The (Old) Official ETW Criticism Thread

[eddy_purpus]

I wanted the land battle AI to be...

if (vastly outnumbered)
retreat
if (slightly outnumbered)
skirmish, hole up in buildings
else if (even numbers)
stay in corner, make a nice defensive firing line, flank attacks
else if (more numbers)
advance with coherent firing line, make flank attacks

But we seemed to have gotten...

if (vastly outnumbered)
sit there and get pummeled
else if (slightly outnumbered)
throw away cavalry in massive charge, dribble in infantry in useless incoherent blobs
else if (even numbers)
see slightly outnumbered
else if (more numbers)
see even numbers

And the AI in general....it has no idea how to skirmish or make a coherent firing line or flank attack. In other words, it doesn't seem to be able to do much of anything right.

What do you all think of this assessment, too harsh? I guess that after all the hype I was expecting to fight Napoleon but apparently they cloned some Mongol general code from MTW2. :hmmm:

:o
And to my mind...
I remember the CA devs talking about how Much the Ai was tuned up and was better and it would" kick your arse" and stuff...
im pretty happy right now i cant play the game

Not harsh enough!, funny this inability to do anything right didn't show up in "real gameplay" trailers. Call me a cynic

CA have again released a game where the central element (the battles) dont work!!!!

I should have expected it. The AI on Rome and M2 were pretty awful until modded.

Where do they get off getting paid to do this shoddy .

Didn't appear in Kieran's AAR with Prussia

"Win war with Austria after they all clumped together in one stupid mass in every single battle"

Step ahead in time period, step back in quality... how?

maybe ..... Publicity ?
Maybe he was tricking you guys and telling lies?

[Korvus77]

I want to play as Venice or Savoia.

I want to have Vicenza as a province/more provinces.

I want 4 turns a year and penalties that make me want to have my troops in shelter during the winter.

And I want it all yesterday.

Billy Connolly will do the rest of my ranting for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXit0FTxa1U

[guinnessman]

The naval battles are pretty grim. I've played half-a-dozen so far against Pirates and the Spanish, with odds of anywhere from me being stupidly outgunned to me stupidly outgunning them, and the best result I've had has been a Close Defeat.

Case in point - I take a fifth-rate flagship with a 4-star admiral on board, two fourth-rate ships, a brig, and two sloops against a Spanish force consisting of a galleon with a 3-star admiral on board and a brig.

End result - I lose my flagship, the brig, both sloops, and the two fourth-raters escape with heavy damage. The Spanish lose a brig. The galleon still had about 80% of its guns left and just over two thirds of its crew.

My tactics were to get in close and use cannister rounds to kill off as much of the enemy crew as possible. Hey, it worked for the Royal Navy, so why not? In the first few minutes of the above battle I get one of my fourth-raters in directly behind the galleon, very close range, and give it a full broadside of cannister from 50+ cannon. It kills two crewmen on the galleon. Not good.

The computer-controlled Spanish stuck to salvoes of shot, which quickly sent my ships to the bottom.

That's not even remotely historically accurate. Very few ships were actually sunk by gunfire during naval combat in the 1700's, the vast majority of the time they were shot up and then captured by boarding actions.

I also found it very difficult to control any more than 3 ships in a naval engagement, even with autofire left on.

Really disappointing.

[jahjeremy]

"The unit diversity, while perhaps historically accurate"

Actually, the generic unit mix in this game is not historically accurate at all.

Armies and even units within armies of that time period had very colorful uniforms and a big variety in terms of abilities, equipment, and appearance. Hats, unit insignia, colorful coats, braids, etc. were all standard issue and varied from regiment to regiment.

There were big differences between armies in terms of focus on cavalry, infantry, and artillery, unit morale, firearm accuracy and range, walking speed, infantry preference for ranged versus melee, etc.

Napoleon included Polish cavalry and also Mamluks in his army. His light infantry skirmishers were superb; the line infantry was adequate but not outstanding with sometimes shaky morale if they weren't winning. They got a big boost in morale when he was around the battle field. The French artillery was the best on the planet. The light cavalry was great but the heavy cavalry was probably just good to average, this wing becoming somewhat less important as infantry tactics and equipment improved. The French naval wing was pretty bad and totally outclassed by the Brits. The elite French infantry were also among the best on the planet. The mobility of the French armies was beyond that of their opponents.

That's just the French. Every faction should have been given a detailed treatment like this, and if there were balance issues, you can easily fix these types of problems later in patching.

For instance, Russian infantry could have been a disorganized rabble, artillery questionable, with great mounted units like Cossacks for hit-and-run tactics.

British could have been given dominant navy. Their infantry was not the best and it took extended campaigns with lots of allies to finally bring Napoleon down. Also, their vaunted line infantry got slapped down by a bunch of rabble (U-S-A, U-S-A, haha). Ah, there was the French blockade, but still, if the British had better infantry they might have won. And the British cavalry during this period? Not good AFAIK. They didn't even have very good cavalry during the medieval period (in general...lack of horses!).

