CA I beseech you! (With poll)

[Zenicetus]

Here is a video of a naval battle. It looks good to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxiRP1A0uKU

That video clip begins with two square-rigged fleets approaching each other head-on. Think about that for a minute. Where's the wind? If it's abeam (coming from the side) then this might be possible, but then why aren't the sails showing that? Each fleet's sails are showing that they're being blown and filled out from astern, but that can't be possible. Okay, maybe the sails don't show wind direction... I can live with that. But it gets worse...

At the 2:00 mark, a ship is shown being selected and making a fairly quick turn to starboard. It's doing that with every sail reefed (not deployed) except for very small sails at the bow and stern. Why is that ship fighting with its sails furled, when other ships in view are showing full sail? This might be due to damage, if we're coming in at the middle of a battle. That would be fine, but you still can't maneuver a sailing ship like this, when it isn't using sails as the "engine." These aren't rowboats.

At 2:49, that same ship is shown deploying full sails, in less than one second. It shouldn't work like that. It looks like the game is allowing very rapid furling of sails to minimize damage, and then deploying full sail again, all with no real effect on the ship's movement or turning rate.

At 2:56 you can see exactly the kind of circular tail chase, with no regard to wind direction, that I've been worried about. They're driving around like powerboats.

I couldn't watch more than five minutes of it. The battle looked completely haphazard, with ships sailing in any direction, not being forced to maneuver with (or against) the wind. That's the whole point of combat under sail, the reason it's tactically interesting... unless you just want to watch pretty pictures of cannon fire and ships sinking.

[Polemists]

The battle looked completely haphazard, with ships sailing in any direction, not being forced to maneuver with (or against) the wind. That's the whole point of combat under sail, the reason it's tactically interesting...

Your against the main stream here I'm afraid. CA has stated once they did play testing back when ships could not sail into the wind and most players found it boring and dull. So they improved it to make it more "fun". Now most tw veteran historians get mad at "fun" because that usually means lack of "history".

Fact is your average gamer prefers a Sid Meyers Pirate like game more then a intense tactical naval simulation. At least that seems to be the design decision of CA.

Of course no one has seen final product, so we will just have to wait and see.

I still say no. The only argument now I hear is, well if they need time, give them time.

Yet the arguments here was basically, should we give them time to fix naval and mp.

Naval seems a design decision and MP will take a looong time. So I don't see much of the argument anymore, the release date is about as gold as it can get.

[knoddy]

i think this thread just proves that u cant please everyone.

I couldn't watch more than five minutes of it. The battle looked completely haphazard, with ships sailing in any direction, not being forced to maneuver with (or against) the wind. That's the whole point of combat under sail, the reason it's tactically interesting... unless you just want to watch pretty pictures of cannon fire and ships sinking.

hate to say it but u will be in a minority here. this will be the reason why CA chose a more arcady style of battle, because they know the majority of people like big epic battles.

i have to say i didnt mind Pirates, but then i wasnt after a naval battle simulator. and also despite the crazy turning u could do in pirates the wind still did have an effect. this is how i suspect it will be in Empire, the wind will have a role, it will just be toned down to make the game more playable and exciting. which im ok with.


and finally aside from the 1 review that said naval combat was a bit worrying or w/e it was. all the other reviews have been full of praise for the naval combat so how bout we wait for demo/release b4 we start criticizing everything we see.


also the camp map looks so damn sexy cant wait :D

Cheers knoddy

[Ituralde]

Concerning the question at hand here, whether I think that CA should delay the game if needed is really easy to answer, I think. The answer is of course yes! If the game crashes every other instant then it should not be shipped. Why didn't I vote it then? Because I don't think it would answer the question asked by Vuk. So much depends on the definition of the if needed part.

From what I've read you seem more interested in getting one of the following answered.
1) Do you think ETW is ready to release in its current state?
2) Would you still buy ETW if it came out one to two months later?

Especially 1) seems to be the issue of much discussion and speculation in this post. My personal oppinion on this is, that I believe ETW to be polised enough to make the March release date. But I would stlly buy ETW if it came out two month later. Of course I would be initially disappointed about it, but as a gamer you learn to live with delays.

