Why everybody happy?

[gogis]

8 hours. That exact time i spend on whole kingdoms thingie.
Yes, sounds and atmosphere is awesome. New cool pictures, skins, events bla-bla...

I started first crusaders campaign for Jerusalem. Started to expanding fast, nothing special, very easy, it's reminded me alot my last muslims game and i abandoned campaign fast.

Then i tried Britannia, because i really like Braveheart Movie

I ended 'long' campaign long before reached 35 required victory conditions because it's was repetative and easy.

I sat there thinking 'wtf is this? i should like all, it's a lot of new stuff!'

Then i realized, that it's same stupid vanilla campaign ai.
Same stupid battle ai, that keep pushing their archers 100 miles ahead of main force, doing ultimately idiotic moves in siege.
I just kept selecting all my units with ctrl+a, send forward, pressing x6 and going to make some coffee, it's worked always.

Instead of making new fancy stuff, imrove gameplay and AI.

If you take famous contender, Civilization IV, they made expansion Warlords, which improved AI alot, balance alot and was fantastic upgrade in every way.

But kingdoms... it's biggest dissapointment. Reskinning, new music and new custom maps? No way i need that.

So i would keep playing Stainless Steel/Des Lo Vult mods, because it's so much better, than vanilla + new fancy stuff.

And don't knock me, before you try some real mods for that game, i just was tempted to tone all that down, can't resist 99% of 'OMAGAD THAT AWESOME!' trend

[Chlodwig I.]

Maybe set the difficulty to very high?

Don't understand the problem to be honest
If i would send the army just moving forward without controlling it, it would be slaughtered.

[hellheaven1987]

I don't understand your topic too. The AI did improve a lot from my oberservation. For example, when I was playing Kingdom of Jerusalm the Egyptian tried to play rush, sent two full stacks armies to my territories after first three turns. I immediately gathered all army and tried to scare them off. However, instead left, the Egyptian stood infront Jerusalm and kept sending reforcement, and not long they gathered another stack of army. I was very frasturating because my economy was going down, and I knew there was another half stack Egyptian wondering somewhere in my kingdom. So, I tried some strategy MacArthur did in Korea, sent half stack of army into Egypt. Alas!! The Egytian just ran back immediately and even asked me to be their ally!!

Although I must admit I am getting frasturating for the too common game crash.

[Hellbent]

I also notice the AI improvements, they now know how to flank and all those other strategies. Of course there still are some few problems here and there, but IMHO the good things outweigh the bad ones.

Just my two cents.

[The Border Reiver]

I think the more interesting question is....why are you so unhappy with it? You should probably try VH/VH...and challenge yourself.

Without the original game that has to appeal to all types of gamers, you wouldn't get mods (who have plenty of spare time as a hobby) to make additonal changes.

By the way the Civilsation series is not a contender for this series, although turn based they are totally different games.

[Willor]

[quote=The Border Reiver;2138576]

Without the original game that has to appeal to all types of gamers, you wouldn't get mods (who have plenty of spare time as a hobby) to make additonal changes.
quote]

You seem to forget that the CA team gets payed too make the game.
The "hobby" players doesnt.

[JaM]

I understand the feeling gogis has. Any estabilished mods here at TWC provide much more fun than Kingdoms. I kinda can't understand how is possible to spend all that time and came just with some small game addons, skins, etc... and even didnt fix old bug from day one (armor upgrade and info screen)...

[gogis]

Sorry i didnt added this. I always play on VH/VH. Computer still plays very bad.

I know a lot of minor bugs/bad behaviours, especialy in battle AI, and it's all persists, while fixed in almost any serious mod.

2hellheaven1987: They send stack after stack, because they have it at start, not build it. Just wait you wipe that stacks, and it's would be pushover.
In campaign map i was still besieged alot of times with minor armies. Instead of making good army AI still send stacks-o-crap, it's SAME as old good vanilla.

"If i would send the army just moving forward without controlling it, it would be slaughtered." - I played for scotts, and almost every their unit can attack without order
Seriously, there is no "new" flanking. Vanilla AI always sent cavalry to you r flanks in vanilla. Old trick with placing pikes/spears at flanks still doing same job.
Same formations (check Darth's for example), suicidal central Bodyguards charges...
I know, it's nitpicking, but it's biggest my dissapointment.

It's great for casual gamer, but not for hardcores.

And my comparison to CivIV - actually MTWII have campaign map with all turn based attributes, so i can safely compare that games.
AI on campaign map matters not less, than in real time battle.

[Juggernaut]

Can't say I'm disappointed really.
This was pretty much expected.
I'll use Darth AI and Ultimate AI for reasonable AI...

[Sibben]

While I am quite enjoying Kingdoms for the time being, on a fundamental level I will have to agree with the OP.

The AI really needs an overhaul, and the interesting bit is that the shortcomings are well known and discussed in the community on a regular basis (all artillery stacks, lack of generals, reshuffling troops that finally rebel, suicidally charging generals etc.).

The main problem is that the AI does not really know how to play the game efficiently. While I'd hesitate to compare Total War with Civilization I have to admit that the latter have difficulty levels where I am basically toast. In MTW2 we have to come up with complicated house rules to keep ourselves from steamrolling the AI.

I can see the economical sense in basing an expansion almost solely on new content, and I believe a lot of people around here, like me, bought Kingdoms with future mods in mind and view the four campaigns as enjoyable distraction for a little while. I'm just waiting for LTC for Kingdoms and then I am back playing the GC again.

At the end of the day, MTW2 is one of the finest strategy games ever made. It's just that out of the box it's got some really fundamental AI flaws that go unnoticed with the vast majority of players, but really screws it up for the hardcore fans that keep playing the game over and over again.

But I don't regret buying Kingdoms, and for any normal player out there it's one meaty expansion, isn't it? And again, I'm still playing the damn game all the time. ain't I.

/Sibben

[Hellbent]

While I am quite enjoying Kingdoms for the time being, on a fundamental level I will have to agree with the OP.

The AI really needs an overhaul, and the interesting bit is that the shortcomings are well known and discussed in the community on a regular basis (all artillery stacks, lack of generals, reshuffling troops that finally rebel, suicidally charging generals etc.).

The main problem is that the AI does not really know how to play the game efficiently. While I'd hesitate to compare Total War with Civilization I have to admit that the latter have difficulty levels where I am basically toast. In MTW2 we have to come up with complicated house rules to keep ourselves from steamrolling the AI.

I can see the economical sense in basing an expansion almost solely on new content, and I believe a lot of people around here, like me, bought Kingdoms with future mods in mind and view the four campaigns as enjoyable distraction for a little while. I'm just waiting for LTC for Kingdoms and then I am back playing the GC again.

At the end of the day, MTW2 is one of the finest strategy games ever made. It's just that out of the box it's got some really fundamental AI flaws that go unnoticed with the vast majority of players, but really screws it up for the hardcore fans that keep playing the game over and over again.

But I don't regret buying Kingdoms, and for any normal player out there it's one meaty expansion, isn't it? And again, I'm still playing the damn game all the time. ain't I.

/Sibben

Well put Sibben!

[Spurius]

Yep, for me it's the new options like leagues etc that we've been discussing for ages that make me think there's going to be some really good mods coming up for Kingdoms. It's the best framework yet, so far.

As to the AI - I thought they had hired some hotshot Russian for that, but in battle I think they just handed the controls to the player to be done with the passive army bug - more of a workaround, but anyway, better *that* than something essentially unfixable for us (HC).

Again I see some great mods coming out for Kingdoms, also for all four existing campaigns, and probably a few entirely new maps too.