Rate the game: the initial verdict of Orgahs

[econ21]

Marks out of ten, please. Only vote if you own the full game - I don't want this to be based on the demo or second hand impressions.

I know it's very early days, so the poll will close in a week and maybe we will revisit this question in a month or two.

Summary comments welcome too, although no CA bashing please - imagine folk were rating your own work and be polite.

Edit:: I've just been reminded that juniors can't vote. If they post their rating here, I'll edit the results when the poll closes to include them.


I am not going to voice my own opinion at this stage or Screwtype will bite my head off.

[Whacker]

7 out of 10. Generally I consider myself to be generally forgiving when it comes to this, but it's simply got too many bugs and missing features at this point can't can't be ignored or overlooked.

[Spendius]

7 for me too. The major RTW issue, the AI, has not really been improved, but the rest is all good to me: graphics, the pope, faction and their units...

[Faenaris]

I gave it an 8. There are some little issues to be dealt with, but on the whole, I'm loving it!

EDIT:

Examples of little issues:

- In custom battles, when you buy two Venetian Heavy Infantry unit and you upgrade one of them, there is a reversal in the battle itself. My un-upgraded unit had "plate armour" while the other one appeared to have "heavy mail". I haven't noticed much difference between the two units, I'll go check it out once I boot M2TW again.

- Why do you need a Mason HQ (level 3, 1 per world) guild in order to train Russian Berdiche Axemen? If a CPU manages to get it first, I can't train those nasty shock troops at all. Unless I missed something in the recruiting tree.

- Charges are not consistent: sometimes I can do a fantastic charge and at other times, my units just walk over to the enemy and stab them. The circumstances were the same in both battles.

- Having perfect relationships with a faction after giving some money (went from good to excellent) and being attacked the very next turn is a bit annoying. It is a random "glitch", but I had it happen a couple of times and with different factions.

- Forcing an enemy to become your vasal is still a bit too hard to accomplish (Down to one city and after being beaten a couple of times in a row, they are willing to accept a ceasefire, but not to become my vasal. Maybe they're just stubborn)

- Dismounting knights should have been in the game. It probably won't get added in a patch, but I can dream, ja?

- Assassins are a bit underpowered and aren't worth the investment. It takes a long time to get them to a decent level and you can then lose them on a easy target. Random numbers, aye, but I have never gotten an assassin past 5 stars. And those inquisitors are nasty. Also, it is kinda annoying to lose experience because of one failed mission.

- Inquisitors are killing machines. Low piety characters get the axe REAL fast and having an Inquisitor near your gate is scary. Maybe this is a feature, but if it isn't, a bit toning down would be nice.

- In-accurate traits and triggers system. It's like being a "good farmer" and a "bad farmer" at the same time. I don't know the specific traits from the top of my head, but it would be nice to see traits cancel eachother out.

- Weird lag in sieges. Most have reported it happend because a lot of CPU units want to climb the same ladder. I had it happen when my men were doing the sieging and they were on the ground, withdrawing from the field.

There were a couple more, but my notes are a bloody mess. Now, these are just minor points to me. If CA doesn't fix them, no biggy for me. If they do fix them, the game gets a 10 from me and my assured devotion to CA for years to come!

[TB666]

10 out of 10
The more I play the better the game gets .
Good AI(when the passive bug doesn't appear), smooth performance, excellent graphics and awesome battles.

[Dutch_guy]

Did not vote yet, as I've only just got the game and am busy playing my first campaign.

However, if it's not too much of a problem please also include examples of ''missing features'', ''annoying bugs'' and ''other little details which are missing''. Doesn't need to be a page long list, and we can't force you to do so, but it is a good point of reference.

[Arbaces]

4...

[Darth Nihilus]

I gave it a 10 out of 10. There are a few bugs, but nothing that a patch can't fix. I'm caught off gaurd on how the diplomacy actually works good in this TW game. Its very nice.

[Whacker]

However, if it's not too much of a problem please also include examples of ''missing features'', ''annoying bugs'' and ''other little details which are missing''. Doesn't need to be a page long list, and we can't force you to do so, but it is a good point of reference.

Per Mr. dutch-type-person-guy's request, I submit the link to my write-up as my list of examples:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72319

I had played the game for about ... 6-8 hours at that point and wrote that over the course of playing, so some of my opinions and whatnaught did change as time passed.

Cheers!