The generic feel is not accurate at all, and I don't care for it. MTW2 had more flavor to each faction. The English to me was the bows and mortars faction. And also Knights Templar if you can get them. With bones of Armored Swordsmen and English Knights.

It would be cool in Empire if each faction was more unique but you could still (in certain circumstances, with enough money) hire another country's soldiers as mercenaries, because there was still a lot of paid/professional mercenaries at the company level. Napoleon had men from all over Europe in his army, including from Germany, Poland, Austria, and Italy.

Also, wouldn't it be cool if they had included a uniform designer in game not just as a mod tool?

Ah, well, back to ma line infantry...

[guinnessman]

"The unit diversity, while perhaps historically accurate"

Actually, the generic unit mix in this game is not historically accurate at all.

British could have been given dominant navy. Their infantry was not the best and it took extended campaigns with lots of allies to finally bring Napoleon down. Also, their vaunted line infantry got slapped down by a bunch of rabble (U-S-A, U-S-A, haha). Ah, there was the French blockade, but still, if the British had better infantry they might have won. And the British cavalry during this period? Not good AFAIK. They didn't even have very good cavalry during the medieval period (in general...lack of horses!).

The generic feel is not accurate at all, and I don't care for it. MTW2 had more flavor to each faction. The English to me was the bows and mortars faction. And also Knights Templar if you can get them. With bones of Armored Swordsmen and English Knights.

Agree with the core of what you're saying, however the British line infantry was among the best on the planet by the time of the Napoleonic wars. The trouble was that there just wasn't enough of it. The British experience in the US War of Independence forced them to take a look at their infantry tactics and address a lot of issues, and even then they still managed to win quite a few of the battles against the fledgling US (Fusiliers by Mark Urban is a great book about this process BTW).

Still, it's true enough - whilst the unit types (line infantry, guards, lancers etc) might have been generic to most armies, reflecting the strengths and weaknesses that each army had in each of these types should really have been reflected in the game.

[javanmard]

I am dissapointed that:

- I am having to play the Ottomans to be able to unlock the Safavids and the Mughals. That really really really sucks big time!
- that in the middle east the buildings look European

[Kewpur]

You can't unlock the mughals or safavids. You can't unlock any factions.

They look fine to me.

[django333]

You can't unlock the mughals or safavids. You can't unlock any factions.

Is this true? I thought when you destroy a faction it is unlocked like in previous games. This will really kill the replay value.

[Serenissima]

Is this true? I thought when you destroy a faction it is unlocked like in previous games. This will really kill the replay value.

Nope. We can't play any other factions, because it would confuse casual players.

My Rant... is that the game has been horribly dumbed down in so many ways that we might as well be playing it on a console. No modding seems easily possible, no console, every army in the world wears the exact same uniform and sails the same four ships... the pathfinding and unit positioning just don't work, there's only about six battle-maps in the entire game... urrrrgh.

[Jmeyer1292]

The unit diversity, while perhaps historically accurate, is atrocious and not conducive to giving the game's factions a unique feel. What really really annoys me is how CA choose to sell unique units separately when the game itself has so few. They really did cut out pieces of the game to sell for extra.

[TGoP]

Constructive ranting... hmm, that's hard cause I'm really upset. I love Total War and I respect their work but sometimes enough is enough.

I'm 31 years old and I'm playing computer games for over 20 years now. I can get over Steam somehow. I can get over the horrible slow patching though Steam somehow but I can't believe this programming job was the best they could do. It's a huge unpolished performance monster with the same dumb AI that even includes some of the same bugs that came with MTW. Hell, even the good old "I can't control anything through global hotkeys" bug made it in again.

[♔DARTH LEGO♔]

Constructive ranting... hmm, that's hard cause I'm really upset. I love Total War and I respect their work but sometimes enough is enough.

I'm 31 years old and I'm playing computer games for over 20 years now. I can get over Steam somehow. I can get over the horrible slow patching though Steam somehow but I can't believe this programming job was the best they could do. It's a huge unpolished performance monster with the same dumb AI that even includes some of the same bugs that came with MTW. Hell, even the good old "I can't control anything through global hotkeys" bug made it in again.

i am in the same circumstance(age +a little more game time), i watched as impulse took over distribution,patching updates etc for sins of a solar empire and my game crashes and so many other problems i just gave up and sold it.....
i can see steam doing the same to a game so many people have been waitng so long for and is so dear to us fans.
i bought mtw2 2 years after release and honestly it was only through the hard work of all the modders out there that it made it worth playing in my opinion, the vanilla was so bad that i gave up after turn 20 then spent 3 days downloading and figuring out the best mods before playing seriously
and i have to climb on board about the sega and steam rant, they have played this game up so much to the endline consumers, people in their faith have dumped millions into their laps and for what??????
LOBBY NOW FOR CA TO TAKEOVER ALL ASPECTS OF THEIR FUTURE GAMES FROM DEV TO DISTRIBUTION AND SO ON......CUT OUT THE FAT CATS!!!!
THIS IS WHAT CORPORATES DO THEY FIND THE GEMS AND EXPLOIT THEM!!! you would think that companies would have learned from microsofts debacle with vista, but everyone just seems to be doing the same thing??!!
to be honest i would rather have a dev delay for a few months, combined with a serious beta period, then pre release and demo, then release......
i think without forums like twcentre and the like the total war series would be a just another casulty statistic in a busineess report

[GustavIIAdolf]

I'm severely disapointed on that all the focus seems to have been collected for one nation which is very unique, while all the other factions are just copies of eachother.

