Brigden Response to Game Flaws in Empire: Total War

[Servius]

It may also be helpful to break up the issues into some groups.

1) There are bugs that cause the game to crash. I have no idea what % of the players are having these issues. I know I had them happen pretty often on release, but after the patches so far, they happen much more rarely.

2) There are things, apparently bugs, that cause certain parts of the game to not function as CA planned/desired. The lack of naval invasions is an excellent example of this. This kind of problem is bug-related and is affecting everyone.

3) There are issues, similar to the lack of naval invasions, that have in-game work-arounds that CA should fix eventually but players can compensate for at the moment. For example, I've experienced some issues with trade posts near Madagascar where you can't move ships off a trade post. The value of trade from each post also does not increase if you add another ship. Instead, you have to move 2 ships in at the same time, rather than adding them 1 by 1. Well, though I know I shouldn't have to, I can just build 2 trade ships, merge them, send them near the trade post, scupper the bugged trade ship, and then put the merged stack there instead. Yeah, it costs time and money I shouldn't have had to spend, but this kind of issues seems less important than #1 or #2 above since I can compensate for it on my own.

4) There are improvements to what IS in the game that we wish would be made. Many kinds of AI improvements, and probably some pathfinding issues, fit here. The game has AI and pathfinding routines, and they do work at a basically competant level most of the time, but it could work better. I know it seems stupid for a sole horseman to be trying to run through a house in a town instead of just going around it, but we have to remember that it's not a real guy on a horse down there, it's a bit of code that bumped into something it wasn't expecting and hasn't been told what to do in that situation.

5) There are features that look like they were in some build of the game, but weren't included in the final game. I think the Mugal empire is one, and maybe family trees too. These are things where there are bits of code and data in the game files that suggest a more robust feature, but you can't access it in-game. This is a gameplay opinion choice made by CA. We may disagree with it, but it's their game and they have the right to decide what's in it and what's not. Look at it this way, at least they didn't delete all the guts out. Since the guts are still in the game files, modders will figure out how to allow access to these features and fill in the unfinished parts for those of us who prefer that these bits be in the game.

6) There are things that CA never intended to be in the game at any stage of development that some players may wish they had put in. Maybe the end-of-game score card thing is a good example of this. I don't blame CA for these things not being in the game, since CA is entitled to decide what they want in the game and what they don't. They don't owe us these things, even if we think they should be there. I think all hotkeys in DOW2 should be remappable by the player, but apparently there was disagreement amongst the DOW2 devs on this and my side lost. Oh well. Hopefully modders can add things like this in, but I don't expect CA to put in stuff they never even considered putting in.

[Callahan9119]

CTD's and other random or sometimes random issues I dont have a problem with, for reasons already given.

It is other things that really make me mad. That the AI is incapable of getting any of its units to another area via the HUGE oceans etc and the half-assed utilization of America and India are outrages in my opinion, and I wouldn't of bought this game had I known.

Certain reviewers who were in bed with Sega are also responsible.

[MrWhipple]

Here is what I posted on a similar thread.

For all you folks that are going ape excrement over all of this, just look as your selves as alpha testers for the CA. Yes we are all part of the same team!

I used to work for the Game Industry as well as my Emmy Award winning son. And I can assure you what is going on. The Suits at Sega (not the hard working programmers and designers at theCA) said something like "Hey guys we are running short on funds on this project so let's just throw it out the door the way it is. It didn't hurt us too bad last time. There are Oddles of geeks out there lining up at their local Wal-Mart just drooling to drag this puppy home no matter how bad it is."

And you know, He was right. We love this stuff so much and it is so much a part of our lives that we would just about walk over broken glass to play. So we suffer through CTD's and bad sound and all that crap with hopes that it will get better.

And the good news is that it DOES GET BETTER. For all of us who have been her since Shogun we know and trust the great guys and gals at the CA. It is the guys with the suits and ties that piss us off.

[satchef1]

CTD's and other random or sometimes random issues I dont have a problem with, for reasons already given.

It is other things that really make me mad. That the AI is incapable of getting any of its units to another area via the HUGE oceans etc and the half-assed utilization of America and India are outrages in my opinion, and I wouldn't of bought this game had I known.

Certain reviewers who were in bed with Sega are also responsible.

I remember my first Dutch (or was it British?) campaign, the advisor was telling me to be quick about getting to India otherwise other nations would beat me to it and i'd miss out on this fresh new world...

To be fair to Empire, i only have two major gripes;

1. Far, far too often i'll try to select a whole stack and accidentally only select a single unit (maybe a bug, maybe just the campaign map lag). I lose a lot of units this way, it's either suicide attack or retreat, either way they are useless to me for their intended purpose.

2. The AI is far, far too passive. It just feels like all of the other factions are just waiting there to be defeated, one by one. It almost makes playing the game pointless, even on VH/VH there's very little challenge.

I'd also love the game to stop grinding to a crawl all the time. The campaign map lag is very irritating.

[Furunculus]

if CA continue to support my game, they in turn will continue to receive my support.

[AussieGiant]

Based on that response, I will stick by CA.

It's the first time I've ever seen such a frank and open approach to a consumer based product.

[jsberry]

There's another group of problem: outright historical inaccuracies.

