So ...

[frogbeastegg]

... BI is out. I could have brought it twice already today, but I didn't even wander into the shop. A first time occurrence; I had all other TW games on UK release day.

The frog is wondering, is it worth it? Is BI good for the frog who dropped RTW in disgust shortly after 1.2, and didn't play the game outside of the rare bit of MP for the months before 1.2? It pains me to sit here and ask in a very weary tone if BI is worth it, but there we go, that's what I'm doing.

The main reasons for that disgust with RTW ... well, they are numerous. To go into the kind of depth I feel would be fair in explaining how precisely I feel about RTW (and there was plenty I liked! And loved! But mostly overshadowed or crushed underfoot by the bits I didn't) I would end up writing a several page long analysis. So I won't I'll sum up very broadly, and try not to feel absolutely rotten. Which I will, no matter how hard I try. Gah!

RTW was ... too easy (on battle map and campaign), too boring (mostly because it was too easy), felt like it needed another few months before 1.0 and another couple of patches after 1.2, missing too many features and doodads from the older games in the series, had too many silly little errors in files like the traits one. Then there's the famous save/load thingie. I'm a busy frog; a turn or two at a time is all I can manage. It's either that or I don't play. This only made my games even more mind numbingly easy. We won't mention the nice PR bomb that issue received, though it did a good job of hardening dislike into disgust and getting the game finally uninstalled, hope having died a rather messy death.

After reading threads like Kraxis' my attention is now pricked a very little. Actually, threads like that are the only reason I'm asking; before I wasn't interested enough to care.

It’s not ‘simple’ things like challenge I’m wanting from BI. Although I do want that too. I want … that feeling again. The magic returned. And all that other guff that is hard to word. I want something in the lineage of STW or VI. I want … I don’t want to be left feeling mine is the only faction on the campaign map, or that I am wasting my time, or that I should have waited for a discounted version or not bothered at all, or that the game could have been great if only, and all those other things I felt with RTW.

I want to like BI. No, I want to love it. But I wanted to love RTW too, and there are so many books out there a frog wants to buy, and only so much money and time ...

And someone tell me why I have this feeling I should wait a couple of weeks, then ask, so there is more time for bugs and issues to be spotted and for the initial gloss to wear off …. I’m getting very cynical in my old age. I feel very rotten now.

[Doug-Thompson]

It's not easy. It may become easy after I figure out how to properly manage a horde, but it's not easy now.

There's less map but many factions. There's more interaction, more conflict, less predictability. Your enemies and your friends are less clear-cut.

Battles are still easy, however, to anyone who knows what to do. I think we've all lost some battles we should have won, but only because we're not used to the changes yet.

Frankly, I'd like to know what you think but still would say: I'd wait if I was having doubts like yours. No, I did not have an overpowering feeling of a return to M:TW, only better. Some mechanics, the interface and even the look of the game have received substantial improvement, but it's still R:TW.

[Kekvit Irae]

To be quite honest, the reason why I havent bought BI is because I dont think it will live up to my expectations. I've been burnt out on RTW for a long time.
It's kinda sad, I have more interest in buying UO's new expansion than RTW: BI.

[The Stranger]

the sad thing is i cant play RTW cuz its not what i expected...and i cant play MTW anymore after seeing RTW

[Doug-Thompson]

Let me put it this way: My usual Total War "Blitz" strategy of wiping out a rival faction in the first few moves is definitely not working. If you do that now, they turn into a horde and kick your behind if they are a barbarian faction. If they are a civilized faction, they're too big to blitz — unless they're the Sassinids, perhaps. I'm tempted to take a unhistorical approach and blitz the Sassinids with the Huns.

[Kraxis]

Frog, my advise to you, and I know your 'issues' well enough, is to find a friend that has BI and ask to borrow it. You have to try it, then you can form your own oppinion of the game as it is now. It is very much better now, but it still a far cry from perfect.

It is more surprising and challenging now, but there are times when it is the same old.

