[B-] technical bugs hamper enjoyment

[cinco]

let me start by saying that clumped units lag the game a lot, and during fort battles or in heavy melee fighting, it may bring the fps down to the low 20s. i have an intel i7 920, 8gbs of rams, and a gtx 280 and i find this unacceptable.

clearly, optimization should be a big priority.

gameplay is fairly straight forward, you place your armies in a line, with cannons in the center flanked by infantry and cavalry. then wait for the enemy to march into your line of sight. once you develop 12lb artillery, there is no need to play offensively. the enemy will always move towards you if you are able to provoke them with cannons.

the ai is pretty straight forward. within the first 5 turns it is obviously there is a pattern. each game is more or less the same unless you switch factions. but that gets old, plus only the prussians and russians look good in their uniforms.

i will raise the grade to a B+ once they optimize this game better.

[crackaces]

I think the AI weighs if it is profitable to stand and take fire or engage in melee. Once you do damage the AI always closes. There is a feature where the memory clean up runs on a seperate thread. If you do not have enough CPU power -- multiple battels causes a memory drain and eventual CTD when a memory request fails and a null object is referenced.

I would agree with your take on the Stratigic AI. I played Russians and the Brits ignored the French fleet letting them sail on by and cut off trade. That left trade way too low and as I defeated "Napy" in battles suddenly Prussia, Sweeden, and Austria attacked. It was a constant struggle to survive let alone play balance. I believe the thought was to make it challanging but in the end it was extermely frustrating at times.