Latest update on 1.2 patch from Sega/CA

[Darkgreen]

Have a look at the AAR I'm writing, it's very early days but still:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=83785

It's not clear to me that the challenge I currently face in that AAR is because I have limited myself. Compare it with your usual playstyle: what's different? I'm genuinely curious. Personally, I don't see how I have challenged myself - this is how I usually play TW and it does not seem too constrained.

Firstly, when you are quoting someone, you might want to include the whole quote, especially when what I said already addresses what you say here. Here is my full quote:

“If you are limiting yourself in some way, then like I said, then the game is not challenging you, you are challenging yourself.
Maybe you prefer to think of it as that is just your game style, but then again the game isn’t challenging, your game style is.
I have to object when you say that the game can be challenging. It is much more appropriate to say that you challenge yourself in the game. Which, I have to sincerely say is great for you.
A challenging game would be one that would give difficulty to all (or maybe most or many) game styles.”

As far as your AAR goes, even though I don’t know the composition of your armies, I find it hard to fathom why you would lose either of those two battles at those odds. If it is because of some imbalance in quality of forces, then I would have to ask why you would be fielding an army of mostly peasants.

Finally, just because you find this game challenging does not mean that this is a challenging game.
Let’s say I suck at Tetris, I even have trouble with the first couple levels. This does not make the first couple levels of Tetris challenging. It is only challenging for me.

This may seem like an unimportant distinction, and in 99% of cases it is. However, in a talking about the merits and problems of the AI in MTW2, where I think people are discussing ways to improve the AI against all or many playing styles, we should be more precise in the ways we use the words “challenging” and “challenge.” These distinctions and definitions are important because otherwise we just have people talking past each other. In other words, there needs to be a more communal definition of what is “challenging”, which I do not think you are using.

[Puzz3D]

You only made a serious error in judgment if you expected what you say to magically influence CA. You may have the right to say what you please in whatever country you reside in, but everyone else (most especially CA/SEGA) almost certainly has the right to ignore it. I don't mind anything anyone says on here, really, but I do think it's rather silly to go on a forum and expect to have real power over huge corporations, especially after you've already paid them.

You can have influence with potential customers who read the forum to decide if they should buy the game or pass on it. That's what Caliban is responding to. It's just the typical damage control that they've engaged in for years when the level of complaints is high. After the RTW v1.0 experience (I was on the RTW v1.2 beta team), not buying M2TW v1.0 was an easy decision. After the final M2TW patch and after additional fixes by modders, I'll consider buying the game for SP. MP seems like a lost cause.

[Gaius Terentius Varro]

Firstly, when you are quoting someone, you might want to include the whole quote, especially when what I said already addresses what you say here. Here is my full quote:

“If you are limiting yourself in some way, then like I said, then the game is not challenging you, you are challenging yourself.
Maybe you prefer to think of it as that is just your game style, but then again the game isn’t challenging, your game style is.
I have to object when you say that the game can be challenging. It is much more appropriate to say that you challenge yourself in the game. Which, I have to sincerely say is great for you.
A challenging game would be one that would give difficulty to all (or maybe most or many) game styles.”

As far as your AAR goes, even though I don’t know the composition of your armies, I find it hard to fathom why you would lose either of those two battles at those odds. If it is because of some imbalance in quality of forces, then I would have to ask why you would be fielding an army of mostly peasants.

Finally, just because you find this game challenging does not mean that this is a challenging game.
Let’s say I suck at Tetris, I even have trouble with the first couple levels. This does not make the first couple levels of Tetris challenging. It is only challenging for me.

This may seem like an unimportant distinction, and in 99% of cases it is. However, in a talking about the merits and problems of the AI in MTW2, where I think people are discussing ways to improve the AI against all or many playing styles, we should be more precise in the ways we use the words “challenging” and “challenge.” These distinctions and definitions are important because otherwise we just have people talking past each other. In other words, there needs to be a more communal definition of what is “challenging”, which I do not think you are using.