[JFC]

The spawning of Gents, rakes and priests....

Sorry I meant the LACK of spawning of them. WTF? I find this very irritating. If I want one of these characters, I should be able to employ them. Not wait for some random code to give me them.

[Nicholas H.C]

Hmm I was planning to buy the game today but it looks like its a bad game....

[Gadz1313]

Overall Im pleased with the game, i know their are those bugs but since there havent been any patches and im sure SEGA rushed the release date im gnna give CA the benefit of the doubt for now. I would be more mad but I love the new game engine and the massive map.

However I am extremly pissed about the whole steam thing. What about gamers who dont have internet or dont have it on their gaming PC? CA doesnt care about those customers. And why the hell do i need internet to install a game thats bull . And a lot of the problems ive been reading about our Steam related issues. What ever happened to buying a game, driving home, opening it, installing it, and playing it. End of story. But obviously that makes far to much sense.

EDIT: And Im completly sick fo everyone posting here and ing and moaning about stuff that is there fault for not being good or them being cocky. Some people can't seem to accept the fact that dark skinned ppl, and red skinned maybe actually werent in the ing paleolithic period. Honestly if you get beat by one of Indian nations or one of the native American tribes dont complain and say its bull cuz their to powerful. Maybe your just not that good, this isnt MTW 1 or 2 or RTW, this is a different game and there is a learning curve. Same thing goes for naval battles ppl are ing and moaning about how they keep losing, well maybe you should just work at it and become a better naval commander honestly. Dont blame CA for you being bad at something.

[Hrimfar]

I'm sorry if there's already a thread about this, but I couldn't find any with search (although I wasn't very thorough).

What the heck is wrong with the sound of musket/rifles in the game!? It's just a lame *poff* sound sort of like a misfire or something. Why the hell isn't there more bass in this sound?

*disappointed*

[apoll]

Hi. People, lend me your ear for a moment. Well...I should have paused before jumping in and getting ETW at EB here in Canberra, Australia. Like everyone else, I was really looking forward to this game. But I didn't quite expect the amount of problems just trying to get it to run! So I add my experience on to all the others out there having issues with this - dare I say it - unfirnished game.

I have a powerful, new system - 2 x 4870 x 2 cards in crossfire...latest i7 chip...two drives in RAID 0 et al. And the latest ATI drivers. One would have thought I would have had no problems getting it to run. But what do I find? Graphical glitches and massive flickering that no one really knows how to deal with expect to start turning off the powerful features of my cards - that I shelled out good money to utilise in the first place! Then I'm hit with this "insufficient memory - program terminted" problem. Groan.

I feel frustration and anger that I have to wait for patches for the most basic of problems. I am clearly not the only one out there having real problems - and it is not as if my rig is somehow out of the ordinary or not mainstream. This should not happen. Fullstop. End of discussion. Period.

So...reluctantly, I can draw only one conclusion. Even with all the good will in the world, I think this game is too buggy at present. I for one will not put up with it. So...back to EB I go to take advantage of their wonderful policy of returning a game within a week undamaged, and they'll give you your money back. Marvelous! And you can be sure I'll will tell the people at EB WHY I'm returning the game...and I'll be suggesting they get onto the distributer of ETW here in Australia and give them some 'feedback' on their game! That is only fair recompense for my trouble and the nerve to charge me $100 for what I consider to be a game in an unplayable state out of the box.

In the meantime, I'll watch with interest the forums and see when and if they fix these issues. Then, and only then, will I consider shelling out good money again to pick up this game. But I'll be thinking long and hard and really making sure it IS fixed and in a suitable state to play.

Meanwhile, and this needs to be said, I really wonder about the mindset of people in companies in today's financial environment (in Europe no less, which is melting down financially probably faster than anywhere else...), with an awful lot of other demands on people's money, delivering a less than satisfying experience.

And I don't think it is a rant or an overstatement to say many, many people have had big problems with this game out of the box. Have they taken leave of their senses? Don't they want to survive or make a profit? Be in the industry for the long haul? Is it just me..or do others think one would have thought they would have made extra sure to deliver a slick and polished performance...to make sure people keep buying their games so they can keep their heads afloat in the bad economic times. To protect their good name. What a mess.

annoyed,

apoll

[shadyrome]

You already active the code to your steam account = you cant send it back.

[Strategos Brutus]

You already active the code to your steam account = you cant send it back.

Good point Steam for the win