Will you Be Doing the MP on MTW2??

[TheImp]

Yes you're right

Sorry Imp for the misunderstanding, btw LunaRossas were allied with Kenchi in Shogun and with Elites too in Medieval. Ahhh what good times they were
PS: and I would for sure be very happy to see again LunaRossa's ancient "enemies" Wolves too

Pas de prob, Vincitor. I'm a kind of newbie of Total War series and played only RTW campaigns so far.

But i would be interesting in MP, must be cool to battle 2vs2 for example. Do the guilds specialize in one army usually, like a german guild taking HRE all the time?

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Not Really Imp,to my knowledge anyhow. We usally call them "clans" instead of "guilds". Some 2v2 teams may specailze in certain areas or something, but clans, not off hand I do.

[x-dANGEr]

Yes. So what?

So, you should be able to play with other AthlonXPs with no problems.. Rrrright?

[LadyAnn]

The geographic-centric or language-centric clans such as Elite (German) or LunaRosa (Italian) or Centiberos (Spanish) or Les Marechaux (French), etc. would recruit from a common denominator, either by location or by language. But when they played, they would use the best armies for the situation.

We would expect nothing less from them :D

Anniep

[Puzz3D]

So, you should be able to play with other AthlonXPs with no problems.. Rrrright?

That doesn't help me play with my clan against other clans. It also doesn't help you because AthlonXP users might be in your games.

[x-dANGEr]

So, it is not just AthlonXP in-compatible, it is all in all in-compatible (Which is where I was trying to get to). This basically means that MP is ruined all in all in M2TW, simply because a huge percentage of people have AthlonXPs..

Now, doesn't this feel wrong?!

[frogbeastegg]

I'll rely on LadyAnn, Tempiic and Froggy feedback to make my opinion...

Weee! I'm important!

I hope I'll be playing a bit of MP. If the rest of the Freedom Fighters are back then I shall be. If not likely I won't be either; our disappointments with RTW are very similar and so if the game doesn't suit some of us it's nearly certain it won't suit any of us.

[FF]frogbeastegg.

[TheImp]

What was wrong exactly with RTW MP?

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

So, it is not just AthlonXP in-compatible, it is all in all in-compatible (Which is where I was trying to get to). This basically means that MP is ruined all in all in M2TW, simply because a huge percentage of people have AthlonXPs..

Now, doesn't this feel wrong?!

Well, can't the AthlonXP people play other ppl wtih AthlonXP comps then??

[Puzz3D]

Well, can't the AthlonXP people play other ppl wtih AthlonXP comps then??

Probably, but what makes you think they will do that? Most players are not going to be aware of the problem.

[x-dANGEr]

Puzz3D, are you sure of this Athlon XP thing? Because if yes, hell am not getting M2: TW!!!

[Tera]

Kenchikuka will be also looking forward to Medieval 2, in frail hope it will be on the same gameplay and tactical field as the original. However, being based on the RTW engine one has his serious doubts. But we shall wait and see.

If the call to war is valid, our flag will rise once again as in the past.

...from a ghost of the past =) A salute to Tosa and the rest for maintaining this good old place in a great shape!

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

of course Puzz..
Yea Kenchikuka,hopefully you guys and the rest will come back :-)

I think you can't Judge MTW2 just because RTW was horrible,we all know that, but It might be the same, it might not. Even with two demos, we don't really know untill the actual game comes out.

[LadyAnn]

What was wrong exactly with RTW MP?

Wrong at multiple levels, compound together making it untenable.

Don't want to make it sounds like whining, but here are some that came on top of my head:
FOYER:
1. color scheme red/yellow make it hard to the eye
2. difficult to maintain private convo and public convo (compared to MTW foyer)
3. cannot ban/ignore idiots
4. hard to know at a glance your buddy is on or in game
5. when your buddy goes in and out of game, he/she is deselected from your list of whom you are talking to. But you didn't know that. So you may end up talking to nobody the whole time and your friend was wondering why nobody was talking to him/her

The above making the foyer very unfriendly place.

GAME ENGINE
1. Impossible to play 4x4 and even 3x3, it is hard to get a decent frame rate, so people played at Normal, which as only 40 men per unit. That made the game looks like school kids running around in playground, not real armies.
2. Cav jumped over spears and kill a lot.
3. Speed of marching is too high, making attack/defense chancy.
4. Speed of units relative to each other is ridiculous: cav can't catch skirmishing archers sometimes.
5. Charge bonus loss when use waypoints (unit stop running in waypoints)
6. Archers could fire from all rank.

