A very artifical problem

[Captain Crimson]

Ever since I first brough Rome: Total War, I was sold to the series. However, there have been two issues that have recurred in Medieval 2 and Rome that I haven't really mentioned till now.

One is the consistently poor AI in the vanilla versions of the game. The second is unit behaviour (which is linked to AI, but by AI I mean how the computer acts on the battle and campaign map, with unit behaviour meaning how the man and weapons in a unit act).

My burning question is this: Would it be better to have a truly refined, balanced game with very cunning and dirty AI and with units that were always useful (I'm looking at you, halberdiers!), rather than a brand new game like Empires or Medieval 2?

Rome: Total Realism did solve my problems back in the day, but after playing Darthmod for over a year this question has come to my mind more and more frequently when I return to vanilla and don't find myself surprised to see that my units don't understand how to climb down a ladder or even unsheath their swords while those accursed light cavalry ride merrily into my archer formations and butcher them with thier AI guffawing madly, before said AI starts laughing in dim witted way and then charges straight into a wall.

Yes, mods have ironed out most of the problems, but that is exactly my point. Why can't the makers of the Total War series slow down on game production and perfect what is already a very promising game with lots of potential? Personally, I would have preferred a megaptch to Medieval 2 than a brand new game which, unfortunatly, I fear will have many bug issues.

What do you think? I understand this request is both incredibly nostalgiac and miserly selfish as I love the medieval era and despise the empire era, but still, it's been a while since I was last on here!

[Conquistatore]

I guess CA didn't take the time to completely test all the bugs and capabilities of the AI before they released their games. Sure they released patches that helped and fixed some things but the main issues were still present. I guess it has to do with budgetary constraints, deadlines to meet and making the game as broad as possible to appeal to the widest audience.

The thing that you have to consider is that they are a money-making business first, games developer second. This means that they need to produce games that have the best chance of success and being popular to everyone, not just the loyal die hard fans. This is why we have the modders and people that do the extra work out there, to make the game more enjoyable and playable for the 'hardcore' fans..

CA doesn't have the time or money to make the game with killer AI or perfect pathfinding and unit behaviour/animation. They do the best they can with the time and money contraints given..

Personally, with a few minor modifications the game turns out to be really well balanced with decent AI and a decent challenge.

[Manoflooks]

Conquistadore said it. Besides, it can be fun and refreshing to go back to unaltered vanilla after a while of playing mods.

[O'Hea]

Personally, I suspect that MTW2 was a bit of an afterthought, just something to keep the studio occupied in between Rome and Empire. There are a lot of great ideas contained in the game, but from the serious lack of functionality in some aspects it's pretty obvious that they didn't test very rigorously.

[Dewy]

I think they should get the MTW engine and put better gfx in it. Would be a better a game then M2TW. But you have to think, you don't know what its like to make a game, and a mod is not a game. It is really had to make an AI as belive it or not a computer is dumb. You can't tell a computer to open a webbrowser, you have to tell it a method to open it. so it is really hard to make a good AI without bugs.

[Kennel]

I think enemy factions on campaign map should have different behaviour depending on which king/emperor leads them. There were bad and good kings, kings that spent the money on parties and women, others that spent their time on the battlefield. It should be more a dynamic campaign difficulty, depending on what age you are playing the difficulty should either be normal or maybe very hard.
Not just Very Hard (or easy) all the time with every king in europe having the best money management, best armies etc

Just a though for future games/mods

Or is there already something that does this?

[Conquistatore]

I think enemy factions on campaign map should have different behaviour depending on which king/emperor leads them. There were bad and good kings, kings that spent the money on parties and women, others that spent their time on the battlefield. It should be more a dynamic campaign difficulty, depending on what age you are playing the difficulty should either be normal or maybe very hard.
Not just Very Hard (or easy) all the time with every king in europe having the best money management, best armies etc

Just a though for future games/mods

Or is there already something that does this?

Wow I like that idea. Imagine a game where you could input your details and the computer could set up a game/ai that would challenge you, based on what you input. FANTASTIC.

[Juli]

Well, I guess developing a challenging AI is very complicated. The quantity of bugs in M2TW, however, was quite disapointing, and denotes a serious lack of testing (or even dedication) from the dev team. However, technology is advancing at such a rithm nowadadays, we can expect very good stuff from Empire TW.

If not...

