Is the game meant to be unexplained?

[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.

[ScrapTower]

We (the people who read these forums) help eachother and thus understand the game better. A lot if not the majority of MTWII players probably dont read these forums so they have only the (almost useless) manual to go by. Clearly the game was almost finished when released but not quite. IMO this game went thru very little if ANY beta testing. I think alot is unexplained because was rushed out the door, and with the minimal beta testing, even less.

[Whacker]

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.

The .org has been crying out for that for ages. IIRC, fortunately with the shift to the RTW engine CA decided to give up the goods and gave a good deal of info on the game mechanics for the MTW engine. For RTW, we didn't get much at all officially, at least not that I can remember reading or seeing. Most of what was discovered was done by therother, ER, and many other very talented folks in the Ludus Magna, and even then sometimes it wasn't entirely evident what the answer was.

I seem to recall saying something to the same effect as what you've stated in several other posts. Econ pointed out that there was some mention by CA that giving up too much information would possibly "expose" too much of their IP to possible competitors. My response to that was bull honky, CA has had 5-6 years now head start, I can't honestly think of anything that's close to the TW titles in terms of gameplay style (No, Civ isn't even close, nor are the RTP titles), not to mention there's a number of different ways that we can arrive at the conclusions we do in terms of math mechanics, but there's no real way to determine what's correct without the official word.

CA putting up that bit on charging is exactly what we'd like to see more of, for that and for all the other game mechanics questions we can come up with. Some things are somewhat straightforward, such as the squalor and whatnaught. Others, such as the assassination success rates, begs for a good solid explanation, including the math, from the good folks at CA. Doing so would go miles to getting CA brownie points with the community in general and making us that much more likely to be continued customers down the road, imho. I know it would for me at least.

Cheers!

[SirGrotius]

That's an interesting question. I even bought the strategy guide to the game for giggles and it's basically a beefed up manual. It's funny, but the manual doesn't even list whether or not there's upkeep for agents, but the guide does say that there is no upkeep, but the forum members say there is an upkeep. I think the lack of clarify can hinder one's enjoyment of the game.

[Whacker]

That's an interesting question. I even bought the strategy guide to the game for giggles and it's basically a beefed up manual. It's funny, but the manual doesn't even list whether or not there's upkeep for agents, but the guide does say that there is no upkeep, but the forum members say there is an upkeep. I think the lack of clarify can hinder one's enjoyment of the game.

You poor bas... I mean... a rather unfortunately purchase, at least in my humble opinion. The reason I say that is because invariably the game is going to change, given the feedback we've seen so far for M2 it's probably going to change a good bit. That means that quite a bit of what you see, such as the unit stats and whatnaught, are probably not going to be that way after a patch or two. Same holds with other game mechanics. The last (and just about only, as far back as I can remember) game guide I bought was for Oblivion. Surprisingly, it's mostly accurate even after the first patch or two. The maps are pretty durn handy, which is why I bought it. Meh, some people actually get value out of those guides, I tend not to with a few exceptions. I do hope that you at least got your money's worth, or some utility value out of it.

Cheers!

[Spino]

Every Total War game is a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a riddle and covered by a candy flavored shell.

[Shahed]

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]

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]

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]

There is a difference between mystery and ambiguity.

[Zoltan]

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]

@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]

@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]

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]

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.

[aphex]

Also with the later TW games (and newer games in general), the game mechanics are becoming sufficiently detailed and complex to be comparable with our experience of Real Life(TM) in some areas.
The gamer may then become more confused with such richness if/when it breaks down in places but holds up in others. E.g. do we expect a certain strategy to work/fail because it would in real life?
Therefore it may be nice to have a guide to temper our expectations of a game that seems to promise so much, but also leave the details of implementation to be discovered through playing :)

[Darkmoor_Dragon]

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

Which is exactly the problem - people are becoming so used to utterly useless manuals that they are falling into the trap of assuming that *requisite* information should be paid for via a strategy guide.

The modern assumption is that *everyone has internet access* and thus can come here and elsewhere to get the information they need, without the need for a detailed manual to be produced.

Personally I think that the attitude is wrong and that every game should have the requisite play information in the manual - not "How to play the game in terms of strategy" (That's what a strategy guide SHOULD be) but what the *rules* are in the game: i.e. low piety means you may be tried for heresy by an inquisitor , raising piety is done by....XYZ

That's a game rule (condition), and one not explained in the manual - if you don't know the rules how can you play properly?

If you do not know how to raise piety how can you combat Inquisitors using that feature of the game?

You can't.

Thus a manual should always give you the *rules* of the game and a strategy guide should tell you how best to utilise those rules to your advantage.