BALANCE
Everything is wrong :) Just kidding.

Balance is not bad when play at low denarii (6.5k to 8k) But people insists playing at 15k, which allows filling up the all 20 slots of roman army with legions and roman cav, or 20 cataphracts. Or 20 maidens.

PLAYERS
much less friendly, much less willing to learn. After beating the greek phalanx box for 100 times, I don't feel like beating them again. There is no skill to order 20 cataphracts in wedge running around in single group, overlapping each other.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Very Well Said LadyAnn. People Usally play 12.5K-15K, because 6-8.5K is way way to low for RTW.

RTW MP was and still is horrilbe. Some people are willing to learn and such,but you got majorty of people who don't even care about the history of the clan they joined, yet who they play.

[x-dANGEr]

Time for some arguing..

1. Impossible to play 4x4 and even 3x3, it is hard to get a decent frame rate, so people played at Normal, which as only 40 men per unit. That made the game looks like school kids running around in playground, not real armies.

Well, it is because of the machines not keeping up with the game, not the game or game engine being bad.

2. Cav jumped over spears and kill a lot.

Well, that was fixed, so no need to talk about.

3. Speed of marching is too high, making attack/defense chancy.

Gah bah doh.. I wonder how can we live through it..

4. Speed of units relative to each other is ridiculous: cav can't catch skirmishing archers sometimes.

Fatigue.

[LadyAnn]

You gotta stay in the argument ;)
The question was "What wrong with RTW MP":
1. Precisely. I rather have MTW engine than RTW engine if the machines can't keep up with the engine. If it were doable in MTW, why not in RTW? "The graphics is much better" the argument goes. What's the use of better graphics but you can't play? BTW, there are plenty of people who didn't realize how poor their machines were and insist on playing with highest resolutions, reflections, grasses, shadows, smokes, etc. They play with background tasks running, etc.

2. Again, I said that was what's wrong for RTW, not M2TW. If it was fixed, good!

3. I clarify:
One unit attack another. Both started as stationary. The defending unit was watching the attacking unit. In one scenario, the defending saw the attacking unit start marching. The defending unit could issue a counter. In another scenario, the defending couldn't see the attacking unit marching, but when they actually see it, the attacking unit is already at melee distance. There is absolutely no chance to issue any counter. It has nothing todo with game play or skill. Speed in STW is fast, yet people could see and react.

4. Fatigue is broken.
You mean an infantry could run as fast as a horse until both get tired? :D

Annie

[Tera]

Well that's the unlucky thing about it isn't it? RTW was a victim of its 'success.'

STW and MTW were perhaps much uglier than Rome, harder to the initiate but they were the best top-down tactical strategy I ever played, and I played a lot There was little attention to the niceties, if 4x4 lagged you just lowered the resolution or detail and you were good to go. Units were ugly, but who cared?

To play big battles in Rome you have to lower the resolution and detail, which had big side effects. For example, I could not distinguish units from distance. Of course, I could just hover my cursor over it, or double-click the unit to get an awesome 3-d close-up view of it. But (at least myself) I was used to other things, such as micro-managing my army to the last detail. In STW/MTW units were ugly 2-d sprites, but for tactical purposes they served much better than any 3-d award-winning feat of technology. Grouping was ackward, and the advantages of it limited. Anyway, overall it was simply a very different game.

The points mentioned above by LadyAnn just add to the bad flavor. We had a tight-knit community once (not free of drama :)) then I read about online chat being disabled because of too many kids posting crap on it. What the hell was that?

The final thing is, horrible as it is, RTW was by far the highest-rated TW game by mags and sites worldwide, and probably attracted more buyers and gamers than both the previous TW games put together,

So it wasn't perhaps 'horrible'. It was great for many, but perhaps horrible for us who remembered Total War in a very different manner.

Now, who tells me MTW2 is back to the roots and that RTW was a 'mistake'?

[Mordred]

For sure we can lag each other to death with MTW2 :))
That will be some long lasting battles.

