Two Pence from a long time TW player
Hello to all at TWCenter after 4+years of being away!
I am coming back to drop my slightly delayed criticism's of this version and hopefully add one more candle to the ever-growing darkness of Video Game "Business".
First and foremost, I have played every single iteration of TW to date. This may be one of the problems. The genre is getting stale, guys. As excited as I was to get STW2 when it released, I couldn't get a couple of turns in without feeling like I had already done this 1000 times before, literally. I simply COULD NOT get into it, even though I really liked the art style and music. The campaign map was very pleasing to the eye as well. I just couldn't ignore that I was using the same units I have used over the last 10 years+ with a different skin any more.The game was shelved...
Until about a week or two ago, I fired it up on an impulse and delved into the SP campaign, maybe it was the mood I was in at the time, but for some reason I was able to get sucked into the world again. Even though, to be honest, there isn't much fluff here to get you feeling like you are a really a daimyo, but I digress, the basic fundamentals from the TW games sucked me in and I was getting my ass handed to me on a silver platter playing as the Uesugi on Hard. This is where the game is fun for me. Figuring out how to beat this, losing multiple times in multiple ways is always encouraging to me, because it gives me hope that this time, the AI will build the right units, will move his armies properly, etc.
I thoroughly enjoyed the "learning process" all over again, and am very happy that I picked Uesugi/Hard as my first campaign, because any other Clan would have likely been easier to figure out. I imagine if I would have picked Date first, I wouldn't have gotten as much enjoyment out of it unless I forced myself to give the AI a handicap.
Here is where I hope I can leave a glimmer, nay, a smidge of hope that will hopefully get this game going on the track that I want it.
Here is the deal CA, your combat and battles, no one does it better, you guys have it licked. Arthur is clearly a rip-off of your mechanic, but you guys still own it, and it is great. OBVIOUSLY, the AI needs improvement, but I don't expect Big Blue type action, just not self-defeating AI, sadly, this is still the case in a lot of the Total War Games released to date. The computer simply does DUMB stuff, not stuff that just isn't optimal, but moronic, turn away from the TV, cringe-worthingly bad moves.
Please make this a priority. A lot of people really enjoy the SP in this game, but ask them and the majority will tell you that they RARELY ever finish long campaigns when they know they have clearly won. I think you tried to fix this with Realm Divide here, but to mixed results. The challenge isn't there, and when the challenge feels gimmicky, it doesn't work for me.
The AI should be playing as if it doesn't know it's playing in a game against a human, it should be smart enough to play on its own and go after its own goals. When the AI treats the human player differently, it really breaks immersion. The game can be made challenging without forcing the AI to act as if it is a "computer" opponent. You can find this criticism of the recently released Civ 5 as well.
Please add a bit more flavor in your games, some fluff, as mentioned earlier. King Arthur nailed this and that is why that game which is basically Total War with MORE FLUFF (TM, copyright, etc) actually brought an unknown developer some notoriety and more importantly, dollars and ho's.
Why weren't people simply firing up Total War to get this fix? The fluff.
You can also steal some stuff from the Europa Universalis series. A great strategy game with none of the sweet Total War battles, just number crunching in the background, but it really sucks you in, you feel like you are leading a country and care about its progress.
My other major gripe and this was already stated in another thread. I decided to purchase this game so I could get into the Multiplayer. After seeing some vids online, my interest was piqued.
I was really disappointed in the lobby (no back button), there were like 5 people in chat, all AFK. I was matched against rank 10 in my first fight. Who disconnected on me because I actually was about to win the damn thing. This brought back all the terror and horror I remember from the first Shogun game, if you were around back then I had a couple accounts in the top 5, Joe Montana was one, can't remember the others, but my point is that you guys still haven't fixed that. I seriously cried inside a little, quickly followed up by kicking a kitten.
I am sure MP is a tiny fraction of the playerbase and thus garners the appropriate allocation of funds, but you must take into consideration that these players are a part of your HARDCORE base, if you treat them to skittles and sunshine they will follow you forever. One big misconception that people have is that people simply wouldn't be interested in MP just out of General Purpose anyway due to their nature, and thus not worth it to get it right, that is wrong! Multiplayer is the one way to GUARUNTEE funds are incoming and not outgoing through thepiratebay!! If you build it, they will come!! I promise you.
Shore these up for me please, and only do it in the next week and then we are all good again, ok CA! Just kidding, Good Luck, and hopefully this didn't come off as too condescending.
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Originally Posted by Fuzzynut
There is most certainly nothing glaringly bad about the game like some previous iterations (*cough* the 2h bug that sent me packing for 4 years*)
