Is Empires a Risk type game?

[Modestus]

Not sure how to label this thread but anyhow this is me looking at the campaign map.


It has all the appearance of being large and open but when you factor in the Zone of Control and the movement distance of armies the actual amount of battlefields that I have engaged on so far is quite small.

An example, if you are France trying to invade Holland you will enter the Zone of control of Amsterdam, the AI now has a choice to engage (intercept) or to hold its position in the city. whatever choice the AI does make the result will either be one battle or two battles for Amsterdam and the province.

I have had similar experiences with larger provinces, I attacked Poland and it essentially boiled down to an attack on Warsaw with my second army turning west to take Gdansk , two battles for two provinces. There may be a large selection of tactical maps but the way the game plays means that you seem to experience only a few.

In an odd way the game is playing very much like the old MTW1,. moving from province to province with one or two battles deciding who wins that province. You may experience multiply attacks in a province but generally and particularly in Europe your fighting in or around the same areas and on the same maps and these are generally the city maps.(fort or small village)

People have said that there are less city battles but is this true? There are no large city maps but most battles are about the cities. Nearly every battle is about the control of a city,only for the fact that we have no large city maps we would actually be fighting in cities nearly from the start of the game to the end.

I suggested months before the game was released that if you can gain ownership of the resources by controlling a regions main city then the most efficient method to defeat an enemy was to march against this city.

Now having experienced the game play I think it would fair to say and without too much exaggeration that what we have is a risk type board game. Provinces are being won or lost in one or two engagements around a city with everything thing else ancillary towns, ports, mines, being practically irrelevant except for their economic value.

I am not necessarily upset by this because it was on this type of campaign map ( MTW1) that allowed the AI to pose some form of a strategic challenge to the player, but in Empires this does not appear to be working.

Why?

First I believe the AI does not want to risk moving away from a main city unless they have the numerical strength to both defend that city and attack the enemy, this is very much like in MTW1 but in Empires it causes the AI to appear passive.

Secondly in MTW1 there was no distractions , the AI could not march just against a port, it was all or nothing. The ultimate goal of the player is the city and if they can take it in one move they will,the player understands this the AI does not.

Thirdly I believe if you teach the AI how to attack correctly the game will be over very quickly. Not that the player will lose but the game will coagulate into large faction blobs very fast.

Any thoughts or a similar impression about the campaign game play .

[tokaiser]

Not sure how to label this thread but anyhow this is me looking at the campaign map.


It has all the appearance of being large and open but when you factor in the Zone of Control and the movement distance of armies the actual amount of battlefields that I have engaged on so far is quite small.

An example, if you are France trying to invade Holland you will enter the Zone of control of Amsterdam, the AI now has a choice to engage (intercept) or to hold its position in the city. whatever choice the AI does make the result will either be one battle or two battles for Amsterdam and the province.

I have had similar experiences with larger provinces, I attacked Poland and it essentially boiled down to an attack on Warsaw with my second army turning west to take Gdansk , two battles for two provinces. There may be a large selection of tactical maps but the way the game plays means that you seem to experience only a few.

In an odd way the game is playing very much like the old MTW1,. moving from province to province with one or two battles deciding who wins that province. You may experience multiply attacks in a province but generally and particularly in Europe your fighting in or around the same areas and on the same maps and these are generally the city maps.(fort or small village)

People have said that there are less city battles but is this true? There are no large city maps but most battles are about the cities. Nearly every battle is about the control of a city,only for the fact that we have no large city maps we would actually be fighting in cities nearly from the start of the game to the end.

I suggested months before the game was released that if you can gain ownership of the resources by controlling a regions main city then the most efficient method to defeat an enemy was to march against this city.

Now having experienced the game play I think it would fair to say and without too much exaggeration that what we have is a risk type board game. Provinces are being won or lost in one or two engagements around a city with everything thing else ancillary towns, ports, mines, being practically irrelevant except for their economic value.

I am not necessarily upset by this because it was on this type of campaign map ( MTW1) that allowed the AI to pose some form of a strategic challenge to the player, but in Empires this does not appear to be working.

Why?

First I believe the AI does not want to risk moving away from a main city unless they have the numerical strength to both defend that city and attack the enemy, this is very much like in MTW1 but in Empires it causes the AI to appear passive.