I'm about to write a new topic about the AI in tactical mode. But that is only against the Huns. Take a look when I'm done, you might like it.

[econ21]

At the risk of being repetitive (I seem to say what I am about to say every other post), but have you tried Rome Total Realism, froggie? My BI has not been delivered yet, but I am having a blast with RTR 6.1. I also stopped playing RTW after 1.2 - I am not sure it was disgust, more like "yawn, this is too easy". I didn't even bother to try the BI demo. However, RTR definitely brought back that MTW feeling for me. The combat "feels" like MTW in terms of speed and balance of arms, the history feels more right and if you play it on VH campaign, it is no walk over. As Rome, I took 50 provinces and ended up fighting virtually every faction on the map - none of which I could deliver a knock out blow to. It was a blast.

BI sounds like fun, but it is with mods like RTR and EB that I think I will spend most of my TW time. I would say download RTR 6.1 (you can't argue with the price) and then decide if you have enough enthusiasm for BI.

[Steppe Merc]

Frog, I feel the same way. Well, I am mainly playing with EB, but I just can't imagine BI being worth it. Of course I'll buy it if we convert to it, but I can't imagine it being worth it on its own.

[PseRamesses]

Greetings Frogbeastegg,

My first game with BI was very confusing and a big... oh, no! Been playing daily, 5-6hrs, for well over a week now and I must admit it grows on me constantly. I think the battle AI has improved since unit deployments are better, generals not so suicidal and formations are held (to some extent) and it´s more STW or MTW than RTW ever was. I´ve faced fained retreats, flanking, tactical withdraws and an army that simply wouldn´t give up a hill! Haven´t seen that in ages.
I like the new feats like swiming units since it makes holding a river not that easy anymore and formations like shieldwall etc, it´s impossible to get through, he he, and I drool with exitement to assault a huge city - it´s simply massive - take my advice: skip time limits. Walls and towers are reaching the skies in some places and the cameras height is just enough topass over the top.
I hate the map. I hate the fact that Italy only has 4 provinces, and same with Spain and Turkey. I do hope RTR or EB is getting something out fast or I´ll go back to RTR 6.1 until they do. Conquering is slower due to rebellions and unrests so I guess that the devs didn´t think we would need so many regions to play with. I faced a huge dilemma as the Sassanids since my cities couldn´t accept 10-20.000 slaves from Antioch and the same from Jerusalem so I had only one choice "occupy" - jees! Took me ages to get loyalty up. Now I have a full stack of peasants as garrison-material in newly conquered provinces since I don´t want to get my precious soldiers killed. Mine, Katank (and others) blitzing days are over atleast when it comes to capturing a city with a different faith. It´s back to MTW but ten times worse.
Haven´t played the Huns or done any "hording" so I don´t know about that part but what I do like is that the migration and hording that is taking place really gets you into the feel of this particular era. IMHO BI is better than RTW and with a merge between RTR and BI this game will be better than MTW!

Like Kraxis said, borrow the game - it´s differen´t. I do feel that it´s more money worth than RTR but can get a whole lot better in the hands of our beloved modders.

[Dimeola]

....that feeling.....of praying quite early in the game when one horde descends upon your eager little kingdom...praying as they ride thru and not AT you.....and then cursing as you discover why they were riding so fast. the other bigger horde chasing after them....to this point i`ve found the campaign to be tougher and more interesting than RTW...which I also quit.
battles....Of the several have played it seems the AI is better, tho not by alot. But I reserve judgement until I can play more.
I had deep reservations on this one and almost ignored it to go back to VI. But at this point i`m glad I got it.
D

[Shahed]

... BI is out. I could have brought it twice already today, but I didn't even wander into the shop. A first time occurrence; I had all other TW games on UK release day.

The frog is wondering, is it worth it? Is BI good for the frog who dropped RTW in disgust shortly after 1.2, and didn't play the game outside of the rare bit of MP for the months before 1.2? It pains me to sit here and ask in a very weary tone if BI is worth it, but there we go, that's what I'm doing.