Erm that's because you play on M/M matey
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...73&postcount=1

[gardibolt]

Thanks to the 225 turn limit I may end up losing this game as England on M/M 1.1. I have 65 territories, but I've never been able to get Jerusalem. The situation: the Pope declared a crusade on Jerusalem and I packed up several stacks in ships +/- turn 175. My ships made it about to Asia Minor when a storm hit and they all died. I tried to assemble another crusade force and got part way there when the Pope himself took Jerusalem. So my crusaders took Gaza, Alexandria and Cairo so they would have something to do. Role playing a good Catholic, I couldn't exactly attack the Pope and conquer Jerusalem myself.

Then the Timurids showed up and booted the Pope out of the city. Unfortunately that also meant that they've been beating on Gaza and Alexandria nonstop for 30 or so turns. Through judicious use of trebuchets and the amusing penchant of the elephant artillery to go berserk and rampage through their own troops, the Timurids finally have been whittled down substantially, though my own troops aren't in very good shape thanks to repeated sieges.

My problem: at about turn 218, I see my chance at last. Jerusalem is thinly defended with maybe 200 Timurid troops, the leftovers from the last stack hurled against Gaza's walls. I prepare a somewhat ragtag force, everyone in Gaza I can spare, to go after it, when the city rebels. And it rebels in style, with a full stack of elite troops and cavalry and enough archers to wipe me out before I can get into the city. At turn 219, a half stack of Timurids leaves Acre to besiege Jerusalem. Seeing another opportunity, I send my half stack up to Acre and take it for myself, so I can at least have another citadel to train proper troops---and slow down the Timurid threat too. Alas, it's a red face and I have to exterminate if I want to hold it---and that means no troops available for several turns. By turn 221 I have a force from Dongora and a supplemental army from Alexandria and Cairo coming , and by my calculations they will reach Jerusalem about turn 224. The Timurid stack besieging Jerusalem is probably more than my men in Acre can handle, and then I certainly wouldn't have enough to face the rebel forces, but if they manage to take the city from the rebels they should be worn down to the point I can take it myself. But when will they do that? It's now turn 222, and they're just sitting there, building siege weapons, but aren't making any moves to take the city for themselves....they're probably as leery of those rebels as I am. If all else fails, in turn 225 I'll end up hurling everything I have in the Holy Land at the Timurids and the rebels and we'll see whether that's enough....but I kinda doubt it. And now there's another Timurid stack just come into sight from the East....

Anyway, from a combination of circumstances this has ended up being the most difficult endgame I've ever had in a Total War game.

[TinCow]

IMO its still kind of easy in 1.2 to cripple the AI early on by offering them: Alliance, trade rights, map information + 1-3k florins for 1-2 of their cities/castles.

Uh... then don't do that? What you're describing is essentially power-gaming; you're exploiting the weakness of the AI to beat it down as hard and as fast as possible.

You want a harder game, but you don't want to impose more limits on yourself. It would certainly be nice if CA developed a harder AI, but as I said before, the only way to do that is to make difficulty levels which handicap the player and boost the AI. That's more convenient than doing it manually, but in the absence of an automatic system made by CA, it seems like the logical alternative.

[Darkgreen]

Erm that's because you play on M/M matey
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...73&postcount=1

I restarted a couple days ago and am now playing on battle VH and campaign H. Really, I only see a more aggressive AI, not a harder AI, which is what I expected. It hasn't been any more challenging, just more battles.
I guess that may be a sad comentary on the game, that my first experience with it I get bored right away on the normal setting. At least the first experience should be somewhat difficult, even for those (like me) that are familiar with the total war series.

[Gaius Terentius Varro]

I think that CA wants a more challenging AI as much as most of us they just can't make it since they laid 95 % of resources on eye candy. Since the new patch is gonna adress the passive siege AI among other things so I am happy with 1.2. The game is playable, addictive and fun challenging enough for 95% ppl that buy this game. I play EB and the Idea of using House Rules is something almost given in order to get a challenging game experience. We are way harder and unforgiving on vanilla than we are on the mods which is really unfair

[econ21]

Firstly, when you are quoting someone, you might want to include the whole quote, especially when what I said already addresses what you say here.

Or I might not want to. It's perfectly acceptable to quote part of a post when responding to it. Nothing is more tedious than ready debates where people block quote each other endlessly. The fact that your post:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=265

was almost exactly identical to an earlier one you made

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=245

added to my reluctance. You've now effectively quoted yourself twice now; you don't need help from me.

