My M2TW Tirade

[Slicendice]

This is my M2TW tirade. This is not to say I don't like M2TW or the Total War series, but rather, I am disappointed that once again the Total War series has moved farther away from the original and failed to recreated the danger and imminent peril of the enemy AI.

In Shogun Total War every time I had captured half the island I found that the other half had been overrun by one faction. That faction was building thousands of troops and now he was hurling them at me 10,000 at a time. It was all I could do to fall back to a couple of defendable provinces to hold him off while I built another army to land behind him and gut his production centers.

If my troops lost a battle at a key province the enemy horde would pour through and overrun the rest of my lands. Every battle counted and was incredibly exciting.

But not any more. Now the AI launches a war with a few peasants and a heavy armor unit. It doesn't even go after my most valuable cities. The AI builds lots of crappy troops and often does not attempt to build up it's cities and disband lessor troops to make way for elite units.

If all the factions surrounding me suddenly declare war should I be afraid? NO! They might move in and take a city or two, but then they will mill about and do nothing. They won't push their advantage or go after my best Castle first.

Why can't the AI be more aggressive? Not just harder to get along with but really bloodthirsty?


This is going to be the last TW game I buy. It's become a bureaucrats game and not a warrior strategists game.

Bleh!

[BeeSting]

I think the campaign AI is already aggressive enough in that it attacks you for no good reason. It has the tendency to wage war with 3 factions at a time and still declares war on you just because.... I think that's blood thirsty enough, but highly self destructive. Just hope that the programers come up with a better pre-war calculation for the AI: enemy's production rate, amount of soldiers on the surrounding border etc. aren't good enough.

I agree with you about the army composition... it's horrible. having the right composition is half the battle. And if the AI could make better proportioned armies then any battle would be that much harder for the user. And the AI should not rely on auto battle resolve advantage calculations in engaging a players force, because 9 out of 10 times we will prove the calculations/balance bar wrong. It should engage the user's army differently than it does with other AI factions' forces.

[Dan.o6]

I like the game a lot. The campaign AI is more than sufficient and in all of my campains im having a hard time getting by.

[Shahed]

"You call THAT an attack ?"

[Flavius Gonzo]

I think the OP has a point. The only times the AI has attacked with odds that are unfavorable to me have been when I've left settlements only lightly garrisoned -- a problem easily remedied by expanding slower and leaving strong border garrisons behind.

The hardest part of M2TW is managing the economic & diplomatic aspects. I never played STW or MTW, but RTW had the same problem, only once the BI hordes were introduced did I fight my first losing seige battle.

But, I'm still waiting for the Mongol & Timurid invasions... I'm hopefully those will pose some challenging defensive battles. Have to wait and see, I guess!

[Barry Fitzgerald]

The OP has a point...

And a good one...

AI is pretty damn poor on the campaign map, with almost random attacks..with little strategy behind them. Sure it is ok sometimes..but play the HRE and watch everyone declare war on you..even if you do nothing to provoke them.

The problem isnt aggression..it is just poor....I have defeated factions 20 times at the same settlement..yet they keep on pouring men in...you would think the AI would be smart enough..but it isnt.

Add to this even post patch...cavalry still doesnt go where you want it too...sigh...

[econ21]

Different strokes for different folks. Shogun had great battles, but IMO the campaign left a lot to be desired. MTW and M2TW are much better.

In Shogun Total War every time I had captured half the island I found that the other half had been overrun by one faction. That faction was building thousands of troops and now he was hurling them at me 10,000 at a time.

By most accounts that was called the Hojo horde and IMO made the endgame of STW effectively broken.

Every battle counted and was incredibly exciting.

I found fighting the endless STW lategame battles utterly tedious. I was SO grateful when MTW introduced a decent campaign map where you had some freedom over where to go and who to fight (and indeed whether to fight). Salami slicing up Japan just got dull.

It was all I could do to fall back to a couple of defendable provinces to hold him off while I built another army to land behind him and gut his production centers.

Seems a little bit of a player exploit to me - the STW AI did not defend its ports from amphibious invasion. If that's what you have to do to win, it does not say much of the game. The strategic AI in STW cheated outrageously - it was challenging, I give you that, but not in a good way, IMO.

...once again the Total War series has moved farther away from the original and failed to recreated the danger and imminent peril of the enemy AI.

