Rate the game: the initial verdict of Orgahs

[econ21]

OK, I hope it's safe to post an opinion without being accused of skewing the poll. I gave it a 9/10. Best TW game out of the box, IMO.

I'm on turn 70 of an English VH/VH campaign and it's really retaining my interest. I'm the most powerful faction but still have not yet reached the "tipping point" you get to so easily in some of the early TW games. The strategic maneouvring feels very like MTW. I have a full stack on a bridge outside Hamburg, but the Danes have parked two stacks next to their fortress. Neither of us wants to attack (I rashly attacked once before, in a similar situation, and it was mutual assured destruction).

All across my frontier, there is a nice tension between trying to push on and trying to protect what I have, all amplified by Papal missions to cease and desist. The economy is also tight - it's a rare turn I can keep each settlement building.

I was starting to feel the battles might be getting easy, then I lost Metz and my King a turn or two ago. With equal odds - and providing I can't just shoot it to death - the AI often inflicts heavy losses on me. Typically a couple of even fights and I'm looking for a second army.

I am especially pleased that the Pope now likes me, after I paid him 7000 florins. I really want to get a crusade off (although I am preparing Rhodes to be a staging post). I guess diplomacy may still work at VH, but you just have to work hard at it.

Ironically, the stuff I am not that keen on is the chrome - the music, the voice overs, the gluey "feel" of the combat (the unit cohesion bug thing), even the graphics don't grab me as much as some of RTWs mods. In this it reminds me again of MTW - forget the superficial stuff, appreciate the gameplay.

[Dooz]

Gave it an 8/10. Great game, but a few bugs and other minor problems keep it from being a 9 or 10. However, I think with a few appropriate patches and other upgrades here and there, it'll easily be a 9. And dear sweet lord, I can't wait to see mods pop up for this one. It will literally be a whole new world. Just imagining EB2 or even medieval realism mods in the vein of EB or RTR, makes my mind explode with anticipation.

[littlebktruck]

I think I'll give it an 8. The fact that cavalry are so finicky is a big problem for me, but otherwise I don't have any serious complaints. Hopefully that will be fixed soon.

I find the decision to make troop recruitment independent of population somewhat curious, but I like it in a "makes my job easier" sort of way (I've never been particularly good at total war games to begin with).

[OmarPacha]

The game is not worth more than 6, some things really give the impression it has been
released in hurry just to meet the 2006 budget needs.

First of all, Agents:
- Inquisitors are too powerful and must not burn 2-3 kings a game. This is of no
historical truth and even, sometimes it makes to laugh.

- Merchants are useless; they lose always their activity after just 1 round as an AI merchant approaches them.

- Assassins kill ratio is too low on basic targets (approximately around 23%) really
low especially if compared to MTWVI chance to kill, if I correctly remember about 76%.

- Movements on strategic map are to be reviewed, a priest that blocks an army's path
sincerely is unbelievable (I may believe of a fascinating princess).

And then, many things in castle assaults may be fixed, such as attacking units coming up the walls when door is open or waiting there with defender units are far in the city core.

I completely agree that some games are published while just thinking of the first patch.

Greetings

[Doug-Thompson]

At least a 9 so far. I'll vote after completeing a grand campaign. Work and family life are powerful distractions.

[Kagemusha]

Kage is giving 9 out of 10.
I have played the games from the release of STW and i think that M2TW has something that quite wasnt there specially in Bi, atmosphere. I love how the game looks like and little things like battlefield weather give a lot to the atmosphere. Last night in my HRE campaign i danced around an army of three reb units with my single generals unit on hilly terrain on complete fog. Charging out from the fog and vanishing in there again until they were all running to their mothers. Today i played a custom battle between HRE and Spanish with late units in thunderstorm. The artillery fire and arquebus barrages on advancing tercios was awesome with thunder and lighting above my rain soaken germans. The units look great and most of them realistic. The cities,castles and the battlefields are just plain beutifull. The AI is not as bad as it was in RTW/BI,but ofcourse its not up to against an human player unless it outnumbers me significantly. There are still many bugs and fine tuning but i hope some will be fixed on the patch. To be honest i bought the game in order to mod it,but now i have been playing the vanilla version with on big smile on my face. Im satisfied.

[Doug-Thompson]

I gave this puppy a 10.

Is it perfect? No. Is it the best historical strategy game on the market, in any format? Absolutely. Is it a vast improvement over RTW in every regard? Absolutely.