As far as your AAR goes, even though I don’t know the composition of your armies, I find it hard to fathom why you would lose either of those two battles at those odds. If it is because of some imbalance in quality of forces, then I would have to ask why you would be fielding an army of mostly peasants.

I disband peasants and never recruit them. But by turn 10 you don't have that much access to elites. Yes, I lost because of an imbalance in the quality of forces but that was because the French pulled a Pearl Harbour on me and I reacted in haste.

But the main challenge in the PBM so far is not winning the battles. Of course, I can win battles. The challenge as of turn 14 is how to get Caen back when the Pope has told me to hold off for 7 turns and at the same time, how to get a crusading army together to win the race for Antioch when I have combined field armies of only about two dozen units.

Finally, just because you find this game challenging does not mean that this is a challenging game.
Let’s say I suck at Tetris, I even have trouble with the first couple levels. This does not make the first couple levels of Tetris challenging. It is only challenging for me.

Yes, challenge is relative but I assure you I don't suck at TW (the mess at Caen not withstanding ). From the kill ratios in our PBM campaigns, I surmise that I play the SP TW games as well as most people and if I find it can find challenging, I suspect 75% of those who bought the game can too.

It does help to play on VH/VH, of course.

[Darkgreen]

The significant difference between those two threads of mine that you reference is that one is more detailed and more descriptive, the reason for that being is because I merely thought you misinterpreted what I had said in the first. Now that you haven’t really addressed what I’ve said for the second or third time from either of those two threads, I take it you are just being obtuse (whether it is intentional or not, I don’t know).

Yes, I think you originally said that it is like people are playing two different games. I am beginning to agree. I just don’t know what you are doing differently from other people to make it challenging for you. I am not that good of a TW player. Or maybe I am. Or maybe you are not as good as you thought. Or maybe some combination of both. Or maybe there is some other explanation. I just don’t know.

Your estimate of 75% of players that bought the game find it challenging, I would think exactly the opposite. Though, I think at this point both of us would just be pulling those estimates out of our arses.

Yes, as you say, challenge is relative. But one of the reasons why I wanted to weigh in here (and I think this is the point you have been failing to grasp) I want to try and make “challenge” a less relative term in this particular instance by making it more definable and useable for more people in this thread and maybe in the forum. To do this, I think we have to define what “challenging” is for all players. When I use the word “challenging” I try to take into account how difficult the game is for all players. I think that it is not challenging for most players, and even though I could be wrong, it is a much better starting place than merely saying that it is challenging for yourself. If everyone were to use your definition of challenging, we would all be talking past each other.

[TinCow]

Your estimate of 75% of players that bought the game find it challenging, I would think exactly the opposite. Though, I think at this point both of us would just be pulling those estimates out of our arses.

I made a poll that is somewhat related to this subject shortly after the game came out. It's about battle losses rather than campaign losses. Keep in mind the poll was with the 1.0 AI, so the results should be oriented to a higher loss rate with the 1.2 AI.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=72909

It's perfectly possible for people to find a game still challenging even if they win most of the time, if some of those wins are close. In that poll, about 30% of people lost battles 10 to 25% of the time. Being optimistic about the 1.2 AI, that could rise to 40%, perhaps 50%. (Remember the massive passive AI problems in 1.0). That seems like a good chunk of the player base.

[Darkgreen]

Thanks for the info.

Such a poll or similar might be interesting to see after the official 1.2 comes out.

[hrvojej]

... the only way to do that is to make difficulty levels which handicap the player and boost the AI.

I don't think that's the only way to do it, and I for one would not like to see that made too obvious. Custom battles with comparable armies on VH can be challenging. Though I still win almost all of them, I have to work for that and, most importantly, I have fun while I play them. The problem with sucky battles in SP is mostly tied to the campaign AI flops - poor recruitment decisions, not using generals to lead the armies, and having a dozen 2-unit stacks instead of a single powerful one. Some of these things can be made better with modding, but, other than the passive tactical AI, this is where the focus should be IMO to improve the game and the level of challenge. Giving AI unfair bonuses is a much poorer choice than improving its strategic decisions.

