New Shogun readme at the com

[Little Legioner]

Hi Intrepid

I made an experiment yesterday. Two armies full force on huge setting but when i started the battle i could'nt find any space for maneuvering. Everywhere of god was troops...

How can you fix that mate? Battlefield was full of armies! I pushed the enemy and won a boring victory... Is it normal?

I don't think so.

[player1]

Well, there is a reason why if you set predefeined graphics details to high that it will select large unit scale and not huge one.

IMHO, I think that huge unit scale for after thought, and that game was never balanced for that unit count.

[Little Legioner]

Well, there is a reason why if you set predefeined graphics details to high that it will select large unit scale and not huge one.

IMHO, I think that huge unit scale for after thought, and that game was never balanced for that unit count.

Sorry mate but why should i select large instead of huge? If i select huge i should play properly that game. I mean we can play on huge fileds if we select huge unit scale. Same field size with different unit scale creates bad result. I'll upload a screen to explain my point or you can see it on your experience.

Which is your preferred option?

[player1]

The one that works well: large

[screwtype]

I played with fog-of-war turned off andI could see the AI factions responding to threats or building up for an offensive, but it's a slow process

Yes, and I can't help but feel that if there was a strategic movement option this process would become much quicker, because the AI would be able to concentrate its forces so much faster. That should make for a more dynamic game experience and it should also help restore the likelihood of bigger, harder and more decisive battles which were a feature of the earlier games and which many people believe has been lost in RTW.

[screwtype]

You make a good point Little Legioner. I think that if they don't want to give us the option of bigger battlefields, then perhaps they should at least include some sort of algorithm for automatically increasing the battlefield size depending on the unit size selected.

[Duke John]

I fiddled a bit with a script in which generals would get movement points as long as they stayed on friendly ground. It would help to ease the boring task of transporting reinforcements in the end game when your empire is huge and it wouldn't be too unrealistic since armies have better supplies in their homelands. But the trigger does not seem to work well as it goes off in both friendly and enemy lands.

Sadly enough CA doesn't seem to realise how much modders can achieve with scripting and doesn't want to invest any time it.

[player1]

If only commands for changing factions could get unlocked to be used in console (and not only in script files), we could get some sort of hotseat MP.

[Puzz3D]

If only commands for changing factions could get unlocked to be used in console (and not only in script files), we could get some sort of hotseat MP.

Actually, if that command were enabled, you could have a PBEM multiplayer campaign with the battles fought online. It makes no sense for CA to disable the console commands which only affect the strategic campaign. Only those commands which affect tactical battles need be disabled.

[screwtype]

Actually, if that command were enabled, you could have a PBEM multiplayer campaign with the battles fought online. It makes no sense for CA to disable the console commands which only affect the strategic campaign. Only those commands which affect tactical battles need be disabled.

Yeah, exactly. And I can't understand why we can't have this. It seems like these days there's such an obsession with real-time online MP that every other option has been forgotten. Or is it that gaming companies don't want to give us such options because there is no money in it for them?

PBEM would be great. Hotseat MP would also be great. I and I'm sure many others would love to have these options, and it couldn't be that difficult to make them available, so why haven't they been implemented?

[KSEG]

Yeah, exactly. And I can't understand why we can't have this. It seems like these days there's such an obsession with real-time online MP that every other option has been forgotten. Or is it that gaming companies don't want to give us such options because there is no money in it for them?

PBEM would be great. Hotseat MP would also be great. I and I'm sure many others would love to have these options, and it couldn't be that difficult to make them available, so why haven't they been implemented?

Perhaps it's more difficult then you think, or perhaps they think it's not worth the effort.

[Mongoose]

Yes, we are smelly ignorant peasants who just don't understand

[KSEG]

Yes, we are smelly ignorant peasants who just don't understand

I am merely presenting my opinion, and I don't mean to offend anybody by any mean.

[Mongoose]

All i meant to say was that a Hotseat campaign would be easy to implement.



Heck, the modders are working on it as we speak!

[Intrepid Sidekick]

I hope they checkout the charge bonus to see if it's being incorporated correctly into the combat calculation and fix the Parthian shot, but their lack of understanding about the AI treating some infantry like it was cavalry, making it pull back and recharge, is disappointing, and there has been no mention about the AI maintaining the intergrety of its battleline.