So I hope that answers your question without changing the numbers of the poll too much, as I don' think the numbers hold much value to the question at hand.

Cheers!

Ituralde


Besides, where is the Gah! option?

[Fisherking]

Thanks for the video USS Providence 1972.

I have to say I will have to have the game or at least a demo in hand before I can pass judgment on the naval battles.

The instant setting and furling of sails is arcade-like. But I fear that 12 year olds are not going to want to wait for their top men and deck crews to rig sail. I can’t say I actually really expected a sailing sim. That would be a bit much for the parent company to stomach unless it was the total focus of the game, I fear, and even then they would want the “fun factor” to be higher.

The wind moved around about 45° from start to finish, and I don’t know what the strength was.

It was very hard to tell what shot they were firing. Chain may have been fired but it was obvious that round was much over used. Not less than three and perhaps five or even six ships sunk.

Capture didn’t seem to be a priority. If a prize crew was put aboard the one ship, I sure couldn’t see a result.

It was a decisive battle and it sure didn’t take much time. To me it was reckless by both the player and the AI…but it was quick!


The quote from the article above shows they are not going to delay so that discussion is mute.

Besides the quicker we get it the less tweaking to make it “fun” they can do.

Though with Steam and continuing support it won’t be possible to stop it…

[Polemists]

One thing to bear in mind also is that isn't just CA's call, those days are gone. It's true CA once had complete call on everything but now they answer to Sega as well as fans.

There is already a sega release coming out in summer and one in spring, so it's probably in Sega's interest that this comes out Q1 rather then Q2.

I think the article proves that in it's current state it's fun, and the comment proves the date is pretty solid.

At this point I think you are best if you just try to have fun and not focus on the minor nuiances in great detail.

[Zenicetus]

I can’t say I actually really expected a sailing sim. That would be a bit much for the parent company to stomach unless it was the total focus of the game, I fear, and even then they would want the “fun factor” to be higher.

This is the part I really don't understand. Fans of historical land combat will nitpick the Total War game series to death on minor points of historical accuracy. They'll obsess over whether a shield is being held on the correct side of a soldier to give the right damage reduction against archers. But apparently, most don't care if the naval combat is not up to the same standard.

It's very frustrating for those of us who actually have sailed on real water, when we can't get the same depth on the naval combat side of the simulation. I know that not everyone here is a sailor, but I hope you can understand the frustration. Imagine being a fan of the historical longbow, and seeing it modeled in the game as an AK-47 assault rifle. It's about on the same level.

And the shame of it is that sailing tactics are fun! Or at least, they should be.

[Belgolas]

Guys that video is a few months old. They probably fixed some of it up. Anyways I vote that naval combat be less realistic but more fun. Although like all other TWs you should be able to choose arcade battles or not. So I dpn't see why there isn't an options box. Unless the AI can't handle it. Although if naval battles are too hard for the average joe then they probably wont play it.

[hoom]

I would be entirely happy for CA to delay even until next year if they need the time to make the game as good as possible.
I still play mods for the Rome engine now & there are a bunch of bugs from that engine that were never fixed either by CA or by modders.
To me it is much preferable for CA to take the time & make sure everything works properly.

[Polemists]

Well Zen, whether you missed or not here were Jack Lusted comments on the issue a while back, I can link the thread in a edit later if you like

You expect gamers to be sophisticated enough to appreciate flanking tactics and the use of cavalry in land combat, but you think they're unable to grasp the concept of tacking in sail combat?

Oh I'm sure they could, it's just that we felt battles are better without forcing the player to spend ages tacking up wind just to be able to engage.

Or is that CA just couldn't develop an AI that could handle it?

No the AI can and does tack if it's required. Remember, just because we've not made tacking required doesn't mean that if you choose to tack you'll see benefits.

This might as well have been a WW1 game with propeller-driven ships, if you're going to disregard the way sailing ships actually move on the water!

