a Byz assasain trying to kill my king because I can't afford a war with them right now. But in 30 or 40 turns I will be able to, and then it's pay back time. At the end of the day, it's a game of pride, even ego. I want to conquer the world. But it's not so easy to manage all the intangibles. Make decisions from passion, and you might get burnt. Too conservative, too aggressive, and there's consequences.

Come on. I paid $20 for the battle pack and it's entertained me for about 30 hours so far, and it will continue to entertain me for at least another 300. That's like .06 an hour (without the farming upgrade ) Pretty good deal in my book. Only downside is the loss of sleep and lack of sunlight from not leaving the house.

[screwtype]

The game certainly isn't perfect, but it's got enough good points to be a definite winner in my book.

You can have some fun with it, certainly. But relative to STW, it didn't really add anything new except that it was bigger in almost every way. And the problem with that is that the original game system that was designed for STW, wasn't well suited for a bigger game IMO. The flaws in and essential shallowness of the "Risk" type campaign structure became much more apparent in the bigger game. MTW is basically STW with a lot more repetition rather than more sophistication. And for me, repetition just equals tedium.

Can't speak for RTW. Haven't played it (mostly cause it's not set in the middle ages ), and probably won't be, especially after hearing so much disappointment here.

I certainly haven't found it to be a compelling title. But it's different strokes for different folks, maybe you'd enjoy it. I suggest you wait until it hits the bargain bin at your local games store and maybe then pick up a copy.

As for the "steamroller effect," who ever said you had to finish a game?

Quite true. I concede I haven't finished that many campaigns even in STW. And my gaming philosophy has changed a lot over the years. Where once I was obsessed with beating every title, now I mostly just "sample" games, play them for a few days, get a taste of the style and flavour of the game, and move on to something else.

But that's not to say I wouldn't still *prefer* a game that provided a lasting challenge for the experienced player. It's just that such games are real rarities. STW came very close to that standard, except for a couple of minor weaknesses. I mean let's face it, your chances of actually *losing* a campaign in any of the TW titles is pretty slim. But I had a heck of a lot with fun with STW before that became apparent.

My hope with MTW was that it would rectify those weaknesses and either be an all-time classic, or at least provide more challenge for the hardy STW veteran. But it didn't do either. It just provided more repetition instead. So it was always a disappointment from my POV.

RTW was a bigger disappointment, because it moved even further away from providing an immersive and challenging experience, at least for the experienced TW fan. But I guess if it was the first TW title you played, you might think it was a pretty cool game.

BTW, if you haven't played STW yet, I strongly urge you to pick up a copy. It's still the best of the three games for my money, even though it's the smallest. The atmospherics are better than in either of the other two games for a whole variety of reasons. The battle engine is crisper, and units respond to your commands more briskly. It's a labour of love, the two later games were more commercial in intent IMO.

And since you mentioned your interest in medieval europe as a factor, I have to say that I was not the slightest bit interested in a game set in medieval Japan either. If my brother hadn't recommended the game to me, I probably never would have bothered with it. But almost from the opening screenshots, it grabbed me in a way that was totally unexpected.

If you do decide to have a look at it, try and get a copy with the Mongol Invasion expansion pack, it fixes a couple of small but noticeable bugs in the original game. I think the Warlords Edition also includes MI, but I'm not sure, you'd have to check that.

[Blacknek]

Hello guys,

interesting thing to find a threat concerning a game taking too long !

This for itself speaks for the quality of this awesome game. That`s because most times you buy a game for your hard earned money, you get a great weekend or maybe two of gameplay for it (the most times). After that you find yourself selling your game at ebay. Replayability is just too low.

I`ve seen the evolvement of pc-games almost from the beginning (in the `80s). Back then you had to figure out a lot for yourself. No tutorials, no internet, no forums. This was hard sometimes but still great fun if you picked the right games just because the entertainment and reward in return. And this reward came from discovering new aspects ot tricks within the game.

Owning a copy of MTW from the date it came out I must say that it is a rare exception this days. It was possible to master it at the beginning. Playing it now with reading forums (and frogbeasteggs great guides) it became even more challenging.
You don't have to understand every aspect of the game to get along. By playing it again and evolving your tactics you still just "win" the game, but you feel somehow more "mighty". And this is what conquering-games are about (-> long term motivation).

As for RTW. Haven't played it nearly as much as MTW (yet!). But a soon a I finish my actuall campaign in MTW I will go on to Rome.
My very personal opinion: RTW is not MTW 2. It's slighty less complex as far as I can tell. But its more user friendly (one thing I also hated about MTW is always falting and defalting the tech-tree-card while playing to now what to build next to get the desired unit) and looks simply gorgous even on my basic type hardware.
So I cannot tell anything about the addictive potential of RTW. But it definetly feels like a game with alot of heart.

Enjoy your time,
Blacknek

[Odin]

This thread has been an intresting read and I felt compelled to put my 2 cents into it. I have studied martial arts off and on since the early eighties, and became exposed through other students to the warring states period of japan.

Time when by and STW came out. Screwtype is pretty much on target when he says:

But relative to STW, it didn't really add anything new except that it was bigger in almost every way. And the problem with that is that the original game system that was designed for STW, wasn't well suited for a bigger game IMO. The flaws in and essential shallowness of the "Risk" type campaign structure became much more apparent in the bigger game. MTW is basically STW with a lot more repetition rather than more sophistication. And for me, repetition just equals tedium.

