Has anyone been to totalwar.com recently

**Old Celt** · 03-29-2005, 18:04

Well it is expected that companies need and want to make money. But unless you plan only for short term gain, you must build both quality products AND a reputation for good service. That's the reason Sears has done so well with Craftsman tools: they are top quality AND they are guaranteed for life. I personally witnessed an 84 year old man return a Craftsman socket that had split AFTER 62 YEARS OF SERVICE!! Sears didn't make any money on that exchange, but they built their reputation and word got around that they were steadfast behind their products. The result? Much more business because of dependability.

This GOTY business and such will be nothing more than "a flash in the pan" if word gets round that CA won't support their product and fix their obvious screwups. Yeah, it will cost them money, but that's what happens when you make mistakes and go to production that way. The fact is CA now has Sega and all their millions behind them, so there is no longer any excuse to cry poor as a reason to not hot patch the save game problem. Other, lesser companies correctly support their products, CA can do the same.

I think in some regards, the critical acclaim RTW has received from the usual media sources for game reviews is a pyrrhic victory. I would be surprised if any money in profit has actually been made for RTW when you consider how hideously over budget it must have been, given it was over 18 months late to production. Sega just needs to understand that they wouldn't be "throwing good money after bad" to finance an immediate effort to patch the game NOW, and thereby get back in the good graces of hard core players, and repair the damage to CA's reputation in the process.

**Lysander** · 03-29-2005, 18:21

In the “Loadgame-AI bug” thread at the .com, a CA staff member (TorquemadaUK) just commented on this issue. Surprisingly, CA does not even consider it a bug:

“Given that the player has no clue whether the AI plans to assault or starve out the settlement, what this is really saying is some seiges are lifted and some are not. Hence there is not a bug that causes all seiges to be lifted when a savegame is loaded. Sometimes the AI decides it's armies are needed elsewhere and it lifts a seige; sometimes it doesn't, and the seige is maintained - loaded savegame or just new turn.
Of course, as stated, it is perfectly legitimate to disagree with some of the AI decision-making, but that is an entirely separate discussion.”

**Red Harvest** · 03-29-2005, 18:33

It was nice of TorquemadaUK to respond, but it is obvious that CA still doesn't get it...they do not even understand the bug.

**Epistolary Richard** · 03-29-2005, 18:39

Open mouth... insert foot... ;)

**slackker** · 03-29-2005, 18:50

this is the entire response:
For each faction, the AI generally makes an assessment each turn of the best use for all the forces it has available (whether a save game has been loaded or not). If it has armies engaged in a seige and it decides that those armies can be better used elsewhere, it will indeed lift the seige and move those armies to where it judges they are more needed. The player will often not be able to see why the seige has been lifted, as the fog of war will prevent the player from seeing the threat that the AI is responding to (unless the player themselves is that threat). This lifting of seiges happens within continuous play as well as after loading a savegame, and the AI also does maintain some seiges after loading a savegame. Now, it is perfectly reasonable to complain that the AI chooses to lift seiges too often, but this is not a savegame bug. In addition, it would not necessarily make the AI perform better to increase its tendancy to maintain armies in seiges they have initiated... it might well end up responding to threats less effectively overall. This is something that can be debated.
The fact that this is not the bug that it has been portrayed as is illustrated by the original post that began this whole thread. It says:
"At the end of any turn where you did a reload the AI factions will immediately lift any siege, *except* those sieges where the AI planned to starve out the settlement."

Given that the player has no clue whether the AI plans to assault or starve out the settlement, what this is really saying is some seiges are lifted and some are not. Hence there is not a bug that causes all seiges to be lifted when a savegame is loaded. Sometimes the AI decides it's armies are needed elsewhere and it lifts a seige; sometimes it doesn't, and the seige is maintained - loaded savegame or just new turn.
Of course, as stated, it is perfectly legitimate to disagree with some of the AI decision-making, but that is an entirely separate discussion.

I hope this helps... !