Ships do move at different speeds relating to the wind direction(and in fact sail fastest with wind slightly off one beam instead of directly behind them) so it's a very realistic sailing model, the only thing we've really changed is ships sailing into the wind

.

You can say it's dull or you can say it's annoying or a fun factor or whatever. The bottom line was everything you want, tacking, wind, etc is in there, just in small dosages. Which people enjoyed more then large doses. (or CA thought they would enjoy more)

Like I said it's probably like Sid Meyers which I found very fun but several historians here loathe. Just personal opinons at end fo the day.

[Fisherking]

This is the part I really don't understand. Fans of historical land combat will nitpick the Total War game series to death on minor points of historical accuracy. They'll obsess over whether a shield is being held on the correct side of a soldier to give the right damage reduction against archers. But apparently, most don't care if the naval combat is not up to the same standard.

It's very frustrating for those of us who actually have sailed on real water, when we can't get the same depth on the naval combat side of the simulation. I know that not everyone here is a sailor, but I hope you can understand the frustration. Imagine being a fan of the historical longbow, and seeing it modeled in the game as an AK-47 assault rifle. It's about on the same level.

And the shame of it is that sailing tactics are fun! Or at least, they should be.

While a lot of fans broil over historical inaccuracies, when the smoke clears, they have always gone with some “fan boy” fix to a precived problem that wasn’t there in the first place.

It is a shame that the history and realisam is usualy sacrificed because someone with an attention span disorder can’t fallow what is going on. It isn’t just in the naval game however and it is not just CA that does it.

I can’t think of a sailing naval simulater that is accurate, if someone knows one…drop a name.

I am looking forward to this game…even with out all the nay saying.

If you want to wait a year or two for a game…than that is the next one. Maybe E2TW will give you what you want.

I can hardly wait for them to add ship to shore warfare and landing parties, but I don’t want to wait for them to rewrite the engien and put it in.

Multiplayer in a few months I can live with, especially since that is what they told us in December.

I would much rather be playing the game and complaining about it than spending endless hours discussing what if, and will this be in ,or how much delay to have the game this way…

[Polemists]

I don't think it's just navy getting picked on, if you scoured these forums you'd find there are historians of land combat who are just as angry about certain things in ETW (land formations, charges, musket volley, etc).

However, at the end of the day, like I said, you can call it not a "fun factor", you can call it angles, you can call it hyper active kids, you can call it short attentions spans. Whatever phrase you like.

When they get the testers together though, they seem to want the factors included in a minor fashon.

Not say wind is not in, it's just not AS in as some want.

The fact it's in at all, is CA trying to cater a little to the veterans, because let's face it, they could do red alert 3 graphics naval combat, and the game would still sell at end of the day. The rts fans out number the historians, fact of life. The two groups rarely get along.

[Zenicetus]

Your against the main stream here I'm afraid. CA has stated once they did play testing back when ships could not sail into the wind and most players found it boring and dull.

That's not how I remember it. What I remember is a CA rep posting a message here saying that they tried realistic tacking, and playtesters (internally, I assume) got confused when they told a ship to "go over there," and the ship turned 45 degrees to the opposite direction because you can't sail directly upwind. Or anywhere near that direction, with a square-rigger.

This is understandable, but it's a question of education. Players learn other things about warfare in this period. We had to learn about phalanxes in Rome. We had to learn about pikes and horse archers. Why shouldn't the naval combat be as tactically interesting as the land combat? Why should it be dumbed down like this? It's not rocket science. You can learn the points of sail, and why ships can't sail directly upwind without engines, with a few minute's study of the Wiki on sailing. The basics of sailing are much less complicated than learning all the minutae of land combat. Without it, the naval combat is an arcade game.

So they improved it to make it more "fun". Now most tw veteran historians get mad at "fun" because that usually means lack of "history".

Do you know why many people still own, and even race sailboats, even though it's a totally outmoded form of transportation on the water? It's because sailing is fun! It's a challenge to move a boat with just wind power. Sailboat racing is fun too, and it involves exactly the same tactics as combat at sea.