[Pink Beard]

I think enemy factions on campaign map should have different behaviour depending on which king/emperor leads them. There were bad and good kings, kings that spent the money on parties and women, others that spent their time on the battlefield. It should be more a dynamic campaign difficulty, depending on what age you are playing the difficulty should either be normal or maybe very hard.
Not just Very Hard (or easy) all the time with every king in europe having the best money management, best armies etc

Just a though for future games/mods

Or is there already something that does this?

very good idea! extreme expansion under the rules of ... "the mad" and almost no movement/growth under the rule of ... "the lazy"

(put name in "..." spot)

[Muagan_ra]

I don't think the AI is so bad; diplomacy could do with some tweaking, but the AI has dealt me some truly fiendish blows in battle. Ever went toe-to-toe with Mongolians? The amount of feints they've managed to draw me into is depressing.

Besides, it's at present pretty much impossible for a video-game to have the same level of creativity that human players have. What you're asking for is above and beyond what's possible right now, I think the world has greater uses for true Artificial Intelligence. All the AI in a game can do is respond to your moves with pre-set algorithims, and I think it responds reasonably well.

[Conquistatore]

Haha, sounds good. It would add much needed diversity / uniqueness to the game. The years of King Tut the Megolomaniac would be interesting.

[Sascha]

I agree with Conquistadore that this is a money-making business, so the games are geared towards the crowd of casual gamers who want to see something new, but are not looking for a challenging game. Thus, games are designed (in general) towards one or two play-throughs by casual gamers and to look great at the outside to attract the crowd.

Therefore, we get MTW2 with more or less the same battle mode than the precedessors, just better looking, but without improvements in the "AI". Thus, we also get a fancy looking 3d campaign map, which is much more complex than the older games' risk style map, and consequently the "AI" can handle it even less.

This being said, I would still like to point out that there are some games out there which go against that convention. Most notably, Civilization's core elements have been unchanged since its inception, and the latest iteration still succeeds in challenging me.

[Juli]

I agree with Conquistadore that this is a money-making business, so the games are geared towards the crowd of casual gamers who want to see something new, but are not looking for a challenging game. Thus, games are designed (in general) towards one or two play-throughs by casual gamers and to look great at the outside to attract the crowd.

Therefore, we get MTW2 with more or less the same battle mode than the precedessors, just better looking, but without improvements in the "AI". Thus, we also get a fancy looking 3d campaign map, which is much more complex than the older games' risk style map, and consequently the "AI" can handle it even less.

This being said, I would still like to point out that there are some games out there which go against that convention. Most notably, Civilization's core elements have been unchanged since its inception, and the latest iteration still succeeds in challenging me.

Because Civilization RULEZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!
No, seriously though, IMHO Civilization series (especially Civ 4) is quite more modder-friendly than TW. In Civ 3, the Editor allows a lot of stuff, and in Civ 4 you can mod even the GameCore to add new stuff!! Its like if we could add new unit formations here in M2TW (of course CA would never do such a thing).

[Conquistatore]

Guess it all comes down to the type of game and the developers budget/goals. TW is a unique franchise that does give you two games in one. I haven't seen another game that gives you a world campaign like this and all the beautiful battles and strategy. I think it would be good if CA had a competitor or two in the same market, us gamers would be better off I think.

[Sascha]

TW is a unique franchise that does give you two games in one. I haven't seen another game that gives you a world campaign like this and all the beautiful battles and strategy.

I beg to differ. To have two or more "games" in one is neither new nor unique, it has been done for ages and a thousand times. The earliest iteration of that principle I know of is "Ancient Art of War" or so, which I used to play on the XT in the 90ties. An recent game following the principle is "Knights of Honour" from Paradox. If you go beyond the ancient/ medieval genre, there is also plenty such games, e.g. SW Empire at War.

Though I also don't know a serious competitor in the particular field of the TW games.

[The Noble Lord]

I haven't seen another game that gives you a world campaign like this and all the beautiful battles and strategy.

There is nothing out there actually that's even remotely close to the TW games!

[Conquistatore]

There is nothing out there actually that's even remotely close to the TW games!

I believe that's what I said.

[Conquistatore]

Well that's what I was talking about specifically, the tw era/genre, I must have forgot to mention that. Sorry for generalising lol.
But yes, some competitors would be good, it would be interesting to see different developers takes and ideas on what they could do with the model.

[Sascha]

I personally liked many ideas in both "Crusader Kings" and "Knights of Honour" very much, they had more alternatives to Conquest in the campaign mode, plus IMHO had a more "medieval" feel of governing an empire. An old game that had an interesting twist to keep late-game campaigns tense was "Sword of the Samurai", in which the additional troops one more province gave you was decreasing with your number of provinces, plus an invader only had to win one battle against the defender no matter how many provinces the latter had to defeat him completely. That system might sound strange, but it kept the game tense until the end, because the last battles one fought were decisive.

[Condottiere SOG]

Not to mention this game is a modder's nightmare. i have had those nightmares.