This was my response:
Wow!8o
a CA staff finally replied!! it seems they did lots of testing with it and arrived at that conclusion, gave my input earlier in the thread..and so i have a question to ask: How does the AI determine the next best alternative?? for e.g in my case and in most i believe, a carthage army sieging messana on scily with rest of scily conquered, no roman armies on fleets or land nearby, built rams to assault, then upon saving and reloading, lifted a siege and idled around the island without doing anything. You call this "next best alternative"??
how? i am very curious, and this is juz one of the many examples...perhaps insufficient playtesting in lieu of this bug was made...

p.s. next best alternative is my terminology for "AI generally makes an assessment each turn of the best use for all the forces it has available (whether a save game has been loaded or not). If it has armies engaged in a seige and it decides that those armies can be better used elsewhere, it will indeed lift the seige and move those armies to where it judges they are more needed"
yes in 3 words ;)

**Garik** · 03-29-2005, 18:58

i think that some british gaming companies have the most innovative ideas and really do attempt to give gamers realism; take Sports Interactive, who made the Championship Manager series, who did in fact hire the fans that beta tested for them as games testers, and have an extensive repetoire of scouts who gather all information about foreign football leagues.

it is somewhat inevitable that, much like a new band with a small following, once a good thing gets bigger, it is never quite the same again. although i only joined the TW series at Rome: Total War, i share the annoyance of bugs going unfixed.

**Old Celt** · 03-29-2005, 19:37

Thanks for posting the CA response.

This is illustrative of the smokescreen behavior CA will use to respond to legitimate issues. And also the little arrogant insult: "Since the player has NO clue..." (emphasis mine). Well, duh, if we lift the FOW and can clearly see what the threats are, I think we have quite the clue. How many cases have there been where people have demonstrated the bug by saving a game, playing out a few more turns to watch the AI finish the siege, then reloading that save and watching the AI break it off at end of turn immediately thereafter? The CA staff does us no favors in assuming we have the mental power of a load of rutabagas! It really galls me that CA will make use of the thousands of hours of free beta testing they get on their finished product, then insult the people who provide data on the flaws!

The devil is in the details. Yeah, no doubt the AI assesses threats each turn, and in some cases, legitimately needs to lift the siege for its own good. But loading a save somehow overrides the planned actions the AI had in the previous game session. It's pretty obvious that when the AI builds 5 rams in a siege on wooden walls, it plans to assault the next turn. To have it fail to do that ONLY when the game is loaded from a save is proof of the bug when you consider the example test I cited above. Whether the actual bug is caused by poor assessment, or by a total reset of variables is a problem for CA to figure out, but the presence of broken code is a given.

The key to defining inappropriate activity as a bug is that it has no basis in logic (true in this case), is repeatable for all users with the version in question (true in this case), and that it definitively effects the performance in a negative way (true again).

**Turbo** · 03-29-2005, 19:42

CA's response to the load/save bug is an attempt to sweep it under the table. It is evident that they have no intention of doing any further patches.

**Alien of Germania** · 03-29-2005, 21:19

Wait for their Official RTW Expansion...
RTB - Rome Total Bug

unsolved ones I mean

**tai4ji2x** · 03-29-2005, 21:33

well, torquemadaUK's latest "response" is the last straw for me. unless ignorant and inconsiderate fools like that are fired immediately, i have no intention whatsoever of paying for the expansion, even if this bug is fixed. who knows what new bugs will pop up, and what guarantee is there that those will ever be fixed? it seems pretty obvious by now that they won't. sites like gamecopyworld exist because there is a demand for them. that demand exists because people don't want to pay money for an unsupported, non-refundable yet defective product. i could easily have downloaded RTW, but i didn't. i wanted to support what i initially thought was something that deserved it. well, now i've learned from my mistake. CA can no longer be trusted. screw them.

**Batangueno** · 03-30-2005, 02:30

Greetings Old Celt,

I am assuming you are Gwumpke over at .COM. I am the .COM moderator that happened to be there at the time.

The AI Loadgame Bug thread at OT was meant to be a thread for gathering constructive input from patrons regarding the “bug”. There are respected patrons that needed the thread for their analysis of the problem. We do not want the constructive posts to be buried by rants and other off-topic posts. It was not a thread for ranting or venting someone’s anger or frustration.

Being the official Forum of CA, the .COM has been bearing the brunt of uncivil posts. We have to be very strict – whether we like it or not – to keep the sanity of the place. We have been called Nazis before and worse. Those are the kind of crap that we receive on a daily basis in return for volunteering our time to take care of the Forums.

We are not CA employees but patrons volunteering to take care of the Forums for other patrons. We know as much information as any patron. Nothing more.

You post stood out as being from someone who just entered the discussion and I felt that it was a rant and not constructive and on-topic.

Hopefully, you’ll understand. It was nothing personal.

Bat

PS. I feel that the .COM and .ORG are part of one TW community. That’s why I’m here. But to the moderators of .ORG, if you feel that I should not be here and you think it is a conflict of interest, please let me know and I will leave. Thank you.