[Garnier]

5 of 10

As of yet at least. Reasons:
No battle AI, bad campaign AI, ridiculously demanding on my pc(which I thought would run it ok on medium... but nope. sparse unit rosters, horrible pathfinding, strange un-epic battles, unbalanced, few to no open field battles, big castles lag and you don't really fight in most places, same as RTW: bash the gate, rush for square, end.

pros: its a total war game, blood dirt and good lighting in battles, cool looking cities and castles, slightly improved diplomacy AI, religion is handled reasonably, a little more complex than RTW.

im not bashing CA, I'm just reviewing the game after a week of playing. The worst part is, they really released a beta which was going to have a day 0 patch, but once everyone bought it, they moved the patch ahead for an unknown period of time(they never said when), and really, they arent bound to finish up this beta game. They will probably release an expansion pack which will cost a lot of money to fix some more problems in the game, and then move on to the next game.

[Lusted]

(they never said when)

They did, the first patch is going to come out in about 2 weeks, it was delayed so more fixes could be included in it.

[osb0t]

5 of 10

As of yet at least. Reasons:
No battle AI, bad campaign AI, ridiculously demanding on my pc(which I thought would run it ok on medium... but nope. sparse unit rosters, horrible pathfinding, strange un-epic battles, unbalanced, few to no open field battles, big castles lag and you don't really fight in most places, same as RTW: bash the gate, rush for square, end.

I have not noticed any of this.

The battle AI has been fine with the exception of the passive AI which is caused by fielding masses of archers. The campaign AI is far better than Romes, the only issue I have seen is lightly defended castles, I believe this is caused by the AI putting too much value into the defenses of the castle. The performance has been amazing for me it runs better than RTW, I do have a fairly hefty computer but knocking the game because your system isn't up to snuff really is silly.

I have experienced no serious pathfinding problems, the battles have been epic when massive armies clash. The balance seems spot on to me.

If you are experiencing no open field battles, I kindly suggest you seek them out. The objective of an AI army is to capture a city, you can choose to allow them to siege and assault, or you can choose to meet them in the field. If you always sit inside your walls then obviously you will not find any open field battles. I have had on several occasions had large stacks surround a sieging army and then have the defenders sally forth.

Huge cities lag for me, this is simply due to the size of the cities and all the stuff that needs to be rendered.

Siege assaults are always a huge fight if the enemy has garrisoned the town. They fight you on the walls. They retreat to the next ring of defences and fight there, and then they retreat to the center of town and fight at the town square, this is assuming you successfully take each section of the castle.

I have found the AI to be much more capable both on the attack and on the defence. Once the passive AI bug is fixed I dare say that many people will be getting their asses handed to them because the sloppy battle AI of the past 3 games is not even close to as intelligent as it is in this game.

Finally I would like to mention something that I heard mentioned in another post, it has to do with game performance and AI. Someone suggested that the AI calculations in the game are sacrificed to give playable framerate. In all the threads I have read in which someone states the AI is non-existant or terrible, they also complain about the performance of the game. Alternately, in all the posts in which people are praising the AI the game runs flawlessly on their machines. I don't know if this is the cause of this apparent lack of AI, it is however a substaintial coincidence in either way.

[Faenaris]

Did not vote yet, as I've only just got the game and am busy playing my first campaign.

However, if it's not too much of a problem please also include examples of ''missing features'', ''annoying bugs'' and ''other little details which are missing''. Doesn't need to be a page long list, and we can't force you to do so, but it is a good point of reference.

Added some to my original post.

[magnum]

Picked 9. Wish I could have picked a 9-. =)

In another post of mine I called it a B+ for the current release. Hopefully any patches will take it up to A- or even A ( a true 9.)

[Djurre]

The cavalry issue makes it rather unplayable to me. With the enemy cavalry being tanks, and mine being babys, every battle comes down to trowing in everything youve got. and waiting for the win.

that sucks. ill vote after they patch it. in 5 weeks or so ;)

[IRONxMortlock]

7 out of 10. Generally I consider myself to be generally forgiving when it comes to this, but it's simply got too many bugs and missing features at this point can't can't be ignored or overlooked.

I only received the game last night and I haven't progressed far but I agree with the above statement. 7/10 thus far.

[Akka]

7/10 too.

Could be much better, but there is some points that really put me off :

- Battles are lethargic. Due to huge spacing, weak charges and small units, they aren't of epic scale and they seem to be half-hearted fought. It really brings down the game for me. Units also seems to be made out of paper, they die so easily...

- Unit roster seems just bland. I much prefered the unit diversity of MTW1. Some parts are better in MTW2 (Byzantine with lots of cavalry, yeah), but the generic "militia" everyone get is quite boring after a while.

