to ALL CA employees: buy and play old IMPERIAL GLORY pls

[Hans Schormmer]

That is what would make them understand how strategy works. Imperial Glory is old, had its bugs and took ages to load, and ages to compute the CAI moves. Its battle model was rather simple, BAI not much better than TW series. The Campaign map was same tille style as shogun, but I must say I rather liked that - you got some great province battle-maps: vonderfully designed set of battlefields, with working strong points also used by AI frequently. Also these maps were nicer to the eye I think.. they looked really real.
They introduced the naval battle as we seen it in Empire, truth is - the player interface was really clumsy, and it was pain in the ass to play the battles, but the main features were ALL there already.

** BUT **

IG had far better:
- diplomacy options (you could buy respect, lend or borrow units of your allies, forge aggresive aliance to crush chosen region (and it worked), forge defensive aliance, buy or sell food, wood or metall (all vital resources to build or support armies, you could build structures in enemy regions to manipulate public opinions either to become more friendly to you or ones that would gradually destabilise the region and make it burst in rebellion, you could build structures in neutral territory, that gradually helped your diplomacy to make minor nations join your emire without a shot. All well designed, working, cool and well presented in charts, diplomacy tables and also directly on the campaign map.

- you could never really destroy MAJOR European powers (Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Ottomans): If you conquered their capital, it took some 3-5 turns to keep a huge occupation force in, to pacify the rebellion or the conquered capital would revolt with huge power rising immediatelly. Even after succesful takeover you had to keep garison in conquered Capital of above mentioned Nations for they would declare independence and rise a liberation army the day you withdrew your forces - simple and realistic and cool.

----------------------------------TW Empire vs. IG:
loading times: + -
time to compute moves: + -
real time battles interface: + -
tech tree: - +
diplomacy options: - ++++
CAI: -- +++
BAI: both suck balls - in IG at least tried to take advantage of structures
strategy map game play: different set up - depends on opinion and tastes
battle map game play: + --
battle map design and structures: -- ++


Just my opinion.
I had to write this because I found myself surprissed how come that such great features of much worse game product (I still believe TW series is defining and top of strategy games in the market) such as IG were still not implemented by CA in their games.

IG had great simple and working ways to make campaign challenging at the beginning without AI being unpredictable or stupid and endings still fun as you had number of possibilities to finish fast or prolonge the game as you liked.

CA should study IG

[Invictus XII]

No, NTW will all over Imperial Glory!

[Yoda Twin]

not this again

[Yojimbo]

not this again

Agreed.

Also imperial glory was horrible. Terrible diplomacy and battles that have no basis in reality if you know anything about the periods warfare. terrible terrible game.

Millita beating line inf or at least killing alot of them, no morale, very weak vollies that hardly hurt enemies, cavalry destroying units when they charge into the front, even elite inf etc.

[Elyrioth]

Imperial Glory had one or 2 good minor ideas, but it did not even have a moral system so that instantly puts the BAI of ETW miles ahead. The lack of a moral system effectivley consignes IG to one of the greatest balls of games in history. Just could not work without it.

[Hans Schormmer]

Imperial Glory had one or 2 good minor ideas, but it did not even have a moral system so that instantly puts the BAI of ETW miles ahead. The lack of a moral system effectivley consignes IG to one of the greatest balls of games in history. Just could not work without it.

I am talking mainly about diplomacy and Campaign AI here.

Agree with your point on battle model.

Do not agree with you on discarding IG as whole. The strategy game was fun. Effectivelly.

[Invictus XII]

Sorry, NTW's diplomacy is going to be awesome, and the CAI seems really good too!

PS: 700th post!

[Graphic]

Imperial Glory blows.

[aeoleron9]

I want IG's options to lend troops from or to other factions. And I like it that you can recruit from other faction's roster after you conquered them, and these unit show what original nationality they came from. These features made it feel more like an international affair.

I also liked the way they handled alliances. Their alliances have a turn limit(much like military access) so diplomacy feels more dynamic and unpredictable, compared to ETW's forever Spain-France buddies. They also separated defensive alliances with offensive coalitions, which actually made things more straightforward than the mess in ETW. I mean, we couldn't even ask an ally to help an on-going war, just because of the dumb diplomatic system. I know request attack is back in NTW, but that thing never worked in RTW and M2 while IG's actually was effective. We'll see.

There are quite a few nice ideas in IG campaign, although everyone knows its battles were a joke. I think CA is aware of this game, but they have a different design approach so it's probably not easy to just take the pros and put it into a TW game.

[Dain]

IG really was awful in some respects. Empire stomped all over it.

[Humble Warrior]

Y`know when I heard that Empires was in the works I hoped CA would take the good bits of IG and use it.

Obviously they thought they were so good that they didn`t bother- Their downfall with ETW. They made the mistake of not learning from good examples.

