The (Old) Official ETW Criticism Thread

[Prince_of_Macedon]

I have no REAL troubles with the game itself except for:
- not many Multiplayer factions (only 12?)
- no fair maps for Multiplayer (either the host or the guest has an advantage in deployment). Needs a perfectly flat map so that terrain can't be blamed for a Multiplayer loss.
- the uniforms are lacking. I want the glorious blue & white uniforms of the Grand Army's infantry.

Most of my gripes are against Steam. But please read my signature if you want to know how to play this game OFFLINE (like every other NON-Steam game).

[GowronX]

Lack of unit variety is a killer for me. Hell, even if CA didn't bother to change the unit models and just gave different factions different named units with slightly different abilities/stats I would be fine. But no, with a few exceptions, its my generic line infantry vs. his generic line infantry. So much of the replayability of MTW2 came from the vastly different playstyles of each individual faction - once you have finished one campaign in ETW, there really isnt a point starting another.

[The Emperor of Down Under]

I am dissapointed in the Collectors addition and the game in general.

I bought the collecters thinking I will get some awsome video or maybe an awsome guide or something but instead the only thing different from the special forces edition is the box, the drinking flask thing, and the compass,
I turn the cover over and discover u can't even drink from the flask.

Reguardless I got ripped off.

P.S The Compass is not a useable compass but I expected that as it costs heaps of time and money to make a real compass.

[Hunter Makoy]

I don't care if its already been corrected in here, it still bugs the hell out of me.

There was never 20-30 playable factions in ANY TW game. M2TW had like 18, and RTW had even less. There was always the POSSIBILITY of 30 playable factions in M2TW, but guess how many possible there are here? 50! with the addition of being able to add as many as you want!

[Hmoob]

I don't care if its already been corrected in here, it still bugs the hell out of me.

There was never 20-30 playable factions in ANY TW game. M2TW had like 18, and RTW had even less. There was always the POSSIBILITY of 30 playable factions in M2TW, but guess how many possible there are here? 50! with the addition of being able to add as many as you want!

Only 50? They could have made 100 factions. Just copy/paste the code, and name the faction something else.

For me, the only fun part of Empire was watching the animation of soldiers shooting. It got old after a while, though...

My only hope now is Star Wars Total War.

[SuperKyle]

I don't care if its already been corrected in here, it still bugs the hell out of me.

There was never 20-30 playable factions in ANY TW game. M2TW had like 18, and RTW had even less. There was always the POSSIBILITY of 30 playable factions in M2TW, but guess how many possible there are here? 50! with the addition of being able to add as many as you want!

actually, think if the mod to unlock the 50 factions couldn't be done for whatever reason (just assume), then there'd only be the possibility of 12 factions, making it the least nations playable from vanilla of the three most recent total war games. That's a step back

[Godless Pickle]

One word will sum up this game after 2 days of playing: UNFINISHED.

It is clearly rushed.

Rome total war & METW2 -> unique armies, larger battles, allowed reinforcements.
METW2 -> got rid of the clone armies
METW2 -> somewhat improved AI

Empire total war -> horrible AI, sometimes they just stand there and die.
-> Return of the clone armies.
-> 12 playable factions compared to the 20-30 in the other two games.
-> No minor countries to play. (Oh ok, INDIA, that's one...... .. .... ...)
-> 3 historical battles? wtf? why even include this in the game? 2 were in the demo... +1 is just a waste of time.
-> 2 turn years for 1700-1800. That's like the first half of Rome total war, that's what it feels like. LAME.
-> Basically...everything summed up, the game just feels unpolished and unfinished, which is sad, considering how great I think the game is. I like it. It's going to take a mod to finish the game because I don't see all the problems being fixed with just patches until a long time.

I told my girlfriend not to buy it and just hold off, sucks because we wanted to play together. Oh well, she'll just play mine I guess.

Ok, now compare all the greatly awesome features of Empires. You expect that it was to be perfect. Was MED2 awesome when it first came out, or Rome? Im kinda getting sick of all this CA and Empire bashing. Empires might not be finished completely, but was MED2? No. Complaining your ass off doesn't accomplish anything.