The MTW2 manual falls very short in terms of explaining the rules and that means that you simply can not play the game to its full potential.

It's really that simple.

[Whacker]

stuff

Very well said. I remember some games that I bought in the mid 90's that came with 400+ page manuals. That's just for extremely arcade-like WWII flight sims. I remember some games also included huge poster-size foldout maps, figurines, all kinds of goodies and cool stuff that made getting the game almost like getting a happy meal. Half the fun is in the prizes and toys, not just the food. (Not that McD's really suits my tastes these days..)

Today's game manuals leave much to be desired. While I don't necessarily expect a full on mathematical equation and description of each feature, some much more in-depth information and descriptions of the various aspects and nuances of the game should be included as part of the base manual. Here's to hoping that this improves in the future. CA at least has done much better than a number of other recent PC game examples I can think of offhand, in terms of having sufficient information in the game manual.

Cheers

[madchoochter]

A lot of game manuals seem to be there just to tell you how to put the CD in the drive and click install unfortunately. The strategy guide is seen as the real manual. Why get people to fork out £30 for the game and give them a thick manual "free" that most people don't read, when you can make them pay for an extra £10-£15. TW doesn't strike me as that type of game though. I think your supposed to muck around and play with stuff if that's your thing.

Also some games come with a pdf manual on the disk with more info, but don't tell you in the paper manual. Always worth checking to see if there's something there.

[Nestor]

They should at least have a chapter for the, more or less, experienced players explaining the changes they made.

The game is based on the RTW engine and most of us simply try to play the way we know.

I've seen worst and I've seen better manuals but, if CA and SEGA really respect the loyal fanbase for the TW series that gave CA the opportunity to release 4 games and 4 expansions, they should give at least hints about some important aspects of the game that they changed, guiding us to the right direction. And the forums would be much more helpful with people giving really solid information instead of this, walking in the dark thing, we are experiencing now.

We have a say in my country about the one-eyed man that guides the blind people. You don't expect much of him. And nobody at the moment, especially without the unpacker, can see the light!

[Kobal2fr]

Ol' Fart stuff

Heh, I remember the first Civilization, with a manual the size of a book. I remember cause I didn't have a computer back then, and had pinched the manual from my-friend-who-had-one-and-the-game and read myself to sleep with it, dreaming of the day I would play it too *nostalgic sigh*. But agreed, flight simulations were the absolute worst. Ever played the original Falcon 4.0 ? You could stone an infidel to death with the manual. I still have it in a cardboard box somewhere, in case zee Germans try their Ardennes trick again.

It's all about the gaming industry becoming... well, an industry. Cutting down on costs everywhere. Standardizing. Becoming cost-efficient. Streamlined. Having gotten the attention of "the suits".

I remember the time when every gamebox was a different size, and they were the devil to organize and tidy up neatly in your gaming cupboard because you're anal and they just won't FIT . These days, it's just a DVD-box. They fit neatly. Dead neatly.

I remember having a pile of gaming manuals about as towering (and top-heavy. And collapsing all the time) as my pile of school books. These days, I count myself lucky when I don't throw a new game's manual out because it just happened to fall in the take-away menu and you-have-won-a-free-world-tour vouchers pile.
It used to be they printed huge paper manuals. Then they switched to paper quick-notes and huge .pdf manuals. Then they didn't even bother with the .pdf anymore... And now there's a whole parasite industry of suits making money out of selling the manual and calling it a "guide".

I blame money. And the invention of the tie, that instrument of the devil which taints the soul and turneth man into a ravening beast.

[Whacker]

Lame french things about surrendering and the following

I remember the time when every gamebox was a different size, and they were the devil to organize and tidy up neatly in your gaming cupboard because you're anal and they just won't FIT . These days, it's just a DVD-box. They fit neatly. Dead neatly.

I remember having a pile of gaming manuals about as towering (and top-heavy. And collapsing all the time) as my pile of school books. These days, I count myself lucky when I don't throw a new game's manual out because it just happened to fall in the take-away menu and you-have-won-a-free-world-tour vouchers pile.

HAHAH! MAN I remember the Civ manual! The main ones I were thinking about were the Wings over Europe/Pacific games, and then the best flight sims ever made, the Janes.EA ones like USNF, ATF, Longbow, etc... Also reminds me of Earthsiege, etc..... *sigh* You're making me feel ancient all over again...

Fortunately, I saved quite a bit of the boxes from the games I bought, AND I have a full plastic tote bin of all my old game manuals, key bindings, goodies, you name it. Both mom and Mrs. Whacker tried to make me toss them on more than one occasion, that always ended in tears and bloodshed.

[Kraxis]

Once I got a terribly good novel from a game... Beat that!