I purposely didnt by RTW because the time period dosent intrest me, but also because I thought it might be yet another continuation of the STW model on a larger scale. I seperate from Screwtype though because I found MTW to be very enjoyable, if for anything else due to the time period, albeit that it is simply more repetition.


For me MTW was a go because I loved STW(I still play it sometimes), but RTW wont make it onto my harddrive until well after its prime and it, and its enevitable expansion is bundled and sold at 19.99.

[2faced]

But that's not to say I wouldn't still *prefer* a game that provided a lasting challenge for the experienced player. It's just that such games are real rarities. STW came very close to that standard, except for a couple of minor weaknesses. I mean let's face it, your chances of actually *losing* a campaign in any of the TW titles is pretty slim. But I had a heck of a lot with fun with STW before that became apparent.

In MTW, try HRE, Expert, Early (VI). When you're done with that, do it again on Medmod (or start on MM). There's certainly a big chance of losing there, and it's definitely one of the most challenging campaigns or the most challenging overall.

Personally, I started with MTW. I originally bought the vanilla game, and after a few short campaigns, I realized it was a bit too easy. I didn't play it much until I got VI and installed MM, and now that's pretty much all I play most of the time.

[Shadar]

I don't know about you guys, but i found MTW one of probably one of the best games i've ever played, because its just so diverse and anything could happen really, like the faction reappearances, your king dying from old age too early, civil wars, the like.

I didn't buy the game that long ago, but now i'm hooked :D I find that the range of battles and the range of troops makes the game interesting, so many things can happen. (and i've gone a long way from my first battles... lol. i still remember when i accidentally routed my generals unit because i walked him from the enemy too much while repositioning him )

I'm still playing the vanilla MTW, but i find that on Normal/Hard, its more than a challenge enough for me, and still interesting. I'd probably get RTW when i get a bit more cash, and so can afford it.

[bretwalda]

...
I'm still playing the vanilla MTW, but i find that on Normal/Hard, its more than a challenge enough for me, and still interesting. I'd probably get RTW when i get a bit more cash, and so can afford it.

Many say RTW is crap so get Viking Invasion first it so much enhances gaming experience... (I play VI, but haven't played rtw)

[screwtype]

Many say RTW is crap so get Viking Invasion first it so much enhances gaming experience... (I play VI, but haven't played rtw)

In what ways does it enhance the game over vanilla MTW? Just curious.

[screwtype]

In MTW, try HRE, Expert, Early (VI). When you're done with that, do it again on Medmod (or start on MM). There's certainly a big chance of losing there, and it's definitely one of the most challenging campaigns or the most challenging overall.

Actually, I just recently started a Medmod campaign, and at the moment it IS hard!

I'm playing as the Polish, I have huge German and Hungarian armies on one side (though not at war with either), and huge Russian and Byzantine armies on the other (at war with both). I've had to strip my Western provinces of troops to hold off the Russkies and Byz, just hoping that neither Germany nor Hungary takes the opportunity to invade. Also I just fought three battles in a row against triple-stack enemy armies and though I won all my good troops have been chewed up so I'm in quite a vulnerable position.

The armies the AI is raising are quite decent too, which I never saw playing vanilla MTW.

BTW In what ways does VI enhance the original game? Did they fix the problem with skirmishing units that don't run from battle for example? Or the problem with multiple selected units not lining up evenly when you stretch them across the terrain? Just curious.

[Ulair]

BTW In what ways does VI enhance the original game? Did they fix the problem with skirmishing units that don't run from battle for example? Or the problem with multiple selected units not lining up evenly when you stretch them across the terrain? Just curious.

Isn't the skirmish thing a feature of having ordered the skirmishers to fire on a particular unit and so they ignore all others (effectively go off skirmish except if their target unit gets too close)? And for maintaining facing etc. for moving multiple units, I learned here the other week that holding down Alt before you click to move means those units will keep their dressing when they move. Ah, I love the Org!

Anyway, on VI: I just upgraded the other week. Been playing 1.1 for a year or so and saw VI on sale in Game for a tenner. It's a good upgrade - I recommend it. Apart from the Viking campaign (on a new British Isles map) which is good fun there are new features in the Medieval game, the best of which is the pre-battle screen. Instead of the "you've got N troops, he's got M, whaddya wanna do" parchment you get a neat UI screen where you can select your lineup by dragging and dropping, line up your reinforcements into some decent order and (if you've got spies/watchtowers etc handy) review the actual troops in your enemy's lineup. It's great! No more trying to remember what you last saw in his stack on the previous turn.

There are also some new unit types, additional building upgrades (enahnced Taverns for V+1, V+2 assassins etc) and new playable factions. Also I think graphics performance is improved; dragging a stack from one side of the campaign map to the other seems to be smoother to me, and generally the scrolling seems that fraction faster too. The AI takes longer over its moves, too - whether it's any better I couldn't say, but it sure thinks harder . One final thing: vanilla MTW savefiles are not officially supported (it sez) but I loaded my old Turkish campaign last night sans problems. Ah, those gold armoured JHI knocking on the gates of western Europe...

I'd been happy with vanilla MTW for a long time, but I'm well pleased with the upgrade to VI. Go for it.