Oh, and does Steam have recording options like xfire?

[JohnHamm]

I would like to take this time and thank CA for completely letting me down...

1. At first I didn't mind the Campaign map but after hours of straight play it does begin to drag out, with the constant freezes and lag.

2. Most of us who have even decent systems still have issues running the game I have a quad core something with 4 gig of ram, a 8800gts defragged and good drivers and it just is not where it should be...or atleast that is my perception.

I understand that alot of people don't mind the slow downs,glitches etc... because it is a game ahead of it's time, I believe (or I hope) it will be a game ahead of it's time.

3. No family tree, (at least for monarchy) I mean for Christ sake that is a staple of TW games, I have no choice but to accept the units (agents) they give me? come on.... I could go on and on but I would be preaching to the choir as well as just be repeating a lot of others.

4. The fact that CA made it so un-modder friendly is about the dumbest thing I can think of... and that is what broke the camels back for me, that is one of it's bigger selling points

I can think of other games like Bridge Commander for instance when it came out it sold for $30.00 but because it was so moddable it can now be found on ebay for $120.00 from time to time. I had to buy mine there for $80.00 because I waited so long to get it.

If you don't make a game that can be modded any more you are just shooting yourself in the foot. I have faith CA will release modding tools.

So I will put it up and wait a month or two and see what comes of it, I have a feeling it will be fine and this will be money well spent.

[Hmoob]

Ok, now compare all the greatly awesome features of Empires. You expect that it was to be perfect. Was MED2 awesome when it first came out, or Rome? Im kinda getting sick of all this CA and Empire bashing. Empires might not be finished completely, but was MED2? No. Complaining your ass off doesn't accomplish anything.

So we should just keep lowering our standards "because the last one wasn't finished either."

I have gotten the WSOD (white screen of death) twice for a game professionally made. $60 dollars might not be a big deal to you, but to others they want a fully functional game that they can just pop in and play. I'm so sick and tired of being a beta tester.

[Hmoob]

I would like to take this time and thank CA for completely letting me down...

1. At first I didn't mind the Campaign map but after hours of straight play it does begin to drag out, with the constant freezes and lag.

2. Most of us who have even decent systems still have issues running the game I have a quad core something with 4 gig of ram, a 8800gts defragged and good drivers and it just is not where it should be...or atleast that is my perception.

I understand that alot of people don't mind the slow downs,glitches etc... because it is a game ahead of it's time, I believe (or I hope) it will be a game ahead of it's time.

3. No family tree, (at least for monarchy) I mean for Christ sake that is a staple of TW games, I have no choice but to accept the units (agents) they give me? come on.... I could go on and on but I would be preaching to the choir as well as just be repeating a lot of others.

4. The fact that CA made it so un-modder friendly is about the dumbest thing I can think of... and that is what broke the camels back for me, that is one of it's bigger selling points

I can think of other games like Bridge Commander for instance when it came out it sold for $30.00 but because it was so moddable it can now be found on ebay for $120.00 from time to time. I had to buy mine there for $80.00 because I waited so long to get it.

If you don't make a game that can be modded any more you are just shooting yourself in the foot. I have faith CA will release modding tools.

So I will put it up and wait a month or two and see what comes of it, I have a feeling it will be fine and this will be money well spent.

I agree. The mods are the only thing keeping me from returning the game.

[TheBlobThing]

Do some of you guys even remember release of M2? I remember I got the game a day early and it took me weeks of playing to uncover all there were a lot!

Remember how the units would kinda of split up when chasing routers and run alongside them to the map edge without running any down?

Passive AI bug? You could theoretically kill entire stacks of enemies without them moving an inch using only archers?

Unusable pikemen that never seemed to get fixed properly? (at least it seemed that way for me)

'Shield bug': Need I say more about that little embarrassment?

ETW is much more polished than M2 was at release. Either some of you don't remember M2 at release or you just have the attention span of whiny kids...