Anyway Tera, been playing the demo extensively and I predict that cav is still going to be the main offensive weapon, it is still very powerfull.
And I foresee a huge deabte over the level of denaris. been playing with valor 0
units, battles are over a lot quicker due of faster routing than the original demo.
Then again they might have fixed that in the later version. I am not pessimistic about it though. the feel is very similar as MTW.

Lag is going to be a big problem whatever setting and it is not only the graphics causing it. Did test with RTW lan games when it just came out. The game itself is simpy very demanding for a cpu.

[Puzz3D]

Puzz3D, are you sure of this Athlon XP thing? Because if yes, hell am not getting M2: TW!!!

Palamedes said AthlonXP cpu was not supported for MP. I don't foresee the game having a feature which prevents AthlonXP users from playing online. If it does, there won't be a problem for non-AthlonXP users. If it doesn't have such a feature, you're going to have to ask the players in the game if they have an AthlonXP cpu or just take your chances and hope that the battle doesn't desync. Even if an AthlonXP is in the battle, there is a chance it could work ok, but all the battles won't work ok because, if they did, then AthlonXP would be supported for MP. We don't know how severe the problem is yet.

[Puzz3D]

STW and MTW were perhaps much uglier than Rome, harder to the initiate but they were the best top-down tactical strategy I ever played, and I played a lot There was little attention to the niceties, if 4x4 lagged you just lowered the resolution or detail and you were good to go. Units were ugly, but who cared?

The fact is that the sprites in RTW/M2TW have worse resolution than the sprites in STW/MTW. No matter how good the 3D graphics are in RTW/M2TW, when you are viewing the battlefield at a normal playing distance, all the units are sprites. On top of that, in STW every man had a sashimono which clearly identified to which army he belonged. It's was not only easier to distinguish your units from enemy or allied units, but it was also easier to see what kind of unit they were. You never had to mouse over a unit to see what it was. All the important info was on the unit icons including fatigue level, so mouse movement was always focused on issuing movement orders to your units.

Original STW is the standard for MP not STW/MI, MTW, VI, RTW or BI. STW had the best balanced units with no need for a tax on more than 4 of one type. It had the best balanced factions. It had combined arms gameplay within a triple RPS system that worked. It had the correct morale level for the default 5000 koku money level. It had fatigue rates that were optimized for the size of the maps. It had a red zone system that prevented corner camping. It didn't have any artillery let alone siege artillery used inappropriately as anti-personnel weapons. It didn't have blatant fantasy units. It had cavalry that moved sufficiently faster than infantry but not excessively faster. It had hammer and anvil tactics that worked, and you didn't have to use cavalry for the hammer. It had good pacing in the battles rather than the long boring shootouts of MTW which stretched battles to 45 minutes or longer. The tactical gameplay was more about how you moved your units rather than what units you purchased. Coordinating your units better than your opponent coordinated his units was the key, and coordinating 16 units is no easy task despite the supposed slowness of the movement relative to someting like RTW. In fact, there is a lot more to do in an STW battle than in an RTW battle, and it's easy to become overwhelmed with the task. And finally, the online foyer in STW is the standard. It's the only Total War foyer that allowed players to create password protected rooms for conducting meetings or invitation only tournaments or training sessions.

STW is also the only Total War game that didn't require players to be connected to the matchmaking server while playing in battle and that increased the stability of the battles because it was one less machine to which each player has to be connected. There is no techincal reason why players have to remain connected to the matchmaking server while in a battle. This is something CA has forced on the players for CA's purposes. It does not improve multiplayer stability. In fact, it diminishes not only online stability of the battles but performance as well.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

I do like 20 units more then 16, give you slighty more of a choice to pick when you fight games,but,

Argeed Puzz. to Me, Depnding on the Game, MTW was a fast paced game like RTW, but, it was more thinking wise, in what to get and tatic wise, and in RTW, it was just pick a "good" army and click. Sure, in RTW< I fought Some Excellent, well not That, but Some Good Games on RTW, but MTW and even STW was twice as better..