Yup we have checked out the charge bonus and resolved some issues there.

Yup we have looked at the Parthian shot issue and done work on that too.

A side effect of resolving some of the charge issues is that the AI is much less likely to try and use infantry like cavalry.

[King of Atlantis]

Not sure if this has been asked, but willl diplomacy be improved in BI?

[player1]

What about problem with higher battle difficulty levels?

From 1.2 VH battles becamse no more tough then medium ones, just faster.
I suspect that AI bonus was added yo human player too, by mistake.
Probably my second biggest grief with RTW after save/load issue (since both together make game too easy).

[Mongoose]

Yup we have checked out the charge bonus and resolved some issues there.

Yup we have looked at the Parthian shot issue and done work on that too.

A side effect of resolving some of the charge issues is that the AI is much less likely to try and use infantry like cavalry.

Really?! That's great!

Glad to see CA is looking at some of the issues that were dismissed at first

[player1]

Makes me wonder, would the patch to be relased for original after expansion ships, deal with same problems, or is it for save/load issue alone?

Not that I would care, since I would buy expansion anyway.

[Puzz3D]

Yup we have checked out the charge bonus and resolved some issues there.

Yup we have looked at the Parthian shot issue and done work on that too.

A side effect of resolving some of the charge issues is that the AI is much less likely to try and use infantry like cavalry.

Excellent news! Thanks. That's interesting about the side effect the charge issue had on the AI recharging with some infantry units. Might a re-evaluation of the oversizing of the desert cavalry unit be in order since charge now works differently?

I think Player1 is right about the hard and very hard battle difficulty settings probably being a mistake. It seems the human player is being given the same combat bonuses that the AI receives, and that can't be right. That must be an easy thing to correct.

One other thing about the impact of the load/save design; I noticed in a recent RTW campaign were I played continuously for 260 turns and never reloaded from a save that the AI not only initially captured all rebel provinces fairly quickly, but also fairly quickly retook any of it's provinces that rebelled. If you only play a few turns at a time and reload from savegames, the AI becomes overburdened with rebel provinces late in the campaign because it fails to retake many of them which hurts the economy of the AI factions and makes the campaign easier for the human player. This effect wouldn't show up in CA's tests where they let the game run continuously in an automated mode. Possibly CA has underestimated the adverse effect the load/save design has on the campaign.

[Orda Khan]

Sorry mate but why should i select large instead of huge? If i select huge i should play properly that game. I mean we can play on huge fileds if we select huge unit scale. Same field size with different unit scale creates bad result. I'll upload a screen to explain my point or you can see it on your experience.

Huge unit setting has always caused a jumbled mess. I can remember being unable to deploy as I wanted in MTW when I joined a 'huge' battle.

As for the enemy being deployed too close at start of battle, this too has been evident since STW. I would prefer a much larger map where maybe the enemy was not even visible but just think what we would have then. Everyone would be moaning about fatigue wouldn't they?

..........Orda

[Ludens]

I am prepared to say that it is certainly our intention to address the load/save issue in the expansion pack. "And what about a patch?" I hear you ask. Again I can't say this is set in stone but we hope to bring out a patch at roughly the same time as the expansion pack (in reality it will probably be few weeks later).
That's the state of play at the moment. When I know more, I'll make sure that you know more.

Thank you CA, for bringing out another patch for the original game. I may not buy BI, but I appreciate any work you will put into making the original better.

[Red Harvest]

Yup we have checked out the charge bonus and resolved some issues there.

A side effect of resolving some of the charge issues is that the AI is much less likely to try and use infantry like cavalry.

Ah, that would be good, the charge bonus has been a bit...odd. I'm trying to remember the name of the person that first raised the major flag on that one...while his original thesis that the charge bonus didn't work was not correct, his impression of the impact was (that it did very little by itself and was essentially a non-factor.) As a result of his posts I then tested to discover that defense was much more important than anything else to the charge, and Kraxis followed up by zeroing in on the armour value of defense being the component that really mattered.

Anyway, I hope all these charge "irregularities" are well addressed.