Secondly in MTW1 there was no distractions , the AI could not march just against a port, it was all or nothing. The ultimate goal of the player is the city and if they can take it in one move they will,the player understands this the AI does not.

Thirdly I believe if you teach the AI how to attack correctly the game will be over very quickly. Not that the player will lose but the game will coagulate into large faction blobs very fast.

Any thoughts or a similar impression about the campaign game play .

Yep. It wasnt well thought out. They gave the ability to attack towns but not enough reasons to do so. The AI has been programmed to do all this raid crap but you can just walk in and take the whole damn thing with the capital. It all just seems sloppy and incomplete, signs of being a hurried production really. The campaign map is no different from the previous titles, only has a few new features too it such as towns and types of ports.

This game was like having a present you had recieved years ago rewrapped and given back to you as a new gift. Except that we paid for this.

[akinkhoo]

the ZONE of CONTROL is mess up. the unit should automatically stop before entering a ZOC. countless time i see 1 unit trying to raid farms can canned by my full stack standing next to it. it make the game a camping trip as the AI simply doesn't know what ZOC is!

[cherryfunk]

It has less freedom of movement than RTW or M2TW, yes. Whether that's a good or bad thing depends on your perspective I guess, I don't mind it.

[Quin]

They should implement some sort of suppy system. Like, you would have to control and occuppy ALL towns and forts between your territory (border) and your army in enemy province. If you lost control of any of these suppy points, your army could only go back and try to reclaim it, eg. it couldn't advance any further into enemy territory.

A ------>1------->2------->3------->B

A= your border
1,2,3=towns and forts in enemy province
B=province capital

These strategic points would be connected by roads on which armies would travel since armies with all the equipment, baggage train and artilery could only travel on established routes, not through complete wilderness. In that way you could anticipate and block enemy moves, besides I don't think it would be too hard to teach AI to defend and raid suppy points (if it can raid trade routes it can do that to).

You get my point

[tokaiser]

They should implement some sort of suppy system. Like, you would have to control and occuppy ALL towns and forts between your territory (border) and your army in enemy province. If you lost control of any of these suppy points, your army could only go back and try to reclaim it, eg. it couldn't advance any further into enemy territory.

A ------>1------->2------->3------->B

A= your border
1,2,3=towns and forts in enemy province
B=province capital

These strategic points would be connected by roads on which armies would travel since armies with all the equipment, baggage train and artilery could only travel on established routes, not through complete wilderness. In that way you could anticipate and block enemy moves, besides I don't think it would be too hard to teach AI to defend and raid suppy points (if it can raid trade routes it can do that to).

You get my point

Very good idea and realistic. Im surprised there is no supply system in a strategic war game of 2009.

[Steve Holt]

Yeh I noticed that as well, my main problem with the towns and villages outside is that there isn't one for unit recruitment so if ur sitting there raiding they can just build heaps of guys.

[Steve Holt]

Yeh supplies were really important, thats a reason why Wellington and Napoleon were good generals because they were good at organising the supplies.

[Homeros]

You should check this tread about a supply system http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=237899

[eatme]

The comparison to a risk game is funny one :thumsup2 I think it resembles Risk in the campaign map, although it's smaller ofc, and the ultimate goal..

[Rogue]

I think that improving the spawned militia or tasking the AI to put some units in its cities would make the raiding aspect much more viable.

[Vampyrian]

I think that improving the spawned militia or tasking the AI to put some units in its cities would make the raiding aspect much more viable.

Maybe the quality/quantity of spawned defence units in cities should be proportional to your hold on the outlying towns and such.

[webMaster412160]

diden't the make the AI clever in the game ?

[Their Law]

I prefer it this way. i always found it kinda annoying that you could sneak armies past an enemy army without incident. The whole failure of a turn based campaign means that the AI cannot react in real time like in real life. So i feel the zone of control helps to simulate the ability of armies to hold down areas of land and threaten supply lines. Plus it simulates the scouting parties that armies would have to try and locate the enemy. Plus forts actually mean something now to hold river points and long borders.

As for limiting the variety of battle locations because of this system. Well you still fight on different points as the intercept radius engages you on the point of enemy entry not you're armies locale, so the limiting is not that bad.

[Theoo]

wel wen you send. rake. spye. thers percents chanc. that it failes. he migt die!