I disagree - M2TW is closer to MTW than RTW. One of the things I like about it is that it is moving back to that sense of danger and peril.

Now the AI launches a war with a few peasants and a heavy armor unit.

We must be playing different games. You never seen a full stack of crack Danish infantry? Gave me the shock of my life encountering the first one in Flanders early on my VH/VH England game when I did not even have a dismounted feudal knight. I can't recall fighting peasants in M2TW - maybe the one unit, when they wrecked a spear unit (I was not impressed). If you want wars against lots of peasants, play MTW on early.

It's become a bureaucrats game and not a warrior strategists game.

I disagree. With STW, there was a lot of debate whether it was a historical wargame or some hybrid real time strategy game. With the move away from the Risk style map, it starts to look more like a plausible wargame at the strategic level, as it already is at the battlefield level. RTW had its faults, but for the first time with a TW game, I felt I was maneouvring an army on campaign - not just pushing counters on a gameboard. Hardcore historical realism mods like EB and RTR have reinforced that feeling.

Moving away from the Risk style map has made it harder to program a good strategic AI; your criticisms of that have some validity (although I sincerely doubt the original STW campaign AI targetted your best castle first or disbanded troops to make way for elites). However, the campaign AI seems to be gradually improving, both through the RTW patches and with M2TW.

[fabiano]

Hi,

I agree. I play the game from STW and it is becaming more and more civilizations then TW. Not that I do not like CIV, but the Campaign aspect of the game is not very good, IMO.

It is boring to control 10 spies, 10 assas, 5 princess, 5 diplomats in a long, long map...

And the battles mean nothing right now. I remember my struggle against the Egypts in MTW. I attack then with 5000, win and control Egypt but does not have forces to move on. They counter attack and retake egypt, but could not attack more. I counter attack... It goes on for 3 mass battles, when I finale defend against their attack the war was over. Now it is 200 small, boring battles in the middle of nowhere, with no consequence.

And with this system I could never battle with my allies as in MTW (Great battles, catholics vs Muslins).

I like the new campaign in RTW, but right now I want the old ugly boardmap back... Or something new... More decisives battles and less micro-boring-management :(

Fabiano

[Grimmy]

I dont care how good or how much technology advances in the programing of AI, it will never match up well against a good human opponent.

No matter how much is put into the AI, it will have to follow some patterns and those patterns will be quickly identified by the "power player" and the AI rendered into a feeble castrato.

That's just life. I remember playing STW. The AI wasnt all that and a bag of chips either. The map was smaller so things hit you faster. The options to expand were lesser so the AI had fewer chances to guess wrong.

The only thing that's gonna fix that endlessly given complaint is a full multiplayer campaign game and even then power players will find something to rant about because nothing will ever really meet expectation or desire.

If it's not lacking AI because a full multiplayer is developed, then it will be a lack of decent human opponents. And if the human opponents beat them too often then they'all all be declared cheaters.

Some folk just cant be satisfied.

[sapi]

It's funny how memories change with age :P

If you love STW that much, get it out again and play it. Compare it to m2tw directly and tell me that it is better.

Every TW game has improved on the franchise in some way, and while you may not like the changes, most people do, so you're going to have to live with them.

[pevergreen]

"You call THAT an attack ?"

That's not a knife, THIS is a knife.

[PaulTa]

I may not be a big time poster on this board, but I sure did get hooked on MTW and the expansion for it. I loved the battles compared to other "strategy" games (AoE comes to mind), and I remember mapping out routes of invasion.

Then I got my old computer back (which was actually about four times better than my computer I was playing MTW on), and noticed that my computer was in fact too powerful for MTW. I was having crashes all the time. So I decided to go find a new game, after spending about a week's worth of time trying to remedy the problem.

Well, I found RTW. The game was great, the added speed of the battle seemed to add another element of realism (I felt that a soldier dying from one or two attack animations was more accurate than two groups of spearmen fighting each other for about five minutes with no clear victor). The new campaign map was a thrill too. Risk was cool, but now I felt like I'd upgraded to Axis and Allies. There was only one problem... I missed swords and knights and longbowmen...

Well MTW2 has mixed the best of both worlds for me. I get the feel and setting of MTW with the graphics beauty of RTW. The factions are about a hundred times more diversified, the Castles vs Cities element is just amazing, and sword units without javelins are fashionable.