[|Heerbann|_Di3Hard]

To play big battles in Rome you have to lower the resolution and detail, which had big side effects. For example, I could not distinguish units from distance. Of course, I could just hover my cursor over it, or double-click the unit to get an awesome 3-d close-up view of it. But (at least myself) I was used to other

I really hate the 3D graphics in RTW. I cannot recognize any unit, if they are far away. These graphics makes the game lag. MTW Vi graphics looks much better, if you want to play and not watch graphics. They can make a 3D Shooter with this graphics, but not a TW game. Thats the reason, why I have doubts, that M2TW will be good in MP.

things, such as micro-managing my army to the last detail. In STW/MTW units were ugly 2-d sprites, but for tactical purposes they served much better than any 3-d award-winning feat of technology. Grouping was ackward, and the advantages of it limited. Anyway, overall it was simply a very different game.

The points mentioned above by LadyAnn just add to the bad flavor. We had a tight-knit community once (not free of drama :)) then I read about online chat being disabled because of too many kids posting crap on it. What the hell was that?

The lobby system and chat system in RTW are poor.

The final thing is, horrible as it is, RTW was by far the highest-rated TW game by mags and sites worldwide, and probably attracted more buyers and gamers than both the previous TW games put together,

The magazines don't compare the gameplay details with predecessor versions. They don't play multiplayer extensive. They haven't knowlegde. Most mags looks on the graphics, but they don't know, how much gameplay content RTW have lost, if you compare it with MTW Vi. RTW is a graphic dazzler for kids, that wants to play graphical "fast food" games.

So it wasn't perhaps 'horrible'. It was great for many, but perhaps horrible for us who remembered Total War in a very different manner.

The majority are casual player. They don't know the content depth of the Total War series. Of course a company must sell the games as much as they can. So they need these casual players. But they are not good for the gameplay. These gamers want fast game play with high end graphics without tactical depth. The result was RTW

Now, who tells me MTW2 is back to the roots and that RTW was a 'mistake'?

I think they did a litte step to MTW Vi, but I am afraid too less for experienced MTW players.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Correct Heerbann. They Only like to give Good Graphics and these "neat" details about the SP and such, but toally Drop the F bomb on the Gamespy and AI, both for SP and MP..

[x-dANGEr]

You gotta stay in the argument ;)

It's annoying when you only have a couple of minutes, so you just fill in a couple of quick lines..

1. Precisely. I rather have MTW engine than RTW engine if the machines can't keep up with the engine. If it were doable in MTW, why not in RTW? "The graphics is much better" the argument goes. What's the use of better graphics but you can't play? BTW, there are plenty of people who didn't realize how poor their machines were and insist on playing with highest resolutions, reflections, grasses, shadows, smokes, etc. They play with background tasks running, etc.

Well, at any way, as I already said, they have done nothing wrong.. Going for the better isn't wrong IMO. I won't be able to run the new M2TW, but will I be complaining that I won't? Naah.

2. Again, I said that was what's wrong for RTW, not M2TW. If it was fixed, good!

It was fixed in RTW. Patch 1.3, even though it introduced another one, it got fixed by 1.5.

3. I clarify:
One unit attack another. Both started as stationary. The defending unit was watching the attacking unit. In one scenario, the defending saw the attacking unit start marching. The defending unit could issue a counter. In another scenario, the defending couldn't see the attacking unit marching, but when they actually see it, the attacking unit is already at melee distance. There is absolutely no chance to issue any counter. It has nothing todo with game play or skill. Speed in STW is fast, yet people could see and react.

Yeah and?

4. Fatigue is broken.
You mean an infantry could run as fast as a horse until both get tired? :D

I mean a fresh Skirmisher/Archer can be able to outrun an "exhausted" horse that has at least 100 kilos on it.

I really hate the 3D graphics in RTW. I cannot recognize any unit, if they are far away.

Gah.. Actually, play on the lowest possible, and am still able to recognize the..

[LadyAnn]

Yeah and?

:P

Annie

[Puzz3D]

Yeah and?

The combination of higher speed and delayed response to movement orders in RTW favored the attacker. You could also say that the excessive fatigue in MTW favored the defender. STW had a better dynamic balance between attack and defense. M2TW might restore the dynamic balance, but...
It's Too Soon To Know. - The Orioles

[x-dANGEr]

Well, I agree that the delayed response times are "bad" in RTW..

[Kenchi_Sulla]

I think it's time for the game to be released so we can stop speculating and start testing :). I'm a bit worried about lag and desyncing problems, the game itself could be what we wish for.... At least we can be certain of one thing. The vanilla game must be good enough or all our hopes are shattered.