[Gaius Terentius Varro]

Keep in mind that 90% of the ppl who bought the game never visit these forums.
Example how to lose a campaign:
in one turn i lost 3 out of 4 remaining family members: one to a scottish assasin, one when the 5 ship flotilla he was travelling back from the crusade got pwnd by pirates and one when i forgot about the general chasing routers(to free them of course later) and he accidentally run through his own longbow poles
Now if you reload this is not an issue but if you don't this is a real disaster. The guy i have left is 61 so the game can be over next turn for me...

[sapi]

Okay, you've convinced me to download the leaked 1.2 patch

[econ21]

Now that you haven’t really addressed what I’ve said for the second or third time from either of those two threads, I take it you are just being obtuse (whether it is intentional or not, I don’t know).

Well, apparently you've been saying the same thing in four posts but I am afraid I am still not getting the significance. I have heard your insinuations that I have "low expectations" and that I "suck" at TW; now that I'm being "intentionally obtuse". But beyond that, I'm only hearing semantics.

For the record, all I've been trying to say is that I find M2TW is challenging and therefore I suspect that most other players could make it challenging if they tried. I've never said:

...75% of players that bought the game find it challenging...

I said 75% could make it challenging. ie if they imposed some houserules.

I am not sure if you disagree with any of that; to be honest, I suspect you don't and we have been, as you say, talking past each other. It may be you think my experience irrelevant because I am such a God awful player, but honestly I am past caring. And/or you think the caveat about houserules irrelevant, because for some reason you won't countenance them. Your main point, if I am not being too unintentionally obtuse, is that you want to engage in semantic definitions of whether a game can be challenging. You are right I have not really been addressing that point because I find such semantic debates completely uninteresting.

On the substance, I admit I could well be wrong - I've never even completed a M2TW game. I know I finished my first RTW campaign as soon as that game came out and loved it, but then about a week later gave up on the game completely as I realised it had zero challenge (fortunately RTR lured me back in). The purpose of my writing a M2TW AAR is to see if the game could be challenging for me through to the end. As Odin said, it's very early days and this evening's play as been much less challenging than the Caen crisis I ended last night on.

Anyway, I will plough on with my AAR and suggest we agree to disagree as I fear we are in danger of generating more heat than light.

Okay, you've convinced me to download the leaked 1.2 patch

Don't get your hopes up too high, Sapi: I suspect you'll still beat the game by turn 50. The main value of the patch, IMO, is fixing the spear and 2H bug. This is very worthwhile (they became game killers for me). But I don't see why they should affect the difficulty of the game.

[SoxSexSax]

Wow. So many points I feel I must respond to. This could take a while...

Playing england VH/VH By turn 20 attacked by: France, Scotland HRE Portugal, Spain and Danmark and I just spotted a Moor ship off the Irish coast with a full stack on it (wander whar they want). I am getting murdered here. BUT...
I don't use my general to melee and always release prisoners (need the chivalry to compete with the AI pop growth bonus). I don't ally with anyone exceprt the pope never accept huge amounts of cash for ceasefire every 2 turns and I don't sally and use missile troops on passive foe. In other words i don't use cheesy tactics to win then complain about how easy it is. Oh yeah the AI sucks but i do not see it getting better anytime soon. I have never completed the long campaign either cos it gets soo tedious managing 30+ regions. I still think the game is great compared to RTW and much better after the "patch".

I don't use any tactic I consider cheesy. I NEVER sally (do I sound like someone who WANTS an easy game???), I don't use Merchant Forts, I don't use my general to lead attacks as you imply (although I do chase routers and sell prisoners, which I would say is nowhere near cheesy, frankly). If you haven't even completed a campaign, I question your experience to make these claims and I certainly don't know why you subtly implied that I only think the game is too easy because I 'cheese' it up...

Not reloading after unsuccessfull takeover/assasination/spying attempt or losing a general in battle also helps IMHO.