[screwtype]

I'm trying to remember the name of the person that first raised the major flag on that one.

Might have been Puzz3D.

[Puzz3D]

Might have been Puzz3D.

It wasn't me. I think it was a modder at TWC who posted his concern about charge when he made charge values very large in his mod and didn't see much of an effect. Creative Assembly tends to discount issues found by modders because a mod can affect the game in unpredictable ways. There was a discussion thread here at .org that I was involved in about how to test this charge issue in such a way that Creative Assembly would take note of it. I didn't do any tests myself, but players such as Red Harvest came through and made some very good tests which demonstrated that there was a problem with charge in the vanilla game.

Following the release of the v1.2 patch, I kept tabs for months on everything being posted about problems that players were finding as an extension of the beta testing. If a reported issue developed into a verified problem, I'd do what I could to make CA aware of it. Sometime after the load/save discussions, Jerome requested a bug reporting forum be set up, and that has helped a great deal because CA can quickly read up on outstanding issues that players have discovered and their investigative results.

From our point of view, we don't know which issues made CA's fix-it list, so there is a tendency to keep bringing things up over and over until we get a response from CA. If we knew, for instance, that charge bonus was on the list, the players could focus on bringing some other issue that isn't on the list to CA's attention. Jerome posted that many things reported in the bug forum have already been addressed, but he didn't say which ones. Intrepid Sidekick has mentioned specific items that have been addressed. That alleviates a lot of concern, and allows the discussion to shift to items which are still up in the air. Eventhough we don't know how an item has been addressed, my experience is that CA does a good job on any issue that makes the list.

[Red Harvest]

Agreed, a big problem has been the need to cover a problem incessantly because there was no acknowledgement that it was a known issue.

[sunsmountain]

AI modding has been possible so far using descr_formations.txt and descr_formations_ai.txt.

Is it possible to make a text file that governs when archers stop marching to start firing, or something that influences flanking? It sounds complicated, but i wonder if its at all possible for non-programmers...

Modifying the game speed has a large impact on game experience.

In siege battles, though they are refreshing & new, after a while they become frustrating because of path finding. And why can some buildings not be destroyed? Can this be changed with a simpler model?

Perhaps in the future...

[Shaun]

well darth mod seems to have helped the AI use archers and skirmishers correctly.

[Kraxis]

Ah, that would be good, the charge bonus has been a bit...odd. I'm trying to remember the name of the person that first raised the major flag on that one...while his original thesis that the charge bonus didn't work was not correct, his impression of the impact was (that it did very little by itself and was essentially a non-factor.) As a result of his posts I then tested to discover that defense was much more important than anything else to the charge, and Kraxis followed up by zeroing in on the armour value of defense being the component that really mattered.

Anyway, I hope all these charge "irregularities" are well addressed.

Ahhh those were the days... I still can't get it into my mind that the Cats were so much better than the Cappas. I actually did more tests than I needed to because I simply didn't like the results. I wanted to have the 'correct' results.

But I must admit that the simple fact that this seems to be addressed has me poised to buy the expansion. It is interesting to think that I, one of the most ardent defenders of CA was on the verge of not buying it.

It is also interesting that we get this info in a sort of "btw we have fixed this and that..." like it was nothing important. If only we got the news about the fixes then perhaps we would be more positive (thinking about the Intrepid/sik debate).

[SpencerH]

Q: Any plans to deepen the strategy map side of things in the Total War series - making it more like the Civilization series? An official collaboration with Sid Meier-san. called Civilization: Total War would be nice, but failing that a cheeky rip-off would not be amiss. I appreciate this would not be universally popular with the existing clientele, but it would create the mother of all strategy games, surely?

A: Sounds like a dream game for some people! Civilization is a great game, but it’s not really got a huge overlap with Total War when you analyze all the gameplay elements in each title. Currently there are no plans for an official collaboration with Mr Meier.

I saw this and just had to comment. CA may not go toward civ, but its not an impossibility that SM may take civ toward TW (something some of us have been begging for on the CIV fansites for many years). Lets not forget that SM's Gettysburg and Antietam were great tactical combat games long before TW existed. It wouldnt take that much for Firaxis to make it a reality.