The main reasons for that disgust with RTW ... well, they are numerous. To go into the kind of depth I feel would be fair in explaining how precisely I feel about RTW (and there was plenty I liked! And loved! But mostly overshadowed or crushed underfoot by the bits I didn't) I would end up writing a several page long analysis. So I won't I'll sum up very broadly, and try not to feel absolutely rotten. Which I will, no matter how hard I try. Gah!

RTW was ... too easy (on battle map and campaign), too boring (mostly because it was too easy), felt like it needed another few months before 1.0 and another couple of patches after 1.2, missing too many features and doodads from the older games in the series, had too many silly little errors in files like the traits one. Then there's the famous save/load thingie. I'm a busy frog; a turn or two at a time is all I can manage. It's either that or I don't play. This only made my games even more mind numbingly easy. We won't mention the nice PR bomb that issue received, though it did a good job of hardening dislike into disgust and getting the game finally uninstalled, hope having died a rather messy death.

After reading threads like Kraxis' my attention is now pricked a very little. Actually, threads like that are the only reason I'm asking; before I wasn't interested enough to care.

It’s not ‘simple’ things like challenge I’m wanting from BI. Although I do want that too. I want … that feeling again. The magic returned. And all that other guff that is hard to word. I want something in the lineage of STW or VI. I want … I don’t want to be left feeling mine is the only faction on the campaign map, or that I am wasting my time, or that I should have waited for a discounted version or not bothered at all, or that the game could have been great if only, and all those other things I felt with RTW.

I want to like BI. No, I want to love it. But I wanted to love RTW too, and there are so many books out there a frog wants to buy, and only so much money and time ...

And someone tell me why I have this feeling I should wait a couple of weeks, then ask, so there is more time for bugs and issues to be spotted and for the initial gloss to wear off …. I’m getting very cynical in my old age. I feel very rotten now.

I had STW when it was out, pre-ordered MTW and VI and got them within a day or two of release. I was one of the first to order RTW. But BI honestly I did'nt even know it was coming out but I guessed it would be about mid September. I have'nt even bothered to look it up for the same reasons you stated. All that eye candy but it's just so hollow. No challenge, no feel and most importantly, no atmosphere. I want to enjoy this game and I do for the various other reasons such as "cinematic battles" (no pun intended). I doubt if I'll buy BI just yet, maybe next month if I wander into a store and feel like picking it up. Meanwhile I'll keep reading about it right here.

[frogbeastegg]

:sighs: Oh ... very well. I suppose this does sound about as reasonable as could be expected, although I do wonder if the lack of "Devastating bug! Gah!" threads is due to the short time the game has been out. I don't like wondering that at all, but there we go. I don't expect terribly much, but that does make it hard to be disappointed at least.

But I do hope Sega has started a new era; as publishers go they are in my better books because they seem to support niche titles, give developers time to finish their games, and support those games when they are done. The standalone 1.3 patch for RTW is perhaps a signal of what to expect. I certainly hope so.

It's £14.99 on Amazon.uk, so I chucked a book in with it for free delivery. I still couldn't muster the enthusiasm to go shopping in my lunchbreak and pay more to have BI now. £14.99; that's two or three fiction books or one big fat history book at Amazon prices.

The Shogun called people whiners while busily denying the existence of the save/load issue. Anyone who thought there might be a problem was a whiner, regardless of whether they were whining or not, or even posting anything at all.

Mods aren’t an option for me, regardless of the mod and the contents, until the 1.3 patch is available for download. No matter what the mod changes it can’t fix the save/load thingy, so I’m still left playing against an AI which admires the view and does very little else. However, once that issue is fixed the frog can try a load of mods without trouble

Turin: Eleanor isn't fanfic, it's original fiction. It's entirely my own creation. Glad you like it Hehe, BI will pose precisely no threat to the story; nothing manages to be more appealing to me than writing it. Rather, the story threatens to steal my BI playing time, even if it’s the game I was hoping for with RTW 1.0!

