Latest update on 1.2 patch from Sega/CA

[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.

[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.

[Quickening]

Okay my browser (firefox 2) is constantly crashing on this forum now for some reason.

Anyway today I tried my experiment to see how well I would do by just doing whatever it takes to win. The results speak for themselves.



The last time I completed a short campaign being honourable, I had just four turns left before the campaign ended! I succeeded by the skin of my teeth.

Here, it's turn twenty-two and I have only four more provinces to take and Ive won. And even that is only because Ive been giving provinces to the Papal States to form a wall between myself, the HRE and Milan.

One of the main differences was that usually I take all rebel provinces before going for the AI. This time I attacked both France and Scotland from the off and never gave them a moments peace.

So the conclusion is obvious. Nice guys finish last.

I have to say that although Im about to beat a campaign in my fastest time ever, I do enjoy trying to be honourable much more than doing whats best to win.


NOTE: I always play on VH/VH


EDIT: Oh wait I forgot half of what I was going to say. I also got excommunicated in my game but bizarrely, I havent suffered at all for it. My people don't seem to be batting an eyelid despite them also being taxed into the ground.
Whenever Ive been honourable and been excommunicated my peasants were up in arms despite the fact I had everywhere set on low taxes.

It seems to me that it's far too easy to win being a tyrant than it is being Chivalrous. I assume that excommunication and a bad reputation was meant to balance this out but in reality, neither of these things hinder you much if at all.

[Quickening]

Heh, looks like my evil antics have finally caught up with me. Despite me giving them about five regions, the Papal States attacked me! The Pope himself has come to combat the heretical England.

But Im not sure if they declared war on me because Ive been evil or if that's what the Papal States do if you give them land.

Either way, Ive never been at war with the Pope before. Nice.

[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.

[hellenes]

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).

Ive written an idea to solve any MP campaign hinderances....:

"A Gigantic map...that has every little castle, dutchy, county that existed in Medieval times. 100 factions (Knights of Honor has as much) so any player will have the choice to choose any faction he likes.
A living world that is in REAL time and runs 24/7.

Whenever a player starts he makes an account and chooses a faction.
Now he can pick up an army from the available pool depending on the buildings his faction has at that time. Hes allocated with set amount of cash to start. After that he has many options: Either manage his castle/province or engage in diplomacy with the neighbours or or even start a war by attacking a nearby settlement or army.

Any action he is doing is represented as his character as a general and his army as his tool of destruction. His army grows or dwindles depending on his actions.
Now the most important factor (IMO) is what happens when the player is absent? Well his army simply loggs off the game! And his castle is manned by the "PO" garrison of a decent amount of archers/crossbows and militia OR if his faction has more than one players (mostly the popular factions like Byzantium or England) that player is notified to fight to defend the castle. The diplomacy in the case of multiple players that picked up the same faction is treated on a presence/rank level meaning that any negotiations will be engaged with the highest ranking player (meaning clan/faction leader and lower) present at that time OR on a pre set basis or "guidelines" that are given by the absent leader.

All players will be free enough to go wherever they want in real time on a scaled movement rate however with the appropriate consequences like a war declaration or annoyance...
There will be rebel armies in a quide abudant numbers with plenty of little catsles and provinces to expand to...
The characters themselves would aqcuire parameters same as the SP game based on the player's actions with the death of the character the player would either get the heir of that character (so he must make sure that his character gets married) or if there is no heir the player gets to fight a mini civil war and pickes the side, and if that side wins he gets a new character spwaning from the ranks....

Also the world that surrounds the player can be set in the battle engine of the TW games WITHOUT any boundaries and if the sizes of armies are too big for the server to cope with it, the strategic layer can be used in real time as |I said before.
On the unit sizes the player can pick up ANY size he wants the cost of the units will be based on per soldier capita....So if 100 spearmen cost 100 florins to buy and 50 florins to upkeep, 200 spearmen will cost 200 florins to buy and 100 florins to upkeep.
Speaking of which the castle that the player is allocated with generates a fixed amount of money that pays the upkeep cost of anything that the player has in his army.
If the castle of the player is lost his army turns into "bandits" and he will not pay any upkeep for them until he recovers his castle or takes the castle from another player. In the case that the player belongs to a bigger faction he can become a general in the service of the monarch but his army will have to be paid from the crown's coffins but will have the option to recruit soldiers from the crown's castles/cities at his expense (the player generates wealth through looting enemie territories/castles or from booty from the battles and has his personal money).

The crown itslef is an entity thats allocated to the faction/clan leader it recieves a "crown tax" from the other clan members engages in state level diplomacy and generally operates the "big picture" of the clan/faction.
Naval battles will be made controllable and the troops that are present on board will participate in any engagement. No agents will be present in the game since the diplomacy would be dealt through a chat and any other character would be simply part of an agreement (marriage would be agreed through a chat no need for a princess character)...

If at any later point a new player joins the game he will be allocated soldiers/castle etc scalable to the point that the game is at that time so there are no phaenomena like a newbe with peasants against a veteran with gothic troops.
Armour upgrades and soldiers will be tradable, like the player can "upgrade" his byzantine infantry to varangians by "disbanding" the infantry in the castle and having the worth of that unit back (again based on per soldier capita) and by purchasing a unit of varangians the same size (or bigger with extra cost) as the byzantine infantry by paying any difference...

Events will take place in the game at a chronological time through "upgrades" that the developers will release (like chronicles in La2) like the high era upgrade after a year or the mongol invasion patch....
Speaking of UNPLAYABLE factions the mongols or the astecs will be mainly the PvE element that will require HUGE alliances to be forged to deal with them.
The Pope will be a GM character in the game regulating the catholic factions and launching crusades. The orthodox factions will have the patriarch of costantinople as the spiritual leader and most importantly will play major role in the reunification of churchers attempts that will be voted by orthodox players (players that control orthodox factions).
The crusades will be deal in the sense of raids with huge alliances forged to march to the holy land..."

This ^^^ IMO solves any problems...Both suitable for casual and hardcore gamer...No grinding or any leveling up...NO hinderous PvE element (just Mongol Invasion which even can be manned by random MP generals)...
You want to play couple of battles and log off? Fine...
You want to engage in dimplomacy? Fine log on and negotiate...
Youre a faction/clan leader and you need generals to man the battles? Just open a "reqruitment" announcement on the chat and any one that wants to fight a battle jumps in...
Of course this idea isnt perfect (nothing is) and will need refinement but its the only way to solve the "AI" problem once and for all...