That's not to say that I'm not disappointed with MTW2 a bit. Scotland is a bit of a lackluster faction, dismounted noble knights aren't nearly as effective as they should be, and poor byzantium doesn't have enough "what if" attached to her. I'd like my billmen to be more than just a novelty, I'd appreciate a more in depth orthadox religion, and I wouldn't mind some difference between the four different spear units that the moors have. Would I ever blow the dust off of my RTW cd though? Only if I needed a coaster for my coffee.

[KARTLOS]

i too find the ai very dissapointing.

1. it is very poor at seiges - with more troops you will usualy win but that is not the case for them. this means you dont have to fear their "invasions" that much.

2. it often fails to garrison its cities properly, usually just a handful of units.


3. it fails to respond to your actions - it is possible to manoevre a full stack thru their territory without challenge. for example you can lay seige to a city and the ai often wont respond even if it has trooops in range.

all these factors mean it is fairly easy to take ai territory but not to easy for it to take yours - that kills excitement.

[sapi]

What difficulty are you guys playing on? It sounds like you're playing a completely different game...

[KARTLOS]

i usually play on h/h.

i dont like the money management area of the game as much as batles and ive always asumed that comes more to the fore on vh campaign?

[KARTLOS]

the best illustration of the synfrome i am describing is egypt.

if you go on a crusade with at least one full stack, it is easily possible to destroy the entire egyptian faction. their cities are often poorly defended. thus you can move down the middle east coast taking a city/turn. they sometimes have large armies in the vicinity, but they fail to respond to what you are doing. thus it is possible for example to lay seige to cairo for more than 1 turn, whilst a large egyptian army that is in range to atack you fails to respond. you take cairo = faction destroyed, and the large rebel stacks are much less trouble.

[PureFodder]

Here's a tip if things are seemingly a little too easy. Once you've finished your first campaign start a new one on H/H or VH/VH as the Turks.

Make sure you take Baghdad.

Make sure you play for at least 60 turns.

Then try to claim the AI is unagressive and never uses decent armies........

[sapi]

:P Bloody mongols, eh? :P

[Faenaris]

I find M2TW to be a worthy successor to MTW and a BIG improvement over RTW. Just look at the enemy stacks: you don't see dozens of mini-stacks, floating across the map. No, now you have to deal with large armies. I also noticed how little "bad units" it contained. Stacks filled with Dismounted Knights, Crossbows, artillery, cavalry ... It occasionally has a single peasant unit, but I reckon that has something to do with an AI faction being broke.

One thing I have noticed: If you blitz, the game is VERY easy. I tried it once, and I waltzed (as the English) through Scotland, France, the HRE, Milan and Venice and by that time, I had such a huge empire, that I just kept on steam-rolling my opponents. I never encountered a single decent stack, but the AI did try to halt my advance.

But, I'm a turtler at hart and I only attack with some pretty high-tech stuff. I don't bother the AI for a long time (50 to 100 turns) and when I start expanding, I encounter semi-large empires. I have to fight my way through dozens of well-equipped stacks and I regularly have to hole-up in a recently conquered castle till I manage to ship some reinforcements over to the hotzone. It is frantic, it is chaotic, it is tense and I'm loving it!

And you have to admit that the diplomacy is the best ever! In MTW and STW, you just had an "alliance" option and that was it. I don't recall anything regarding STW, but in MTW, alliances were totally useless. They would backstab you constantly, without no apparant reason. In M2TW, it happens, but I'm having alliances that last for over 50 turns with a neighbouring faction! I can negotiate cease-fires, bribe a faction into attacking his neighbour with me, even get tributes from weaker empires! (The vassal option is a bit tricky and random though, but I have gotten some vasals in the past.)

The AI isn't perfect, but with such a complicated game, I have to say that CA has done a great job. The rough edges will be smoothed with some patching, I'm sure of it. I haven't played anything else since I have bought M2TW and I have about 60 hours logged gametime, which is a lot since most games I buy never reach that mark.

EDIT: This may seem like a fanboy-rant, but it isn't. The last time I was this excited, was the time of MTW, I never really liked RTW vanilla and the mods were the only things that kept me playing RTW.

And if someone feels offended by my post, I'm sorry, it wasn't meant to be personal to anyone.

[econ21]

One thing I have noticed: If you blitz, the game is VERY easy.