- The whole adoption rampage. We should be able to recruit plenty of GENERALS, not adopt everyone and their neighbour in the family. It really seems quite absurd, especially in medieval times where blood ties were much stronger.

- As a side-note, the voice acting for pre-battle speech is ugly. The general speak softly in a low voice, while he's supposed to encourage all his men on a whole battlefield...
The roman speaker in RTW was much more convincing.

- Much "fluff" from MTW1 is absent (units descriptions are illustrated with an ugly 3D model rather than the beautiful and immersive drawings ; you can no longer assassinate your own characters ; no early/middle/late eras to start with).


Aside that, the graphics are top-notch, the music is excellent, THERE IS FINALLY THE RETURN OF THE SPECIAL MOVIES YEAH !, the limitation on recruiting is a nice idea, the castle/city difference is interesting, the whole Pope is much better done, the "missions" adds to the background.

Plenty of good things, but some of the ugly flaws really have to be patched to make the game enjoyable.

[PseRamesses]

Gave it an 8 but I´ve never felt this ambiguous. Love the graphics, the battlefields and the cities are great! But this feels more like an extension of BI than something completely new. Battlewise I see no real improvement from RTW which is really dissapointing. They simply took the RTW engine and re-dressed it. Well, just have to wait for the next title and see if a real leap in the games development occurs.

[Daveybaby]

Gave it 8 cos its miles better than RTW - would be a 9 if it wasnt for the bugs and minor missing features (which will hopefully all get fixed eventually) and would be an easy 10 if they'd included stuff like naval battles and MP campaigns.

[TinCow]

9 due to only minor bugs (the worst we have is the passive AI, and that can be avoided manually). Best OOB TW game.

[econ21]

...minor bugs (the worst we have is the passive AI, and that can be avoided manually).

What do you recommend doing to avoid the bug? Playing England, I am reluctant to foreswear shooting the AI to death as with the longbows that's kind of England's thing. But is there something short of that which can be done?

[Gump]

I give it an 7.5 now, but after they patch a few little problems I would give it a 9 :)

[econ21]

OK, poll closed - I added in the votes of the junior members who expressed a rating (interestingly, they were less enamoured than the members).

Overall, it seems a favourable rating from Orgahs - mainly 9s and 8s, and by my standard an 8 is still a good game.

It will be interesting to see how it stands up over a longer period. I am hoping the patch(es) will make it even more highly rated.

[Kekvit Irae]

I originally voted 7, but now that I've played it over, I wish I had voted 5. It's just a lackluster RTW with horrendous video requirements. Sorry, I'll stick to RTW if I wanted to play RTW.

[Wishazu]

Well what can I say :) 8/10 I`m very impressed with M2 bar a few little things which after looking through the buglist on here most of them seem to be covered already and will hopefully be addressed in the first patch :)

Im playing my first campaign as the English on VH/VH and I`m addicted(Its very annoying for my girlfriend) For a while I thought I was going to be defeated, something that never happened to me on RTW vanilla. Anyways Ive pulled through the hard times and I`m racing to get the 30 more provinces I need before the time is up.

My biggest gripe with the game is the 200 or so turns to complete it. Is there any way to change this? as I do constantly feel like I`m racing against the clock rather than sitting back and watching my empire slowly grow untill it covers the face of the Earth.

[AussieGiant]

In my opinion game developers are being forced by publishers to use the "Community" are part of the QA process.

Bad idea!!

The game gets a solid 7, and with the free QA processing from us, will raise it up to 8 or 8.5 depending on how good our work is and how good CA can impliment the patches.

Everyone should take heed of Whackers comments. This could come back to bite "US" in the rear.

Sadly this is CA's "best out of the box" version to date, barring STW.

You know how the misbehaving pupil in class acts up for months.

Then the pupil suddenly behaves and has praise heaped on them by the teacher while you sit around doing the right thing and are lost in the crowd.

THAT is what everyone needs to make sure doesn't happen.

CA has done a great job. They have obviously handled their Publisher better and have learnt a great deal since the activision days.

But, be wary of blowing sunshine too far up too many places. Don't play down to the level of the competition. Keep your standards high, demand them of yourselves AND others!!

Good job CA.

The future looks better after the near "Titanic" sinking Rome produced. M2TW was a critical "next step" and you sank the 10 foot putt. I'm looking forward to the 18 footer already

[sapi]

It's a good game and only the die-hard fans think it's 'bad'. In all seriousness i suggest they return to playing hl, cs and pong ;)

[Lehesu]

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