For example, if Prussia takes Silesia, Austria should be hell-bent on regaining it. In ETW, the gift of one gift horse will soothe things over. Ridiculous. Easy fix: if A takes a province originally owned by B, then B will remain at war or at best "hostile" until it regains the province.

Another example: "Westphalia" is an abomination. The whole point of 1700s geopolitics was fighting over the tiny dukedoms one by one. There should at least be Hesse, Palatinate, and Kleves and/or Berg. Easy fix: double the number of European minors. Some can be active (as now) and the smaller ones can be passive, with just a non-moving garrison and a town.

Another example: Courland, in reality was a completely passive protectorate of Poland. In ETW, it is more active and more powerful than Poland. Easy fix: reduce Courland's army and activity. (The better but harder fix is to make Poland play intelligently, but that is discussed in posts above).

Another example: It should be impossible for Holland to conquer and incorporate France. Easy fix: when a major power's capital is occupied, it is not removed from play. Instead, it must surrender and give X territories or Y money to the victor. This would improve both balance and reality.

These aren't problems with "code" - they betray insensitivity to the historical period of the game.

[MikeV]

For all you folks that are going ape excrement over all of this, just look as your selves as alpha testers for the CA. Yes we are all part of the same team!

With the notable distinction that we get to pay for the "priviledge," while they get paid to write this ... stuff.

I used to work for the Game Industry as well as my Emmy Award winning son. And I can assure you what is going on. The Suits at Sega (not the hard working programmers and designers at theCA) said something like "Hey guys we are running short on funds on this project so let's just throw it out the door the way it is. It didn't hurt us too bad last time. There are Oddles of geeks out there lining up at their local Wal-Mart just drooling to drag this puppy home no matter how bad it is."

Very flattering description of the user base. As a geek myself, though, I'd be happy to help fix the code. Where can I get my hands on it?

"Used to work"? -- what are you doing, these days?

And you know, He was right. We love this stuff so much and it is so much a part of our lives that we would just about walk over broken glass to play. So we suffer through CTD's and bad sound and all that crap with hopes that it will get better.

... or we just lost our job and have nothing better to do ...

And the good news is that it DOES GET BETTER. For all of us who have been her since Shogun we know and trust the great guys and gals at the CA. It is the guys with the suits and ties that piss us off.

I'm not so sure. It seems we've reached a point of diminishing returns -- each successive release requires us to buy new machines, but then each release has more (and more severe) bugs. Not something a little data mod can fix.

[MikeV]

It may also be helpful to break up the issues into some groups.

Well, what you've described is a pretty standard bug prioritization / triage scheme. Hopefully, they're using it already.

It would be nice, though, if there was an online Bugzilla we could access -- we could weed out the duplicates and update with screen shots and/or save files to help in the debugging (which would get the fixes out faster)

This is one of the important ideas in open source projects: more people == more eyeballs == more help finding and fixing problems. I guess, while they were re-inventing wheels (like their "virtual file system"), they didn't notice the development of some of the more helpful software tools over the past decade ...

[Devastatin Dave]

Lets sum it all up like this: If you don't love TW games or don't support CA then what are you doing on these forums!?

For the whippings....

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

See, I don't see why we can't have it both ways. We should acknowledge that CA's latest game is ridiculously complex and we should be understanding of problems when CA recognizes that they exist and move to fix them. And on the other hand, we should wait for CA to release a few sets of patches and for a few mods to be released to your tastes before purchasing the game. I'm planning on ruining any chance of productivity for myself - several months down the road.

[Eduin]

I don't understand the acceptance people have for faulty products.

The game is blatantly broken.

Selecting a 3rd rate or higher fleet without a Sloop will bug out after you have researched Gallant Topsails starting in NA theatre around turn 100 and then Europe around turn 140. This is repeatable and game breaking. It has to have been known if there was *any* sort of effective testing.

Secondly the Turn Speed is completely unacceptable. End turn takes too long *from turn 1* and gets worse. Given that the game is generally won at turn 80, to get a victory screen, you then have 120 End Turns, which will run anything from 3 to 12 minutes. Let's call an average of 5 minutes. To get a victory screen requires 10 HOURS of hitting End Turn. Ten bloody hours.

The abilities and effectiveness of units in the battle stage is such that all you do is create stacks of 20 Line Infantry. Cavalry is completely broken. Skirmishers do not work effectively. End game artillery gives a choice of 20 Line or 10 Line and 10 24lbers but tbh thats hardly the sort of variety you are looking for.

The campgain AI just doesn't work. Let's forget the hilarity of no naval invasions, just consider the ridiculous trades offered (repeatedly), the nonsensical choices it makes of attack, the ridiculous army make ups. The whole thing is comical.

For sure they can fix the code (eventually) and remove the CTDs or at least most of them. But some of this is basic design flaws. I can't see them making this as enjoyable as Rome TW withing 12 months and, frankly, that's just sad.

They are now like every developer - infested by people who think eye candy is what people want. Its not, no-one cares about graphics, give us GAMEPLAY.

Regards,
Eduin

[MikeV]

There is no way this game is "finished" and any CA employee stating otherwise is simply lying for damage control.

Well, according to the credits, Kieran Brigden is listed under Marketing as the "Studio Communications Manager."

So, yes, damage control is his job.
This release ought to keep him busy ...