Quote Originally Posted by Darkmoor_Dragon
There is no denying there is a great game buried in MTW2 but its partially hidden behind some fairly serious balance issues and a mediocre to awful AI on the tactical battle maps and on the campaign.

There is an excuse with software that if you ship it broken you can always patch it later. The legitimacy vanishes when that starts to become be the deliberate action, rather than the unfortunate circumstance.

CA should be experienced enough to know that friggin' with the code, especially the AI which has ALWAYS been their Achilles heel, is quite literally suicidal and whoever made that decision bears the ultimate responsibility for the subsequent disenfranchisement of a substantial proportion of their fan base.

CA promised (again) that THIS time it would be different, we would be awed by the AI on both battle and campaign modes - but yet again it isn't and we certianly are not.

As one reviewer succinctly put it -



I've got plenty enough experience with designing, playing, testing and writing about games to say that I'm aware of the vast majority of "issues" surrounding a game development, testing and release - but come on folks, as much as we LOVE CA for making the series, as much as we LOVE the potential, as much as we LOVE the improvements... what gives with them (CA) messing with the code and releasing it (essentially) untested when they KNOW that AI will ultimately make or break the game for a massive (and it is massive) number of buyers?

I mean, batter your head against a brick wall or what?

CA, get a grip: your (SP) game is utterly reliant on the capability of the AI, it makes or breaks the entire (sp) game.

And I'm thinking of those members of CA i've spoken to in person and/or interviewed for magazines and I'm thinking "Which one of you was the total Numpti-foo" who made that brilliant decision?

(And I wonder if anybody {still} in the press will ever have the balls to ask them to their face?)
Yup, excellent post. There's too many that accept mediocrity. Maybe it's because the community has a lot of TW freshmen experiencing a TW game's style of play for the first time? I do remember how enchanted I was when I first played Shogun TW. On the other hand maybe for some it's just blind fanboyism?

There is a lot to admire with the TW games - they are bold and ambitious and deserve the accolades they've received, but like DD has just posted, the features and graphics aren't really worth much without clever supporting AI to use them. Instead, they really should be playing second fiddle to the AI and that's not really been the case.

I haven't not played M2TW because I'm trying to make a statement to CA or you guys. Rather it's that I'm not satisfied or enjoying the level of competition I'm being challenged with. If it was a MP only game much like BF2142, they at least have the advantage of the AI being done for them. That is not the case with the meat of TW games.