BTW I don't remember any bugs from RTW release because I got it after gazillionth patches came out.

EDIT: And I haven't had a single crash and I get smooth performance.

[JohnHamm]

So we should just keep lowering our standards "because the last one wasn't finished either."

I disagree I think to complain does help...well at least if a dev actually cares enough about their product to read these threads. which I haven't heard of to many that do...

[JollySam]

It's true, the TW series does take more work. Conveniently, SEGA is a multi-million dollar company that can afford to do such work, while Paradox is a home-grown Swedish gaming company that gets by year-to-year. If you're seriously implying that SEGA/CA doesn't have the resources to release a Total War game that is free from game-breaking bugs, you really need to be posting in the kiddie section of the forums, because this conversation is not for you.

This shoddy quality would have been unacceptable were it not for you people enabling CA to do such things. Instead of taking a hard line against releasing shovelware, followed by patches, you rolled over and let it happen. Here is your result.

Hear hear.

[Zin3dineZidane10]

yall need to stop whining, because it is the same 10 people who are complaining about the game, which is a minority. the game is pretty good and i dont think yall know how the mass of people think, this game has gotten the best ratings out of every TW game, yall are just being close-minded that's all i gotta say peace

[Hmoob]

I disagree I think to complain does help...well at least if a dev actually cares enough about their product to read these threads. which I haven't heard of to many that do...

I'm saying we shouldn't lower our standards just because the game before had problems. At the rate the community is going, in about 10 years, we'll start accepting games still in alpha stage.

[JohnHamm]

Hear hear.

I just posted this in another thread but it seems very appropriate here too.

"What I think is funny is that a lot of people prefer consoles to PC... many of them say it is because you can put a game in and play it, no crashes, bugs etc... i don't know how true that maybe because I don't usually play console games only PC, however I do own a old PS2 and I own about 15 games for it and i have never had bug or a crash on those, (due to coding data, hardware is another story) but they seem to get those games out just fine, and consoles are nothing but non upgradeable PC's so I have to agree with the original poster obviously the gaming industry has the ability to put out non bugged games.
John W. Hamm"

and let me add that SEGA certainly puts out a lot of console games that are not buggy

[mgmr]

First up, stop complaining about anything to do with your graphics capability on your pc. It doesn't constitute an argument against anything but your own poverty/laziness/technological handicap. Reviewers don't give bad reviews to games when they can't play them on Linux, they give bad reviews to unstable games. And as far as ETW goes, it's pretty damn stable.

If you knew anything about game design or the industry, you'd know that CA would have had severe pressure from Sega to release when they did. If they don't release, publisher gets pissed and fans whine (ie. you.). Sega chooses the method of distribution - blame them for the crap that is Steam. On the flip side, when they do release (after all the WHAT HAPPENED TO FEB RELEASE THIS GAME IS CRAP posts) they get blamed for an "unfinished game".
Sorry, but take a look at a REAL unfinished game. You are so used to being given brilliant titles by CA that you've gotten greedy (this is evident in the fact that the sole comparison scale is "RTW" or "Med2" etc). No other publisher produces anything similar in product or else you'd be playing that. Ipso facto - tough that the game isn't exactly what you wanted. The fact is, there isn't anything to compare it to because no other comparison exists. Therefore, this game gets compared to your idea of perfection at which point it will always lose due to time pressures, money pressures and essentially the fact that the dev's aren't you.
Do you think they actually sat down and told Bill and Fred "sorry guys, the fans will prefer it if we have clone units. Put away all the ones you've implimented, because variation is bad"? No, they didn't, so shut the up about differentiation and other features that were obviously unable to be expanded (like the hilarity in the "theres only 12 pre-mod factions playable!!!" whining - compare THAT to other vanilla TW releases). Patches will be released to drip feed you (read about business models) through to the expacs where they'll most likely give you the rest of the 19th century.

