Where is the game going?

[Turbosatan]

Some of this has been a simple misunderstanding of what the players are looking for, and CA has seemed to be listening.

I pray that they still are and can move the game back to a political, economic, & military model, in that order and not just all war all the time.
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C'mon guys, you're talking like MTW1 was Europa Universalis. In which TW game have they had a "political, economic & military model, in that order"? 'Cos I sure as Hell must've missed it.

I found the last two games a complete & utter turn-off meself, because there was nothing to do apart from micromanage vast amounts of frankly boring stuff. Which I suppose is why I like Empire so much, because it sort of kinda maybe a bit feels like MTW1 with Caravel's (late of this parish) Pocket Mod installed: levelled playing field & simplified unit-building tree that even the computer can manage, so you can quickly get into some fights & kill some stuff against decent opponents.

With ETW, for all the criticism & the bugs I think they've got the battles back to a standard where you actually have to, you know, concentrate, which I think is why they've only paid lip-service (though a flashy, possibly intriguing lip-service) to the Empire Total Accountant side of the game. The Empire Total Accountant side of the game is there but it feels bolted on. You can tell, it's not the point of the game. It plays sometimes like some kind of cut-down shareware Windows 95 strategy game. Which is fine. If I wanted a game like that, I'd have bought one without the word "WAR" in the title.

Sorry to go on but sometimes I feel like you guys are making a category error, in that you are saying "This part of the game is underdeveloped, it should be changed". Whereas I've got the feeling it was meant to be that way from the start. Which is fine. I didn't develop the game, so I really can't comment on what it was meant to be like. Who can?

Not saying that my opinion is right, but just mentioning that maybe the party line isn't necessarily unanimous either.

I've got this creeping feeling reading the forums that most of the problems are not with this game expressly, but rather the image people had in their heads of what the game was going to be like, & the disconnect between the two.

[Fisherking]

C'mon guys, you're talking like MTW1 was Europa Universalis. In which TW game have they had a "political, economic & military model, in that order"? 'Cos I sure as Hell must've missed it.

I found the last two games a complete & utter turn-off meself, because there was nothing to do apart from micromanage vast amounts of frankly boring stuff. Which I suppose is why I like Empire so much, because it sort of kinda maybe a bit feels like MTW1 with Caravel's (late of this parish) Pocket Mod installed: levelled playing field & simplified unit-building tree that even the computer can manage, so you can quickly get into some fights & kill some stuff against decent opponents.

With ETW, for all the criticism & the bugs I think they've got the battles back to a standard where you actually have to, you know, concentrate, which I think is why they've only paid lip-service (though a flashy, possibly intriguing lip-service) to the Empire Total Accountant side of the game. The Empire Total Accountant side of the game is there but it feels bolted on. You can tell, it's not the point of the game. It plays sometimes like some kind of cut-down shareware Windows 95 strategy game. Which is fine. If I wanted a game like that, I'd have bought one without the word "WAR" in the title.

Sorry to go on but sometimes I feel like you guys are making a category error, in that you are saying "This part of the game is underdeveloped, it should be changed". Whereas I've got the feeling it was meant to be that way from the start. Which is fine. I didn't develop the game, so I really can't comment on what it was meant to be like. Who can?

Not saying that my opinion is right, but just mentioning that maybe the party line isn't necessarily unanimous either.

I've got this creeping feeling reading the forums that most of the problems are not with this game expressly, but rather the image people had in their heads of what the game was going to be like, & the disconnect between the two.

The feel of the game when it was released, and the feel now are two different animals.

Sure you are in a fight from the start. Improvements are so expensive they don’t get built. The economy is tanked and building troops will put you in the hole. Running an economy in the red results in all units loosing half their men.

There are three factions that start conquering off the bat but that is all. Most of the people who want only to kill troops play those factions. But that is not the sum total of the game.

The AI is no challenge because it is as financially broke or more so than the player. It feels like you are beating up on a kindergarten class.

The AI makes stupid meaningless declarations of war and stands no chance of doing anything but providing a convenient target. There is no strategy. It only leaves you with an operational decision as to which target to take out first and some minor tactical decisions on how to fight the battles you had won before you even attacked.

I usually find the war part of the game the least challenging though at the moment most of the rest has been locked away behind the more aggressive AI to where it is simply something to click but has no other function.

[al Roumi]

I don't understand why there is this perception that economic development is pointless or inneffective. There are some golden rules which I've now hard-coded into my game play and with them it is possible to build up to a large income. Improvements are most certainly worth building, but they have a mid-long term effect, mostly on taxable town wealth.

I would tend to seperate the economic changes (with which I am ok) from the AI changes in v1.2, although they do have some areas of transitions which I would argue are only apparent due to the AI being unable to handle these conditions adequately.

