Is the game meant to be unexplained?

**Shahed** · 12-06-2006, 02:14

Originally Posted by Quickening

Every day I come onto this forum and discover a new, subtle aspect of this game from another forumites endeavours. It seems that this game has one hell of a lot to it. But none of this is conveyed in the manual at all. Is it meant to be this way or are CA just continuing the trend of substandard gaming manuals that we have suffered since the move from cardboard game boxes?
Im all for discovering things on my own in a game, but in one of this magnitude Id like a little hint at the mechanics without having to crack open some files and decipher the code within.

I'd say a bit of both, incomplete manuals and making the player find stuff for himself (playtesting at the same time).

**Zoltan** · 12-06-2006, 07:32

Lol, have you ever played some japanese hardcore RPG games? about 90% of the game if "secret" or "bonus" stuff that you have to figure out for yourself from a few hints or check on gamer board or in strategy books. M2TW is almost straightforward in comparison.

It's true that the manual is barely enough to get you into it. Reasons might be:

- There's a tutorial and advisors.
- Some features were probably added or tweaked last-minute
- Some features were not set on paper cause CA wants keep room to modify or tweak them in the future.
- Some things are just more fun to discover as you go.
- For Intellectual Property reasons, CA is very shy on protective on questions regarding AI and battle mechanics.
- Writing software manuals is a boring job (did enough of that in my time)
- And finally.. feature is not working as intended. There are indeed a few of these, but not as many as you seem to think.

**Lochar** · 12-06-2006, 09:38

Originally Posted by Zoltan

Lol, have you ever played some japanese hardcore RPG games? about 90% of the game if "secret" or "bonus" stuff that you have to figure out for yourself from a few hints or check on gamer board or in strategy books. M2TW is almost straightforward in comparison.

It's true that the manual is barely enough to get you into it. Reasons might be:

- There's a tutorial and advisors.
- Some features were probably added or tweaked last-minute
- Some features were not set on paper cause CA wants keep room to modify or tweak them in the future.
- Some things are just more fun to discover as you go.
- For Intellectual Property reasons, CA is very shy on protective on questions regarding AI and battle mechanics.
- Writing software manuals is a boring job (did enough of that in my time)
- And finally.. feature is not working as intended. There are indeed a few of these, but not as many as you seem to think.

That last line is the one that makes me scratch my head. I think that problem exists in alot of games, and if we dont know its broke then how can we say anything?

An example would be ancillieries, the manual didnt cover them much in RTW and not until Froggy's fantastic guide and posts here did I even try to swap them. Was this intentional or a bug?

The thread about assasins, wether a nearby spy makes killing harder, speculation. All the posts I see about stats and figures with the armor. Are armor upgrades broke or intentional?

Some of these things would be prevented if the manual covered more detail.

I can understanding finding things out for ourselves to a point but there is also a need to give us some guildines to go by.

**Shahed** · 12-06-2006, 10:12

There is a difference between mystery and ambiguity.

**Zoltan** · 12-06-2006, 12:04

Hey lochar I can understand why this is all a bit confusing and unnerving.

Good points you raise, I didnt follow too much what's wrong with armor upgrades and my manual is sitting unopened in another country (had to move for my job). But I typically think that's something that's been fiddled with a lot for game balance, and that is now working to the developer's satisfaction, but not quite as envisioned during game design.

Anciliaries and swapping I think are working as intended in game design, they just either thought this was too insignificant a feature to make it to the manual (the infamous clause 6 in my above post), or they wanted us to figure it out for ourselves. It is after all a function that only the most hardcore micromanagers will regularly use.

The spy and assassin thingy is a combination of all. Looks like the feature (assassin hindered/helped by spies) is working in a fairly logical way, but was left out of the manual for various reasons (insignificant or tweaked after the original game design). What got broken in the process however is the success rate display I think.

**Daveybaby** · 12-06-2006, 12:48

@Quickening
I think the M2TW manual is pretty good to be honest. What were you hoping for - a telephone directory sized book with every stat in the game printed in it?

And there is a difference between a manual and a strategy guide. (Or, at least there should be - pretty much all strategy guides published these days are rubbish).

A manual just tells you how to play the game, not how to beat it.

**Quickening** · 12-06-2006, 13:07

Originally Posted by Daveybaby

@Quickening
I think the M2TW manual is pretty good to be honest. What were you hoping for - a telephone directory sized book with every stat in the game printed in it?

The manual is certainly better than a lot of manuals you get nowadays (Im only 22 not 50 by the way even though I keep going on about "nowadays"

).
It covers a lot of things but not in enough detail in my opinion. Take Princesses as a random example. Sure the manual tells you they exist and what they do... but it doesn't tell you what affects their traits how to gain Charm or anything else. I had to rely on the people of this forum going blind reading the files to figure it out.
It's exactly the same with every other aspect of the game. They are covered, but not well enough. If a game is as intricate as MTW2 is, the manual should at least hint at its subtle mechanics. Most people who buy the game will not bother with forums (the Total War series is unique in that it appeals to older gamers as well, even those who never bother with games usually). It's those non forumites who will lose out I feel and to be honest, I don't think I should have to look on an internet forum to see how a game works.

EDIT: Also, the challenge in any game should lie in using what you do know about it to beat the game, not in trying to guess how the game works.

**Bob the Insane** · 12-06-2006, 15:38

I was reasonably happy with the manual considering it's size. A lot of the stuff releaved in here is about how things work or the optimal strategy for building agents and so on.

I would expect this kind of stuff in a strategy guide rather than the manual.

The whle two style of charge thing annoyed me though. I think it is great that it is in there, but it should have been documented, it is not some engine sercret, it is a important instruction that governs how you use some of the interface. While I was happy for the explination it makes me wonder what other little features are in there that have not been described but would explain some of the odd stuff we see. I mean does the dual charge mechanisim apply to infantry units too? Does it explain the odd charges we see when half the units simple stops and hangs back?

**Biggus Diccus** · 12-06-2006, 15:47

Just look to the HOMM V community and the support they get from Nival/Ubisoft in this aspect. The HOMM V community has made a extremely beautiful and detailed manual for HOMM V with the help and support from the developer (Nival) and publisher (Ubisoft). As the manual shipped with HOMM V was totally crap (Nival/Ubisoft admitted as much), the community-made manual is very helpful.