[Orda Khan]

So far its been great. The AI is far better

.......Orda

[Doug-Thompson]

Snap out of it and play the game.

If it's terrible, take it to a used game store and trade it in. Then be glad for all those years of Shogun and Medieval Total War. It's not hard to imagine a world in which those games never existed.

Even if you don't like BI, I believe that it is enough of an improvement over R:TW to give you hope for the next game in the series.

=========

As for Turin's remarks, his delivery may have been unkind but there are a bits that merit a response.

Unfortunately, someone else will have to respond to the comments about the skins and the models. I respect the amount of art and work that goes into those skins. However, I don't appreciate them as much as I ought. Gameplay matters so much more in my personal value judgements, that appearance doesn't weigh much.

However, I do think it is fabulously unfair to skin (pardon the pun) a company for not producing a whole new line of better qualilty skins for an expansion kit. I know just enough about skinning to know that it is a very labor-intensive and expensive part of producing a game. BI is a new game in it's strategic situation and improvements to tactical gameplay, but it's not a complete rewrite.

=======

I cannot agree that cavalry is ridiculously overpowered, or that tactics don't matter. I don't believe that any unjaundiced comparison of BI and R:TW could avoid the conclusion that BI is better in those regards. In R:TW, you didn't so much guide your armies as aim them and fire. There is improvement in that area. Somebody point to any forum post similar to Kraxis "Impressive Hun" account in all of R:TW.

[zukenft]

Even though it is just mediocre, the expansion is still worth getting. You should really get this game. (note on GET and not BUY: I suggest finding a friend that buys BI and ask to have it after he's bored)

[Kekvit Irae]

As far as the save/load bug goes, I saved my WRE game, loaded it back up, and the AI *still* pounded me back into the dark ages (forgive the pun). Dont know if that was just me, or if the bug was fixed. Certainly saves me the trouble of trying to play an "Ironman" campaign.

[Turin]

The Save Load bug has been fixed. This I am almost 90% sure of.

Mumm... well looking back on things I guess I was outright rude. Really it was more of a joke than anything else, especially with Kraxis (love the interactive history thing that you do). I suppose a smilie to denote the insincere nature of my remark would have been appropriate, but then again I was never one for smilies.

Well what I'm really trying to get at is this: remember when you first started playing RTW back almost a year ago? Remember that "OMG there's this this and this to do and... OH! wow!" and so on and so on. It's not till a week or two in that the defect start to get to you. It's the same thing for BI. The "Oh wow I'm playing BI" feeling wears off REAL fast. For me it didn't even last into the first battle.

I mean, have you all seen the Sassanids? Their units are basically a set of barbarian units (the same set that comprises 90-100% of Western barbarian faction retinues) reskinned with a terriblly bright blue!

Even more blasphemous, the "Virgin" units for the Sarmatians... has CA really degraded itself to selling its game with SEX APPEAL???!!!

In summary, BI is a poorly made expansion that goes against the very spirit of the Total War series. Shame on CA and Sega.

Oh and Frog, sorry, I thought that the connection with MTW (in a very remote way) qualified it as a fanfic. I was mistaken on second thought, my apologies, keep up the excellent work.

[Azi Tohak]

All I can say is that I am pleased. I rather like the AI's take on formations. Definitely different (inverse cresent? what?), but I do like the battles now. I am playing H/H with the ERE (don't want to tax myself too much) and I think it is fun. I would like more provinces, but that can be fixed without any problems (just not by me... not very skilled with modding you see).

I was not going to buy it either, until I started to read some reviews on here. I think its worth it!

Azi

[Doug-Thompson]

Well, even I'll acknowledge that the bright baby blue for the Sassanids is a fashion blunder.

[Kraxis]

Well, even I'll acknowledge that the bright baby blue for the Sassanids is a fashion blunder.

