My post about ETW one year ago:

[SigniferOne]

I have read somewhere that CA now have a PhD working on AI. I remember being told one or two very dedicated people were working on MTW2's AI too, and the results: not very satisfactory. However it is NOT CA's fault, because if you follow the development of M2TW AI mods you can easily perceive that AI is so multifaceted and complicated that modders easily take as much time to refine the AI as it originally took to develop it. The system is terribly complex. There is no escaping that, and it needs tremendous attention and testing, time and time and time again, until the point when it's intelligent and all the proper AI decisions get reached. It has to be as smart as Europa Universalis AI, and I don't see a reason why it shouldn't be. If it's not, only CA is to blame. Remember the crucial point that ETW is starting the next branch of Total War games. It must have an extremely polished base on which to build its future successive titles.

But wait, CA execs say, we have to get this game out. We have to be in time for the Christmas season, so this whole AI issue would be nice, but after all -- it can wait. My response is that the TW genre has outstripped computers. There used to be justification for this type of thinking in previous Total War games, but not anymore. MTW2 alone is already as demanding as the most powerful PC out there today can handle! It takes only the behemoth monsters of computers to run a full battle with 10-15,000 units. Further proof of TW getting ahead of itself is the RTW subforum which routinely continues getting more then a 100 visitors at any one time. Why is that? Because only the battles of RTW's graphical level can be as big and epic as TW genre promises. If nobody can run MTW2 with high enough amounts of soldiers, where can it go with ETW from here? Only downhill. More resource hogs, even higher spec requirements, to the effect that when ETW is released barely anybody will be playing it, though many will want to. Few people will be able to play, all mods will have to be redone again, AI will be totally incomplete, and no one will be happy. CA brand will suffer once again, and for no reason, because in this case the technical limit has already been reached.

My suggestion: hold the game off, maybe up to a year. Take a page from Blizzard. It's the biggest-selling company of all time, isn't it? Put five people on the AI, and make it something so impressive that people will write about ETW's AI in gaming magazines, and not just about its graphics. While you wait and develop a full-fledged fearsome product from a half-developed one, MTW2 will continue to provide additional sales (if company support for it doesn't evaporate). Computers will catch up and people will be able to play large battles on the newer graphical platform. Plus while AI is being developed, a different group of programmers might work on taking advantage of multiple cores, so that even more average consumers will be able to play large ETW battles.

As a result, after a year the AI and diplomacy will be something to appreciate. Computers themselves will be faster also, meaning that average people will be able to buy and actually enjoy the game. The added development time will allow CA to optimize algorithms and create important new (multi-core) techniques. All this a year later will make ETW perfectly right for its time. You release a perfect game, which will score 98% on all gaming magazines, will grab the beginner, and astound the veteran, and make roll among gaming history's greatest. And from a development perspective, will provide an unbelievable foundation on which to build the next game.

[Ikarash]

Very true words, good plans. But, it did not work out that way...
Suchs a shame, you had good plans.

[Abraxis]

I agree with you totally. but it's a cultural problem, they're a business, not an artist. 2 million put into marketing will earn a greater return than 2 million put into quality control.

I plan to change all this when I take over the world, anyone who wants to help can have their own country!

[Godless Pickle]

Its depressing, CA should really their act together. I dont blame them, because they have a huge amount of work, but all that seems to matter is money, money, money, and not the communities satiscation. If they could have taken a year plus more time into Empire, like you said, they could have perfected this unfinished game to its full extent. Lets just hope the patches can help the situation.

[Lord Janos]

Its depressing, CA should really their act together. I dont blame them, because they have a huge amount of work, but all that seems to matter is money, money, money, and not the communities satiscation. If they could have taken a year plus more time into Empire, like you said, they could have perfected this unfinished game to its full extent. Lets just hope the patches can help the situation.

Agreed. The standard has become steadily more sloppy. There are companies out there who are dedicated to great marketing and profit AND providing quality products for customers.

See Blizzard. They took Starcraft: Ghost OFF the shelves and scrapped the product. They'd been working on it for years. See WoW, StarCraft 2, Diablo 3... these games took/are taking years to come out. But when they do, you know that they'll all be some of the finest games you've ever played.

Learn things, CA. (I still love you though!)

[Whatacad]

Here's what I wrote a year ago:

***Warning***
***This post includes speculation of a skeptical sort***

Got a little concerned over info regarding the AI for land battles after reading Empire Total War Dev Diary found here:

http://www.videogamer.com/pc/empire_...eview-800.html


I wrote the following (and have added more) in a post about the dev log, in which a designer at CA said this:

Whilst all of this goes on, new features are steadily being added to the battles. Total War's land battle engine is a mature thing which has evolved and improved steadily across several releases. In short, we know how to do amazing land battles. The naval side of things is totally new though and we don't just want it to be 'ok': it has to be great fun to play, accessible and totally absorbing, every bit the equal of our land battles and campaigns.

Sorry to those who don't like negative speculation, but quite frankly this sounds disturbingly familiar regarding land ai. All the hype leading up to RTW and MTW2 focused on graphics, and whenever anyone asked about land ai the question was, at best, vaguely glossed over.

Now we hear about a total AI rewrite which of course sounds like the whole thing is being redone, but then the aforementioned quote comes from "James Whitston... a designer at the Creative Assembly's UK office," which smacks of the old pattern of downplaying land AI while going bonkers over something new (last couple releases it was graphics... now it's naval battles).