I never reload. Why would I? I hardly ever use assasins (no need when you're 90% to kill the enemy general in every battle), I hardly ever lose a battle and diplomacy on VH is still a joke in 1.2...again, I am disappointed to find you implying that those who find it easy are resorting to tricks to do so...I WANT a hard game!!! I don't enjoy steamrolling a "helpless kitten" AI. I am not going out of my way to make things easy...they just are!

in one turn i lost 3 out of 4 remaining family members: one to a scottish assasin, one when the 5 ship flotilla he was travelling back from the crusade got pwnd by pirates and one when i forgot about the general chasing routers(to free them of course later) and he accidentally run through his own longbow poles

And? That's not good AI, it's terrible, mind-numbingly silly play. My wife knows better than to do that and she's no gamer...

It would certainly be nice if CA developed a harder AI, but as I said before, the only way to do that is to make difficulty levels which handicap the player and boost the AI.

That is so untrue it's almost not worth responding. For that statement to be true ("the only way to do that is to make difficulty levels which handicap the player and boost the AI") then it is logical that M2TW has the absolute best AI scripts humanly possible. And I don't believe anyone who has any gaming experience would say that is so. Compare Civ 4 Warlords AI (which is more complex at the strategic level without a shadow of doubt) to M2 and then tell me M2 can't be improved. Completely incorrect statement IMO.

@econ:

As England, give up your french holdings, secure Britain, secure all Scandinavia. Continue until both Scotland and Denmark are eliminated. Once Scotland and Denmark are gone, play as you like. I promise that if you are competent (and I believe you to be) you will win the campaign from this start. If your AAR isn't using this start, well, you're using a rather suboptimal strategy (in my humble opinion) and perhaps it is why you may find the game more challenging? Using the above outlined start, losing as England is next to impossible...and this is (IMO) in no way a cheesy start either, it's one of the just two possible strategically sound starts England have (other one being take Britain then France).

@Nobody in particular

The major killer issue with the AI is an inability to conduct a siege. I just never lose any siege defence battle where I had even a 1% chance of winnng. If I have 37 peasants and 3 town militia against a stack of 1000+, well even the M2 AI can't screw that up. But if I have 2 dismounted polish knights, 2 dismounted polish nobles and 2 lithuanian archers (units of, not just 2 men, obviously!) against 1500+ then...bring it on AI. You're going down and you know it! And that's why the campaign is too easy. Once a province is mine, I'm not losing it to anything bar rebellion. The AI has no hope at all of ever taking back a city from me. And that's why the game is far too easy.

I'm still waiting for the AI defenders to post a replay from a custom battle of the AI doing something impressive. I'm not holding my breath though. And I'm yet to see anyone challenge my description of how the AI fights its field battles either. Maybe that's because it's pretty much right?

[sapi]

Don't get your hopes up too high, Sapi: I suspect you'll still beat the game by turn 50. The main value of the patch, IMO, is fixing the spear and 2H bug. This is very worthwhile (they became game killers for me). But I don't see why they should affect the difficulty of the game.

No, I won't - but I haven't played M2TW in a good while and am getting bored with every other game that I've got installed

I might even play with house rules this time

Pity bittorrent + no tracker + australian time = practically no seeds

[Budwise]

Its not that I feel the game isn't challenging, I just never felt that - I better win this battle or my empire is gone - type of moment. I just feel that the AI doesn't hit you strategically enough to warrent more attention to detail and planned out thought. What I guess I am getting at is that when you play England and your at war with both France and Spain and Scotland is long since dead, you never have to worry about Edinburge or Nottingham getting hit. It would be kinda nice for the Danes to hit you on a second front and then SUPPORT THEIR UNITS VIA REENFORCEMENTS at least every other turn.

I have lost a campaign due to lack of heirs, even in M2TW. But I have never lost my entire empire in M2TW. Has anyone else?

[hellenes]

Ive been asking this question since 2003:
What is easier to code?
A MP campaign?
Or an equally challenging "AI"?

[sapi]

Ive been asking this question since 2003:
What is easier to code?
A MP campaign?
Or an equally challenging "AI"?

...And what's going to attract more players?

A single player campaign?
Or an additional multiplayer component?

[Foz]

Ive been asking this question since 2003:
What is easier to code?
A MP campaign?
Or an equally challenging "AI"?

...And what's going to attract more players?

A single player campaign?
Or an additional multiplayer component?