Good point. I think that's true of all TW games (maybe STW excepted - the OP has a point about that game being hard). Some RTW mods advise you to do nothing for 5 years, to give the AI a chance to grow.

I remember that with HRE in MTW. The guides said blitz to take out Italy early etc. But if you just turtle for a couple of decades, it becomes hellishly hard. Quite like Oda in STW, in fact: surrounded by powerful factions that all decide they want to have piece of you.

One of the fun things about PBMs is inheriting late or mid-game situations. We are so used to the early games, when things are easy. But in the mid or late game, confronting an AI faction that's gobbled up the other half of the map can be great fun.

[Forward Observer]

In Shogun Total War every time I had captured half the island I found that the other half had been overrun by one faction. That faction was building thousands of troops and now he was hurling them at me 10,000 at a time. It was all I could do to fall back to a couple of defendable provinces to hold him off while I built another army to land behind him and gut his production centers.

If my troops lost a battle at a key province the enemy horde would pour through and overrun the rest of my lands. Every battle counted and was incredibly exciting.

-------------------------------------

This is going to be the last TW game I buy. It's become a bureaucrats game and not a warrior strategists game.

Bleh!

The Hojo horde was a well known problem (bug) in Shogun, but it really only occurred if one was the type that played a slower non-aggressive game. Even before the patch that addressed the horde, one could avoid it by simply playing aggressively, and in doing so one could win the game even on the harder levels with nothing but your basic yari spearmen, yari cavalry, and samurai archers.

Of course this made the combat in game the purest form of a rock, scissor, paper style of combat with a simple risk style map.

It was and still is fun for what it is, but hardly a complex challenge once one learned how to "outgame" the game.

What is even more important for the series is that with each new release a huge faction of players have constantly clamored for more diversity, more complex strategic and diplomatic elements.

I loved Shogun too and still play it occasionally, but I also understand the necessary evolution for the series to survive and in doing so attract a wider range of players. Things change and evolve, so here we are with the current offering, and in my opinion this is not a bad thing.

Personally, I love M2TW just as much and it is safe to say that once again i am losing an inordinate amount of sleep just like I did years ago with Shogun playing "just one more turn".

In the land based combat/strategy classification the TW series was, still is, and will probably continue be the only RTS/tactical combat game that I will play on an almost daily basis.

Cheers

[John Johnston]

I'm a little way into a Moors campaign on VH/VH. The game is patched. The computer opponent is giving me a seriously hard time on the campaign map; after fifty or so turns I'm holding North Africa along to Tunis and most of Spain. Along the way I've had to fight off repeated land and amphibious attacks by balanced full stacks of enemy troops from Milan, Sicily, Spain, Portugal, the Venetians and the Papal States. I have no chance whatsoever of controlling the sea, barely adequate numbers of troops, and the only thing allowing me to make any progress at all is the cash I'm getting from the half-dozen or so merchants I've got stuck down in Timbuktoo, which for any other faction would be veering close to being an exploit.

Post-patch, in my experience, the computer appears to have considerably greater understanding of seaborne attacks and of diplomacy; I've been offered (and accepted) many ceasefires at moments when it was appropriate for the enemy to do so, which was not my experience pre-patch. I've also found the tactical battles significantly improved. Shame the 2h bug isn't fixed, but overall I'm very happy with the patch; I had been getting fed up before.

(...and I have to say, when people talk about Shogun having greater tactical AI, strategic AI, or historical accuracy than any of the successors, it baffles the hell out of me... )

[Slicendice]

Well it's post-patch and I started a H/VH game and I turtled for a long time. I made alliances with every Christian faction including Papal States and had marriages with Denmark and Spain. I expected France to betray me because, well, they're French, but Denmark was a surprise. (Well actually I guess it wasn't. Every game I've played Denmark has come to the aid of France and betrayed an alliance. ) I had been consistently paying them 500 florins a turn to keep the relationship up. I was Trustworthy with all factions and Very Good with Denmark when they took Bruges (they already had Antwerp) with about 6 units. They stopped there and didn't move an inch for many turns even though I was busy with France. (I only play with directly decended generals so I was short handed)

Anyway, my point is Denmark had stacks of troops over in the homeland but it chose to send a small force to take one single city when it could have moved straight through to Caen which was my only Castle in the North. (I always convert Nottingham to a city and my other castle was Toulouse.)