Can't argue with that, but basically all other colours are taken. There will always be a faction that has a very ugly colour.

I'm not going to complain about the skins, if that was so, then why did I like either MTW or STW? Talk about blurry images.

And perhaps we are indeed a bit BI-happy now, but remember that most of us were in fact rather negative about RTW before. Aside from a short dabble with RTR 6.0 I hadn't played RTW since March out of pure boredom and lack of challenge.

Now tonight I won a massive battle against the Sassanids, but that was mainly due to me hiding behind a collection of big rocks and the Sass army was made up by Peasants for a great extent (though the Sughdans made a spectacular appearance). When I broke their initial attacks and felt it was time for a general infantry charge (my favourite tactic), it was due to the success but also because the AI had sent an escorted unit of Elephants behind the rocks. The escort tied up my cavalry (sacrificed themselves to let the eles past), then the eles deftly avoided combat before charging towards my infantry. I had my hands tied, it was do or die. One unit of infantry was sent to deal with the elephants while the other three attacked.

Is was a near disaster because the Sassanids let their Peasants break, then hit my infantry while they were chasing (enter the Sughdans). One unit of Comitatenses even got wiped out because the Sassanids surrounded it when it was alone. I only won becasue I had sent my general out to chase some spearmen off. He could then take the Sughdans in the rear (but they fought on).

Was I impressed? Yes! Was it a challenge? Yes! Did I ever feel outclassed or lucky to win? No. But I doubt that day will come soon. The AI used the correct tactics, but I was simply better and had the better army.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Playing medium-medium I've had some fun as the Saxons.

Diplomacy feels a little more solid than RTW, but that's just my limited experiances.

I've had just two good battles, and both we interesting, facing the diverse (and gimmicky) Celts. The first was a battle of about 1000 per side, I won taking about 50% casualties (they lost maybe 90%). They retreated to their town, where some more soldiers waited. So the siege assault was about 500 me vs. 450 them. Most of them were heavy cavalry, and I won using my spearmen's shield wall. Though I lost another 40%.

Now I have to face the Western Romans, and some powerful rebels.

Take the plunge, Froggy! The water's nice!

[Red Harvest]

Froggie pretty much stated my feelings on BI. I've been pleased to hear Kraxis and others are finding it refreshing. I'll hold off until the newness is gone and the game is less expensive. Since there are fewer folks testing this one thoroughly, I'm going to wait a bit longer before I draw a conclusion on it. I'll probably wait for the 1.3 RTW patch at least, and perhaps wait for the price to tumble.

[Steppe Merc]

Well, even I'll acknowledge that the bright baby blue for the Sassanids is a fashion blunder.

All faction colors are a mistake.

[Garvanko]

The Franks look very cool.

[Ldvs]

Well what I'm really trying to get at is this: remember when you first started playing RTW back almost a year ago? Remember that "OMG there's this this and this to do and... OH! wow!" and so on and so on. It's not till a week or two in that the defect start to get to you. It's the same thing for BI. The "Oh wow I'm playing BI" feeling wears off REAL fast. For me it didn't even last into the first battle.

I don't have the game, so I may completely wrong in my assumptions.

With RTW, we discovered a totally different map, graphics, management system, etc... Thus, yes I do agree with you when you say there was that "newness effect" and it took us two weeks to realise the game was full of bugs and not challenging at all. Yet, this time, people have had time to get used to playing with the new system. Moreover, it's an expansion, not a brand-new game as CA hammered it.
I knew there would be threads like "BI is a marvel" and "I want my money back". I'm not relying on them at all. What positively drew my attention were Kraxis, Doug or CBR's posts. They've been playing the TW series for so long that I know they see beyond the glossy graphics and features and are sensible enough to understand that any AI has its limits. Not many people had high expectations for BI, but these "veterans" are obviously favourably impressed with the game.
Perhaps RTW bored you so much so that you lost all desire to play the game even before you played this first battle?