I know what you guys are going for, but I really don't think it's an easy conclusion to draw, or even the right one necessarily. When I look at the gaming situation right now, I see MMORPGs everywhere. Other various multiplayer games abound, too. Isn't it safe to assume that for the most part, players with bigtime interest in multiplayer gaming have already found other games that they've completely latched onto? Everyone I know that has a large interest in multiplayer gaming is addicted to it, and likewise already has the game to suit their addiction. Certainly there'd be little chance of a TW multiplayer component luring away any such players: games like WoW seem to just consume people entirely, and in general the multiplayer fans I know would rather die than consider switching games. All the rest of the gamers I know who are currently not addicted to multiplayer games have little interest in them, or are actively avoiding getting hooked on something multiplayer. So for the people I know at least, there are two primary categories:

1. People who wouldn't care about TW multiplayer, because they already have an all-consuming multiplayer game in their lives.
2. People who would care much more about the singleplayer portion of the game, because they're not big on multiplayer gaming or are intentionally avoiding it.

So, judging from the trends I'm seeing in the industry, it's entirely possible that more and better single player action is exactly what the TW franchise should be focusing on to maximize its fan base, because IMO it's unlikely that it can capture a significant enough portion of the multiplayer market in order to warrant work in that direction.

What I'm essentially saying is that multiplayer campaigns fall into the category of "things the fans would like and sometimes use" and not "things that will grab everyone's attention and sell more copies." It's fans of the series asking for this... which means it results in few extra sales, because the fans are already very likely going to buy the title, whether that feature is in or not... and non-fans are less likely to be won over by a multiplayer campaign than they are by substantial improvements to the single player one (for the reasons I gave above). That makes it a low-yield endeavor, which in turn makes it low priority, which is probably exactly what it should be: there's simply a whole slew of better and more productive ways for them to improve the TW series.

[Ars Moriendi]

Ive been asking this question since 2003:
What is easier to code?
A MP campaign?
Or an equally challenging "AI"?

This question is a bit misleading. Both MP and AI are difficult, but not because of coding problems.

Artificial Intelligence is a hard problem, meaning it's not even conceptually solved. We can't know yet how difficult it is to code a smart, human-like opponent - not just difficult to defeat, but logical, creative and unpredictable enough to make the game fun, as in playing with another human.

MP campaign has another sort of problem : human players, unlike AI, have lives outside the game. How do you synch the turns ? wait for everyone to move ? let the AI take over after a set time ? It's either going to take too long or be unfair to some players.
There are only three solutions to this : hotseat or play-by-mail (which we already have) ; and realtime campaign, which would be nice, but not really TotalWar anymore (and there's still the problem of synchronizing battles).

[sapi]

No idea how - god knows I read enough about how not to patch the game to avoid things like this - but I've ended up with the 'unspecified error' crash in siege battles, despite a patch from a clean v1.0 install.

My bet's on the original speculation of localisation errors...

EDIT: rofl - I can see why - I've got a 359 line error log

[zaher]

Hi.

First of all i want to say that i love MTW2 most of all TW games exept Shogun. No doubt that this game is most complex from all TW games. I cant play Shogun on setting lower than " very hard" too. And still, i see my future in TW only online, because you will never get AI to play like human. " Smarter AI" in ALL games mean not more intellectual AI but just AI gets more( kinda cheating)

The problem from my view is strategic decisions of AI ( Civ IV FTW !!). It cannot be so simple like programming opposite factions to just attack human player from start and use it like strategic AI. I hardly can understand why Sicily attackin Moors town Algier at turn 3 with all units they got from start and not taking rebel Tripoly. But why they attack Portugal on turn 3-4 with all their start units again, they came across the sea, they dont want to fight muslim Moors nor to take rebel isles or Tunis, just "attack the human" command?

Another poor thing dunno if other noticed- AI planning and making his turns several turns before ( you can see arrow of his turn ) and if , for example, AI wanted to attack your unit and path was blocked so you see him walking arround mountains just to execute this command, wasting several turns on it. Same thing with asassins or merchants. How about to think more regular, AI?