[James Cook]

I could imagine that most folks at CA are fellow gamers in theier spare time.
so they most likely allready have IG, and desidet NOT to use it as a idea/model
of theier own games

[cudakite]

Oh to have IG's campaign map and NTW's Battle map in one game...
I'd be such a happy fellow. With IG you could take land and cripple your enemies without firing a shot, using nothing but diplomacy and building infrastructure. It was wonderful to have that option.

[irish437]

I liked the Idea of foreign embassies and such and the possibilty of peaceful annexation. I also liked the trade model. They units showing their national origin flag. That was pretty cool, it didn't make a statistical difference, but it was worth noting.

I believe you could capture cannons as well.

I for one would rather have an IG type Grand Campaign Map with even more provinces. This living map in ETW doesn't work as well as it should.

I also liked the IG battle maps that had strategic points on them. I think its easier to script the AI properly if they have 1 or 2 objectives.

[Pro-opera Jungian]

To be honest, I played and hated IG. There were no generals, only a handful of units, the lack of morale made the soldiers fight unrealistically to the end, the battles were small (some complain about TW in that regard-but the biggest IG battle still had less than 1000 per side.) and the campaign map was horrible: No mountain passes, rivers, fords or what not: Just a bunch of provinces that when you entered would automatically create a battle. TW offers a war of maneuver, not an instant action. And finally, you never felt really attached.

I know your point was not to say IG is the greatest game, but that TW should just use some of there features. My problem is, I can't find any of there features worth using. Those are just my thoughts.

[Warhammster]

To be honest, I played and hated IG. There were no generals, only a handful of units, the lack of morale made the soldiers fight unrealistically to the end, the battles were small (some complain about TW in that regard-but the biggest IG battle still had less than 1000 per side.) and the campaign map was horrible: No mountain passes, rivers, fords or what not: Just a bunch of provinces that when you entered would automatically create a battle. TW offers a war of maneuver, not an instant action. And finally, you never felt really attached.

I know your point was not to say IG is the greatest game, but that TW should just use some of there features. My problem is, I can't find any of there features worth using. Those are just my thoughts.

You are wrong, the fixed provinces system of IG and the old Total War games like MTW and Shogun was superior in almost every aspect and it made the game feel realistic.

[Thoragoros]

You are wrong, the fixed provinces system of IG and the old Total War games like MTW and Shogun was superior in almost every aspect and it made the game feel realistic.

Really? fixed provinces don't allow armies to operate independantly when attacking in the same area. They don't allow for minor raiding parties. They don't allow for armies to reterat and advance in the same area. They don't allow the player to pick area of the battle such as woods, mountains, bridge, village, etc..

War is about more than just 'Okay, move stack A and B into Province C.'

It's about the details of it.

Please, ETW had its flaws, but let's not get carried away and say we want those horrible fixed provinces, those are thing of the past and should remain as such!

Also, Imperial Glory was garbage, after playing it I quickly went back to TW and whatever was my favorite FPS at the time.

[Warhammster]

Really? fixed provinces don't allow armies to operate independantly when attacking in the same area. They don't allow for minor raiding parties. They don't allow for armies to reterat and advance in the same area. They don't allow the player to pick area of the battle such as woods, mountains, bridge, village, etc..

War is about more than just 'Okay, move stack A and B into Province C.'

It's about the details of it.

Please, ETW had its flaws, but let's not get carried away and say we want those horrible fixed provinces, those are thing of the past and should remain as such!

Also, Imperial Glory was garbage, after playing it I quickly went back to TW and whatever was my favorite FPS at the time.

Provinces means that there will be less and more decisive battles. The current battlemap system means that 90% of the battles you fight are a meaningless choir. If you lose some strategical options with fixed provinces then it's fair trade for better pacing and more intelligent AI, besides you are supposed to defeat the enemy in the field not camp at a bridge.

[Thoragoros]

Provinces means that there will be less and more decisive battles. The current battlemap system means that 90% of the battles you fight are a meaningless choir. If you lose some strategical options with fixed provinces then it's fair trade for better pacing and more intelligent AI, besides you are support to defeat the enemy in the field not camp at a bridge.

Yeah...except that places like bridges, mountain passes, and raids on towns are major tactical tools.

Furthermore, I didn't know that there was a way we were 'supposed' to defeat the enemy. If I want to raid and pillage them to death, well, that's been a valid tactic all throughout history. Sorry you missed it.

Also, I most of us like having to worry about the AI constantly raiding my minor towns and clogging up bridges with thier half-stacks, that a whole new dimension to the game that fixed provinces just can't capture. Constant raids are something the AI actually does pretty well right now. So going 'backward' to the decade old Risk style map, is not the future of major strategy games such as TW. RTW proved that, and hopefully NTW will pick up where MTWII left off and fix what was broken in ETW.

[cudakite]

I know your point was not to say IG is the greatest game, but that TW should just use some of there features. My problem is, I can't find any of there features worth using. Those are just my thoughts.

Deeper diplomacy that worked and made a huge difference to the outcome of the game... Not worth using?