As a game dev myself (I'm in no way affiliated with Sega or CA), it pisses me off to see so many retarded criticisms about a game that, as games come, is pretty good.
If you want to voice most of the criticisms I see here, then do so to the publisher, because that's the source of 90% of the gripe here (and even then, if your criticisms actually have any merit - which some of them do).

Now that I've got my anti rant out of the way, here are my points. These are based on design features (ie changeable design decisions) that I don't agree 100% with, or that by my own ignorance, I'm not understanding how to use at around 4 hours played. These are things CA could have actually done differently or change, though I'm not saying they should. These just appeal to my sense of perfection.

* The decentralised system of upgrades (i.e. town by town, tent by tent) is incredibly overwhelming to follow. This complexity undermines the point of the capital city/province idea.
* Some understanding as to why there are still enemy scholars in a captured college.
* Smaller features that aren't thoroughly explained (such as how to establish in-battle defenses, the effect of blockading trade routes, the difference between government and governor and general effects on populations)
* The difficulty or opaqueness of creating custom formations.
* The fact that trading outposts are separate maps. I would have preferred to have to capture a non-faction port/outpost and integrated it with the main map. This way some truly strategic battles could be fought over control - whether by sea or land.
* Ship turning/collisions. I would prefer it if ship ramming actually destroyed ships (ie. big ship kills small ship) working off the cavalry charge mechanic. The current "collide and spend the rest of the game tboned" thing is really not floating my boat.
* A description of population morale and what each demographic means (ie. can i tax my nobles through the roof? what happens if they rebel? what happens if the rich are unhappy and the poor are happy?)
* Additionally, I am yet to see the front rank kneel and the second rank stand and fire in rolling volley. I hope this is in the game.
* Lack of moddability. (Though I have faith in CA to release modding tools because not to do so would be marketing suicide)

Oh, and I have 4 gig of ram and dual geforce. It runs on very high without lag.

[JohnHamm]

I'm saying we shouldn't lower our standards just because the game before had problems. At the rate the community is going, in about 10 years, we'll start accepting games still in alpha stage.

and I'm saying I agree with you!!

[JollySam]

I just posted this in another thread but it seems very appropriate here too.

"What I think is funny is that a lot of people prefer consoles to PC... many of them say it is because you can put a game in and play it, no crashes, bugs etc... i don't know how true that maybe because I don't usually play console games only PC, however I do own a old PS2 and I own about 15 games for it and i have never had bug or a crash on those, (due to coding data, hardware is another story) but they seem to get those games out just fine, and consoles are nothing but non upgradeable PC's so I have to agree with the original poster obviously the gaming industry has the ability to put out non bugged games.
John W. Hamm"

and let me add that SEGA certainly puts out a lot of console games that are not buggy

Exactly. Not all of us are computer/software experts, we just want to have FUN. If a game needs days/weeks/months of patches and editing, it just isn't fun, and no longer a game.

[mgmr]

It's true, the TW series does take more work. Conveniently, SEGA is a multi-million dollar company that can afford to do such work, while Paradox is a home-grown Swedish gaming company that gets by year-to-year. If you're seriously implying that SEGA/CA doesn't have the resources to release a Total War game that is free from game-breaking bugs, you really need to be posting in the kiddie section of the forums, because this conversation is not for you.

This shoddy quality would have been unacceptable were it not for you people enabling CA to do such things. Instead of taking a hard line against releasing shovelware, followed by patches, you rolled over and let it happen. Here is your result.

Yeah, and you need to read the ing news. We are in an economic crisis. The turnover in the game industry is at a rate of knots already (company mergers, disbandings, bankruptcies) and when you factor in the economic crisis then things start to take a lot more vulnerable look.

So in short, Sega is not invincible, and CA are caught between a rock (Sega) and a hard place (fans - or in this instance). Believe it or not, Sega doesn't give a toss about the quality of the game as long as the profit margin remains. That is why games like Transformers or anything based on film fanchises get made. Direct your ire at Sega, not at CA.

Also, I'm yet to encounter any game breakers - just small tweaks that I overall agree with, and some I don't.