I can but agree with you though Fisherking on the flimsy campaign strategy, I however put it down to the confused AI. I interpret what you say as the feeling that the challenge in a campaign lies only in overcoming small hurdles, that do not scale as the game progresses. ETW's scope really is one hell of a lot broader than it's ancestors' and it seems to me the AI is simply underequipped to deal with the variety of options and decisions it has to make or are on offer. Discussing how the game plays is, IMO, to jump beyond the more pertinent questions of why the AI can't play the game itself.

Unfortunately, as with the end of turn pause attributed to the AI negotiating those 'tricky' land-bridges, the AI simply seems to stall when faced with the plethora of options at its disposal.

At best I have seen 1 or two factions really get an upper hand and form a significant enough land-block accross the 3 theatres (and only ever those isolated to one continent e.g. Prussia, Russia, Austria, Maratha, Mughals...) and these are those for whom the game is arguably simplest! They have more or less centralised resources, are present in only one theatre and are those least reliant on sea power or trade (beyond trade agreements) for income.

TW games have never reflected the kind of strategic AI found in anything like civ or galactic civilizations. Upping the anty with the addition of everything extra to MTW2 seems to have proved too much -so far.

[Fisherking]

The economy is certainly worth building up! I hope I didn’t say that it wasn’t. The trouble is that the resources (money) are not available to do it in a timely manner and the cost beyond the third level is so high as to present a problem for the player and far beyond what the AI can spend.

The AI has war as a priority. Troops are required for that, any troops, so it builds what is cheapest to recruit and maintain.

I have taken regions where it had not been developed from its at start position and any new towns or ports were still undeveloped. Taxes seem to be set so that most of its troops are required just for garrisons. Few will develop towns until captured. Some regions will actually reverse their previous developments when they rebel. In a couple of regions schools and other development disappear and are replace by other building when captured.

This was most certainly not the case pre-patch. The AI did build massive armies of cheap troops of low quality for the most part but it was able to handle the economy also.

As to the AI being unable to play the game, it does not do the best of jobs. But again it is the programmed priorities that I would blame.

It needs a broader set of instructions and a better sense of what the troops do. You would hope that it could flourish rather than stagnate and give a feel of competent competition with the player and not a fumbling pawn to be exterminated.

The AI factions should be the challenge, not the game mechanics throwing random events and declarations of war at the player. Not monetary constraints, or game cheats that harass the player or cost more time and money.

There is no strategy in randomness. No negotiations the computer god. No way to proactively anticipate where to go. It is all reaction and damage control.

There should be some things the player can have a positive effect on other than who dies next.

[al Roumi]

The AI factions should be the challenge, not the game mechanics throwing random events and declarations of war at the player. Not monetary constraints, or game cheats that harass the player or cost more time and money.

I couldn't agree more.

I have taken regions where it had not been developed from its at start position and any new towns or ports were still undeveloped. Taxes seem to be set so that most of its troops are required just for garrisons. Few will develop towns until captured. Some regions will actually reverse their previous developments when they rebel. In a couple of regions schools and other development disappear and are replace by other building when captured.

I'm not sure I've seen this much tbh. What difficulty are you playing on?

Generally on H I've found that the AI (almost all factions) is able to more or less keep up with research (i use 3 schools) and often will upgrade farms, roads and govt buildings well before me. Maybe the Ai runs with higher taxes though -delaying town appearance?

I have to say though that the general rule is for factions to capture a few regions and then stagnate.

For whatever reason, the AI factions don't ever seem very decisive in their action. Because the area where I've seen the most decisiveness (read: ruthless pursual of conquest and annihilation of enemies) is India -which I'd consider the least complex theatre, I think the AI already has too many options.

This is especially the case in central and northern europe where factions are provided with such a complex web of possibilities that the AI tries to deal with all of them (most crudely, attack whilst ensuring defense, Military power without compromising economic development).

I'm getting to the stage of advocating the kind of scripted AI behaviour that was used in MTW2.. e.g. the free for all over Corsica and Sardinia.

[Didz]

Well as my Trade Theatre Usage Analysis shows the AI is not even programmed well enough to expliot trade resources when the player leaves them open for it to do so. So, basically, if the AI factions can't even earn comparable revenue from trade what hope have they actually got of being a challenge for a player who does. The nearest competitor I have in my current campaign is Portugal which is managing to make 1,600 a turn from trade compared to my revenue of over 11,000.

[anweRU]

And Portugal already had that fleet at the beginning of the game. It was given the fleet by CA, it didn't recruit it...

[al Roumi]

That's a very good point Didz & anweRU... It goes a long way to explain why "naval powers" (France, GB, Spain, UP, Portugal) never live up to the moniker and are in practice a bit limp.