About battles i got a question- why stack of 12 archers, 34 spearmen and 22 cavalry looks exactly like stack of 48 archers, 60 spearmen and 32 cavalry? May be answer is here too? AI travelling with full stack of units, but in closer view this is just remains of army. Mongols moving like cowards, not like fearsome mighty warlords, but that is a question- can 2 stacks of regular army beat 1 stack of mongols with 10 star general in open battle? Why other factions even not dare to compile army like Mongols mongols got it like gift from the stars too

Well, for now, i waiting for patch only to play MP ( bored to play sword factions in SP ) and my last question - why not to make patch that fixing major bugs to make game playable at least, and after that - patch with other improvements ( like hotseat ). Or may be better forget about games without bugs and to wait for new bugged TW series games and expansions - 2 on horizont !!!

[sapi]

Okay, the number of files missing from the patch is ridiculous.

There are even misspellings in the file names and paths

There is a way around - to manually extract them all and/or create where missing - but it's just not a smart way to do things.

I'm interested now, though, so i'll give it a try, and see if I can get around the errors.

[invalidopcode]

The title says "latest update on 1.2 patch" but I have not seen anything related to news of when we can expect the new patch?

Anybody have any idea?

Bueller?

Bueller?

[adembroski]

The title says "latest update on 1.2 patch" but I have not seen anything related to news of when we can expect the new patch?

Anybody have any idea?

Bueller?

Bueller?

Read the first post, it's quite clear.

[TinCow]

That is so untrue it's almost not worth responding. For that statement to be true ("the only way to do that is to make difficulty levels which handicap the player and boost the AI") then it is logical that M2TW has the absolute best AI scripts humanly possible. And I don't believe anyone who has any gaming experience would say that is so. Compare Civ 4 Warlords AI (which is more complex at the strategic level without a shadow of doubt) to M2 and then tell me M2 can't be improved. Completely incorrect statement IMO.

Perhaps the use of the word "only" was wrong, but I stand by general point of my statement. As I see it, even if the bugs in the AI's battle and strategic AI were fixed, it would still be beaten regularly by humans. It might take a game or two for people to adapt to the new AI, but the most basic flaw with the AI is that it is predictable. In certain situations, it will use certain styles. All AIs are like this. It may get better (and it should, I'm not saying CA should stop working on it) but in order for it to be truly challenging, something more is required.

You mentioned the Civ 4 Warlords AI and I think that is the perfect illustration of my point. It is a very good AI, but on Noble level (AI has no bonuses or penalties) it is still very, very easy to beat. Few people regularly lose to it unless they are new players who haven't spent much time with the game. The levels of difficulty above Noble quickly become VERY difficult to beat, and that is entirely due to the bonuses given to the AI. The Civ AI systems have always relied on giving the AI bonuses at higher levels, and that is one reason why they have always been extremely challenging for most people at the higher difficulties.

[Gaius Terentius Varro]

Even in the so called pure AI program like chess the AI cheats. It uses a database( a book?) with different openings/variations and is the eqvivalent of playing against a human opponent thumbing through chess books between moves it just that the computer does it very fast. While the true skilled chess player has memorized those strategies so it actually is cheating.

[FactionHeir]

Isn't it safe to assume that for the most part, players with bigtime interest in multiplayer gaming have already found other games that they've completely latched onto? Everyone I know that has a large interest in multiplayer gaming is addicted to it, and likewise already has the game to suit their addiction. Certainly there'd be little chance of a TW multiplayer component luring away any such players: games like WoW seem to just consume people entirely, and in general the multiplayer fans I know would rather die than consider switching games. All the rest of the gamers I know who are currently not addicted to multiplayer games have little interest in them, or are actively avoiding getting hooked on something multiplayer.

I kind of disagree Foz. Games continually get produced and people's tastes change, so having a TW multiplayer component definitely could lead to many gamers currently latched onto other games converting to TW MP. Its basically the same question as why WoW is so popular. If everyone had found their niche, why did so many people end up with that game? In the NWN community for example which has a very strong MP element, over 30% of people switched to WoW as soon as it became available and more over time. So yes, I think multiplayer campaigns may be a way forward - for those who like strategy games anyway.

As for what's easier to code: AI or MP. I don't know. But I'd think it depends on which way you want the product to go. If you want a game that can still be played many years later, go for MP. If you are just looking for a quick buck and then release new games for a smiliar short period, you'd likely go for AI or maybe none of them...and just graphics, as many games nowadays are.