Aside from what I'm gleaning from the bold text, what immediately follows it adds to my doubt:

The naval side of things is totally new though

To clarify then, is this reiterating that the land side of things is not new?

Hope I'm wrong, but I saw others raising a similar issue with the last couple games before they came out, only to be shouted down about complaining before even trying the game. CA loudly proclaims what's new and great and the real meat of it (unless you preferred the campaign) remained decidedly lackluster. The result? Land AI that never has amounted to much, despite valiant efforts by modders.

Of course, the difference here is that CA IS talking about AI now. And until the recent dev log I was under the impression it was the entire AI getting a rewrite.

Beyond screaming at me about the uselessness of such posts before the game has come out, any thoughts on what was said in the diary as opposed to what everyone is expecting/hoping for?

Upon writing this, Jack Lusted assured me that I needn't worry, because the whole thing was being rewritten from scratch.

Hmmm.

[OTZ]

Hook, line, and sinker.

[Gaius Baltar]

+rep Wish I had read this a month ago.

[eddy_purpus]

+rep Wish I had read this a month ago.

ure talking about a year ago..
it was posted on 08 and we are on 09

[ohnoesaz]

The biggest problem though is people who upset, which seems to be the majority of gamers here, can't get their money back... And no one has it in them to start a class action lawsuit. So companies like CA get their money and its a done deal.

Reviewers of games unfortunately only play a little to see the graphics and get a first impression, its nothing deeper than that, so gamers who rely on reviews are misled also.

So yeah, CA still wins in the end even with a giant failed title.

[NYG 5]

yeah, how many previews came out saying that the AI was so dynamic and would counter your strategies? i remember one guy saying the ai would catch him off guard. well, the ai caught me off guard too when it just stood their and let itself get bombarded into dust. they should call it firingsquad ai

but, its not like ca is the only developer who has done this. bungie kept saying the ai in halo 2 would be lifelike, they were going to "use squads and hunt you down with flashlights"... the only good ai i've ever really noticed is probably grand theft auto

[Freeman]

aye! true.

[Berdiche Knyaz]

And by love, do you guys mean tough love?
As in bashing the living **** out of the game companies, and sending letters to them (which I saw in a topic here)

[Gilthanor]

Another thing to keep in mind when comparing CA to Blizzard is that Blizzard is it's own publisher, so they don't answer to any deadlines but their own. It's easy to polish a product when you're able to say "it will be done when it's done" instead of having artificial deadlines and publishers breathing down your neck.

I hate to admit that I'm pretty much used to buggy games on release dates from all but a small number of companies. I find that it's just better to wait for a gold edition to be released at a later date, although it shouldn't have to be that way.

[Don in the North]

in my opinion, blizzard should buy the total war franchise and CA from Sega.
they should.
blizzard should buy out EA as well, to prevent their trivial money grabbing short attention span for their released games.

[Grimstoned]

Bethesda is a great game developer also imho. You can see the "love" in their games. CA.... not so much.

[Phier]

Bethesda is a great game developer also imho. You can see the "love" in their games. CA.... not so much.

If by 'love' you mean 'dumbing down for the xbox release' I'd fully agree with you.

[TofuZombie]

If by 'love' you mean 'dumbing down for the xbox release' I'd fully agree with you.

Being a PS fan, I had to laugh at this. Because, it's one of two, cross-platform game that we got a better version of. Bioshock, being the other.

Although I mostly agree with OP, I being a WoW player from it's release in 2005, until early this year, disagree in most of what was said regarding WoW.
The game was an absolute mess in the first year, people 'were' complaining much worse than they do about E:TW.

I'm aware you were not comparing these games, but really, WoW took quite a long time to become 'prefection' as an entity. Although, they still suffer from inability to balance classes. It's never been well done.

Your first post is right though =) Well done in your predictions.

[SigniferOne]

I'm aware you were not comparing these games, but really, WoW took quite a long time to become 'prefection' as an entity. Although, they still suffer from inability to balance classes. It's never been well done.

I think there's a slight bit of miscommunication here: what people have complained in WoW about were balance issues. The hard understructure of the game was designed so well that crashing was not a major issue, and all of the in-game buttons and features were already polished. You're comparing uproar about their imbalances to the outpour of anger that could exist in ETW if Swedish units were disproportionately powerful. As you can see, no such outpour exists, because the TW crowd has much more substantial issues to worry about, and people dream about the time when something as petty as a stat difference would be their major point of contention.

And again folks, it's not just WOW but is the same with all the other Blizzard titles -- diablo, sc, warcraft, etc. Heck, they provide a free 100% stable internet gaming service.

And people wonder why they have 'billions and billions'. You spend a few million in establishing an ideal, perfect internet gaming service, and customers give billions and billions in gratitude for your brand and effort. I am flabbergasted at the notion, sometimes expressed by CA, that quality does not pay. I want them to succeed so much, and there's no reason why a maker of simple games like Blizzard has to have supremacy over the genius games that CA routinely ships out.

[Grimstoned]

If by 'love' you mean 'dumbing down for the xbox release' I'd fully agree with you.

No.. more like great mod tools and support for said tools. Along with fantastic games well thought out and realized. I love my console games btw . Thats where the pro game developers are.