Imagine that NASA launched online shop full of spaceships and other astronautic stuff. You choose one spaceship for your planned trip to Alpha Centauri. Photos and all the characteristics of product look awesome. You even call operator and she assure you that you'll get the best spaceship ever. So you pay your pretty billion dollar (yeah, that's expensive... but it's the spaceship, baby!) and you wait, and wait, and wait for delivery. Finally the official NASA delivery service appears at your door. Knock-knock! "Here's your spaceship, sir!" And they give you small childish tricycle with funny ring-ring bell. "Bon voyage to Alpha Centauri!" You stare and try to figure out what is going on. "Are you kidding me? Somebody tell me it's just another hidden camera show..."
That's what I feel now about R2TW.
CA promised us epic game, the best TW game ever. But it's not what they're showing us now. Ugly UI, 1TPY, hipperincreased cities on campaign map, absence of seasons and event movies, etc., etc. On the other hand this game is full of flying hammers, rocketing chevrons, arrowtrails, fireballs of fury, blasted away soldiers and other cool stuff that gonna make 12 years old kid say "Wow!", but will constantly remind me that I'm just playing PC game. Not so epic feeling, by the way.
Well, actually those are just minor things, I could live with them. But the thing that really piss me off is the quality of AI. It's beyond any judgement level. These's just no any AI detected in gameplay so far. Tactics, formations, manoeuvres? No way! It's still the same mob vs mob fight. But now those mobs seems to be even more Artificially Stupid and all this imitation of battle look even weirder than ever before.
CA promised us real combat, but instead we have just individuals passing across each other for half minute till one of enemy is completely wiped out (in just half minute!). In opposite situation most of individuals in units just stand still watching some of their comrades fight with enemy... and do nothing to help them (that's what I mean -
here and
here). I understand this behavior when you have certain formation to hold... but there's no any formation. So why individual soldiers cannot move around and surround the opposing enemy? Why soldiers tends to cluster together without any fight?
What's up with density of soldiers inside unit? It doesn't look like band of warriors. It looks like flock of sheeps on Kashgar Sunday market.
What's up with unit reaction to fireballs and chariots? Why do they keep tight formation? Why don't they switch to loose formation or perform any other counter-tricks? Do they really "think" that they can stop this ball with their shields?
What's up with suicidal, absolutely unnecessary attack of Egyptian swordsmen on much larger force of Romans? Just what the heck was that???
What's up with those balistas marching through their friendly units? Why do they even move? Why so fast? And where are they going to - right to the hands of enemy?
What's up with Egyptian fleet frozen after fight with Roman ships? Where's the promised land/naval cooperative combat?
What's up with victory? What was that "OK, let's stand here till the sign above switch to our color"? Is it freaking epic?
And chariots attacking elephants... Are you serious, CA?
The other major problem is unit control. It was always hard to track the activity and state of units in TW, it became even harder with increased speed of battles. Now there gonna be more units to play in battle (up to 40) and even navy at your service together with land army. So what CA did offer to help us manipulate all those hordes? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. There's no any formation tactics, no any tactical tasks for groups, no any intellectual behavior of particular units, no any alerts or whatever that could help you track the total situation. Nothing. You switch from army panel to navy panel and you completely lose track on another part of your forces. You order group of units to advance at right flank... just to surprisingly find them later standing somewhere on periphery of battle. You select your units one by one, move them pretty close to enemy lines and they just stand doing absolutely nothing until you manually give them order to attack certain unit of enemy. Their close friendly neighbors could be hardly losing fight with enemy unit of elephants or whatever, but all the rest of your units will just calmly stay and wait their turn.
And what's up with the camera? Why it usually positioned the way that doesn't allow you to observe the battle? Instead you stare on sky or right into hill. I guess it could be fixed with camera rotation... but what's up with default settings?
I know all those things are old chronic TW problems. But the fact that we still see it in game give us one important conclusion. It shows that CA does not have any intention to fix it. That is how they see gameplay - total mess and stupidity.
Of course, I'm wrong. Everybody knows that it's just pre-alpha... Oh, wait a minute. It's almost release time. It couldn't be pre-alpha. What's going on?... What? Demo?... Oh, thanks gods, it's just a demo. Everybody knows that this demo was specially scripted and dumbed down, and when the game will be realized it will be awesome, pretty awesome. And you know, we cannot judge game before release, in spite of any nightmare we see in promotional materials... Halleluiah! I've got my magic mantra back! It's just a demo. It's just a demo. It's just a demo...
Seriously, let's face the truth. It's not pre-aplha. It's not "just a demo". It's really how this game is supposed to be played. And it's not the game we've waited for. Not even the Total War we knew before. R2TW gonna be first in new Total Warcraft series. The bastard of false marketing ideas, Hollywoodish rubbish and work of people who don't really care about the product they're working on.
Farewell to Total War.
Rest in peace.