my NTW review
hi,
after playin NTW solidly for a week now here are my thoughts on NTW. i initially waited to see what the reaction was to NTW before buying it as i was hugely disapointed with ETW but NTW defo blows ETW out the water. id even go as far as to say that NTW could be my fav total war game ever, and ive played em all since shogun.
the AI for starters is a big step forward from ETW. it combined units into full stacks now, gone are the days in ETW where the AI would be runnin around the map with lots of 3 or 4 units stacks which used to do my head in.
it can be aggressive as well and ive also seen a few naval invasions (more of this please) which is great. cant really comment on the naval AI or BAI as i havent had any sea battles and most of the land battles ive had have been drop ins (awesome feature).
the campaigns all seem very well done. ive only tried the italian and european campaigns but they are very immersive. they also add new features like supply/attrition which are great additions to the franchise. i would like to see even more done with this feature, possibly givin it even more importance.
game performance is another added bonus. i can play NTW on full settings and ultra unit size with no problems.
the biggest step forward has been the inclusion of drop in battles and MP campaigns. if there is one feature that has made all previous total war titles obsolete it is this. it simply adds a whole new dimension to gameplay. gone are the days of rollin over the AI, ive yet to win a campaign and its increased replayability tenfold. it truly is an ingenious idea. i havent even touched a MP campaign yet but i surely will at some point.
as far as bugs go, i havent seen any showstoppers. i have had a couple of crashes but both of these have been after a drop in battles.
there are some improvements that could be made however -
1 - the naval CAI can be a bit passive. in my french campaign i used a fleet to block a uk trade route in the med. i expected the uk to head down and defend it but after 80 odd turns they still hadnt came near.
2 - ive noticed that some of the AI's fleets and stacks get stuck. in my prussian campaign, batavia moves a moved a fleet with a full stack onboard next to danzig. if it had landed it wouldve caused me a big problem but for the last last 5 turns the stack still hasnt landed, the fleet just sits there and doesnt move. i noticed this in ETW as well so its a bit disapointing that this problem still exists.
3 - the CAI still doesnt use its stacks effectively. ive yet to see the AI land or attack with more than one stack. they almost always just use one stack to attack, even when i have 2 or 3 stacks nearby. th AI needs to leran to attack in force with multiple stacks supporting each other.
4 - the find opponent system seems a little flawed. i very rarely get invites in my campaign and finding opponents can also be tricky. maybe there should be an option in steam to search the whole network for players, not just the region you have selected.
overall though, NTW really is a fab game. hopefully with a few updates, the above issues can be resolved and make NTW the perfect total war game ever.
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