I'm not saying that STW had better AI or the campaign was better. Each new game has offered more diplomacy options and enhancements that make the game more interesting. What I am saying is that I'm not getting an AI that comes after me. It declares war and meanders about and maybe takes a city or two.

If I go out in the world and start conquering I'm going to encounter stacks of troops, but sometimes those stacks will not move to attack me.

I guess my point here is that as long as I don't get too bored and I'm willing to do all the tedious things the game puts forth then eventually I will win. I might lose a city or two and a few battles or fleets, but there is ABSOLUTELY ZERO CHANCE ANYONE CAN LOSE THIS GAME. (unless you're an idiot)

Yes. That's my point. ^^^^^^^^^

[RussianWinter]

I agree. I loved MTW and STW, but when Rome came the series just lost something.

For me it's all summed up in the new campaign map (by new, i mean the MTW2/RTW map). It doesnt improve gameplay in any measurable way. What it has done is create a sandbox far too complex for the AI to handle, as well as asking some severe micromanagement time of the player and completely shafting factions in the "big" regions (Turks, Russia, moors to some extent)

I'd love to think the AI would be improved, but its just too far past the point. After xx patches and expansions, Rome never really got better. I don't expect much different from MTW2.

I still play the game, but its more out of reliving the glory. If these games weren't released with such a devoted fan base, I think they'd be failures.

[Quickening]

Just to pick up on the point that it seems like the Total War series is becoming more like Civilization or something... well, I see that as a good thing. I look forward to the day when conquest is not the only way to achieve victory. It's odd how people can complain about the lack of the Glorious Achievements thing and then complain that it is becoming less about warfare

And seriously, does anyone doubt that the Total War format is the best way to simulate empire building and epic battles so far?
It must be hard to make such a game challenging. Like all games of it's kind, once you have a foothold it is very hard if not impossible to lose. But what's the solution? The only one would be if the AI simply cheated but that would make a lot of people, myself included, unhappy.

Personally, I think CA have done a great job.

[PureFodder]

I've started a new H/H camaign as the Moors and blitzed Iberia finishing off the Portugeese and Spanish pretty easily. Next stop France. I took Toluse, Rienne, Caen, Bordeaux then the crusade began......

I'm currently fending off France, England, Scotland, Denmark, Venice, Milan, Sicilly and the HRE at the same time and it's become such a nightmare. HRE alone can match me man for man, Poland and Hungary have declaired war too so I figure it's only time before even more armies turn up

[IceTorque]

I dislike:
1) The micro-management of the agents, because it's tedious, silly and it's just no fun.
2) The tedious recruitment of units, because it's boring, repetitive and been done to death already.
3) The game spanning hundreds of years, because it kills role playing. Instead of so many special era units, how about giving each faction more unique units, and I want to roleplay one character and one army. NOT 37 characters and 78 armies.
4) Cities, Castles and Guilds, because the AI brings too many dads army units to the battles, and it increases micro-management when these special guild units need retraining.
5) Inquisitors, because they whack family members, causing too many leaderless AI stacks. I much prefer how they were in the original MTW.
6) The reduced unit sizes, because I thought TW games were about epic battles, in RTW my battles were between 7,000 and 8,000 now it's 3,000 to 4,000. The battle maps just look so empty, and as I mostly only see sprites that don't look any better than RTW this makes me very sad.
7) Battle map decorations like little farms and small rocks, because it absolutely confuses the AI's path finding abilities.
8) The strat map, because it is not realistic especially from a role playing perspective, and it creates too much micro-management, what am I God looking down from space and magically taking control of every army in the Kingdom.
9) Battle map maneuvering, a) The slow walk, this might be motion captured in real time but this sunday stroll animation has no place on a battle field. b) units wheeling and marching in their wide battle line formation, it would be nice if they could just right or left turn then march, then left or right turn to face the enemy. Hmmm maybe send the devs to boot camp to learn how to march so they can then apply this in-game.

Get rid of the strat map, replace it with the throne room, remove those red lines on the battle maps and allow me to explore, conquer, recruit and live off the land, in a more realistic and immersive game world. i.e. see, play and interact with the game world through the eyes of a King on earth NOT God in space.

[econ21]

I think we have given the original tirade a decent airing. Now this thread threatens to become a "100 things I hate about M2TW" thread, which I think would be unproductive and just lead to flames. Let's keep the grumbling to more focussed threads.