Were our complaints and requests taken seriously and addressed? Absolutely.

Did CA turn away from fantasy and drop laughably stupid units like Egyptian chariots in Roman times and bare-breasted warrior witch women who shriek while their hair's on fire? Yes, Yes YES, thank the mighty gods of computer simulation, yes. Bull warriors and such nonsense have disappeared, an absolute triumph in the fight for plausible historical seriousness and not having your game spoiled by obvious, ludicrous fantasy elements.

The tactical combat is not up to the realism and detail of such hard-core sims as Combat Operations, for instance, but it's far, far better than RTW. Movement and kill rates now make generalship in these battles mean something.

Last night, I made a mistake in a battle and the AI quickly and appropriately punished me for it. That was refreshing. I'd left my general's unit alone, something I commonly did on RTW, and the enemy's crusader knights lunged for him. It was too massive an assault to be random. I had to fight hard and won the battle, but lost my general. I also had time, though not much, to do something.

This game is head and shoulders above RTW, it's only competitor at this level of history-based gameplay.

[De Montfort]

I'm not allowed to vote in this due to my lowly forum status - but I have been playing Total War since Shogun was released and I rate it as a 9.

Sure there are some gameplay issues that could be improved, but the amount of enjoyment I've had out of the game in the first week and a half makes it worth a 9 even when there is room for improvement.

I did prefer the old style campaign map (the one in M:TW) as I felt it had a better atmosphere and the slightly gamey presentation of the new one doesn't really fit with the gritty attempt at realism in the battles themselves. But it's not an enjoyment wrecker, just a matter of preference.

Got my money's worth already - what more can I ask for (well, ok a patch or two would be nice).

[Spino]

In its current state I give MTW2 a 7.5 out of 10 which, by my standards, is very good.

Pros:

- Immersion - MTW2 scores huge on the immersion scale. The ambience/immersion factor that was sorely missing from RTW is back with a vengeance. Absolutely love the plethora of audio cues and the long overdue reintroduction of video cutscenes to the TW series.

- Tactical AI - After playing a number of custom battles where missile troops were minimized or equalized in order to prevent the passive AI bug from ruining the experience it is painfully obvious that the tactical AI has been drastically improved over previous TW titles. I was extremely pleased that I had to throw the bad habits I developed from RTW:BI's battles out the window. I was astounded to see the AI handle its cavalry and missile units so effectively! I really can't wait for the upcoming patch to fix the passive AI bug.

- Strategic AI - Still needs work but overall it is much more sensible than RTW:BI. Greater consolidation of AI armies on the campaign map and I haven't spotted those pitifully understrength family member led armies roaming the countryside. Now unless I'm suffering from delusions the AI seems to be more effective at utilizing strategic chokepoints and other defensive terrain to its advantage. More often than not I have noticed hostile/neutral AI armies backing out of range when my superior strength armies were in the area. Noticed a French army opt to sit on a bridgehead near a Portuguese citadel for several turns rather than risk combat with a nearby Portuguese army that would have certainly defeated it in open terrain (yes, France and Portugal were at war at the time).

- Missions - Excellent implementation and I love the fact that you can get missions from a variety of organizations. I also love the variety of awards. Far superior to the Senate mission system in RTW.

- Popely Potpourri - Love the Pope, College of Cardinals, Crusades and all the religious & political intrigue that goes along with it. Really well done.

- Sensible AI generals - No more suicidal general charges! Hurray!

- System Performance - Even on my creaky Athlon XP 2400+/Radeon 9800 Pro/1gig RAM/120gig 7200rpm HD system MTW2 runs surprisingly well. Sure I had to turn stuff down but not nearly as much as I thought I would (the demo ran like frozen crap compared to the release version).

Cons:

- Passive AI bug - I am currently playing a campaign as the English and thanks to this bug I've won numerous battles and sieges where I should have had a much more difficult time. Unfortunately thanks to this bug I no longer have the motivation to continue my English campaign until the patch comes out.

- Strategic AI silliness - The strategic AI is far superior to that in RTW:BI but it's still a bit dodgy. I still see the AI sending understrength armies to besiege my cities loaded with superior numbers of troops. On the other hand I haven't seen a single AI army dumb enough to take on an overwhelmingly superior army in open combat... WTF? What's worse is the barbarian horde AI seems to be totally fudged because since the Mongols have appeared they've done jack squat. My memory is a bit hazy right now but I don't think the Mongols have managed to take a single province in the 30-40 turns since they appeared.