But if you think this manual is good, try to go back and check out the STW manual for comparison.

I quite simply blame the DVD box. There isn't room for maps, techtrees and large manuals in them. And I really needed both the techtree and map for this game. I bumbled about as an old fool initially, not knowing where settlements were, where good resources were or how to get certain units (the ingame building browser left me with the impression I couldn't train DFKs).

Such things as princesses, ancilliaries and charges should have been explained in the manual. Also upkeep for agents (how many expected princesses to cost as much as knights in upkeep, if at all?). I think that would have helped all of us a lot, and saved some people some complaints.

[Fisherking]

Just don't start me on the manual!!!

Remember the other games where you actually got a tech tree??? Without doubling the price. Also Maps or just a little ancillary information. Now some of that comes with the deluxe version that I didn't know was out until I had this ordered.

Now I don't think this game is near as buggy as most that I have bought and need a patch even to play the darned thing...

It works fairly well....some bugs, some balance issues, and a few things people don't care much for

Patches are also usually a two edged sword...they change what you like and keep all the junk you couldn't stand about half the time.

So manuals are expensive to write... The documentation needs to be better!!! I don't want to go into the game to have to figure out what is what or have to actually build a building to find that it actually does nothing.

And yes agents do cost upkeep...even priest

[Quickening]

Once I got a terribly good novel from a game... Beat that!

I got a great book with a game once. Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock came with Seven Kingdoms (great game). I was delighted.

I wish we could have those old manuals back. Because a lot of them were entertaining as well as informative. The Seven Kingdoms game I mentioned above had a great manual with little short stories in it. Totally pointless but they made you want to play the game something hellish

[gardibolt]

There are positives to keeping things mysterious. I used to run games of D&D with a couple of different groups of people back in the 80s. Most of them were hardcore gaming types who were very into the mechanics of how things worked. But one of the groups was very, very casual gamers and even nongamers and as an experiment I ran the game that they were playing completely blind. They knew that the fighters were strong and hardy and so forth, but they had no notion of hit points or what their "numbers" were or anything. No +1 swords---just, this sword glows when you pick it up, maybe it's magical. As a result, they got totally immersed in the story line without having any idea in the least of how things worked on the numbers side--they rolled dice and I told them what happened; they had a general idea that 20 was good, but beyond that the game was a total mystery. They had a lot more fun than all the other groups, and 20 years later they still talk about adventures that they had.

I have no idea whether that's the sort of thing CA has in mind, but thought I'd throw that out there.

[Kraxis]

Well, that wouldn't conflict with a little line saying that agents cost so and so in upkeep, or that knights need to be perfectly formed to get a perfect charge, otherwise their charge might not be as good. No need for numbers with the charge... just tell us when 'it glows'.

This place and the blogs at the .com are the places for the deep mechanics, such as the numbers involved in the charges, or how AP work, or how a melee is structured (swingtime, chances of a hit, lethality ect ect). However the manual should explain just enough, just like you did in that D&D. That would leave people informed without making the 'magic' vanish. But currently the manual doesn't do that with this game, nor most others.

[Shahed]

There was a time I remember, when most of the discussions here were nothing but deep mechanics.

Like I said earlier, mystery = good. Ambiguity = bad.

[The Teacher]

id like a map and tech tree ! like rtw its meant to be a lil step forward not tow back.but i enjoy there to be lots to figure out its part of the fun, and who needs the manual when you have a cool forum like this one.

[Grimmy]

Personaly, I'd prefer the tech tree and map(s) to be available as printouts from the game disc.

I'd also prefer there to be "layers" of options available in those printouts as to how much detail and info you (the player) want to have available.

Maybe I want a tech tree in my hand that gives me what troops come from what buildings for my faction alone. Maybe I want that same info for all the factions. Maybe I want the tech tree that gives stats and notes on usage for unit types... maybe one that also has a little bit of historical info on what the buildings represent, or which of the cities/castles represented in my faction were most likely to have had such buildings, etc etc.

On maps, maybe I want the one global printout. Maybe I'd like the printouts of each geographically discreet area with greater degree of detail and some strategic info on where choke points might be found and tradtional avenues of approach for enemy forces.
Or maybe I want the print out of a specific region with full tac inf and terrain layout with what sort of terrain will be most likly triggered by a battle in specific areas so I have some better clue where to pick my fights.

This wouldnt be that hard to do or take that much in resources to develop. It couldnt be done in old school foldout type production mats but it could be made avaialbe for the player to print out as desired from the dvd or even sold as a seperate "support" dvd if it would cause the need to add an additional disc to the production.

For sure and for certain, I'd much rather have the above type info in the game I buy, rather than a "making of" disc which I'll never load, never watch and have no desire to possess.