Drop-in Battles--Reviews needed

I know its still a bit early. Hopefully people can fill stuff in as they go. This feature is the only thing that makes me want to buy the game.

Does it work?

Did someone drop in to all of your battles?

Connection issues?

Did you ever get dropped into a horribly unbalanced battle where you have 1 unit against a full stack?

Are there time limits on the attacker? (I don't want someone to drop into the attacker's slot and then just sit)

I assume you can't use any mods if you have drop ins. (still too early I know)

Overall thoughts?

Anyone else have any other questions?

Alright, has it been long enough? Anyone tried it out yet?

I tried a few minutes ago. It just tried to connect and found nothing. I gave up after it searched for a few minutes. I think most are playing against the AI to see if there are any improvements. Although I will try a naval drop in in a few turns with my British campaign. Let you know if something happens.

I have played 2, I asked the person I was playing in the first one if it was a campaign of theirs and they said no. It was just like any other online battle except with predetermined units and all that. I was pretty upset that it didn't put me into a campaign game, and it sure took its time getting me in a game. Probably about 5 minutes.

Warboss, maybe that was a Quick Battle instead of a Drop In Battle? Weird

Rickster11, I haven't tried Drop In Battles yet but I want to answer this question:

"Did you ever get dropped into a horribly unbalanced battle where you have 1 unit against a full stack?"

If you hover your mouse over crossed swords in an unbalanced battle in a campaign battle screen, the button will be greyed out and it will tell you that you can only play Drop In Battles with even, balanced armies. Just to clear that up.

Its AWESOME. It is so much fun. I played one battle already where I was the Spanish and a random person was Prussia. I narrowly won, and it was possibly the most fun I've had in a TW game for a LONG time. The MPC is practically bugless and it really adds some variety into the campaign

I wonder how the Prussian player managed to fight Spanish in a Prussian Coalition campaign? I think that wasn't a Drop in battle.

Originally Posted by Grave

I wonder how the Prussian player managed to fight Spanish in a Prussian Coalition campaign? I think that wasn't a Drop in battle.

Because he played as the Prussians and was attacking a Spanish army. I even asked him. I'm not sure what is even to question here

P.S. It was his campaign, not mine.

They work. Have done 3. Lost 1; won 2.

First I had someone play the AI in my campaign. I lost because of a damn hill. He moved on some reinforcements and went to the top of a hill. After I killed his main force I went for the reinforcements but that hill was just a beautiful defensive position. After probing it I decided it wasn't worth it for my overall campaign and had to manually retreat all my guys off the map. He had a chance to cut some units down but he didn't.

Second I played what I think was someone else's campaign but he didn't respond when I tried to talk to him and dropped as soon as he realized he was losing.

Lastly I did a drop-in and the map was mirrored on both sides. My opponent said it wasn't his campaign and it wasn't mine so I don't know how we got paired up. I won that game. it was a good game. He didn't quit and I got the replay.

My guess is that if people are in queue for a drop-in battle and there is no one requesting AI opponents for their campaign it just matches two people up for a skirmish. If that's the case I wish it would tell me the type of battle I was playing. People play differently in skirmishes because all their troops are expendable. In campaigns, they will tend to preserve units more. That's why I need to know what kind of battle I'm playing.

And for the love of god, keep the mirrored maps out of this game, those are for less-civilized head-to-head games.

My $.02

One question I have been wondering: in typical TW when you set the BAI to Hard or VH the enemy just gets a standard stat bonus. If you are playing against other players in a drop-in battle do they also get he stat bonus if you are playing on VH BAI?

Originally Posted by micromegas

One question I have been wondering: in typical TW when you set the BAI to Hard or VH the enemy just gets a standard stat bonus. If you are playing against other players in a drop-in battle do they also get he stat bonus if you are playing on VH BAI?

It's just a crappy morale bonus, and I'm sure it resets to a default in a MP battle.

It seems they put it in as a substitute for when there aren't enough campaign battles to drop into, but for the love of god if I wanted to play a huge, time consuming custom battle I would do that rather than drop-in battles.

I have played 7 drop in battles with me as the drop in. 4 of them I was disconected or the guy that requested the drop in quit. The other 3 I played and lost all 3 games. Not that I care. But Drop in battles count as a ranked match. And if you are into the ranks. (which I could care less) then you will have to deal with situations like this.

Last Battle: Number 7.

Me
1 Militia Unit
1 National Guard
1 Cannon
1 Light Horse
1 General

Vs Other Player
6 Line inf
2 Light horse
1 Cannon
1 General

It was a challenge thats for sure but I could not do it.

My best battle was me as Britian vs Russian. And I almost beat him, but again I have units built by the AI and they seem to have awful Moral for some reason. And I usually have a mix of Militia and low end Line Inf and light cav.

Also most battles for some reason have small unit sizes. I asked the Players if they had small unit sizes selected and said no large. (Ihave huge) The small unit sizes suck. 1 Volly and your units are dead just about. When I say small I mean most units don't have more the 30 men.

That game where I had the sucky units though was huge size units. So I don't know if they just didn't realize that they had small units selected or not. BUt it seems its based on the HOST or players selection in camp what units size you get.

Hope that helps.

And there most be some sort of bug, because the guy I played got the achievment that says that you won a battle with half the money spent on units then your opponant. LOL. He Had 2 times more units then I did, why the hell did he get an achievment like that. LOL>

Originally Posted by Malkuth

I have played 7 drop in battles with me as the drop in. 4 of them I was disconected or the guy that requested the drop in quit. The other 3 I played and lost all 3 games. Not that I care. But Drop in battles count as a ranked match. And if you are into the ranks. (which I could care less) then you will have to deal with situations like this.

Last Battle: Number 7.

Me
1 Militia Unit
1 National Guard
1 Cannon
1 Light Horse
1 General

Vs Other Player
6 Line inf
2 Light horse
1 Cannon
1 General

It was a challenge thats for sure but I could not do it.

My best battle was me as Britian vs Russian. And I almost beat him, but again I have units built by the AI and they seem to have awful Moral for some reason. And I usually have a mix of Militia and low end Line Inf and light cav.

Also most battles for some reason have small unit sizes. I asked the Players if they had small unit sizes selected and said no large. (Ihave huge) The small unit sizes suck. 1 Volly and your units are dead just about. When I say small I mean most units don't have more the 30 men.

That game where I had the sucky units though was huge size units. So I don't know if they just didn't realize that they had small units selected or not. BUt it seems its based on the HOST or players selection in camp what units size you get.

Hope that helps.

And there most be some sort of bug, because the guy I played got the achievment that says that you won a battle with half the money spent on units then your opponant. LOL. He Had 2 times more units then I did, why the hell did he get an achievment like that. LOL>

About the small unit sizes, were they uniform across the board? Or were some bigger then others? I'm just wondering if the small units are forces that have already been mauled in auto-resolves or other faction AI vs AI battles.

Or maby they were noobs, started a campaign, then went into the options menu to change unit sizes to huge without realizing it doesnt affect campaigns in progress (as has been reported by noobs in many other TW games)

Thanks for all the replies. I wonder what would happen if someone had their unit multiplier set a little higher. I guess it wouldn't work. But it would be cool if it did.