Steering ships around as if they had engines and screw props can be fun too, but let's make that a WWI game about the golden age of dreadnought battleships, not the golden age of expansion of Empires by sailing fleets.

Naval seems a design decision and MP will take a looong time. So I don't see much of the argument anymore, the release date is about as gold as it can get.

I agree. But it won't stop some of us from wishing it could have been more.

[USS Providence 1972]

That video clip begins with two square-rigged fleets approaching each other head-on. Think about that for a minute. Where's the wind? If it's abeam (coming from the side) then this might be possible, but then why aren't the sails showing that? Each fleet's sails are showing that they're being blown and filled out from astern, but that can't be possible. Okay, maybe the sails don't show wind direction... I can live with that. But it gets worse...

At the 2:00 mark, a ship is shown being selected and making a fairly quick turn to starboard. It's doing that with every sail reefed (not deployed) except for very small sails at the bow and stern. Why is that ship fighting with its sails furled, when other ships in view are showing full sail? This might be due to damage, if we're coming in at the middle of a battle. That would be fine, but you still can't maneuver a sailing ship like this, when it isn't using sails as the "engine." These aren't rowboats.

At 2:49, that same ship is shown deploying full sails, in less than one second. It shouldn't work like that. It looks like the game is allowing very rapid furling of sails to minimize damage, and then deploying full sail again, all with no real effect on the ship's movement or turning rate.

At 2:56 you can see exactly the kind of circular tail chase, with no regard to wind direction, that I've been worried about. They're driving around like powerboats.

I couldn't watch more than five minutes of it. The battle looked completely haphazard, with ships sailing in any direction, not being forced to maneuver with (or against) the wind. That's the whole point of combat under sail, the reason it's tactically interesting... unless you just want to watch pretty pictures of cannon fire and ships sinking.

I understand what you are saying. The devs responded to the review which complained about naval battles being too complicated by saying they were doing things to make them more fun. I'm not sure whether this video is before or after that change. Perhaps there will be a mod available to make the sailing more realistic?

Either way I'm looking forward to fighting the naval battles and adjusting to whatever realism level there is. It sure beats the RTW way of simming all naval battles.

[Buckwallis]

What's the past tense of beseeched? Besought? I wonder if CA has ever been besought.

No delay...let's have at it already. It can always be patched....

[Crazed Rabbit]

No, it's likely way too late already anyway. It's almost gone on sale - DVDs have been written, boxes made, logistics arranged.

If you had asked half a year ago or more, I'd say - take the time to make it good. Hopefully they've done that, seeing as they have delayed once.

CR

[Polemists]

Yes at this point it's what, 17 days until release 18 if your sleeping as I type this, but still 17 when you wake up

I mean at this point they have orders shipped and items pre ordered, so it would actually cost them more to delay it again then just releasing it.

As others have said, they already took one delay, they know what they are doing. If they said they needed one month, then that's what they needed.

The game looks good and I think it will be fun, no need to push it to june or something ridilucous just to add in random features that were never intended for release anyway.

[ThePianist]

CA should have had people evaluate some of it first. From the author of the post, yes they should take one more month or two months. Fans will always be there (no one is dying anytime soon, especially not the gaming population). I think if CA tries to rush it, it's out of fear that banks will not always be there, and they are correct on that one. Depending on whether the government of the United States admits the wrongdoing of its spies and many other things, I wouldn't be surprised if the future history textbooks mention, among other things, the Greater Depression, in early 21st century.

Anyway, really agree with signature. It would help sell it much more as well, not to mention lengthen its playability with added or improved features by feedback (though Total War games are very replayable by default).

[Polemists]

CA has a variety of reason to release it. The first and foremost is the game is DONE.


Secondly, they do have financial obligations. Sega has cut a company recently, and stated that they are tired of companies making delays and not getting out products. They want effiecent companies are not afraid to cut ones that don't do it and put no ones in there place.

Sega owns CA, so at end of the day it's Sega's call.

Either way the game looks done, but I don't worry about it.