- Peasants - The old AI Peasant spamming from MTW is back! Not nearly as bad as it once was but it's still disappointing to see the AI blow cash on these units when it could be purchasing more useful units instead.

- Piety - The appalling low Piety levels (and lack of improvement in Piety) for family members, even those in cities with advanced religious buildings and Theologian Guilds, leads me to believe the Traits system is a bit broken. If it were working properly people wouldn't be so angry over the Inquisitor issue.

- View Settlement Option - This option is curiously absent from MTW2. Considering how much effort was put into MTW2's graphics I really want this option back. I really want to see some of my larger cities and castles in all their 3D glory.

- Muslim 'dullards' - The Moors and Egypt seem to get the short end of the stick in terms of being 'fleshed out'. The Moors with their bland unit roster seem to suffer the most. I think the Almohad faction from MTW was more interesting than the Moors in MTW2.

The great thing about MTW2 is aside from the nasty Passive AI bug it is extremely solid. Comparatively speaking RTW was in virtual shambles when it was released. Should the upcoming patch effectively address the passive AI bug as well as other obvious issues I will gladly bump my score up to an 8.5 or possibly 9.

MTW2 is shaping up to be the best TW title in the series. One thing for sure is that MTW2 has set the bar awfully high for the next TW title.

[maestro]

I'd love to give it a 10 - it has sooo much promise. A few balance issues like uncontrolable inquisitors and the Ai still not being entirely sensible on the campaign and the horrendous, embarrasingly poor (as in, the worst ever in a TW series) unit cohesion (!) mean it gets an 8 from me

[Marquis of Roland]

8.

Sounds like everyone agrees more or less the pros and cons so far, so I won't get into that.

As far as the effectiveness of AI, the tactics the human player uses often exposes how good/bad the AI is. If your tactics present the AI with an opportunity, it can do some pretty good things. An example from one of my friend's battle: open field in middle, flanked by a U-shaped forest on the border, he sets up battle line in open field, with cav on flanks like normal. AI sends main line to engage center, while sending some spear units through the U-shaped forest, they pop out of woods and wipe out cav while player is occupied with the frontal attack. As a result, AI ended up with 3 or 4 units behind the main battle line, and lots of casualties ensued .

[Grimmy]

I voted 8/10. It's another TW game and much like the previous TW games it's got depth and re-playability so no worry about the bang for buck angle from my perspective. That's always worth at least a baseline 5/10 rate. The baseline includes the graphics, general game concept.

I like the new angle on working to take and hold the Pope spot to make life easier. That's a +1/10.

Adding in traders and "trade war" aspects is another +1/10.

The new recruiting system is something I'm still getting used to. I'm the kind of player that habitually keeps as many stacks of soldiers on hand as I can afford, just in case. This new recruit system means I can start working on weaning myself off that and I'm enjoying that so far. +1/10

The bugs and glitches are to be expected. Games are getting so complex that the idea of a bug free release is gone the way of the dodo but I have faith and confidence that the CA folk will address and fix them and what they dont find and fix, the game community will so +/-0 on that.

The AI and sea battles I've lumped into a -1/10. Those were design decisions so I feel it fair to give em a neg tic on that. It may well be a decision that added many new players to their buyer base at the expense of some of the more hard core players and sometimes those decisions just have to be made. It aint a game killer for me, since I'm no where near a hard core so I only hit em for one point on that.

The unit roster is a bit sparse and there seems to be a few of the nearly same units (weapon, stats, special abilities on the early level English spears, for example) with different names and slightly different looking unit cards. That would be a hit for another point off the top but the mod community will fix that so it's a point that can be picked up later.

So my end score is 8/10 with a possible 9/10 later. The one lost point is due to AI and sea battle design decisions.

[Yun Dog]

I dont give 10s...ever

so its 9.5 from me

For all the guys that have tirelessly explored all rpoblems they can find in the game... you have my pity

your denying yourselves that woderful honeymoon period when you first get a game and its sooooo cool... particularly this game... which is beautiful

any issues (which I am happily yet to discover and have no intention of reading posts/threads exposing them) I them regard as minor - as long as I can play the game and enjoy it

for those concerned about the state of the game releases and bugs - feel fortunate you didnt buy Ceasar iv - goto to be the worst game release EVER